Pax Christi Metro DC

By Scott Wright
Reprinted from the Signs of the Times in the Americas.

Download the complete article (PDF, 135K), which includes the Rev. Martin Luther King’s speech against the Vietnam War delivered at Riverside Church in April 1967, from which Scott drew his inspiration.

1. It’s time to break the silence over the war in Iraq and take a stand… We are all responsible for ending the war… The great initiative to begin this war was ours, the great initiative to end it must be ours.
2. The war is an enemy of the poor in Iraq, destroying lives, uprooting families, diverting immense resources to destruction, and robbing the poor at home. It places an unfair burden on soldiers and military families, projecting violence as a solution to problems, destroying hope for peace, and losing the soul of America in the process.
3. The Iraqis must see us as strange liberators… The world stands aghast at what we are doing… The war is destroying Iraq as a nation, a culture, and creating millions of refugees. It is leaving a legacy of bitterness among the Iraqi people in a war that has more to do with privatizing Iraq’s oil and establishing permanent U.S. military bases than liberating the Iraqi people.
4. We must speak as children of God, as brothers and sisters to the suffering poor, in solidarity with Iraqi victims of the war… We must atone for so much violence and admit that we were wrong to invade Iraq… We must urge UN and Middle East participation in developing a comprehensive peace plan… We must begin to withdraw US troops, leave no permanent military bases behind, and restructure Iraq’s oil to serve the needs of reconstruction, not profits for foreign oil companies.
5. The churches must take a more prophetic stand, using every creative method possible to protest, but we must protest… We must encourage conscientious objection, and continue to call for an end to the war.
6. The war speaks to a deeper need for a true revolution of values… We must challenge the giant triplets of poverty, racism and militarism… We must address the roots of the conflict, the disparity between poverty and wealth, both domestically and internationally… We must challenge war as a means to achieve justice, and end the insanity of spending a trillion dollars on war, little on social welfare and the common good.
7. America is rapidly approaching spiritual death… Our choice is either nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation… Our loyalties must go beyond national interests and embrace the global common good… We can no longer afford to worship a God of hate, but rather a God of love who does justice… We must find news ways of acting with justice and compassion, but we must act… The time is urgent, tomorrow is today. The world awaits our response… We must choose to end the violence and work for a just peace at this crucial moment in history.