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War in Iraq &
Afghanistan
Reports and comments from 2009-2010 |
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For earlier stories:
The
Presbyterian Peacemaking Program maintains a good page of
resources on
Iraq. |
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If you have news or views to share,
please send a
note!
Unless you tell us otherwise,
we'll assume it's to be posted here. |
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Fellowship of Reconciliation invites people to speak out in
support of genuine peace in Iraq
[9-2-10]
This e-mail letter came to us
on August 31, from
Mark C. Johnson, Executive Director of the
Fellowship of Reconciliation:
Yesterday, the President spoke of our successes
in Iraq and the milestones achieved in meeting the August 31
deadline for the withdrawal of US combat troops from Iraq.
I can't
help but note that there are still several problems created by
us by the war. These problems will continue to challenge us,
make it hard for Iraq and its future and present grave obstacles
for the community of nations around the world.
In a
nutshell, this is where we are:
The U.S.
presence in Iraq is still overbearing even with the troop
reduction from
165,000 to 50,000. As one news correspondent reported, a service
person indicated there really is no difference between an
advisor and a combatant.
The U.S.
military's overthrow of the brutal dictatorship of Saddam
Hussein did not lead to a better life for Iraqis -- just the
opposite.
Life
expectancy for Iraqis fell from 71 years in 1996 to 67 years in
2007 due to the war and destruction of the healthcare system.
The
majority of the refugees and internally displaced persons
created by the US intervention have been abandoned.
Iraq
still does not have a functioning government.
The Iraq
War has left a terrible toll on the U.S. troops with
more than one million American service members deployed, over
4,400 have been killed and tens of thousands severely injured.
More than one in four U.S. troops have come home from the Iraq
war with health problems that require medical or mental health
treatment. PTSD rates in the military have skyrocketed. In 2009,
a record number of 245 soldiers committed suicide.
The war
has drained our treasury with
over spent $750 billion on the Iraq War effort. This
misappropriation of funds has contributed to the economic crises
and left us without the funds needed for our schools,
healthcare, infrastructure and a jobs program that are clean,
green.
The U.S.
officials who got us into this disastrous war on the basis of
lies have not been held accountable.
The U.S.
Department of Defense has been unable to account for $8.7
billion of Iraqi oil and gas money meant for humanitarian needs
and reconstruction.
The war
has not made us more secure -- just the opposite.
Given this,
please join me in calling on the President Obama and his
Administration and on the Congress to take the following
actions:
 | Withdrawal
of all U.S. troops and military contractors from Iraq and
the closing of
all U.S. bases; |
|
Reparations to
help the Iraqis repair their basic infrastructure and
increased funds for the millions of internally and
externally displaced Iraqis; |
| Full
support for the U.S. troops who suffer
from the internal and external wounds of war; |
|
Prosecution of
those officials responsible for dragging our country into
this disaster; |
| Transfer
the funds used for war into resources to rebuild America,
with a focus on green jobs. |
| The lessons
of this disastrous intervention should also act as an
impetus for Congress
and the administration to end the war in Afghanistan.
It's time to focus on defending ourselves here at home and
rebuilding America. |
Please join me in this important effort. The work
for peace and the end of war cannot be postponed. It will not
wait.
Call the
White House and your members of Congress. Ask
them to support these six items. Ask them to bring our troops
home and give us budget priorities that will address human here
at home and abroad. As we see what war and natural disasters
have done, we know there is not a dollar to be wasted -- and
certainly no need for those dollars to be spent on more
destruction.
Preach
peace. Promote peace. Act on behalf of peace. |
The War in Iraq: At What Cost?
