The Wars are Killing Us

Jim Wallis's article, "The War Must Not Go On," made me think of an issue that surfaced this past 10 days in the "Building Hope" Conference at the Yale Center for Faith & Culture, among Jews, Christians and Muslims.

More than one of the Muslims, who are very much in good relationship with Christians, and in favor of peaceful coexistence, said that when they talk with Muslims (especially in the Middle East and Asia), the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are "killing them." Muslims always ask them, "you say / we hear that Jesus taught peace and love, but where is the peace and love in Christian America waging war on Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan?"

If you are American Christian, listen carefully: for most Muslims in the world, relationship with Christians is being undermined, I would say being destroyed, by the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Jim Wallis is right - the war must not go on.

For the sake of Muslim-Christian relations, which for Christians includes the sake of bearing positive witness to the "good news" of Jesus Christ, and for the sake of peace in the world, the wars must stop.

P.S. The other key issue, which makes it very hard for Muslims trying to present a "moderate" approach to Muslims around the world, and also for us as Americans (for me, as an American Christian), is the Israeli-Palestinian situation. Another war, which stirs up further animosity, hatred, strife, and more violence.

Collateral Murder

This video, recently leaked, epitomizes everything I hate about war. Everything that makes me sick. Yes, the soldiers believe (somewhat inexplicably) that they're firing on the enemy, but they aren't. They're children and reporters and the unknown faces of human beings with lives and joys and the courage to rescue the wounded.  And maybe that's the whole point.  That there isn't an enemy.  Only children and reporters and . . . you get the point.  But when we label them, it makes them so much easier to kill (and laugh while doing it).

May God have mercy on us all.  



From the website [shooting took place in 2007]:

5th April 2010 10:44 EST WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad -- including two Reuters news staff.

Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-sight, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded.

The military did not reveal how the Reuters staff were killed, and stated that they did not know how the children were injured.

After demands by Reuters, the incident was investigated and the U.S. military concluded that the actions of the soldiers were in accordance with the law of armed conflict and its own "Rules of Engagement".

A Quaker Professor's Poetry

"Here are two poems, published by one of my writing and literature professors at George Fox University. You can also find them on Poets Against War.

Epistemology
It’s always about loss,
this kind of epistemology
philosophers regard with dread.
And we can fool ourselves with thinking.
Like the grandfather
I read about recently
who picked up his four-year-old grandson
in two pieces on a Baghdad market street,
after a sudden car bomb there.
And then just yesterday grocery shopping,
concentrating on which broccoli florets to buy,
out of the corner of my eye
a little blond four-year-old girl
is running to the side of my leg
yelling grandpa, grandpa, we saw your car
in the parking lot and knew it was you.
And my son and his beautiful wife
are smiling an aisle away,
near the potatoes and sweet onions,
she holding their year-old daughter
on her hip the way mothers do.
And I’m so happy to see them all there
in one piece that I begin to cry,
like a foolish, foolish old man.

-Ed Higgins

In Baghdad
Silent beneath the women’s wailing
the boxed dead lie like wrapped gifts
to the god grief waiting there
beside open unmarked graves.

Caught in their sorrow sound
these photographed women
sway their silent voices slowly,
like bent minarets of black.

Their eyes sad as charred craters
in the market street. Mothers, wives,
and daughters their naked hands
raised in skeins of grief.

They twist and mourn their war
consumed husbands, sisters,
brothers and children.

So many counted and uncounted
dead they blur a tear-drained land
against a another daylight bomb’s
killing darkness.

In noon’s blood-stained heat
and smoke-lingering light,
graves that keep on filling.

-Ed Higgins

If you're interested in reading more of his poetry, just hit Google. He's everywhere. :)

Memo to Obama, McCain: No one wins in a war

Here's an interesting article about the futile nature of war -- and the destruction it causes: Jewish Peace News: Howard Zinn: Memo to Obama, McCain: No one wins in a war.

Iraqi Civilian Deaths

Along the lines of language, and the power of words on peace and war, here are just a few lines from one of Naomi Shihab Nye's poems:

But I cannot pretend
a scrap of investment in the language
that allows human beings to kill one another
systematically, abstractly, distantly.
The language wrapped around 37,000,
or whatever the number today,
dead and beautiful bodies thrown into holes
without any tiny, reasonable goodbye.
-Naomi Shihab Nye
("Why I Could Not Accept Your Invitation," You and Yours).

The actual body-count now, for documented Iraqi civilian deaths from violence, is between 82,249 and 89,760. As of 16 February 2008.

Five Years In: Iraqi Words

In honor of Saint Patrick's Day, a long war, and the nameless, faceless, dead:

He Said EYE-RACK

Relative to our plans for your country,
we will blast your tree, crush your cart,
stun your grocery.
Amen sisters and brothers,
give us your sesame legs,
your satchels, your skies.
Freedom will feel good
to you too. Please acknowledge
our higher purpose. Now, we did not see
your bed of parsley. On St. Patrick's Day
2003, President Bush wore a blue tie. Blinking hard
he said, "reckless aggression."
He said, "the danger is clear."
Your patio was not visible in his frame.
Your comforter stuffed with wool
from a sheep you knew. He said, "We are
against the lawless men who
rule your country, not you." Tell that
to the mother, the sister, the bride,
the proud boy, the peanut-seller,
the librarian careful with her shelves.
The teacher, the spinner, the sweeper,
the invisible village, the thousands of people
with laundry and bread, the ants tunneling
through the dirt.

-Naomi Shihab Nye (You and Yours)

Prayer, Peace, Poetry, and Iraq.

Here's another poem. This one's a response to several churches in America setting 12:00 p.m. eastern time (9:00 a.m. on the west coast) as a national time of prayer for peace in Iraq.

The Arabic translates as follows:
The Adhan (the call to prayer)
Allahu Akbar (God is the greatest)
Hayya 'ala-s-Salah (hasten to the prayer)
As-Salatu khairun min an-naum (prayer is better than sleep)

Adhan

By Megan Buff

Allahu Akbar.

My watch beeps

As I sleepily roll

Out of bed and

Onto my knees.

Nine a.m.

Allahu Akbar.

I am on my face

With exhaustion now,

Praying for peace

In this crazy world.

Hayya 'ala-s-Salah.

Sitting up, I begin

My own prayer

In solidarity with

Christians everywhere.

As-Salatu khairun min an-naum.

This is the time set

And we all pray

For peace in Iraq.

In the world.

Allahu Akbar.

I bow my head

To my God

In supplication for

All God's people.

First Hand Stories

Here are two blogs with interesting perspectives:
Michael Yon is on site in Iraq, and has a lot of first hand stories and photos.
Tubula gaza is written by a development worker in Palestine.