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The Case for War
Unfortunately, War has gotten a bad name lately. It’s too bad. This has happened because those who have made the case for War have offered flimsy and shallow excuses, perhaps throughout history, but especially in the past few decades. This is giving War a bad name. Before long, those who are thinking “Blessed are the Peacemakers and Love Your Enemies” are going to take over. The Bush crew could have done much better in 2003-04 than to make the case for causing the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens, and 4,400 US soldiers, in addition to the thousands of wounded and maimed, by claiming that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Colin Powell’s phony UN speech, lifting the vial, and Condoleezza Rice’s reference to the nuclear cloud - were inexcusable. Besides, the UN Weapons Inspectors who were removed during the run-up to the War, hadn’t completed their work. Remember Pres. Bush asking, “How much time do they need?” Anyone paying attention to US Marine Officer Scott Ritter, a UN Chief Weapons Inspector in Iraq during the 90s, heard him say prior to the war that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And the case that Iraq had al Queda connections that linked Iraq to the 9/11 bombings was doomed from the start. Millions accepted that “the Administration must know more than we do”, but that approach will not last very long. The case for the First Gulf War didn’t work too well either, i.e., Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. The US Ambassador to Iraq April Gilespie, as many of us knew, had “declared that Washington, ‘inspired by the friendship and not by confrontation, does not have an opinion’ on the disagreement between Kuwait and Iraq; …giving Saddam a diplomatic green light from the United States to invade Kuwait.” The invasion of Afghanistan was attributed to the need to attack supporters or those who ‘harbored” al Queda (ok, so none of the 19 suicide bombers were from Afghanistan), but this rationale could not possibly have had the potency of the testimony before Congress three years before the invasion. “John J. Maresca, vice president for international relations for UNOCAL oil company, testified before the US House of Representatives, on Central Asia oil and gas reserves and how they might shape US foreign policy. The oil reserves are in areas north of Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Russia. Routes for a pipeline were proposed that would transport oil on a 42-inch pipe southward thru Afghanistan for 1040 miles to the Pakistan coast. Such a pipeline would carry about 1 million barrels of oil per day. Maresca told Congress then that: "It's not going to be built until there is a single Afghan government. That's the simple answer." Of course the reasoning that we are bombing Libya to save civilian lives would have worked better if we were thinking more broadly about saving civilian lives in Syria or Yemen (or perhaps 600,000 civilians a few years ago in Rwanda). So these flimsy and shallow reasons given by the US government don’t work too well. There are better reasons to support war. Here are a few: First, the prophet, George F. Kennan, in a 1948 US Dept. of State official planning document had said, that with 6.5% of the world’s population, the US controls 50% of the wealth. As he said, we must be prepared to use military force to maintain this inequity and use of words like altruism would be counter productive. He stated, “as the object of envy and resentment" - America must "devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity". This covers “our national interest” argument best. This argument alone would be sufficient to justify war better than the most recent flimsy excuses. Secondly, we are smarter than they are. We know better how to organize government and we should show the world how to do it. If they were so smart they would have invented the IPhone, the IPad, the Blu Ray. the MP3 Player and the NFL. And in the next 50 or so years, our brilliance alone will give us a better idea about alternative energy sources. And in another 50 years, we will show them how to devise an economic system that assures that wealth is not accumulated by a handful of rich and powerful while 1/6 of the people live in poverty. That already happens in some of these other countries, but we can show them a better way to do it. Thirdly, we should install our version of democracy. It stands to reason that where people have democracy they will have peace. (This will need some fine tuning because since 1941, our own US democracy has been to war on foreign soil in WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Dominican Republic, Kosovo, Panama, Grenada, First Gulf War, current Iraq War, Afghanistan and Libya; and has financed war in Nicaragua