[9-2-10]Jim
Wallis, pastor and “Christian leader for social change,”
reflects on the same concern for Huffington Post. He confesses
to hearing Obama’s Oval Office speech with great sadness at the
high costs that have been paid by so many. And looking toward
the near future he adds:
I watched the arguments on the talk shows about
the continuing political instability in Iraq, the lack of a
functioning government six months after an election, the deep
worries about continuing ethnic division and conflict. The
president said it was up to the Iraqis now. The truth is that it
always was up to the people – both in Iraq and Afghanistan – and
the mistake of "empire" is the belief than endless war and
occupation can change those political realities. Leading by
example would have been better, offering a whole array of
non-military help to Iraq and now Afghanistan would have been
more effective – and so much less costly.
For Wallis’ full essay >> |
Action Alert:
Stop the Funding for the Afghan War --
Call your Congressperson today!
[7-27-10]
The Network of Spiritual Progressives and
others are calling for people to contact their congressional
representatives. Here's the reason:
U.S. intervention in Afghanistan is facing
increasing challenge, and this week's dramatic Wikileaks
revelations -- the biggest U.S. war expose since Dan Ellsberg's
Pentagon papers -- make it all the more difficult for Congress
to keep funding this horrific war. It is an important moment for
all of us who want immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from
Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan to raise our voices.
It looks like there will be an up-and-down
House vote this week on the Afghan war supplemental funding. The
Senate has stripped the bill of all unrelated issues such as
funding for teachers, so the meaning of the vote will be clear:
there will be no excuses for voting "Yes" or abstaining (not
that such excuses were ever legitimate.)
This is a crucial time to insist that your member of Congress
vote NO on war funding! You can reach your representative
through the Congressional switchboard 1-888-493-5443 toll-free.
If you use this number, it will add to the Friends Committee on
National Legislation's count of how many people called Congress
against the war supplemental, so your call will be tallied in
two places. (If by chance you don't know who your member of
Congress is, you can find out at the FCNL website:
http://capwiz.com/fconl/directory/congdir.tt)
The Network of Spiritual Progressives is joining with the
Campaign for Peace and Democracy, United for Peace and Justice,
Peace Action, CODEPINK, Friends Committee on National
Legislation, Peace and Justice Resource Center, Historians
Against the War, Just Foreign Policy and Progressive Democrats
of America in this effort to rally support for a "NO" vote. If
you can, please send us a brief email at
info@spiritualprogressives.org to let us know that you've
made your call.
Our message is simple: Vote no on funding this escalation of
war, regardless of whether it's a procedural vote, and
regardless of any good measures attached to it. Our phone calls
this week won't turn the situation around overnight. It will
take massive and sustained street demonstrations, civil
disobedience, teach-ins around the country, and other
mobilizations to accomplish that. But a strong "NO" vote now
will strengthen anti-war sentiment in and out of Congress, and
will help build the mass anti-war demonstrations that are
planned for October.
Truthout has posted a good article on the current legislative
situation >> |
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Remember what all those angels kept saying at Christmas?
“Fear not!” [1-4-10] But the responses to the attempted explosion
on a Northwest airliner on Christmas day show what Glenn
Greenwald,
writing in Salon, calls “the degrading effects of
terrorism fears.” His comment is headlined: “The
expectation that government provide absolute safety is both
dangerous and irrational.”
Excerpts:
I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but
David Brooks actually had an excellent column in yesterday's
New York Times that makes several insightful and important
points. Brooks documents how "childish, contemptuous and
hysterical" the national reaction has been to this latest
terrorist episode, egged on – as usual – by the
always-hysterical American media. The citizenry has been trained
to expect that our Powerful Daddies and Mommies in government
will – in that most cringe-inducing, child-like formulation –
Keep Us Safe. ...
A citizenry drowning in fear and fixated on
Safety to the exclusion of other competing values can only be
degraded and depraved. John Adams, in his 1776 Thoughts on
Government, put it this way:
Fear is the
foundation of most governments; but it is so sordid and brutal a
passion, and renders men in whose breasts it predominates so
stupid and miserable, that Americans will not be likely to
approve of any political institution which is founded on it. ...
What makes all of this most ironic is that the
American Founding was predicated on exactly the opposite
mindset. The Constitution is grounded in the premise that there
are other values and priorities more important than mere Safety.
