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on the subject of the war in iraq

on the subject of the war in iraq

I reprint for you here an excerpt of the remarks Jim Wallis will make at a Christian peace rally to be held this evening in Washingon, D.C. His words are powerful and passionate and perceptive and faithful to the gospel of Jesus. As Christians, we must discern and root out the fear in our own hearts and minds, let it be rooted out as the love of God fills us more and more. As Christians, we take no sides, nor enlist God to defend “our side,” but do our best to put ourselves on God’s side …

For all of us here tonight, the war in Iraq has become a matter of faith.

By our deepest convictions about Christian standards and teaching, the war in Iraq was not just a well-intended mistake or only mismanaged. THIS WAR, FROM A CHRISTIAN POINT OF VIEW, IS MORALLY WRONG – AND WAS FROM THE VERY START. It cannot be justified with either the teachings of Jesus Christ OR the criteria of St. Augustine’s just war. It simply doesn’t pass either test and did not from its beginning. This war is not just an offense against the young Americans who have made the ultimate sacrifice or to the Iraqis who have paid such a horrible price. This war is not only an offense to the poor at home and around the world who have paid the price of misdirected resources and priorities. This war is also an offense against God.

And so we are here tonight, very simply and resolutely, to begin to end the war in Iraq. But not by anger, though we are angry, and not just by politics, though it will take political courage. But by faith, because we are people of faith.

This service and procession are not just another political protest but an act of faith, an act of prayer, an act of nonviolent witness. Politics led us into this war, and politics is unlikely to save us by itself. The American people have voted against the war in Iraq but political proposals keep failing, one after the other.

I believe it will take faith to end this war. It will take prayer to end it. It will take a mobilization of the faith community to end it – to change the political climate, to change the wind. It will take a revolution of love to end it. Because this endless war in Iraq is based ultimately on fear, and Jesus says that only perfect love will cast out fear.

So tonight we say, as people of faith, as followers of Jesus, that the deep fear that has paralyzed the conscience of this nation, that has caused us to become the kind of people that we are not called to be, that has allowed us to tolerate violations of our most basic values, and that has perpetuated an endless cycle of violence and counter-violence must be exorcised as the demon it is – THIS FEAR MUST BE CAST OUT!

And to cast out that fear, we must act in faith, in prayer, in love, and in hope – so we might help to heal the fears that keep this war going. Tonight we march not in belligerence, or to attack individuals – even those leaders directly responsible for the war – or to use human suffering for partisan political purposes. Rather, we process to the White House tonight as an act of faith, believing that only faith can save us now.

keeping things in perspective

keeping things in perspective

The blood is in the water. Democrats (joined now by Republican John Sununu) want Alberto Gonzales dismissed from his job as attorney general for his abrupt firing of eight US attorneys.

There may well be justification in condemning the political nature of the firings, but it is hard for me to get too worked up about this issue. An attorney general motivated by politics? And that is a revelation? It may be sad, but true, that the US attorneys do work at the whim of the executive branch and decisions about hiring and firing will be politically motivated.

It is hard for me to get excited about this crusade against Gonzales, because it is transparently a matter of political “gotcha” and of gaining, or at least appearing to gain, the moral “highground.”

Consider the cost of Gonzales’ actions. Eight undoubtedly capable and well-intentioned public servants out of a job … but I would guess not long out of a job. And yet another blow to the sagging edifice of democracy by yet another exercise of executive unilateralism.

Compare the costs of this unilateral action with the costs of another virtually unilateral action: the invasion of Iraq. You cannot compare the two! You cannot compare the fallout of a squabble over politics with the fallout of a war!

Heads must roll over the firing of eight attorneys, but who shall bear the responsibility for an unwarranted, unprecedented, illegal invasion of a sovereign nation without provocation? Who shall bear responsibility for the thousands of American lives and the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives this war has cost?

That is something to get worked up about!

love and war

love and war

We were visited by a major winter storm in Iowa this weekend, and our Saturday and Sunday plans (which were many!) were cancelled. We enjoyed some good down time, a fire in the fireplace, and we watched two movies, two among the list of movies we have been wanting to preview. The two movies could not have been more different!

The one was about beauty: the beauty of love, of loyalty, of humility, of service, of human creativity, of the smallest details of the natural world. The other was about ugliness: the ugliness of war, the ugliness it does to people, the ugliness it makes people do. The one was lyrical in its storytelling; the other disturbing.