and El Salvador (despite pleas from Archbishop Oscar Romero to Pres. Carter to stop sending weapons and bullets, “they are killing our people”), and Pres. Nixon asking Henry Kissinger, “Will our hands show in this?” referring to the death of Salvador Allende of Chile, or the CIA overthrow of the Iranian leader in 1953 and installing the oppressive Shah, or our meddlesome financing of opponents of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Or that since 9/11 we have had 160,000 homicides in the US. All that is just a distraction from the major point: where people have democracy they will have peace, just like we do in the US. These three ideas i.e., a)military force is justified in enforcing the inequity that favors the US; b) that we know better than they do; and c) that our type of democracy will produce peace - are far better than the ones offered by our government for the killing, violence, destruction and mayhem that is being caused by War. So how will we manage our foreign policy and propensity for war in coming decades? Will we continue to use the old arguments, justifying force by our exceptionalism? Will we continue to insist we are somehow special compared to the rest of humanity? Will we continue to insist that military force and war is the way to produce peace? Will we create a new Beatitude - Blessed are the war makers? Or will we embrace a policy based on the basic humankind Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. Perhaps we might even embrace a 2000 year old exhortation to love our enemies and to be blessed as peacemakers. by William H. Privett | Pax Christi USA and JustFaith have now published Just Peacemaking, a structured 12-part series of videos, dialogue and immersion activities. See JustFaith.org and click on Programs for sample materials on this new program.
__________________________________________________ JOHN PAUL II AND BENEDICT XVI ON PEACE, TRUTH AND JESUS' WAY OF NONVIOLENT LOVE To obtain the good of peace there must be a clear and conscious acknowledgment that violence is an unacceptable evil and that it never solves problems. Violence is a lie. It goes against the truth of our faith, the truth of our humanity, the truth about Jesus. Violence destroys what it claims to defend; the dignity, the life, the freedom of human beings. What is needed is a great effort to form consciences and to educate the younger generation to goodness, to nonviolence, to love. -Pope John Paul II- Message for World Day of Peace 2005 Q. (by a reporter) “Is it a just war?” A. “Well, just look in the catechism where it teaches about just war and if you can say it is a just war then you really don't know the catechism... There's no such thing in Catholic teaching as a preemptive war that could ever be justified...There were not sufficient reasons to unleash a war against Iraq to say nothing of the fact that, given the new weapons that make possible destructions that go beyond the combatant groups, today we should be asking ourselves if it is still licit to admit the very existence of a just war.” - Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) just before the 2003 US invasion of Iraq On the first day of the year I would like to address an appeal to the consciences of all who belong to armed groups of any kind. I say to each and every one: stop, think and abandon the path of violence! At the moment this step might seem impossible to you; but if you have the courage to take it, God will assist you and you will feel returning to your hearts the joy of peace which perhaps you have forgotten for some time. I entrust this appeal to the intercession of Mary, the Most Holy Mother of God. -Benedict XVI – 2010 World Day of Peace and Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God This page of the Gospel (Luke 6:27) is rightly considered the “magna carta” of Christian Nonviolence; it does not consist in surrendering to evil—as claims a false interpretation of “turn the other cheek” (Luke 6:29) –but in responding to evil with good (Romans 12:17-21), and thus breaking the chain of injustice. It is thus understood that nonviolence, for Christians, is not mere tactical behavior but a person's way of being, the attitude of one who is convinced of God's love and power, who is not afraid to confront evil with the weapons of love and truth alone. Loving the enemy is the nucleus of the “Christian revolution,” a revolution not based on strategies of economic, political or media power. -Benedict XVI on February 18, 2007 in an address before the midday Angelus in St. Peter's Square Today the concept of truth is viewed with suspicion, because truth is identified with violence. Over history there have, unfortunately, been episodes when people sought to defend the truth with violence. But they are two contrasting realities. Truth cannot be imposed with means other that