What would it mean to recognize al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and ISIS as organizations composed of human beings like us? Each of them has ideas, hopes, and dreams. They are people like us with families like ours -- with grandparents, parents, brothers, sisters, children, and grandchildren. What if we saw them as such? What if we recognized them as desperate people under attack, with homes they cherish every bit as much as we cherish our own? They are patriotic and as confused and angry as we might be if we were suddenly and inexplicably attacked by inscrutable people located more than 7000 miles away.
So what if, instead of continuing with their current insane unvarying response to terrorism, our mad bombers in D.C.:
- Reduced the U.S. military budget by 50% as a gesture of good will
- Affirmed their intention to invest the billions now used in war to rebuild the countries that have been under attack for decades -- their schools, hospitals, homes and mosques.
- In order to remove a major cause of Mid=Eastern conflict, announced their intention to immediately prioritize conversion of our economies to 100% renewable energy sources by 2025
- Demanded that Israel obey U.N. Resolution 242 and withdraw from the occupied territories belonging to the Palestinians -- thus removing, by all accounts, a major cause of Islamic terrorism
- Summoned an international Peace conference to resolve outstanding differences between ISIS and Western alliances
- Were required by law to finance any future wars by a special war tax to be voted on by plebiscite?
Measures like those would not only restore a token of sanity to combatting terrorism; they'd save lives and money. And they'd restore the good will the United States once enjoyed in the world.
They are the measures would-be followers of Jesus should be advancing instead of quietly going along with business as usual. Otherwise, what good is our faith? How is it Trinitarian? How does it affirm in any meaningful way, life's fundamental unity in the face of its apparent plurality?
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