Category Archives: war

All Posts, Christianity, civil rights, donald trump, justice, taxes, war

Follow Dr King out of Trump’s shithole

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President Trump’s remarks about “Shithole” nations and his desire for more immigration from (white) Northern Europe are a perfect contrast to our January 15 national day of recognition for Dr. Martin Luther King Junior – born January 15, 1929.  Except for an assassin’s bullet, he might have celebrated his 89th birthday today.  Instead he was killed before reaching the age of forty.

Click below to hear singer-songwriter Patty Griffin’s reflection on Dr King’s final speech and what his final prayer might have been before he died

Dr. King is rightly remembered as a principal leader of the civil rights movement that brought legal equality for Americans of African descent, at least on paper.  The struggle to fully achieve the promise of equality under the law continues to this day.

Today, I think it is important to remember that in his final years, Dr King had expanded his mission and ministry to encompass two additional concerns: He supported and expanded the peace movement that sought to bring American troops home from our military incursions into the affairs of other nations, principally Vietnam.  The second new subject was economic justice.  He saw, even in the 1960s, the concentration of extreme wealth among a few privileged Americans while laborers were unable to support families.  On the day that he was killed, he was in Memphis to support the demands of sanitation workers for improved wages and working conditions.

Dr King was not abandoning his civil rights mission.  He was expanding it.  The war affected everyone, regardless of race, through unnecessary killing and through the waste of economic resources that could have been used to improve American lives.  Economic inequality and injustice to working Americans affected minorities disproportionately but it was abundantly clear that a permanent, generation-spanning economic underclass existed in every race.  Insulting labels from that era such as “poor white trash” and “nigger” have not lost or changed their meaning in the half century since Dr King’s death.  They still refer to people who have had few opportunities for economic and educational advancement.  They are the victims of an economy and a nation that has no need for their limited skills and little motivation help them find opportunities.  How different, really, are the problems of the white Appalachian coal miner, the rural southern black, and the small town and urban workers of all races who lost jobs to automation?

Dr King saw clearly that we can all succeed together by creating opportunities for personal and economic growth through education and social safety net programs.  How ironic is it that Norway (the nation from which President Trump would like to have more immigration) has done what Dr King suggested?  Proponents of creating those programs here in the US are often derisively  called “socialists”.   It is precisely because of those socialist programs that very few people want to leave Norway.  People like it there.  Not only do they share their wealth, they have more to share.  In Norway, the average economic output per person is $70, 392 compared to $57,436 for Americans.  What a surprise!  A nation that strives to provide opportunities for everyone is more productive than one which ignores the needs of its poorest citizens.

Americans have responded to our problems by forming a circular firing squad – shooting (sometimes literally) at each other rather than lifting each other up, as Dr King would have taught.  Now we have elected a President and a Republican congressional majority who have cut taxes on corporations at a time when corporate profits are at record highs; cut taxes on the wealthiest Americans at a time when they already own a greater share of our national wealth than at any time on record; and will borrow money that we all have to repay in order to fund their gifts to the wealthy.  They also plan to drastically increase military spending for the longest and arguably least justified wars in American history.

Unfortunately, I must agree with President Trump that there is indeed a “shithole”.  He and the Republican congress are pushing us into it.  We’ll have to climb out using the remaining resources that they haven’t wasted.  We can do that if we will quit blaming the victims of poverty for their condition and begin focusing our efforts on creating opportunity for every American to achieve her or his full potential.  Success in that endeavor will be the measure of a great nation.

 

 

All Posts, American Foreign Policy, war

GHOSTS OF WAR

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I don’t know whether to thank or curse Ken Burns and PBS for bringing back the ghosts of the Vietnam War – exhuming feelings and memories that I had buried deep in the past.

TO WATCH THE SERIES CLICK HERE

I can again see the ghost of Thích Quảng Đức, a Buddhist monk who doused himself with gasoline and set himself ablaze on a Saigon street in June, 1963.  He was protesting actions of the US-supported South Vietnamese government.  Although the nation was more than 70 percent Buddhist, French and American military had supported a Christian-dominated government that severely limited religious freedom and Buddhist participation in society.  His last words were, “Before closing my eyes and moving towards the vision of the Buddha, I respectfully plead to President Ngô Đình Diệm to take a mind of compassion towards the people of the nation and implement religious equality to maintain the strength of the homeland eternally. I call the venerables, reverends, members of the sangha and the lay Buddhists to organize in solidarity to make sacrifices to protect Buddhism.”

