No peace on Earth during unjust war BY Father ANDREW GREELEY

[jbfam4]

No peace on Earth during unjust war

December 24, 2004

http://www.suntimes.com/output/greeley/cst-edt-greel24.html

BY ANDREW GREELEY


One reads in the papers that the Pentagon expects the war in Iraq to continue till 2010. Donald Rumsfeld will not guarantee that it will be over by 2009. How many dead and maimed Americans by then? How many sad obituaries? How many full pages in the papers with pictures of all the casualties?

Why? The reasons change: weapons of mass destruction, war on terror, freedom and democracy for the people of Iraq, American credibility. All are deceptions. This cockamamie and criminally immoral war was planned before the Sept. 11 attack in which Iraq was not involved. It has nothing to do with the war on terror. American-style freedom and democracy in Arab countries are hallucinations by men and women like Paul Wolfowitz and Condi Rice whose contribution to the war is writing long memos -- Republican intellectuals with pointy heads.

One must support the troops, I am told. I certainly support the troops the best way possible: Bring them home, get them out of a war for which the planning was inadequate, the training nonexistent, the goal obscure, and the equipment and especially the armor for their vehicles inferior. They are brave men and women who believe they are fighting to defend their country and have become sitting ducks for fanatics. Those who die are the victims of the big lie. They believe that they are fighting to prevent another terror attack on the United States. They are not the war criminals. The ''Vulcans,'' as the Bush foreign policy team calls itself, are the criminals, and they ought to face indictment as war criminals.

There is an irony in the promise of a prolonged war. The Vulcans believed that, as the world's only superpower, the military might of the United States was overwhelming, irresistible, beyond challenge. In fact, the war into which they tricked us has become a quagmire, 130,000 American troops are at the mercy of perhaps 5,000 true-believer guerrillas and an Iraqi population that doesn't like Americans any more than it liked Saddam Hussein. It is a war in which there is no possibility of victory -- whether it ends in June 2005 or June 2010, whether there are 2,000 American battle deaths or 50,000, whether there are 10,000 wounded Americans or 500,000, whether those with post-traumatic stress are 10 percent of the returning troops or 30 percent.

One of the criteria for a just war is that there be a reasonable chance of victory. Where is that reasonable chance? Each extra day of the war makes it more unjust, more criminal. The guilty people are not only the Vulcans but those Americans who in the November election endorsed the war.

[NNN0LHI]

1. He is right of course n/t

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. very well said

lets hope these sentiments are picked up and repeated in newspapers, then radio, then TV, throughout this country.

[NMDemDist2]

3. if the Catholic Church was the one depicted in A Greeley's novels

I would be at Mass every Sunday

he is a true man of God and a thorn in the sides of the NeoCon/Evangelicals in and outside the Catholic Church

Andrew Greeley :yourock:

[NNN0LHI]

5. I would consider returning to the Catholic Church...

..."if the Catholic Church was the one depicted in A Greeley's novels". I sure would. Now, he is a true man of honor.

Don

[ashmanonar]

4. :/

"and have become sitting ducks for fanatics"? how about sitting ducks for people who have had their homes destroyed and their families killed? how many americans can truthfully say that given the same circumstances, with our families dead from a cruise missile, our homes gone, our friends murdered by foreign invaders, that we would not do the same, and join militias to defend our homeland?

not to seem like i'm "aiding and abetting" terrorists, which i am most certainly not...but at the same time, its not as if these attacks from "terrorists" are unprovoked...or inappropriate, considering circumstances...

of course, nuances are lost on bushco...

[quiet.american]

6. Democratic "Leadership" should be saying this! n/t

[Kolesar]

7. You should have written this 2months ago when it might have made a diff.,

Padre. But it's "Too late now. Too late till 2010 -- or 2020."

[One_of_8]

8. I sent a LTTE to the Sun Times

I was so moved by this editorial, I sent a LTTE and hopefully it will be published.

Dear Editor,

I just read the editorial by Andrew Greeley in your December 24, 2004 edition (on line). I was moved to tears by his words, because he said exactly what I have been feeling, but so much more eloquently than I could ever hope to express myself. Our current administration has led the American public and the men and women serving in our military into harms way, too many even unto death. And this does not even factor in the even great death and destruction wrought on the Iraqi people.

Thank you for publishing the piece written by Andrew Greeley. I pray that more and more voices will be raised against this unjust and extravagant war, waged so that George W. Bush can swagger around in his "Commander in Chief" outfits, as though he never skipped out on completing his own tour of easy duty in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam conflict.

Mr. Bush and Dick Cheney (who received five deferments during the Vietnam War from 1963 to 1966, and then later dismissed questions about his failure to serve by simply saying, "I had other priorities in the '60s.") bring disgrace on this country and I pray that those who complacently follow them without question will one day wake up and realize the error of their ways. In the meantime, I am thankful for the efforts of those who are bravely speaking out now, and in such an eloquent manner as Andrew Greeley.

[indepat]

9. Not only endorsed the war, but ratified everything associated therewith

[The Zanti Regent]

10. Too bad the bishops are solidly behind Bush.

He bought them off with that tort liability cap shit.

[bpilgrim]

11. whats really sad for us is that even the guy who lost 04 was for the war

as is most of our leadership :cry:

the corporate influence is certainly pervasive.

which has limited our choices and will certainly hasten our demise.

will any of us or democracy survive the outcome?

if Fallujah is the neoCONs vision of 'freedom' and 'democracy' we are in a world of hurt.

:scared:

peace