Peace Messenger

Christian College Professor Fired for Affront to Free Enterprise System

At the "God's Politics" blog, Randall Balmer comments on the dismissal of Andrew Paquin, a professor of global studies, from the faculty of Colorado Christian College:

...According to the Rocky Mountain News, the school’s president, Bill Armstrong, former U.S. senator from Colorado, fired Paquin “amid concerns that his lessons were too radical and undermined the school’s commitment to the free enterprise system.” Specifically, Paquin had the temerity to ask his students to read books by Peter Singer, the animal-rights ethicist at Princeton University, and by our friend Jim Wallis....

I guess I wasn’t aware that capitalism was under siege – what with the collapse of the Soviet empire and China’s headlong rush into a market-based economy. But the president of Colorado Christian University apparently feels otherwise. Capitalism, in fact, appears to be Jesus’ preferred economic system.

“I don’t think there is another system that is more consistent with the teachings of Jesus Christ,” Armstrong told the Rocky Mountain News. “What the university stands for, among other things, is free markets.”

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Circle of Madness

Robert Scheer, editor of truthdig, comments on the U.S. administration's $20 billion high-tech weaponry package for Saudi Arabia:

The justification can’t be that this is yet another boondoggle for the military-industrial complex—the big winner in the war on terror—so we are told instead that the Sunni-dominated Saudi kingdom needs this weaponry to withstand a future challenge from those dastardly Shiite fellows in Iran.

Yes, the very same extremists whose surrogates are now, as a consequence of the U.S. invasion, pretending to be the indigenous government of Iraq.  Recall that the Shiite militants who rule Tehran, along with the Sunni nuts around Osama bin Laden, were both the sworn enemy of Saddam Hussein.  Now both of those forces are the main players, according to the Bush administration, vying for power in “liberated” Iraq, and our president is in the inane position of playing one group of fanatics against the other in the name of securing Iraq as a democratic haven....

To complete the circle of madness, White House officials tell reporters that the hope of the latest arms sale program is that the Saudis will be so thrilled with their new weapons that they will stop funding the Sunni insurgents who are currently killing Americans....  more

Photo: President Bush with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia in 2005/AP

Rapture Ready: The Unauthorized Christians United For Israel Tour

Ten-minute video by Max Blumenthal who writes, "I have never witnessed any spectacle as politically extreme, outrageous, or bizarre as the one Christians United for Israel produced last week in Washington."

Among the highlights(?): Tom "the Hammer" DeLay lets us know that, "Obviously, we can't enjoy the second coming without being connected with Israel" and Joe Lierbermann declares the multitude John Hagee leads to be greater than the one Moses led.

See related story and alternate link to the video posted on AlterNet.

Mugged by Reality

"A neoconservative is a liberal who's been mugged by reality."
--Irving Kristrol, a "founding father" of neoconservatism.

"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality."
--unnamed "senior Bush advisor" to journalist Ron Suskind in 2004.

In her Los Angeles Times column for July 20 entitled "A really bad case of 'reality'", Rosa Brooks juxtaposes these two quotations, and comments:

In a very real sense, Suskind's "senior Bush advisor" has been proved more right than wrong. The administration did create realities to match its darkest visions, reshaping the world with remarkable speed and thoroughness.

In 2001, administration stalwarts suggested that Osama bin Laden rivaled Hitler in the danger he posed to U.S. security and insisted that Al Qaeda's power was so great that nothing short of a "global war on terror" was required.

At that time, most experts say, this description of Al Qaeda simply wasn't true. It was little more than an obscure group of extremist thugs, well financed and intermittently lethal but relatively limited in their global and regional political pull. On 9/11, they got lucky - but despite the unexpected success of their attack on the U.S., they did not pose an imminent mortal threat to the nation.

Today, things are different. Thanks to U.S. policies, Al Qaeda has become the vast global threat the administration imagined it to be in 2001. Our ham-handed detention and interrogation tactics and our ill-advised invasion of Iraq have alienated vast swathes of the Islamic world, fueling extremism and anti-Americanism. Today, Al Qaeda is no longer a single organization. Now it's a franchise, with new gangs of terrorists around the world proudly seizing the "Al Qaeda" affiliation.

The full-text of the column (highly recommended) is posted at truthout.org.

Truth About Al-Qaeda

"Many of the spectacular car bombings and killings you see are as a result of al Qaeda -- the very same folks that attacked us on September the 11th. A major enemy in Iraq is the same enemy that dared attack the United States on that fateful day."
--President George W. Bush, address to the West Virginia Air National Guard, July 4, 2007

"The same people that attacked us on September the 11th is the crowd that is now bombing people, killing innocent men, women and children, many of whom are Muslims, trying to stop the advance of a system based upon liberty."
--President Bush, speech in Cleveland, July 10, 2007

Twice within one week, the President of the United States, perpetuated, and the press largely left unquestioned, the falsehood foisted on the American public to justify the disastrous war on Iraq from the beginning: namely, that the "enemy" in Iraq and the people who attacked the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001 are one and the same.

Think Progress cites Jonathan Landay's summary the two central truths that counter the presidential misinformation:

1) Prior To The War, Al Qaeda Was Not Operating In Iraq. “Al Qaida in Iraq didn’t emerge until 2004. While it is inspired by Osama bin Laden’s violent ideology, there’s no evidence that the Iraq organization is under the control of the terrorist leader or his top aides, who are believed to be hiding in tribal regions of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan.”

2) Even Now, Al Qaeda Is Not The Main Source Of Instability. “While U.S. intelligence and military officials view al Qaida in Iraq as a serious threat, they say the main source of violence and instability is an ongoing contest for power between majority Shiites and Sunnis, who dominated Saddam Hussein’s regime.”

"Bush's al Qaeda Problem," by Khody Akhavi of the IPS News Agency gives perceptive analysis of the president's truth-trashing rhetoric:

The U.S. counter-insurgency strategy appears set on exaggerating al Qaeda's role and bolstering its identity as an archetypal menace and convenient label to describe the most sensational and gruesome suicide attacks in Iraq, even though the group's number of operations are often dwarfed by those claimed by other factions, according to recent Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty report documenting the use of media by Sunni insurgents in Iraq....

Military Approach to Iran Nuclear Crisis Back in Favor

From "Cheney Pushes Bush to Act in Iran," Guardian, July 16, 2007
by Ewen MacAskill and Julian Borger:

The balance in the internal White House debate over Iran has shifted back in favour of military action before President George Bush leaves office in 18 months, the Guardian has learned....

The vice-president, Dick Cheney, has long favoured upping the threat of military action against Iran. He is being resisted by the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and the defence secretary, Robert Gates.

Last year Mr Bush came down in favour of Ms Rice, who along with Britain, France and Germany has been putting a diplomatic squeeze on Iran. But at a meeting of the White House, Pentagon and state department last month, Mr Cheney expressed frustration at the lack of progress and Mr Bush sided with him. "The balance has tilted. There is cause for concern," the source said this week....

The Washington source said Mr Bush and Mr Cheney did not trust any potential successors in the White House, Republican or Democratic, to deal with Iran decisively. They are also reluctant for Israel to carry out any strikes because the US would get the blame in the region anyway.

"The red line is not in Iran. The red line is in Israel. If Israel is adamant it will attack, the US will have to take decisive action," Mr Cronin said. "The choices are: tell Israel no, let Israel do the job, or do the job yourself."...

No decision on military action is expected until next year. In the meantime, the state department will continue to pursue the diplomatic route.

"Last Throes": The Second Anniversary

On May 30, 2005, Vice President Cheney declared that the insurgency in Iraq was in its “last throes” and predicted “the level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline.”

Cheney insisted 10 months after his statement that it was “basically accurate” and “reflected reality.” One year later, he again stood by his words.

All the while, violence in Iraq has continued unabated. Since Cheney’s statement two years ago, 1,799 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq, roughly half of all U.S. fatalities. At least 12,378 U.S. soldiers have been wounded.

More than two-thirds of the minimum 65,000 Iraqis civilian casualties documented from news reports by Iraq Body Count have taken place during the past two years.

Seventeen months later, in October 2006, Cheney finally acknowledged, “I would have expected that the political process we set in motion…would have resulted in a lower level of violence than we’re seeing today. It hasn’t happened yet. I can’t say that we’re over the hump in terms of violence, no."

