Every Church a Peace Church: Essay on War (Anniversary of the MyLai Massacre)

Keep this essay in mind as Obama preps us for his promised war in Afghanistan (and Pakistan, as a bonus)... so much for "change":


"As long as most American citizens continue to glorify war and militarism and denigrate its peacemakers; as long as the American public endorses the current spirit of nationalism and ruthless global capitalism; and as long as the American church leadership remains prudently silent (and therefore consenting to the homicidal violence of war) we will not be able to effect a change away from the influence of conscienceless war-mongers and war profiteers. The prophets and peacemakers are never valued in militarized nations, especially in times of war; indeed, they are always marginalized, demeaned, imprisoned and even executed as traitors. And one of the reasons is that there are no profits to be made in peacemaking, whereas there are trillions to be made in the biggest business going: the preparation for war and the "inconvenient" but inevitable collateral damage to the creation and its creatures."



The anniversary of the MyLai Massacre, which Hersh courageously wrote about, is tomorrow, March 16 (1968). So here is a piece that I did many years ago. The US military is still doing MyLai-type massacres of innocent, unarmed non-combatants, mostly, I suppose, on a smaller scale and probably regularly, a la the Fallujah massacre and every arial bombing mission, which kills pretty much indiscriminately. Feel free to use it. Gary
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The My Lai Massacre Revisited

Gary G. Kohls, MD


Thirty-nine years ago, on March 16,1968, a company of US Army combat soldiers from the Americal Division swept into the South Vietnamese hamlet of My Lai, rounded up the 500+ unarmed residents, all women, children and old men, and executed them in cold blood, Nazi-style. No weapons were found in the village, and the whole operation took only 4 hours.

...According to many of the soldiers in Company C, Medina ordered the killing of "every living thing in My Lai," including, obviously, innocent noncombatants - men, women, children and even farm animals. Lt. Calley was charged with the murder of 109 civilians. In his defense statement he stated that he had been taught to hate all Vietnamese, even children, who, he had been told, "were very good at planting mines."

...Vietnam veterans tell me that there were scores, maybe hundreds, of "My Lai-type massacres. " Not surprisingly, the Pentagon refuses to acknowledge that truth. ...The only unusual thing about the My Lai Massacre was that it was eventually found out, and the attempted Pentagon cover-up failed.

Very few soldiers or their commanding officers have ever been punished for the many war crimes that occurred during that war because those in charge thought that killing (and torturing) of innocent civilians during war-time is simply the norm, usually labeled "collateral damage." ...

Those who plan wars and/or participate in them, yet also profess to be Christians, pay no attention to the ethics of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5, 6 and 7) or Matthew 25:31-46, unless they are prepared to explicitly reject what their religion's namesake repeatedly said about the issue of homicidal violence (for Jesus says, in so many words: "Violence is forbidden for those who wish to follow me"). And what is most hypocritical is the fact that many pro-war Christians also reject Jesus' Golden Rule command: "Do onto others as you would have them do unto you."

The rejection of the Way of Jesus also includes the rejection of his clear teachings on how his followers are to treat the neighbor, the stranger, the hungry, the naked, the captive, the enemy and all others in need of mercy and understanding. In order to participate in the legal homicide that takes place in all wars, the followers of Jesus have to reject Jesus' teachings and adopt the un-Christ-like, non-gospel Just War Theory of Augustine (which first appeared 3 centuries after Jesus' death). There is no ethical way for the follower of the nonviolent Jesus to participate in or support the mass slaughter of war. The Christian has to choose between two irreconcilable realities.

...Things haven't changed much even from the World War II mentality that conveniently overlooked the monstrous evil that was perpetrated at Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, a war crime so heinous that the psychological consequences, immune deficiency disorders and cancers from that nuclear holocaust are still being experienced in unimaginable suffering 6 decades later.

Things haven't really changed when one witnesses the political mentality that allows the 500,000 deaths of innocent Iraqi civilians in the aftermath of the first Gulf War or the 600,000 plus civilian deaths in the current fiasco in Iraq.

So it appears that our military and political leaders haven't learned anything since My Lai. Is it still true of the churches? The person sitting next to you in the comfortable church pew is, like most unaware Americans, almost totally ignorant of the hellish realities of the war-zone, so he may continue to be blindly patriotic and indifferent to the plight of the "others" who suffer so much in war. He may think, contrary to Jesus' clear teachings, that some people are less than human, and, therefore, if necessary, can be justifiably killed "for Volk, Fuhrer und Vaterland."

As long as most American citizens continue to glorify war and militarism and denigrate its peacemakers; as long as the American public endorses the current spirit of nationalism and ruthless global capitalism; and as long as the American church leadership remains prudently silent (and therefore consenting to the homicidal violence of war) we will not be able to effect a change away from the influence of conscienceless war-mongers and war profiteers. The prophets and peacemakers are never valued in militarized nations, especially in times of war; indeed, they are always marginalized, demeaned, imprisoned and even executed as traitors. And one of the reasons is that there are no profits to be made in peacemaking, whereas there are trillions to be made in the biggest business going: the preparation for war and the "inconvenient" but inevitable collateral damage to the creation and its creatures.

As long as we continue to be led by unapologetic and merciless war-makers and their wealthy business cronies and as long as the ethical infants in Washington, DC continue to be corrupted by the big money bribes, there is no chance America will ever obtain a meaningful peace.

And as long as America's Christian religious leaders and their followers do not reject, as Jesus surely would have had them do, the mass slaughter that is modern war, suffering humanity will be condemned to future wars, poverty, pestilence and starvation.

And unless America stops the unjust carnage, fully repents and offers compensation for the damage it has caused, its turn as a recipient of retaliatory violence will surely come, and it will come from those, foreign and domestic victims that our nation has treated so shamefully over the past half-century.

March 2007 - Gary G. Kohls, MD, Duluth, MN - for Every Church A Peace Church (www.ecapc.org)