Check out the photo from Iraq at the Young Fogey’s site — vastly sad, vastly disturbing.

This is what it is all about. It is not mysterious “terrorists” lurking in the shadows. It is not about a few bad apples in a large society. It is about killing, and the vast number of innocents, in the vastly larger context of a society, all of whom are suffering.

It is these three children today. There will be more tomorrow, more the day after, more every day on into the future. Perhaps John McCain is right – it will be 100 years.

Whether we personally pulled the trigger, dropped the bomb, placed the mine or not, we got the ball rolling based on lies, false pretense, and a concerted effort to keep citizens of the United States in a state of fear. We went against the advice of world leaders and the pope. We initiated a war of aggression, not of defense. We gave those who harbor evil the excuse they needed, just as we have provided the excuse for the fathers and uncles of those children. Therefore we must admit our mistake. We must extricate ourselves. We started this war. Certainly we cannot end it just by leaving — but if one less dies because we leave then something real will be achieved. If one moment of truth emerges because we leave, then something real will be achieved.

God forgive our complacency in the face of the evil we are doing.

From the Young Fogey:

Why?

Exactly – a picture and a word that encompass the entire morass in Israel, Korea, Vietnam, the former Yugoslavia, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iraq, and just about anywhere else the U.S. decides to intervene and sacrifice its lives and wealth. While I fully decry threats to “freedom” and all other sorts of badness in the world, it is not incumbent upon us to save others from themselves. We can do charity, we can act as honest agents in negotiations, we can advocate, but we do not have to fix everything. We cannot. We have enough to take care of here at home. Being wealthy and powerful does not come with a demand that we be interventionist. It comes with a responsibility to ourselves and to charity.

The Passion as waterboarding

Somewhere in the Middle East, Jesus Christ is strapped to a bench, his head wrapped in clingfilm. He furiously sucks against the plastic. A hole is pierced, but only so that a filthy rag can be stuffed back into his mouth. He is turned upside down and water slowly poured into the rag. The torturer whispers religious abuse. If you are God, save yourself you f***ing idiot. Fighting to pull in oxygen through the increasingly saturated rag, his lungs start to fill up with water. Someone punches him in the stomach.

Which is quoted off another site. If you read the comments attached to the article you see a kind of quibbling that misses the bigger issue. To me the bigger issue is this: When you look at the folks “over there” or imprisoned at Guantanamo or held at other “black sites” what do you see? The quick and easy answer is “the enemy” or even “my enemy.” Look closely. Jesus actually looked like these folks. Jesus spoke in dialects much like they do. Jesus ate a lot of what they eat, and kind of lived like they do to this very day. Jesus was innocent as some of them are. Jesus was tortured, although innocent, just like some of them are. Jesus was killed, although innocent, just like some of them are.

We are all created in His image – even my enemy. He also told us that what we do, even to the least of our brothers, we do to Him. In the end we have to ask ourselves, in light of what we know, do we have reason to hold these people prisoner, and even if we do – which is justifiable – why torture them? Take a breath and hold it for a couple minutes – and while doing so pray – Lord, help me to see you, even in my enemies. Help me to witness Your love and teachings even though my neighbors, village, city, state, country, and church do not want to hear it.

The image is an artist’s rendition of what Jesus may have looked like (from the BBC). Looks familiar – no?

But before all this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake.
This will be a time for you to bear testimony.

Two recent events point to the fact that Jesus’ words ring true even in “democratic” countries that proclaim religious freedom.

From LifeSiteNews via Catholic Online: UK Catholic Bishop Brought Before Parliament for insisting on orthodoxy in Catholic Schools

LONDON (LifeSiteNews) – The Catholic Bishop of Lancaster UK today gave a spirited response to accusations by secularist MPs in a Commons Committee who accused him of trying to establish religious “fundamentalism” in his schools.

Bishop Patrick O’Donoghue told the Committee that schools in his diocese should see it as their prime duty to teach the Catholic faith and to evangelise and that this constituted neither “proselytism” nor “fundamentalism”.

Crucifixes in every classroom, “sex-education” based on the principles of chastity and the sanctity of marriage, no school fundraising for anti-life groups and religious education based firmly in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: it sounds like the dream world of most Catholic parents.

But the scenario is one that was ordered last year by the Bishop O’Donoghue in a 66-page document, “Fit for Mission? – Schools”. The document was circulated to all teachers, staff, governors and parents in the diocese.

But the document that received high praise from parents, Catholic lay organizations and the Vatican, has drawn the ire of the increasingly aggressive secularist wing of the British government.

Earlier this year, the Labour MP for Huddersfield, Barry Sheerman, told the media that this new document was a worrying sign of a new “fundamentalist” direction on the part of the Church. Sheerman, the chairman of the Children, Schools and Families Select Committee, called Bishop O’Donoghue to explain his intentions…

Of course there is the recent dust-up over Barak Obama’s Pastor. For example, from the NY Times: Obama Denounces Statements of His Pastor as ‘Inflammatory’.

The best line from the article was this one:

“If you’re black, it’s hard to say what you truly think and not upset white people,— said James Cone, a professor at Union Theological Seminary and the father of black liberation theology, who has known Mr. Wright since he was a seminary student.

Something easily said of Christianity ‘If you’re Christian, it’s hard to say what you truly think and not upset people.’

Opposing, and speaking against, racism, inequality, wars and insane foreign policies – spending billions per month while people starve, roads and bridges collapse, treating human beings as less than human… The sins are many – and good on Pastor Wright for speaking in witness against those sins.

—We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards,— he said. —America’s chickens are coming home to roost.— — Pastor Wright

Yes, we are guilty in our sins of commission and omission when our planes, guns, cluster bombs, and bulldozers are used against women, children, and innocent bystanders.

Thank you to the Young Fogey for some of the links in this post.

Per Reuters (and others) the body of Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho has been found.

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – A Chaldean Catholic archbishop who was kidnapped in Iraq last month was found dead on Thursday, his body half-buried in an empty lot in the northern city of Mosul, police said.

Paulos Faraj Rahho, the archbishop of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, was abducted on February 29 after gunmen attacked his car and killed his driver and two guards…

From the Litany for the Dead:

All you holy Martyrs, Pray for the souls of the faithful departed.
All you Bishops and Confessors, Pray for the souls of the faithful departed.
That Thou would be pleased to receive him into the company of the Blessed, We beseech Thee, Hear Us!
Merciful Lord Jesus grant him everlasting rest. Amen.

Lord have mercy on us for what we have wrought in Iraq.