Tonight we remembered the Children 12/28
Candlelight Service for the Children of Iraq , Afghanistan , Pakistan . . .
Dear Peacemakers,
On Friday, December 28, 2012, the Twin Cities Peace Campaign is organizing the Fifteenth Annual Candlelight Service for the Children of Iraq, Afghanistan , and Pakistan and Other Child Victims of War. We hope you will join us in remembering the children who have died or are suffering as a result of war.
SPEAKER: STEVE CLEMENS
Friday, December 28, 6:30 pm
Minneapolis
Steve Clemens is a long-time peace activist, who traveled to Afghanistan in 2011 and spent twelve days in Iraq in early November of this year.
December 28 was selected as the date of this annual Candlelight Service because this is the day that many Christians commemorate the slaughter of the innocent children by King Herod in his effort to kill the child Jesus. We believe that the child victims of war are today's "holy innocents."
The ongoing story of the suffering of these innocents goes largely unreported in our corporate media. That is why it is important to give voice to the terrible reality of war and of human lives caught in the cross fire of military security sweeps, surgical strikes and shock and awe campaigns.
The candlelight service is also a call to action; we hope that we will all leave the service inspired to work for an end to current wars and new U.S. threats of wars.
While most U.S. troops have left Iraq and the President is promising to bring the majority of U.S. troops home from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, we are now hearing new threats of war against other nations in the Middle East . And the expanded use of U.S. drones has killed and traumatized large numbers of innocent civilians in Afghanistan , Pakistan , Iraq , Somalia , Libya and Yemen . So, as the wars rage on, we are reminded once again that we cannot look to those in high political office to bring an end to war; peace will only come when the people demand it.
Unfortunately the continuing U.S. militarized approach to what are fundamentally political, economic and environmental challenges exacerbates the root causes of violence rather than addressing them.
Nowhere is this foreign policy contradiction more evident than in the case of U.S. engagement with Iran . This year, majorities in Congress argue that Iran must be punished and pressured through sanctions to prevent that country from developing nuclear weapons, and there are growing threats of war even as the evidence points to the fact that Iran neither has a nuclear weapon nor is trying to make them.*
And once again, the US and its allies are spreading mass human misery through a sanctions policy in Iran that is resulting in pervasive unemployment, inflation, and medicine and food shortages; a policy which is as morally indefensible as it is counterproductive.
We learned from the sanctions on Iraq that sanctions can be deadlier than war. The sanctions on Iraq resulted in the deaths of 3500-5000 children and thousands of others every month; they caused emotional, mental and physical disabilities in more than a generation of Iraqi children. John and Karl Mueller reported in the May, 1999 issues of Foreign Affairs that "The sanctions against Iraq have caused more deaths than all the weapons of mass destruction in the history of the world."
And this happened with little outcry from the larger community, from people like us, because most people knew very little about the devastating impact the sanctions were having on the lives of ordinary people. Let us not be silent as our elected officials perpetrate a similar travesty on the children, the poor and the elderly in Iran .
Our work in resisting war, injustice and the "politics of empire" does not bring quick results. It takes courage, time and a passionate commitment to peace. It takes a fierce belief in the value of individual actions like standing in the cold at the Lake Street/Marshall Avenue bridge vigil, participating in peace demonstrations, writing letters to the editor, calling our elected representatives, or risking arrest to protest the funding of war.
But, together we can move forward toward the world we seek -- one that honors and cares for all children, one where war is no longer an acceptable way of dealing with the serious issues that abound, and where justice is the criteria for determining our relationships with other nations.
Peace and hope in the struggle,
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wish I could share the pictures and the prayers we said. We rightfully mourn 20 children killed but we need to remember children who are killed every where with our tax dollars and in our name
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