Anthony Gregory asks, “You call this a war? I’ll show you a war.” He contends that we are prone to forget the atrocities of today’s wars because they are so distant to our daily lives. This is the most important link you can read from this weekly news post.

David Theroux, President of the Independent Institute, did an interview this week with To the Source about C.S. Lewis and the State.

One of my heroes, Stephan Kinsella, did an amazing interview with The Daily Bell this week on libertarianism and intellectual property. It is a superb read with a great many further links and resources for the interested reader.

In other IP news, Summit Entertainment is apparently claiming to own the date “November 20, 2009” and issued a DMCA takedown on art created on that day. No kidding.

Have you heard that Tide is now being used like money on the black market? Talk about money laundering…

I’m a science fiction fan, so here’s something for other SF lovers out there: Top 10 Best Retorts in Science Fiction and Fantasy.

Remember Kony 2012, or is that old news at this point? Here is another perspective on Kony and the White Savior Industrial Complex.

Are you involved in the Ron Paul 2012 presidential campaign in some way? Here is a new book you can download for free that might interest you.

There was a lot going on at home this week (in particular, my wife was in town!) so posting time was scarce. But if you didn’t visit LCC this week, here is what you missed:

• Time for a Drink

Have some relevant news and links you want to share? Post in the comments below. I read every comment and respond to almost all of them. Let me know what you’re thinking!

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

News of the Week: You Call this a War?

As a Bible-believing Christian, I have major issues and insurmountable theological differences with the Islamic religion. However, this does not mean that I advocate launching preemptive strikes against Muslim countries in the name of national defense, interfering in Muslim countries, invading Muslim countries under false pretexts, or lying about Muslim countries – like certain Jews in the Israeli government and certain Christian ministries in the United States.

Back in 2006, Benjamin Netanyahu was interviewed by Glenn Beck on CNN. You can read a transcript here. Speaking about Iran, Netanyahu said the following:

Iran is Germany, and it’s 1938, except that this Nazi regime that is in Iran, that’s a religious kind of fanaticism, but it wants to dominate the world, annihilate the Jews, but also annihilate America. Remember, we’re the small Satan. You’re the big Satan.

We’re just the first way station en route to you. So there is this fundament fanaticism that is there. It’s a messianic cult. It’s a religious messianic cult that believes in the Apocalypse, and they believe they have to expedite the Apocalypse to bring the collapse of the West.

Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, is first trying to develop nuclear weapons and then going about his mad fantasy of global conflict. So he has to be stopped. I think when you have something as fanatic and as dangerous as this, the question now is not whether he should be stopped, but how’s he going to be stopped?

So I think the real problem is: Do we let this fanatic regime, this messianic cult of the Apocalypse, get their hands on atomic weapons? I think it’s folly.

And I don’t think it’s just an Israeli question any more so than Hitler was just a Jewish question. Hitler started with the annihilation of the Jews, but pretty quickly moved on to threaten the entire world. And America woke up late, after 6 million Jews died.

But in our case, you know, we don’t have to wake up dead in order for people to realize that he threatens America. We want to both defend ourselves, defend the Jewish state, certainly, but also defend America and free civilization against people who would extinguish our freedoms and our lives.

If you don’t act, it means that it will be the first time in the history of the world that a totally unstable, globally mad regime will have atomic bombs and the means to deliver them.

This means, a, that they will dominate the Middle East very quickly. They will make the Persian Gulf an Iranian pond. They will control the world’s oil supply. And they will probably use the weapons, first against my country, and then to intimidate or threaten Europe. They want to control the world.

And what kind of time frame did Netanyahu give for Ahmadinejad and Iran to fully develop into Hitler and Nazi Germany? He figured that there were only five years left:

There are different estimates, but they all hover between the two- to four-, five-year range, and we may be wrong. We were wrong about North Korea.

How long will it take? The estimates could be wrong. I was referring to the fact that people thought that North Korea would take longer to produce a device, first device. And here, we think – we don’t know – the official statement give by the chief of Israeli intelligence – and I can say this because it was publicized – it was said in our foreign affairs and defense committee in our Knesset, our parliament, he said it will take them anywhere up to three years to cross all the nuclear technology threshold, and then it takes about a year or two to weaponize.
But this at most would give us five years. It could very well be next year. Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, is boasting that he’s on the express train.

This was in late 2006. I mentioned Netanyahu’s timeframe in my 2008 article “How to Prevent a War with Iran.” There I also referred to some statements by Elwood McQuaid in the magazine Israel My Glory, published by the Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry. Said McQuaid:

Annihilating the Jewish state is merely a warm-up. Although the lynchpin of Ahmadinejad’s crusade is a first-strike success against his near neighbor Israel, the next move is westward to Europe and then on to finish off the hated United States.

Replace the name Hitler with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who rants against his selected scapegoats, Israel and the Jewish people, blaming them for every iniquity and offering the only ‘acceptable’ solution: genocide and annihilation of the Jewish state. His desire is not for a 1,000-year Reich but for a global, Islamic caliphate.

Well, it has been over five years now and all I can say is: some caliphate.

I want to briefly quote some statements about Iran from three recent LRC articles, the first two by Michael Rozeff and the last one by Eric Margolis.

First, Rozeff quotes from a book by Trita Parsi, Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States (Yale University Press, 2007):

Few Iranian Jews take Ahmadinejad’s anti-Israel rhetoric seriously, and they point to the fact that little has changed for Iranian Jews under him. “Anti-Semitism is not an eastern phenomenon, it’s not an Islamic or Iranian phenomenon – anti-Semitism is a European phenomenon,” Ciamak Morsathegh, head of the Jewish hospital in Tehran, explained. Iran’s forty synagogues, many of them with Hebrew schools, haven’t been touched. Neither has the Jewish library, which boasts twenty thousand titles, or Jewish hospitals and cemeteries. Still, Iran’s Jews have not sat idly by. The Jewish member of the Iranian Majlis, or parliament (most religious minorities are guaranteed a seat in the parliament), Maurice Mohtamed, has been outspoken in his condemnation of Ahmadinejad’s comments.

So, Jews have hospitals, schools, libraries, and cemeteries in Iran, plus a Jewish member of the Iranian parliament. That is some global, Islamic caliphate that Ahmadinejad is instituting.

Second, Iran cannot attack Israel:

The fact is that Iran is not preparing its conventional armed forces to launch an offensive war on Israel. It has no announced intention of doing such a thing. It has no strong or urgent reason to do such a thing. Iran has no casus belli. In view of Israel’s nuclear arsenal, Iran would face enormous losses if it attacked Israel in the future. Iran’s leaders know this.

Furthermore, Iran’s armed forces cannot attack Israel. The distance between Tehran and Tel Aviv is almost 1,000 miles. The two countries are separated by Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. Iran has no air force capable of flying such a distance, even one way. Its ground forces are not about to invade the intervening countries, now or in the future. That would bring the U.S. and other nations against Iran.

You cannot have a global, Islamic caliphate without first having one in the Middle East.

And third, you can’t establish a global, Islamic caliphate without an air force and a navy:

An estimated 45-50% of Iran’s small, obsolete air force is grounded by lack of spare parts or repairs. Iran’s pilots, who last saw action during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War, have critically little flying time. Iran’s air force lacks modern radars, communications or electronic warfare equipment.

The mainstay of Iran’s air force remains about 60 ancient US-built F-14 naval fighters, F-4 Phantom strike aircraft dating from the Vietnam era, and some old US F-5 trainers. Iran also has a grab bag of some 25 Soviet/Russian Mig-29’s, a similar number of capable SU-24 strike aircraft, and some 20 Chinese outdated F-7 fighters. The US -supplied aircraft all suffer from metal fatigue and are more of a danger to their hapless pilots than an enemy.

Iran’s bathtub navy has a few small frigates and three modern Russian Kilo-class submarines that are effective in shallow coastal waters. Iran’s sizeable numbers of Chinese anti-ship missiles on shore, at sea and carried by aircraft might score a few lucky hits on the mighty US Navy or oil tankers, as could its ample supply of magnetic mines.

But any US assault of Iran, would open by surprise attacks from waves of cruise missiles and stealth aircraft against Iranian air bases, ports and communications hubs. Most of Iran’s air force and navy would be destroyed. Iran’s obsolete air defenses would be put out of action by missile and cyber-warfare attacks.

Ahmadinejad couldn’t establish a global, Islamic caliphate if he tried.

There is another reason why the idea of a global, Islamic caliphate is a pipe dream of American neoconservatives and conservative evangelicals: Muslims are too busy killing each other. Although Sunni and Shiite Muslims have been killing each other off and on since the death of Muhammad their prophet in 642, the warring between the two groups really took off in the Iran-Iraq War in 1980-1988 when hundreds of thousands died on each side. The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 deepened the Sunni-Shiite divide.