When it became apparent that the Buddhist majority would oppose the government, the US supported a coup by the South Vietnamese military and ramped up the American troop presence to fight against a North Vietnamese government spawned from resistance to French colonialism. Simply stated, we took a side in a Vietnamese civil war. The Soviet Union and China took the other side.

An American Quaker pacifist, Norman Morrison (no relation that I know of) became my second ghost.  He poured kerosene over himself and lit his fire under the office window of Robert McNamara, the US Secretary of defense.  At least half a dozen other Americans and far more Vietnamese committed similar self-sacrifices to protest the war.

Those ghosts urged me to abandon the blind trust of American foreign policy and wars that was taught in our public school history books.  If we were on the side of freedom, justice and fairness, why would people commit such horrific suicides to bring attention to the actions of the South Vietnamese government that we enabled?

The war soon became personal. By the time I finished high school in 1965 I knew that boys who graduated one or two years ahead of me had already died in Vietnam.  I got a draft deferment because I went to college. Then came the lottery.  I drew #51 – sure to be drafted for a war that I did not believe in – to invade a nation of people who had done me no harm and try to kill them before they killed me.  I didn’t want to go but didn’t want to go to Canada or dodge the draft some other way…what to do???  In 1969 I went for my draft physical and flunked it because I was a few pounds underweight – 6’1″ and 123 pounds. I’m still not convinced that their scale was right but didn’t argue.  48 years have gone by since that physical exam and I still wonder what I would have done if I’d passed.

Today, I am haunted by the ghosts of those who gave their lives serving in our armed forces, and those who died fighting on the other side.  They are joined by ghosts of American college students killed by American soldiers during an anti-war protest at Kent State University. The government of Vietnam estimates that two million of the ghosts were civilians whose lives were lost in the no man’s land of war.

We don’t see many protests against today’s sanitized wars.  Precision munitions, guided from safe locations, assure that most of the death and suffering is among foreigners.  The men and women (some barely older than boys and girls) who fight our wars are volunteers.  They don’t complain much.   Can they trust the rest of us to send them to war only in support of self-defense, freedom, justice and fairness?

I hope that others will also watch the PBS documentary and apply whatever lessons you find to 21st century America.  Those who are as old as me are likely to find some ghosts of your own – including friends and family who died in the war.  We have enough of them.  We do not need more ghosts.

All Posts, American Foreign Policy, donald trump, islam, Terrorism, war

Do something – even if it’s wrong?

President Trump’s top advisers are considering hiring mercenaries to replace US Troops in Afghanistan.  Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater Security (who is also the brother of  Trump’s Education Secretary Betsy DeVos), Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner are promoting the idea that mercenaries can succeed where our armed forces have not, by imposing a stable government in that nation.   Blackwater is the same contractor that caused so many problems in Iraq.

How did we get to this point?

After 9-11, President Bush and many Americans seemed intent on “Doing something, even if it’s wrong.”  Secretary of State Colin Powell warned “If you break it, you own it.” meaning that  if we deposed Saddam Hussein, we Americans would be responsible for assuring the security of the Iraqi people until a stable, democratic government could be established.

Based on the mistaken notion that Iraq threatened us and our allies with weapons of mass destruction, we became the occupying power that deposed Saddam Hussein and destroyed the authority of Iraqi institutions; but we did not successfully replace them.  The US proved that we could remove a Middle East dictator quickly and efficiently.  That seemed to inspire rebellion and revolution against repressive governments across the region.  But rather than freedom and democratic government, the result was a power vacuum where competing ideologies and religious sects fought to impose their will on the rest of the population.

Arguably, the principal glue that held Iraq together was the rigid and sometimes cruel control imposed by the dictator that we had deposed. The nation fell into anarchy and chaos, an ideal environment for extremists to spawn ISIS and other terrorist groups.  A multitude of Iraqi religious and political groups fought for power.  No one succeeded in uniting the people.

Inspired at least in part by events in Iraq, a spirit of revolution spread.  The governments of Libya and Egypt fell.  Syria is in a protracted civil war with Russia propping up the dictator while the US insists that he give up power.  It seems unlikely that either of those outcomes would result in a free and stable nation.

Revolutions across the Middle East and North Africa have produced a horrendous refugee crisis.  Individuals and families have fled nations where they fear becoming victims of violence, starvation, abuse and disease.  Anarchy – the collapse of government – has allowed the most despicable aspects of human nature and behavior to thrive.  Children have been taught to decapitate others for practicing a different version of religion while other innocents are sold as sex slaves.

