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Gleaned from COSMIC THERAPY

Why I marched on Washington

By Jonathan Carroll

By Jonathan Carroll on 09/21/07 at 11:00 AM
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This is why the theology of our world leaders is so important.

‘A nightmare with no end in sight’

Ex-commander of coalition forces in Iraq lambastes ‘failure of leadership’

ARLINGTON, Va. - A “failure of the national political leadership” is responsible for the “nightmare” of the Iraq war, retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez said Friday.

If some of America’s political leaders were in the military they would have been relieved or court-martialed long ago, Sanchez told a conference of military journalists.

“Neglect and incompetence” by the National Security Council has led to an intractable situation in Iraq, the former commander of coalition forces in Iraq said.

Sanchez said that the NSC, Congress, the State Department and the national political leadership are all responsible for the “crisis in leadership.” He refused to identify specific individuals responsible for the failure, saying that he thought the media should be able to figure it out for themselves.

His comments appeared to be a broad indictment of White House policies and a lack of leadership in the Pentagon to oppose them. Such assessments — even by former Pentagon brass — are not new, but they have added resonance as debates over war strategy dominate the presidential campaign.

Sanchez said the war in Iraq is “a nightmare with no end in sight,” adding America has no choice but to continue fighting or the country will sink into chaos, which will spread throughout the Middle East. America will be there “for the foreseeable future,” he said.

‘A desperate attempt’
The so-called surge of troops in Iraq is “a desperate attempt by the administration,” and the best the U.S. can do at this point is to “stave off defeat,” Sanchez said.

Asked when he realized the war was on the skids, Sanchez said, “15 June 2003″ — the day he took over as commander of coalition forces.

The officers and military leadership involved in the planning for the war in Iraq suffered from “an absolute lack of moral courage to stand up and do what was right in terms of planning,” Sanchez said. “We allowed ourselves to believe we would be greeted as liberators,” he said.

Sanchez said that the decision to disband the Iraqi army disenfranchised 300,000 to 400,000 Iraqis and put them out on the streets, fueling the insurgency.

Asked whether he had an obligation as commander to speak up if he saw problems in the strategy for the war he said, “Of course.”

Sanchez was caught up in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, and although he was cleared of any involvement, the scandal cost him a fourth star and he was forced to retire.

Asked whether he is happy with the investigation and prosecutions in the case, Sanchez answered sarcastically, “Is America happy with destroying the careers and the reputations of everyone in the military chain of command involved in Abu Ghraib?”

Sanchez also railed on the media during his speech, saying that many people covering the war have political agendas and little concern about collateral damage when their stories are wrong. These members of the media are doing “a tremendous disservice to America,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Link.

I have ben reading the book “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits keep Spinning Us To Death” by Norman Solomon. I find it to be an eloquent disertation on the miltary-media- industrial- complex (known biblically as the World) and how it manipulates the perceptions of the public concerning its case for military intervention. Many people may not realize that in the last sixty plus years, nearly every “secular-humanist- military- humanitarinan” intervention that has been undertaken has followed essentially the same pattern of propagandizing and coercing the public. This pattern holds true not only for the current engagements in the Middle East but has also held true in Korea, Viet Nam, Nicaragua, El Salvador, The Dominican Republic, Panama, Haiti, Cambodia, Laos, Kosovo, etc., etc. This is not to say that these “enemies” were not bad people. But acknowledge if you will the template that is used when “convincing” the public what “must” be done about these situations.

The list below is merely the table of contents headings for the aforementioned book.
These headings alone read like a primer on selling a military intervention to the public. They will sound very familiar:

Building the Agendas For War

1. America is a fair and noble superpower

2. Our leaders will do everything they can to avoid war

3. Our leaders will never tell us outright lies

4. This guy is a modern- day Hitler

5. This is about human rights

6. This is not at all about oil or corporate profits

7. They are they agressors, not us

8. If this war is wrong, congress will stop it

9. If this war is wrong, the media will tell us

10. Media coverage brings war into our living rooms

11. Opposing the war means siding with the enemy

12. This is a necessary batttle in the war on terrorism

13. What the U.S. government needs most is better PR

14. The Pentagon fights wars as humanely as possible

15. Our soldiers are heroes, theirs are inhuman

16. America needs the resolve to kick the “Viet Nam Syndrome”

17. Withdrawal would cripple the U.S. credibility

Now, here is the model for Godly conflict resolution as set down in Romans Chapter 12:

Living Sacrifices
1Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual[a] act of worship. 2Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

3For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. 4Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his[b]faith. 7If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; 8if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.
Love
9Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. 10Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. 11Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. 12Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. 13Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.

14Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 15Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. 16Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position.[c] Do not be conceited.

17Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. 18If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,”[d]says the Lord. 20On the contrary:
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”[e] 21Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Footnotes:

1. Romans 12:1 Or reasonable
2. Romans 12:6 Or in agreement with the
3. Romans 12:16 Or willing to do menial work
4. Romans 12:19 Deut. 32:35
5. Romans 12:20 Prov. 25:21,22

Also, cipher this:

Note this from Proverbs 6:16-19. Take special notice of the item at the top of the list and also the one that closes out the list:

16 There are six things the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to him:

17 haughty eyes,
a lying tongue,
hands that shed innocent blood,

18 a heart that devises wicked schemes,
feet that are quick to rush into evil,

19 a false witness who pours out lies
and a man who stirs up dissension among brothers.

_______________________

The people who stir the toxic political stew everyday via the American airwaves and/or coin the phrases that become bumper stickers would be wise to heed these words.

Some may even accuse me of stirring discord. However, I dare anyone to find a place in this voluminous blog where I am engaging in deciet, encouraging violence, stirring hatred, advocating other than adherence to the edicts and/or principles of the Bible, promoting ANY political candidate or steering anyone away from Christ alone as the Way the Truth and the Light.

My message is simple really. To Cristians: Use discernment. Be the Church. Be at Peace. Recognize the World for what it is and realize the distinction between the World and the Church. Stand up for the Jesus Christ of the Gospels and the Beatitudes. Think eternally. Act spiritually. Speak the truth, Expose untruth even if it make people uncomfortable. Be slow to anger. Love. Do not hate. Trust God.

More early war discussion. Questions and answers:

>Subject: q’s and a’s> Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 10:17:21 -0600
>
> Another good friend and armchair philosopher asked me some good questions about ongoing political debate. I thought you might be interested in the questions and answers too.
>
>From: CHUCK
>To: Scott Starr
>Subject: Re: unplug?
>Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 00:07:56 EST
>I have been working on some thoughts I wanted to share with you but I have
>some questions that need answers first.
>What do think of the accusations going around that Bush had Sadam captured a
>long time ago but just brought him out?
>That Bush plotted this war in Texas for the benefit of a few oil companies?
>That Bush was warned of the plot for 9/11 but said nothing because .. it is
>not clear to me what motive Dean thinks Bush would have for that?
>What is your take on this?
>chuck
>
> I really don’t think there is any possibility that Saddam has been captured for any longer than they say. I suppose anything is possible…but it is very unlikely. I can’t imagine how holding on to him would be of any benefit in any way given the pressures of the Iraq situation.
> On the second question, about the war being plotted in Texas for the benefit of oil companies is not quite such a pat answer. First of all, let me say that Ted Kennedy’s statements on this can only be seen as a politically motivated and overblown generalization. The president and his staff would have to be the most crass and EVIL people on the planet to actually sit around and consciously hatch such a machiavellian scheme, whereby all this death and destruction would result, just to add to their personal fortunes. As much distaste as I have for the president and his cronies, I simply cannot believe that they are that immoral consciously. However, It is also difficult for me to imagine us being so commited in Iraq if there was no oil to be found over there. Without the oil factor and its attending implications for the oil based world economy, we would probably go on largely ignoring Saddam’s crimes against humanity like we did for most of the last few decades including the genocidal rampage carried out at the close of the first Gulf War. Off the top of my head I have to say that the war, as most are, is mostly about the balance of power rather than any commodities or moral considerations. The U.S. backed Saddam back when it served their interests…we basically created Saddam by giving him our blessing and helping arm him back when they were at war with Iran. This is not a new thing for Uncle Sam, we have consistently backed jackasses like Saddam around the world. During my youth there was support for Khmer Rouge, the Esquadron de Muerte in El Salvador, dictatorships from the Philipines to Chile, Haiti, Columbia etc., etc.
> In more recent times we just ignore situations like the slaughter of people in East Timor, in the Slavic world and the gassing of the Kurds in Iraq… in each case we backed or ignored harsh regimes to maintian that same balance of power that served our economic and cultural interests no matter what the cost of human life was in some faraway land that Joe Sixpack typicallly doesn’t know anything about. Heck we wouldn’t even take on the Nazis and get into what became WWII until we got attacked on our own turf. Both the political right and left are guilty on this…both of their key interests have always been maintining their own baseline of power. Power is the name of the game, economic, social, political …power. Each of these cases and the general concept of all this warrant a lot more thought and discussions…there is a lot of literature out there on all of it. I always like to study both sides of the story and make inferences from that. I can give some examples… Of course, I don’t believe evrything I read from any source, but I have been a voracious reader and news junkie since 9/11.
>I know people from both the political right and the left (as if those are the only two ways of thinking) that are not objective and cannot stomach anything that directs critical thought at their preferred leaders. ” I ain’t married to none of ‘em,” as I’ve heard a local car salesman say.
> On the 9/11 thing..
> From what I can discern, the intelligence community in general has known that the threat of major terrorist attacks was great and also on the rise for many years now. I have heard the political right accuse the Clinton administration of dropping the ball and lowering our defenses. However, that is more guff, because the record shows that that administration was very worried and very active about the subject. (also, the military now in the field was built mostly prior to November 2,000…i.e. under the previous administration so this is not a new military machine recreated by the Bush administration that is performing so well but the legacy of about the past three administrations….and no I am not a fan of Clinton…just stating facts) Memos were passed around concerning the ongoing terrorist threat and plots during the change of administrations. However, several things interfered with the process. First there was that screwball election. Then there was the changing of the guard and all the attending focus that had to be devoted to building a new cabinet and shaping new foreign and domestic policy.
>From what I can tell, the threat of terrorism was sort of put on the back burner, so to speak while all thesre other things were happening. I really don’t think that the Bush admin. got detailed specific info and then just blew it off. They had an agenda for dealing with the threats all along…they just got beat to the punch by Al Qaeda. Other matters dimmed the focus on this issue….politics in general. The right and left were so busy fussing, the new and old admins had such low regard for each other and poor communications that the REAL enemy slipped in a solid sucker punch. …And now both right and left are very busy blaming each other for the results.
>
>