According to Mapping the Global Muslim Population: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Muslim Population, published by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, Shiites, which make up about 13 percent of all Muslims, are mainly concentrated in Iran, with significant numbers in Iraq, India, and Pakistan. These four counties account for between 70 to 80 percent of the population of Shia Muslims. The majority of Muslims are Shiites in only Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, and perhaps Lebanon. Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen, Turkey, and Afghanistan also have small pockets of Shia Muslims.

Sunni Muslims believe that the rightful successor to Muhammad could have been any qualified individual. Shiite Muslims believe that the rightful successor to Muhammad should have been related to him. Should political succession be by merit or by bloodline? You can read all the historical details here.

Just don’t ask John McCain – he doesn’t know the difference between the two. And neither do other prominent politicians and government officials.

I haven’t even talked about how Ahmadinejad is subordinate to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, who has control over Iran’s military and has declared the possession of nuclear weapons to be “a grave sin” and “senseless, destructive and dangerous.” Or how in Iran’s recent legislative election, Jews won three seats, Catholics won four, Armenians won five, and Zoroastrians won two. Or how the bulk of the seats went to opponents of Ahmadinejad. Or how Ahmadinejad’s sister lost her bid for a seat in the Parliament.

The three stooges running for the Republican presidential nomination – who just spoke at AIPAC about the dangers of Iran – are more dangerous then Iran will ever be.

Ahmadinejad is some Hitler, and Iran is instituting some caliphate.

Originally posted on LewRockwell.com on March 8, 2012.

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

Some Caliphate

However, on this latter point it needs to be said that it is only natural to expect that foreigners on the receiving end of U.S. military invasions, occupations, bombings, and killings would retaliate against U.S. troops. Just think of what Americans would do if these things were done to them.

So, on the one hand, as Herbert Spencer wrote over a hundred years ago in his essay on patriotism: "When men hire themselves out to shoot other men to order, asking nothing about the justice of their cause, I don’t care if they are shot themselves." But on the other hand, as an American, I don’t want to see any American soldiers harmed, and especially those that were duped into fighting some unnecessary and senseless foreign war.

The solution to the dilemma is to not send American soldiers overseas to fight foreign wars, which are inherently unjust. This keeps foreigners from having to shoot invading American soldiers and American soldiers from having to shoot resisting foreigners.

The difference between a warmongering Republican or conservative (like every major conservative talk show host and every major Republican presidential candidate except Ron Paul) and yours truly is that I don’t want anyone on either side to die.

One way that American soldiers are increasingly dying is at their own hands. More U.S. military personnel have died because they committed suicide than from suicide bombers detonating explosive devices near U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. I would like to see military suicides reduced.

According to a new policy brief titled "Losing the Battle: The Challenge of Military Suicide," published by the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), from 2005-2010, "service members took their own lives at a rate of approximately one every 36 hours." The Army had a record number of thirty-three suicides in July of 2010. That is eight times more soldiers dead by suicide than were killed in Iraq that month. That is over half the number of soldiers killed in the much-more-dangerous occupation of Afghanistan that month. The report also says that the Veterans Administration estimates "that a veteran dies by suicide every 80 minutes." Although only 1 percent of Americans have served in the military, veterans account for 20 percent of all suicides.

According to the report:

• The mental health screening process following deployment is flawed.
• Suicide among service members and veterans threatens the health of the all-volunteer force.
• America is losing its battle against suicide by veterans and service members. And, as more troops return from deployment, the risk will only grow.
• Soldiers who deploy are more likely to die by suicide. Data have long indicated definitive links between suicide and injuries suffered during deployment.
• Additional factors that heighten risk include chronic pain and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms such as depression, anxiety, sleep deprivation, substance abuse and difficulties with anger management. These factors are also widely associated with deployment experience in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The report also noted that military hazing caused some of the suicides and that excess prescription medication in the military community was also a problem.

At an event launching the CNAS report, Vice Chief of Staff of the Army Peter Chiarelli said that trying to reduce the number of suicides in the Army has been "the most difficult challenge" in his forty years in the military. One of the authors of the report, Dr. Margaret Harrell said that the battle against suicide was being lost "multiple times a day."

According to the Department of Defense Suicide Event Report (DoDSER) for calendar year 2010, 295 service members died by suicide in 2010 (Air Force – 59, Army – 160, Marine Corps – 37, Navy – 39). There were 863 known suicide attempts. The suicide rate for divorced service members was 55 percent higher than the suicide rate for married service members. Most of those who successfully committed suicide were white, male, and under 25 years old. The number of suicides in 2009 was 309; the number in 2008 was 268.

According to the Final Report of the Department of Defense Task Force on the Prevention of Suicide by Members of the Armed Forces, in the nine-year period from 2001 to 2009, more than 1,900 members of the military took their own lives. This is more soldiers than have died fighting in Afghanistan since the war on terror was launched.

Although I am not a physician, a psychologist, a psychiatrist, or a mental health or suicide prevention counselor, I can think of four things that would reduce military suicides. And not only that, these things would also save the taxpayers money, improve America’s image in the world, keep us safer, and make it honorable to serve in the military.

One, stop fighting foreign wars.

When soldiers are sent to fight unnecessary, unjust foreign wars (is there any other kind?), there will always be questions in their minds about why they are fighting in a place they couldn’t locate without a map and against a people that never harmed an American until Americans first stuck their noses in their business. And we wonder why soldiers get depressed and suicidal?

The aforementioned CNAS report found a direct connection between deployment and suicide. Some soldiers don’t even wait until they get home to suffer chronic pain, PTSD, depression, and unemployment – they kill themselves in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The fewer foreign wars our soldiers are told to fight (the ones who have to do the actual fighting are never asked for their opinion), the fewer cases of traumatic brain injury, loss of limbs, depression, PTSD, anxiety, substance abuse, and chronic pain our soldiers will needlessly have to suffer with.

I just can’t see U.S. soldiers getting depressed and suicidal or suffering PTSD and sleep loss over having to kill enemy soldiers who actually tried to attack the United States.

Two, end the empire.

Why does the United States still have tens of thousands of troops in Germany, Japan, and South Korea? Why does the United States have any troops at all in Djibouti, Australia, and Argentina? Why does the United States have 250,000 troops in foreign countries? Why does the United States have troops in 160 countries and territories? Why is it now so commonly accepted that someone in the military is being deployed to Germany or Japan?

Military life is destructive to children, families – and service members. The strain of separation or relationship breakups, or the guilt over temptations succumbed to, can certainly lead to suicide.

Sailors on Navy ships in Jacksonville should sail down around the Florida Keys and up through the Gulf of Mexico to Texas and then turn around and go back and see their families. No landing in Mexico, the Caribbean, or South America – for any reason. That will do more to keep America safe than sailing in the Persian Gulf or the Gulf of Tonkin. And it will certainly do more for morale and military families than overseas deployments.

Three, end most roles for women in the military.

"Your mother wears army boots" used to be a derogatory remark. Now it is true for 207,308 women in the U.S. military. This is about 15 percent of the 1,425,115 total members of the military. (All figures are as of September 30, 2011.) And these numbers don’t include the Coast Guard. Women comprise an even higher percentage in the Guard and Reserve.

Over 200,000 women have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. There have been 111 female U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq. There have been 30 female U.S. soldiers killed in Afghanistan, the most recent one being Sarina Butcher, aged 19, who died on November 1, 2011. It is a terrible tragedy that we send young men to die in senseless foreign wars; it is a horrendous evil that we send young women.

Call me a sexist, a chauvinist, and a misogynist all you want, but no woman has any business flying a helicopter in Iraq, like twenty-seven-year old Army captain Kimberly Hampton, who died when the OH-58 Kiowa Warrior helicopter she was piloting was shot down. (No man does either, but that is not my point here.)

According to Allan Carlson, the U.S. Department of Defense is the nation’s largest child-care system. Up to 40 percent of military pregnancies occur among unmarried military personnel. The 10 percent of military personnel who are "service couples," with both husband and wife in uniform, are 64 percent more likely to be divorced by age 24 than comparable civilian couples. Carlson made the case many years ago for the "Bachelor Army" in Policy Review (the Fall 1993 issue in which it appeared is apparently not online).

Things will only get worse since the Military Leadership Diversity Commission, established by Congress two years ago, recommended that the Pentagon do away with the policy that bans women from serving in combat units.

According to the previously mentioned DoDSER, one fourth of attempted suicides in the military are by women. Relationship issues are a factor in both male and female military suicides.

