The news that thousands of Iraqi Christians are leaving Iraq raises yet another serious issue for American Christians. That Iraqis associate Christians with the occupation. Some would say that they oppose Christians. I would say it is the “American Church” and how a much larger majority of that American Church is approving of this deadly and unholy and violent occupation. This depressing and scary sizeable portion of American Chrisatianity is much, much larger than the minority of Islams which are represented in an equally deadly and blasphemous group of Iraqis who oppose the occupation with the same means. Violence begets violence. It’s a lesson seemingly never learned by the wise in this world. Our nation’s leaders have engaged a massive violent backlash (and even at that, wielded against a place among the LEAST likely to be the home of Al-Queida and its supporters. Even if they were among the leading suspects, this approach is NOT of God. It betrays the very Chrsit who said LOVE YOUR ENEMIES. Do you hear him? Blasphemers! Deceived of Satan! You are NOT doing the Will of God, but blaspheming the name of God.)

On TACTICAL grounds, this is a disaster. Our leaders are not only selfish and self-centered in their broadscale bombing (in order to “shock and awe” by killing and maiming tens of thousands, all on the pretense that this is “fighting terrorism”). This is not what I would call LOVING OUR ENEMIES. They are not even our enemies (the people of Iraq). Terrorists are not “scared” by this. They grow and have been created BECAUSE of this. This very thing. The hubris exhibited by these American leaders and the culture which we present to them as the “chosen culture”; they don’t hate our “way of life” asnd our “freedom”; they hate the values they see acted upon them; that of infringement, coercion, death, and indiscriminate killing of tens of thousands of innocents. Like Hitler, Bush and his administration are killing them all because they want something that they could not not really tell us , since they know that woudl be unacceptable to the American people. And so they deceived us. And God is NOT deceived.

I don’t pretend to know ALL of the right moves we should have taken since 9/11. But I suspected, from 9/11 on, that this administration would react in a way unaccceptable to those who call themselevs followers of Christ. He , who claims that “Christ changed my heart”, has destroyed that pretense before all who know the way of peace that Jesus represents, and if we were to ask only the very simple question (simple on its face, NOT in its implementation); What would Jesus do? I am sickened when I see cars with “WWJD?” alongside of “Bush/Cheney 2004”, for they have erected two incompatible philosophies: love for our neighbors and for God, alongside the evils of this world’s deceptions that violence solves problems. Shame on you, Church of America.

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