The refugee crisis spread to Turkey, then across the sea to Cyprus, Greece and into Europe.  That has created instability in the European Union.  Some nations, led by Germany, have welcomed refugees and tried to create opportunities for them.  Hungary, Poland and others strongly disagree and want to reject refugees.  The UK’s decision to secede from the EU was motivated in part by a desire for a strong national border and control over who crossed it. Back in the US, Americans elected a President who campaigned on the promise to ban Muslim immigration.  Just as in Europe, Americans are bitterly divided about whether to admit refugees from the greatest human tragedy of our lifetimes.  Without our invasion of Iraq, would any of it have happened?

As citizens of a free and democratic nation, we Americans are individually and collectively responsible for the actions of our government.  “If you break it, you own it” should have clear and personal meaning for each of us.  The cascade of events across the Middle East and North Africa and the direct line to today’s conditions should have taught us how actions intended as controlled and limited wars can spiral out of control.  We can’t change the past, and it’s hard to see how more “help” from us will be well received.

We now have a President who seems fond of saber-rattling and doesn’t like constraints (including the prohibition of torture) so he is considering turning the American military role in Afghanistan over to private contractors (mercenary corporations).  Americans would pay the bills while corporations and foreign governments set the rules of engagement as they see fit – unleashed from the Geneva Convention and other moral standards that govern American armed forces.

If President Trump hires mercenaries, we Americans will be individually and collectively responsible for the actions of our hired guns.  There are two adages to remember.  “If we break it we will own it.” and “Forewarned is forearmed.”

ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND READING:

NY Times report of trump Administration considering mercenaries for Afghanistan

Colin Powell on US Policy in the Middle East

Colin Powell on the Pottery Barn Rule in Syria

All Posts, Constitution, guns, health, lgbtq, north carolina, poverty, public education, taxes, war

What to do on the morning after?

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The day after the election will be the first day of the rest of our lives. What should we expect of our elected officials? Will we help or undermine each other and elected leaders?  If individuals, families and communities listen to each other’s ideas and agree on how to move forward together, we can invigorate the idea of “commonwealth”, a society that is organized to benefit all.  Everybody wins.  If, on the other hand, winners kick losers while they’re down in order to maintain dominance and if losers do all they can to stop winners from implementing their ideas then the republic will decline.  Everybody loses.

It’s happened in great societies throughout history and it’s especially clear in the Bible’s Old Testament. When those in power dominate and abuse the powerless, everybody loses and the society fails.  When the principle of commonwealth guides decisions, the society blossoms.

Poverty, income inequality and homelessness are at crisis levels in many places.  Rural America has depended on agriculture and manufacturing to provide family incomes and property tax revenue for local governments.  Both of those economic sectors now produce more goods with fewer people than ever before.  At the same time that rural employment opportunities paying middle class wages have become scarce, the tax revenues of rural communities have stagnated.  Budgets for public education, safety, and human services are under severe stress at a time when they are critical to redevelopment of communities.  The plight of rural America has much in common with high poverty neighborhoods of urban America.  Low incomes and insufficient resources have similar effects in both places.

Will legislatures reconsider how public services are funded and which tax revenues are available at local, state and federal levels?  Will high poverty areas have funding for education, high-speed internet, water, sewer, quality of life, health and other priorities at a level that is proportionate to wealthy areas?  If not, will their future be inter-generational poverty and emigration of successful residents to more desirable areas?  Will legislators work at solving the underlying problems or will they pit urban vs rural and white vs black vs Hispanic for partisan gain?

What about the sanctity of human life?  Will we expect our congress, legislatures and executives to behave as if “all lives matter”?  Does someone who wants a gun have the right to own an assault rifle designed for mass killing?  Does a woman have the right to remove a fetus from her body?  In which decisions should government have a role?

Conflicts between personal and constitutional values will not be fully resolved but can we make progress for the common good?   Could we agree to reduce the demand for abortion by providing free birth control, better access to pre-natal care, simple and inexpensive adoption procedures, and by solving our income inequality problems?   Will we expect legislators to find ways to preserve gun ownership for self-defense and recreation while getting weapons designed for mass killing out of circulation and screening gun purchasers to rule out suspected terrorists and known criminals?  Or will we reward leaders for continuing to insult each other?

