By the Waters of Babylon
A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it
divides and becomes four branches....The name of the third river is the
Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates.
Genesis 2:10, 14
Water is life in Iraq. Eight years ago this month, I stood where the
Tigris and the Euphrates meet, in tradition the site of the Garden of Eden,
the site of the Tree of Life.
Then he showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal,
flowing from the throne of God...On either side of the river is the tree of
life...and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.
The Revelation to John 22:1-2
Water was the enemy back then. Sewerage treatment plants couldn’t get
parts and chemicals. The water wasn’t safe to drink. Holds were often
placed on shipments of dual-use items because the items could also be used
to manufacture biological weapons and weapons of mass destruction. We know
now that there were no such weapons in the Iraqi arsenal.
Iraq was the enemy back then.
I visited a magnificent mosque in Baghdad which ran a soup kitchen and
had a library with beautiful books and manuscripts and a shrine to a twelfth
century saint. I wonder today if it was Sunni or Shi’a.
At the Saddam Pediatric Hospital, a handmade sign read ‘Stop killing
Iraqi children. End the sanctions’. It had been made by a little boy named
Osama who had died of leukemia. The wards of children with leukemia were
called wards of death by the doctors. None of the children would live, they
said. This in a country where there was universal health care before the
Gulf War.
We called a press conference to report our findings on the Eid al Adha,
the end of the hajj, the commemoration of Abraham not having to sacrifice
his son. What was the sacrifice eight years ago? What were the weapons of
mass destruction?
As we come up on the fifth anniversary of the continuation of that Gulf
War, 3963 US military have died in the war and occupation of Iraq.
Forty-one thousand have been wounded. Four hundred eighteen veterans of the
war and occupation have committed suicide. One million Iraqis have been
killed and four million displaced.
I ask again: what is the sacrifice, what the weapons of mass destruction?
By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept...How do we sing the
Lord’s song in this foreign land?
from Psalm 137
5 March 2008
Durham NC
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