I have a friend who is working with CPT in Colombia, and the work is dangerous every day--there is a very real chance that she could be killed for no reason by a 15-year old with a machine gun. But the chance of death does not, as Michelle Goldberg writes in her article, make the action naive. Cliff Kindy's words from the article really capture the sentiment of my friend in CPT, and other peace activists I know: "One of the things we need to learn from the military is that there are risks that are important to take -- risks worth putting our lives on the line for," he says. "If, in our peacemaking, we can't have that same level of commitment, that would be sad."

Those of us who believe dearly in something that seems naive must damn the torpedoes and go full speed ahead, to misuse a cliche. In order to make peace, individual people must show that progress can be made with peaceful methods. These CPTers have not ended the occupation of Iraq, but they have helped dozens of Iraqi citizens in the midst of stunning violence, which is quite a feat.

Jesus calls people not only to put down their swords, but to put down their shields as well; this is a difficult thing to hear, and an even more difficult thing to believe.

"Rush Limbaugh, for one, was pleased by the Christian Peacemakers' kidnapping, saying, 'Well, here's why I like it. I like any time a bunch of leftist feel-good hand-wringers are shown reality.'"

Well, it's always nice to get the opinion of a drug addict on these situations. Interesting, isn't it, that some on the right think that all they have to do is to apply the "leftist" or "liberal" label, and then it's Miller Time. Yes, once they've applied the label -- whether or not it really applies -- the "leftist" in question can be utterly dismissed. He or she is outside the camp, beyond the scope of normal human concern.

But were I Rush I might be a little more restrained in my condemnations, keeping in mind a passage from the gospel: "Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned . . . For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again."

The illogical views of right-wing pundits don't surprise me anymore. When Rush Limbaugh says that he's glad that the members of CPT were kidnapped because they were "shown reality", it absurdly implies that they were not seeing reality in the months leading up to the kidnapping while living in an unprotected apartment in Baghdad. Are we to believe that Rush Limbaugh knows more about reality sitting in his radio studio than those who are living on the ground in Baghdad?

But, like I said, this doesn't surprise me any more. Folowing 9/11, any talk of peaceful action, responding to human rights abuses in Palestine or the like, was labeled by right-wing pundits as "just what the terrorists want." Of course, there is nothing that terrorists want more than to spread chaos and violence. Osama Bin Laden certainly got exactly what he wanted when the US invaded Iraq.

This is why the actions of CPT make so much sense. Respond to violence with peace. It is, of course, the actions of terrorists that we find so abhorrent, so why duplicate them. It is also why we can expect peace activists in Iraq to die for what they believe. They pose a greater threat to terrorists than any invading army ever could.

Because of my own Christian faith, I hope for the release of the CPT activists. I think it would truly be a miracle.