Iraq War

Sinan Antoon's acclaimed novel, now out in English, sheds light on the realities faced by Christians in Iraq.

The GOP congressman has sent nearly 12,000 letters to Americans whose loved ones died in the war he voted to authorize.

Every war movie is in essence a pro-war movie, even when it tries to be against war.

In Iraq, my perception of good and evil began to erode. What I lost was a world that made moral sense.

Air strikes give the illusion of surgical intervention. But they are not unambiguous humanitarian acts.

Sacrifice has real moral resonance—but it can also be exploited. In Iraq, past sacrifices don't offer a guide for U.S. policy.

Nigel Biggar thinks that Western Christians are willfully ignoring that soldiers and military action are essential to social peace and justice.

On Sunday night I went to hear Dan Savage speak about the It Gets Better Project. The last time I saw him was 2003, if memory serves, in front of a crowd of perhaps a hundred. At one point Savage took a break from promoting his new book Skipping Toward Gomorrah to refer his audience to the now-famous New Republic cover story "The Liberal Case for War" (against Iraq).

It was a good talk, funny and engaging, and it made a striking contrast with his Sunday appearance.

Chicago-based artist Michael Rakowitz is opening a
food-truck this week, a date set to coincide with the ninth anniversary of the
beginning of the Iraq War.

Through his project Enemy Kitchen, Rakowitz has been using
Iraqi food and culture to break down cultural barriers for several years. He is
launching the food truck as part of the Smart Museum of Art's new exhibit
called "Feast: Radical Hospitality in Contemporary Art."

This video started making the rounds last week, presenting a clever idea for communicating with the big banks at their expense.

Via Rose Berger,
the summer issue of Portland magazine
includes an essay by Portland editor
and Century contributor Brian Doyle,
in which he quotes at length a conversation with a young U.S. war veteran named
Jackie. She paints a striking picture.

Those who have suffered through war are in special need of God's peace and justice, of reconciliation and restoration. After the smoke clears, Christians must work to foster and promote a just peace.

So was the Iraq war worth it? Sixty percent of Americans say no. The claims that originally bolstered the resort to war—that Saddam Hussein's regime threatened the U.S. with weapons of mass destruction and was aligned with al-Qaeda terrorists—were discredited early in the war.