Under-reported issue
When it comes to war and other issues of conscience, faith-based publications often do much better than mainstream media do. But I think your magazine and others ought to do a much better job reporting the suffering that’s caused by sanctions against Iraq.

Here are three facts that I believe all Americans should know but most of us don’t know: (1) The war against Iraq is waged mainly by economic sanctions that were imposed August 6, 1990. (2) Thousands of Iraqi children die every month as a direct result of deprivation caused by these sanctions. (3) Our leaders already knew in 1991 that our sanctions were killing children.

Why don’t we all know these facts? Seems to me the war against Iraq is the most under-reported issue of our time, and that magazines like yours should constantly report it even though mainstream media don’t.

It’s not that our media totally ignore the war against Iraq. Enclosed is a Time article that tells it like it is. Look at the date: June 1991. The sanctions weren’t even one year old then and now it’s more than 11 years. The suffering is even worse now and our print and electronic media occasionally report it.

But if sanctions were killing our own children, wouldn’t we expect daily reports in every U.S. newspaper? And wouldn’t we expect every faith-based publication to protest, protest, protest until a great wave of moral outrage got the sanctions lifted?
Marjorie Schier
Levittown, PA
[Ed. note: Please visit www.thewitness.org/agw for recent postings from/on Iraq.]

Some executions are justified
Many opponents of the death penalty (Bruce Campbell’s September 2001 essay) argue that capital punishment is barbaric, sadistic, cruel and unusual punishment and "state-sanctioned murder." However, if the execution of a vicious serial or mass murderer is state-sanctioned murder, then state imprisonment of rapists, child molesters, drug dealers, burglars and murderers is state-sanctioned kidnapping and state taxation on consumer goods is state-sanctioned theft.

Religious opponents of the death penalty use the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" to buttress their position. But the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" is more accurately understood as "Thou shalt not murder." Indeed, a few passages after that commandment is given to man, there is a verse affirming that a murderer forfeits his own right to live.

Some killing is morally justified such as killing in self-defense or in a just war. If the state has the moral right to authorize its citizens to wage a just war against Adolph Hitler, then it likewise has the moral right to authorize the executions of sadistic murderers like Richard Speck, Ted Bundy, John Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer and Timothy McVeigh.
Haven Bradford Gow
Eudora, AK

The best!
I never want to lose The Witness, which I consider the best religious publication out.
John M. McCartney
Detroit, MI

Sunday School reading
As a gift to several of our Sunday School teachers, we wish to give each of them a one-year subscription to The Witness. Thank you! We will learn from you and enjoy our reading.
K. Jeanne Person
Grace Church
Brooklyn, NY

Grist for the mill
Thank you. Your thoughtful articles/illustrations/themes/editorials are great grist for the mill of awakening – what hard work for us hobbits.
Elaine P. Morse
Birmingham, MIl