Four, stop perverting the purpose of the military. As I have said in one form or another on many occasions:

The U.S. military should be limited to defending the United States, securing U.S. borders, guarding U.S. shores, patrolling U.S. coasts, and enforcing no-fly zones over U.S. skies instead of defending, securing, guarding, patrolling, and enforcing in other countries. The U.S. military should be engaged exclusively in defending the United States, not defending other countries, and certainly not attacking, invading, or occupying them. Using the military for any other purpose than the actual defense of the United States perverts the purpose of the military.

Soldiers should know without a doubt that what they are doing is moral, just, and right. Limiting the military to actually protecting the United States is the surest way to do this.

This means no more offensive wars. No more nation building. No more spreading democracy at the barrel of a gun. No more policing the world. No more providing disaster relief. No more dispensing humanitarian aid. No more preemptive strikes. No more bombing. No more extraordinary renditions. No more enhanced interrogation techniques. No more peacekeeping operations. No more enforcing UN resolutions. No more regime changes. No more assassinations. No more overseas deployments. No more foreign military bases. No more containing communism. No more opening markets. No more enforcing no-fly zones. No more training foreign police and armies. No more invasions. No more occupations. No more foreign wars.

I support the troops. I support the troops not being put into positions where they face unnecessary danger. I support the troops not fighting senseless foreign wars. I support the troops not being separated from their families. I support the troops not being sent to kill foreigners. I support the troops not being stationed on overseas bases. I support the troops not being misused by presidents, politicians, and military brass. I support the troops not being killed as invaders and occupiers. And I support the troops not killing themselves.

Originally posted on LewRockwell.com on November 28, 2011.

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

How to Reduce Military Suicides

"Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts. . . . America was targeted for attack because we’re the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world." ~ George W. Bush, address to the nation, September 11, 2001

"They hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other." ~ George W. Bush, address to Congress, September 20, 2001

Of all the lies of the Bush administration used to justify the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, this one has proven to be the most enduring – and the most wrong.

According to a 2004 report on strategic communication prepared by the Defense Science Board Task Force, "a federal advisory committee established to provide independent advice to the secretary of defense":

American direct intervention in the Muslim World has paradoxically elevated the stature of and support for radical Islamists, while diminishing support for the United States to single-digits in some Arab societies.

Muslims do not "hate our freedom," but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the longstanding, even increasing support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, and the Gulf states.

Furthermore, in the eyes of Muslims, American occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has not led to democracy there, but only more chaos and suffering. U.S. actions appear in contrast to be motivated by ulterior motives, and deliberately controlled in order to best serve American national interests at the expense of truly Muslim selfdetermination.

Therefore, the dramatic narrative since 9/11 has essentially borne out the entire radical Islamist bill of particulars. American actions and the flow of events have elevated the authority of the Jihadi insurgents and tended to ratify their legitimacy among Muslims. Fighting groups portray themselves as the true defenders of an Ummah (the entire Muslim community) invaded and under attack – to broad public support.

A 2006 National Intelligence Estimate concluded that the war in Iraq increased the threat of terrorism rather than reduced it. "Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States" points out the "centrality" of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in fomenting terrorist cells and attacks and describes how the American presence in Iraq has helped spread radical Islam by providing a focal point for anti-Americanism.

According to Michael Scheuer, who headed the CIA’s bin Laden unit from 1996 to 1999: "In the long run, we’re not safer because we’re still operating on the assumption that we’re hated because of our freedoms, when in fact we’re hated because of our actions in the Islamic world. There’s our military presence in Islamic countries, the perception that we control the Muslim world’s oil production, our support for Israel and for countries that oppress Muslims such as China, Russia, and India, and our own support for Arab tyrannies."

Peter Bergen, who produced the first television interview with Osama Bin Laden in 1997, says "that in all the tens of thousands of words uttered by bin Laden, he was strangely silent about American freedoms and values. He didn’t seem to care very much about the beliefs of the ‘crusaders.’ His focus was invariably on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East."

Political scientist James Payne, in a review of twenty-four official pronouncements of Osama bin Laden from 1994-2004, found that 72 percent of the content amounted to "criticism of the United States and other Western countries for their aggression against Muslim lands and the need to defend against and punish this aggression." Only 1 percent criticized American culture or the American way of life.

If we really want to know why American is hated by terrorists, insurgents, jihadists, militants, and Islamofascists, then we should just ask them. Actually, we don’t even need to ask, just listen.

Listen to Osama bin Laden, the late leader of al Qaeda. First, from his 1996 fatwa:

It should not be hidden from you that the people of Islam had suffered from aggression, iniquity and injustice imposed on them by the Zionist-Crusaders alliance and their collaborators; to the extent that the Muslims blood became the cheapest and their wealth as loot in the hands of the enemies. Their blood was spilled in Palestine and Iraq. The horrifying pictures of the massacre of Qana, in Lebanon are still fresh in our memory. Massacres in Tajakestan, Burma, Cashmere, Assam, Philippine, Fatani, Ogadin, Somalia, Erithria, Chechnia and in Bosnia-Herzegovina took place, massacres that send shivers in the body and shake the conscience. All of this and the world watch and hear, and not only didn’t respond to these atrocities, but also with a clear conspiracy between the USA and its’ allies and under the cover of the iniquitous United Nations, the dispossessed people were even prevented from obtaining arms to defend themselves.

The latest and the greatest of these aggressions, incurred by the Muslims since the death of the Prophet (ALLAH’S BLESSING AND SALUTATIONS ON HIM) is the occupation of the land of the two Holy Places – the foundation of the house of Islam, the place of the revelation, the source of the message and the place of the noble Ka’ba, the Qiblah of all Muslims – by the armies of the American Crusaders and their allies.

Second, from his 1997 CNN interview:

We declared jihad against the US government, because the US government is unjust, criminal and tyrannical. It has committed acts that are extremely unjust, hideous and criminal, whether directly or through its support of the Israeli occupation of the Prophet’s Night Travel Land.

A reaction might take place as a result of the US government’s hitting Muslim civilians and executing more than 600,000 Muslim children in Iraq by preventing food and medicine from reaching them. So, the US is responsible for any reaction, because it extended its war against troops to civilians.

And third, from his 1998 Fatwa:

The Arabian Peninsula has never – since God made it flat, created its desert, and encircled it with seas – been stormed by any forces like the crusader armies spreading in it like locusts, eating its riches and wiping out its plantations. All this is happening at a time in which nations are attacking Muslims like people fighting over a plate of food. In the light of the grave situation and the lack of support, we and you are obliged to discuss current events, and we should all agree on how to settle the matter.

No one argues today about three facts that are known to everyone; we will list them, in order to remind everyone:

First, for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples.

If some people have in the past argued about the fact of the occupation, all the people of the Peninsula have now acknowledged it. The best proof of this is the Americans’ continuing aggression against the Iraqi people using the Peninsula as a staging post, even though all its rulers are against their territories being used to that end, but they are helpless.

Second, despite the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance, and despite the huge number of those killed, which has exceeded 1 million … despite all this, the Americans are once against trying to repeat the horrific massacres, as though they are not content with the protracted blockade imposed after the ferocious war or the fragmentation and devastation.

So here they come to annihilate what is left of this people and to humiliate their Muslim neighbors.

Third, if the Americans’ aims behind these wars are religious and economic, the aim is also to serve the Jews’ petty state and divert attention from its occupation of Jerusalem and murder of Muslims there. The best proof of this is their eagerness to destroy Iraq, the strongest neighboring Arab state, and their endeavor to fragment all the states of the region such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Sudan into paper statelets and through their disunion and weakness to guarantee Israel’s survival and the continuation of the brutal crusade occupation of the Peninsula.

All these crimes and sins committed by the Americans are a clear declaration of war on God, his messenger, and Muslims. And ulema have throughout Islamic history unanimously agreed that the jihad is an individual duty if the enemy destroys the Muslim countries.

The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies – civilians and military – is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim.

Because of the many undocumented statements that have been attributed to bin Laden since 9/11, I have deliberately not included any of his purported post-9/11 statements.

Listen to Ramzi Yousef, convicted of bombing the World Trade Center in 1993, and now serving a life sentence. From his January 8, 1998, court appearance:

You keep talking also about collective punishment and killing innocent people to force governments to change their policies; you call this terrorism when someone would kill innocent people or civilians in order to force the government to change its policies. Well, when you were the first one who invented this terrorism.

You were the first one who killed innocent people, and you are the first one who introduced this type of terrorism to the history of mankind when you dropped an atomic bomb which killed tens of thousands of women and children in Japan and when you killed over a hundred thousand people, most of them civilians, in Tokyo with fire bombings. You killed them by burning them to death. And you killed civilians in Vietnam with chemicals as with the so-called Orange agent. You killed civilians and innocent people, not soldiers, innocent people every single war you went. You went to wars more than any other country in this century, and then you have the nerve to talk about killing innocent people.

