Anglican Prayer Beads  Prayer Beads  Anglican Rosary Rosaries  Natural Soap  Handmade Soap

Whether I think you're right or wrong, whether I love what you've written or whether I hate it, two things are always true about your writing and are why I cherish it so much:

1) You always make me think.

2) You always make me examine my faith in "real-life" terms.

This last piece on Iraq was no different, and I thank you for your writing. Most of the time the conversations folks end up having are more important than the conclusions we end up reaching, anyway.

Thanks for the conversations, and for the forum in which you allow them to take place.

http://lutheranhusker.blogspot.com

That wooden carving of jesus is hurting. His eyes are moving.

Remember Apartheid? Nothing was done about it for years and years. Then, the world focused in on it. That is the only thing that can possibly solve the situation in Iraq, as well as the situation in Afghanistan. A worldwide recognition that the masses want one thing, but the brutes dictate another, and the brutes win because they have guns and bombs and are dedicated enough to use them, until the world shakes the tree that these terrorists hide in.

Look, this activity that goes on in Iraq was bound to happen someday. The thumb that crushed open thought and revolution was lifted; what did we expect would happen? Guns and other weapons won't solve this problem, but letting the terrorists know that the world is watching, that the world is reacting, and willing to do something for the poor people they oppress will yield results. The first results will be that the masses of Iraqi citizens will begin again to feel that they have a right to stand up, and that when they stand up, someone will have their backs. Right now, many in the US are screaming to leave the backs of those masses unguarded; you can't expect citizens to lay it on the line when the people who oppose them will most definitely kill them if no one is watching.

The world allows this slaughter to go on in Iraq, and until the world stands up and says, "no more!", it will go on as it has. I find it interesting that we scream for help in Darfur, and at the same time, we scream to leave the citizens of Iraq at the mercy of people who will oppress them and kill them unless they "toe the line". The two issues sound like exactly the same issue to me, but my oh my, don't politicians have a way with spinning words to make one look different from the other?

This reminds me of a scene from Pixar's "A Bug's Life". It's where the ants, who have been terrorized by "Hopper" the grasshopper and his gang of gangly thugs for years, suddenly realize that they outnumber the sons a bitches by thousands to one. They link their arms, and with no weapon other than righteous vengeance, they set upon those grasshoppers and kick their butts all the way to China. Kinda makes me wish the same would happen in Iraq. Not to mention a lotta other places in the world.

Presbyterian Gal

Toby,

While I would somewhat agree with you on the scale of Darfur verses Iraq, I would not agree with you on the mission. An ARMY, sanctioned by the government of Sudan, is killing citizens. The Sudanese government, while publicly denying that it supports the Janjaweed, (the group attacking and systematically killing its opponents) has provided money, equipment, and assistance and has taken part in joint attacks with the group, systematically targeting the Fur, Zaghawa, and Massaleit ethnic groups in Darfur.

The mission is exactly the same, because the reason for war is the same, religious or ethnic differences. In order to end the targeted attacks, we would have to topple the Sudanese government, because that government has sanctioned the "ethnic cleansing". The two situations are twins, and the only difference may be the scale, although the jury is still out on that one. In Iraq, Sunnis attack Shiite and vice versa, while in Darfur Janjaweed attacks three different groups. The other difference is that on the surface, neither Shiite nor Sunnis has government sanction for their activities, while in Sudan, the Janjaweed are sanctioned by the Sudanese government. That means it's going to take a lot more than a thousand soldiers, it's going to take a war, just like the one in Iraq. Those are the facts, and they aren't easy to come by, especially since the only news in this country that is easy to come by is politically driven. The two political parties in our country aren't interested in actual facts, they are interested in whatever it takes to get themselves elected, or re-elected. So the blurbs you hear on TV from politicians need to be taken with a grain of salt; always remember that if a politician is talking, he has an agenda according to the philosophy of his political party. Darfur only looks different than Iraq because politicians are playing spin games with the two situations.

If you don't think the Iraq war is worthwhile, and I can't say I blame you for feeling that way, then you definitely won't think a war in the Sudan is worthwhile either, especially when the body bags start coming home.

For those who are interested, there is a very good article about Iraq and Darfur in the latest issue of the London Review of Books. You can read it online here:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n05/mamd01_.html

Anonymous,

Thanks for the link. I wish more people would read it, and I also wish that instead of a reactionary mob mentality, the citizens of our nation would read between the lines of political spin and find out for ourselves what is really going on. I have to admit, the further I read into that article, the more disturbed I became that any intervention by a global peacekeeping force could cause a widening of the conflict in Sudan. If things continue on that course (there's no reason to believe they won't), the same people who cried for intervention in Darfur will cry that we withdraw from Darfur at some point as well. Isn't this just madness?

Your last couple of sentences reminds me of a poem that was written by Mark Twain that was to act as a contract, carved in stone, between Mr. Twain & Mrs. T.K. Beecher over whether or not there was an afterlife.

"If you prove right and I prove wrong,
A million years from now,
In language plain and frank and strong
My error I'll avow
To your dear waking face.
If I prove right, by God His grace,
Full sorry I shall be,
For in that solitude no trace
There'll be of you and me
Nor of our vanished race.
A million years, O patient stone,
You've waited for this message.
Deliver it a million hence;
[Survivor pays expressage.]"
- Mark Twain.