The Republican controlled Senate has refused to consider President Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court.  They hope to win the Presidential election and get a conservative-leaning nominee. Senators Richard Burr and Ted Cruz have made the radical statement that if Hillary Clinton is elected, they will refuse to confirm nominees and let the court shrink.  That abrogation of a senator’s constitutional responsibility would invite similar behavior from Democrats toward a Republican president. Will we insist that senators fulfill their constitutional duties?

Differences of race, wealth, religion and philosophy divide us on a long list of issues: immigration, transpacific partnership, climate change, war, taxes, LBGTQ rights, health care, and more.

We’re not all going to miraculously agree after the election. Continued success for our republic will require two things of us.  First, we must look honestly at facts.  Second, we must engage each other in ongoing conversation (listening more than arguing) about the principle of commonwealth – making decisions and laws that create opportunity and peace for all of us.

Our legislators are capable of that, but they will do it only if they know that we voters expect it, demand it, and that we’re doing it ourselves.

We can start on November 9.

All Posts, American Foreign Policy, budget, deficit, Terrorism, war

WE NEED MORE UGLY AMERICANS

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Who was “The Ugly American“?  Most of us know the phrase, but few are aware that the original Ugly American is the hero of the novel by the same name.  Published in 1958, the book described American diplomacy in the fictional Southeast Asian nation of Sarkhan.  Obvious similarities to actual events in nations where the US and the Soviet Union competed for influence (especially Vietnam) made the book a hot topic of discussion in the press and the congress.

The “Ugly American” was Homer Atkins, an American engineer who went to Sarkahn with a desire to help local citizens improve their own lives.  Doing hard, physical work in the fields to design and build simple devices like a bicycle-powered irrigation pump often left Atkins sweaty and dirty, and that “always reminded him that he was an ugly man”.  “Ugly” was a title that he applied to himself, not to others.

In 1958 the Soviet Union was spreading communist ideology into emerging nations around the world.  They portrayed the US as an empire-building colonial power enriching itself and capitalists by dominating smaller nations.  Our diplomatic corps was focused on influencing rulers (often dictators), business owners and military leaders.  The Soviets were interested in the general citizenry, especially any movements to depose rulers or to create wealth among peasant classes and divide them from rulers.  As far away as Vietnam and as close to home as Cuba, the Soviet approach was succeeding.

After reading “The Ugly American” a Senator from Massachusetts was so impressed that he bought a copy for every one of his Senate Colleagues and encouraged them to read it.  Less than two years later, that Senator became President John Kennedy.  Only six weeks into his presidency, Kennedy created the Peace Corps by executive order.  Its mission was to recruit highly qualified volunteers, educate them about local language, customs and issues, then send them to emerging nations as representatives of America.   Kennedy’s decision to create the Peace Corps was inspired by The Ugly American and based on his belief that talented young Americans working alongside local residents without compensation would be excellent ambassadors for our nation and our values.

Today, the Peace Corps remains active and successful, but it is woefully undersized to address needs and opportunities around the world. The Peace Corps budget for 2016 is $410 million.  For comparison, the Department of Defense spent $437 million on military bands in 2015.  The estimated cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars (including derivative costs such as benefits for veterans) for the years 2003-2014 is $5 trillion.  That is almost $52 million per hour.  Eight hours of these wars costs more than a full year of Peace Corps funding.

The Ugly American argued that, “…we spend billions on the wrong aid projects while overlooking the almost costless and far more helpful ones…”.  Today budget deficits are massive and our world seems increasingly dangerous. We should re-examine our spending, the results that we are getting, and our national values.  Despite great sacrifice, uncountable deaths and heroic effort, military intervention in Iraq, Afghanistan,  and throughout the Middle East has not produced peace, safety, prosperity or stable nations.  Instead we see civil war, poverty, terrorism and refugees that no nation wants to accept.  Americans and Europeans now fear home-grown terrorists who have been nurtured by brethren in the nations that we have invaded.

The three Middle Eastern nations with a history of Peace Corps involvement, Jordan, Morocco, and Tunisia have plenty of problems but seem more stable and less susceptible to anarchy and terrorism than their neighbors. We’ve supported a wealthy and radical dictatorship in Saudi Arabia that seems increasingly vulnerable to popular uprisings because oil revenues are down.  The most stable large nation in the region appears to be Iran – the only one that has avoided our efforts at military driven nation-building.