And now you have invented new ways to kill innocent people. You have so-called economic embargo which kills nobody other than children and elderly people, and which other than Iraq you have been placing the economic embargo on Cuba and other countries for over 35 years.

The Government in its summations and opening statement said that I was a terrorist. Yes, I am a terrorist and I am proud of it. And I support terrorism so long as it was against the United States Government and against Israel, because you are more than terrorists; you are the one who invented terrorism and using it every day. You are butchers, liars and hypocrites.

Yousef and his co-conspirators (Mohammed Salameh, Nidal Ayyad, Mahmud Abouhalima, Ahmad Ajaj, and Abdul Rahman Yasin) sent a letter to the New York Times after the bombing that spelled out their motive:

We are, the fifth battalion in the LIBERATION ARMY, declare our responsibility for the explosion on the mentioned building. This action was done in response for the American political, economical, and military support to Israel the state of terrorism and to the rest of the dictator countries in the region.

OUR DEMANDS ARE:

1 – Stop all military, economical, and political aid to Israel.

2 – All diplomatic relations with Israel must stop.

3 – Not to interfere with any of the Middle East countries interior affairs.

IF our demands are not met, all of our functional groups in the army will continue to execute our missions against the military and civilian targets in and out the United States. For your own information, our army has more than hundred and fifty suicidal soldiers ready to go ahead. The terrorism that Israel practices (Which is supported by America) must be faced with a similar one. The dictatorship and terrorism also supported by America) that some countries are practicing against their own people must also be faced with terrorism.

The American people must know, that their civilians who got killed are not better than those who are getting killed by the American weapons and support.

The American people are responsible for the actions of their government and they must question all of the crimes that their government is committing against other people. Or they – Americans – will be the targets of our operations that could diminish them.

LIBERATION ARMY, FIFTH BATTALION

Listen to Richard Reid, the convicted "shoe bomber." From his 2003 court appearance:

With regards to what you said about killing innocent people, I will say one thing. Your government has killed 2 million children in Iraq. OK? If you want to think about something, 20 against 2 million, I don’t see no comparison. OK?

Your government has sponsored the rape and torture of Muslims in the prisons of Egypt and Turkey and Syria and Jordan with their money and with their weapons. OK? I don’t know, see what I done as being equal to rape and to torture, or to the deaths of the 2 million children in Iraq. OK? So for this reason, I think I ought not apologize for my actions.

I am at war with your country. I’m at war with them not for personal reasons but because they have murdered so many children and they have oppressed my religion and they have oppressed people for no reason except that they say we believe in Allah. This is the only reason that America sponsors Egypt. It’s the only reason they sponsor Turkey. It’s the only reason they back Israel. OK?

Listen to Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square car bomber. First, from his June 21, 2010 court appearance:

I want to plead guilty and I’m going to plead guilty a hundred times forward because until the hour the US pulls it forces from Iraq and Afghanistan and stops the drone strikes in Somalia and Yemen and in Pakistan and stops the occupation of Muslim lands and stops killing the Muslims and stops reporting the Muslims to its government, we will be attacking US, and I plead guilty to that.

Well, I am part of that. I am part of the answer to the US terrorizing the Muslim nations and the Muslim people, and on behalf of that, I’m avenging the attacks, because only – like living in US, the Americans only care about their people, but they don’t care about the people elsewhere in the world when they die.

And second, from his October 5, 2010, court appearance:

My statement should take about five minutes to ten minutes, and I hope that the judge and the Court will listen to me before they sentence me. In the name of Allah, the most gracious, the most merciful, this is but one life. If I am given a thousand lives, I will sacrifice them all for the sake of Allah fighting this cause, defending our lands, making the word of Allah supreme over any religion or system. We Muslims don’t abide by human-made laws, because they are always corrupt. And I had a firsthand experience when on the second day of my arrest I asked for the Miranda. And the FBI denied it to me for two weeks, effecting harm to my kids and family, and I was forced to sign those Mirandas. The sentence by the judge will not mean anything to me, for how can I be judged when the Court does not understand the suffering of my people. They don’t understand my side of the story, where the Muslim life of is no value. Therefore, the only true judgment will be on the day of resurrection when Allah will judge between me and you as to who is fighting for the just cause. So decree whatever you desire to decree, for you can only decree regarding the life of this world. The crusading U.S. and NATO forces who have occupied the Muslim lands under the pretext of democracy and freedom for the last nine years and are saying with their mouths that they are fighting terrorism, I say to them, we don’t accept your democracy nor your freedom, because we already have Sharia law and freedom. Furthermore, brace yourselves, because the war with Muslims has just begun. Consider me only a first droplet of the flood that will follow me. And only this time it’s not imperial Japan or Germany, Vietnam or Russian communism. This time it’s the war against people who believe in the book of Allah and follow the commandments, so this is a war against Allah. So let’s see how you can defeat your Creator, which you can never do. Therefore, the defeat of U.S. is imminent and will happen in the near future, inshallah, which will only give rise to much awaited Muslim caliphate, which is the only true world order. Soon the bailout money which is holding your fragile economy will run out and soon you will not be able to afford the war costs.

So, the past nine years the war with Muslims has achieved nothing for the U.S., except for it has waken up the Muslims for Islam. We are only Muslims trying to defend our, people, honor, and land. But if you call us terrorists for doing that, then we are proud terrorists, and we will keep on terrorizing until you leave our land and people at peace. But if you don’t, then I remind you that we have watches and we have time. We will defeat you with time.

Listen to Najibullah Zazi, who pled guilty to conspiring to undertake a suicide attack on the New York subway system. From his 2010 court appearance: "I would sacrifice myself to bring attention to what the United States military was doing to civilians in Afghanistan by sacrificing my soul for the sake of saving other souls."

Listen to Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen living in Yemen. From his 2010 "Call to Jihad":

We the Muslims do not have an inherent animosity towards any racial group or ethnicity. We are not against Americans for just being Americans. We are against evil and America as a whole has turned into a nation of evil. What we see from America is the invasion of [inaudible] countries, we see Abu Ghraib, Baghram and Guantanamo Bay, we see cruise missiles and cluster bombs and we have just seen in Yemen the death of 23 children and 17 women. We cannot stand idly in the face of such aggression and we will fight back and incite others to do the same.

I for one was born in the U.S., I lived in the U.S. for 21 years. America was my home. I was a preacher of Islam involved in non-violent Islamic activism. However, with the American invasion of Iraq and continued U.S. aggression against Muslims I could not reconcile between living in the U.S. and being a Muslim.

And finally, listen to a statement from al-Qaeda’s American-born spokesman, Adam Gadahn, released last year:

The fact is, Barack, if you ever decide to get serious about improving America’s security, protecting the American people and preventing a sharp rise in the number of American casualties at home and abroad and in the air, at sea and on land, then there are a number of simple, sound and effective steps which you can take which can go a long way towards achieving those goals. The Muslim Mujahideen defending their faith and brethren against your nation’s evildoing have repeatedly made clear these steps, but because I suspect you have been living in the ivory tower and information vacuum in which arrogant Washington insiders like you often live, I shall summarize these steps here. I strongly suggest you heed and implement them, for your own good and the good of your people.

First, you must pull every last one of your soldiers, spies, security advisors, trainers, attaches, contractors, robots, drones and all other American personnel, ships and aircraft out of every Muslim land from Afghanistan to Zanzibar.

Second, you must end all support – both moral and material – to Israel and bar your citizens from traveling to Occupied Palestine or settling there, and you must impose a blanket ban on American trade with the Zionist regime and investment in it. Your security will not be improved by empty threats like those your special envoy made about the possible suspension of American loans, in and of itself a largely meaningless gesture. As Shaykh Usama told you, if you don’t heed our warnings and stop your support of Israel, we will have no choice but to continue to use other ways to get our message across.

Third, you must stop all support and aid – be it military, political, economic or otherwise – to the hated regimes of the Muslim world. This includes the so-called "development aid" which your secretary of state recently identified as being one of the most important elements of future American efforts to combat the Islamic renaissance and Jihadi awakening sweeping the Muslim world.

Fourth, you must cease all interference in the religion, society, politics, economy and government of the Islamic world. This means putting an immediate stop to the deployment of your economic hit men, CIA jackals, Peace Corps volunteers, USAID employees, and UN-and-US-sponsored non-governmental organizations, all of which, put together, represent the vanguard of American interference in our region and the world.

Fifth, you must also put an end to all forms of American and American sponsored interference in the educational curricula and information media of the Muslim world, and you must end all broadcasts targeting our region, especially those designed to alter or destroy the faith, minds, morals and values of our Muslim people.

