The Failure of a Generation

As James Moore recently put it (American Recessional), "We have what we asked for. And New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are the consequences of our choices." The Bush approach (or non-approach) to the welfare of the poor epitomizes the anti-Christian regression from the "preferrential option for the poor" to the current blind trust in the richest which has taken place over the past 30 years. The tremendous effort by some during the 60's and 70's to reach within and find a way of living beyond the consumerist matrix was too difficult for most of us to sustain. With one excusable and "insignificant" surrender after another, we slipped back into idolatry, until we were indistinguishable from the selves we once so vociferously rejected.

James Moore once again, "The water has washed away the scales from our eyes and now we have seen where our decisions have led us. Every vote we have ever cast for every charlatan selling tax cuts and less government has had an affect on lives in New Orleans." Indeed, much has been washed away and it is time for us to gaze steadily at what the generation of the 60's and 70's has become. The fads that caked like toxic mud on our consciences are all starting to dissolve and soon the core of our ideals will reveal its emptiness. For a thousand reasons that seemed incontrovertible at the time, we accepted mini- and then micro-substitutes for those original ideals. How many of our generation managed to convince themselves that the high-tech revolution of the 90's was the fulfillment of the ideals of the 60's?

James Moore: "The fault is ours; those of us who gave two terms to the PR president by casting our votes and believing we could get something for nothing...Our silent support and inattention to detail makes possible illigitimate wars and corrupt contracts." Like the PR president, we needed to live balanced lives, without reflecting on who would pay the price for that balance. The balance always came by feeding off the capital of past generations. That capital has worn thin and may soon wear out like the ozone layer that protects us from the radiation burns of our folly.

James Moore: "New Orleans is a symptom of something far greater than simply inadequate federal response. Our government, and all of the great institutions that have maintained our democracy, is dying. And we have let it. We have not listened for the truth." We always owed ourself more than to listen to the truth. Indeed we have enjoyed ourselves - we have lived the good life.

How is it that the generation that prided itself on its honesty and self-insight has become incapable of admitting error? Before you start to explain away what I have said as "guilt tripping", please explain to me what real guilt would look like.

"The Lord is kind and merciful, slow to anger and rich in compassion." Let us ask for forgiveness for the times when the false religion of wealth and power has entered our hearts and we accepted it gladly. And let us ask that George Bush repent of and be forgiven for his neglect of the poor and the defenseless and that in this forgiveness he may find the blessings which come from service to the poor in spirit.

On Not Listening

The moment comes, the moment always comes, when what we have become strikes with the force of symbol. Katrina has shown what decades of me-firstism, of paper stock booms, of let-the-market-sort-it-out ultimately leads to. Jesus taught us that he who would be first must become the servant of all, but Jesus is not the beacon of this society, particularly not the part that wears glittering crosses. We can hear our own hollowness rattle around as we listen to the pleas that should have been heard years ago, but were ignored because their source was not the one which shone with power, from people who weren’t funny or clever or entertaining. Alexander Cockburn put it succinctly, “So collective effort goes out the window, and soon the society forgets how collective effort works. Tens of thousands of poor people standing on roofs in the Delta and they haven't the slightest idea how to get them off. The ones they have brought to dry land they dump on the highway, where they stand as the Army trucks roll by.” Cockburn, Alexander, “From Mitch to Katrina: Nature is Politics”, CounterPunch, Sept. 3/4. (http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn09032005.html). If nobody’s profiting, then everything grinds to a halt.

To be a Christian means to accept an inescapable responsibility to the poor. The scenes along the Gulf Coast are the result of the systematic abandonment of this responsibility. The people in charge of this government don’t believe in government and so it is logical that they can’t carry out effective government policies. For them, dependence on government assistance is the result of personal moral evil and must be expunged, or else the weak themselves must be expunged.

Let us pray that God will hear the voice of the poor.

The Enemy is Inside the Wire

"I don't know how much longer I can stand working for these idiots and their brothers' mothers' sisters' cousin," he wrote me recently, "They have acres of armored air conditioned trucks but won't pay to fix the alternators, so the drivers must use the worst of the equipment…no armor, no air conditioning…You know the heat here, now add the heat of an engine to that cab and throw in a few rockets, mortars, and IED's [roadside bombs] and it makes for a very bad day. I'm trying to expose the corruption of the Third Country National contractors by finding them a forum to send the truth. Prisoners, slaves, concubines. My life may be a contradiction, but I will not compromise with evil. The enemy is inside the wire." Letter to Dahr Jamail, August, 2005, from inside Iraq (http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/082805C.shtml)

As Christians, we know that the enemy is truly "inside the wire", inside the wire that passes through our hearts, as does the line between good and evil. Our silence and inaction has been a large contributor to this war, so let us pray for ourselves and the President that the scales may at last fall from our and his eyes. Our God is a God of miracles.

The American Beast

The religion of George W. Bush was well characterized a few years ago: “The myth of redemptive violence is nationalism become absolute. This myth speaks for God; it does not listen for God to speak. It invokes the sovereignty of God as its own; it does not entertain the prophetic possibility of radical denunciation and negation by God. It misappropriates the language, symbols and scriptures of Christianity. It does not seek God in order to change; it claims God in order to prevent change. Its God is not the impartial ruler of all nations but a biased and partial tribal god worshipped as an idol. Its metaphor is not the journey but a fortress. Its symbol is not the cross but a rod of iron. Its offer is not forgiveness, but victory. Its good news is not the unconditional love of enemies but their final liquidation.” Wink, Walter. Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992. p. 30.

For many years after my conversion, I wandered in the desert of right-wing Christianity, wondering why their religion seemed to have so little to do with the Biblical Jesus, and more tellingly, why the tone of so much of their writing was so smarmy and cynical. They seemed secretly to be in love with power and wealth, marking them as confirmations of righteousness (or dominion) rather than as deeply ambiguous signs, as much of corruption as of favor.

Christians wait for the Lord to lead, then follow in his way. Not so the worshippers of America, the “hyperpower” whose cause is currently identified with Christ’s. Its words come thundering out in a flow whose naturalness validates their contents, “What joy for the virtuous, seeing this vengeance, bathing their feet in the blood of the wicked!”, Psalm 58: 10. In the words of a well-known spokesman from the Pat Robertson tradition, “The righteous … are called by God’s law to exercise a holy ‘violence’ against certain of the wicked, thereby manifesting God’s wrath.” (Jordan, James B. “Pacificism and the Old Testament”, in The Theology of Christian Resistance, ed. Gary North (Tyler, Tx.: Geneva Divinity School Press, 1983), 92. In fact, it is the presence of a surgically-implanted metal shield right over the ear drums that infallibly indicates the presence of the righteous. What characterized the “wisdom of the desert” was the infinite patience with which the voice of the Lord was sought. What the Desert Fathers feared deeply was the temptation to substitute their own voice for that of God. Our political blow-hards suffer no such weakness.

Out of the evil that our policy has inflicted on Iraq and the deeper evil our guilt has inflicted on us, may we not begin to perceive an outline of the good that God may one day shape from this horror? The Iraq escapade may one day symbolize the stupidity and ineffectiveness of globalistic violence in the way Nazism symbolizes the horror of racist violence. Let us pray that Iraq will at last put to rest the ghost of Vietnam and that the lessons that war should have taught us will be burned in our hearts like the words of the ten commandments.

Our Refusal to Suffer

The root of violence is our refusal to suffer for the truth. We want to bypass the weeping face, the outstretched hand, the inconvenient child. These things diminish our fantasy, the fantastic life that we seem to approach so closely.

The silence in the face of the crimes and mistakes which were so eloquently listed on Imitatio Christi (http://imitatiochristi.blogs.com/imitatio_christi/) in "What Would It Take?" is the silence of complicity. We don't want to admit these crimes because our silence and tolerance of a corporate media that veils them behind noise and nonsense is a part of them. Emotionally, we can't adjust to the dissonance that has grown between what was the winning ideology and the real grief that our actions have caused. How cruelly it punctures the carefully cultivated image of our goodness. And how often have we surrendered to this image? How often have we preferred to be entertained rather than informed by the nightly news? How much have we really cared about the blood on our hands?

Like Bonhoeffer in the 1930's, we may soon have to make a choice. For him, "the time is very near when we shall have to make a choice between National Socialism and Christianity." For us, the choice between following Jesus and allowing this administration to drag the noble name of "evangelical" through the blood of a 100,000 Iraqis may be as stark.

What is a Christian?

"...and the LORD sent Nathan to David. He came to him, and said to him, 'There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds; but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. He brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children; it used to eat of his meager fare, and drink from his cup, and lie in his bosom, and it was like a daughter to him. Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was loath to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him, but he took the poor man's lamb, and prepared that for the guest who had come to him." Then David's anger was greatly kindled against the man. He said to Nathan, "As the LORD lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; 6 he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity."

Nathan said to David, 'You are the man! Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: I anointed you king over Israel, and I rescued you from the hand of Saul; I gave you your master's house, and your master's wives into your bosom, and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would have added as much more. Why have you despised the word of the LORD, to do what is evil in his sight? ... David said to Nathan, 'I have sinned against the LORD.'

Knowing our sinfulness does not come naturally - we must be trained in the sense of sin. It is more than embarassment over mistakes, shame at stupidity or carelessness, or even a sudden demand for domination. As Stanley Hauerwas describes it, "its fundamental form is self-deception." (The Peaceable Kingdom, Notre Dame, 1983, p. 46). We want to believe many things about ourselves and the sense of sin is the secret laughter that exposes the brittleness of our lies.