The Scent of Green Papaya cover imageThe first movie we watched was The Scent of Green Papaya. It was made in 1993 in France and is set in mid-twentieth-century Viet Nam. The film won the Camera d’Or prize at the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

It tells the story of Miu, a girl perhaps ten years old when we first meet her. She comes to Saigon to live as a household servant with a family of six: a father and mother, three sons, and the father’s mother. Through Miu’s eyes we see the pain and grief and anger and longing of the members of the family, but we also see the beauties of the world they inhabit, beauties celebrated and appreciated in intimate detail: thin strips of fruit shaved from a papaya, an ant carrying off a kernel of rice, the milk dripping from the stem from which the papaya was cut, the crickets Miu keeps as her “pets,” fried meats and vegetables tenderly arranged on a bed of rice, frogs hopping through a rain-soaked garden. The photography — colors, textures, perspectives — is exquisite.

The last part of the film is set ten years later when Miu moves to a new household, to serve there a young musician from a wealthy family, a friend of the oldest son of the family she had been serving. Slowly, quietly, tenderly, there unfolds a new story, the story of one who comes to recognize the beauties in her …

The Ground Truth cover imageThe second film we saw was The Ground Truth. It is a documentary made in 2006, chronicling the psychological wounds of returning veterans of the war in Iraq. It provides them a stage to tell of the horrors they have witnessed and the horrors they have done and the horrors of what the war has done to them, in their own words. It is disturbing to see the war through their eyes, to understand what it takes to make a man or a woman into an effective soldier, an effective killing machine, and to feel their shame and their loss and their struggle to live anything like a normal life on their return home.

ehren watada: true patriot or dangerous subversive?

ehren watada: true patriot or dangerous subversive?

Ehren Watada is a lieutentant in the United States Army. He refused to deploy to Iraq with his unit, claiming that the war in Iraq is illegal. He is currently being tried by a military court on charges of abandoning his unit and of conduct unbecoming an officer.

Is he a good man, a brave man, a conscientious citizen for refusing to “go along” with an action that he considers illegal and immoral, even when such a refusal subjects him to censure and dismissal from his job?

Or is he a disgrace, an opportunist, a dangerous threat to the chain of command necessary to permit the effective functioning of “the guardians of American freedoms?”

Read these two divergent assessments of the man and his actions … and let me know what you think!

Watada took talk too far … an opinion piece by Danny Westneat in The Seattle Times

What Watada did is military disobedience. And no matter how opposed you may be to this war, you’ve got to stop and think: Do we really want officers who run the most powerful fighting machine in the history of the world deciding what rules to follow as they go along? Even if this time you might agree with this particular officer?

Conduct Unbecoming … a blog post by Jayne Lyn Stahl

While making public disparaging remarks about a war in progress is deemed to be an actionable offense, Watada argues that “under military law those in the military are allowed to refuse, in fact, have a right to refuse unlawful orders.” It is his belief that the U.S. is in Iraq under false pretexts, and illegally; he thinks it is his duty to refuse those orders.

more of the same

more of the same

Robert Gates says the congressional resolution opposing the dispatch of additional troops to Iraq will “embolden” the enemy.

Maybe so …

But the fact that we are in Iraq in the first place, that we invaded a sovereign nation without provocation, has “incited” the enemies we already had and created many new enemies.

Which is worse?

Maybe we need to move in an entirely different direction. More of the same is likely to produce just that — more of the same!

is anyone else disturbed?

is anyone else disturbed?

Is anyone else disturbed that the two 500-pound bombs that took out Abu Musab al-Zarqawi also killed five other people, including a woman and a child?

Is anyone else disturbed that having positively identified the location of al-Zarqawi, we chose to target the house with two 500-pound bombs instead of attempting to apprehend him as was done with Saddam Hussein?

Is anyone else disturbed that we are rejoicing over the death of any human being?

“glee” is hardly the word for it

“glee” is hardly the word for it

By William Kristol:

Washington (The Weekly Standard) Vol. 011, Issue 37 – 6/12/2006 – U.S. MARINES are under investigation for alleged misconduct in the deaths of Iraqi civilians. The inquiry into the events at Haditha last November 19 is ongoing–but the Nation’s editors already know what happened: A U.S. “war crime”! A military “massacre”! A “cover-up”! (And also a “willful, targeted brutality designed to send a message to Iraqis”–something a cover-up would seem to make more difficult.) The anti-American left can barely be bothered to conceal its glee.

