Where Is Your Conscience?

Speaking to you as a man who has conducted 166 candlelight vigils for all those who have paid so severe a price in Iraq, and all those who will, where is your conscience?

How can you go on with your life as if this wasn't happening? Where is your compassion?

Men, women and children are being killed in Iraq and for what? What do you think this will accomplish?

More than 6 years ago, the U.S. illegally invaded that nation. Iraqis didn't ask the U.S. to do so nor were they given a choice or a voice. And for all the years since, they have lived under a military occupation.

Over a million Iraqis have been killed, no-one knows how many have been severely injured, 21/2 million have fled their nation and 2 million more hide within it. Nor does anyone know how many orphans there now are.

There are no longer schools for many of the Iraqi children to attend, electricity is a luxury and so are clean water and sewage treatment. Unemployment is 40 - 50%, twice that in the U.S. during the 1930's Great Depression.

Medical care is in short supply because so many doctors and nurses have fled. There is also a shortage of medical supplies because much of it trades on the black market. Does any of this bother you enough to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice?

And what about the American soldiers and their allies? More than 5,000 if them have been killed and perhaps 40,000 of them have been so badly injured, that they now function missing legs or arms or are so impaired, they'll now need a lifetime of care. And for what?

Many of you say "I support the troops," but how do you support them? By leaving them in harm's way? Do you greet them when they return? Do you take an interest in what happens to them or their families?

And what about the U.S.'s nearly 8 year old war in Afghanistan, which has now spread to and endangers Pakistan. Is that something you can't be bothered with even as that war is being escalated by the U.S.? What has that war accomplished? What do you think it will?

In the name of God, where is your conscience? How can you look the other way while all of this death and destruction goes on? How can you be too busy when it's done in your name?

You may say, "There's nothing I can do about it," but have you tried? When was the last time you took any action to stop this carnage? You will never know how much you could accomplish or how important your voice is until you find the courage and the conscience to act!

Dick