I watched a young man cry the other day. Tears streamed down his face as he described, in vivid detail, the atrocities he both witnessed and participated in, in Iraq. He, alongside other veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, was participating in a four-day conference called Winter Soldier.

The point of Winter Soldier, as I saw it, was two-fold. First, it provided a space for these damaged souls to raise their voices and build solidarity, while painting a picture of large-scale, systemic abuse within the military. Secondly, it aimed to grow the resistance movement within the military, a task that, after listening for four days, I realize is incredibly, painfully difficult.

I think about this today in the wake of Justice Sunday 2008, because, more and more, I am thinking about the value of life, the values of our society, and the moral questions this war raises.

This year, UUSC is asking UU congregations around the United States to examine the question: The Cost of Iraq: Who Pays the Price? I am finding, on close examination, that we are all paying the price, both economically and spiritually, for this ever-shifting mess we call the war in Iraq (part of the larger so-called Global War on Terror). Right now, if you examine the financial debt created by this war, there is no argument that, as a society, we will, indeed, pay an economic price for this war. Our kids, and our kids’ kids, will likely be saddled with the $3-5 trillion of debt created for this war.

But to me, far more distressing than this debt is the human toll of this war – the price that those waging this war, on the ground, are paying. After listening to four days of testimony, one thing is clear to me: when it comes to the war in Iraq, abuses within the military are not anomalous episodes that are limited to individual soldiers. They are the result of orders issued from the highest levels of our government.

Below are just a few of the snapshots from Winter Soldier, an event that should be examined by everyone who wants to understand the toll on humanity that this war is exacting.

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Dehumanization – Part 1
It was excruciating to hear soldiers’ first-hand experiences. More than once, I had to look down and focus inward, unable to listen to another story about death, destruction, or dehumanization alongside gross illustrations of ignorance and racism.

Take, for example, the way that four soldiers described in detail how they were forced to take pictures of the dead. Not pictures for documentation purposes or for keeping records of those killed in friendly fire, but what soldiers described repeatedly as “trophy photos,” photos of their “kills.” They described not only being congratulated on their first kills, but also being encouraged to photograph the dead, sometimes in front of community and family members, while other soldiers laughed, jeered, and, at times, mutilated the bodies.

When one soldier refused to take such a picture, he was hazed in a variety of cruel and dangerous ways – as punishment, he was given only a half-empty medical kit and not provided the gas mask that all other soldiers in his platoon carried.

Dehumanization – Part 2

There was the story of an 18-year-old soldier who signed up as a “foreign observer.” On September 11, 2001, from the small community he grew up in on Long Island, he had seen smoke rise from the twin towers. Angry, he made the choice to enlist, to fight for the things he held dear, his family, his town, New York, and America. But now, as I looked at him, he was something else entirely – deadened, quiet, pained. Testifying in front of cameras, he wished he could take that day back, that day of anger, when he chose war.

“I was a great soldier once upon a time,” he said. “But now I stand here doing more for my brothers than I ever did there.”

He told a story about pushing humanity’s limits, about dehumanizing the other, about the place that war can take us. Once, he saw a little boy on the side of the street holding up a small stick, as if to indicate a gun. The boy was about six years old, maybe playing at war the way many children do – a real life Iraqi version of cops and robbers, right there with an American soldier. But for the soldier, it was not a game. This soldier, the young man in front of me, told of his internal struggle not to shoot this boy, a six-year-old with nothing more than a stick in his hand. He was angry at this son of Iraq for things he had never done, for things he had nothing to do with.

When he told the audience of not shooting the boy, they stood up and clapped. How far has humanity gone when not shooting a six-year-old with a stick is something we can applaud?

That, in turn, made me cry.

