February 15, 2003
Today the World Says, “Don’t
Bomb Iraq!”
By John Dear
Today, in the name of peace, we say, "Don't bomb Iraq," and join our voices
with over ten million people on six continents in over 600 cities who are
marching for peace, singing for peace, praying for peace, demonstrating for
peace, and demanding peace in the single largest day of protest in world history,
an unprecedented, historic event, and we promise to keep on marching and speaking
out against the U.S. war on Iraq as long as it takes!
Today, in the name of truth, we say, "Don't bomb Iraq," because bombing
Iraq will not bring democracy; will not bring nuclear disarmament or peace
to the Middle East; will not prevent terrorist attacks; will not help the
international work of peacemaking or the U.N. inspections; will not feed the
hungry or fund jobs, healthcare, education, housing, or environmental clean-up
here or anywhere; will not uphold international law; and will not solve our
problems. Bombing Iraq will only make the oil companies richer; sow the seeds
of further terrorism; set a terrible precedent that it is permissible to bomb
preemptively, and kill thousands of our own people and possibly hundreds of
thousands of innocent people in Iraq.
Today, in the name of love for the children of Iraq, we say, "Don't bomb
Iraq," because hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children have already died from
our sanctions, because all the children of Iraq live in terror from our bombs,
because they only want to live in peace with us, because they have the human
right to life and peace, because they don't deserve to die so that the United
States can be number one and hoard all the oil.
Today, in the name of disarmament, we say "Don't bomb Iraq," because if
Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and Mr. Powell are so committed to making sure no one
has weapons of mass destruction, we must stop our hypocrisy and first dismantle
our own nuclear arsenal, and dismantle our tens of thousands of weapons of
mass destruction, beginning right here in New Mexico, by disarming Los Alamos,
Sandia and Kirkland, and abolishing every one of our nuclear weapons, and
then, we might be able to speak with integrity to the world about disarmament
and inspire the other nations of the world to disarm.
Today, in the name of the God of peace, we say "Don't bomb Iraq," because
war is not the will of God; war is never blessed by God; war is the ultimate
mortal sin; war is never justified; war is immoral; war is demonic; war is
evil; war is anti-human, anti-life and anti-God; war can never end terrorism
because war is terrorism; war is not the way to serve humanity or deepen the
spiritual life or find God. The God of peace calls us to repent of the sin
of war, beat our swords into plowshares and live in peace with every human
being on the planet. In particular, Christians are forbidden to support the
war on Iraq, because the nonviolent Jesus orders us to "put down the sword" and "love
our enemies," not bomb them.
Today, in the name of nonviolence, we say, "Don't bomb Iraq," because peaceful
means are the only way to a peaceful future and the God of peace; because
Martin Luther King, Jr., Dorothy Day and Mahatma Gandhi call us to create
a new world without war or nuclear weapons; because the way to end terrorism
is by ending the real axis of evil which is poverty, starvation, the degradation
of the earth, the proliferation of weapons, and the existence of nuclear weapons;
because we were created to be nonviolent with one another and every one on
earth.
Dear friends, don't be discouraged. Don't despair. Don't be afraid. Don't
give up. Keep on speaking out for peace. Keep on insisting on the truth of
peace. Keep on praying to the God of peace. Keep on walking the road to peace.
Thank you. God bless you. Close this window.
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