IRD Press Release on the War

I found this press release in my in-box:

UNITED METHODIST BISHOPS OPPOSE IRAQ WAR, IGNORE HUMAN RIGHTS

The Council of Bishops of the United Methodist Church, at its November meeting, nearly unanimously approved a resolution condemning the U.S. military presence in Iraq. A separate unofficial statement, signed by over the half of the active U.S. bishops, even more harshly denounced the “unjust and immoral invasion and occupation,” while charging that Americans are being “sent to Iraq to kill and be killed.”

At the same meeting, the bishops approved a brief statement on the crisis in Darfur. They urged prayer for the situation, but pointedly refrained from criticizing the Islamist Sudanese government for its genocidal campaign against the Darfurians.

The United Methodist Church has 8.2 million members in the U.S., including both President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney.

“How woefully absurd,” commented the IRD’s United Methodist spokesman Mark Tooley, “that church prelates condemn the United States for attempting to build democracy in Iraq, but refuse to condemn the Sudanese regime’s deliberate destruction of hundreds of thousands of lives in pursuit of an Islamic theocracy.”

Tooley also noted that the bishops even-handedly “lament the continued warfare by the United States, coalition forces, and the insurgents” in Iraq.

“No doubt, these bishops, if transported back in history, would have impartially ‘lamented’ the ‘continued warfare’ between Allied and German forces in Normandy in 1944, while blaming the plight of millions of victims of fascist aggression on the United States,” Tooley suggested. “These bishops, like other politically outspoken officials of mainline denominations, seem to be incapable of criticizing any government in the world except for the United States and its closest allies.”

The bishops’ official statement on Iraq faulted the U.S. government for claiming that Saddam Hussein’s regime had weapons of mass destruction and ties to al Qaeda. It also blamed the United States for the “denigration of human dignity” and “gross violations of human rights of prisoners of war.” There was no mention of Saddam Hussein’s human rights record nor of the type of repressive regime that would result if the insurgents in Iraq prevailed. The statement urged the withdrawal of all U.S. military troops and bases from Iraq while seeking a greater United Nations role.

In the unofficial statement, signed by 96 active and retired bishops, Iraqis were described as “needlessly” dying. But the bishops did not identify who was killing the most Iraqis (i.e., the insurgents), nor did they describe how this killing would stop if the United States were to withdraw. Neither of the statements from the bishops mentioned the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed by Saddam’s regime or the millions who were oppressed by it. Nor did either mention the national elections held in Iraq since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Nor did either acknowledge that the United States is spending tens of billions of dollars on Iraqi schools, hospitals, electrical grids, water supply, and other infrastructure.

The official Council of Bishops statement partially quoted the United Methodist Social Principles, which call war “incompatible” with the teachings of Christ. But it neglected to acknowledge the very next sentence of the church’s Social Principles, which states that war might be justified in cases of genocide, brutal suppression, and aggression.

“There are many intelligent arguments that the bishops could have deployed against the Iraq war,” observed Tooley. “But the bishops made none of them. Instead they fell back on a superficial anti-Americanism, which assumes that all global evils, everywhere, are somehow traceable to the United States. Even more sadly, the bishops express no interest in human rights, except as a point on which to criticize the United States for its treatment of prisoners.”