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Abuses and the rules of engagement

Over four days, we saw other evidence of a disintegrating moral compass. Take the stories I heard about shovels, which are read by the U.S. military as indicators of Iraqi hostility. According to on-the-ground military protocol, an Iraqi who is simply walking on a road can’t be considered hostile simply by virtue of his or her existence. However, an Iraqi who is carrying a shovel on the road is an entirely different story. The argument is that shovels could be used to bury improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.

That’s why, in testimony after testimony, soldiers described how they carried shovels with them, sometimes entire truckfulls. The shovels provided cover in cases where an Iraqi was accidentally killed. By placing one next to him or her, that Iraqi was transformed into a hostile combatant. If the soldiers felt remotely threatened, they knew they could act with impunity – as long as they had a shovel handy. It was that simple.

But, in a country desperately struggling to rebuild, shovels are often necessary. People need to rebuild their homes, their schools, their mosques – and they often have nothing more than the labor their bodies can generate. In a country where shovels are ubiquitous with the effort to rebuild, the idea that a shovel alone indicates hostile intent is more than ironic – it’s criminally absurd.

But what about helping?

Sometimes cruelty came in other forms. We heard testimony about humanitarian rations, which, according to the soldiers I listened to, they were told not to hand out. One soldier told a story of how he was specifically ordered to stop handing out humanitarian rations, and only carry them. At the end of his deployment, on his return to Kuwait, he still had the rations with him. His sergeant told him to bury them. That’s just what he did, heart heavy – he buried the humanitarian rations he’d been carrying around.

Other soldiers told stories of “meals ready to eat,” or MREs, which are equipped with a chemical mechanism that heats the meal. By themselves, outside this meal-heating mechanism, the chemicals are dangerous. Many soldiers talked about giving these chemical packets, without the food, to young children. Others talked about throwing bottles of urine at people on the side of the road, driving their Humvees over the ruins of ancient Babylon, defecating in U.N. headquarters, and, possibly most sad, shooting and bombing mosques for no other reason than that they were there.

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Supporting our troops

I also heard the story of attempted suicide. One young man was charged with misconduct when he attempted suicide because, by making the attempt, he prevented his return to Iraq. Once he was dishonorably discharged from service, he lost his ability to get benefits from the army or go to college. He had few options open to him.

He decided to deliver pizzas, but only once a week, because he couldn’t handle more than that. Now, on some days, he gets so drunk he blacks out. That takes care of the pain. Sometimes, instead of going to his job, he spends his day at the VA hospital, begging for help to get him back on his feet. But so far, he’s gotten none.

This was the same man who’d seen the twin towers fall, who on September 11 was looking to kill. And, slowly, he got to the point where the only thing he wanted to do was die. He hated Iraqis, once upon a time. But where is he now?

Our responsibility

Winter Soldier is not a story of good and evil, where everything works out just so. It’s not black and white or us versus them. It’s a story of some of the darkest moments in American history; of systematic racism and imperialism; tradeoffs between human resources and human life; the erosion of faith in the military; and destructive aggression by an occupying power – the United States of America.

But this story is not just their story. It’s our story too, as citizens, as humans. We own this war. We pay for it. We vote for and against it. Few questioned the government when they told us that weapons of mass destruction existed or that Saddam Hussein was linked to Al Qaeda. We listened when they told us that we had to send more troops for the surge. We have failed too.

In the end, this is a story of judgment. It’s a story of coming to terms with anger and frustration towards the troops, who, in many ways, are the machinery that propels this war. It’s the story of my internal struggle with the issue of supporting the troops and what that means. In many ways, Winter Soldier helped me realize that it’s the troops who are leading this movement against the war, that they own this resistance movement.

Bumper stickers and flags are not actions of support; no, supporting the troops means listening to those who have waged this war, and then responding to what they need and what they know.

And, it’s up to us to do this.

So, look at it, watch the testimony, and hear for yourself.

In the wake of International Women's Day 2008, I learned through news stories around the United States that as a high-end prostitute, I could make $5,500 an hour. So, I did the math. For one day as a high-end prostitute, just one day, just 8 hours, I could actually make more money than I will this entire year at my job – a job I love. As a woman, knowing that my value, as society would have it, lies in my body ... Well, that’s a hard pill to swallow.

