By any standard, the Iraq war is clearly unjust. The rationale for invasion was based on misinformation or outright lies. There never were any weapons of mass destruction, nor was there a link between Saddam Hussein and the attacks of September 11.

The invasion was carried out in spite of massive, worldwide opposition. Any moral authority we might have claimed was destroyed in the torture chambers at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Any good will we might have garnered has been squandered on the waste, greed and incompetence that have characterized the occupation. Since the invasion, Iraq has become a rallying cry for anyone angry with the U.S. and a haven for violence and terror. We are less safe than before, and the lives of the Iraqi people have become hellish.

Can any war be just? Can you show me a bomb that only kills those who deserve to die, and a way to tell infallibly who they are? Or a bullet that will not penetrate the skin of a child? Every war kills the innocent, blights the lives of those who have done no wrong, leaves a toxic wake on the land and wastes the resources that are needed to nurture and sustain life.

It may be that some wars are unavoidable, that at times we must resort to force to prevent even greater wrong. As someone born Jewish in the post-Holocaust era, I can’t say that an armed response is never justified or necessary. But let us not call it ‘just’, or ask our religions to dignify and bless it. The worst atrocities are committed by those who are most convinced of the rightness of their cause and the demonic evil of their enemies.

Religion should not be a set of earplugs to deafen us to the cries of children, nor a sedative to ease our consciences as we survey the graves. Religion should challenge us to be more than we are, to deeper levels of compassion and love than we have yet reached. The Goddess, the deep interconnectedness of all being, does not cheer on one team to kill and maim another. She is weeping.