Part of what is happening in Crawford, Texas is that truth in the form of uncontrollable grief is confronting the glamorous patina of unshakeable pride. There may be much truth to the subterranean rumor that Bush is unable to openly face real emotion, unable to process genuine humanity. Someone capable of the crimes he has committed could not have much sense of the value of human life. Protected by the shield of righteousness, he cannot turn the gaze on himself and realize in what name he has truly acted. Beyond this, there is evidence of a lack of ability to truly engage the battle that must be fought before making decisions that will etch hatred onto generations. He rushes to judgment in a manner that is often praised as "decisive", but this decisiveness hides impatience with the tedious processes of reason and evidence that serious decision require. Gut instinct has to be earned - it's usually not a gift from above.

As fellow sinners, as fellow slaves of violence, we should reach out our hands to him and pray for the recovery of his inner peace, not the false "peace" that comes from self-righteousness, but the peace that comes from accepting crooked humanity and the hard and tedious struggle for truth, which would heal our own souls as well. In fact, this goes to the heart of why we go to war. We go because we have not the patience to endure the suffering that leads to peace. None of us want to see the weeping face or feel a pain that can't be washed away. Pray that the born again will be born anew in the King of Peace.

Pray For George W. Bush

As followers of Jesus, we believe in the power of prayer to change lives. Inside of George W. Bush lie sparks of truth and goodness, and I prefer to believe in his sincerity when he admires the philosopher Jesus Christ. The sickness that lies in all of us who profess Christ is our reluctance to admit sin, the tendency to take on the mask of innocence before our inner mirror. It is quite easy to believe in our status as peacemakers since we so constantly work out the kinks in the narrative. George is our brother in this as well, but he labors under a burden that most of us will never experience - to be constantly surrounded by some of the most skillful minders in the world who assure him of his rightness and reinforce that sense of power which must in many respects be so foreign to him. This is a curse, but not one that he cannot resist if only he had not surrendered to it so constantly, because it is so natural to do so, and, after all, he is just a regular guy. But I will never cease to believe that at the core of him and such as he lies the will to accept the cross, to put to death the violent exclusion from humanity of those he caricatures as "evildoers". Let us increase our faith in the power of God's love, to extend even as far as him.

The Witness of Cindy Sheehan

From Chuck Gutenson on HuffPo:

"Overwhelmingly, they [neocons] did not serve; overwhelmingly, their children do not serve. While having plenty of young, metaphorical lambs of all kinds, they choose to sacrifice the lambs of others."

"I suspect this is part of what makes Cindy Sheehan so impossible for the administration to deal with -- she has made the sacrifice they are only willing to require of others. They have given no lambs, but want all that attends a "war administration"; she has given the lamb, but will not be granted even her small request: face-to-face dialogue with the one who sent her son into harm's way.

One last point from the story of King David and Nathan, a point that I would love to see embodied in this president. After Nathan tells his story and identifies the King as the perpetrator of injustice, the King, to his credit, responds, "I have sinned against God." I am not holding my breath; since this president can admit no errors at all, it is hard to see how he could ever admit that the thing he most uses to identify himself was mistaken. But, we can hope, and we can support the Cindy Sheehans of the world who will stand before the president and say by their actions, "You are the man!"'

Indeed, they have all that they want, but they demand much more, because they demand that their violence will ultimately lead to the reign of heaven. May we pray that those who use others as gloss to shine the shield in the inner movie of their glory may come face to face with a mother's grief. Not for their shame, at least not only, but so that the tide of truth may at last wash away the lies that degrade all they touch, and all we touch, who by our silence endorse their lies. Somehow, the heart always pierces through the deadening paralysis:

How slippery the paths on which you set them;
you make them slide to destruction.
How suddenly they come to their ruin,
wiped out, destroyed by terrors.
Like a dream one wakes from, O Lord,
when you wake you dismiss them as phantoms.
- Psalm 73.

Let us pray that Bush will repent of his violence and embrace the cross, in which all sacrifices will be made fruitful. May peace at last spring up in his heart - let us believe in this miracle.

Disarming Our Hearts

On the blog Imitatio Christi (http://imitatiochristi.blogs.com/imitatio_christi/) a controversy about George Bush as Hermaneutic of the Gospel has arisen in which it was stated, "For the sake of the gospel may we - prayerfully, humbly, and with full knowledge of our own failings - have the courage to ask George Bush, as a fellow follower of Jesus, to live out the teachings of Christ."

My response was as follows: "What evidence do we have that George W. is or is not a Christian? Can a man as unquestioningly committed to violence as he apparently is be Christian in any meaningful sense? A Christian profession that requires violence to maintain itself betrays itself by that very commitment. In the words of Stanley Hauerwas, “A truth that must use violence to secure its existence cannot be truth. Rather the truth that moves the sun and the stars is that which is so sure in its power that it refuses to compel compliance or agreement by force. Rather it takes the slow, hard and seemingly unrewarding work of witness which it trusts to prevail even in a fragmented and violent world.” Hauerwas, Stanley. The Peaceable Kingdom. Notre Dame, 1983, p. 15. Of course, to say this does not excuse those of us professing Christians who struggle daily with our own violence, even though it may not be projected onto the world stage. Those who intend seriously to disarm their hearts from the inner rage of self-assertion usually realize that they are quite capable of hearing that rage as the divine voice."

I do not think that we should sit in judgement on individuals, but I think that those who commit themselves to violence which is morally certain to cause widespread death to innocent civilians need to provide an account of their Christian profession. There is a religion in America that calls itself "Christianity" or even "Bible Christianity" that instinctively identifies the interests of the United States with the kingdom of God. In this religion, violence can not only be justified but sanctified when it is carried out in the interests of the "People of God", the good citizens of the United States. To identify Christianity in the traditional sense with this religion seems to me to be highly questionable. This religion is a caricature, a travesty resulting from the betrayal of the Church in favor of a covert spiritually-tinged nationalism, a sanctified moral surrender to one's culture. Seen in this light, George Bush's attack on the "evildoers" of Iraq makes him one of the high priests of this "Christianity". So I join in the call on him and the other members of this church to lay down their arms, to look into their hearts, and examine what the origin is of the violence that drives them.

The Cost of Discipleship

A recent exchange on the blog Imitatio Christi, a blog that explores the implications of imitating Christ for all aspects of human existence (http://imitatiochristi.blogs.com/imitatio_christi/) focuses on the issue of forgiveness. A meditation on 9/11 and the forgiveness of enemies contained the following statement, "In fact, the 9/11 bombings, the bombings that followed in Madrid, Spain, and the recent bombings in London demonstrate the moral relevance and force of Jesus’ world for our life." It was followed by much questioning of the "One Nation Under God" response of mainline churches. My response was the following:

I would like to begin with a simple question, "Why can't the Pentagon adopt a policy of forgiveness?" Pause for a moment. What would be the consequence? Islamist radicals would be stunned, perhaps stunned into silence, the silence of awe, a silence that would drain the fierce focus of their attacks. Momentarily (only momentarily?) the cycle of violence and counterviolence would be broken. For a blessed moment, our world would look completely different. "Behold I make all things new."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, "The only way to overcome evil is to let it run itself to a standstill because it does not find the resistance it is looking for. Resistance merely creates further evil and adds fuel to the flames. But when evil meets no opposition and encounters to obstacle but only patient endurance, its sting is drawn, and at last it meets an opponent which is more than its match. Of course this can only happen when the last ounce of resistance is abandoned, and the renunciation of revenge is complete. Then evil cannot find its mark, it can breed no further evil, and is left barren." - The Cost of Discipleship.
If we completely abandon the revenge that lives in our hearts and feeds on the flames of self-justification, perhaps this is the sign from us that God awaits to shed as-yet-unknown graces. Do we have hearts to imagine such miracles?
If we fail to react as the bombers secretly wish, then indeed evil has no mark. Study how the Bush reaction to bin Laden violence has fed that violence, how, on some unfathomable level, the two sides need each other to fan each other's justification. The spirit of Christ that lives within us is the match, the true answer to the violence of bin Laden and Bush, two halves of the same demonic coin, two offerings to the lord of this world. The cycle of revenge and justified counter-violence can only be ended by a creative act that steps beyond the assumptions which rise so automatically. What about a Department of Peace and Forgiveness? The worst that could happen is that we would be nailed to the cross.

War Crimes Documented

The following is required reading for anyone who cares about the careless slaughter of human beings. A Dossier of Civilian Casualites in Iraq 2003 - 2005 has just been released that chronicles the murder of a generation in Iraq. Naturally, the news media can't be bothered with the fact that 24,865 civilians have been killed, 18% of whom were women and children, not when Natallee is still missing. 37% of all non-combatant deaths were caused by US led coalition forces, many through indiscriminate bombing raids (also knoown as precision strikes that miraculously manage to kill only insurgents - a true high-tech wonder). Why are you still sleeping? Read the dossier at http://reports.iraqbodycount.org/a_dossier_of_civilian_casualties_2003-2005.pdf.

John Paul II and Gandhi

Standing at the place where Mahatma Gandhi was cremated, John Paul II made the following statement:

"From this place which is forever bound to the memory of this extraordinary man, I wish to express to the people of India and of the world my profound conviction that the peace and justice of which contemporary society has such great need will only be achieved along the path which was the core of his teaching."

Not Realpolitik, not "fighting the terrorists over there so we don't have to fight them here", not Shock and Awe, not forcing "freedom" and "democracy" on the skeptical Arab, but Gandhian nonviolence is the path which the Vicar of Christ has pointed out as the beacon for contemporary statesmanship. Much will become clear to us when we disarm our hearts, when we seek a power greater than bunker busters and rejoice in transformed spirits rather than soulless economies that rip the floor out from under those on the margins to ensure endless profits for those whose money could feed whole countries.