I’ve heard the arguments before – the arguments that say, “Who is using who here?” and “Those wily women are the ones using the system – look at how much money they're making!” Yes, they're making a lot of money – tons, in fact. Say they decided to work one day a week for the entire year – just one day a week, at 44,000 a day – well, they would cash in at $2,228,000 for a year's work. Not a bad sum of money for working one day a week, I admit.

But here is the thing. What that says to women, all women, is that the most valuable thing they can do, the thing that is worth the most – is their body. The same holds true for strippers. They are not the ones that hold the cards – they are participating in a society-wide presumption that ultimately values their body far more than their mind. And that is extremely problematic. Every time an intelligent woman makes the choice to strip, or to escort, or to prostitute herself, she is reinforcing society’s decision to value her body above all other things. She is making it harder for women like me, women who could choose the route of a body-for-money trade, but who fight that choice, and the resulting social values it enforces.

And, there is more to this story, this story of women’s bodies.

A new phenomenon has emerged in recent months, a phenomenon that puts an alternative price on women’s bodies. It’s the outsourcing of birth, and, like prostitution, like stripping, it tells women that their ultimate worth lies in their bodies. But it goes one step further – it tells some women, like the women in India who are carrying surrogate babies, that they are worth less than the high-end prostitute.

Let’s do the math again. A high-end, western prostitute makes a little over $5,000 an hour. A low-end Indian surrogate, at $7,000 a pop, 9 months of full-time work, 24 hours a day (and, I think we can agree, pregnancy is full time) … that comes down to about $6.50 an hour.

So, what I’m learning, through the prices of prostitution and surrogacy, is not only do we value women for their bodies – we value some women’s bodies far more than others. If you are western, and cater to the New York governor, we will pay you! Your body is worth a lot! But, if you are Indian (sorry!), the best we can offer you is a 9-month minimum-wage job.

Is being paid to carry someone else’s baby the same as being paid to sleep with someone? Well, no … But both acts turn the women in either situation into little more than a physical entity. And that’s the problematic thing.

It’s tragic, what we are saying to women, not just here, but all over the world. All financial arguments fall flat in the face of the larger societal impact – the one that tells women that their value, their ultimate worth, lies in their ability to bodily and sexually serve society. So the question, at least for me, is, how do we create the shift to a society where the mind matters more than the chromosome?

A few weeks back, I was talking to a friend, a father who, when he reads fairy tales to his young daughter, changes the ending in each one. Instead of marrying handsome princes, each woman in his daughter’s fairy tales becomes a lawyer for Amnesty International, or a doctor with Doctors Without Borders, or a musician playing packed houses – or some other independent, intelligent, powerful woman.

On this International Women’s Day, I think of this conversation and feel hopeful that not only his daughter, but all women, will be able to see their lives as ones of opportunity.

We live in a time, and, here, in the United States, a society, that gives women unprecedented opportunities. For the first time in our political history, we have a female running as a serious contender for president. We also live in a time where we have articles like the one I recently read in the Atlantic Monthly, aptly titled, “Marry Him – The case for settling for Mr. Good Enough.” This article, a microcosm of attitudes that hold women, all women, back, reduces women to little more than objects that put childbirth, and marriage, ahead of all other goals. And that simply is not the case.

International Women’s Day marks the achievements, successes, and power of women, today and throughout history. Right here at UUSC, I hear stories every day of powerful women accomplishing great things. There is the story of Serafina, a 71-year-old grandmother in South Africa who fought both the police and the South African government for her right to equal access to water. Or there is UUSC’s female on-the-ground consultant in Darfur, who is training men about issues of gender-based violence, helping them become leaders in the struggle for women’s rights. There are the leaders of the Rock Women Group in Kenya, amazing women working to improve both their own lives and the lives of children in the slums of Nairobi. There are the women unionists of STITCH in Guatemala, leaders in a movement for economic equality for women.

In a society, and a world, where some would have women reduced to little more than child-bearing entities, often at painfully early ages – International Women’s Day is a big deal. It tells women that they can do, and be, anything they want – be that a mother, lawyer, doctor, musician, political leader, teacher, or, likely, some combination of roles. International Women’s Day celebrates women’s choices – choices that UUSC works every day to grow, in number and in kind.

Imagine you are a woman in Pakistan, and you'd lost everything in a devastating earthquake that also claimed your husband’s life. Now, imagine you are fighting to get something, anything, back – say, for argument’s sake, your land. You don’t want the land for yourself – you want it for your two little boys, who were set to inherit it down the road. As a woman, you would have little ability to claim the land yourself.

Here are some of the obstacles you might face in trying to ensure your sons’ rightful inheritance:

1. Your former husband’s family has taken the land.

2. You need birth certificates for your sons to prove their claim, but unfortunately, the certificates were also lost in the earthquake.

3. To get new birth certificates, you will need to travel. This means you need a male from your family to travel with, permission from the eldest male in your husband’s family to make the trip, and money for the fare.

The money won’t be easy to come by. Right now, your former husband’s family is providing you with food, but no money. They won’t pay for your sons’ education. Obtaining permission from the eldest male is an uphill battle, as it is in his interest to keep his hold on the land. Ditto goes for the male who would travel with you.

This is just the beginning of the uphill battle for many of the women in Pakistan today, women who lost everything during 2005’s massive 7.6 magnitude earthquake.

If the woman above had daughters instead of sons, her fight would have been very different – it might have been to protect her daughters from underage marriage to much older men. If she had mourned for 40 days over the death of her husband, as many Muslim women do, she would not have gone out in public, making it impossible for her to receive relief aid that was distributed during that time. No matter her situation, she would face many obstacles to overcome.

That’s why UUSC partnered with an organization called Bedari after the earthquake. Bedari, which means awareness, is working hard to address some of the issues that are specific to women – issues like land rights, access to education, and access to sustainable livings. In the aftermath of a disaster, it’s often women and girls who are most affected, and Bedari, alongside UUSC, is working to address this disparity.

At a recent educational program for UUSC staff, Martha Thompson, the program manager for Rights in Humanitarian Crises at UUSC, talked about the situation facing women in Pakistan, and the work of Bedari. Watch the video below.

A couple of months ago, I wrote a blog about Blackwater, a private military company (PMC) that is operating in Iraq. I wrote it because PMCs like Blackwater are making millions upon millions of dollars in Iraq – yet are held to NONE of the same accountability standards that the U.S. Army is held to. For example, if Blackwater is involved in the shooting of say, 11 innocent Iraqi civilians, it's likely that nothing will happen. No one will be held accountable, no investigations will be conducted, and taxpayers’ dollars will continue to fund them. On the upside, the president of the United States will make statements like this one: “Obviously, to the extent innocent life was lost, you know, I’m saddened.” Well....

If the president’s remorse isn’t enough for you, then do something. Write your legislator. Actually, call them. Sign a petition. Get the PMCs out of Iraq. Or, if they are going to stay, let’s make them accountable for their actions.

The issues surrounding immigration, lawful and undocumented, are complicated – and I certainly don’t claim to be an expert in them. Issues of undocumented immigration, border control, amnesty, and rights for immigrants seem to divide people in startling ways, and not along the political lines we are so accustomed to.

However, one thing seems clear, at least to me – we shouldn’t allow people to die along our borders, people who are simply seeking out opportunities they might not have in their native countries.

That’s the issue Ray Ybarra, a 26-year-old law student, is working on right now. I met Ybarra while on a JustJourney in Chiapas, Mexico. And, while the issues surrounding immigration and immigration laws are complex, he made this one point very simple – the right to live, documented immigrant or not, should be fundamental.

