Red Cross or ... Red Box... Or What do I think!!!

You heard it here. I can not believe that while I was eating dinner tonight and fixing Luther his dinner too...that someone did not seed an article about the Red Cross' decision to become a diamond.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (they didn't change their name, my friend) recently allowed its members to use red crosses, crescents or diamonds while working abroad so that everyone who wants to help, can help. Please, do your research before you condemn decisions that haven't actually ever been made.

If the Red Cross had been originally started by Jews, and was the Red Star-of-David, would you love to work under that flag? What about the Red Crescent? What about the Red Sickle? Would you have donated as much as you do/have to the Red Cross?

My guess is that you would rather work under a Red Cross. Likewise, Muslims would rather not work under a Christian symbol. Israeli Jews, Chinese or Buddhists would rather not work under a Christian or Muslim symbol. (Of course, the Israelis can't use a Star-of-David. How, again, is the ICRC being PC?) So, the diamond was instituted to stop "symbol inflation", if you will. Non-Christian and Non-Muslim countries can use the diamond as a stand in, while in other countries to stop potential conflict.

But, if the "war on Christianity" is more important to you than actually helping those in need, then I suppose you can go on complaining about non-Christians not flying a flag with a cross on it.

At the risk of giving this article more attention than it deserves, there are a few misconceptions here that need to be cleared up:

• Unless you are significantly older than the oldest living person on the planet, you definitely did not live through the period when the Red Crescent symbol became a valid alternative to the Red Cross. That occurred in the 1870s. The Crescent was officially recognized in the Geneva Conventions in 1929.
• You seem to completely miss the purpose of adopting the Red Crystal symbol, which is a compromise reached specifically to discourage the addtion of even more national symbols into the ICRC system.
• National Red Cross, Red Crescent, and Red Crystal organizations are all independent, although associated in an internation federation of organizatons. Each national organization is free to choose which symbol it wishes to use for its organization.
• All of this information, and much additional besides, is readily available to anyone who would perform a little research into the history of these organizations. You might consider reading here first.

Huh, where did you hear about this?