And sixth, you must free all Muslim captives from your prisons, detention facilities and concentration camps, regardless of whether they have been recipients of what you call a "fair" trial or not. As our heroic brother Abu Dujaanah al-Khorasaani told you with his words and actions, we will never forget our prisoners.

Instead of listening or asking questions, the reaction of the United States has been bomb first, don’t listen or ask questions, and then bomb later – and invade, occupy, torture, maim, kill, incarcerate, rendition, assassinate, and destroy property and infrastructure.

And as Glenn Greenwald recently pointed out:

The fact that victims of American violence over the last two decades have easily outweighed, and continue to outweigh, those of the Dictators and Terrorists whom we so vocally despise is nonetheless an extremely important fact that should shape our understanding of 9/11.

The cry of the Muslim masses in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and elsewhere in the Middle East was not for Islamofascism, global Islamic conquest, a global Caliphate, the worldwide establishment of Sharia law, a new holocaust, suicide bombers, and terrorists attacks, but for more freedom – something they supposedly hate us for.

Muslims seem to be more interested in killing other Muslims than in killing Americans who aren’t bombing and occupying their countries – just look at the history of Sunni versus Shiite violence since Muhammad died in 632 and a disagreement ensued over whom should be his successor.

The U.S. government has learned absolutely nothing since 9/11. Instead of the occasion being a time to reassess a century of bad foreign policy, it was used as an excuse to start two wars against countries that had nothing to do with 9/11 and accelerate the destruction of American freedoms. And now, ten years later, the anniversary of 9/11 will be used to lionize the police state, the warfare state, and the national security state while justifying even more wars.

U.S. foreign policy is an abomination in the sight of God, and I don’t mean Allah.

Originally published on LewRockwell.com on September 10, 2011.

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

Why They Hate Us

"Like all members of the military profession I never had an original thought until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service." ~ Major General Smedley Butler

"If soldiers were to begin to think, not one of them would remain in the army." ~ Frederick the Great

"I find in existence a . . . dangerous concept that the members of the armed forces owe their primary allegiance and loyalty to those who temporarily exercise the authority of the executive branch of the Government, rather than to the country and its Constitution they are sworn to defend. No proposition could be more dangerous." ~ General Douglas MacArthur

"There is one thing in the world more wicked than the desire to command, and that is the will to obey." ~ W. K. Clifford, mathematician and philosopher

After almost ten years of fighting in Afghanistan, the deadliest day for U.S. forces was just a few weeks ago on Saturday, August 6. On that day thirty U.S. military personnel were killed when their helicopter was shot down. The majority of those killed were said to be elite Navy Seals from the same unit that killed Osama bin Laden.

The question that was never asked about this event by any major news media outlet is a question that I (and a few others) have been asking since the war in Afghanistan began: What is the U.S. military doing in Afghanistan?

The ones who bear the most responsibility for the 9/11 attacks are the pilots who flew the planes, none of whom were from Afghanistan. No American was ever harmed by anyone in Afghanistan until the U.S. military invaded and occupied that country. The United States even supported the Muslim insurgents and Afghan militants when they were freedom-fighting Mujahideen fighting against the Soviets when they invaded Afghanistan.

Tens of thousands of Afghans are now dead who had never threatened America and had nothing to do with 9/11. Over 1,700 American soldiers are also dead, and many thousands more have life-altering injuries.

So, what is the U.S. military doing in Afghanistan?

The purpose of the U.S. military should be limited to defending the United States, securing its borders, guarding its shores, patrolling its coasts, and enforcing a no-fly zone over its skies. Period. To do otherwise is to pervert the purpose of the military.

This means the purpose of the U.S. military should never be to defend other countries, secure their borders, guard their shores, patrol their coasts, and enforce no-fly zones over their skies.

This also means that the purpose of the U.S. military should never be to provide disaster relief, dispense humanitarian aid, supply peacekeepers, enforce UN resolutions, spread goodwill, rebuild infrastructure, establish democracy, nation build, change regimes, eradicate drugs, contain communism, open markets, keep oil pipelines flowing, revive public services, build schools, or train armies in any foreign country.

This also means that the purpose of the U.S. military should never be to remedy oppression, human rights violations, sectarian violence, ill treatment of women, forced labor, child labor, religious or political persecution, poverty, genocide, famine, or injustice in any foreign country.

And it certainly also means that the purpose of the U.S. military should never be to launch preemptive strikes in foreign countries, fight wars in foreign countries, drop bombs on foreign countries, assassinate people in foreign countries, torture people in foreign countries, takes sides in a civil war in foreign countries, station troops in foreign countries, maintain bases in foreign countries, attack foreign countries, invade foreign countries, occupy foreign countries, or unleash civil unrest in foreign countries.

Clearly, no U.S. soldier, sailor, or marine had any business stepping foot in Afghanistan in 2001 or flying a helicopter there in 2011. Those who returned in a coffin (if enough of their body parts could be found) died unnecessarily, duped, in vain, and for a lie.

So again I ask: What is the U.S. military doing in Afghanistan?

The only answer is unconditional obedience. Although some U.S. soldiers, because of misguided zeal, may have wanted to go to Afghanistan after 9/11, few would choose to go now if it were their decision to make. But soldiers were told to go and they went, and soldiers are still being told to go.

They didn’t consider the history of Afghanistan. They didn’t consider the purpose of the military. They didn’t consider U.S. foreign policy. They didn’t consider Chalmers Johnson. They didn’t consider the wisdom of the Founding Fathers. They didn’t consider the Constitution. They didn’t consider the Soviet Union’s failed attempt to subdue Afghanistan. They didn’t consider their families. They didn’t consider the cost to U.S. taxpayers. They didn’t consider their own mental and physical health. They didn’t consider the thousands of dead or maimed Afghan civilians.

Even worse, those that did consider some or all of these things went to Afghanistan anyway. They may not have even bought in the baloney about fighting for our freedoms or fighting them "over there" so we don’t have to fight them "over here," but they went anyway.

Unconditional obedience.

If you want to see a perfect example of unconditional obedience on display, then just look at the recent interview on the Diane Rehm show about "Navy Seals and U.S. Strategy in Afghanistan."

After announcing that U.S. forces were continuing their investigation into the shooting down of the helicopter in Afghanistan, Diane introduced her guests in the studio, Thom Shanker, the Pentagon correspondent for the New York Times and Paul Pillar of the Center for Peace and Security Studies at Georgetown University, and by phone from Plymouth, Massachusetts, former Navy SEAL lieutenant commander Anthony O’Brien. Joining the panel later by phone was Lawrence Korb, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and former assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration.

The second caller to the show was someone named Don, who made this comment:

I just wanted to comment real quick. Any time you have generals on the air and they’re pressured to give some reasons why we’re in this war in Afghanistan, they always fall back to a main reason being women’s rights, so girls can go to school, you know, for all the Taliban oppression. And I was just wondering if your panelists thought that that was really a legitimate reason, that we should have our military spending billions of dollars a year in this country to fight for women’s rights.

Diane referred the caller to Anthony O’Brien, who gave this reply:

I agree with the caller’s premise. The primary reason why you engage the military at the strategic level is for the national security interest of the United States of America. And as much as I’m a fighter for the rights of women, it is – it’s not our duty in the military, primarily, to protect the women or stop drug trades, et cetera. However, the president is the boss, and he calls the shots. And if – whether it be President Bush or President Obama, when they tell us where to go and when, we give a snappy salute, and we do what we’re told.

Diane then sought a comment from Thom Shanker.

Well, I just want to give Anthony a snappy salute ’cause his answer is perfect. I mean, we hear so often these conversations among civilians: why are we there, I don’t want us there or the opposite, we should be there. The military does not assign itself these missions. They follow the orders of the elected civilian leadership who are representing, Diane, your caller and everybody else. So that is where the responsibility for these decisions resides at the end of the day.

My only comment is simply this: Only God deserves unconditional obedience.

Unconditional obedience is why Nazis killed Jews in concentration camps, Japanese pilots bombed Pearl Harbor, East German border guards killed their fellow citizens fleeing over the Berlin Wall to the West, and Soviet soldiers invaded Afghanistan before U.S. soldiers did.

Cursed be unconditional obedience.

Originally published on LewRockwell.com on August 31, 2011.

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

Cursed Be Unconditional Obedience

Thank you Campaign for Liberty for the opportunity to speak about a subject I feel so passionate about. I would like to speak to you today about Christianity and War. Although I am a Bible-believing Christian and a theological and cultural conservative, I write extensively about the biblical, economic, and political fallacies of religious people, and especially on the topic of Christianity and war. This is a subject where ignorance abounds in both pulpit and pew, and most of it willful ignorance. This is a subject that exposes Bible scholars as Bible illiterates. This is a subject that turns Christians into disgraceful apologists of the state, its leaders, its military, and its wars. This is a subject that reveals pro-life Christians to be two-faced supporters of wholesale murder.