Ybarra works in Douglas, Ariz., a tiny town along the Mexican border. In a time that is post-“Operation Gatekeeper” and “Operation Hold-the-Line,” two major anti-undocumented immigration movements that blocked up borders in both California and Texas, Arizona is the new hotspot for undocumented immigration.

But, that’s a major problem. Crossing into border towns in parts of California and Texas was difficult, but not necessarily life-threatening. Crossing into the Arizona desert, and being forced to walk for days on end, is a completely different story. It’s a story that is leading to the deaths of hundreds of undocumented immigrants a year. This is compounded by the fact that picking up an undocumented immigrant in the desert, or harboring one in any way, is a federal offense, one that can come with hefty jail time.

Ybarra is standing up against this fact. In a grand act of civil disobedience, he is attempting to bring thousands of people to the Arizona border next year, and, working with them, simply pick up those crossing the desert – or, for those who choose not to pick people up, to simply be there in numbers and solidarity with the concept. And, in a time of difficult questions around immigration policy, I admire Ybarra’s efforts to put peoples’ lives and safety first, and political motivations second.

Now, let me explain – Ybarra is not encouraging Americans to bring in undocumented immigrants, or to carry them across the border. He is encouraging people to scan the desert and pick up those who are making the difficult journey. In other words, he is encouraging people to render humanitarian aid. Essentially, Ybarra is trying to make a moral argument, backed with real people, that by having a federal law AGAINST picking people up in the desert, we are allowing them to die – that, being forced to pass by someone, because of the law, is morally wrong.

And, given the state of things, Ybarra's project is impressive. We are living in a time when the U.S government is actually building a fence, a big, hulking, hundreds-of-miles-long fence along the border. We are also living in a time when heavily armed individual citizens, with no legal authority and no training, are taking it upon themselves to act as border police, catching immigrants proudly and sending them back home. And, given these facts, and the difficult questions facing us around immigration policy, I believe that the movement Ybarra is leading is brave. It’s the kind of movement that, wherever we fall on the political spectrum, has a unifying message – we should not allow people to die along our borders, and we shouldn’t have laws that are complicit in those deaths. And, I for one, agree with him.

I'm on a JustJourney in Chiapas, Mexico, and have just spent four days in an autonomous Zapatista community. The Zapatistas, who started an uprising in 1994, are a group of indigenous people seeking their most basic rights: work, land, health care, independence, liberty, justice, and peace.

Since 1994, Zapatista communities have managed to form their own system of government, develop their own schools, and create their own health care system.

The government, which is housed in Morelia, turns over every eight days. This is a measured effort to prevent corruption and serve its people better. On this trip, we stayed in Morelia, and met briefly with the current government. The government serves both the needs of the Zapatista community and often, the non-Zapatista community.

Because health care was unaffordable and largely inaccessible for the indigenous communities, Zapatistas created their own clinics, their own health promoters, and their own educational promoters, who educate community members on basic health problems. And, health care is often free in the communities.

In 2000, Zapatista communities decided to develop their own schools, feeling that community members were not getting the education they deserved in the governmental school system.

Now, Zapatista communities are far from perfect. They, like most indigenous communities in the state of Chiapas, are struggling with health, education, and land rights. They are under threat by the Mexican government, as well as the rampant paramilitary groups here.

But being in a community and meeting with its leaders, I have seen directly the uniqueness of this movement. Nonviolent, with the exception of the initial 12-day uprising, the Zapatistas have managed to create an entirely autonomous system of work, education, health care, and government, most of which was developed in the last 10 years. It has been so effective that many non-Zapatistas now go to Zapatista communities for their problems, whether they have a dispute over land or a health problem.

Indigenous people in the state of Chiapas are struggling for rights, and the Zapatistas are struggling to address their needs. It's a fascinating thing, seeing a modern political movement firsthand.