This afternoon I attended a forum sponsored by the Lancaster Interchurch Peace Witness at the Lancaster, PA Church of the Brethren. The topic of the forum was "Prospects for a Moral U.S. Policy in the Middle East." The main speaker was Raymond McGovern, a former CIA Analyst and founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. After a 27 year career with the CIA, he now codirects the Servant Leadership School, a Jubilee Ministry at Washington, DC's Church of the Savior. McGovern was a federal employee under seven U.S. presidents and presented the morning intelligence briefings at the White House for many years.

It is hard to summarize a 2-hour meeting in a few lines, but let me give you the gist of what he and the responders had to say. Some of what follows is my own reaction to what was said. As to the immediate future in Iraq, McGovern's group has come up with the recommendation that we begin withdrawing our troops immediately and that we disavow the creation of any permanent bases in Iraq. The idea is that if we remove the main obstacle to peace, namely our presence, the Iraqis will work out a solution to their own differences.

What are the responsibilities of the churches, and of their congregants in this country? We are called to be faithful, whether or not we are successful. We must speak out against the evil of the military solution. We must speak out against the erosion of our civil liberties, particularly the loss of habeus corpus. We are marching down the same path as Germany did in the 1930's. If the churches and the people remain silent, corrupt power will continue to gain ascendancy until we are in the same position as was Germany in 1936.

He said that what we should have done on 9/12 was to take a deep breath and to ask ourselves, what caused this to happen, and what can we do to uncover the root causes, and perhaps correct them. Instead we opted to begin a religious war with the Muslims.

So, what do we do now? First of all, what happens in two weeks will be paramount in determing if we can solve the problem or have it drag on for another two years. If we do not change our course of action, the violence will only get worse, and eventually the helicopters will be flying out the remaining Americans on the rooftops in the Green Zone. The solution is really up to the American people at the ballot box in November. As individuals we must have the courage to speak out no matter how it affects our relations with our neighbors and friends.

We will not have peace until we begin to practice justice. We cannot continue to focus on preserving our way of life. It is obscene for us to think that it is alright to sacrifice our children for the preservation of our way of life. The prophet Amos said, "Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." God is not interested in our sacrifices. Another prophet, Micah asked, "What does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"

I want to share with you one decision that I made several years ago. I vowed that I will never again sing, "God Bless America," so long as we continue to use our power to preserve our way of life. It is blasphemous to ask God to bless our use of violence and military force to do just that.