When Christian Values Aren't Enough

You've probably heard about the Christian-based activists (from Christian Peacemaker Teams, or CPT) who were just kidnapped in Iraq; here's the rundown from the WaPo:

Four Western peace activists, including a longtime resident of Northern Virginia, have been kidnapped in Iraq by a previously unknown insurgent group, and on Tuesday the Arab television network al-Jazeera broadcast a videotape of the men, grim-faced as they sat against a blank wall.

The network said the insurgent group, the Swords of Righteousness Brigade, had accused the four of being American spies. The captives are members of Christian Peacemaker Teams, an antiwar organization based in Chicago. They were taken from their car in western Baghdad on Saturday.

The Christian group identified the captives as Tom Fox, 54, a Quaker who was a longtime resident of Springfield, Va.; James Loney, 41, a community activist from Toronto; Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, a Canadian electrical engineer studying in New Zealand; and Norman Kember, 74, a retired professor from London.

Here's a bit more about the CPT from Wikipedia:

Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) is an international organization set up to support teams of peace workers in conflict areas around the world. These teams work to lower the levels of violence through human rights documentation, accompaniment of threatened civilians and nonviolence training.
[...]
Today CPT has a full time corps of over 30 activists who work in Colombia, Iraq, the West Bank and Ontario, Canada. These teams are supported by over 150 reservists who spend 2 weeks to 2 months a year on location.

CPT has its roots in the historic peace churches of North America, but today has a broad ecumenical base among many Christian denominations and works in partnership with Jewish, Muslim and secular peace organizations around the world. A large component of CPT's work is educating churches across North America about the situations in which CPTers work and advocating for a more engaged peace witness.

And a bit more from the BBC:

The group describes its work as "truth telling", recounting the stories of ordinary individuals in areas of conflict.

Many of these stories are relayed to a wider audience in the members' home countries via e-mail, newsletters and public appearances. CPT is also active in lobbying government officials.

In Iraq, the group's work has focused on the issue of Iraqi detainees held by US forces. This has involved taking testimonies from families of detainees and former detainees alleging human rights abuses.

"We were the first to publicly denounce the torture of the Iraqi people held by occupation forces," CPT co-director Doug Pritchard told the BBC. He said this was months before the Western media reported on abuses at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison.

None of the CPT members have witnessed the alleged abuse at first hand or have been inside the military prisons.

Alright, so they're a lefty commie-pinko-peacenik organization that hates America. At least that's what I garner from what Rush Limbaugh had to say (which is relayed to us via Sarah Posner over at The Gadflyer):

While the Christian right has so far been silent about the kidnapping of the CPT members, Rush Limbaugh revels in it. T'wit:

Well, here's why I like it. I like any time a bunch of leftist feel-good hand-wringers are shown reality. So here we have these peace activists over there. I don't care whether they're Christian or not; they're over there, and as peace activists they've got one purpose. They're over there trying to stop the violence.... But more importantly, they believe that if they just go there, like these idiot human shields before the war. "If they just go there, Mr. Limbaugh, it's real simple -- something you wouldn't understand because you've never been to conflict resolution. But it's real simple. If we go there, and we show them that we are people of peace, and that we want to stop the violence, and that we don't hold them responsible, they will see and understand. This is the way we bring peace." Fine, they get kidnapped. They get kidnapped at gunpoint. If that version of this is true, then, okay. You've met the bad guys, and you tried your technique on them, and now you're blindfolded in a room with guns pointed at you and knives at your throat. I don't like that, but any time a bunch of people that walk around with their heads in the sand practicing a bunch of irresponsible, idiotic theory, confront reality, I'm kind of happy about it because I'm eager for people to see reality, change their minds, if necessary, and have things sized up.

This from the blockhead who said that the Abu Ghraib torturers were "just blowing off steam." I guess in Rush's world -- sadly occupied by some 10-20 million other people -- reaping what you sow means that people promoting non-violence get kidnapped by terrorists and people inflicting violence get off the hook.