[E-rundbrief] Info 75 - John Dear: Soldiers At My Door - USA - Irak

[Matthias Reichl]

E-Rundbrief - Info 75 - John Dear: Soldiers At My Door - USA - Irak

Bad Ischl, 3.1.2004

Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
www.begegnungszentrum.at

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The Soldiers At My Front Door

John Dear

29.11.2003

CommonDreams.org

I live in a tiny, remote, impoverished, three block long town in the desert 
of northeastern New Mexico. Everyone in town--and the whole state--knows 
that I am against the occupation of Iraq, that I have called for the 
closing of Los Alamos, and that as a priest, I have been preaching, like 
the Pope, against the bombing of Baghdad.

Last week, it was announced that the local National Guard unit for 
northeastern New Mexico, based in the nearby Armory, was being deployed to 
Iraq early next year. I was not surprised when yellow ribbons immediately 
sprang up after the press conference. But I was surprised the following 
morning to hear 75 soldiers singing, shouting and screaming as they jogged 
down Main Street, passed our St. Joseph's church, back and forth around 
town for an hour. It was 6 a.m., and they woke me up with their war 
slogans, chants like "Kill! Kill! Kill!" and "Swing your guns from left to 
right; we can kill those guys all night."

Their chants were disturbing, but this is war. They have to psyche 
themselves up for the kill. They have to believe that flying off to some 
tiny, remote desert town in Iraq where they will march in front of 
someone's house and kill poor young Iraqis has some greater meaning besides 
cold-blooded murder. Most of these young reservists have never left our 
town, and they need our support for the "unpleasant task" before them. I 
have been to Iraq, and led a delegation of Nobel Peace Prize winners to 
Baghdad in 1999, and I know that the people there are no different than the 
people here.

The screaming and chanting went on for one hour. They would march passed 
the church, down Main Street, back around the post office, and down Main 
Street again. It was clear they wanted to be seen and heard. In fact, it 
was quite scary because the desert is normally a place of perfect peace and 
silence.

Suddenly, at 7 a.m., the shouting got dramatically louder. I looked out the 
front window of the house where I live, next door to the church, and there 
they were - all 75 of them, standing yards away from my front door, in the 
street right in front of my house and our church, shouting and screaming to 
the top of their lungs, "Kill! Kill! Kill!" Their commanders had planted 
them there and were egging them on.

I was astonished and appalled. I suddenly realized that I do not need to go 
to Iraq; the war had come to my front door. Later, I heard that they had 
deliberately decided to do their exercises in front of my house and our 
church because of my outspoken opposition to the war. They wanted to put me 
in my place. This, I think, is a new tactic. Over the years, I have been 
arrested some 75 times in demonstrations, been imprisoned for a 
"Plowshares" disarmament action, been bugged, tapped, and harassed, 
searched at airports, and monitored by police.But this time the soldiers 
who will soon march through Baghdad and attack desert homes in Iraq, 
practiced on me. They confronted me personally, just as the death squad 
militaries did in Guatemala and El Salvador in the 1980s, which I witnessed 
there on several occasions.

I decided I had to do something. I put on my winter coat and walked out the 
front door right into the middle of the street. They stopped shouting and 
looked at me, so I said loudly, publicly for all to hear, "In the name of 
God, I order all of you to stop this nonsense, and not to go to Iraq. I 
want all of you to quit the military, disobey your orders to kill, and not 
to kill anyone. I do not want you to get killed. I want you to practice the 
love and nonviolence of Jesus. God does not bless war. God does not want 
you to kill so Bush and Cheney can get more oil. God does not support war. 
Stop all this and go home. God bless you."

Their jaws dropped, their eyeballs popped and they stood in shock and 
silence, looking steadily at me. Then they burst out laughing. Finally, the 
commander dismissed them and they left.

Later, military officials spread lies around town that I had disrupted 
their military exercises at the Armory, so they decided to come to my house 
and to the church in retaliation. Others appealed to the archbishop to have 
me kicked out of New Mexico for denouncing their warmaking. Then, a general 
called the mayor and asked him to mediate "negotiations" with me, saying he 
did not want the military "in confrontation" with the church. Really, the 
mayor told me, they fear that I will disrupt the gala send-off next month, 
just before Christmas, when the soldiers go to Iraq.

This dramatic episode is only the latest in a series of confrontations 
since I came to the desert of New Mexico in the summer of 2002 to serve as 
pastor of several poor, desert churches. I have spoken out extensively 
against the U.S. war on Iraq, and been denounced by people, including 
church people, across the state. I have organized small Christian peace 
groups throughout the state. We planned a prayer vigil for nuclear 
disarmament at Los Alamos on the anniversary of Hiroshima this past August, 
but when the devout people of Los Alamos, most of them Catholic, heard 
about it, they appealed to the archbishop to have me expelled if I appeared 
publicly in their town. In the end, I did not attend the vigil, but the 
publicity gave me further opportunities to call for the closing of Los 
Alamos. I receive hate mail, negative phone calls and at least one death 
threat for daring to criticize our country. But New Mexico is the poorest 
state in the U.S. It is also number one in military spending and number one 
in nuclear weapons. It is the most militarized, the most in need of 
disarmament, the most in need of nonviolence. It is the first place the 
Pentagon goes to recruit poor youth into the empire's army.

If we are to change the direction of our country, and turn people against 
Bush's occupation of Iraq, we are going to have to face the ire and 
persecution of our local communities. If peace people in every local 
community insisted that our troops be brought home immediately, that the 
U.N. be sent in to restore Iraq, that all U.S. military aid to the Middle 
East be cut, and that our arsenal of weapons of mass destruction be 
dismantled, then we might all find soldiers marching at our front doors, 
trying to intimidate us. If we can face our soldiers, call them to quit the 
military and urge them to disobey orders to kill, then perhaps some of them 
will refuse to fight, become conscientious objectors and take up the wisdom 
of nonviolence. If we can look them in the eye and engage them in personal 
Satyagraha as Gandhi demonstrated, then we know that the transformation has 
begun.

In the end, the episode for me was an experience of hope. We must be making 
a difference if the soldiers have to march at our front doors. That they 
failed to convert me or intimidate me, that they had to listen to my side 
of the story, may haunt their consciences as they travel to Iraq. No matter 
what happens, they have heard loud and clear the good news that God does 
not want them to kill anyone. I hope we can all learn the lesson.

John Dear is a Catholic Jesuit priest, peace activist, lecturer, and former 
executive director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation. His latest books 
include "Mohandas Gandhi" (Orbis) and "Mary of Nazareth, Prophet of Peace" 
(Ave Maria Press). For info, see http://www.johndear.org




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Matthias Reichl
Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
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