We Can Responsibly End The War In Iraq!
We Can Prevent Climate Catastrophe!
* UUSC (the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee)
From a moral and spiritual perspective, liberal, faith-based communities are speaking with very similar voices on this issue: we must bring our military engagement in Iraq to a responsible end, and we must prevent a repeat of the enormous mistakes we’ve made in getting to this point.
I commend the latest issue of UU World to you. In it you’ll find an informative article on the notion of a just war, a concept that has been in development in Christian discourse for over 1600 years. Beginning with a moral stance against war in general, it goes on to address two questions. Firstly, when is war justifiable? And secondly, how should a just war be fought?
A just war is carried out with the right intention, without arrogance and self-righteousness. A just war is a last resort, morally justifiable only once all means of nonviolent resolution have been exhausted.
The contrast with our current situation in Iraq could hardly be starker or more self-evident.
We know that there is no military solution in Iraq. We must change course, using all the diplomatic, political, and economic tools at our disposal to enable us to responsibly end the war, remove all of our troops, and address the dramatic humanitarian crises facing the Iraqi people. We must restore our Constitution, repairing the system of checks and balances that before this war were the envy of people across the world. People who, once upon a time, admired our nation and its dedication to justice. And we must repair the deep damage that continues to be done to our military and to our veterans.
