More than a few bloggers are breaking down the lefty religious activist group Christian Peacemaker Team, four of whose members are being held captive by a nebulous insurgent group in Iraq. More on the group from Newsday... Clearly they went to Iraq just before the war with the notion that they were "taking the side of the Iraqi people" ostensibly against the notion of bombing said people in a war -- which for those on the right means they're against the U.S. (though I'm not sure how that could be, since supposedly, we're on the side of the Iraqi people, too... and were theoretically bombing not them, but their Baathist jailors...) Nonetheless, the group's back story, and its criticism of the U.S. and U.K., which the group has blamed for the kidnappings, puts it squarely in what you might call the ""peace" camp:
"...The Christian Peacemaker Teams has kept a presence in Baghdad since before the invasion. The group, which has offices in Chicago and Toronto, for years has sent teams to Afghanistan, Colombia, the West Bank city of Hebron and other war zones.
The Baghdad team published reports about the U.S. military's abuse of prisoners months before photos from Abu Ghraib prison made the issue a global scandal. The team is encouraging conciliation between Sunni and Shia Muslims as extremists from both sects fight a civil war.
This year, the group helped Iraqis form a small Muslim Peacemaker Team in the Shia city of Najaf. The Christian team took Shia peacemakers to the war-shattered Sunni city of Fallujah to spend a day clearing rubble and garbage from the city's streets. This month, team members helped this correspondent visit Fallujah to report on its condition.
Last month, Fox helped lead one of the team's more grueling missions, helping 19 Palestinian refugees who were trying to migrate to Syria because of rising animosity against Palestinians in post-Hussein Iraq. Team members rode with the Palestinians to the Syrian border and camped with them in the desert for a portion of the five weeks it took to get the refugees entry. Fox, who is tall and thin, later joked that the trip had been a great weight-loss program. ..."
Now of course, this kind of do-gooderism sounds a lot more compatible with Christ's teachings about reaching out to the poor and downtrodden than the Dennis Prager/Sean Hannity version of Christ's love, which mostly consists of blowing things up and killing people (between war and the death penalty, the right wing Jesus is a mean S.O.B., isn't he?) But I digress.
The main issue now, for many on the right, is whether the group's assumed "anti-Americanness" now means they should be left to their fate with the terrorists. To his credit, Rusty Shackleford at Jawa took his shots but concluded that "[d]espite the misguided efforts of the pacifist organization, these four activists are victims of Islamist aggression. We condemn the hostage takers and pray for the immediate release." ... of course he added that "unlike the 'Christian Peacemaker Teams', we hope that the terrorists die at the hands of an angry Marine..." Nice.
Wizbang's Jay Tea agonized a bit more, but basically concluded that their salvation should at best be an afterthought:
I don't think we should put a single US soldier at risk to save them from the hands of their erstwhile allies cum abductors. But I think those abductors need to be found and killed. If, in the process, we happen to save the CPT folk, all the better. I wish them no harm.
But I know that should their lives be spared by acts of violence, they will never forgive those that save them. It would be a gross violation of their stated ethical principles, and a repudiation of all they stand for. As someone who believes in respecting the beliefs and principles whenever possible, I think that must be honored.
All Things Beautiful focuses on "the Islamofascist manifesto," pointing out in quite beautiful fashion I must say, the personal agony that the hostage's families are going through -- which should bely any thought that they should be left to rot.
Chachi of the Spanktuary sat right down and wrote the peaceniks a letter, but after the berating, dutifully wished them godspeed. ...
The Dread Pundit Bluto sees a hostage circus afoot, complete with sinister Muslim activists from the U.K. ...
Neil Boortz and that total Wack-job Michael Savage basically wished the hostages very, very ill on their shows today (I guess they didn't get the "wish them well in the last sentence" memo from Ken Mehlman...)
I for one am damned glad the United States military doesn't make tactical decisions based on who passes some right wing ideological test, or who professes the most love for George W. Bush. The military is what it is -- a fighting and war-making machine. It isn't an instrument of God's divine retribution (sorry, Mr. President) or of the wannabe divine retribution of one political party or another. The military blows things up and kills people. It also rescues people, often in dramatic fashion, but usually with lots of gunfire and violence. Jesus loves, teaches and forgives people. One deals with the bodies, the other with the souls. Two very different disciplines, I'd say.
So from a military standpoint, it doesn't matter what these people think of the United States. If it is deemed feasible, if the opportunity arises, and the risks are acceptible to the commanders in charge, these folks will get pinched from their captors whether their attitudes comport with Rush Limbaugh's Lewinskiing of the President or not. More likely, their group's history of sympathy toward Muslims, and especially toward Palestinians, will probably result in their eventual release. That's my guess, anyway.
As for the question of whether they deserve to be "left to their fate" with the "side they've chosen in this war," that strikes me as unique in being both irrelevant, and damned un-Christian.
Update: Jawa grabs the Guardian scoop that the hostages were kidnapped from the same mosque as Iralian anti-war journo Giulian Sgrena, who was similarly nabbed, then released, earlier this year. Dr. Shackleford presumes this is good news for the hostages:
...Up to this point we have refrained from speculating that this hostage crisis could have been staged by the terror organization so that they could later release the hostages in a show of 'goodwill'. Our many readers and fellow bloggers have not been so restrained. However, in light of this new information...well, consider it a thought in the back of our collective heads which we just can't help thinking. In no way would this have to mean that the hostages were in on the hoax, only that the threat against their lives might not be real--especially if they were known by the terrorists to sympathize with their cause.
Why would terrorists do this? Well, look what happened during the Giuliana Sgrena crisis. Sgrena, who's sympathies were with the terrorists anyway, was more than happy to cry on cue and demand that Italy withdraw immediately from Iraq. The reaction from the Italian Left was overwhelming and the pressure mounted on the Burlesconi government to leave. Terrorists are not stupid. They choose tactics that they believe work. If it seemed to work once...
MPJ concludes, and I agree, that if this be the case, these guys will eventually be sprung. ... God-willing...
Update 2: An influential Sunni Muslim group in Iraq has called on the hostage-takers to release the CPT activists, citing their history of helping Muslims... And here's the story on the British anti-war activist who's headed to Iraq to try and pull a Jesse Jackson and win the release of the hostages (in case you don't feel like wading through Bluto's rant to get to it -- although do wade through -- nothing wrong with that)... Also, what's up with the German hostage and her driver? Ms. Merkel sure doesn't seem to be making any headway there...
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"[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.' Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 84, August, 1788