In other words, have we the courage to trust Christ and Him alone? Not to seek the protection of wealth and bombs and oceans of oil?

At the journey’s end may each be able to return to the Source in peace and say:
"I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision." Acts 26:19

Blood Will Have Blood

"Blood will have blood; that's certain. But blood will not end it. For murder is fertile: it breeds more death, like a spider laden with a thousand eggs. And who now can break this cycle, which has been going on for generations?" - Chris Floyd, Booman Tribune, 7/9/2005.

Nonviolent Trinity

Some see the carnage in London and feel justified in their embrace of violence. Others see it and probe their hearts until the teeth begin to poke through. Understanding the violence that lives in them, they commit themselves to disarming their own hearts, ceasing to believe in a God that justifies murder. Many different reactions can be made to violence, but the incessant heat of propaganda insists that only one mode of reaction is acceptable. A single person needs deep wells of prayer-strength to resist the call to revenge, but if he or she can step out of the media-constructed self for a moment, the still, small voice may penetrate. The enemy is not those monsters out there, but the ones that live in our own hearts and heads, that strident commitment to kill for the great cause. As long as that one lives, we can incarcerate, strafe, humiliate, and shatter until the sun is a cold rock, and the monster will keep on laughing.

Torture Outsourced

"British and American aid intended for Iraq's hard-pressed police service is being diverted to paramilitary commando units accused of widespread human rights abuses, including torture and extra-judicial killings, The Observer can reveal.
...
The Observer has seen photographic evidence of post-mortem and hospital examinations of alleged terror suspects from Baghdad and the Sunni Triangle which demonstrate serious abuse of suspects including burnings, strangulation, the breaking of limbs and - in one case - the apparent use of an electric drill to perform a knee-capping." -- Guardian, July 3, 2005

Now that the Iraqi government has openly admitted to torture, we expect that the outcry among Catholics over the abuse of God's image, the blasphemy of torture will reach the heights it did during the controversy over whether liberal politicians should receive communion.

The Messiah

Rejoice heart and soul, daughter of Zion!
Shout with gladness, daughter of Jerusalem!
See now, your king comes to you;
he is victorious, he is triumphant,
humble and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
He will banish chariots from Ephraim
and horses from Jerusalem;
the bow of war will be banished.
He will proclaim peace for the nations.
His empire shall stretch from sea to sea,
from the River to the ends of the earth.

Zechariah 9: 9 - 10

This is the Messiah that we know - the one that puts an end to the old man with his stew of violence he keeps boiling in his heart. We do not seek an "outlet" for this violence, to moderate it by lowering its pressure. We seek an end to it. It's residue constantly pours out of us. When we fail to conquer it, when we justify it, eventually it boils over into the war the Iraq, becomes hatred of the Tutsi and the blacks in Darfur, or the Muslim down the street.

Those who believe that God has led them into the war in Iraq are not worshipping the God of Jesus Christ, but something in their own fear-dominated hearts. The God of "Left Behind" is an idol in the precise sense of the word, something external to our souls that commands, punishes and kills, much as the ancient Aztec gods demanded the sacrifice of a thousand hearts ripped from the breasts of the weak and defenseless each year.

Voices of the Heart

"It was still dark. I dressed in that darkness. When I was ready I grabbed an MRE (meal ready to eat) and got in the truck. The targets were three houses where RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) attacks had come from a few days before. Sitting there listening to the briefing I let my mind wander and said a prayer. 'Just one more day, God, let me live one more day and we will go from there ... ' It was the same prayer I said every day.

"There were different people to meet each day. There were some who would kill you if they could ... you could see the hate in their eyes. I also met people who would have given me everything they owned ... so thankful because we had rid them of Saddam.

"After the briefing we convoyed to the raid site. I was to go in directly after the military police who would clear the buildings. The raid began without a hitch. I was inside the courtyard of a house questioning a woman when I heard gunfire. Ducking next to the stone wall I yelled at the woman to get inside.

"When the gunfire stopped I peeked around the front gate. I saw a soldier pulling rear security who was still aiming his M249 machine gun at a black truck off in the distance. His was the weapon I had heard.

"I ran up and overheard the captain asking what had happened and why this soldier had opened fire. The soldier answered that he had seen a man holding an AK-47 in the back of the black truck. I was among the four, including the soldier who had fired, selected to go check on that truck.

"We were out of breath when we got to the gun-truck nearest to the black civilian truck. There were four Iraqis walking towards us from the black truck. They were carrying a body, a small boy no more than 3 years old. His head was cocked at the wrong angle and there was blood. So much blood. The Iraqi men were crying and asking me WHY?

"Someone behind me started screaming for a medic. It was the young soldier who had fired. He screamed for a medic until he was hoarse. A medic came just to tell us what we already knew: The boy was dead.

"I stood there looking at that little child, someone's child just like mine, and seeing how red the clean white shirt of the man holding the boy was turning. Then I realized I was speaking to them, speaking in a voice that sounded so very far away. I heard my voice telling them how sorry we were. My mouth was saying this but all my mind could focus on was the hole in the child's head. The white shirt covered in bright red blood. I couldn't stop looking even as I kept telling them how sorry we were.

"I can still see it all to this day. There were no weapons found and we accomplished nothing besides killing a child. I stayed as long as I could, talking to the man holding the child. I couldn't leave because I needed to know who they were. I wanted to remember. The man was the child's uncle, minding him for his father who had gone to the market. They were carpenters and what the soldier who had fired on the truck had seen was one of the Iraqi men standing in the truck bed, holding a piece of wood.

"Before I left I saw the young soldier who had killed the boy. His eyes were unfocused and he was just standing there, staring off into the distance. My hand went to my canteen and I took a drink of water. That soldier looked so lost, so I offered him a drink. In a hoarse voice he quietly thanked me.

"Later that day we were filling out reports about what we had witnessed. The captain who had led the raid was angry: 'Well, this is just great! Now we have to go give that family bags of money to shut them up ... '

"A family had just lost their beautiful baby boy, and this man is worried about having to pay for a family's grief and sorrow.

"To this day I still think about that raid, that family, that boy. I wonder if they are attacking us now. I would be. If someone took the life of my son or my daughter nothing other than my own death would stop me from killing them. I still cry when the memory hits me. And I cry when I think of how very far away I am from my family. I am not there, just like the boy's father wasn't there. I have served my time. I have my nightmares. I have enough blood on my hands. Just let me be a father, a husband, a daddy again.

-Sgt. Zachary Scott-Singley

It is stories such as these that display a heart being filled with light through its own grief. Wisdom has been borne in at least one heart this day. Let us turn to the grief that still lives within us, lest the fingers that are wrapping themselves around so many voices in this land of fear squeeze shut.

The Vanquished Know War

"The vanquished know the essence of war – death. They grasp that war is necrophilia. They see that war is a state of almost pure sin with its goals of hatred and destruction. They know how war fosters alienation, leads inevitably to nihilism, and is a turning away from the sanctity and preservation of life. All other narratives about war too easily fall prey to the allure and seductiveness of violence, as well as the attraction of the godlike power that comes with the license to kill with impunity." - Hedges, Chris. "What Every Person Should Know About War"


nonviolent jesus

What Drives the Torment?

"The prisoner, a slight, 22-year-old taxi driver known only as Dilawar, was hauled from his cell at the detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan, at around 2 a.m. to answer questions about a rocket attack on an American base. When he arrived in the interrogation room, an interpreter who was present said, his legs were bouncing uncontrollably in the plastic chair and his hands were numb. He had been chained by the wrists to the top of his cell for much of the previous four days.

Mr. Dilawar asked for a drink of water, and one of the two interrogators, Specialist Joshua R. Claus, 21, picked up a large plastic bottle. But first he punched a hole in the bottom, the interpreter said, so as the prisoner fumbled weakly with the cap, the water poured out over his orange prison scrubs. The soldier then grabbed the bottle back and began squirting the water forcefully into Mr. Dilawar's face.

"Come on, drink!" the interpreter said Specialist Claus had shouted, as the prisoner gagged on the spray. "Drink!"

At the interrogators' behest, a guard tried to force the young man to his knees. But his legs, which had been pummeled by guards for several days, could no longer bend. An interrogator told Mr. Dilawar that he could see a doctor after they finished with him. When he was finally sent back to his cell, though, the guards were instructed only to chain the prisoner back to the ceiling.

"Leave him up," one of the guards quoted Specialist Claus as saying.

Several hours passed before an emergency room doctor finally saw Mr. Dilawar. By then he was dead, his body beginning to stiffen. It would be many months before Army investigators learned a final horrific detail: Most of the interrogators had believed Mr. Dilawar was an innocent man who simply drove his taxi past the American base at the wrong time.

The story of Mr. Dilawar's brutal death at the Bagram Collection Point - and that of another detainee, Habibullah, who died there six days earlier in December 2002 - emerge from a nearly 2,000-page confidential file of the Army's criminal investigation into the case, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times.

Like a narrative counterpart to the digital images from Abu Ghraib, the Bagram file depicts young, poorly trained soldiers in repeated incidents of abuse. The harsh treatment, which has resulted in criminal charges against seven soldiers, went well beyond the two deaths.

