Frequent contributor Maddi Bee delivered the following remarks on April 18 to the congregation of the Bear Creek Church of the Brethren, Dayton, Ohio.

Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was assassinated in church in El Salvador, said these words: 

And so we work today for sanity in a world gone mad.  

My few words today are about the work required by the Golden Rule:  Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you.  Be a good steward of people and of the earth.  Or, in more modern terms: What goes around comes around.

Today we know that our Military at the behest of our Government has attacked and now occupies the former sovereign nation of Iraq.   Iraq is a country said to be the site of the Garden of Eden, the very birthplace of civilization – located where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers flow. 

I ask you to think about how our “Shock and Awe” invasion taught Iraqis about Democracy.  Did bombing Iraq with depleted uranium missiles win over their hearts and minds?  Did using our very own Weapons of Mass Destruction help turn up the alleged Saddam Hussein Weapons of Mass Destruction? 

What have our weapons done to help the Iraqis?   Consider how two hundred tons of radioactive material fired by our invading forces into buildings, homes, streets and gardens all over Baghdad helped them.   Ponder how some might label “us” terrorists.   The lives of 300,000-plus people have been ruined. The Iraqi Soil, Water and Air have been contaminated.   When Depleted Uranium strikes, it goes straight through armor, lead, walls, whatever – before it explodes into a burning vapor which then turns into dust.  This DU dust and the shells and fragments have half lives of 4.7 billion years.  That means thousands upon thousands of Iraqi children will suffer for tens of thousands of years to come.   Conventional weaponry can destroy buildings and tanks without incorporating Depleted Uranium.   Could our Government and Military have forgotten that the use of such Weapons of Mass Destruction are forbidden by the Geneva Convention?  Or did we back out of that Convention?  

Imagine these scenes:  Poor Iraqi people using the discarded weapon shells to carry water, and to sell milk from the family goat, or to feed the milk to their babies. 

The fallout will be fetal deformities, sterility in men and women, increased miscarriages and premature births, congenital malformations, abnormal organs, hydranencephaly, anencephaly and delayed and dramatically retarded growth in children.  Skin cancers, bone tumors, an increase in all kinds of cancers can be expected in the coming years.  I won’t even mention the effects on Mother Earth, Water, and Air.

One of the Iraqi doctors in hospital recently said:  “I’m fed up with delegations coming and weeping as I show them children dying before their eyes.  I want action and not emotion.  The crime has been committed and documented – but we must act now to save our children’s future.”

We, the U.S. citizens, must act now to save our children’s future and ourselves as well.   The government acts in our name.  Is this what we want our government to tell the world about us, the People – that we are stone cold killers, invaders, people without any morals?   

And yet, that is what is happening.  Remember: what goes around comes around.  We can never know the path God’s Justice will take.  If the Golden Rule prevails we are condemned. 

Already it is being documented that even some of our GIs are suffering the illnesses associated with Depleted Uranium.  And our government is turning its back on them, too. 

We need to pray and work every day to bring this horror – this illegal pre-emptive war – to an end. 

In closing, let me leave you with a special Franciscan Benediction:

May God bless you with DISCOMFORT at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships so that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with ANGER at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless you with TEARS to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain into joy.

And may God bless you with enough FOOLISHNESS to believe that you can make a difference in this world so that you can DO what others claim cannot be done.  Amen.