If there is any group of people that should be opposed to war, torture, militarism, the warfare state, state worship, suppression of civil liberties, an imperial presidency, blind nationalism, government propaganda, and an aggressive foreign policy it is Christians, and especially conservative, evangelical, and fundamentalist Christians who claim to strictly follow the dictates of Scripture and worship the Prince of Peace. It is indeed strange that Christian people should be so accepting of war. War is the greatest suppressor of civil liberties. War is the greatest destroyer of religion, morality, and decency. War is the greatest creator of fertile ground for genocides and atrocities. War is the greatest destroyer of families and young lives. War is the greatest creator of famine, disease, and homelessness. War is the health of the state.

But modern-day Christianity is in a sad state. There is an unholy desire on the part of a great many Christians to legitimize killing in war. There persists the idea among too many Christians that mass killing in war is acceptable, but the killing of one’s neighbor violates the sixth commandment’s prohibition against killing. Christians who wouldn’t think of using the Lord’s name in vain blaspheme God when they make ridiculous statements like "God is pro-war." Christians who try never to lie do so with boldness when they claim they are pro-life, but refuse to extend their pro-life sentiments to foreigners already out of the womb. Christians who abhor idols are guilty of idolatry when they say that we should follow the latest dictates of the state because we should always "obey the powers that be." Christians who venerate the Bible handle the word of God deceitfully when they quote Scripture to defend the latest U.S. military action. Christians who claim to be dispensationalists wrongly divide the word of truth when they appeal to the Old Testament to justify U.S. government wars. Christians who claim to have the mind of Christ show that they have lost their mind when they want the full force of government to protect a stem cell, but have no conscience about U.S. soldiers killing for the government.

Many Christians have a warped view of what it means to be pro-life. Why is it that foreigners don’t have the same right to life as unborn American babies? There should be no difference between being for abortion and for war. Both result in the death of innocents. Both are unnecessary. Both cause psychological harm to the one who signs a consent form or fires a weapon. Why is it that to many Christians an American doctor in a white coat is considered a murderer if he kills an unborn baby, but an American soldier in a uniform is considered a hero if he kills an adult? In January of every year, many churches observe Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. Fine, but we need ministers who are as concerned about killing on the battlefield as they are about killing in the womb.

Much of the blame for Christian support for war must be laid at the feet of the pastors and church leaders who have failed to discern the truth themselves so they can educate their congregations. They are blind leaders of the blind. It is tragic that many so-called Christian leaders moonlight as apologists for the Republican Party. Many pastors are cheerleaders for current U.S. wars. We hear more from pulpits today justifying American military intervention throughout the world than we do about the need for missionaries to go into all the world. Our churches have supplied more soldiers to the Middle East than missionaries. It is appalling that instead of the next U.S. military adventure being denounced from every pulpit in the land, it will be conservative preachers who can be counted on to defend it.

If there is any group within Christianity that should be the most consistent, the most vocal, the most persistent, and the most scriptural in its opposition to war and the warfare state, it is conservative Christians who look to the Bible as their sole authority. Yet, never at any time in history have so many of these Christians held such unholy opinions. The association they have with the Republican Party is unholy. The admiration they have for the military is unholy. The indifference they have toward war is unholy. The callous attitude they have toward the deaths of foreigners is unholy. The idolatry they manifest toward the state is unholy.

The result of Christian support for war reminds me of a story in the Old Testament about two sons of the patriarch Jacob. In order to avenge the rape of their sister by some foreigners, the sons of Jacob told their leader that if his people consented to be circumcised, then both groups of people could intermarry and the rapist could have their sister to wife. However, after all the foreigners were circumcised, when they were sore, two sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, came and slew all the men who were incapacitated and spoiled their city. When their father Jacob heard about this, he told his sons: "Ye have troubled me to make me to stink among the inhabitants of the land."

Christian armchair warriors, Christian Coalition moralists, Religious Right warvangelicals, reich-wing Christian nationalists, theocon Values Voters, imperial Christians, Red-State Christian fascists, God and country Christian bumpkins, and other Christian warmongers have made Christians to stink among the non-Christian inhabitants of the United States. After almost ten years of the senseless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, some of the greatest defenders of these wars continue to be Christians. The morality of going to war in the first place, as well as the number of dead and wounded Iraqis and Afghans, is of absolutely no concern to most American Christians. Every dead American solider is, of course, a hero, no matter where he fought, what his motive was, or how he died.

Support for the war on terror among Christians remains so pervasive that I’m inclined to agree with Mark Twain in saying that "if Christ were here now there is one thing he would not be – a Christian." I’m sorry to say that blind acceptance of government propaganda, willful ignorance of U.S. foreign policy, persistent support of the Republican Party, and childish devotion to the military are the norm among the majority of conservative Christians instead of the exception.

Non-Christian Americans should know that Christian enthusiasm for war and the warfare state is a perversion of Christianity, an affront to the Saviour whom Christians worship as the Prince of Peace, a violation of Scripture, contrary to the whole tenor of the New Testament, and an unfortunate demonstration of the profound ignorance many Christians have of history and their own Bible.

The early Christians were not warmongers like so many Christians today. They did not idolize the Caesars like some Christians do Republican presidents. They did not make apologies for the Roman Empire like many Christians do for the U.S. Empire. They did not venerate the institution of the military like most Christians do today. They did not participate in the state’s wars like too many Christians do today. If there was anything at all advocated by the early Christians it was peace and nonviolence.

Aggression, violence, and bloodshed are contrary to the very nature of Christianity. There is nothing in the New Testament from which to draw the conclusion that killing is somehow sanctified if it is done in the name of the state. As explained by the famed nineteenth-century British Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon: "The Church of Christ is continually represented under the figure of an army; yet its Captain is the Prince of Peace; its object is the establishment of peace, and its soldiers are men of a peaceful disposition. The spirit of war is at the extremely opposite point to the spirit of the gospel."

There has, unfortunately, persisted throughout history the theologically schizophrenic idea among some Christians that mass killing in war is acceptable, but the killing of one’s neighbor violates the sixth commandment. I have termed this the Humpty Dumpty approach. But as the aforementioned Spurgeon said: "If there be anything which this book denounces and counts the hugest of all crimes, it is the crime of war. Put up thy sword into thy sheath, for hath not he said, ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ and he meant not that it was a sin to kill one but a glory to kill a million, but he meant that bloodshed on the smallest or largest scale was sinful."

Back before the so-called Civil War in the United States, a Baptist minister writing in the Christian Review demonstrated that Christian war fever was contrary to the New Testament: "Christianity requires us to seek to amend the condition of man. But war cannot do this. The world is no better for all the wars of five thousand years. Christianity, if it prevailed, would make the earth a paradise. War, where it prevails, makes it a slaughter-house, a den of thieves, a brothel, a hell. Christianity cancels the laws of retaliation. War is based upon that very principle. Christianity is the remedy for all human woes. War produces every woe known to man." There is nothing "liberal" about opposition to war. There is nothing "anti-American" about opposition to militarism. And what could be more Christian than standing firmly against aggression, violence, and bloodshed?

So when did the early church go astray? Undoubtedly, it was the accession to power of the emperor Constantine. When the empire allied itself with the church, it was the church that changed more than the empire. Instead of spreading Christianity by persuasion and being persecuted for it, some Christians began persecuting those who could not be persuaded. This Constantinian mindset is alive and well today. When Jerry Falwell said that America should chase down terrorists all over the world and "blow them all away in the name of the Lord," he was expressing a sentiment widely held by conservative Christians.

After Constantine came just war theory.

War is mentioned over two hundred times in the Bible. The overwhelming majority of these instances concern in some way the nation of Israel. This fact is extremely important, because the president of the United States is not God, America is not the nation of Israel, the U.S. military is not the Lord’s army, the Christian’s sword is the word of God, and the only warfare the New Testament encourages the Christian to wage is against the world, the flesh, and the devil.

But just war theory has nothing to do with war in the Bible. Christian just war theory began as the attempt by Augustine to reconcile Christian participation in warfare with the morality of New Testament Christianity. In its essence, just war theory concerns the use of force: when force should be used and what kind of force is acceptable. The timing of force relates to a country’s justification for the initiation of war or military action; the nature of force relates to how military activity is conducted once a country commits to use force. The principle of the just war is actually many principles, all of which must be met for a war to be considered just. A just war must have a just cause, be in proportion to the gravity of the situation, have obtainable objectives, be preceded by a public declaration, be declared only by legitimate authority, and only be undertaken as a last resort. A war that is not justifiable is nothing short of mass murder.

