The Eugene Friends Meeting (Quaker) urges U.S. leaders to resist any temptation to wage a military strike against North Korea. Military force would cause massive loss of life and other horrific consequences to Koreans and others.

Over 100,000 Americans live in South Korea, including thousands of civilians. As in Iraq, an attack on North Korea would have unintended consequences. War, especially nuclear war, would terribly damage the world’s ecosystem.

Only patience, diplomacy and non-military interactions — like the current Olympics — hold promise for true peace building and a better future for the Korean peninsula. The destructive horror of the Korean War (1950-1953) must be remembered. Newsweek reported in 2017 that Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay, head of the Strategic Air Command during that war, claimed in a 1984 interview that U.S. bombs “killed off 20 percent of the population” and “targeted everything that moved in North Korea.” Quakers have supported peaceful resolution of conflicts around the globe for more than 350 years, receiving the Nobel Peace Prize and helping establish the UN and other conflict-resolution organizations.

In keeping with our historic Peace Testimony, we “utterly deny all outward wars and strife and fighting with outward weapons, for any end or under any pretense whatsoever.”

Cimmeron Gillespie

Eugene Friends Meeting