In some instances, testimony shows, it was directed or carried out by interrogators to extract information. In others, it was punishment meted out by military police guards. Sometimes, the torment seems to have been driven by little more than boredom or cruelty, or both." - "In U.S. Report, Brutal Details Of 2 Afghan Inmates' Deaths", New York Times, May 20, 2005

"You cannot be too gentle, too kind. Shun even to appear harsh in your treatment of each other. Joy, radiant joy, streams from the face of him who gives and kindles joy in the heart of him who receives. All condemnation is from the devil. Never condemn each other. We condemn others only because we shun knowing ourselves. When we gaze at our own failings, we see such a swamp that nothing in another can equal it. That is why we turn away, and make much of the faults of others. Instead of condemning others, strive to reach inner peace. Keep silent, refrain from judgement. This will raise you above the deadly arrows of slander, insult and outrage and will shield your glowing hearts against all evil." -- St Seraphim of Sarov

A voice from a saner world. What strikes the tone of self-knowledge is the sentence, "We condemn others only because we shun knowing ourselves." The gloating self-satisfaction on the faces of the soldiers in the torture photos is a mask that must be pierced. No, they are not happy and proud of what they have done, though the media ring it boldly for the next decade. Nor are we proud of our silence and compliance. Let us pray that the chill which holds us in its grip, the cold smiles, the tinny laughter like ice pellets on a car roof, will melt with the breath of the Holy Spirit and rouse the poor to cry out to the Lord.

Magic Markers into Tattoos

An Iraqi man has his forehead marked with "K2"




"That picture where that unnamed man’s furrowed forehead is marked "K2" by the marine captures the fundamental process of dehumanization that you will find if you scratch the surface of all major 20th century atrocities. That man is no longer a man for those soldiers: he is a detainee, a number, a representation of the enemy, of the people who shoot at them, the people who they hate, people who they are scared of, people that aren’t people. He can be blindfolded, marked, humiliated before his heartbroken family, taken away at will.

Once you cross that line, some of those soldiers will eventually abuse, torture and kill some of those “non-people.” This isn’t even an indictment of American culture, rather, this is the fundamental lesson of a bloody century: dehumanization is the first step towards atrocity. The particular way in which we do this may be influenced by our culture --and where else have you seen such a pornographic interest in the victims-- but we are hardly unique or immune. In fact, reading about that very disturbing account of Dilawar’s death in Bagram, Afghanistan published last week in the New York Times made me think that we seem to have arrived somewhere between Chile and Argentina during the military dictatorships in terms of systematization of the torture.

The question facing us is whether we will stop before magic markers turn into tattoos." - Under the Same Sun, May 25, 2005

Come, consider the works of the Lord,
the redoubtable deeds he has done on the earth.
He puts an end to wars over all the earth;
the bow he breaks, the spear he snaps.
He burns the shields with fire.
"Be still and know that I am God,
supreme among the namtions, supreme on the earth!"

The Lord of hosts is with us:
The God of Jacob is our stronghold."

The Revolt of Christianity

"As Christians we are called to be peacemakers, and to initiate war only as a last resort. We believe your administration has launched an unjust and unjustified war in Iraq."

"We pledge fidelity to Jesus Christ, offering our hearts and lives to do God's work in God's world."

"While recognizing God as sovereign over individuals and institutions alike, we understand that no single political position should be identified with God's will."

"As Christians we are called to actions characterized by love, gentleness and concerns for the most vulnerable among us. We believe your administration has fostered intolerance and divisiveness and has often failed to listen to those with whom it disagrees." -- An open letter to President George W. Bush from concerned faculty, staff and emeriti of Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Mich.

Imagine the grief in God's heart at the deliberate attempts, sanctioned at the highest levels of the Bush administration, as demonstrated by documents released to the ACLU, to break Moslem's relationship with the God of us all. Women deliberately attempted to "defile" men so that they would be unable to pray. What does it mean when Christians are silent in the face of attempts to destroy a man's relationship with God so that he might reveal "terrorist" secrets? When we try to break a man's relation with God in order to weaken him and make him more maleable, we commit one of the gravest spiritual evils and weaken our own relationship, perhaps irreparably.

Can we still hear the words of Vatican II? "The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself, merciful and all-powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth (5), who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes great pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God. Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet. They also honor Mary, His virgin mother; at times they even call on her with devotion. In addition, they await the day of judgement when God will render their deserts to all those who have been raised up from the dead. Finally, they value the moral life and worship God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting." - Nostra Aetate, 3.

Those who are defiled are our brothers in Christ. Let us pray that they will be protected from those who attempt so foolishly to break their relationship with God. And let us not only pray, but speak out. Every Christian has the unbreakable obligation to raise their voice against torture and the blasphemy against the human soul that is so embodied. To do less is to fail in our duty to our brother. Join the revolt of truth!

Impunity

"The world is soaked with mutual blood. When individuals commit homicide, it is a crime; it is called a virtue when it is done in the name of the state. Impunity is acquired for crimes not by reason of innocence but by the magnitude of the cruelty." -- St Cyprian of Carthage, To Donatus, chapter 6

"A U.S. Army captain forced an Iraqi detainee to dig his own grave and then ordered troops to pretend to shoot the detainee in one of several mock executions described in investigative documents released Tuesday by the Army...Included in the documents were reports of other mock executions, a homicide and the description of an incident in which a soldier allegedly goaded a prisoner by holding up the Jewish Star of David symbol while threatening other Arabs in the room...Two days later, the platoon came across a father and his sons loading metal onto a truck at the ammunition factory. After detaining the Iraqis, a soldier recounted, the sergeant asked the father, "Which one do you want to die?" — referring to the man's sons.

Several soldiers said they recalled the sergeant taking one of the sons around the corner of a building and firing a shot.

'I yelled to him but he either ignored me or didn't hear me and proceeded with the boy around the building. We heard a single shot,' one sworn statement read.

When asked why he did not inquire what happened after he heard the shot, one soldier answered, 'The less I know, the faster I go home.'

Yancey's commanding officer, a colonel whose name was also blacked out, wrote, 'I do not see a requirement to tarnish [Yancey's] record for life with a federal conviction and dismissal at a general court-martial.' -- "Mock Executions of Iraqi Detainees Cited by Army", Los Angeles Times, May 18, 2005.

The powers that be know well the magnitude of the cruelty that induces an information vaccuum that sucks truth from our minds and compassion from our hearts. Or so it would appear as inanity drones on in the face of unspeakable cruelty. Or maybe it's just that we all feel, "The less I know, the faster I go home." Let us pray that we will not go home, but that we will grow hearts.

The Army that Sends War Demons Fleeing

"And as we by our prayers vanquish all demons who stir up war, and lead to the violation of oaths, and disturb the peace, we in this way are much more helpful to the kings than those who go into the field to fight for them. And we do take our part in public affairs, when along with righteous prayers we join self-denying exercises and meditations, which teach us to despise pleasures, and not to be led away by them. And none fight better for the king than we do. We do not indeed fight under him, although he require it; but we fight on his behalf, forming a special army — an army of piety — by offering our prayers to God." - – Origen, Against Celsus, Book 8, Chapter 73 [Celus, a pagan, had written a critique of Christians]

"The main hospital in al-Qaim was reportedly attacked during the fighting, according to local doctors. US forces say they believed insurgents were hiding inside. Eight people were reported to have been killed inside the building by the hospital's deputy director.

"The hospital was the main place for us to receive our patients and now we have set up mobile medical posts between houses to treat injured civilians that have been increasing since the fighting started. We don't have any medical supplies, as the ones we had were in the hospital," Mustafa al-Alousi, deputy director of the hospital, told IRIN" - "People flee al-Qaim as fighting continues", IRIN, May 12, 2005.

Who will join the Holy Spirit's army of prayer? Let us join with Father John Dear and pray for those who murder patients in hospitals, ripping terrorists from their IVs, while the corporate media chimes its lazy, unthinking hymns. Let us first vanquish the devil that lives beneath our skin. If anyone wonders where this urge to kill comes from, consider our own fierce love of comfort and the hatred that flares whenever anyone makes finger signs at it. Are we honest enough to admit that we love our lives in this world? That we trust in the power of this country more than the power of God? Where is the one who can set us free from this power?

The Power of Prayer

"No one of us fights back when he is apprehended, nor do our people avenge themselves against your unjust violence though numerous and plentiful. Our certainty of the vengeance which is to come makes us patient. The harmless give way to the harmful; the innocent acquiesce in the punishments and tortures certain and confident that whatever we suffer will not remain unavenged, and that the greater is the injury of the persecution, the more just and serious will be the vengeance for the persecution. Long ago divine Scripture laid down and said: ‘Vengeance is mine, I shall repay, says the Lord,’ and let the Holy Spirit again warn us saying: ‘Say not: I will avenge myself on my enemy, but wait in the Lord so that He may aid you.’" - St Cyprian of Carthage, To Demetrian, Chapter 17

Report from a soldier in the Army Reserve stationed in Iraq: "Guys in my unit, particularly the younger guys, would drive by in their Humvee and shatter bottles over the heads of Iraqi civilians passing by. They'd keep a bunch of empty Coke bottles in the Humvee to break over people's heads...Mr. Delgado said he had witnessed incidents in which an Army sergeant lashed a group of children with a steel Humvee antenna, and a Marine corporal planted a vicious kick in the chest of a kid about 6 years old. There were many occasions, he said, when soldiers or marines would yell and curse and point their guns at Iraqis who had done nothing wrong...Mr. Delgado confronted a sergeant who, he said, had fired on the detainees [at Abu Ghraib]. "I asked him," said Mr. Delgado, "if he was proud that he had shot unarmed men behind barbed wire for throwing stones. He didn't get mad at all. He was, like, 'Well, I saw them bloody my buddy's nose, so I knelt down. I said a prayer. I stood up, and I shot them down.'" - "From Gook to Raghead", Bob Herbert, New York Times, May 2, 2005.