One can only wonder what the Middle East might be like today if we had consistently offered Peace Corps style nation-building that helps individuals and families improve their own lives based on their own values rather than regime change and military solutions.  People of the region might be more inclined to treat us well if we send “Ugly Americans” to help them build the kind of nation that they want rather than arming them to fight each other.  Under the circumstances, it seems like an idea worth trying.

All Posts, American Foreign Policy, campaign finance, Congress, Constitution, justice, north carolina, war

PRESIDENT WASHINGTON’S ADVICE TO AMERICAN VOTERS

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CLICK HERE to read George Washington’s full farewell address

I’ve invited an old friend of our nation to compose most of this column.  George Washington served with great distinction as leader of our military forces in the war for independence then gave another eight years of service as our first President.   Approaching the end of his second term in 1796, he published a farewell address that included his assessment of our history and his advice about the future.  Here are some of his words and some questions to ponder.

“The unity of Government, which constitutes you one people, is also now dear to you. It is justly so; for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very Liberty, which you so highly prize”… “For the efficient management of our common interests, in a country so extensive as ours, a government of as much vigor as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty is indispensable.” That hasn’t changed but our perception of who is entitled to the benefits of liberty has expanded to include people regardless of race, sex, or other personal characteristics. Why do so many among us now see government as our biggest problem?

President Washington said that by maintaining our national unity, we could “…derive from Union an exemption from those broils and wars between themselves, which so frequently afflict neighbouring countries not tied together by the same governments…” thereby avoiding … “the necessity of those overgrown military establishments, which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to Republican Liberty.”  Why do we have armed forces stationed all over the world and why have we been at war so long?

Regarding relationships with other nations, he said, “nothing is more essential, than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular Nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated…The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connexion as possible…”  Why are we continuously involved in trying to change the internal affairs of other nations?

Washington wrote, “In contemplating the causes, which may disturb our Union, it occurs as matter of serious concern, that any ground should have been furnished for characterizing parties by Geographical discriminations, Northern and Southern, Atlantic and Western; whence designing men may endeavour to excite a belief, that there is a real difference of local interests and views.”  In North Carolina, Republicans designed legislative districts to guarantee their continuous hold on power.  To benefit themselves, they divide citizens rural and religious against urban and secular.  The situation in Washington is similar.

Speaking of associations and political parties, President Washington said, “…they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government; destroying afterwards the very engines, which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”  Could anyone better describe how political parties and PACs serve the interests of the very wealthy, huge corporations and other special interests?

Still speaking of factions and political parties, President Washington told us that “The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty. It serves always to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration. It agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection”

Please think about it.  Need I say more?

CLICK HERE to read George Washington’s full farewell address

All Posts, American Foreign Policy, Congress, environment, justice, war

KILLING BERTA CACERES

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A friend recently described the life and death of Berta Caceres to me. Today, I’m sharing her story with you along with concerns about America’s role in the affairs of other nations.

Berta Cacares and Pope Francis with other human rights activists
Berta Caceras and other human rights advocates with Pope Francis during his visit to Honduras.

Caceres was co-founder of COPINH, an organization created to protect the interests of the indigenous Lenca people of Honduras and to save their natural environment from rapacious development.  She and her organization received threats and were victims of violence over the years.  The controversy escalated when COPINH was able to stop construction of a huge hydroelectric dam that would have taken water and land historically belonging to the Lenca people.  It was jointly sponsored by Honduras-based DESA and Sinohydro, a Chinese company that is the world’s largest dam builder.  Defeating that project earned Caceres the 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize (perhaps the world’s most prestigious environmental recognition).  It also earned her the enmity of some very powerful people.

On March 2, 2016 Berta Caceres was shot and killed in her bed.  The assassins were reportedly  graduates of the “Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation” (AKA “School of the Americas”) that is jointly operated by the US Army and the CIA.  That school also educated at least 10 military dictators including Manuel Noriega (Panama) and Juan Velasco Alvarado (overthrew the government of Peru).  Their training by American professionals included assassination and torture.

In January, 2006, Manuel Zelaya was elected President of Honduras.  He ran on socialist principles and soon created closer ties to Venezuela and Cuba.  That engendered concern from Honduran and American business interests and from the Bush Administration in the US.  In June 2009, Zelaya was kidnapped and taken to Costa Rica by the Honduran military.   Pre-arranged support from the Honduran Supreme Court included immediate installation of Pofiro Lobo as President.

Honduran social cleansing victims discovered
“Social cleansing” to reduce the population of ethnic minorities that oppose the government have been reported. This man was thought to be a victim. Read more HERE.

