World Refugee Day: Name Every Victim

[babylonsister]

http://www.peacemajority.us/nl-20070620.htm

World Refugee Day: Name Every Victim
Bill Scheurer, Editor

June 20th marks the seventh annual World Refugee Day.

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Name Every Victim

We honor “our” dead. We recover their bodies, name their names, and display their faces. We compensate their relatives for their loss. And, well we should.

But, what we need, if we are ever to value life and peace and security in this world -- is a new policy, one that honors every victim of war. Imagine if we named every victim, showed every photo on the nightly news, compensated every surviving family for their loss. It would be difficult for us to maintain “business as usual” in war, or to wage war at all.

Maybe we could take it one step at a time. Start out by passing a simple “Name Every Victim” law.

We could require the U.S. military -- working with groups like CIVIC, International Rescue Committee, International Committee of the Red Cross, and Relief International -- to document a good faith, best efforts attempt to identify and name every victim of every engagement.

The law would require the military to exercise the same level of care that we do for our fallen soldiers in this regard. Give every victim a name -- a human dignity and identity.

There is a popular saying that “truth is the first casualty of war.” I have always considered it the second. Humanity -- both, “ours” and “theirs” -- is the first casualty of war.

[Solly Mack]

1. k/r