In Numbness We Stand

On February 25th, the United States carried out an act of military retaliation on a Syrian village making Biden the seventh consecutive president to bomb the Middle East. Senators Kaine and Murphy called for congressional hearings on the legality of the bombing. Representative Ro Khanna made it clear that without imminent threat the president must get Congressional approval…but so it goes.

We are a nation of people unwilling to end war. Words like “necessary deterrent” and “collateral damage” have made us numb to the blood on our hands. The Syrian village was bombed in retaliation to an earlier airstrike in Iraq that killed a Philippine contractor and wounded a United States soldier – let that sink in. Various reports indicate that we killed 3 to 22 people. Nobody knows for sure and those that care are intentionally not heard. Oh and the village was “believed to be” occupied by militias. That’s right, “believed to be”.

The smoke and mirrors of both parties in using our military, our soldiers, and our name to preserve and protect the precious oil in the Middle East is horrifying. And yet it continues. It continues because we have grown numb. We accept the headlines and stop reviewing the details. 

We have forsaken the sanctity of life. We cannot be bothered to demand tools of diplomacy be our first choice. Yet our weapons become more sophisticated, more deadly and more expensive. 

And today’s greatest lie is “we must preserve our way of life”, while we bomb villages, and destroy the earth for fossil fuels and to fill a few wealthy pockets.

We have relied on “might is right” for far too long. I look forward to the day when one human life is as valuable as another and this Christian nation lives up to its boasts.

Photo compliments of Creative Commons Attribution – Wikimedia Commons