A Questionable Anniversary

Yesterday marked the third anniversary of the start of the Second Gulf War. At the time we were told that Saddam Hussein's regime posed an imminent threat to the security and safety of the United States. Saddam, we were told, possessed weapons of mass destruction and he needed to be stopped before he either used them himself or passed them on to terrorist organizations. That rationale has long since been abandoned and in its place was the need to free the Iraqi people from a horrible despot. That Saddam was a despot is incontestable. He was despicable, but then so have a lot of other tyrants. Now we watch as our military suffers regular humiliation, is stretched to the limit, and Iraq is no closer to peace than it was 2 and 1/2 years ago. Civil War of some sort is currently going on -- sectarian violence between Sunni and Shiite has claimed hundreds if not thousands of lives. Under Saddam regime opponents were surely in danger, but the streets were fairly safe. That's no longer true.

This litany of problems raises an important issue for the Christian community. Though I'm not a pacifist, I opposed the war at its start. Pre-emptive war does not fit any just war category. War may be necessary, but only as a last resort. This time we entered war before all the facts were known and without a plan for reconstruction. The burden that paying for the war puts on our nation's financial situation is another issue. Every dollar spent on military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan (a somewhat more defensible, but still suspect action) takes away from funds that could be spent on social welfare, infrastructure and education. Almost 10 billion is spent in Iraq every month and there is no end in sight. In the mean time we are falling further behind the rest of the developed world in almost every academic category. We were once the home of the inventor, but that is less and less true. Maybe we could spend the money on freeing ourselves from dependence on oil -- now that would be an idea!

So, I pray for an end! I pray for our young men and women to return home safely. I pray that peace will come to the Iraqi people. I pray that we might have a world respite!

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