by Phil Berrigan

"He was a five year old Iraqi, dying of leukemia. I stroked his puffy little face and his tiny hand grabbed mine and squeezed. I knew then that it was possible to want to die of shame." Felicity Ambuthnot

"Come, behold the works of God... She makes wars to cease to the ends of the earth. He breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two. She burns the chariot in the fire." (Ps. 46:8,9)

,
August 9, 1998
Dear Friends,

The Iraqi child was probably dying of the radioactivity of depleted uranium shells, used by tanks and close support aircraft (A-10s) in the Iraqi war.

At worst, we Americans are what Scripture calls us - "a perverse and adulterous generation," blind to the fact that war can destroy and is destroying us and the planet. At best, the prophets, the noblest of each generation (Jesus, Ignatius of Antioch, Francis of Assissi, Mother Jones, Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day, Sr. Rosalie Bertel) have warned us of the disease and waste of war.

Apparently, we have neither listened nor heard. And because we haven't, our perversity has burst all previous bounds as we prepare the Second Crucifixion of Jesus in his sisters and brothers everywhere.

Before the nuclear age, we had the desire to destroy one another. Now we have both the will and the weapons to do that.

War is the mass movement of the first interhuman crime - the murder of Abel by Cain. War breaks the central commandment, "You shall not kill!"; it breaks the universal commandment, "Love your neighbor as yourself!"; it breaks the discipleship commandment: "Love your enemy!"; it breaks the commandment of the new covenant, "Love one another as I have loved you!"

The malice of war lies in its joint assault upon God and neighbor. When we declare war upon the image of God in the neighbor, we declare war inevitably upon God. As Jeremiah teaches us, we can know God only by serving the widow, orphan, stranger, and enemy. Conversely, when we attack in war the widow, orphan, stranger, and enemy, we unknow God in the most profound sense.

Because love is the law of the universe, and the source of its harmony, war causes a massive disharmony. As 6% of the world's people, how many of the 200-250 million war dead in the 20th century has the U.S. killed? How many poor robbed of sustenance and life does a war chest of $14 trillion represent (since 1946)? War produces guns, but never butter - it leaves infrastructures crumbling and cities decaying. War poisons air, soil, and water. War encourages homicide on the street, corruption in the government and board rooms, boredom and hopelessness in the people.

By definition, the Christian follows one who taught and lived love of neighbor (enemy). By definition, the Christian is a practitioner of nonviolence, a weaponless person. By definition, the Christian resists any government, corporation, group or individual promoting hatred, violence, and war.

[Phil Berrigan is serving a two year prison sentence for participating in the disarmament of an Aegis-class destroyer on Ash Wednesday, 1997, as part of the Prince of Peace Plowshares.]