Which god answered this soldier's prayer? Without standing in judgement, which as Cyprian exhorts us, must be forever surrendered to God, it seems to be the same god that Mr. Bush consulted before committing 100,000 Iraqis to an agonizing death. The same god that proclaims the duty of torture when his victims dare to resist full spectrum dominance.

Let us begin to offer reparation for the victims of our consumerist frenzy. We are the guilty ones and we are the ones that the world is looking to for mercy from the steel whips of vengence on those even the perpetrators admit are innocent. And pray for Kevin Benderman, whose application for conscientious objector status was denied and who faces many years in prison for refusing to kill more Iraqis. And be sure to include the soldiers described above in your prayers. As Cyprian put it, "Say not: I will avenge myself on my enemy, but wait in the Lord so that He may aid you."

Responding to Hypocrisy

The Army that Sheds No Blood

"If a loud trumpet summons soldiers to war, shall not Christ with a strain of peace issued to the ends of the earth gather up his soldiers of peace? By his own blood and by his word he has assembled an army which sheds no blood in order to give them the Kingdom of Heaven. The trumpet of Christ is his Gospel. He has sounded it and we have heard it. Let us then put on the armour of peace." - Clement of Alexandria, Protrepticus XI, 116.

God has armed us with the weapons of peace: open hearts, song, and nothing to protect because all is his gift. We must reach deep to find the sword-points dipped in water, by which we can quench the fire of war.

One of those who has perhaps discovered the waters of mercy is Haj Ali, the prisoner who appears in the most famous Abu Ghraib torture photo, the man in the black hood with wires trailing from his fingers standing on the crate. In a PBS interview, he describes what sustained him, "I put my faith in God. Our strength and our resistance come from our faith in God, especially a person who considers himself not guilty and he is the object of abuse and punishment. There were others who couldn't resist [the torture], and they gave up names of innocent people to trade for their release from prison. But God gave us the strength, and we believe in God. For a truly faithful man, God gives the person the great strength to be patient to endure the pain, abuse and insults that we were subjected to. But keep in mind that not all people are equal in their tolerance. As I told you, there were people who judged others." - "Haj Ali's Story", NOW, April 29, 2005 (http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/hajali.html).

Indeed there are people who judge others. Who in their Christian righteousness judge that Iraqi lives are not worth a gallon of gas in an American Hummer. May we rediscover the faith that sustains our victims and pray that God may forgive our indifference to their torment. Where are the soldiers of peace?

Dies Irae and Marla Ruzicka

In the end perhaps that part of our heart that lives in God will be given a crystal clear vision of our lives and we will render judgement on ourselves and that judgement will be binding. All those who had to die and suffer because of our neglect, because we chose to let the days run on in distraction, our lips firmly wrapped around the nozzle of corporate media, they will hold out their arms to us, but be unable to gather us in just as we were too busy to bother about the war in Iraq. If not for the lives of those such as Marla Ruzicka, who dropped all posturing of the left or right, and died trying to bring help to our "collateral damage", perhaps this judgement would already have come. The hour is late.

Benedict XVI on War

"There were not sufficient reasons to unleash a war against Iraq. To say nothing of the fact that, given the new weapons that make possible destructions that go beyond the combatant groups, today we should be asking ourselves if it is still licit to admit the very existence of a 'just war.'"

- Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, May 2, 2003.

Hope flashes in these words from a man devoted to precision of thought. May he lead us to love life in all its flourishes and will the death of nothing that he has made. May Jesus give us the strength to disarm our hearts.

Burning Flesh

It has now been documented that the U.S. used illegal incendiary weapons in the November assault on Fallujah. See the article by the Iraq Analysis Group: http://www.selvesandothers.org/article9437.html The outrage among Catholic bishops in the United States has been deafening, as I'm sure you're aware.

Protocol III of the 1980 UN convention on ’Weapons Which May Be Deemed To Be Excessively Injurious Or To Have Indiscriminate Effects’ states that:

It is prohibited in all circumstances to make any military objective located within a concentration of civilians the object of attack by air-delivered incendiary weapons.

"Residents who survived the attack reported seeing incendiary bombs used in the city. Abu Sabah, who lived in the Julan district of Fallujah which witnessed some of the heaviest attacks, said:

"They used these weird bombs that put up smoke like a mushroom cloud... then small pieces fall from the air with long tails of smoke behind them."

He said that pieces of these strange bombs explode into large fires that burn the skin even when water is thrown on the burns.

"Usually we keep the gloves on," said Army Capt. Erik Krivda, of Gaithersburg, Md., the senior officer in charge of the 1st Infantry Division’s Task Force 2-2 tactical operations command center. "For this operation, we took the gloves off."

Some artillery guns fired white phosphorous rounds that create a screen of fire that cannot be extinguished with water. Insurgents reported being attacked with a substance that melted their skin, a reaction consistent with white phosphorous burns.

Kamal Hadeethi, a physician at a regional hospital, said, "The corpses of the mujahedeen which we received were burned, and some corpses were melted." - "U.S. Drives into the Heart of Fallujah", San Franscisco Chronicle, Nov. 10, 2004.

Unfortunately, some of our Christian leaders chose to ignore burning human beings alive to focus on the dangers of stem cell research.

Let us pray that our blindness, which becomes more willful with each passing hour, will be healed before we forget what sight is.

John Paul II on Abu Ghraib

Somehow the U.S. main stream media seemed to miss the following statement by John Paul II during the Abu Ghraib crisis:

"From all continents come endless, disturbing information about the human rights situation, revealing that men, women and children are being tortured and their dignity being made a mockery of. ... It is all of humanity which has been wounded and ridiculed," John Paul II said.

The Sacrament of Nonviolence

"The Eucharist is the sacrament of non-violence!" - So pronounced the man who was appointed by Pope John Paul II to be Preacher to the Papal Household during the Lenten reflections before his death. Far from being a justification of violence, the Eucharist is God's absolute No to violence, as Father Cantalamessa says, "the modern debate on violence and the sacred thus helps us to accept a new dimension of the Eucharist, thanks to which God’s absolute 'no' to violence, pronounced on the cross, is kept alive through the centuries." - 3rd Lenten Sermon by Father Cantalamessa, March 11, 2005 (Zenit.org)

May the Pope look down on this battered earth and call upon our Lord to let nonviolence master our hearts. I place all my weapons at your feet, O Lord. In Christ's sacrifice the bond between the sacred and violence is forever broken. In the same way, Lord, let my weapons break.

Faces of Integrity: Pope John Paul II

"Violence begets violence," he said. "War must always be considered a defeat: a defeat of reason and of humanity." He argued that world leaders should seek to root out the primary causes of terrorism, "especially misery, desperation and the emptiness in hearts." - "Pope Opposes Military Response to Terrorism", Sept. 8, 2004.

How many Catholics know that the Pope spoke out against war in general and against the Iraq war specifically in the last year of his holy life? That he made peace among nations one of the most consistent themes of his papacy?

Just before the illegal Iraq invasion, he made the following impassioned plea, ""NO TO WAR"! War is not always inevitable. It is always a defeat for humanity. International law, honest dialogue, solidarity between States, the noble exercise of diplomacy: these are methods worthy of individuals and nations in resolving their differences....,

And what are we to say of the threat of a war which could strike the people of Iraq, the land of the Prophets, a people already sorely tried by more than twelve years of embargo? War is never just another means that one can choose to employ for settling differences between nations. As the Charter of the United Nations Organization and international law itself remind us, war cannot be decided upon, even when it is a matter of ensuring the common good, except as the very last option and in accordance with very strict conditions, without ignoring the consequences for the civilian population both during and after the military operations." - "Address to the Diplomatic Corps Accredited to the Vatican", Jan. 13, 2003.

Please pray that our Holy Father's longing for peace will bear abundant fruit as he enters the heavenly homeland. Let us hope that the voice that was so often muffled by media silence on earth will grow loud in the hearts of those who loved the Pope.

Faces of Integrity: Kevin Benderman

“Killing, the act of it, in any circumstance, is negative. It can’t help but bring negative feelings into a person’s mind. When someone faces his conscience and realizes just how negative he has become, looks deep and admits the reasons, the change is amazing.

“When that person acts on his conscience, and makes a decision to live for life and to seek peaceful solutions to difficult situations even when it goes against the current “norms” of society, it’s a positive change. It is scary for people who still believe that there is a justification for war to face someone who has become positive in their thought process. People who still can’t see the power in turning away from violent solutions will continue to question someone who can. That is what is happening now. Kevin has made a conscious choice to “study war no more.” He has made a statement for himself, and his speaking out about it threatens those who believe war is the answer,” she said." - "Benderman Courts-Martial Moves Forward", Voices in the Wilderness, April 1, 2005.

The Christian Response to War

Come, think of Yahweh's marvels,
the astounding things he has done in the world;
all over the world he puts an end to wars,
he breaks the bow, he snaps the spear,
he gives shields to the flames.
"Pause a while and know that I am God,
exalted among the nations, exalted over the earth!"

Psalm 46:8-10

The costs of the Iraqi War are $157.8 billion and counting -- the money that could have been spent, for instance, to insure 94.5 million children for one year or provide four-year scholarships at public universities for 7.7 million students." - Furuhashi, "How Do We Resist This Ruinous War?", CounterPunch, March 25, 2005.

We must stand with Jesus Christ, the defeated one. Our leader is not the Arnold Schwartzenegger of the moment, rather "there was in him no stately bearing to make us look at him, nor appearance that would attract us to him." (Isaiah 52:19). Each in his or her own place can begin to do the small things that put an end to violence, in ourselves first, and then among the nest of lies that become bullets in the flesh of the innocent. Among the defeated, all are welcome, anyone can speak a word that deflates the myth, that pokes holes of silence into the ranting beast. Since we are defeated, we need not waste our substance in dreams that keep the voice of violence alive in us. Out of truth comes true hope. Out of defeat the ability to see truth.