Book review for “War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning” by Chris hedges

Busting the Myth of Redemptive Violence, September 1, 2007

This book and its message is NOT an assertion that all war is inherently wrong and that there is no distinction between the administration of justice and the return of evil for evil. It is an assertion that aggressive militarism, the glorification of warfare, the failure to recognize that it is born of sin and human failure and the pimping of it by religious and political institutions is misguided at best and possibly disastrous when not discerned and/or allowed to go unchecked by Godly, moral reflection.

Very often, pacifism is equated with passiveness, even though there is no linguistic link between the two words. Therefore, the application of pacifism, or anything approaching pacifism, is regarded as disastrous.
In a certain sense perhaps pacifism and passiveness are similar. To be passive means to receive or be subject to an action without responding or initiating an action in return. But passiveness also implies that one is not participating, that one is inert. In this sense nothing could be farther from the truth.

At any rate, Hedges does not profess to be a pacifist- although I believe in a certain sense of the word that he is. Nowadays I consider myself a pacifist or peacemaker with regards to warfare. What that means to me is not a belief that all violence is always wrong no matter what. It does mean that I judge any given situation with a spiritual discernement. It means that I choose violence as a solution last… not first. It means that I do not hate my enemies, but rather love them and consider my ultimate enemy not my fellow man… but the spiritual forces of darkness in the celestial realm as the Bible teaches. It means that I know that the power to give life is far greater than the power to kill and destroy. It means that I think eternally and act spiritually inasmuch as I am able as a weak and pitiful sinner and carnal man. It means that I leave room for God’s plan and God’s sovereign right to vengeance before my own. It means that I do not fear death… and am thus not controlled by fear in my actions or reactions… inasmuch as I am able. I believe that this book ul;timately reveals that Mr. Hedges feels essentially the same way.

Chris Hedges is the son of a Presbyterian minister, the Rev. Thomas Hedges. He has a B.A. in English Literature from Colgate University and a Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School, where he studied under James Luther Adams. Thus, Mr. Hedges’ view of the world and of warfare are undoubtedly colored by theology. Hedges is currently a senior fellow at The Nation Institute in New York City and a Lecturer in the Council of the Humanities and the Anschutz Distinguished Fellow at Princeton University. He spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than fifty countries, and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, where he spent fifteen years.

