Friday, December 09, 2005

Peace Activist in Iraq

I was not planning to write about this because the WTO has been taking my time.

I need to be careful what I say because one of the people I work with knows one of these four and I don’t want to cause unnecessary conflict at work.

I feel these people are at best not helping and at worst causing the warfare to last longer. If I were them, I wouldn’t go here is why:

They never seem to help both sides. Maybe I’ve just not seen it but that is the way it looks. If they really wanted to promote peace then it seems to me that they would reach out to both sides not reach out to one and vilify the other. That is not promoting peace but taking sides.

To paraphrase the former US Secretary of State Colin Powell “The US is not an empire. When we have gone to war in foreign countries the US has only taken the amount of land needed to bury their dead.” I think he forgot about the Mexican war but in this case the point is valid. This is not a war about oil or building an empire. If it were about oil, as I’ve said before the US would have invaded Canada. If the insurgents/resistance/terrorist/what-ever-you-call-them stop fighting the US will leave as soon as a government can be installed. Thus helping the opposite side in Iraq prolongs the war and the suffering of the Iraqi people.

If the issues above do not deter people from conducting “Peace missions” into Iraq then good on them. However, please do not try to play both ends of the stick. If you get taken hostage then endure your incarceration as a trial for your faith and instruct your family and friends before you leave that they are not to go to the media and plead for your release. If you are placed in front of a video camera simply announce that you are in Iraq to feed the hungry or heal the wounded in the name of Christ and would be happy to die for your faith as a witness to your captors.

Until Next Time

Fai Mao

The Peaceful Non-Peace Activist

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