Central American Nations and the European Union called for Zelaya’s return to power but dropped their insistence when the Obama Administration, in the person of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, encouraged recognition of the new regime.  The never-stated quid pro quo may have been American acceptance of the regime’s legitimacy and its domestic policies in exchange for their collaboration in a war against drug lords.  The Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America reports specifics of 229 politically related Murders under President Lobo.  Many who died or disappeared at the hands of government death squads were environmentalists or social reformers.

When the journal “Intercept” interviewed Berta Caraces about security concerns and threats from government, businesses and paramilitary interests she said “The army has an assassination list of 18 wanted human rights fighters with my name at the top, I take lots of care but in the end, in this country where there is total impunity I am vulnerable.  When they want to kill me, they will do it.” The Catholic Herald reports that many church-affiliated groups are urging the US to conduct transparent investigations of multiple political murders including that of Berta Caraces, but the US has not responded.

There are rumors that the dam project will be resurrected with support from banking, land development and construction interests.  Assassinations and arrests of opponents continue, as does the drug trade; and Honduras continues to have the world’s highest murder rate.

Mass market journalists have paid little attention to these events, but recently the well respected National Catholic Reporter (US based) has confirmed the story and added that, “The leader of the coup, Honduran General Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, was a graduate of the notorious School of the Americas, a U.S. Army training program nicknamed “School of Assassins” for the sizable number of graduates who have engaged in coups, as well as the torture and murder of political opponents.”  Nevertheless, US policy created by Secretary Clinton and still supported by her today is to refuse refugees from Honduras while continuing to accept them from Cuba.

After all the bloodshed, it seems that the US would have learned that training and equipping citizens of other nations to kill each other and overthrow their governments doesn’t help anyone.   It certainly did not help Honduras control the drug trade or help Iraq eliminate terrorists and it made lots of new enemies for Americans.  We’ve tried it without success in Iran, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Peru, Chile, Cuba, Syria, Guatemala, Nicaragua and probably in some places that I don’t know about.  It’s evil.  Let’s resolve to never do it again!

All Posts, Christianity, Congress, islam, justice, religion, Terrorism, war

WILL PEOPLE CONSENT TO BE GOVERNED?

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Some Americans have begun to speak of the USA as a failing nation.  I don’t agree. Our internal divisions are nothing new; they have persisted throughout our history. We succeed because most of us remain committed to working out our differences for the common good. We are justifiably worried about anarchy and terrorism, but they too have always been present. From the British point of view, our Revolutionary War heroes were domestic terrorists.  From the point of view of many colonists, the war was a justified and necessary step toward freedom.  The principal difference between terrorism and a “just war” is which side you are on.

Anarchy and terrorism lost when colonists created a new government based on “the consent of the governed”.  Within it they argued, debated and compromised to create something that the great majority of them would support.  That kind of political struggle is at the core of “consent of the governed”.  Our constitution protects the rights of individuals over the wishes and whims of majorities but our government is strong enough to make laws for the public good. That balance makes consent of the governed possible.

Terrorism emerges when extremely angry people who don’t get what they want through politics decide to use violence instead. An early example was the whiskey rebellion of 1791. Congress levied a tax on distilled spirits to pay off war debts. Farmers who made whiskey from their surplus corn were so opposed to the tax that they banded together and killed tax collectors. President George Washington personally led an army of 13,000 to put down the rebellion and enforce the law.  Our civil war, the biggest threat the nation has faced, was organized by slaveholders because they knew they were losing their political struggle to preserve slavery.

Americans’ ever-changing attitudes bring debate, conflict and changed laws. There was violence (terrorism) in opposition to the constitutional amendment that allowed women to vote. Our electorate was once dominated by religious extremists who passed laws to ban birth control and racially segregate society. As attitudes and beliefs changed, those laws have been repealed or found unconstitutional. The same can be said of the Prohibition Amendment that banned alcoholic beverages. Examples of terrorists in those causes include organized criminal gangs (alcohol) and KKK (segregation). 20th century arguments over civil rights, union rights, abortion rights, and the Viet Nam War brought violence and uncountable deaths.  As the issues were addressed some very angry people resorted to violence.

