By Becky Lambert
War is not the answer, violence is not the answer. We live in a society today that believes both can bring about desired outcomes. Specifically, those who advocated for the war in Iraq believed that our intervention there would allow Iraq to become a beacon for democracy in the Middle East. What have we learned during the last five years but that our brothers and sisters in Iraq, who have no voice and no choice, do not look to this occupation as the liberation they were told it would be. Hundreds of thousands dead, millions displaced, cities bombed beyond recognition, no electricity, no security, no food. We have literally bombed them back to the Stone Age. And for this we need to take responsibility.
So, I must confront the war in my own community. Because I am sick of hearing the statistics: …nearly 4,000 dead; 29,000 irreparably damaged; the suicide rate of soldiers is at the highest it has ever been, as is the rate of soldiers who commit homicide when they are on leave or after they come back from Iraq; at the minimum, two-thirds of women in the military are sexual harassed or raped; hundreds of thousands of Iraqi’s are dead…I choose to confront the war starting with the recruiting center. It is there that I see our youth disappearing, where I see teenagers recruited to fight the wars of old men. When we talk to the recruiters they tell us that they are just part of the system, soldiers following orders. We can let ourselves get away with a whole lot when we start thinking in those terms, when we take no responsibility. I will sit in front of the recruiting center because I need to be true to myself, I need to take responsibility for what is happening in my community.