03.18.07

End the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

Posted in Christianity, Social Justice, Unitarian Universalism, Peace at 3:01 pm by Freeman Wicklund

All beings suffer during wars. A dog at the March 17, 2007 peace rally in DC.

Thousands of people, myself included, marched to the Pentagon yesterday to voice our opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Why oppose the war?

According to a factsheet accompanying an open letter to Congress by the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) President, William Sinkford:

The toll of the war on Iraqi civilians has been devastating. Estimates of the number of Iraqi dead range up to half a million.

More than 34,000 Iraqi civilians were killed in Iraq in 2006 alone. That is equivalent to 93 civilians killed every day….

More than 3,100 American service members have been killed since the invasion, and more than 23,500 soldiers have been wounded. As many as 300,000 veterans have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, two-thirds of whom are not being treated….

As many as 3.8 million Iraqis have already fled their homes, and an additional 10,500 civilians become refugees on average every week….

We must always remember that these people are who are being killed, injured, and harmed are people like you and me.

Counter demonstrators tell peace advocates, “Go to hell traitors.”

I spoke with two counter demonstrators at the rally who were self-proclaimed Christians. They believed the war was just and good and did not seem very concerned with the thousands of innocent victims of the war. I think for many of us who live in the U.S.A., we live in a bubble that prevents us from understanding the horror of war. We intellecutalize war, and by making it into an abstraction, or a statistic, we allow ourselves to sanitize it in our heads.

The Realities of War

But war is about people’s lives, deaths, and suffering. For a reality check, here are pictures of innocent civilians who have been harmed by the war in Iraq (Warning, these pictures are disturbing and not suitable for children):

• A girl whose foot looks as though it was put in a blender.

• A child whose face and eye were injured.

• An injured man on a hospital gurney.

• Another victim lying dead and bloody in an entranceway.

• A victim whose arms and chest are black from burns.

I will spare you the photos of corpses mangled beyond recognition, and severed body parts strewn on the ground. The point is that wars create hell on earth for all who are involved.

A demonstrator reminds us of Gandhi’s truth that, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”

A Country in Chaos

Yanar Mohammed lives in Iraq and founded the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq. In a February 2007 interview with Satya Magazine, Yanar talks about what life is like for people in Iraq:

Just imagine another country invades where you live. In a moment’s time all the ministries of the government are out. It is the end of all police, army and government services. All the civil institutions and frameworks begin to fall apart. The hospitals are frozen. A lock-down is placed on everybody. We have no electricity, no security. A civil war has started, and a hideous form of democracy has been imposed on us—putting ethnic bigot rulers and tribal heads as representatives of the Iraqi people.

Yanar is angered by the fact that all of the hard-fought gains for Iraqi women that have been made over the years, have been lost by those put in charge by U.S. forces.

The new Iraqi consitution states that all people are equal regardless of sex. But in the same way that the United States’ constitution said that “all men are created equal” while still allowing human slavery, the Iraqi constitution has ruled that no law can be passed that contradicts the “established rulings” of Islam, which undermines womens’ rights and freedom.

These fundamentalist Islamic rulings, known as “Sharia,” means the reinstated legal sanction of barbaric “honor killings.” Yanar explains:

[Honor Killings] are an archaic tribal ritual where women, treated as the property of the tribe, can only have relationships with men chosen for them in the tribe, usually her cousin. And if she does not agree to it, she will be forbidden from marrying all her life. And if she even thinks about falling in love with somebody else, the tribe will immediately get rid of her in order to cleanse its honor. This is legal in Iraq. It is legal for any male in the family to kill any female in the family if she is suspected of acting against the honor of the tribe. The male doesn’t have to see the act; it only has to be suspected.

I need to point out when I was growing up honor killings had [become so rare] we didn’t hear about them anymore. It was during the economic sanctions, when we basically became isolated from the world and deprived as a poor country they started to rise again. But nothing like this. It has never, ever been like now. In the last few years I have heard stories I could never imagine happening in metropolitan Baghdad. It has reached the point where hanging the palm of the honorless girl from your doorway has become a common symbol of cleansing. Just imagine a war turning your life upside-down and now you are in fear of being killed and dismembered by your own family. A father, a brother chopping the palm off your body and nailing it to the front door.

Rape survivors are also murdered in “honor killings.” Yanar is coordinating an undeground railroad for women who are targeted for honor killings, spririting them from house to house and out of the country.

Demonstrator at the March to the Pentagon rally on March 17, 2007

Should Christians Oppose the War?

During my discussion with the two Christian counter demonstrators, I asked them “Where is the love in war?” They responded frankly, “There isn’t any.” On that, we both agree.

And yet, Jesus told us, “Love your enemies” (Matthew 5:44). The sixth commandment says “You shall not murder.” (Exodus 20:13). John wrote, “We should love one another….Anyone who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer….Let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God” (1 John 3:11, 14-15, and 4:7). Shouldn’t Christians, as well as all good people, oppose these horrendous wars?

Several volunteers, myself included, distributed vegetarian literature to over a thousand pro and anti-war advocates at the rally.

What We Can Do

Here is what you can do to help bring about peace in Iraq and the world.

1. Contact your Federal representatives and encourage them to bring the troops home now. The UUA factsheet notes that the U.S. has spent $400 billion dollars to date on the war. It is time that we bring the troops home and start using funds to provide aid and assistance for the Iraqi and American families who have lost loved ones during this war, and to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan.

2. Live a life of peace. Gandhi reminds us, “You must be the change you want to see in the world.” True peace will only come when we are able to live at peace with our human and animal neighbors. Cultivate your spiritual values: love, patience, kindness, generosity, service, respect, courage, etc. This is a lifelong task, but it if we want to create a truly peaceful world, there is no way to avoid it. Does your life encourage peace and freedom for all beings?

<em>This text was written in 2007 by Freeman Wicklund of <a href=”http://www.freemanwicklund.org” target=”_none”>FreemanWicklund.org</a>, and it may be freely reprinted or distributed in any e-zine, e-mail, newsletter or blog as long as this sentence and Web link are included. </em>
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