"Every person of conscience in the United States right now should be putting everything into ending the war on Iraq. The US military is killing thousands of human beings, wounding thousands, traumatizing infants and children, destroying families, destroying cities. This is not one issue among many. This is an emergency to which we must not become adjusted and numb. This is life and death. People are murdering in our name.

Anger and vengeance are being nurtured by actions we are allowing to occur. We are encouraging international armament and militarism by failing to restrain our government. We are allowing the world to move closer to nuclear disaster, a catastrophe that looms more urgently than global warming." "Peace in Iraq Now", Progressive Democrats of America, March 15, 2005.

The Fate of Humanity

"When war, as in these days in Iraq, threatens the fate of humanity, it is ever more urgent to proclaim, with a strong and decisive voice, that only peace is the road to follow to construct a more just and united society." -Pope John Paul II

The following report from Fallujah by Guiliana Sgrena may well have something to do with why the U.S. may not have wanted her to leave Iraq alive: "This month of November will be remembered as one of the bloodiest of the occupation. Since the beginning of the month, which is not yet finished, 109 Marines have been killed, a figure already greater than that of the earlier attack on Fallujah, last April. But it is above all the Iraqis who are paying the highest tribute : 2,085 killed in the attack according to the information given out by Iraqi Security Minister Quassim Daud, without specifying the number of civilians. The problem, says the Minister, is that of identification, as many of the victims were not carrying documents. But many observers say that the problem is that many of the bodies were unrecognisable because they were so carbonised that the use of napalm was suspected. At the same time as the victim count from Fallujah, more disturbing news is arriving from Oslo in the form of the report of an investigation conducted by the Iraqi Health Ministry, in conjunction with the Norwegian FAFO Institute for applied international studies and UNDP, into the health of Iraqi children. The report states that since the beginning of the war (March 2003) the number of Iraqi children under the age of 5 suffering from acute malnutrition has doubled, passing from 4 to 7.7%. Further, over 400,000 are suffering from chronic diarrhoea and protein deficit." - Il Manifesto, March 10, 2005.

Let us pray for the children of Iraq. May they be wiser than those who have burned the flesh of those whose human needs they could not understand, who use chemicals to destroy the faces that will one day gaze on them, perhaps with forgiveness. Let us beg God for this forgiveness for ourselves and them.

Little by Little

The war in Iraq will one day be the glass cabinet case of why violence fails. Just as intelligence agents of discretion disavow torture as unreliable, so pre-emptive war, along with war in general, will one day be consigned to the desperate measures of the incompetent. The Church, despite the silence of so many bishops, has stared from this abyss with an eagle's eye. When the madness ends in shame and amnesia, she will call to her lost sons with healing in her wings.

The words from Pacem in Terris ring out like Elijah, "We would remind such people that it is the law of nature that all things must be of gradual growth. If there is to be any improvement in human institutions, the work must be done slowly and deliberately from within. Pope Pius XII expressed it in these terms: 'Salvation and justice consist not in the uprooting of an outdated system, but in a well designed policy of development. Hotheadedness was never constructive; it has always destroyed everything. It has inflamed passions, but never assuaged them. It sows no seeds but those of hatred and destruction. Far from bringing about the reconciliation of contending parties, it reduces men and political parties to the necessity of laboriously redoing the work of the past, building on the ruins that disharmony has left in its wake.'"

How much damage is left to be undone? "Read the searing account of Dr Salam Ismael, who took aid to Fallujah in January. He describes the ordeal of a 17-year-old girl, Hudda Fawzi. Her father opened the door to US marines who shot him and a friend dead, then shot her elder sister, having beaten her senseless, then destroyed the family's furniture. Wounded people were dragged from their homes and run over by tanks; a clinic was destroyed by missiles. 'It became clear to us,' Ismael wrote, 'that we were witnessing the aftermath of a massacre, the cold-blooded butchery of helpless and defenceless civilians.' It is not surprising that the Blair government has refused Ismael fresh permission to visit and speak out in Britain. His testimony, and that of many other reliable witnesses, is known and feared. Last April, the US command agreed that it may well have slaughtered as many as 600 people in Fallujah." - "Protecting a Regime with Blood on its Hands", John Pilger, The New Statesman, March 4, 2005.

Another prophet wrote words which should be chiseled on the walls of Abu Ghraib, "Whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, or wilful self-destruction, whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself; whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where people are treated as mere instruments of gain rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others like them are infamies indeed. They poison human society, and they do more harm to those who practice them than to those who suffer from the injury. Moreover, they are a supreme dishonor to the Creator". Gaudium et Spes, 27.

God forgive us our silence, the harm we have written in our souls and the souls of those we have allowed to be tormented while we refused to listen.

Over My Dead Body

'"Over my dead body are they going to make me go back."

"I knew he was having dreams, nightmares," Lisset said. "He would wake up at night really sweaty."

On Dec. 6, he showed up for work, his uniform pressed, his boots polished. He sang cadence.

That night, he was found hanging in his barracks. Sgt. Curtis Greene, 331st Signal Company, was 25.

...The study found that 72 percent of soldiers reported their unit's morale was low; it found that mental health workers there felt untrained to treat combat stress.

Because of these barriers to getting care, many experts believe the number of soldiers in Iraq suffering from combat-related psychological problems is far greater than one out of six.

"...Lisset said he had nightmares and couldn't sleep. He cried easily, but avoided talking about Iraq.

"He just said it was ugly, and that you don't know what it's like until you're there," she said. "He always said he wouldn't wish it on his worst enemy."

When the evening news reported deaths in Iraq, he would weep and ask her to turn off the TV.

"He really cried, like it was someone he knew," she said. "He'd say that we shouldn't be there. He always wanted to know why we were there."' - "Over My Dead Body", St. Petersburg Times, Feb. 14, 2005. (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0214-09.htm)

In the words of Stan Goff, "...we are empty and incapable of truly connecting to people any more, and maybe we can go for months or even years before we fill that void where we surrendered our humanity..."

Each time we kill we surrender a piece of our humanity. The myth that tells us we should do it doesn't matter. It's the same now as it was 5000 years ago. Each murder, no matter how noble the lie for which it was committed, eats into our soul and steals a part of your being.

Genesis 4:10: 'And He said, "What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood cries out to Me from the ground. So now you are cursed from the earth, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you till the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. A fugitive and a vagabond you shall be on the earth.'

"God alone is the Lord of life from its beginning until its end: no one can under any circumstance claim for himself the right directly to destroy an innocent human being." Catechism, 2258.

"What made you establish man in so great a dignity? Certainly the incalculable love by which you have looked on your creature in yourself! You are taken with love for her; for by love indeed you created her, by love you have given her a being capable of tasting your eternal Good." Catechism, 356.

By love, each Iraqi was created. God loves each of us with an eternal love. What curse shall we bring on ourselves by destroying what God loves? Perhaps the curse which Sgt. Curtis Greene discovered when he looked at the dark streak in his soul. The fundamental lie is that we can murder with impunity. No "war on terror" or "surgical operation" can make it right. Ever. But we must never forget his mercy.

The Millstone

"But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea." - Mark 9:42

Lord, let my heart not be a millstone around the necks of those who want to come to Christ.

Before reading the following story, cast your memory back to a time when you might have tried to speak with someone of another faith about Jesus and his healing power. Then imagine that person in the following situation, at the same time recalling the documented fact that most of those at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib were simply devout Muslims who found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Gitmo Soldier Details Sexual Tactics
- ABC News, Feb 12, 2005 (http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=451856&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312)

"In another case, Saar describes a female military interrogator questioning an uncooperative 21-year-old Saudi detainee who allegedly had taken flying lessons in Arizona before the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Suspected Sept. 11 hijacker Hani Hanjour received pilot instruction for three months in 1996 and in December 1997 at a flight school in Scottsdale, Ariz.

"His female interrogator decided that she needed to turn up the heat," Saar writes, saying she repeatedly asked the detainee who had sent him to Arizona, telling him he could "cooperate" or "have no hope whatsoever of ever leaving this place or talking to a lawyer.'"

The man closed his eyes and began to pray, Saar writes.

The female interrogator wanted to "break him," Saar adds, describing how she removed her uniform top to expose a tight-fitting T-shirt and began taunting the detainee, touching her breasts, rubbing them against the prisoner's back and commenting on his apparent erection.

The detainee looked up and spat in her face, the manuscript recounts.

The interrogator left the room to ask a Muslim linguist how she could break the prisoner's reliance on God. The linguist told her to tell the detainee that she was menstruating, touch him, then make sure to turn off the water in his cell so he couldn't wash.

Strict interpretation of Islamic law forbids physical contact with women other than a man's wife or family, and with any menstruating women, who are considered unclean.

"The concept was to make the detainee feel that after talking to her he was unclean and was unable to go before his God in prayer and gain strength," says the draft, stamped "Secret."

The interrogator used ink from a red pen to fool the detainee, Saar writes.

"She then started to place her hands in her pants as she walked behind the detainee," he says. "As she circled around him he could see that she was taking her hand out of her pants. When it became visible the detainee saw what appeared to be red blood on her hand. She said, 'Who sent you to Arizona?' He then glared at her with a piercing look of hatred.

"She then wiped the red ink on his face. He shouted at the top of his lungs, spat at her and lunged forward" so fiercely that he broke loose from one ankle shackle.

"He began to cry like a baby," the draft says, noting the interrogator left saying, "Have a fun night in your cell without any water to clean yourself."

