War
Former President George W. Bush receives a pro-life award this weekend from Legatus, an organization of Catholic business professionals.
Before I went to Iraq with my friend and fellow God's Politics contributor Shane Claiborne, I was trying to figure out how to take the lessons I would learn there back home. I felt certain (and now know) that the experience could be a small but powerful step toward improving our understanding of how to prevent any future indiscriminate uses of force similar to the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Reported in a recent Times article, leading non-governmental organizations (NGOs), speculate that the militarization of aid in Afghanistan blurs lines between military and humanitarian responses, jeopardizing the success of projects and the lives of staff, wanting a return of all aid work to NGOs.
Just a few days ago, I returned from a short trip into Iraq with a small group of Christian peacemakers. Most of us had been to the country before, but under varying circumstances: I was on a combat deployment in 2004; Greg Barrett, our organizer, went as a journalist in the run-up to the invasion in 2003; and four were part of a peace team protesting the bombing campaign during that same period.
Shane Claiborne, Cliff Kindy, Weldon Nisly, and Peggy Gish were leaving Iraq in March 2003 when one of their vehicles was involved in an accident, leaving Cliff and Weldon with life-threatening injuries. Had it not been for a few Iraqi Good Samaritans, they may have never made it out alive.
In case you haven't already seen this, it's been discovered that gunsights on weapons used by British and American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan are inscribed with coded biblical references, including: