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War and the arms trade that feeds it cannot make life for the people on our small planet more just or more secure. It is not simply that crimes are committed by all sides in every war. War itself is the crime says Paul Oestreicher
“Unless we change, unless the Church moves to the margins and becomes the alternative society that unconditionally says ‘no’ to war, ‘no’ to the collective murder that every embattled nation or tribe, every warring alliance, every violent liberation movement, every fundamentalist cause, and now the War on Terror declares to be just, until we throw this justification of war, this ‘just war’ theology into the dustbin of history, unless we do that, we will have thrown away the one unique ethical contribution that the teaching of Jesus could make both to the survival of humanity and to the triumph of compassion.”
Dr Paul Oestreicher is an Anglican priest and Quaker. He studied politics at Otago and Victoria Universities and in Germany. In England, since 1956, he has worked as a BBC producer, was chairman of Amnesty International UK, vice-president of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
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