[Vision2020] Iraqi Higher Ed in Shambles

[Ted Moffett]

On 10/5/06, Melissa Hendrickson <hend5953 at uidaho.edu> wrote:


> How many centuries did Christians kill each other over "stupid"
> sectarian violence?  Christians may not resort to physical violence to
> settle differences between groups in our current era,


I'm not sure what you mean by "our era," but Germany, a mostly "Christian"
nation, committed some of the most horrendous acts of violence in history
during WWII, as we all know, and religious issues involving conflicts
between Christians and Jews were certainly a factor.  Catholics and
protestants were "at war" in Northern Ireland during our life time, engaging
in "terrorist" style attacks.  Consider the willingness of the US, a mostly
Christian nation, during the Vietnam war, to kill engage in mass killing of
civilians, and though one can argue this was not a religious oriented
conflict, the mass deaths that the US military inflicted in Southeast Asia
during that war was in part made possible by religious and racial
stereotyping of the mostly non-Christian population, just as the genocidal
slaughter of Native Americans in the settling of North America was partly
justified to bring the "Godless savages" to God, by the mostly Christian
invaders.  In the USA we have seen Christian religious extremists kill
doctors over abortion issues.  And there are many scholars who see elements
of the same religious conflicts between Islam and Christianity that resulted
in the Crusades, now being acted out again in the US invasion of Iraq.

It is astonishing to see some blame the violence in Iraq now entirely on
conflicts within the world of Islam.  The situation in Iraq is very complex,
and religious conflicts within Islam are part of the motivation for the
sectarian violence, but much of the killing is related to nationalistic
Iraqis who want the US to cease the military occupation of their county, and
a significant percentage of the civilian death toll has resulted directly
from US military operations.  Many Iraqis who have lost loved ones directly
due to US military operations are motivated to attack US forces in Iraq for
revenge.

One very good reason why the US should not have invaded Iraq was because of
the potential for such an invasion to increase the sectarian religious
conflicts.  To not realize the USA's ill advised militaristic approach to
solving Iraq's religious and social problems is a major cause of the current
blood letting is to simply deny fact, a trend in the thinking of many who
support the Bush administration that can be connected to the denial of fact
common in the mindset of the Christian religious extremists who have
supported the Bush administration, with the quite explicit goal of promoting
their form of Christianity here in the USA and abroad.

I hope Christians in the USA who follow the message of tolerance, love and
compassion that Christ represents, will vote next month against the Bush
administrations policies of using violence and military power to force our
will upon the people of Iraq, a policy that appears to be accomplishing
nothing but endless violence, and to be an encouragement to the very Islamic
extremists we are ostensibly trying to disarm in the "war on terror."

I don't claim to have the solution to the mess in Iraq, but it is clear the
Bush administration has bungled this war in many ways.  Those who led the US
into this mess with half truths and distortions of fact should not be
rewarded at the polls...

Ted Moffett
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