Even though they knew that doing so would help murderers and
other dangerous and vile criminals evade capture, the Framers
banned the Government from searching homes without probable
cause, prohibited compelled self-incrimination, double jeopardy
and convictions based on hearsay, and outlawed cruel and unusual
punishment. That's because certain values – privacy, due
process, limiting the potential for abuse of government power –
were more important than mere survival and safety. ...
These are the calculations that are now
virtually impossible to find in our political discourse. It is
fear, and only fear, that predominates. No other competing
values are recognized. We have Chris Matthews running around
shrieking that he's scared of kung-fu-wielding Terrorists.
Michael Chertoff is demanding that we stop listening to "privacy
ideologues" – i.e., that there should be no limits on
Government's power to invade and monitor and scrutinize.
Republican leaders have spent the decade preaching that only
Government-provided Safety, not the Constitution, matters. All
in response to this week's single failed terrorist attack, there
are – as always – hysterical calls that we start more wars,
initiate racial profiling, imprison innocent people
indefinitely, and torture even more indiscriminately. These are
the by-products of the weakness and panic and paralyzing fear
that Americans have been fed in the name of Terrorism,
continuously for a full decade now.
The whole essay >> |
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Peace and War in Oslo -- a
critique of Obama's use of "just war" theory
David Cortright,
writing in the
January 4, 2010 edition of The Nation, offers a sharp
critique of President Obama’s use of the idea of a “just war” to
defend further U.S. escalation of military action in
Afghanistan.
He begins:
President Obama
displayed his usual rhetorical brilliance in Oslo and
acknowledged important principles of peace and nonviolence. But
his speech gave a distorted view of America's role in the world
and reflected a shallow understanding of the concept of just
war.
A few excerpts:
The president
invoked the concept of just war and identified a few of its
ethical criteria--just cause, last resort, proportionality--but
he failed to mention the most important principle, the
presumption against the use of force. The principles of justice
begin with the assumption that war is almost always unjust and
can be warranted only under the most dire circumstances, and
only if strict ethical criteria are satisfied.
Conspicuously
missing was any mention of the ethical standard of "probability
of success." Military power should not be used in a futile cause
or in circumstances where disproportionate force may be needed
to succeed. The prospects of the United States prevailing in a
prolonged counterinsurgency war against the Taliban are highly
uncertain. ...
The president
said that when force is used civilians should be "spared from
violence." True, but how does that square with his
administration's increasing use of remote-controlled drone
airstrikes in Pakistan? ...
The president
asserted that the cause of preventing terrorist strikes is just.
True again, but that does not make war a legitimate or
appropriate means of combating terrorism. There are many just
causes, but few just wars. ...
The military's
counterinsurgency doctrine calls for winning hearts and minds,
which requires a campaign that is 80 percent nonmilitary. The US
effort in Afghanistan is the reverse, more than 80 percent
military.
David
Cortright is co-chair of the Win Without War coalition and
author of Peace: A History of Movements and Ideas
(Cambridge).
The
full article >> |
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Truthout offers two critical responses to Obama’s
Afghanistan troop surge
[12-3-09] Obama Invokes 9/11 to
Explain Afghanistan Troop Surge
Jason Leopold writes for Truthout: "After months
of deliberations, President Barack Obama finally outlined his
revised strategy for the Afghanistan War in a nationally
televised address Tuesday night. The commander-in-chief
repeatedly invoked 9/11, attempting to justify his plan to
escalate the eight-year-old war, which calls for the rapid
deployment of 30,000 additional US troops to the region by next
summer."
For
the full article >>
“This is a seriously flawed policy.”
Melvin A. Goodman
writes for Truthout: "President Barack Obama announced last
night that he will send 30,000 additional US soldiers and
marines to Afghanistan over the next seven months and that
additional resources will be used to train Afghan security
forces and bolster the Afghan government. This is a seriously
flawed policy. The troop deployment and the appropriations will
have no impact on the insignificant al-Qaeda presence in
Afghanistan; no significant success in controlling the growing
Taliban presence; and will make only a limited contribution to
nation-building in Afghanistan."
