Abu Gharib

By Richard H. Curtiss

The Ziggarat at Abu Ghraib is a tower that has stood for more than 3,000 years. It is a Baghdad landmark that can be seen for miles. Every spring during plowing new pots and ceramic shards are found in the fields.

Abu Ghraib is also an Iraqi experimental farm. Not far away, there is a prison that dates back to the time of Saddam Hussain's mass murders. About once a year, when the prison would become too full, dozens or hundreds of Iraqis were executed-with or without trial-in order to clear the decks for more victims.

A good friend of mine was seized in one of the real or fancied coups against the Iraqi president and held at Abu Ghraib for at least three years. Each time a new purge was proclaimed, I dreaded that I would see his name. One day, after a brand new purge, my friend, along with dozens of others who had been held in this bestial prison, was listed among the victims. By that time even I couldn't remember why he had been arrested.

Much more recently, when it was clear that the Saddam Hussain regime was about to fall, thousands of Iraqi prisoners were freed. They probably would have liberated themselves anyway as the jailers fled. The suddenly liberated prisoners were part of the flotsam and jetsam who had no place to go just as U.S. soldiers and Marines arrived after their lightning dash from Kuwait to Baghdad and beyond in a matter of days.

By Bob Wing

A friend of mine was discussing Abu Ghraib with his Egyptian father, who had originally supported the war. Referring to the photo of the female U.S. soldier with a leash around a prostrate Iraqi, he asked his Dad, "What is the message of that photo? It's that the Iraqi is a dog."

His father replied, "No. The message is that he's MY dog."

The tortures at Abu Ghraib have exposed to the world the utter moral bankruptcy of Bush's war. Far from being fought on behalf of Iraqi democracy, it is a war for U.S. supremacy in which racist dehumanization and brutalization of Arabs and Muslims play an absolutely central role.

Since September 11 the White House has framed its "war on terrorism" in thinly veiled racial and religious terms: as a crusade of the "civilized" against the "uncivilized." This unsavory propaganda campaign has built upon a more than decade-long effort by the government and the media to demonize Arabs and Muslims as "bloodthirsty terrorists."

By Johncy Itty

Readings for Easter 7, Year C, May 23, 2004

Acts 16:16-34
Psalm 97
Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21
John 17:20-26

As we draw closer to the season of Pentecost, we are constantly reminded of the power of God to change human hearts, minds, and attitudes. On the eve of Pentecost, we pray that the presence of the Holy Spirit will help to inform and direct the course of our lives as members of a Christian family.

Our meditations for the seventh Sunday in Easter include a well-known passage from the book of Acts in which Paul and Silas were imprisoned and caused to suffer a great deal because of their faith and their steadfast proclamation of the Good News of Jesus Christ. Despite their mistreatment and false arrest, Paul and Silas slowly transformed the minds and hearts of their captors and others who were imprisoned, through their deep sense of faith and, especially, their behavior. Our text notes: "About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them."