Pueblo Colorado Checks In...

[Leigh Meyers <leighcmeyers@xxxxxxxxx>]

> When religions spend more time worrying about what people do in their 
> beds than what they do in the killing fields, when religions expend 
> more energy building temples of brick than in building bridges of 
> peace in all places, then religions have become a part of the problem, 
> every bit as much as the leaders who dispatch armies, as much as the 
> soldiers who execute their atrocities.
.
One of the "reddest" places in "red" America checks in on the state of 
the culture.

Pueblo Chieftain:

July 8 2006
Who's to blame for atrocities? It may be us
http://www.chieftain.com/life/1152347552/3

Marvin Read

There have been several horrifying buzzwords that have come out of our 
adventure in Iraq: Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Haditha and, of late, 
Mahmoudiya, where, it is alleged, U.S. soldiers raped a girl, killed her 
and burned her body and heartlessly dispatched three other members of 
her family.

There are other stories that may never go public, but will be told in 
whispers, perhaps with smirks, perhaps with tears, as today's soldiers 
gather to relive the horrors of war.

This or that geographical buzzword is of relatively little import; one 
atrocity is no better or worse than another. They represent, whether 
committed by one fighter or a pack of them, the worst of what humans can be.

In Iraq, our kids have been sent to forcibly democratize a people 
generally unwilling to be so formed. As a result, those whose cities and 
streets have been occupied by our military use a variety of methods to 
discourage and demoralize Americans and those who sympathize with them: 
human bombs, imaginatively conceived explosive devices, mortars shot 
from palm groves.

On both sides, then, the name of the game seems to be what it always is 
in the impolite business of war: frighten, disparage, humiliate, 
torture, wound, maim and kill - hardly a menu of items destined to 
elevate the human spirit or solidify the brotherhood of man.

It is easy, of course, for those of us who sit safely and unthreatened 
within the comfort of our air-conditioned offices and homes, whoâve 
never taken up a gun for protection, intimidation or killing to judge 
the people behind the buzzwords and roadside bombs. We do not nervously 
await the next shadow, sudden movement, suspicious vehicle or whine of 
an incoming round.

We cannot fathom the fear, anger and anxiety of those on either side of 
the conflict. For us, it is easy to judge the rape-plunder-pillage 
attitude of war as wrong and demeaning.

That freedom to pontificate in security is a privilege won for us by 
other soldiers in other times. We are grateful for our peace and 
liberty, even if it washed up on seas of other menâs blood.

But we would be remiss, in our quietude, not to continually lament war, 
all war. Although it is a constant in human history, a part of the 
fabric, ironically, of civilizationâs progress, it is humanity at its worst.

It is tragic that the human spirit, the same one capable of compassion, 
tenderness and love; the same one that can philosophize, invent and 
create; the same one that can imagine, plan and build; the same one that 
can paint, sculpt and compose music, can, at almost the drop of a word 
and threat of a dollar, become brutal, can more easily find killing as a 
solution and resolution than reasoning and dialogue.

When religions spend more time worrying about what people do in their 
beds than what they do in the killing fields, when religions expend more 
energy building temples of brick than in building bridges of peace in 
all places, then religions have become a part of the problem, every bit 
as much as the leaders who dispatch armies, as much as the soldiers who 
execute their atrocities.

God, we have assumed, is merciful and forgiving, slow to judge, eager to 
reconcile with the creatures so quick to sin. But it is difficult not to 
imagine that divinity with a heavy heart - and perhaps an anger that 
simmers near the point of eruption - as some men do bad, very bad 
things, and most of the rest of us allow it.

Indeed, as long as any world citizen elects or allows a government or a 
leader who sees war as a solution, then the shame and blood of the Abu 
Ghraibs, Guantanamos, Hadithas and Mahmoudiyas or their many parallels 
are on our hands and souls as well.

Marvin Read may be contacted at marvinr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx