Peace Messenger

Militarism on Steroids

William Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF) offers "a seven-point program to return America to a quieter, less muscular patriotism," at TomDispatch.com:

I have a few confessions to make: After almost eight years of off-and-on war in Afghanistan and after more than six years of mayhem and death since "Mission Accomplished" was declared in Operation Iraqi Freedom, I'm tired of seeing simpleminded magnetic ribbons on vehicles telling me, a 20-year military veteran, to support or pray for our troops. As a Christian, I find it presumptuous to see ribbons shaped like fish, with an American flag as a tail, informing me that God blesses our troops. I'm underwhelmed by gigantic American flags -- up to 100 feet by 300 feet -- repeatedly being unfurled in our sports arenas, as if our love of country is greater when our flags are bigger. I'm disturbed by nuclear-strike bombers soaring over stadiums filled with children, as one did in July just as the National Anthem ended during this year's Major League Baseball All Star game. Instead of oohing and aahing at our destructive might, I was quietly horrified at its looming presence during a family event....

 As a society, we've become so addicted to militarism that we don't even notice the way it surrounds us or the spasms of societal 'roid rage that go with it. The fact is, we need a detox program....  more

A Righteous Nation Goes to War in the Armor of God!

Bible verses adorned the covers of the Pentagon's Worldwide Intelligence Updates during the early days of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, a report by Robert Draper, published in the June issue of GQ, has revealed.

The cover of the March 31 update pictured a tank in the desert, with Ephesians 6:13 printed above: "Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything to stand."

Another, dated April 3, shows tanks roaring through a majestic arch of swords, with the text "Open the gates that the righteous nation may enter, the nation that keeps faith" (Isaiah 26:2)

In his "On Faith" blog for Washington Post, David Gibson contemplates the equally rephrehensible possibilties that either Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon were trying the manipulate the religious beliefs of President Bush or that covers were the work of a dedicated corps of Christian military officers who see themselves as "spiritual warriors" and "government paid missionaries."

See these covers and several more samples at the GQ site.

The Taliban's Best Recruiting Weapon

From: Chris Hedges, "Becoming What We Seek to Destroy," Truthdig, 10 May 2009

 

The bodies of dozens, perhaps well over a hundred, women, children and men, their corpses blown into bits of human flesh by iron fragmentation bombs dropped by U.S. warplanes in a village in the western province of Farah, illustrates the futility of the Afghan war. We are not delivering democracy or liberation or development....

 

We are delivering massive, sophisticated forms of industrial slaughter. And because we have employed the blunt and horrible instrument of war in a land we know little about and are incapable of reading, we embody the barbarism we claim to be seeking to defeat. We are the best recruiting weapon the Taliban possesses. We have enabled it to rise from the ashes seven years ago to openly control over half the country and carry out daylight attacks in the capital Kabul. And the war we wage is being exported like a virus to Pakistan in the form of drones that bomb Pakistani villages and increased clashes between the inept Pakistani military and a restive internal insurgency....  full column

Bartlett Urges President to Reconsider Military Escalation in Afghanistan

Congressman Roscoe G. Bartlett, Jr. of Maryland was one of 14 members of Congress who signed a letter to President Obama on March 16, urging him "to reconsider the decision to send an additional 17,000 troops [to Afghanistan] and to resist pressure to escalate even further."  Bartlett, a Republican from Maryland, joined a politically diverse group that included fellow Republicans Walter Jones of North Carolina, who initiated the letter, and Ron Paul of Texas, and Democrats such as John Conyers of Michigan and Dennis Kucinich of Ohio.

Bartlett is a member of the Frederick, Maryland, Seventh-day Adventist Church....

Why Mainline Clergy Make Enemies

Marty E. Marty says it may have something to do with guns in his Sightings commentary (March 9) on a new study from Public Religion Research, Clergy Voices: Findings from the 2008 Mainline Protestant Clergy Voices Survey by Robert P. Jones and Daniel Cox:

While the mainliners have enemies, mainly among conservative Protestants and think-tanks on the right, they go about their work in thousands of vital congregations and more struggling ones.  Those enemies like to portray them as ideological leftists; Clergy Voices does not find them so.  The word "diffuse" shows up in the reports.  They have voices in public affairs, but rarely and mildly try to project or enforce social justice "dogma."...

...They and their members pitch in on other than directly political causes and prefer broad-based works of mercy through voluntary associations in church and beyond it.  On the large screen, most "are firmly opposed to the war in Iraq and most think Israel has to make greater concessions to achieve Middle East peace.  That, in our reading, is the solitary issue that prompts editorial and talk-show talk.  They are generally for control of guns.  Maybe that's a clue to the reasoning of those who attack them:  Taking on guns, they attack what may be America's real religion.  Read the entire column