By Michael Gaddy
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“Over 70% of the people who died so far in Iraq as the result of our war were civilians. What kind of hate and desire for revenge resides in the relatives of those civilians? Where in our religious beliefs is there any justification for such mass genocide? We euphemistically refer to these deaths as “collateral damage,” while the people in Iraq referred to them as family, friends, and neighbors.”
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What is the point of no return? What could possibly happen to an individual that would cause them to abandon all sense of order and seek instead violent and deadly revenge against another human being or group of people, many of whom are personally unknown to the perpetrator(s) of violence? Is this human action a devotion to some fanatical practice of religion or simply a reaction to violent stimuli?
If religious fanaticism is the answer, is it possible such religious fervor exhibited in the acts of the “terrorist” creates in its opponent an overwhelming desire to abandon their professed religion? If we are truly fighting a war against radical Islam, is it OK to abandon the tenets of Christianity, a faith professed by the great majority of the so-called conservatives who support the perpetual war for peace paradigm of our government? If that has actually occurred, have the radical terrorists not already won the war? What else could constitute acceptance of the deaths of hundreds of thousands; many of them civilians, to prosecute wars we know are based on lies hatched in the halls of our own government and nurtured to maturity by a state-owned and controlled media?
This past week I read an email written by a professed man of the cloth writing in support of one of his military heroes who is credited with killing several hundred of our “enemy” as a sniper. His statement was “we can only imagine how many soldier’s lives were saved by this man’s actions.” Unwittingly, this preacher struck at the very core of the issue. To support the actions of a government we personally claim to abhor when it comes to our individual liberty, imaginations must be employed in order to salve our collective conscience as we go about supporting wars perpetrated on government lies, deception and propaganda. More
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