i don't like war

i'm not pro-war. i don't stand with the president on a whole lot of things, one of which is the war in iraq. but one thing i really hate is when the media twists what is really going on there, and gives us the impression that iraqis hate americans, and that they were better off under saddam hussein.

in my short trip, i saw the kurdish people flourishing in their new-found freedom. construction is everywhere as they finally at least feel safe to rebuild their lives again. their is hope in their eyes. the oppression these people faced was awful - at least 2,500 villages were leveled, most by massive gas bombs. at the kurdish textile museum, there are rooms full of pictures of children strewn across the street, dead and eyes open, killed in the middle of a soccer game by a bomb. mothers carrying their babies, trying to flee the villages, lay dead alongside the roads, babies still in their arms.

maybe we didn't find weapons of mass destruction, but that doesn't mean everything else was okay. iranians still pour across the border in the name of jihad, trying to preserve the name of Allah.

i hate war. i believe there are more peaceful solutions, but i don't want to argue, or even calmly debate this. good things are happening in iraq. God is moving there in ways i have never seen or felt before. on Easter, the pope said that nothing good is happening in iraq. clearly he's never been.