Hedges’ has a stinging, no punches pulled, no holds barred style of writing that I personally find very strong and inspiring. This book “War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning”, is one of the few books that so deeply inspired me that I read it straight through as quickly as possible. The book left me a bit disenchanted and in a brooding mood in the end. The realization of the validity of Hedges’ perspective and cultural commentary is a bitter pill to swallow for anyone who values true freedom and moral truth. This is heavy material for a moral, freethinking person to reflect on.

Here are two excerpts from the book that I discovered when skimming through it at the bookstore that made me buy this book:

1. “We make our heroes out of clay. We laud their gallant deeds and give them uniforms and put colored ribbons on their chests for acts of violence they commit or endure. They are our repositories of glory and honor- of power, self righteousness, patriotism and self worship - all that we want to believe about ourselves. They are our plaster saints of war- the icons we cheer to defend us and make us and our nation great. But they are part of our civic religion- our love of power and force. Our belief in our right as a chosen nation to wield this force against the weak and rule. This is our nation’s idolatry of itself- and it has corrupted our religious institutions just as it has corrupted religious institutions in other nations- fusing the will of God with the will of the State to create a potent and deadly form of idolatry.”

2. “War from a distance seems noble. It gives us a feeling of belonging, of comradeship, of power, a chance to play a small bit in the great drama of human history. It promises to give us an identity as a warrior, a patriot, a believer- as long as we go along with the myth- the one the war makers need to wage war. But, up close, war is a soulless void. The world of war descends to barbarity, perversion, pain and an unchecked orgy of death. It is a state where human decency and tenderness is crushed- where those who make war work overtime to reduce all love and sensitivity to smut and filth.
In war the moral order is turned upside down. All that is repulsive and feared in peacetime is lauded and cheered in war. The noise, the stench, the cries of pain, the eviscerated bodies, the bloated stinking corpses spin us into another universe. And in this moral void, often blessed by the church or the mosque or the synagogue- the hypocrisy of our social conventions, our strict adherence to religious edicts and virtues and utter refusal to honor others comes unglued. War, for all its horror, has the power to strip away the trivial and the banal, the empty chatter and self righteous obsessions that fill our days. It lets us see.”

Whether you agreee with Mr. Hedges’ take or not… his offering is/should be an important part of the dialog on these topics. I give the book my highest endorsement.

Great Tune. The lyrics could have been written this morning.

Lyrics:

Warning lights are flashing down at Quality Control
somebody threw a spanner and they threw him in the hole
there’s rumors in the loading bay and anger in the town
somebody blew the whistle and the walls came down
there’s a meeting in the boardroom they’re trying to trace the smell
there’s leaking in the washroom there’s a sneak in personnel
somewhere in the corridors someone was heard to sneeze
‘goodness me could this be Industrial Disease?

The caretaker was crucified for sleeping at his post
they’re refusing to be pacified it’s him they blame the most
the watchdog’s got rabies the foreman’s got fleas
and everyone’s concerned about Industrial Disease
there’s panic on the switchboard tongues are tied in knots
some come out in sympathy- some come out in spots
some blame the management some the employees
and everybody knows it’s the Industrial Disease

The work force is disgusted- downs tools and walks
innocence is injured experience just talks
everyone seeks damages and everyone agrees
that these are ‘classic symptoms of a monetary squeeze’
on ITV and BBC they talk about the curse
philosophy is useless theology is worse
history boils over- there’s an economic freeze
sociologists invent words that mean ‘Industrial Disease’

Doctor Parkinson declared ‘I’m not surprised to see you here
you’ve got smokers cough from smoking, brewer’s droop from drinking beer
I don’t know how you came to get the Bette Davis knees
but worst of all young man you’ve got Industrial Disease’
he wrote me a prescription he said “you are depressed
but I’m glad you came to see me to get this off your chest
come back and see me later - next patient please
send in another victim of Industrial Disease”

I go down to Speaker’s Corner I’m thunderstruck
they got free speech, tourists, police in trucks
two men say they’re Jesus one of them must be wrong
there’s a protest singer singing a protest song - he says
‘they wanna have a war to keep us on our knees
they wanna have a war to keep their factories
they wanna have a war to stop us buying Japanese
they wanna have a war to stop Industrial Disease
they’re pointing out the enemy to keep you deaf and blind
they wanna sap your energy incarcerate your mind
they give you Rule Brittania, gassy beer, page three
two weeks in Espana and Sunday striptease’
meanwhile the first Jesus says ‘I’ll cure it soon
abolish monday mornings and friday afternoons’
the other one’s on a hunger strike he’s dying by degrees
how come Jesus gets Industrial Disease