We shouldn’t expect today’s challenges to be easier than those faced by prior generations. Terrorists continue to attack both freedom and the government that protects it.  A majority of us now see marriage equality as a right, and our Supreme Court has determined that it is protected by our Constitution. That change was preceded by decades of homophobic violence. In 1973, women gained the legal right to control their own bodies, including the right to make their own decisions about ending a pregnancy. “Lone wolf” terrorist Eric Rudolph bombed the Atlanta Olympics to protest abortion rights and government protection of homosexuals. Timothy McVeigh, a “Christian” white supremacist, bombed the Federal Office Building in Oklahoma City as revenge for government support of civil rights.

Today we still have angry people who think their needs are not being addressed.   That includes Americans who lack adequate education and skills. They face a bleak economic outlook; suffer from depression and die younger than previous generations. Many African-Americans think that new voting laws are designed to reduce their influence. Some religious conservatives say their nation has been stolen by a majority that won’t accept literal interpretation of scripture as a basis for laws. Readers can probably add to the list of reasons why people are angry. In Biloxi, Mississippi a restaurant customer was enraged when a waitress told him that smoking was not allowed.  He shot her dead on the spot.  She might be angry too if she could talk to us.

So much anger makes it difficult to listen, to understand, and to accept our differences.  It also feeds the desire to control others through laws or violence rather than nurturing the individual freedoms that we cherish. Our “culture war” will continue in legislatures, courtrooms, and in our streets. Yes, there is terrorism, but there is also hope.  I remain optimistic that we will listen, learn, acknowledge our differences; and then find sufficient agreement for future “consent of the governed”.  Then we can move on to argue about another set of issues.  It’s what Americans do.

 

All Posts, islam, religion, Terrorism, war

IS THIS A TIME FOR WAR?

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What should we Americans do about ISIS and other radical Islamists – the ones who want a Caliphate; attack non-believers and violently enforce their religious beliefs on others?  They are as much a problem for most Muslims as they are for the rest of us.  In this dangerous time we should not see all Muslims as radical Islamists and  we must avoid poorly considered, emotional decisions that could make matters worse.

Our world’s mood is changing quickly since the brutal attack on civilians in Paris and the bombing of a Russian airliner.   Western nations are questioning whether to accept Middle Eastern refugees. Many citizens of nations that have been attacked want revenge and want to feel safe from future attacks.  But are revenge and safety are compatible?

Most Americans are in agreement on two goals.  First, protect our citizens and our nation from attack.  Second, encourage people of other countries to develop free and peaceful societies.  Our disagreements are about how to achieve those goals.

Every strategy has risks.  No one can know the best plan with certainty but we do have history as a guide.  It demonstrates that military action alone will not defeat  radical Islamists.  War against them has produced anarchy (civil disorder and the collapse of government).  Anarchy is fertile ground where they can spread their beliefs.  One important example is Afghanistan where a Soviet invasion in 1978 brought on total collapse of the Afghani government.  Over  100,000 Soviet troops, fully equipped with modern weapons, tried to impose a pro-USSR government.  After ten years they withdrew, having been defeated by the Mujahedeen and Taliban.  The anarchy they left behind allowed the radical Islamist Taliban to take charge.  Americans have been fighting the Taliban since 2003 and still have not defeated the ideology or created a stable government.

In Iraq, the American invasion and removal of Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship has produced a similar result.   The near collapse of Assad’s Syrian dictatorship created an opening for ISIS there.  Radical Sunni Islamism has morphed from Al-Qaida and Taliban to ISIS and it has spread among Muslims beyond the Middle East into Northern Africa, North America, and Europe.  There is no example where invasion and military occupation have produced good outcomes.  Why would we expect a different result if we invade again?

Critics of President Obama have persuaded many Americans that we have no strategy but he has clearly articulated one.  It is a long term plan focused on two goals:  (1) American safety and (2) development of free, peaceful societies.  Click here to hear the strategy.   It recognizes that ISIS brutalizes non-compliant Muslims even more than it does westerners.  It coordinates our military actions and our foreign policy to encourage Muslims to fight ISIS and replace anarchy with the rule of democratic civil law.  The strategy has had both successes and failures; and it is too early to know whether it can succeed.

Hatred of western civilization fuels ISIS and other radical Islamists.  Without it, they can’t recruit and they can’t convince other Muslims that the West is their enemy.  Today’s battle is against an ideology not a nation.  When we destroy a Muslim nation, even one as bad as Saddam’s Iraq or Assad’s Syria with a massive invasion, we feed radical ideology.  The critical question is whether the President’s strategy can effectively fight ISIS and encourage non-Islamist Muslims to do the same without creating more hatred of the west.