Click here for a video of the Vice President's remarks and reactions to them at ThinkProgress.org

Dream Team For Darfur: Ira Newble and Teammates Speak Out

Ira Newble of the Cleveland Cavaliers announced on May 10 that he and 11 of his team mates on the NBA squad have signed an open letter to the government of the People’s Republic of China, urging the Chinese government to take immediate action on the crisis in Darfur, in advance of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing.

Newble has joined efforts with Olympic Dream for Darfur, which is calling on China to use its influence to encourage the government of Sudan to be more responsive to international efforts to address the Darfur crisis, and to do so prior to the 2008 Olympic games in Beijing.

Newble explains his involvement: “I have been distraught about the crisis in Darfur, and especially with recent news that shows the situation has not improved – and more innocent people are continuing to die. China is playing a major role in the crisis.  The 2008 Beijing Olympics gives professional athletes the chance to speak out about the ideas of peace and brotherhood that the Olympics represent.  I urge all athletes to ask China to do what it can to protect civilians in Darfur."

Cavalier's all-star LeBron James is not among the signatories.

Links to more in the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the full text of the athletes' letter.

Benchmark No. 1 Makes Iraq War's Purpose Plain: Oil

From commentary at truthout.org by Ann Wright, who served 29 years in the US Army and US Army Reserves and retired as a colonel and resigned from the US Department of State in March, 2003 in opposition to the war on Iraq.

On Thursday, May 24, the US Congress voted to continue the war in Iraq. The members called it "supporting the troops." I call it stealing Iraq's oil - the second largest reserves in the world. The "benchmark," or goal, the Bush administration has been working on furiously since the US invaded Iraq is privatization of Iraq's oil. Now they have Congress blackmailing the Iraqi Parliament and the Iraqi people: no privatization of Iraqi oil, no reconstruction funds.

This threat could not be clearer. If the Iraqi Parliament refuses to pass the privatization legislation, Congress will withhold US reconstruction funds that were promised to the Iraqis to rebuild what the United States has destroyed there....

What does this "Support the Troops" legislation mean for the United States military? Supporting our troops has nothing to do with this bill, other than keeping them there for another 30 years to protect US oil interests....

With the Bush administration's "Support the Troops" bill and its benchmarks, primarily Benchmark No. 1, we finally have the reason for the US invasion of Iraq: to get easily accessible, cheap, high-grade Iraq oil for US corporations....

Full essay at truthout.org

Richard Clarke: How the Damage Can Be Reversed (Maybe)

Richard A. Clarke, former national security advisor and author of Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror, spoke at Clark College in Vancouver, Washington on May 7 about the magnitude of the damage done by the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and how recovery from it might begin. Here are excerpts from a report posted at truthout.org by Howard Buck, staff reporter for The Columbian:

"'For as long as I'm alive, there will be Iraqis who hate us,' Clarke told about 300 people gathered in the Gaiser Hall Student Center. "In the 'battle of ideas' crucial to U.S. success in the Middle East, 'We're not only losing, we've never really started,' he said.... "'We don't need a big army to go after al-Qaida, we don't need B-2 bombers to go after al-Qaida,' Clarke said. Smart police work and intelligence across the globe have captured most high-ranking al-Qaida agents, while the so-called military solution has provided none, he added.... "He described his 'three-rings' theory of terrorism: A small, fanatic core of 100,000 al-Qaida fighters, bankrolled by perhaps 300 million Muslim sympathizers, with nearly 3 billion Muslims aghast at it all. "Clarke said the key is defusing those 300 million supporters. But daily carnage from Iraq televised through the Arab world has made them tune out not only Americans, but many of their own imams who urge peace, he said.... "He soberly tallied the cost in dollars, blood and global ill will of the Iraq war and occupation. It's a far cry from the opportunity presented after 9/11, when the world - including most Arab nations - was appalled by the al-Qaida terrorists responsible, he said. Case in point: Two days later, a candlelight vigil in the streets of Tehran drew 200,000 Iranians who showed sympathy for the United States, Clarke said. "'We could have used that support, that unity, to suppress these crazy ideas and go after terror worldwide. And we blew it,' he said.