CPT Update and Statement

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Yesterday we learned the Islamic terrorists extended their deadline by 48 hours. To what purpose, I wonder. Maybe they need more time to figure out a way to save face. Maybe they want to get the most terror-mileage out of this whole thing. Maybe they don’t want to be hasty in their actions. Who knows.

I am sure the extension was received well by those more directly affected. It for sure gives me and you more time to pray, if we’re so inclined.

A day or two ago I read the CPT December 6 statement with some head-scratching interest:

It is our most sincere wish that you will immediately release them unharmed.

While we believe the action of kidnapping is wrong, we do not condemn you as people. We recognize the humanity in each person, and respect it very much. This includes you, our colleagues, and all people.

We believe there needs to be a force that counters all the resentment, the fear, the intimidation felt by the Iraqi people. We are trying to be that force: to speak for justice, to advocate for the human rights of Iraqis, to look at an Iraqi face and say: my brother, my sister,

Perhaps you are men who only want to raise the issue of illegal detention. We don’t know what you may have endured.

As you can see by the statements of support from our friends in Iraq and all over the world, we work for those who are oppressed.

We also condemn our own governments for their actions in Iraq.

We served as missionaries in Mexico. A clear threat developed against me. We eventually followed local advice and left the field. (Temporarily, we thought, but that’s a different issue…even 15 years later.) I know a bit about unease, discomfort, and outright fear.

I serve as chairman of the board of Hope Mennonite Missions. Several years ago we established a no-ransom policy regarding kidnapping of “our” workers abroad.

I wrote those two paragraphs to try to establish a certain degree of empathy for what CPT leaders may be experiencing. I believe I can understand at least somewhat why they issue a statement like that.

So now I say this: I’m intrigued that they do not condemn the terrorists for their actions, but they do condemn others for their actions.

Furthermore, in the fourth paragraph I quote above, they seem to engage in shifting blame again.

I could say they should instead follow the example presented by the early church in Acts when Peter was in prison, awaiting execution. But maybe that’s a shoe I wouldn’t wear either if I were in their place.

May the captives find in God the grace they need at this precise moment.

2 thoughts on “CPT Update and Statement”

  1. Hi. Followed your link from discussion at World magazine’s blog. Thanks for picking up the thread of discussion on your own blog.

    Don’t you think it’s asking too much for CPT to issue a statement at this time condemning the people holding team members captive? If you read some of the materials linked from my blog, for instance in the email from Tom Fox to his Quaker meeting (see at the end of it), you will see that they have little love (aside from Christian love extended to all) for the sort of people who have taken them captive.

    Their work in Iraq was not to support the terrorists (as is commonly touted in pro-war blogs and commentary) but to work with the vast proportion of Iraqis affected by the war being fought in their land, many who are arbitrarily and brutally imprisoned, attacked militarily by one side or the other because they’re in the wrong place at the wrong moment. Loyalties are divided there, and they may be in the opening stages of an all-out civil war, but I’m sure most people want peace, and the CPT members were there (even *are* there now, including the ones held captive) to support that impulse.

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  2. Personally, I don’t have a real problem with CPT denouncing our government(s) but not the Iraqis. You see, our governments are doing the horrible things that they are doing over there in our name. It is for us, for our security, and for the defense of our way of life that our governments are committing these acts of terror. Do we not then have a responsibility to denounce this, to say that we have no part in this and that we do not approve in any way?

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