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I hear various plans as to how the U.S. should leave Iraq, or should deal with insurgents. But the one thing I NEVER hear is that our first priority should be to attend to the dire, immediate needs of the Iraqi people. Now. Today.
We have destroyed their country, killed hundreds of thousands of their people and maimed many more. Today, this formerly modern nation is without A/C and running water in relentless 120 degree heat. Imagine living in the center of a dusty desert with no air conditioning and no cool, fresh water, day after dirty day, for YEARS!! And we stand by and let it go on.
The Iraqis are also without jobs, without civic services, without hospitals, and, most of all, without peace and safety. They are even without the hope that things might get better any time soon.
That is all OUR fault -- the fault of the United States of America and every citizen of it. If we are Christians -- or even humanists -- we have an obligation to make things right for the people of Iraq, or at least to try.
The self-serving point-of-view is that we should get out of Iraq as fast as possible and wash our hands of it. I agree that the armed forces should be removed. But we cannot, should not, wash our hands of the mess -- the human catastrophe -- we have made.
If we are really a Christian nation, we should show some Christianity to those poor Muslims. And not in Iraq alone, either.
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