[Peace-discuss] Soldiers are dying for a failed, arrogant, theologically unjust, and immoral war policy.

[C. G. Estabrook]

  Well said.


On 9/24/10 11:05 PM, E.Wayne Johnson wrote:
>  ("Ecce homo."
>
>  Some of the Christian and so-called Christian groups in the USA are
>  well-meaning and many of them want nothing more than to be in line
>  with the Truth. But along with the weekly serving of pap and pablum
>  that they get is a shot of pseudopatriotic American jingoism that
>  should come with a label warning about Death in the Kettle for the
>  neoconservative venom that permeates the fare. But not every knee in
>  the Church has bowed to Baal.
>
>  While I dont agree 100% with this writer ("Come home, America" seems
>  closer to the mark to me than the prolonged American interventionism
>  he suggests), I do wish that this sort of talk was more common than
>  the usual nonsense about the US having a Mandate from Heaven to
>  Police the World.)
>
>  *Time to End This War*
>
>  *Soldiers are dying for a failed, arrogant, theologically unjust, and
>  immoral war policy.* /By Jim Wallis/
>
>  Gen. David Petraeus, the new commander in Afghanistan, was pictured
>  in /The Washington Post /after his confirmation this summer with a
>  broad smile and thumbs up, proclaiming, "We are all firmly united in
>  seeking to forge unity of effort."
>
>  No, we're not, general. In fact, it's time to unite the religious
>  community against the war in Afghanistan. The real issue is not
>  replacing one general with another; it's the fatally flawed war
>  policy that increasingly resembles a similar policy during the
>  Vietnam War. In February 1968, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong attacks
>  throughout South Vietnam showed that U.S. political and military
>  leaders' optimistic pronouncements about the end of the war being
>  near were not true. By then, it was clear to many that the war was
>  not winnable, yet more than half of U.S. casualties in Vietnam
>  occurred from that spring until the end of the war (35,000 of the
>  total 58,000). I have walked the line at the Vietnam Memorial wall
>  many times, with tears running down my face as I read the names of my
>  generation who were killed. And the painful remorse is even greater
>  when I remember that the majority of those who died were killed after
>  we knew we would ultimately have to come home without "winning." I
>  recall President Nixon saying at one point that the reason for
>  staying in Vietnam was so that we could come home "with our heads
>  held high." We didn't. After 9/11, an international police action to
>  bring the perpetrators of that horrible crime to justice would have
>  been one thing. But to begin a war and then an occupation of
>  Afghanistan was the wrong policy, killing more Afghan innocents than
>  American innocents who died on 9/11. It was then further compromised
>  by the morally unjustifiable war in Iraq. When will we ever learn?
>  The failed policies are all too familiar: a counterinsurgency
>  strategy requiring more and more troops, creating the continued
>  presence of a large U.S. military force, increasing the resentment
>  and hostility of the Afghan people at a foreign occupation, trying to
>  impose a central government onto a tribal society, and depending on
>  an incompetent and utterly corrupt political ruler and regime.
>  Applying the usual metric for an effective anti-terrorism policy, the
>  question has to be asked: Has our primarily military policy in
>  Afghanistan and Iraq killed more terrorists than it has recruited? We
>  know the answer---the math of terrorism is against us. And our military
>  obsession has made the most important question impossible to ask---it's
>  even deemed unpatriotic to consider: How might we reduce and defeat
>  the causes of terrorism in the first place? Nonmilitary strategies
>  should lead the way, with the focus on humanitarian assistance,
>  sustainable economic development, and international policing. It
>  should be led by civilian nongovernmental organizations, both
>  faith-based and secular, that have been in the region for years, are
>  locally rooted, and are more trusted by the people than the U.S.
>  government using aid as an adjunct to military operations. After
>  taking over the country, we do have a responsibility not to simply
>  walk away. There are ethical and moral issues: protecting Americans
>  from further terrorism; protecting the lives of U.S. servicemen and
>  women; defending women from the Taliban; supporting democracy; and
>  saving innocent lives from the collateral damage of war, to name a
>  few. Effective development needs security. We should start in areas
>  that are secure and then grow to additional parts of the country,
>  providing only the security necessary to protect the rebuilding. That
>  kind of peacekeeping would be more likely to gain the international
>  support we need in Afghanistan, from Europe and even from Arab and
>  Muslim countries. The current strategy will only lead to more
>  casualties---U.S. and Afghan---while strengthening popular support for
>  the Taliban as an anti-occupation force. It is a strategy of endless
>  war that is ultimately doomed to failure. A recent photo on the front
>  page of /The New York Times /broke my heart. It showed the family of
>  a serviceman just before he was redeployed to Afghanistan. He was in
>  his fatigues, holding his 6-month-old son with a look of deep pain on
>  his face, with his wife resting her head against his shoulder. The
>  article told story after story about families being separated by
>  repeated deployments. Soldiers who are fathers, mothers, sons, and
>  daughters are dying for a failed, arrogant, theologically unjust,
>  and, yes, immoral war policy. Of course, most of those dying are not
>  the young people headed for our best universities and successful
>  professional careers---they are rather the ones who have fewer options,
>  or who see the military as their only option. Those with the fewest
>  opportunities, and their families, are again the ones to sacrifice
>  and suffer. It's not right and it's not fair. It's time to end this
>  war. Or should we just start building another memorial wall?

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