CPT report on Iraq, seven years later

It’s sad to say I was glad to see CPT’s report on Iraq after seven years come in my email today. The update, titled "Iraq Reflection: Iraq, After Seven Years of War," by Peggy Gish should be a welcome reminder for everyone. You can read the update here in full, but I’ve quoted some interesting items:

- Deaths of an estimated million Iraqi civilians since 2003. (Sept. 2007 poll by British polling agency, ORB)

- Iraqis in control of prisons and “security” but with many innocent detainees forced,  through
 torture, to confess to acts of terror they did not commit. Iraqis often feel terrorized by Special Forces. Many Iraqis say that the ways of Saddam continue.

- Women subjected to increased violence and loss of personal rights and freedoms.

- A country polluted with radioactive depleted uranium from U.S. weaponry used in the 1991 and 2003 wars with Iraq, resulting in increased cancers and birth defects.

- An estimated 4.5 million Iraqis having fled their homes to other countries or as displaced persons in their own country, because of the hardship and dangers.

All Christians should be seeking the end of the US military presence there. All Christians. This war, which does not meet the criteria for a just war, and therefore must not be defended by any disciple of Jesus whatsoever, must come to an end. But unless we keep praying and pushing for a swift and safe end, for the troops to come back now, the struggles will only escalate.

Violence will only breed violence. War leads to war.

The absence of war is no peace at all. All you can do when the war ends is prepare for the next war.