Yet, just war theory is untenable because it is difficult to know with sufficient confidence whether all of its conditions have been met, because some of its tenets are impossible to realize, because the criteria of just war theory are too flexible, because it contradicts itself in that it sanctions the killing of innocents, which it at the same time prohibits, and because it is used to justify rather than to prevent war. Indeed, just war theory can be used effectively by all sides to justify all wars. Every government, every ruler, every soldier, every citizen – they all think their country’s wars are just.

Just war theory says that a war is just if certain conditions and rules are observed. But how can you make rules for slaughter and mayhem? By sanctifying war while attempting to curtail its manner and frequency, just war theory merely allowed Christians to make peace with war. That just war theory is used to defend the war in Iraq shows just how useless it is. Waging the war in Iraq is against every Christian just war principle that has ever been formulated.

But not only is just war theory not based on Scripture, it is rooted in blind obedience to the state, which, the last time I read my Bible, is not a tenet of New Testament Christianity. War is nothing but a form of state-sponsored violence. It is the state that decides to go to war, not the people, most of whom want nothing to do with war. The state always claims that it is acting defensively, has the right intention, has the proper authority, is undertaking war as a last resort, has a high probability of success, and that a war will achieve good that is proportionally greater than the damage to life, limb, and property that it will cause. What good is just war theory if it can be used by both sides in a conflict?

After just war theory came the Crusades, where conquest was conflated with conversion, followed by the continual wars of religion among European Christians. The ultimate picture of the folly of war is the bloodbath perpetrated by the Christian nations in World War I. From 1914 to 1918, in battle after senseless battle, Christian soldiers in World War I shot, bombed, torpedoed, burned, gassed, bayoneted, and starved each other and civilians until twenty million of them were wounded and another twenty million lay dead. The conduct of Christians in the United States before and during the Great War was shameful.

But even without the massive government propaganda campaign that was undertaken during World War I, we see the same shameful conduct among Christians regarding the war in Iraq. When Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq in March of 2003 with the announcement that our cause was just, Christians lined up in droves to support their president. They enlisted in the military. They put "W" stickers and yellow ribbons on their cars. They implored us in church to pray for the troops. They began reciting their patriotic sloganeering, their God-and-country rhetoric, and their "obey the powers that be" mantra. They dusted off their books on just war theory. They denounced Christian opponents of the war as unpatriotic, anti-American, liberals, pacifists, traitors, or Quakers.

Why? Why have so many religious people gotten it so wrong? As I have explained in many of my articles on Christianity and war over the years, there are many reasons: thinking that the war in Iraq was in retaliation for the 9/11 attacks, believing that Saddam Hussein was another Hitler, supposing that Iraq was a threat to the United States, seeing the war in Iraq as a modern-day crusade against Islam, assuming that the United States needed to protect Israel from Iraq, viewing Bush as a messiah figure, equating the Republican Party with the party of God, blindly following the conservative movement, deeming the American state to be a divine institution, failing to separate the divine sanction of war against the enemies of God in the Old Testament from the New Testament ethic that taught otherwise, having a profound ignorance of history and primitive Christianity, reading too much into the mention of soldiers in the New Testament, possessing a warped "God and Country" complex, holding a "my country right or wrong" attitude, and adopting the mindset that brute force is barbarism when individuals use it, but honorable when nations are guilty of it.

I believe the two greatest reasons religious people have gotten things so wrong are American exceptionalism and American militarism.

Many Christians are guilty of nationalistic and political idolatry. They have bought into a variety of American nationalism that has been called the myth of American exceptionalism. This is the idea that the government of the United States is morally and politically superior to all other governments, that American leaders are exempt from the bad characteristics of the leaders of other countries, that the U.S. government should be trusted even as the governments of other countries should be distrusted, that the United States is the indispensable nation responsible for the peace and prosperity of the world, that the motives of the United States are always benevolent and paternalistic, that foreign governments should conform to the policies of the U.S. government, that most other nations are potential enemies that threaten U.S. safety and security, and that the United States is morally justified in imposing sanctions or launching military attacks against any country that refuses to conform to our dictates. These are the tenets of American exceptionalism.

The result of this American exceptionalism is a foreign policy that is aggressive, reckless, belligerent, and meddling. This is why U.S. foreign policy results in discord, strife, hatred, and terrorism toward the United States. We would never tolerate another country engaging in an American-style foreign policy. How many countries are allowed to build military bases and station troops in the United States? It is the height of arrogance to insist that the United States alone has the right to garrison the planet with bases, station troops wherever it wants, intervene in the affairs of other countries, and be the world’s policeman, fireman, social worker, security guard, mediator, and babysitter.

The other reason religious people have gotten things so wrong is American militarism. Americans love the military, and American Christians are no exception. There is an unseemly alliance that exists between certain sectors of Christianity and the military. Even Christians who are otherwise sound in the faith, who treasure the Constitution, who don’t support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and who oppose an aggressive U.S. foreign policy get indignant when you question the institution of the military. It doesn’t seem to matter the reason for each war or intrusion into the affairs of another country. It doesn’t seem to matter how long U.S. troops remain after the initial intervention. It doesn’t seem to matter how many foreign civilians are killed or injured. It doesn’t seem to matter how many billions of dollars are spent by the military. It doesn’t even seem to matter what the troops are actually doing – Americans in general, and American Christians in particular, believe in supporting the troops no matter what. Americans are repulsed by the serial killer who, to satisfy the most basest of desires, dismembers his victims; but revere the bomber pilot in the stratosphere who, flying above the clouds, never hears the screams of his victims or sees the flesh torn from their bones. Killing women and children from five feet is viewed as an atrocity, but from five thousand feet it is a heroic act. It is sometimes suspicious when a soldier kills up close, but never when he launches a missile from afar.

Christians of all branches and denominations have a love affair with the military. To question the military in any way – its size, its budget, its efficiency, its bureaucracy, its contractors, its weaponry, its mission, its effectiveness, its foreign interventions – is to question America itself. One can condemn the size of government, but never the size of the military. One can criticize federal spending, but never military spending. One can denounce government bureaucrats, but never military brass. One can depreciate the welfare state, but never the warfare state. One can expose government abuses, but never military abuses. One can label domestic policy as socialistic, but never foreign policy as imperialistic.

It is the U.S. government that is the greatest threat to American life, liberty, property, and peace – not the leaders or the military or the people of Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, or Yemen. And as James Madison said: "If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." Christians should vigorously dissent the next time some warmongering politician says there is some great evil in the world that must be stamped out by the U.S. military. As John Quincy Adams said: "America . . . goes not abroad seeking monsters to destroy." Christians should stop regarding the state’s acts of aggression as benevolent. Christians should stop presuming divine support for U.S. military interventions. And because just war theory merely allows Christians to make peace with war, they should reject it just as they would any theory of just piracy or just terrorism or just murder. It is Christians that should be leading the way toward peace and a foreign policy of nonintervention. It is Christians that should be leading the way toward the ideas of Ron Paul.

Originally posted on LewRockwell.com on August 22, 2011.

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

Christianity, War, and Ron Paul

Giffords was shot on January 8 in Tucson, Arizona, along with eighteen other people, six of whom died. After her brief trip to Washington, Giffords returned to Houston to continue her therapy.

Giffords was elected to Congress the first time in 2006. She took office on January 3, 2007. She was reelected in 2008 and 2010. She is the only member of Congress whose spouse is an active duty member of the military.

Although I wish her well and hope she makes a full recovery from her horrific head injury, I equally wish that she would stay home and not cast any more votes in Congress.

The following is a list of all the congressional appropriations that include war-related funding from the time that Giffords took office until the time she was shot:

• FY2007 Continuing Resolution, H.J.RES.20, P.L. 110-5, 2/15/07, $1.8 billion
• FY2007 Supplemental, H.R.2206, P.L. 110-28, 5/25/07, $98.7 billion
• FY2008 Continuing Resolution, H.J.Res.52, P.L. 110-92 9/29/07, $5.2 billion
• FY2008 DOD Appropriations Act, H.R.3222, P.L. 110-116, 11/13/07, $11.6 billion
• FY2008 Consolidated Appropriations Act, H.R.2764, P.L. 110-161, 12/26/07, $73.2 billion
• FY2008 Supplemental Appropriations Act, H.R.2642, P.L. 110-252, 6/30/08, $163.2 billion
• FY2009 Continuing Appropriations Act, H.R.2638, P.L. 110-329, 9/30/08, $4.0 billion
• FY2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act, H.R.1105, P.L. 111-8, 3/11/09, $1.1 billion
• FY2009 Supplemental Appropriations Act, H.R.2346, P.L. 111-32, 6/24/09, $82.5 billion
• FY2010 Consolidated Appropriations Act, H.R.3288, P.L. 111-117, 12/16/09, $8.2 billion
• FY2010 DOD Appropriations Act, Title IX, H.R.3326, P.L. 111-118, 12/19/09, $127.3 billion
• FY2010 Supplemental, H.R.4899, P.L. 111-212, 7/27/10, $34.2 billion

With the exception of the smallest appropriation, $1.1 billion in the FY2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act, Rep. Giffords voted for all of these war-related appropriations. Judging from her voting record in Congress, I see no reason why she voted against this omnibus bill. It certainly wasn’t because she opposed the $1.1 billion in funding for war-related foreign operations of the State Department.

