Op Ed from April 2004

Written in early April 2004 – not accepted by ACT, but Asheville Friends Meeting published it. -

"Those who came to "liberate" us from Saddam have caused mass graves, except that this time, it's in front of the whole world. What are you going to do about it? The eyes of children, which is filled with horror, carries that question." – Faiza, a blogger who lives in Baghdad

Well over four decades ago, I remember hearing my parents talk about horrible events taking place in the southern United States. That was when I learned words such as "lynching" and "mutilation" by reading them in the newspaper. One word I remember having to look up was "genitals". I remember my parents speaking with disgust about the actions of some white people in the south. They were convinced that they, and their neighbors, could never do such a thing. It was many years later that I came to realize that horrible acts of violence could be committed by any group of people, and the victims of such violence could belong to any group of people. We are all capable of great evil and of great goodness.

Today, Iraq is on fire. On March 26^th, Marines went into Fallujah and encountered guerrilla fighters. The Marines killed 15 people, and three of them were children. This was little reported in our news. On March 30^th, some people in Fallujah killed four American security contractors who were safe-guarding food to bring to our troops. According to reporting by Ted Koppel, those security guards are all ex-military, well armed and well trained. They are part of the second largest militia in Iraq (after US troops), a private militia. What happened to them reminded me of the lynchings that took place here in the southern USA not that long ago. In response, this week the Marines started an offensive in Fallujah. Now we hear of a new mass grave in Iraq, in a soccer field, and over 600 Iraqi dead. It seems unlikely to me that this approach will catch the true perpetrators of the original crimes. I have yet to see any pictures of the children killed in this offensive on US television. I have seen dozens on the internet.

A headline in the NY Times today says "US Prepares A Prolonged Drive to Suppress The Uprising in Iraq". This fills me with dread, both for the Iraqi people and our troops over there. Our TV media shows scenes of Iraqi violence and American hostages and American victims over and over. They mention the number of Iraqi who have died in Fallujah this past week, yet they do little in-depth reporting. The Arab TV stations do the same thing, only they report on American violence and aggression and Iraqi deaths and injuries. (They have more to work with, because our firepower is much greater.) Both American and Arab television, in my opinion, are promoting violence as an acceptable solution to the perceived wrongdoing of the other side. Neither side looks at how they are inflaming the situation.

President Bush told us that Saddam had WMDs, connections to al Qaeda, and was a threat to the US. None of this was true. We went into an optional war for bogus reasons. We were more recently told that we are there to bring Iraqis freedom and democracy. To many of the Iraqis, we have brought the freedom of the grave and the democracy of death.

What are we going to do about this? It seems an increase in offensive action against the guerillas will only result in more injuries and death to innocents, without providing a real solution. To leave Iraq may lead to total anarchy and civil war. I believe the best answer, out of many bad answers, is to turn this over to the United Nations and pull our troops out of Iraq. I believe the US has a moral responsibility to attempt to fix what we have broken, and therefore should finance the UN activities in Iraq, for however long it takes.

I hope we never repeat this horror. I hope our elected leaders realize what a terrible mistake they have made here. I hope, next time, the voices of peace and reason are clearly heard before it is too late. I hope we will find political solutions to our problems, and turn away from violence. I hope we ask ourselves "what are we doing?" I fear there will be no happy ending to this war, and the horror in the eyes of the children will only grow. Please pray for our troops and the people of Iraq.

The White House comment line is 202-456-1111. The phone number for Senator Dole is 202-224-6342. The phone number for Senator Edwards is 202-224-3154. The phone number for Representative Taylor is 828-251-1988. They need your prayers and they need to hear from you.

[Of course, there is no point in calling these people at this time - they are ALL out of office! But it might be a good idea to call the ones who are in office now. Picture is an Iraqi child from Tel Afar, picture taken in January 2005. ]