For
the complete article >>
To share your comments or
other articles,
please send a note! |
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World's religious
leaders mourn the Obama escalation in Afghanistan
by Rabbi Michael Lerner
[12-3-09]
Many of the world's religious leaders in
attendance at the Parliament of World Religions taking place in
Melbourne, Australia, are in partial mourning for the dream of a
new world that President Obama promised, and decisively
torpedoed in his announcement of major escalation of military
forces in Afghanistan. While the conference sessions have
officially ignored current political developments, the hallways
are filled with heated discussions of the widespread
disillusionment with Obama.
For political activists, the issue of Afghan
escalation is primarily framed in terms of Obama's failure to
learn the lessons of Vietnam : one cannot win a war against a
population that has been fighting for many decades for its own
independence. No matter what America's stated war aims, the
people of Afghanistan perceive the American military presence as
generating far more violence and destruction than they faced
before the U.S. got involved.
For feminists anxious to protect the rights of
women, the capitulation to Islamic fundamentalism in its
treatment and denial of rights to women by the current Afghani
government which America is pledged to support undermines any
picture of the US actually providing a long-term strategy that
would defend women's rights.
And for working and poor people in the US who
are told that serious health care reform would not only hurt the
interests of the health insurance corporations and the medical
profiteers (poor dears!) but also increase the deficit at a time
when it must be reduced, the willingness to put hundreds of
billions of dollars into war making with the deficit suddenly
forgotten makes many wonder about distorted priorities once
again.
For the religious leaders of the world
assembled in Melbourne Australia for the Parliament, all these
issues are quite salient. Yet what comes most directly to mind
for many is the fundamental warp in the Obama Administration's
understanding of what could actually succeed in providing
homeland security.
One reason many global religious leaders
celebrated the outcome of the 2008 election was the perception
fostered by the Obama campaign that the new President really
understood that militarism and the use of force to achieve
American objectives should be relegated to the dustbin of
history, at least until every non-violent strategy has been
exhaustively tried. We believed we had heard a clear message
that Obama recognized the need to end global poverty and the
suffering it has generated as the first step that must be given
time to work before military options are embraced.
That approach was given teeth by the vice
chair of the Progressive Caucus of the House of Representatives,
Keith Ellison, who has worked with the Network of Spiritual
Progressives to develop a Domestic and Global Marshall Plan (DGMP).
The DGMP would have the US take the leadership in bringing the
advanced industrial societies of the world to commit 1-2% of
their Gross Domestic Product each year for the next twenty to
once and for all end global poverty, homelessness, hunger,
inadequate education inadequate health care, and to repair the
global environment.
It seemed obvious to religious leaders that
the meltdown of the global economy and the obvious role played
by the ethos of selfishness and materialism presented the new
President with a once in a lifetime opportunity to remake the
global economy in ways that would redistribute wealth to the
poor, thereby generating the very consumer demands that could
rebuild the global marketplace by taking the monies that were
not being spent and putting it in the hands of those whose
immediate needs for food, clothing, housing and basic material
needs would generate a global economic revival and end
unemployment.
But the only way that could happen would be
for the Obama Administration to have put its full energy behind
a new approach to homeland security. Obama would have had to
teach Americans that lasting security could come from
generosity, whereas the strategy of domination of others had
proved futile and a guaranteed loser.
Even when Obama started pouring trillions into
the hands of Wall Street banks and investment firms there was
still a hope in the religious world that he would remain
faithful to the peace-oriented insights he had articulated
during his campaign.
No wonder then that the global religious
leaders convening in Melbourne are expressing dismay to each
other. They have long known what Obama seems not yet to have
absorbed in a serious way: that the path to peace must be a path
of peace, and that you cannot bomb and kill your way to
security. This simple insight is the one thing shared by most of
the world's religious traditions, and it is to testify to the
path of peace that thousands of religious leaders are assembled
here to affirm a truth that Obama and the world must take
seriously.
