Some horrors are more than words can describe

Many, many years ago ... when I was only beginning a long career as a military analyst, I had the good fortune to interact rather closely with both the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions which, at that time were only a short plane ride from where I was working for the Research Triangle Institute near Raleigh, NC. (I had erroneously thought that 101st was deactivated until I saw mention of it at the outset of the current conflict in Iraq.)

My memories of these airborne divisions are good ones and my high regard for both of these divisions -- but, considering recent events, especially the 101st -- remains as high as ever.

The terrible murder and mutilation of our two boys from the 101st who were first kidnapped by dissidents (terrorists) in Yousifiya only a couple of weeks ago and the slightly more recent news of the even more brutal (if that is possible) rape of a young woman ("young woman," according to US military reports, but "teenager," according to the Iraqi neighbors who knew her in Mahmoudiya) and the murder of her parents and a younger (aged 4 or 5) sister, by members of the same 101st Division -- which only surfaced this month after a three or four month "silence" -- only serve to highlight the real horror of war.

I know that I have harangued on this subject before (the Fallujah massacre and one or two other deliberate murders of Iraqi civilians -- and the ongoing carnage meted out by terrorists and sectarian death squads upon Sunnis -- by Shiites -- and Shiites -- by Sunnis, and there is nothing I can add now to the graphic horror of war beyond what you all see nightly on your TV sets.

And by the way, I do not believe that there is a "connection" between the two events involving members of the 101st Airborne Division. If al-Qaida were taking out revenge for the alleged rape and murders that we now know about, they would surely have "taken credit" for it in their rambling communications during and after the kidnapping/murders.

So, what can be said of such horror? Well, for one thing ... it exists!

And even more important, we should ask ourselves, "what of the persons who carry out such evil acts?" How can such evil even exist within the hearts and souls of the persons who carry out such acts? We can't look into the heart of a "typical" insurgent or terrorist -- even abu Musab Al-Zarqawi -- but what about our young men who are under suspicion of these unspeakable acts or horror?

Paul of Tarsus said it best, I think, while writing about himself in Romans (again):

"For what I do is not the good I want to do; no the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living within me that does it. So I find this law at work; when I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am!"

Romans 7:19-24 (NIV)

But he goes on to provide a solution even for those who are "guilty" of such sins and evil about which we have been reading in our daily newspapers and seeing on our nightly television:

"Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God -- through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin."

"8. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death."

Romans 7:24, 25 and 8:1, 2 (NIV)

It was all foretold even before the patch for the current exercise in Iraq was first penciled on a drawing board by some anonymous corporal or private.



And yes, Jesus saw and experienced it firsthand at Golgotha and inspired writers included descriptions of equally horrible events -- and predicted more to come -- in two good-sized volumes that Christians refer to as the Bible.

I hope that wasn't too preachy again ... coming from me, someone who knows all too well how evil can wage "war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members."

I pray for the perpetrators of the evil as well as the families of the victims -- tough as it is!