Another wrong lesson learned from the murderous tragedy of 9-11 is the comfortable assumption that, when our government or our military kills somebody, that person must have done something wrong.
We like to assume this, because it shelters us from having to grapple with the deaths of completely innocent people at the hands of our own government.
We assume, therefore, that when our CIA or our army imprisons, tortures, or even kills a person from the Middle East, that person must have been a terrorist bent on harming America.
This is a specific example of a more general prejudice that men hold: that if catastrophe or judgment befalls a man, that man must have deserved it.
In embracing this notion, we quickly abandon a core American principle of "innocent until proven guilty." Because we have turned our backs on this principle, even our juries now routinely convict people on inadequate evidence, and send innocent people to death row.
We ought never assume the government is right when it accuses anybody without providing the proof publicly.
In fact, most of the people jailed in GITMO were not caught under arms against America, and almost none of them have even been charged or scheduled for trial for the things our government has claimed they did. Indeed, most GITMO detainees never fought against the United States at all.
And when it comes to war, our military kills many innocent civilians, because of the methods we have chosen to utilize in waging war.
Jesus warned against this error, of assuming that horrible death presupposes personal guiltiness. Indeed, our Lord Jesus Himself was completely innocent, yet He died in our place as a Lamb at Calvary. |