itself! Truth can only come with its own light. Yet, we need truth...Without truth we are blind in the world, we have no path to follow. The great gift of Christ [who is the Truth] was that He enabled us to see the [true] face of God. --Benedict XVI on February 24, 2012 during a talk to the priests of Rome in Vatican City Above all we want to make the voice of Jesus heard. He was a man of peace. It could be expected that, when God came to earth, he would be a man of great power, destroying the opposing forces; that he would be a man of powerful violence as an instrument of peace. Not at all! He came in weakness. He came with only the strength of love, totally without violence, even to the point of going to the cross. This is what shows us the true face of God: that violence never comes from God, never helps bring anything good, but is a destructive means and not the path to escape difficulties. He is thus a strong voice against every type of violence. He strongly invites all sides to renounce violence, even if they feel they are right...this is Jesus' true message: seek peace with the means of peace and leave violence aside. -Benedict XVI- A Good Friday meditation at St. Peter's Basilica on April 22, 2011 Statement by Afghani Youth Peace Volunteers (per Kathy Kelly in The Peace Current (Oct. 2011, Pax Christi USA)
"The U.S. Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Delclaration will perpetuate 'terrorism' and bring it ot everyone's doorsteps: 'The 'partnership' will allow permanent joint U.S.-Afghanistan military bases to launch and project hard power. The 'extreme' Taliban will conveniently 'use' these bases as a stand-alone reason for their 'holy jihad.' We cannot forget that one o fhte Osama Bin Laden's reasons for attaching the US on September 11th was the presence of U.S. military bases in Saudi Arabia...This Strategic Partnership Declaration will kill any chance for our madness o slow down and our violence to calm down...It will doom ordinary Americans and Afghans to permanent terrorism...Why can't we quiet our nerves, look deep inside humanity, and begin healing?" Note: Videos by the Afghani Youth Peace Volunteers will be featured at the 14th Annual Peacemaker's Retreat. See announcement at left. Meditations: 1. Every creature is precious in the eyes of God. 2. If we can arrive at a profound respect for the earth and its creatures, we will necessarily become nonviolent. 3. Destruction of any work of creation is an insult to the Creator. 4. Sharing the fruit of the earth with those who have little is imperative - because the fruit of the earth is God's. 5. Wind, water and fire each offers great benefits, but if unleashed causes great damage. _______________________________ Violence of the tongue (Emmanuel Charles McCarthy) Physical violence tears the body apart. The violence of the tongue shreds the soul. Shaming, humiliating, demeaning, belittling cut into the very being of the person. They can hurt, debilitate or kill as thoroughly as a gun shot. Belittlement—the normal and accepted daily fare of radio and TV news, entertainment and commentary, of video games and films, of politics, the military, commerce and religion—strangles the Holy within each person. Humility is the gateway to heaven, but humiliation is the gateway to hell for both victim and victimizer. There is no form of humiliation that is not violence. There is no form of violence that is not humiliation. Today in our culture and in our time, agents of humiliation, shame, and belittlement are viewed as heroes and admired celebrities to be imitated by most children and adults, Christian or otherwise. Humiliating, shaming and belittling other human beings for fun, profit, status, and power is the overarching spiritual-social-psychological disease infecting US society. It is a virulent epidemic being spread systemically to nation after nation by America's military, political, economic and media power. War, of course, initiates and spreads humiliation and shame more rapidly and thoroughly than it initiates the spreading of physical disease, for which it is infamous. Peace by way of shaming, belittling, humiliating others, however, is a venomous lie, authored by the "Father of lies who is a murderer from the beginning." The kind person does not humiliate. Only the cruel shame and belittle their fellow human beings. The Christian's task and the Jew's task, in a world that revels in humiliating and shaming, is to cover the shame of others as they would desire their own shame to be covered before God and humanity. It is not the task of Christians or Jews to shame and humiliated other sons and daughters of the "Father of all, the Holy One, Blessed be He." Emmanuel Charles McCarthy ______________________ Pax Christi Genesee County: Pasta for Peace Features Linda Redfield, Project Life, March 29, 2012 Linda Redfield, director