FOURTH ANNUAL APPEAL--FOR DECLARATION OF "UNJUST WAR REMEMBRANCE DAY"

"Shock & Awe" Baghdad -- March 19, 2003

March 19^th “Unjust War Remembrance Day.” When we invaded Iraq, March 19, 2003, with the slimmest possibility of finding even one nuclear weapon [when Israeli neighbors have hundreds, and we thousands], we tried to change our national moral justification of war, from defensive move of last resort, to preemptive war—a war of convenience, for perceived benefits. The people of the United States and the people of Iraq will be paying for this for years to come. It will be redeeming to our true national interest, if we as the world’s single superpower & most prolific arms dealer, declare that the Iraq War was our wrongdoing, and that all war is anti-life, disastrously futile---counter to Christian and many other faiths.

"Father forgive them they know not what they do." Lk 23:34

On right: Father forgive us we know not what we do--Torture at Abu-Ghraib U.S. detention center, during Iraq War

Members of Congress and our county’s churches should start petitioning for this Day, as a national, even international, holiday. A Day of Atonement. Almost all powerful countries have been morally, physically, and economically compromised by unjust war.

Please send the proposed resolution below to your state & national legislators, and request that they submit it to become law. Also bring it to your church local & national assemblies for enactment as a faith declaration.

Resolution for "Unjust War Remembrance Day" March 19th

·         Whereas the United States entered into a war with Iraq on Mar 19,2003 with no credible evidence of weapons of mass destruction, or imminent threat to our nation.
·         Whereas the leaders of our nation and the national media rushed to war without due consideration and for reasons that remain to be clearly stated or investigated.
·         Whereas the citizens of our nation, even those opposed to this war, by and large acquiesced to this war’s prosecution.
·         Whereas hundreds of thousands of Iraq civilians, thousands of our soldiers, and tens of thousands of Iraqi insurgents died in this war. Many more than all these dead were the severely wounded casualties of this war.
·         Whereas Iraqi infrastructure and economy has been decimated, and our own economy has been definitively damaged by this unnecessary war.
·         Whereas this Iraq war did not meet the moral standards required of the just war theory.
·         Whereas many prominent religious leaders call us to reject just war theory as impossible in modern warfare, and urge a much deeper faith respecting all human life.

Be it resolved to declare March 19 a national holiday of reflection, Unjust War Remembrance Day, in which everyone should work and pray to develop projects and strategies on local, national, and international levels that resolve conflicts between nations and peoples effectively without resorting to the organized overwhelming violence of war.

Be it resolved also that this resolution, in some form particular to each nation, should be adopted by the United Nations, as every nation has some time in the history of their peoples participated in unjust war.

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Who would Jesus Bomb?---by Mark Bryan

“War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today." --JFK

Let’s take the first steps into that distance, with commitments to fund peacemaking that rival the billions spent on the military industrial complex. God bless us with the good fortune of conversion -- from war to peace.