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The Rev. John Mann, who was recently called to serve a church in Glasgow, Scotland, after years as a minister in the PC(USA), has been deeply involved in ministering to and standing with Rose Gentle, whose son was killed in Iraq in June, 2004.

In the past couple days we've received two provocative comments on the state of U.S. troops in Iraq, and how we might be genuinely supportive of them.   [12-16-04]

Help them see options

Mike Kress, an Air Force veteran (1987-'94) who served in the Persian Gulf (Operation Southern Watch) and left the military as a conscientious objector, urges peace groups to work with young people who are being targeted for military recruitment, and with men and women currently in the military, to help them see other options than the "spiraling cycle of violence" now being carried on in Iraq.

This is posted on the Common Dreams website.  Thanks to Kathy Conner for pointing us to it.

Be really helpful

And Susan Lenfestey, a Minneapolis writer, suggests that we might support our troops in ways more useful than those "now-ubiquitous support-our-troops vinyl ribbons" that we see on so many gas-guzzling SUVs. For instance, she people might contribute for the legal defense of the eight soldiers who are challenging the Army's action to extend their service in Iraq well beyond the time that they agreed. Or, she asks, might it mean "visiting some of the 10,000 wounded and maimed soldiers in a veterans hospital near you?" That might be difficult, since the government doesn't really want us to know they're there.

Bruce Gillette sends this note:

In the name of Jesus Christ Almighty, why are people representing our government, paid by us, writing filth on the Korans of helpless prisoners? Is this American? Is it Christian? What are our moral values? Where are the clergymen on this?

Hyping Terror For Fun, Profit - And Power

Thom Hartmann, writing for Common Dreams, relates the contents of a three-hour documentary aired in October by BBC, which claims to offer evidence that the threat of the Cold War was kept alive in the 1970s, following Richard Nixon's departure from the White House and his replacement by Gerald Ford, long after there was no real danger. The threat was unsubstantiated reports of "weapons of mass destruction," for which no evidence was ever produced. The chief proponents of the SMD threat were Ford's Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, and his Chief of Staff Dick Cheney. They did this "by claiming that the Soviets had secret weapons of mass destruction that the president didn't know about, that the CIA didn't know about, that nobody but them knew about. And, they said, because of those weapons, the US must redirect billions of dollars away from domestic programs and instead give the money to defense contractors for whom these two men would one day work."

The BBC asked Dr. Anne Cahn, a member of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency during that time, about the claimed threats. She said, "I would say that all of it was fantasy."

But it did the job: keeping the American people in a state of fear, keeping the military budget high, and the government's control reinforced.

Sheila Provencher, a member of a Christian Peacemaker Team in Iraq, offers a graphic description of life in Baghdad.  She begins:

Iraq feels like a prison. Our neighborhood is surrounded by the dangerous places our friends tell us to avoid. People in neighborhoods like Haifa Street are surrounded by daily gun battles between insurgents (foreign and Iraqi) and soldiers (U.S. and Iraqi). Baghdad itself is surrounded by roads known for everything from kidnapping to explosions.

But she ends by affirming the many friends she has found there -- willing to offer hospitality even at risk to themselves. 

We are surrounded by grace. We are surrounded by family. We are surrounded by the breath of life. Grace is infinite, everyone is our Family, and every breath is the Breath of God.

When, how, will we open our eyes? And how will we act once we see?

Bruce Gillette shares two recent reports on how both sides in the Iraq war see themselves engaging in a holy war.   [11-12-04]

This is not the Crusade. But the religious overtones do take on added meaning since the American commander-in-chief, just anointed by his electorate for being a committed Christian, claims that God guides his foreign policy.

So does Osama bin Laden.

So do many of the Iraqi insurgents.

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