Rabbi Michael
Lerner is editor of
Tikkun Magazine, chair
of the
Network of Spiritual Progressives,
and rabbi of Beyt Tikkun Synagogue in San Francisco,
California. He is the author of 11 books, most recently
The Left Hand of God (Harper San Francisco, 2006) a
national best seller in the U.S.
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On the
U.S. war in Afghanistan
[11-19-09]
Jim Wallis urges ...
Tell President Obama: More war will not bring peace.
It has been eight years since the United
States military began operations in Afghanistan in response to
the 9/11 terrorist attacks. I know you join me in lamenting the
suffering, violence, and death on both sides of the conflict.
Our scriptures and history teach us that war is not the answer
to building the peace and security we are striving for in this
world.
I’ve joined with other faith leaders in
sending an open letter to President Obama, urging him to build a
new strategy in Afghanistan that leads with bold humanitarian
aid and development instead of more military escalation. Will
you join me?
Tell
President Obama: We need a whole new approach in Afghanistan.
Unfortunately,
the options being debated are far too narrow and are unlikely to
bring the peace and stability we so desperately need to end this
war.
The two
strategies contending for prime time - counterinsurgency,
requiring a substantial escalation of troops, and
counterterrorism, relying on precision targeting technology to
apply military pressure on the most dangerous operatives, often
at the expense of civilian lives - don't address the deep moral
and practical issues we face in Afghanistan.
There are many
moral concerns at stake in President Obama’s decision:
legitimately protecting Americans from further terrorism,
protecting the lives of our men and women in uniform, protecting
the Afghan people from the collateral damage of war, defending
women from the Taliban, and genuinely supporting democracy - to
name a few.
Focused and
effective humanitarian assistance and development can no longer
be an afterthought. They must be central to any strategy the
U.S. government puts forward. The president must choose
nonmilitary strategies to lead the way, rather than the other
way around, which often just makes aid and development work
another weapon of war.
We know what can
rebuild a broken nation, inspire confidence, trust, and hope
among its people, and most effectively undermine terrorism:
massive humanitarian assistance and sustainable economic
development.
And it costs less
- far less - than continued war. The Congressional Research
Service has said it currently costs about $1 million per U.S.
soldier, per year in Afghanistan.
We all share in
responsibility for a war that has been waged in our names and
with our tax dollars. Join me and many faith leaders across our
country in praying for the president as he considers a new
strategy in Afghanistan.
After you pray,
sign our letter to President Obama urging his serious
consideration of a humanitarian and diplomatic surge, instead of
more military options. We'll make sure it gets to the White
House.
Blessings and
peace,
Jim Wallis
For the full
text of the letter and a place to sign on >>:
The problem of
corruption in Afghanistan – Is it really our problem?
Robert Naiman
writes for Truthout:
Is it just me, or
is the pontification of Western leaders about corruption in
Afghanistan growing rather tiresome? There is something very
Captain Renault about it. We're shocked, shocked that the
Afghans have sullied our morally immaculate occupation of their
country with their dirty corruption. How ungrateful can they be?
But perhaps we should consider the possibility that our
occupation of the country is not so morally immaculate - indeed,
that the most corrupt racket going in Afghanistan today is the
American occupation.
Read the article >>
The Decision
William Rivers
Pitt writes, also on Truthout:
The decision
looming largest over president Obama at present does not concern
health care reform or the economy. He has a call to make soon
regarding our present and future role in Afghanistan. What to do
about an eight-year war that has accomplished little? This is
the largest, and worst, Hobson's Choice Obama has faced, for
there are no bloodless and peril-free decisions in this one, no
matter how many generals and advisers and pundits pitch in with
their opinions. ...