of Project Life will be the featured speaker at the Pasta for Peace, Free Spaghetti Dinner on March 29, at 6:30 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church, 300 East Main St., in Batavia. Ms. Redfield wil discuss the work of Project Life in bringing war orphans to Western NY. Afghani orphans will accompany Ms. Redfield and participate in the presentation. All are invited. Free will donations are accepted. Violence of the tongue (Emmanuel Charles McCarthy) Physical violence tears the body apart. The violence of the tongue shreds the soul. Shaming, humiliating, demeaning, belittling cut into the very being of the person. They can hurt, debilitate or kill as thoroughly as a gun shot. Belittlement—the normal and accepted daily fare of radio and TV news, entertainment and commentary, of video games and films, of politics, the military, commerce and religion—strangles the Holy within each person. Humility is the gateway to heaven, but humiliation is the gateway to hell for both victim and victimizer. There is no form of humiliation that is not violence. There is no form of violence that is not humiliation. Today in our culture and in our time, agents of humiliation, shame, and belittlement are viewed as heroes and admired celebrities to be imitated by most children and adults, Christian or otherwise. Humiliating, shaming and belittling other human beings for fun, profit, status, and power is the overarching spiritual-social-psychological disease infecting US society. It is a virulent epidemic being spread systemically to nation after nation by America's military, political, economic and media power. War, of course, initiates and spreads humiliation and shame more rapidly and thoroughly than it initiates the spreading of physical disease, for which it is infamous. Peace by way of shaming, belittling, humiliating others, however, is a venomous lie, authored by the "Father of lies who is a murderer from the beginning." The kind person does not humiliate. Only the cruel shame and belittle their fellow human beings. The Christian's task and the Jew's task, in a world that revels in humiliating and shaming, is to cover the shame of others as they would desire their own shame to be covered before God and humanity. It is not the task of Christians or Jews to shame and humiliated other sons and daughters of the "Father of all, the Holy One, Blessed be He." Emmanuel Charles McCarthy ______________________ MIDDLE EAST: On the Palestinian bid for statehood at the UN - from the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns (Posted on September 16, 2011 by paxchristiusa| Leave a comment) In recent weeks, the Obama administration and various prominent U.S. lobby groups, news publications (such as The New York Times), and organizations including J Street have come out against the Palestinian bid for statehood at the United Nations, claiming that the bid endangers Israeli national security, slows the path to restarting negotiations, and encourages international ill-will against Israel. These organizations have taken the stance that the only way to peace is direct negotiations for a two-state solution. The Maryknoll Office of Global Concerns believes the Palestinian bid is not being made to spite the Israeli government or its people, but rather to come closer to negotiating for peace on a level playing field. Achieving advanced status at the UN General Assembly may not mean attaining actual statehood right away, but it will put pressure on two governments who to this point have followed only their own narrow interests. In the spirit of nonviolent resistance, we support the Palestinian bid for statehood because it is a peaceful and democratic way to put pressure on Israel to make real compromises and seriously address the major issues, and because the world needs to hear the Palestinian call for justice, whether it is ready for it or not.To read more, click here. BASED ON THE DAILY READINGS WITH REFLECTIONS AND QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER We are Advent people. We are hopeful despite the injustices we see in the world. We seek God’s light, accepting that there is growth in facing the darkness. With God’s help, we meet the challenges in our lives and in the world by shining the light of transparency, truth, and love. Diane Lopez Hughes is a past PCUSA National Council member, a current PCUSA member and past chair of the Global Restoration committee. She is the Environmental Justice chair of the Illinois Sierra Club, chair of the Springfield Coalition to Promote Human Dignity and Diversity, coordinator of the Springfield Grassroots Interfaith Team, member of the Springfield Dominican Sisters Anti-Racism Team, Franciscan Associate, and lives in Springfield, Illinois, with her husband and their two cats. 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