This was done to a man so that he could not receive strength from God to resist temptation. What is the name for those who do such things?

"I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted." - Luke 18:14

"Scandal is an attitude or behavior which leads another to do evil. The person who gives scandal becomes his neighbor's tempter. He damages virtue and integrity; he may even draw his brother into spiritual death. Scandal is a grave offense if by deed or omission another is deliberately led into a grave offense." Catechism, 2284.

Be still my heart. Lord, love sometimes fades in me when I think of those willing to torture your children. How must it grieve your heart to see us when we seek to tear others away from your strength and the hope that burns within them? I pray that those who do such things will open their hearts to you and put away their instruments of torture. I also pray that those who lead your flock will have the courage to speak your word clearly so that your confused children may turn away from sin.

Welcome, Fr. McCarthy!

Due to the helpful direction of Fr. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy, I have identified two Catholic bishops that have the courage to speak out strongly and publicly about the illegal U.S. war in Iraq. First, we'll report on Bishop John Michael Botean.

Let's first establish the context. According to "Your Catholic Voice" on Feb. 16, 2004, "In the time from the terrorist attacks on the United States to the war in Iraq, the Bush administration adopted a new foreign policy that most Vatican officials found they could not agree with on principle. Cardinal Ratzinger bluntly stated that preventative war was incompatible with the Catechism, with many Vatican officials suggesting that waging such a war with Iraq would then be illegal." (http://www.yourcatholicvoice.org/index.php?id=article&article=713)

There are many other such statements, several originating with the Holy Father himself, some of which we have referenced in this blog. Due to the hints of Fr. McCarthy, I have uncovered much more Church material toward this war in Iraq which I will be commenting on over the next few weeks.

However, to give honor where it is due, here is an excerpt from a statement by Bishop John Michael Botean, the head of the Romanian Catholic eparchy (diocese) of St. George in Canton, Ohio on March 18, 2003: "The bishop declared with 'moral certainty' that the proposed attack on Iraq "does not meet even the minimal standards of the Catholic just-war theory."

"Bishop Botean acknowledged that the Catechism of the Catholic Church (2309) identifies public authorities as the final judges of whether military action is justified. But he argued that "the nation-state is never the final arbiter or authority for the Catholic of what is moral." An unjust law or order should not be obeyed, he observed."

The article goes on: "This is not a bishop functioning as a political lobbyist, nor is it a bishop simply giving good advise to his people, nor is it a bishop functioning as a theological disputant with anyone inside or outside his Church. This is a bishop declaring to those who are actively one with him by Baptism and by faith in Christ and His Church, that as the final authority in matters of faith and morals in their Community, this war is intrinsically evil and therefore morally impermissible for them."

"Please be aware that I am not speaking to you as a theologian or as a private Christian voicing his opinion, nor by any means am I speaking to you as a political partisan. I am speaking to you solely as your bishop with the authority and responsibility I, though a sinner, have been given as a successor to the apostles on your behalf. I am speaking to you from the deepest chambers of my conscience as your bishop, appointed by Jesus Christ in his Body, the Church, to help shepherd you to sanctity and to heaven. Never before have I spoken to you in this manner, explicitly exercising the fullness of authority Jesus Christ has given his Apostles “to bind and to loose,” (cf. John 20:23), but now “the love of Christ compels” me to do so (2 Corinthians 5:14). My love for you makes it a moral imperative that I not allow you, by my silence, to fall into grave evil and its incalculable temporal and eternal consequences."

"Therefore I, by the grace of God and the favor of the Apostolic See Bishop
of the Eparchy of St. George in Canton, must declare to you, my people, for
the sake of your salvation as well as my own, that any direct participation
and support of this war against the people of Iraq is objectively grave
evil, a matter of mortal sin. Beyond a reasonable doubt this war is morally
incompatible with the Person and Way of Jesus Christ. With moral certainty I
say to you it does not meet even the minimal standards of the Catholic just
war theory." - CWNews.com, Mar. 18, 2003 Read the complete article at http://cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=20142

Let us pray for those whose hearts have been so blinded by violence and propaganda that they no longer hear the voice of our Mother.

Loving Our Enemies

As anti-war Christians, we must not make the mistakes of many of the Vietnam-era protesters. To love our enemies means not to undermine their moral fervor. We must respect the idealism of those who justify war by using an appeal to bringing democracy and freedom to the world. There is a world of difference between showing the means to the end to be morally flawed and casting aspersions on the ideal itself. The mistake of the Vietnam protests was to promote a nihilistic cynicism that brought all ideals into question. Let us take the opposite path this time and give honor to what is real in the idealism of our opponents, while doing everything possible to magnify the dissonance between those ideals and the means they use to carry them out.

The Freedom

What American heart does not thrill to hear the following words: "Because we have acted in the great liberating tradition of this nation, tens of millions have achieved their freedom. And as hope kindles hope, millions more will find it. By our efforts we have lit a fire as well, a fire in the minds of men. It warms those who feel its power; it burns those who fight its progress. And one day this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world." - George W. Bush, inauguration speech, Jan. 20, 2005.

The fires that burn in Iraq are not fires of the mind. One fire is the fire of fear: "Ah the freedom. Look, we have the gas-line freedom, the looting freedom, the killing freedom, the rape freedom, the hash-smoking freedom. I don't know what to do with all this freedom." -Akeel, a 26 year old Baghdad resident on life in the new Iraq.

It is precisely the mind that is absent. All other fires burn brightly. The fire of phosphorus which melts human skin and water intensifies. Easy it is to feel the thrill of the rhetoric and let that mythology airbrush away the faces of those murdered in Fallujah, blood-soaked children whose parents were killed at a checkpoint because nobody thought that soldiers in Iraq would need to know Arabic, or armless girls struck by precision-guided missles. How many sincere converts to democracy have been made by smart bombs and napalm?

What is the fundamental principle that is being violated here? The means and the end must be in conformity with each other. If you wish to promote freedom, you must use the tools of freedom - education, open debate, and freely-formed associations. The tools of coercion can only achieve conformity through fear - a direct contradiction of the goal. You can bomb the world to pieces, but you can't bomb it into peace, or democracy.

Sabbatical

Dear readers of Nonviolent Jesus,

Due to the continuing crimes of the U.S. and others in Iraq, I have decided to make a change in my life's direction. The silence of the last few weeks has been intentional because I feel that the God-inspired response to this attack on God's compassion is to fill myself with the teachings of the Church regarding the honor to be accorded to the human person. Thus armed, I will return to this blog shortly, as the war expands in ever-widening circles and the desire to dominate flares up in forgetful hearts. "Be not afraid." Also, I would greatly appreciate it if you would forward your thoughts/criticisms about the blog and it's current direction. Pray for me.

War Crimes Documentation

Journalists and activists have now demonstrated direct violations of the Geneva Conventions in the attack (still ongoing) on Fallujah from November to the present. Over the next few weeks, I will be collecting and presenting the evidence of these crimes for those in the Catholic Peace community who care about such matters. Needless to say, the silence of the U.S. Church hierarchy has been nothing less than deafening. MADRE, an international women’s human rights organization, has begun the process of denounciation. See http://www.commondreams.org/news2004/1210-01.htm for a listing of the known crimes so far. The list declares a desperate reversion to the most inhuman tactics of the Vietnam war. As a committed peace activist, my job over the next several weeks will be to find documentation for each of these breaches so that Pax Christi members can use this evidence to pursue those responsible for these atrocities in the court of God's law if no other courts will take the case. Will you join me in this effort? If anyone knows of breaches and has hard evidence for them, please send your information to me at brcoll[at]houston.rr.com. Please don't let us be silent in the face of crimes being carried out in our name.

War Crimes in Fallujah

"'The first time you get shot at from a building, it's rubble," [Capt. Paul]Fowler told his platoon leaders. ''No questions asked."

Suspected enemy buildings were to be ''cleared by fire" before troops entered. ''No boots on the ground unless you're looking for body parts," Fowler said.

Guerrillas kept attacking the Iraqi troops as they tried to hold the hospital. A row of houses nearby was nearly demolished. ''We're just cleaning up the trash," Fowler said." - Reports from the Battle of Fallujah, November, 2004.

"To attain the good of peace there must be a clear and conscious acknowledgment that violence is an unacceptable evil and that it never solves problems. "Violence is a lie, for it goes against the truth of our faith, the truth of our humanity. Violence destroys what it claims to defend: the dignity, the life, the freedom of human beings'" - Message for the World Day of Peace, 2005, John Paul II.

Christian Leadership

"The Americans shot every boat on the river because people were trying to escape Fallujah by the river. They shot all the sheep, any animal people owned was shot. Helicopters shot all the animals and anything that moved in all the villages surrounding Fallujah during the fighting.

He said that none of the roads into Fallujah, or around Fallujah were passable because anyone on them was shot. 'I know one family that were all killed.'" - Iraq Dispatches, Dahr Jamail, Dec. 9, 2004.

Precision-Guided Missiles

Anglican bishops speak out:

"The figures for ’collateral damage’ that are emerging are unacceptable in a society that prides itself on civilised values.

It is essential that immediate aid is delivered to the most vulnerable in Fallujah and that long-term assistance is guaranteed for the rebuilding of the homes and infrastructure that have been obliterated.

Secondly, we need to acknowledge that huge numbers of Iraqi Muslims, and in particular those from the Sunni Triangle, increasingly regard the current military action as a war between religions.

The battle for Fallujah began on one of the holiest days on the Muslim calendar, the day when the giving of the Koran is celebrated." - Fallujah Civilian Deaths Not Acceptable, Say Bishops, Scotsman, Nov. 16, 2004.