Finally, there is
little actual evidence to suggest an increase in troop presence
will make any appreciable difference. We have been there for
eight years, and matters have remained the same only in the
areas where they have not gotten appreciably worse. Afghanistan
is, and has always been, the eater of armies. No amount of
technology or troop superiority can overcome the natural
advantages held by those who know the ground, and who already
know how to defeat a superpower, something many of those
fighting us there have already done in their lifetime. We could
stay there for another eight years and find ourselves in exactly
the same position, or even worse off than before.
Read
the article >>
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Christian Peace Witness for Iraq is Wednesday, April 29, in
Washington, DC.
For the latest information on the event, and
links to more, click
here >>
The latest email
update from CPWI says, among other things:
We have prepared
for April 29 for many months. Our advocacy team is amazed at the
timing of our visits to work for funds for Iraqi refugees and
reconstruction. The President will be in the White House and his
8:00 p.m. press conference coincides with our witness outside
the White House at Lafayette Park. ...
Our timing could
not have been better. President Obama's supplemental spending
bill for Iraq and Afghanistan will be the focus of our advocacy.
The supplemental shows no strategic shift towards "smart power"
and the non-military spending for refugees and reconstruction is
in danger of being stripped out. In addition to our conversation
on the supplemental spending, Advocacy training will include
talking points on the Commission of Inquiry, diplomacy with
Iran, and codifying the Status of Forces Agreement.
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Join Christian Peace Witness for Iraq in
Washington, D.C.!
WORSHIP &
WITNESS
Wednesday,
April 29
National City
Christian Church
12:30-1:30 p.m Opening
Convocation
Diana Butler Bass
- Episcopalian, author, and Senior Fellow at the Cathedral
College of Washington National Cathedral
Noah Baker Merrill - Quaker, Cofounder of Direct
Aid Iraq, a humanitarian and peacebuilding effort working
with Iraqi refugees
2:00 p.m Nonviolence
training
2:00 p.m Advocacy training
4:30 Legal Briefing for Nonviolent Direct Action
7:00 p.m. Worship
Washington
Convention Center
Featured Preachers & Speakers include:
Tony Campolo
— Author, pastor, social activist, sociologist, and
passionate follower of Jesus
Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Jr.
— Minister, community activist, president of the Hip Hop
Caucus, and U.S. Air Force Reserve Veteran
Sr. Dianna Ortiz
— U.S. born survivor of torture in Guatemala, Founder of
Torture Abolition and Survivors' Support Coalition
International
Elizabeth McAlister
— Peace activist and co-founder of Jonah House
Daniel Berrigan
— Catholic priest, poet, peace activist
Worship continues with candlelight
procession to White House
Rev. Raphael Warnock – Senior Pastor of
Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, the spiritual
home of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Thursday, April 30, 9:00
a.m.
Witness and Nonviolent
Action at the Capitol
Kathy Kelly
– Catholic, Kelly has been to Iraq 24 times and lived in
Baghdad throughout the “shock and awe” bombardment of March
2003
For more
information, and to register >>!
[3-17-09] |
|
An important note from the
Presbyterian Peace Fellowship
Join us for the
Christian Peace Witness for Iraq in Washington D.C. on April 28 and
29!
[3-5-09]
Events will begin
with the Opening Convocation at National City Church on the
afternoon of the 28th, followed by the worship service and
candlelight procession that evening at the Convention Center.
Speakers will include
Tony Campolo, Sr. Dianna Ortiz, Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr., Elizabeth
McAlister and Daniel Berrigan.
The following
morning, Thursday the 29th, there will be a nonviolent action to
lift up our continuing commitment to see the war in Iraq brought to
an end.
Registration is now
open for the event at
www.christianpeacewitness.org
.
Also, please contact
us at
ppfwitness@gmail.com
if you are interested in sharing floorspace with us at a church near
a metro stop. |
| Christians have a
role to play in rebuilding Iraq, church leaders say
World Council of
Churches News Release – Feb. 17, 2009
[posted here 2-24-09]
Representatives of churches in Iraq
confirmed their commitment to work together with all Iraqi citizens
for reconciliation and rebuilding peace in the country.