The financial cost of war in Afghanistan was a contributing factor to the collapse of the Soviet Union.  Americans are already saddled with a dangerously large national debt.  Since we have no will to raise taxes, it is all but certain that future warfare will be paid for with borrowed money – probably measured in trillions of dollars – as was the failed war in Iraq. When we calculate costs, we must also remember that any “boots on the ground” will belong to loyal Americans risking their lives to protect ours.

My conclusion is that  encouraging moderate Muslims and their governments to defend themselves from radical Islamism; providing them with military support and intelligence and maintaining our internal security at a high level is our best course of action.  That, in general is the President’s strategy.  I would stick to it until it succeeds or until someone comes up with a demonstrably better idea.  Another war is likely to be a disaster in both human and financial terms.

All Posts, Christianity, islam, justice, religion, Terrorism, war

Who is the stranger at my door?

There are times when it can be unpopular, expensive and even dangerous to practice ideals that we cherish and preach.  Those, to borrow a phrase from Thomas Paine, are the times that try men’s (and women’s)  souls.  Responding to millions of refugees from war, repression and poverty who seek survival and opportunity in western democracies will try the souls of Americans.

Before the 20th century, most national borders had little security and they were not major barriers to migration.  Sometimes borders themselves moved.  Californians and Texans lived in Mexico until  wars and treaties moved the borders, instantly making them Americans.  Other than Native Americans and involuntary-immigrant slaves, we are a nation descended from immigrants looking for freedom and opportunity

How will western nations respond to 21st century refugees fleeing from conditions arguably worse than those faced by the Europeans who settled colonial America?  Germany has committed to receive 800,000 mostly Syrian immigrants very quickly.  The great majority of them will be Muslims.  In a recent conversation, I asked a German acquaintance who lives in the US her thoughts about how Germans will respond.  I’ve paraphrased her answer as follows. I’m proud of my country and optimistic that most Germans will welcome refugees and help them assimilate.  But Germany has a significant right-wing population that Americans refer to as neo-Nazis and skinheads who don’t want non-whites or Muslims in Germany.  They will try to intimidate immigrants and some of their tactics may be violent.  Among 800,000 immigrants, there are sure to be a few bad actors, so some conflict is likely.  If even a few Muslim immigrants commit violence that looks like terrorism, it will  frighten many Germans. Public support won’t last long if that happens.    It seemed that she could have been describing America.  Her words and the refugee crisis raise a lot of questions.

  • Are borders that keep out refugees morally defensible?  The EU is confronted by hundreds of thousands of desperate refugees cutting fences and crawling under barbed wire with their children.  Should the EU admit refugees?  Watch them starve at the “wall”?  Shoot them?  The soul of the EU is on trial with such questions today.
  • President Obama has proposed a small increase in the number of refugees to be accepted and wants money budgeted for screening candidates.  Should Congress support that?  Should we do more?  Less?
  • By removing Saddam Hussein as dictator, we spawned civil war in Iraq and removed Iran’s regional competition.  We undermined Assad as dictator in Syria.  ISIS evolved and thrived in the power vacuum that we created in Iraq and Syria.  In this anarchy, there is no western-style democratic movement for us to support.  Do our past actions impose a moral obligation for America to assist the EU by accepting large numbers of refugees?
  • What would refugees from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and other Muslim nations be like as Americans?  Would they accept our freedoms of speech and belief or want to limit them?  Would most accept our limitations on the practice of religious traditions like forced marriage and polygamy? Would some isolate themselves; as a few extreme Christian and Mormon sects have done?
  • Will the 83% of Americans who profess to be Christians “love others” by welcoming Muslims or will they be divided?  What about the other 17%?
  • Should the US just get out of Muslim nations or is there something we can do or undo to turn around the anarchy and brutality that make ordinary families into refugees?

If we accept thousands of refugees, regardless of their race, religion, or national origin, we can expect that most of them will become law-abiding and constructive citizens.  Regardless of screening or religion, we can also expect that there will be a few criminals and radicals in the mix.  (Irish immigrants who self-identified as Christians became our terrorist “Irish Mafia”.  It can happen in any religion.)  Are we willing to accept a few who would behave badly in order to help thousands who have no home, no way to support themselves and no possessions beyond what they can carry?  Do their religion and national origin rule them out as immigrants, or are the refugees the ones Jesus described as “… the least of these my brethren…” to be loved and accepted just because they are human?

Answering such questions may indeed try the souls and consciences of Americans.  The time for decisions is upon us.