Stand Firm and Help end this Truly Senseless Slaughter
Published in The Universe
(April 06, 2003)
THE DEAD and the wounded of the war on Iraq are piling up and it is becoming nastier by the day.
We feel sorrow and compassion for all those suffering and the families of those involved have our heartfelt sympathy and prayers.
I feel a sense of anger, too, at the senseless slaughter. These good soldiers have been sent into harm's way to achieve primarily a political and economic end for the rich and powerful, not to save the Iraqi people suffering under the jackboot of Saddam Hussein. That is one pretext, another is the claimed threat of weapons of mass destruction.
If the western nations consider Hussein such a tyrant, then why did they support and arm him with those weapons in the first place? The Falluja-2 chemical plant near Baghdad built by a British company with the approval of a government minister in 1985 was known to be making chemical weapons.
Saddam Hussein killed thousands of Iranian soldiers and some of his own people with mustard gas, most likely made at the plant. Now the invasion of a sovereign state, wicked as its despotic ruler and his henchmen may be, is underway and nothing can stop it or undo the fact that it is unjustified, immoral and illegal. Sin is sin and cannot be undone. Only a frank admission, repentance and restitution can restore the balance.
Church leaders have made it clear that the conditions to make this conflict a 'just war' are woefully absent. The illegality of this aggression is not much in doubt. A group of imminent professors of international law have said in a letter to The Guardian that there is no justification for this war.
The use of force is outlawed by the United Nations charter except in self-defence when there is an armed attack and secondly when the UN Security Council gives explicit authority as a collective response to any threat to the peace, a breach of the peace, or an act of aggression. Neither of these two conditions have been met.
Many of the coalition countries are under some pressure from the United States. The efforts by some countries to get the invasion retroactively approved and legitimized by the Security Council cannot be allowed to prosper. This would doom the UN and destroy it's credibility.
Millions all over the world, are taking to the streets demonstrate against the war. Sanity and common sense are prevailing but they are not sufficient to stay the hand of the greatest military power the earth has ever seen. The Vietnam war was finally brought to an end by the collective will of a huge segment of the American people together with millions around the world.
But 55,000 young Americans and perhaps a million or more Vietnamese
died - and what for? To effect regime change, end communism and bring
democracy. It failed in defeat for the United States and the Vietnam people
achieved what they wanted: independence their way. None of the needless
death and suffering did any good. This is a lesson for us today that we must
remain steadfast in our moral conviction to end war and make peace.
