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[Back to index of June 2007 articles] Faith leaders must advocate peace in Iraq By Bishop John Bryson Chane In 2003, the well-known Evangelical Christian leader Jim Wallis and I co-authored an opinion piece in the Washington Post ("There is a Third Way," March 14, 2003) that focused on our fears about engaging in a preemptive war with Iraq. We expressed our concern about civilian casualties, setting a precedent for other preemptive wars, further destabilization of the Middle East and fueling terrorism. Today, there have been around 60,000 Iraqi civilian fatalities - although there have been no official statistics provided by the Iraqi coalition government, the United States government or the United Nations. Terrorism has dramatically increased since Operation Iraqi Freedom, with more than 450 suicide bombers killing themselves and others in Iraq since the start of the war. Since then, 3,386 American soldiers have died and 25,245 have been wounded-more than 7,000 so severely that their lives will forever be altered. Between 8 and 10 percent of the nearly 12,000 American soldiers treated at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany had psychiatric or behavioral problems related to their war experience, according to the hospital's commander, Army Col. Rhonda Cornum. Many veterans returning to the U.S. from active duty are being treated for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. In comparison, the international "Coalition of the Willing" referred to in 2003 and used as a support for our war effort, has lost 273 military personnel. U.S. military deaths in Afghanistan now number 389. Figures for Iraqi military deaths have not officially been released by the Iraqi government. Warnings put forward by the religious community in the U.S. about the consequences of a military strategy to disarm Saddam Hussein were lost on a compliant Congress and an administration determined to go to war with Iraq. President George W. Bush called the nation to war on unsubstantiated charges that Iraq possessed chemical and nuclear weapons of mass destruction. A war that the administration said would cost up to $200 billion in 2002 will balloon to more than $400 billion, even if the U.S. extracts itself from the war completely within the next three years, according to Martin Wolk, chief economic correspondent for MSNBC. He reports estimates that when all is said and done, the total economic impact could approach $1 trillion in 2002 dollars. This is not surprising, given that the Pentagon is spending about $6 billion a month on the war effort, or about $200 million a day. The American public was led to believe at the outbreak of the war that oil profits would cover a significant portion of the war's basic costs. In reality, Iraqi oil production is far lower now. And the destabilization of the Middle East as a result of the Iraq War has caused major fluctuations in the cost of heating oil, gasoline, jet and diesel fuel that have been passed on to the American consumer. These increases continue to have a negative impact on the U.S. economy. Realists knew that Iraqis wouldn't welcome U.S. troops with open arms. Few believed that the intensive bombardment euphemistically called "Shock and Awe" would bring a new democratic Iraq onto the world stage. American religious leaders representing the Episcopal, Evangelical, Presbyterian and Methodist traditions met with Prime Minister Tony Blair in London before the war and urged him to consider supporting our alternative to war:
I should mention that we met with Blair in London because President Bush refused to meet with concerned American religious leaders before the fighting began. By going it alone in Iraq, we have paid a terrible price in American lives and casualties. Civilian carnage is pictured nightly on television screens throughout the world. We have alienated allies and left our economy vulnerable. Our image as a great nation is tarnished. Well over 60 percent of the American people do not support this administration's Iraq policy. And our American soldiers have been placed in a horrific situation with no coherent exit strategy. The U.S. Congress should be held accountable for giving an almost unanimous "green light" to the administration to go to war and for granting the President unlimited war powers. Republican and Democratic presidential candidates need to explain to the American public why they were silent when the short debate on the War Powers Act was being considered by Congress. Some politicians have said that if they knew then what they know now, they would not have voted to extend this power to the President. That is unacceptable. There was clearly enough information available about the Iraq's military capabilities and its severely weakened infrastructure resulting from the earlier Operation Desert Storm to merit significant debate. But Congress was too timid to explore alternative means for dealing with the Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein, and it should be held accountable for the crime of silence. As for the religious community in the U.S., every major Christian religious denomination in the country, except one, registered its opposition to engaging in military action against Iraq. Yet even with such overwhelming opposition, the current administration would not extend the religious leaders of these denominations the courtesy of meeting with them prior to the outbreak of the war. Because its views were not represented in the press, the religious community has been criticized for not speaking out against the war. In truth, the faith community has been consistent in its opposition, but the media was either unwilling or unable to present that voice as a balance to the rhetoric of the administration. War is the ultimate human failure. As a nation we have failed to understand the religious and cultural dimensions that define Iraq and continue to impede the formation of a new Iraqi democracy. Sunni divisions widen; Shiite clerics call for the constitution to embrace Sharia law, and Sufis and Kurds are threatened minorities. Women in Iraq are worse off now than before the war. Our knowledge of Islam is at best elementary. Discussing this in 2002 with a ranking member of the Pentagon, I was told that these religious issues were for the churches to address. Our arrogance as a nation, compounded by our failure to grasp the role of religion in global affairs, has contributed much to our current position in Iraq and the Middle East. What must be done now is to call moderates faith leaders representing the traditions embroiled in wars and other religion-driven conflicts to gather in a global summit. We must begin in earnest a dialogue that has been loosely occurring throughout the world but has not yet found any unifying forum in which to work. Religion is not the cause of terrorism but it is the fault line. The use of indiscriminant military force and terrorist violence must end, and the quest for religious hegemony must be abandoned. The Bush administration must craft a workable exit strategy for U.S. troops without triggering a blood bath. It must bring together a new "Coalition of the Willing" to engage in rebuilding Iraq. This coalition must be under the direction of the U.N., supported by our allies and Iraq's neighboring countries. Instead of bringing democracy to the Middle East we have triggered a religious anarchy the likes of which has not been seen in modern times. The global interfaith religious community in all its configurations, including Jews, Christians and Muslims must now do what it has failed to do; come together for the common good of all of humanity, basing our actions on the compassion, radical hospitality and search for universal peace that all of our Holy Books have always called us to claim. [Back to index of June 2007 articles]
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