PERSONAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE DAY THE WAR BEGAN: JANUARY 16, 1991 : THE ARCHBISHOP

All war and armed conflict are a sad admission of human failure. The current military engagement in the Persian Gulf is but one more page added to the book of human history that illustrates that men and nations are more effective in preparing and waging war than in building and achieving peace.

The battle that began in and around Iraq on Jan. 16 is not an isolated event whose origins are linked just to Aug. 2, when Kuwait was invaded. Rather, we are living out the consequences of policy decisions made over the past several years.

It is paradoxical that the allied forces now attacking Iraq’s military installations are being fired upon by the missiles and weapons that those very allied forces supplied the Iraqis.

While extensive human-rights abuses unfolded in Iraq year after year, and while Iraq’s leaders continued to accumulate ominous weapons they were willing to use against their own citizens and neighbors, we and the world community maintained a baffling silence--a silence that Iraq took to mean approval.

I am saddened that all international attempts to achieve the reversal of Iraq’s aggression toward Kuwait failed, and that war is now the reality.

There are no real winners in war. Not only do suffering and destruction abound on all sides, but even more deeply, the human spirit grieves over one more failure to achieve alternatives to armed conflict.

My heart and prayers go out to all who suffer during these days of tension and uncertainty: the men and women of our allied forces and their families, the innocent peoples of Kuwait and the innocent peoples of Iraq whose lives have been dominated by a fearful dictator.

As a Christian, my thoughts turn to the assuring words of Jesus Christ spoken to his apprehensive disciples before he died upon the cross: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid” (John 14:27).

The peace that Christ offers is profoundly different from the peace we humans envision and live out. Christ’s peace is a totally self-giving peace, a peace that offers understanding and forgiveness.

It is as well a peace founded upon respect and dignity for each human person, a peace whose goal is a world order in which justice forges and shapes all human relations.

The Middle East has been subjected to rivalry and distrust ever since Cain killed Abel (Genesis 4). The tensions and discords that have marked its long history have ravaged Arab peoples, Persian peoples and Jewish peoples. Stable peace has eluded the best efforts of the region’s national leaders, as well as the leaders of other nations.

We can only hope that, regardless of the origins of this latest regional conflict, the international community will seize the moment to find a just and lasting resolution to all of the region’s problems. Simply shifting the balance of armed power from one country to another has proved fruitless in resolving the many core problems that cry out for final resolution.

Each country needs secure and safe borders, together with the full recognition of each other’s unqualified right to exist within its borders. The Palestinian peoples need their own homeland, with the right to choose and control their own destiny.

Israel must be assured of its proper place in the region, with all threats halted. The peoples of Lebanon crave a return to normalcy in which their country can regain its former independence from outside forces and influences.

Just as the United Nations has acted in concert to condemn the Iraqi aggression and to repel it, so I hope that its newly discovered leadership capacity will now be turned to the full resolution of the many divisions and competing goals that have disrupted this region for so many decades--indeed, centuries.

I plead with all who live in Southern California to raise up intensive prayer to God:

--That armed conflict will quickly give way to a peaceful resolution to the Persian Gulf crisis;

--That human suffering will be lessened among all combatants and innocent victims;

--That the peaceful longing of the human heart will prevail over the distrust and the hatred.

Let us make the words of the Psalmist our own:

“May the Lord give strength to his people; may the Lord bless his people with peace!” (Psalm 29:11).