When will we ever learn?

Charles Harker Jr., Remer
The Pilot-Independent, Walker, Minnesota
Tuesday, August 22nd, 2006

Listening to the news of civilian casualties in Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Iraq, Sri Lanka, Columbia, Darfur, as well as other areas of military combat in the world, deep feelings of grief for the injustice and criminality of such actions rise up.
But there are also other feelings — the feeling of helplessness in stopping such killings, and the feeling of guilt for the joy I first expressed as a member of the Pacific Navy when the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was announced, only to be followed by the horror of realizing that this resulted in the deaths of some 150,000 people, primarily civilians, but also including U.S. prisoners of war. How can we call that the "Good War?"

However, there are three men now sitting in jail in North Dakota, that are doing something to stop this inhumanity. Their crime? They tried to disarm one of the 1700-plus nuclear missiles in North Dakota.

Mike Walli enlisted in the army as a young man. With the experience of two tours in Vietnam, he said, "This is not about our national defense. The hundreds of nuclear weapons are offensive weapons of mass destruction."

Greg Boertje-Obed, who after his time as an officer in the military, married and is the father of an 11-year-old daughter says, "I was trained to fight and 'win' a nuclear war. It became clear to me that all the preparations for a nuclear war were wrong. In contrast Jesus taught "Love your enemies — don't fear those who can kill the body — those who live by the sword will die by the sword."

Fr. Carl Kabat spent several years in the Philippines and Brazil. He says,"The indiscriminate killing of children, women, old people and everyone else certainly cannot be accepted under an just theory of war. Perhaps the fact that we are in jail can help us as a nation remember the criminality of the past ... and help stop such insanity from being repeated in the future."

As Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, was preparing to go to the Mideast seeking peace, the Administration announced its plans for selling $4.6 billion of arms to "moderate" Arab states, including battle tanks worth as much as $2.9 million for Saudi Arabia and Javelin anti-tank missiles valued at $48 million for Oman.

When will we ever learn? Until we learn the lessons of the three patriots, now in jail in North Dakota, I grieve for my country, with its military expenditures exceeding the military expenditures of all other nations combined, and for the people who suffer as the result of the misguided sales and use of our military might.

Charles Harker Jr., Remer