The Common Good
May-June 2002

In the Eye of the Beholder?

by James J. Billings | May-June 2002

JIM WALLIS closed his editorial "Report From Ground Zero"
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JIM WALLIS closed his editorial "Report From Ground Zero" ( January-February 2002) with these words: "The loss of so many lives, which were sacred, and the heroism of sacrifice offered there makes Ground Zero in New York City a sacred place...."

At the end of World War II, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing some 100,000 Japanese people. Some Americans consider this an evil deed. Did our killing many thousands of innocent people make these two cities sacred places? Or were Japanese lives just not sacred like American lives?

We will continue to kill people, as we have over the years, until we realize that our killing people is just as evil as the killing done to us by other people.

James J. Billings
Las Cruces, New Mexico

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