On the other hand, that champion of peace and nonintervention in the House, Rep. Ron Paul, voted against all of these war appropriations, with the exception of the first one, on which he didn’t vote.

I am often criticized for condemning U.S. soldiers for fighting unjust and immoral wars like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is the politicians that send our troops to war, I am told, that I should be criticizing. Although I refuse to exclude the troops since, after all, they are the ones doing the actual fighting, I have nothing but contempt for the architects of these wars, the president who instigated these wars, the president who continued these wars, the neocons who welcomed these wars, the conservatives who defend these wars, the Christians who support these wars, and the Congressmen who continue to fund these wars.

Every member of Congress – Gabby Giffords and every Democrat and Republican – who voted for the above and any of the other war funding has blood on his (or her) hands – the blood of thousands of U.S. soldiers who lost their lives fighting senseless foreign wars. (Not to mention the hundreds of thousands of foreigners killed by U.S. bombs and bullets, but what war supporter cares a whit about them?)

Although not as important as lives lost and ruined, appropriating taxpayer money on senseless and unnecessary wars is the height of fiscal irresponsibility. Any talk of cutting spending to reduce the deficit that doesn’t include cutting off funding for foreign wars is ludicrous. But of course, we are dealing with the U.S. Congress – one of the largest collections of crooks and creeps on the planet.

Originally published on LewRockwell.com on August 4, 2011.

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

Stay Home, Gabby, Stay Home

This differs from military doublespeak.

To really understand these defenders of U.S. wars and military interventions, one needs a warmonger’s lexicon. To get started, I propose the following entries:

Just war: any war the United States engages in.
Good war: any war in which the United States is on the winning side.
Defensive war: any war the United States starts.

George Bush: the Messiah, but especially when he was fighting against Muslims.
Barack Obama: Satan, but not when he is fighting against Muslims.

Insurgent: anyone who dares to fight against U.S. troops occupying his country.
Militant: see insurgent.
Enemy combatant: see militant.
Freedom fighter: an insurgent, militant, or enemy combatant supported by the United States when he fights against some other country.

Weapons of mass destruction: weapons that foreigners can use to attack Americans.
Advanced weapons systems: weapons that Americans can use to attack foreigners.

Allies: countries that support U.S. foreign policy.
Enemies: countries that don’t support U.S. foreign policy.

Patriot: any American who supports U.S. foreign wars.
Traitor: any American who opposes U.S. foreign wars.

Hero: any American solider who fought in any war against any country for any reason.
Coward: any American who doesn’t support U.S. soldiers fighting in senseless foreign wars.

American: supporting large defense budgets.
UnAmerican: opposing large defense budgets.

Threat to American security: see unAmerican, coward, and traitor.

Veteran: God’s chosen people.
Non-veterans: second-class citizens.

Muslim: terrorist.
Terrorist: Muslim.

Soldier: public servant.
Civilian: freeloader.

Isolationist: any American who opposes U.S. wars, empire, and/or foreign policy.

Zionist: someone who favors U.S. military intervention in the Middle East.
Anti-Semite: someone who opposes U.S. military intervention in the Middle East.

Pacifist: enemy of the United States.
Draft dodger: see pacifist.

Dead U.S. soldier: fallen hero.
Dead foreign civilian: collateral damage.

Torture: torture of Americans by foreigners.
Enhanced interrogation techniques: torture of foreigners by Americans.
Extraordinary rendition: U.S. supported torture of foreigners by foreigners.

U.S. interests: anything the United States wants to be interested in.

When it comes to defenders of U.S. wars and military interventions, learn their language so you won’t be intimidated or deceived by them, but don’t waste too much of your time with them. There is nothing more frustrating than discussing the finer points of something like just war theory and then finding out thirty minutes later that the warmonger you thought you were having a meaningful conversation with and in basic agreement with believes that all the wars the United States has engaged in are just wars.

Originally published on LewRockwell.com on July 4, 2011.

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

The Warmonger’s Lexicon

As I have maintained whenever I speak about Christianity and war, if there is any group of people that should be opposed to war, empire, militarism, the warfare state, an imperial presidency, blind nationalism, government war propaganda, and an aggressive foreign policy it is Christians, and especially conservative, evangelical, and fundamentalist Christians who claim to strictly follow the dictates of Scripture and worship the Prince of Peace.

I have also maintained throughout these wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that, even though it is Christianity above all religions that should be opposed to the evils of war and militarism, in the Church will be found some of the greatest supporters of the military and the current wars.

The "criminality of war," as Howard Malcom, president of Georgetown College, wrote in 1845, is not "that tyrants should lead men into wars of pride and conquest," but that "the people, in governments comparatively free, should so readily lend themselves to a business in which they bear all the sufferings, can gain nothing, and may lose all." That people would act this way, Malcom says, is an "astonishment indeed." "But," he continues, "the chief wonder is that Christians, followers of the Prince of Peace, should have concurred in this mad idolatry of strife, and thus been inconsistent not only with themselves, but with the very genius of their system."

I have heard and read many Christians criticize Obama – and rightly so – for his horrendous policies, but I have heard and read little or nothing from Christians of how Obama has continued the war in Iraq, escalated the war in Afghanistan, and expanded the bogus war on terror to other countries.

The above sign from a church in Maryland can unfortunately be seen almost anywhere in the United States. Although some Christians have begun to criticize Obama and the Democrats for the things that only a short time ago they were silent about when perpetrated by Bush and the Republicans, support for the military among Christians – no matter where it goes, why it goes, what it does, how much it costs, how long it stays, and how many foreigners it kills – is so entrenched, so sacrosanct, that I am at the same time bewildered and embarrassed, angered and ashamed.

The result of this mindset is a perversion of the very Scriptures that Christians claim to believe and follow. So, just as Christian warmongers would, if they were honest, recite The Warmonger’s Psalm (Psalm 23), assent to The Warmonger’s Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12), and pray The President’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13), so they would acknowledge that they manifest The Warmonger’s Fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23).

In contrast to the works of the flesh (adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, and revellings), the Apostle Paul in the Book of Galatians mentions the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance.

But in place of these virtues, warmongers have substituted pride, indifference, vengeance, ignorance, malice, arrogance, lust, foolishness, and blasphemy.

Christian warmongers have pride in the U.S. military – the greatest cause of terrorism and instability in the world. They are indifferent to the tremendous suffering of foreigners who get in the way of the U.S. military. They want vengeance for 9/11 now matter how many innocent Muslims have to die. They have a tremendous and willful ignorance of the true nature of U.S. foreign policy. They have malice toward foreigners who never harmed Americans until the U.S. military starting bombing them. They have an arrogant "USA, USA" patriotism that supports an interventionist and militaristic foreign policy. They lust for the blood of foreigners by supporting bombing, drone attacks, torture, and indiscriminate killing. They make foolish statements like the military is defending our freedoms by fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. They blaspheme God by asking him to bless and protect U.S. soldiers.

I realize that I am making some serious accusations, but the truth is simply that most Christian warmongers don’t care whether there are Predator drone attacks against Afghan and Pakistani peasants as long as a Republican-controlled government gets to conduct the attacks.

Originally published on LewRockwell.com on June 23, 2011.

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

The Warmonger’s Fruit of the Spirit

However, I was pleased to see the following clip of Stossel on the O’Reilly Factor, where Stossel defends Ron Paul and begins to sound pretty good on issues of foreign policy. It was rather funny, honestly, to hear Stossel say that Ron Paul is “right on everything” – including foreign policy. While Stossel doesn’t talk about jus in bello (ethics during war), where I had the biggest problem with him before, he has the right idea on jus ad bellum (justification for war). Take a look, it’s entertaining to watch that snake O’Reilly squirm and look like an idiot trying to pronounce Keynes’s name to say the least.

I should note, though, that there was a Federal Reserve in 1920. They just didn’t do much in that recession, and thus it lasted for less than a year.

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

Is John Stossel becoming anti-war?