Episcopal Press and News
WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER: A Message to the American People
Episcopal News Service. January 11, 1991 [91010]
We are marching toward war. Indeed the stakes are horribly high. Military experts predict casualties in the tens and hundreds of thousands. And it won't end there. War would unleash a chain of human tragedies that will be with us for generations to come.
Our Christmas pilgrimage to the Middle East has utterly convinced us that war is not the answer. We believe the resort to massive violence to resolve the Gulf crisis would be politically and morally indefensible. One clear message emerged from our many conversations in these holy lands -- "War would be a disaster for us all." We were told again and again, "Please go home and tell the American people that a way to peace can and must be found." We have concluded that in the Middle East today it is no longer only a question of right and wrong; it is also a matter of life and death.
The unspeakable loss of lives, especially innocent civilians, would be unacceptable on moral grounds. Nations hold in their hands weapons of mass destruction. It is entirely possible that war in the Middle East will destroy everything. No cause will be served, no crisis resolved, no justice secured.
War will not liberate Kuwait, it will destroy it. War will not save us from weapons of mass destruction, it will unleash them. War will not establish regional stability, it will inflame the entire Middle East. War will not resolve longstanding conflicts, it will explode them wider and deeper. War will not unite the Arabs with the West, it will rekindle painful historical memories of past efforts by the "Christian" West to dominate the "Muslim" East and divide us as never before, with potentially disastrous results for the local Christian communities. War will not stop aggression, it will instead rapidly accelerate the cycle of violence and revenge, which will not be limited to the Middle East.
We will also be ravaged here at home by a war in the Middle East. Given the make-up of U.S. volunteer armed forces, we know that those who will do most of the suffering and dying in the Gulf war will be disproportionately low-income and people of color. Similarly, if "Desert Shield" continues to swallow up limited national resources in a time of economic contraction, the prospects of justice at home will disappear like a mirage in the sand.
Again and again during our pilgrimage we heard the sentiment that peace in the Middle East is indivisible. While we do not accept the proposition that the resolution of all other conflicts must precede the solution of the Gulf crisis, we do believe that there will be no lasting peace in the region until interrelated issues are dealt with in a comprehensive framework. What is required is not "linkage," but consistency in the implementation of U.S. foreign policy. Our government should support the convening of an international Middle East peace conference by the United Nations.
We have prayed in Jerusalem for the peace of Jerusalem. Jerusalem's vocation as the city of peace will not be realized until both Israelis and Palestinians are free and fully protected in the exercise of their human rights within secure and recognized boundaries.
We have seen both the hopes and the frustrations of Lebanon as it emerges from its 15-year nightmare of civil war. A durable peace in Lebanon requires the withdrawal of all foreign forces -- Syrian, Israeli and Iranian -- and international support as Lebanon seeks to rebuild its shattered society.
We have felt the anguish of a divided Cyprus, which seems to have been forgotten by the world community. Cyprus can be united and free only when occupation forces are withdrawn from the island, and a unified and pluralistic Republic of Cyprus is acknowledged as the only legitimate government of the entire island and its population.
There is no such thing as a benign occupation. Occupation of the lands of others is wrong. It breeds frustration and frustration leads to conflict. Even as we oppose the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait on moral grounds, so also we believe that the West Bank and Gaza, Lebanon and Cyprus must be free. These occupations must end before even more precious human blood is shed.
We have looked into the faces of children in Iraq. In Jordan we have witnessed in dusty refugee camps the compassionate response of a democratic government and the churches to the thousands of evacuees who descended upon a country already impoverished by the Gulf crisis. We have seen fear in the eyes of people who could lose their homes or their lives in the event of war.
Having seen the faces of victims and potential victims, we believe that there must be an alternative to war. That alternative is negotiations -- serious and substantive negotiations. If the United Nations can be mobilized to impose sanctions and to set deadlines, it can also be mobilized to provide a forum to resolve disputes between nations. The U.N. can be the place where the deadly escalation of armaments of mass destruction in the Middle East can be reversed. The U.N. should be given the opportunity to provide a framework for an Arab contribution to the resolution of the Gulf crisis.
Our nation must not submit to the inevitability of war. By acting now on a very broad scale we as people of faith will mobilize on behalf of a peaceful alternative. Citizen action and the strength of public opinion could literally make possible a solution to this crisis without war.
We call upon the churches and upon the nation to fast and pray for peace, to pursue every means available of public dialogue and popular expression to find a way out of certain catastrophe, to resist the war option and to help point the way to peace with justice.
At this moment, the resolution of the Gulf crisis will take a miracle. But in this season we are reminded that the Middle East is the cradle of miracles. That miracle must be acted and prayed into being.
- Bishop Vinton Anderson, Moderator, Black Church Liaison Committee of the World Council of Churches
- Rev. Dr. James Andrews, Stated Clerk, Presbyterian Church (USA)
- Most Rev. Edmond L. Browning,Presiding Bishop, Episcopal Church
- Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, General Secretary-elect, National Council of Churches
- Rev. Herbert W. Chilstrom, Bishop, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
- Rev. Dr. Milton Efthimiou, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America
- Rev. Mac Charles Jones, National Baptist Convention of America
- Very Rev. Leonid Kishkovsky, President, National Council of Churches
- Rev. Dr. Fred Lofton, immediate past President, Progressive National Baptist Convention
- Rev. Dr. Donald E. Miller, General Secretary, Church of the Brethren
- Rev. Edwin G. Mulder, General Secretary, Reformed Church in America
- Dr. Patricia J. Rumer, General Director, Church Women United
- Dr. Paul Sherry, President, United Church of Christ
- Rev. Dr. Robert Stephanopoulous, Dean, Greek Orthodox Archdiocesan Cathedral of the Holy Trinity
- Bishop Melvin Talbert, California-Nevada Annual Conference, United Methodist Church
- Rev. Angelique Walker-Smith, National Baptist Convention, USA
- Jim Wallis, Editor, Sojourners
- Rev. Dr. Daniel E. Weiss, General Secretary, American Baptist Churches in the USA