Ed. note: This sort of vitriolic diatribe might be by-passed usually, but given Yates's presentation this Monday (November 15) relating to shame, this seemed pertinent. -rg

How Many More Iraqis Must Die for Our Revenge?
by Andrew Greeley

Friday, November 12, 2004 by the
Chicago Sun Times

The election is over and so we can forget about the Iraq war. It is no
longer a political issue and hence matters to no one. The American
electorate has followed the tradition of standing by a wartime
president and thus endorsing the president's war. It was once his
war. Now the election has made it our war. The issue is closed.

A recent report suggested that if one compares the number of deaths
that usually occur in Iraq per year with the number since Bush's
invasion, the cost of the war in dead Iraqis may be more than a hundred
thousand human beings. Now Iraqi deaths don't count because they look
funny and talk funny and have a funny religion. Besides they're Arabs,
and we have a score to settle with Arabs because of their attack on
the World Trade Center. Yet if we are able to sustain the number of
deaths that have happened as a consequence of the invasion, we will
soon have accounted for as many as Saddam Hussein did. That's a lot
of dead Arabs -- and a lot of bereaved spouses, parents, children,
other relatives and friends. How many before will we have to kill
before we're satisfied with our revenge?

Someone might say that when leaders of a country have caused so
many deaths that they might just deserve to be hauled before an
international court of justice as war criminals -- especially if
the war was based on false premises and conducted with an ineptitude
that staggers the mind. It is an unnecessary, unjust, stupid, sinful
war. The majority of Americans have assumed responsibility for the
war. Therefore they share responsibility for all the Iraqi deaths.

OK, lets say there's only 50,000 extra dead. So that's not so bad,
right? Americans are never going to have to render an accounting to
their Creator for having supported such a massacre. Right?

I don't judge the conscience of anyone, leader or follower. I am
merely saying that there is objective sin in the Iraq war, and our
country as a country is guilty of sin. I'll leave it to God to judge
the guilt, because that's God's job. I also leave it to God to judge
whether there ought to be punishment for that sin. However, I think
Americans -- so serenely confident that the Lord is on our side --
should live in fear and trembling about punishment.

The terrorists blew up the World Trade Center because they believed
that the United States has done terrible things to Palestinians. The
next explosion will be revenge for what we have done to Iraqis. We
may not have been responsible for the plight of the Palestinians --
though very few Muslims believe that. We are certainly responsible
for what we have done and will do to the Iraqis during the next four
years of folly. God help us all.

Because we are the only superpower, there is little chance that our
leaders will be indicted as war criminals or that an invading army
will punish the American people the way we punished the Germans after
the war.

Don't give me that stuff that the Iraq war is not comparable to World
War II. That argument deliberately misses the point that a country is
responsible for the deaths it causes because of an unjust war, even
if the deaths are numerically small compared to deaths from another
war. An unjust war is an unjust war and the death of innocents is the
death of innocents. Where does one want to draw the numerical limit
after which the unnecessary deaths of the innocent become a horrible
crime? How many hundred thousand?

The United States has fought unjust wars before -- Mexican American,
the Indian Wars, Spanish American, the Filipino Insurrection,
Vietnam. Our hands are not clean. They are covered with blood this
time, and there'll be more blood this time.

The one faintly bright spot is that our victorious wartime president,
now that he has been re-elected, might be able to extricate himself
from Iraq more quickly than John Kerry. The war will never end unless
and until the American government or the American people say that
it's time to get out.

Will that require four more years?

(And before Catholics write me hate mail saying that I'm a disgrace
for attacking the war, they should ponder writing a letter to the
pope who has made no secret of his opposition.)