Slaughter begets slaughter!

God knows how awful I felt when I first heard the (not unexpected) news that the two young GIs who were being held captive were found both dead and mutilated beyond description. (See posting below.) The torture they must have endured is beyond my comprehension and I can only pray (and I am even as I key this in) that Our Lord will bring comfort to the grief-stricken families.

But ... the answer is not to compound slaughter with more slaughter ... endlessly and with little regard to who is being slaughtered. The daily accounts of the killing of Iraqi civilians by our own boys and girls continues to grind on in the nightly newscasts. Of course, our Government does not condone the needless killing of civilians, and our military is doing its utmost to insure that justice is meted out. Admittedly, I hope punishments are both merciful and light (or not at all, if they are found to be innocent). Our servicemen and women are under extremely harsh conditions and enormous stress from minute to minute, and not out there deliberately and cold-bloodedly killing innocents, I'm sure.

But every time we lay a city under siege -- recall Fallujah


-- and just what is taking place this week around Ramadi (capital of Anbar Province)? -- we are threatening countless civilians (I saw one estimate of at least 100,000 unable to leave the Ramadi, primarily families in poverty -- with children, the disabled and the elderly). Last night's evening news only hinted at the ongoing and upcoming events in that area as our troops were/are surrounding that city.

The posting of the details of the horrid killing of the two young servicemen and the subsequent airing of a claim (quite possibly accurate) of Abu Hamza al-Muhajir that he personally beheaded the young soldiers ... has enraged America (myself included) and set us up for some kind of retaliative strike against ... anyone!

God knows, I am quite human and would get great glee (albeit sinful) to watch the actual demons who tortured and murdered our boys get their just comeuppance -- ugly, painful, slow and bloody!

But Jesus tells me that we are not to return evil for evil, as I discussed in a posting earlier this week. He also said something like "he who uses the sword dies by the sword" or words to that effect. The torture that was permitted to happen at Abu Graib or the deadly sweep in Haditha last November are not necessarily "causes" for the murderous tactics of the al-Qaida, but they diminish, ever so little, our hope of taking the higher moral/ethical position in the "war" to gain the hearts and minds of the civilians in Iraq.

A repeat of Fallujah in Ramadi is not called for at this time. I've been there and seen more than enough ...


Although I was quite safely working with photo recon on the computers at Tan Son Nhut Air Base in Saigon when I first saw the above photo in a news account -- a year or so later (like Haditha, My Lai was kept under wraps for some time), this image has been with me for more than 35 years.

Remember ... slaughter (evil) begets slaughter (evil) every time.