As for the pro-American left, they write more in sorrow than in anger. Here’s The New Republic’s Peter Beinart:

Americans can be as barbaric as anyone. What makes us an exceptional nation with the capacity to lead and inspire the world is our very recognition of that fact. We are capable of Hadithas and My Lais, so is everyone. But few societies are capable of acknowledging what happened, bringing the killers to justice, and instituting changes that make it less likely to happen again. That’s how we show we are different from the jihadists. We don’t just assert it. We prove it. That’s the liberal version of American exceptionalism, and it’s what we need right now in response to this horror.

No, it isn’t. The last thing we need in response to Haditha is hand-wringing liberalism. The war against the jihadists, a war Beinart supports, is not a metaphorical one. Liberals may want to win a war on terror without fighting, and are shocked that in a war, crimes and abuses occur. But here’s the hard, Trumanesque truth: In war, terrible things happen, including crimes and abuses and cover-ups …

Mr. Kristol is right about one thing: In war, terrible things happen … That’s exactly the problem. War, by definition, under the best circumstances and the best leadership, always unleashes a terrible monster. War is never “clean and easy;” war is never “under control.” War is always messy and out of control and war always exacts a terrible price, usually upon those who least deserve it.

That’s why we must — we must! — use extraordinary caution before going to war in the first place. What may be gained by going to war rarely outweighs its costs: unintended consequences, unforeseen suffering, the terrible price paid by noncombatants, the terrible price paid by the land itself, and the damage done to a nation’s ideals … because in war, terrible things happen, including crimes and abuses and cover-ups.

We did not use extraordinary caution before going to war in Iraq. We looked for ways to justify what had already been planned. We did not go to war in Iraq reluctantly, but eagerly. That is the problem. That was the mistake.

When you go to war, things like the massacre at Haditha happen. The problem isn’t “bad soldiers” or “soldiers under too much stress.” The problem is war itself. Its risks and its costs are simply too great, too grave, to be overlooked and ignored in the decision-making equation.

What happened at Haditha is a terrible human tragedy. We must bear the blame and take the responsibility, because we, we the people, we the people to whom the government of the United States is accountable, sent the Marines there. This tragedy is simply a sign of what war brings, of what we knew war would bring. It proves the point, and there will be those who will shout out: “I told you so!”

But not with glee …

actions speak louder than words

actions speak louder than words

When the government of the United States speaks, we speak, and when it acts, we act, because our government is, as President Lincoln put it, “a government of the people, for the people, and by the people.” It is our duty to take full responsibility for what our government says and does on our behalf …

We must take responsibility for our nation’s advocacy of human rights. We champion the equality of all human beings; equal entitlement to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and equal protection from any violation of these entitlements. But what do we do? We are slow to respond to allegations of prisoner abuse by US military and intelligence personnel in Iraq and Cuba and Afghanistan and eastern Europe, we are reluctant to examine fully the broader leadership environment that permits or tolerates or fails to put a stop to such abuse, and we are opposed to signing on to a declaration banning cruel or inhuman or degrading treatment by any agent of the United States government against any person anywhere in the world.

We must take responsibility for our nation’s stand against the proliferation and use of chemical and biological and nuclear weapons. We ask for international censure of other nations who are suspected of developing and stockpiling such weapons. But what do we do? We use a chemical weapon, white phosphorus, in the war in Iraq. We refuse to eliminate our own stockpile of nuclear armaments and we continue to do biological weapons research. And we are the only nation in history to have used a nuclear weapon against a civilian population.

We must take responsibility for our nation’s commitment to the rule of law. We believe that right makes might, not the contrary, and we demand that nations and heads of state abide by the tenets of international law. But what do we do? We invade a sovereign nation without provocation, justifying the unilateral action as a “preemptive strike.”

We must take responsibility … The problem is not with what we say and not with the results we seek to achieve. The isolation and containment of international terrorism is a worthy end. But a worthy end does not justify the use of any means available. If we will do anything to achieve that goal, if we make expections to the code of human rights to protect our own human rights, if we use chemical weapons to take out people we fear may one day use chemical weapons or other weapons of mass destruction against us, if we unilaterally decide for ourselves who are the “bad guys” and which nations require “regime change,” then we will have by our actions betrayed everything we stand for.

We will have proved that some people are entitled to basic human rights and some are not, that weapons of mass destruction do have a place in this world, and that the only law that matters is the law that says the biggest and strongest gets to make the rules.