We are still awaiting word from any of our readers with similar statements from Catholic bishops. The Red Cross estimates that as many as 6000 were killed in the attack on Fallujah. Those with sufficient stomach can see photographic evidence of U.S. efforts to liberate Iraq at http://dahrjamailiraq.com/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=album28&page=1.

Where are the Christian voices to cry out with the people of Iraq in saying, "Iraq is burning with wrath, anger and sadness…the people of Fallujah are dear to us. They are our brothers and sisters and we are so saddened by what is happening in that city." - Iraq Dispatches, Dahr Jamail, Dec. 8, 2004.

Dear Lord, give us the gift of sadness and wrath. Leave us not to stew in our distractions while our means are spent to murder families, that "sign and image of the communion of the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #2205) in their homes. Open our eyes to see brothers and sisters rather than insurgents and terrorists.

The Rights and Duties of Man

"Dr. Sami al-Jumaili described how US warplanes bombed the Central Health Centre in which he was working at 5:30 am on November 9. The clinic had been treating many of the city's sick and wounded after US forces took over the main hospital at the start of the invasion. According to Dr. al-Jumaili, US warplanes dropped three bombs on the clinic, where approximately sixty patients--many of whom had serious injuries from US aerial bombings and attacks--were being treated.

Dr. al-Jumaili reports that thirty-five patients were killed in the airstrike, including two girls and three boys under the age of 10. In addition, he said, fifteen medics, four nurses and five health support staff were killed, among them health aides Sami Omar and Omar Mahmoud, nurses Ali Amini and Omar Ahmed, and physicians Muhammad Abbas, Hamid Rabia, Saluan al-Kubaissy and Mustafa Sheriff." - Miles Schuman, "Falluja's Health Damage", The Nation, NOv. 24, 2004.

In 1948, the United States distinguished itself as leader of the free world by signing "The American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man", a declaration adopted by the members of the OAS. It was the world's first international human rights instrument of a general nature, predating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by more than six months. The guiding spirit of the document can be read from it's initial statement: "All men are born free and equal, in dignity and in rights, and, being endowed by nature with reason and conscience, they should conduct themselves as brothers one to another."

Among it's provisions:

Article I. Every human being has the right to life, liberty and the security of his person.

Article V. Every person has the right to the protection of the law against abusive attacks upon his honor, his reputation, and his private and family life.

Article XI. Every person has the right to the preservation of his health through sanitary and social measures relating to food, clothing, housing and medical care, to the extent permitted by public and community resources.

Please read and respond to the full story with complete documentation and legal citation at http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=7966. And please consider joining with Humanitarian Law Project / International Educational Development (HLP/IED) and San Francisco-based Association of Humanitarian Lawyers (AHL) against the United States, along with Veterans For Peace who have endorsed the petition.

License to Kill

"In comments reported by the UN information network Irin, spokesman Muhammad al-Nuri said the Red Crescent believed more than 6,000 people may have died in the fight for Falluja." - "Aid reaches Falluja's citizens", BBC News, Nov. 27, 2004.

"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent." Isaac Asimov, Salvor Hardin in "Foundation"

In the words of a Bush aide: "'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'"- David Suskind, "Without a Doubt", New York Times, Oct. 17, 2004

Do not pile boasting upon boasting:
keep proud words far from your mouth,
for the Lord is the God of all knowledge
and the judge of all actions.

The bow of the mighty is broken,
and the weak are clothed in strength.
Those who fed well must hire themselves out, for bread;
but the hungry are hungry no longer.
The barren woman has given birth to many;
but she who had many sons is left desolate.
- 1 Samuel 2

Medical Personnel Tied and Beaten

"The wounded and sick must be collected and cared for by the party to the conflict which has them in its power. Medical personnel and medical establishments, transports and equipment must be spared." - International Committee of the Red Cross.

"They [Al-Jazeera] report today that Asma Khamis al-Muhannadi, a doctor who witnessed the U.S. and Iraqi National Guard raid the general hospital, said, 'We were tied up and beaten despite being unarmed and having only our medical instruments.'

She said the hospital was targeted by bombs and rockets during the initial siege of Fallujah, and troops dragged patients from their beds and pushed them against the wall.

She continued on, "I was with a woman in labor," she said. "The umbilical cord had not yet been cut. At that time, a U.S. soldier shouted at one of the [Iraqi] National Guards to arrest me and tie my hands while I was helping the mother to deliver. I will never forget this incident in my life." - " Dogs Eating Bodies in the Streets of Fallujah", Dahr Jamail, Nov. 16, 2004.

Where are the Bishops?

"As hostilities continue in Falluja and elsewhere, every day seems to bring news of yet another act of utter contempt for the most basic tenet of humanity," said Pierre Kraehenbuhl, the ICRC's director of operations.

"Like any other armed conflict, this one is subject to limits, and they must be respected at all times," he added.

The Red Cross has issued a statement in which it can barely hide its anger, says the BBC's Imogen Foulkes in Geneva." "Red Cross hits out at Iraq abuses", BBC, Nov. 19, 2004.

"Actions deliberately contrary to the law of nations and to its universal principles are crimes, as are the orders that command such actions. Blind obedience does not suffice to excuse those who carry them out. Thus the extermination of a people, nation, or ethnic minority must be condemned as a mortal sin. One is morally bound to resist orders that command genocide." Catechism of the Catholic Church, para. #2313

Denial of Water to Iraqi Cities

"Water supplies to Tall Afar, Samarra and Fallujah were cut off during US attacks during the past two months, affecting up to 750,000 civilians. This appears to form part of a deliberate US policy of denying water to the residents of cities under attack. If so, it has been adopted without a public debate, and without consulting Coalition partners. It is a serious breach of international humanitarian law, and is deepening Iraqi opposition to the United States, other coalition members, and the Iraqi government." - "Denial of Water to Iraqi Cities", Cambridge Solidarity with Iraq, November 10, 2004. Please read the fully documented report at the following URL: http://www.casi.org.uk/briefing/041110denialofwater.pdf.

We can hear these voices in our hearts. The voices of those dying of disease from sewage-saturated waters - hearts eaten by despair, the impossible burden of fighting on in the face of blind and relentless American brutality. Ordinary people swept up into an incomprehensible fate - if you listen carefully, you can hear the cry for peace.

Where are the voices of the bishops who wrote the following in 1993: "Noncombatant Immunity: civilians may not be the object of direct attack, and military personnel must take due care to avoid and minimize indirect harm to civilians;" - The Harvest of Justice is Sown in Peace, November 17, 1993, National Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Where are the voices of those who wrote in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph #2314: "Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation."

War Crimes in Fallujah

"Starvation of civilians as a method of combat is prohibited. It is therefore prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless for that purpose, objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population such as food-stuffs, agricultural areas for the production of food-stuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works." - Article 14 of the second protocol of the Geneva Conventions

On 16 October the Washington Post reported that:
"Electricity and water were cut off to the city [Fallujah] just as a fresh wave of strikes began Thursday night, an action that U.S. forces also took at the start of assaults on Najaf and Samarra."

"Residents of Fallujah have told the UN’s Integrated Regional Information Networks that they had no food or clean water and did not have time to store enough to hold out through the impending battle. The water shortage has been confirmed by other civilians fleeing Fallujah, Fadhil Badrani, a BBC journalist in Falluja, confirmed on 8 November that the water supply has been cut off.

In light of the shortage of water and other supplies, the Red Cross has attempted
to deliver water to Fallujah. However the US has refused to allow shipments of
water into the Fallujah until it has taken control of the city." - "Denial of Water to Iraqi Cities", publication of Cambridge Solidarity with Iraq, November, 2004.

Two fundamental Catholic moral principles regarding the conduct of armed conflict are:

"1) Noncombatant Immunity: civilians may not be the object of direct attack, and military personnel must take due care to avoid and minimize indirect harm to civilians;
2) Proportionality: in the conduct of hostilities, efforts must be made to attain military objectives with no more force than is militarily necessary and to avoid disproportionate collateral damage to civilian life and property;" - "The Harvest of Justice is Sown in Peace", National Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1993.

In solidary with the people of Iraq, I pray that our bishops will raise their voices in protest at this blatant violation of Catholic teachings on restraint during war.

Grief and Prayer

I have been unable to post for several days while the U.S. writes another tragedy in the blood of this endlessly suffering people. Henri Nouwen reminds us that grief is a way to compassion, and grief has seized my heart in these last few days, as I sit helplessly while those acting in my name carry out a slaughter that is not only immoral, but ultimately inane. Already it is clear that the effect of this manuver has been to spark rebellions in dozens of other cities, to create a potent symbol and rallying cry for those fighting for their country.

As Americans, we often stigmatize grief as weakness. The strong should shake off grief and carry on with the battle, our culture shouts at us. But shaking off grief is often the refusal of a precious gift. In the words of Henri Nouwen, "Grief asks me to allow the sins of the world - my own included - to pierce my heart and make me shed tears, many tears, for them. There is no compassion without many tears. If they can't be tears that stream from my eyes, they have to be at least tears that well up from my heart. When I consider the immense waywardness of God's children, our lust, our greed, our violence, our anger, our resentment, and when I look at them through the eyes of God's heart, I cannot but weep and cry out with grief...This grieving is praying. There are so few mourners left in this world. But grief is the discipline of the heart that sees the sin of the world, and knows itself to be the sorrowful price of freedom without which love cannot bloom. I am beginning to see that much of praying is grieving. This grief is so deep not just because the human sin is so great, but also - and more so - because the divine love is so boundless." - Nouwen, Henri. The Return of the Prodigal Son. New York: Doubleday, 1992.