bering in the millions.  War orphans, refugee children, and youth are especially vulnerable to recruitment by terrorist organizations. This is of special concern today in Afghanistan and Central Asia.

10. Assist individuals and families in the U.S. who have lost wage earners or jobs as a result of the attack and its economic aftermath.

WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER

FCNL's letter to President Bush
October 10, 2001

Dear President Bush,
We urge you to stop the bombing, stand down the U.S. military, feed the hungry, and work diligently through peaceful means to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people and other peoples throughout that region to the cause of justice for the victims of September 11.

We continue to grieve for those several thousand unique, precious and irreplaceable people who were murdered in the September 11 attacks on the airliners, the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.  Our outrage at those acts of terrible violence is rooted in our profound belief that every human being is a creature of God and has been put here for a very special purpose. Those who helped in planning and carrying out the attacks have violated the most fundamental laws of a civil society.  They should be held accountable under those laws.

We seek your leadership to end the downward spiral of attacks and reprisals, a spiral begun long before September 11 but propelled by those attacks. U.S. bombing and a war on terrorism will not bring justice for the victims of the September 11 attacks.  Terrorism is not a person, place, or thing. You cannot blast it out of this world.  On the contrary, terrorism is a vicious type of human conduct provoked by hatred or greed and carried out by fanatics and by

governments.  Violent retaliation by the U.S. will only sow more seeds of hatred and reap a new harvest of terror.  We call on you to help lead the world out of the wilderness of war and terror and into a new world where people everywhere choose life by exercising a reverence for life.

You have said that the attacks of September 11 changed everything.  Perhaps, but the thinking of our government officials and their response to violence remains unchanged.  The U.S.-led military campaign is merely a high tech and more destructive version of a 19th century military strategy, and promotes the law of force over the force of law.  By leading a military campaign in Afghanistan, the U.S. has fallen from its internationally recognized moral high ground to a much more morally ambiguous position in the eyes of many around the world.  This response is inadequate to the demands of the 21^st century and is unbecoming to America.

While we know that your administration's intent is not to harm innocent civilians with its bombing, Afghani civilians have already suffered this unintended effect.  Weapons inevitably malfunction, are misdirected, or put civilians adjacent to the intended targets in harm's way.  Already dozens of civilians, including four UN workers, have been killed by U.S.-led military attacks.  We cannot simply consign those people who were killed to the category of "collateral damage" or an "accident of war." They, too, were unique and precious human beings who will never be replaced.  The U.S. government had no right to sacrifice their lives in its pursuit of justice.

We also know that your administration's intent is not to compound a humanitarian catastrophe in Afghanistan through military action.  However, the U.S. military actions are escalating the suffering and putting ever more thousands of innocent people in jeopardy.  Afghani civilians have been fleeing their homes in fear.  Winter is fast approaching.  Little food or shelter exist