"The solution to current conditions
lies not in emptying Iraq of its human resources," said the
participants at a 10-11 February meeting in Dar Sayedat Al Jabal,
Fatka, Lebanon. The meeting was organized by the World Council of
Churches (WCC).
Some 12 representatives of Iraqi
churches attended the gathering, which addressed the challenges
facing Christians in Iraq today, particularly issues of safety and
security as well as forced migration. They affirmed the status of
Iraqi Christians as "authentic children of [the] land," emphasizing
the values of equal citizenship and constructive co-existence.
"Christians have belonged to Iraq
since the nation's birth," and as "an essential part of Iraqi
society … deeply rooted in its history and civilization," they "have
the right to live freely" in the country, enjoying "equal rights and
responsibilities along with all other citizens," they said.
Participants in the meeting, some
of whom went through the experience of being kidnapped in Iraq,
called upon Iraqi Christians "to stay in their homeland and
participate actively in its rebuilding and development". Iraqi
Christians have a role "in building educational and social
institutions that contribute to national reconciliation, peace
building and stability," they said.
The gathering also called on
Western churches "not to encourage migration and resettlement
programs for refugees outside Iraq," but rather to "focus their
efforts on bringing back security and stability inside Iraq for all
Iraqis," with the aim of enabling Iraqis to "work together, healing
wounds and building a better future".
Participants at the meeting
emphasized the importance of continued dialogue "among Christians
and their Muslim brothers and sisters." They pledged to establish an
"ecumenical forum" in order to allow "all Iraqi church leaders … to
speak in a common voice to religious and political authorities
inside and outside Iraq".
Full text of the statement of Iraqi
church representatives >>
Middle East Council of Churches
>>
WCC programme on accompanying churches
in conflict situations >>
WCC programme on Churches
in the Middle East: solidarity and witness for peace >>
|
|
For earlier stories:
The
Presbyterian Peacemaking Program maintains a good page of
resources on
Iraq. |
| |
|
Some blogs worth visiting |
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PVJ's
Facebook page
Mitch Trigger, PVJ's
Secretary/Communicator, has created a Facebook page where
Witherspoon members and others can gather to exchange news and
views. Mitch and a few others have posted bits of news, both
personal and organizational. But there’s room for more!
You can post your own news and views,
or initiate a conversation about a topic of interest to you. |
| |
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Voices of Sophia blog
Heather Reichgott, who has created
this new blog for Voices of Sophia, introduces it:
After fifteen years of scholarship
and activism, Voices of Sophia presents a blog. Here, we present the
voices of feminist theologians of all stripes: scholars, clergy,
students, exiles, missionaries, workers, thinkers, artists, lovers
and devotees, from many parts of the world, all children of the God
in whose image women are made. .... This blog seeks to glorify God
through prayer, work, art, and intellectual reflection. Through
articles and ensuing discussion we hope to become an active and
thoughtful community. |
| |
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John Harris’ Summit to
Shore blogspot
Theological and philosophical
reflections on everything between summit to shore, including
kayaking, climbing, religion, spirituality, philosophy, theology,
politics, culture, travel, The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), New
York City and the Queens neighborhood of Ridgewood by a progressive
New York City Presbyterian Pastor. John is a former member of the
Witherspoon board, and is designated pastor of North Presbyterian
Church in Flushing, NY. |
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John Shuck’s Shuck and Jive
A Presbyterian minister, currently
serving as pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Elizabethton,
Tenn., blogs about spirituality, culture, religion (both organized
and disorganized), life, evolution, literature, Jesus, and
lightening up. |
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Got more blogs to recommend?
Please
send a note, and we'll see what we can do! |
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Plan now for our 2010 Ghost Ranch
Seminar!
GHOST RANCH SEMINAR
July 26-August 1, 2010
WE’RE ALL IN
THIS TOGETHER
CONFRONTING THE STRUCTURES OF INJUSTICE |
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