War  vs.  Peace One of the Blessings issued by Jesus in { Matthew 5:2-12 :} is "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called 'children of God'."

What Would Jesus Say about War vs. Peace ?         Since it's hard to improve on the words that a friend of mine named Janet sent me, here they are:         "The word 'love' appears in the gospels no less than 75 times: 'God is Love.' (1 John 4:8) [ Christians are called to aspire is to be Godlike in their love for one another. A true Christian always attempts to act out of love. Violence cannot be a result of love. Violence occurs when we act out of fear, anger, or ignorance.] 'Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.'  Matthew 5:44 'Love your neighbor as you love yourself.'  Mark 12:31 'Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.'  Luke 6:27 'Love one another, just as I love you.'  John 15:12         [ Note that this message shows up in every gospel, and in each case, is a direct quote of Jesus,Himself.]         The word 'violence' shows up in the Gospels 5 times, and is never placed in a positive light. For instance, in Luke 11:38-39, Jesus rebukes a Pharisee, telling him that he is full of violence and evil.         Both Matthew (5:39) and Luke (6:29) recall the Lord telling us that if someone hits us on the cheek, that we should let him hit the other one. In Matthew 18:15-17, Jesus lays out a whole procedure for dealing with someone who has wronged you. At no point in that procedure does it say 'then you can become violent'. In Matthew 18:21-22, when Jesus is asked how many times we should forgive a brother that has sinned against us, he responds that we should forgive him seven times seventy.         The writings in the bible have been used to justify some of the most horrific things in human history. The crusades, the Spanish inquisition, the enslavement of the African and Native American peoples, and persecution of homosexuality have all been justified by our holy scriptures. Sadly, this same technique has been used by Muslim extremists to twist and corrupt the word of the Koran. Point is, any holy document can be used to say whatever you want it to, assuming that you're willing to bend and distort it. But the gospels in their entirety are very clearly a message of hope, love, and tolerance. Anyone that distorts that into a justification of evil acts will be judged by God alongside slave traders, Tomas de Torquemada, and the people that blew up the World Trade Center towers."       -Janet According to Matthew 5:9, Jesus said, ""Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God," According to Luke 1: 76-79, in a vision attributed to the Holy Spirit, the father of John the Baptist prophesizes "And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, . . . to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace

In contrast however, to "Liberal" Christians who believe what Jesus taught about war and violence, "Conservative" Christians, like many in the Southern Baptist Convention ( which broke with the regular Baptists in order to endorse and defend African American slavery) has no problem giving its blessing to war.  They promote war in their schools and churches : "War Games for teens at Beulah Baptist"       "Beulah Baptist Church is hosting War Games for teen-agers July 8-10 from 6-9:30 p.m. There will be fun, food, prizes and competitions. The Marines will battle the Navy in areas such as War Ball, Obstacle Course, Volleybomb and Huge Mud-Tag.       There will be hundreds of dollars in door prizes. The event is for anyone going into the sixth grade through those who graduated from high school this year.       Registration begins at 6 each evening. Call 407-656-3342 and pre-register for either team."       This "church", it concludes, is "at 671 Beulah Road, Winter Garden, FL 34787".       Does George Bush's "Christian" administration have recruiters on hand at such events to "pre-register" these so-called "Christian" teens and get them committed to military service before they actually read the Gospels for themselves and find out how little respect Jesus Christ had for military solutions? See why, in their own words, how Conservative Southern "Christians" defend to this day violence and even slavery as "God's Word" at www.JesusWouldBeFurious.Org/ about/christianconservatism.html.       This "church", it concludes, is "at 671 Beulah Road, Winter Garden, FL 34787".       Does George Bush's "Christian" administration have recruiters on hand at such events to "pre-register" these so-called "Christian" teens and get them committed to military service before they actually read the Gospels for themselves and find out how little respect Jesus Christ had for military solutions? See why, in their own words, how Conservative Southern "Christians" defend to this day violence and even slavery as "God's Word" at www.JesusWouldBeFurious.Org/ about/christianconservatism.html.         Conservative Christian warmongers sometimes dare to quote the following words of Jesus to support war : "Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword." What a great example of mis-quoting someone out of context!  Here is the context : Matthew 10: 34- 37   "Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one's foes will be members of one's own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me."         It's obvious from the context that Jesus wasn't expressing support for what we call "war" vs. "peace" between countries, but rather the inevitability of strife within families when some members of the family want to follow Jesus and some don't.         It's hard to imagine sincere people really believing that Jesus was endorsing war or violence in this passage ( or any other).         Another conservative once tried to justify the ownership and use of guns to me by quoting these words of Jesus, "the one who has a purse must take it, and likewise a bag. And the one who has no sword must sell his cloak and buy one."         Another classic case of "quoting out of context". Here's the text preceding that passage, in Luke, Ch. 22: 35- 38   He said to them, "When I sent you out without a purse, bag, or sandals (or a sword), did you lack anything?" They said, "No, not a thing." He said to them, "But now, the one who has a purse must take it, and likewise a bag. And the one who has no sword must sell his cloak and buy one. For I tell you, this scripture must be fulfilled in me, 'And he was counted among the lawless'; and indeed what is written about me is being fulfilled."  They said, "Lord, look, here are two swords." He replied, "It is enough."         Does anyone think that Jesus was recommending the use of swords as anything more than a prop in a play, used not to intimidate, but only to educate?         In Matt. 26:52, Jesus said, "Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword."

"Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives." -James Madison         Before delving into the question of whether the recent war with Iraq was justified when it was started unilaterally by Bush & Blair, I would like to draw your attention to a Senate hearing on May 17, 2005 in which George Galloway, a member of the British Parliament was being accused of corruption in the U.N. "Oil for Food Scandal". Far from being cowed by the U.S. Senate committee, headed by the freshman Republican Senator from Minnesota, Norm Coleman, Mr. Galloway levelled a blistering indictment of the Bush administration, a newsworthy event if ever there was one. Did the mainstream media notice? No. Can you read his testimony on the official Congressional website? No; not any more, because it has vanished, like the weapons of mass destruction. Except that millions of people saw Mr. Galloway's testimony on C-Span, and the official transcript was published on the site, until someone had it removed.         Who or what will be removed next ?!? Here, however, is an "unofficial" transcript of his earthshaking testimony : http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0517-35.htm and here is an MP3 recording of at least part of Galloway's testimony : http://news.globalfreepress.com/mp3/George_Galloway.mp3 And here is a great RealPlayer video of the entire hearing : http://news.globalfreepress.com/movs/Galloway/Galloway.rm

When Leaders of the U.S. Council of Churches and of George W. Bush's own United Methodist Church were not allowed to address the President in person in the lead up to the war, they had to spend good money to address the following advice to him in a full page New York Times ad: [ Here's the PDF version. ]         George W. Bush had no use for the advice of all of the church leaders who signed the statement above or those cited below.         When Bob Woodward, the Washington Post writer, asked Bush if he ever sought the advice of his father, President George H.W. Bush, the younger Bush replied,  "There's a higher father I look to."  It now appears that his own father, who had led America into the first war with Saddam, didn't think it was a good idea for his son to do it again.  But God the Father, if you believe George W., was telling him the very opposite of what he was telling most every one else outside of G. W. B.'s inner circle. January 4, 2002 Bush = "LAYMAN OF THE YEAR" ?         An ultra-Conservative United Methodist "renewal group" has named President Bush denomination's "Layman of the Year".         Even though some bishops and other officials in the church have criticized the war on terrorism, the head of "Good News Magazine", James Heidinger, says Bush, "represents the mainstream of United Methodism and indeed historic Christianity in a way that many denominational leaders do not."  "Good News" is part of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, a movement financed by wealth Conservative interests to urge Conservatives Christians to fight against Liberal policies and leaders in mainline denominations.         The National Council of Churches, which represents the country's Methodists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Presbyterians and 32 other denominations, has, against all tradition, been brushed aside by this President, while evangelicals have enjoyed unparalleled access.         "Bush has shown an ideological commitment to the literalist Christian tradition at the expense of the broader view of the larger religious community,"         National Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Bob Edgar told Salon.com, which is just a nice way of saying that the girl next door has been dumped for Tammy Faye Baker.         "He is the first president not to meet with the leadership of mainline Christian traditions since George Washington.         We've been able to talk with the prime minister of Britain and the chancellor of Germany, but not our own president."         The Reverend Fritz Ritsch also questioned this historic snub:         "I trust God speaks through me," George Bush reportedly told a gathering in Lancaster, PA.         "The president apparently believes that he can talk about theology from the bully pulpit without talking to theologians,"  Ritsch wrote in the Washington Post.   "Which begs the question: When did the president become theologian in chief?" Published on Thursday, February 20, 2003 by the lndependent/UK Archbishops  Question  Blair's Claim to 'Moral Legitimacy' of Invasion of Iraq by Andrew Clennell         The leaders of Britain's two main Christian churches united against Tony Blair this morning, expressing doubts about the moral legitimacy of invading Iraq.  The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, and the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Cormac Murphy O'Connor, released a statement at midnight that also warned of the "unpredictable humanitarian and political consequences of war".  The attack on the "moral legitimacy of war" came after Saturday's speech by the Prime Minister in the lead-up to Britain's biggest protest, in which he made a "moral case" for removing Saddam Hussein.         But the clerics also called on President Saddam to comply with UN demands.  "War is always a deeply disturbing prospect; one that can never be contemplated without a sense of failure and regret that other means have not prevailed, and deep disquiet about all that may come in its train," the statement said.  "We are very conscious of the huge burden of responsibility carried by those who must make the ultimate decision . . .  The events of recent days show that doubts still persist about the moral legitimacy, as well as the unpredictable humanitarian and political consequences, of a war with Iraq."         But, in a welcome message (to the Prime Minister), the men said they recognized that the "moral alternative to military action cannot be inaction, passivity, appeasement or indifference".  They said it was "vital" that all sides engaged through the UN in a process which "could and should render the trauma and tragedy of war unnecessary".  They also "strongly" urged Iraq to demonstrate its "unequivocal compliance with UN resolutions on weapons of mass destruction".  "The season of Lent is now approaching, a time when all Christian traditions encourage us to examine ourselves honestly, to acknowledge our shortcomings and to seek reconciliation with God," they said.  Dr Williams, a long-time declared opponent of war, who was appointed last year, is leader of 70 million Anglicans across the world, while Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor is leader of four million Catholics.  Their statement comes after more than five million people marched in protest against the war around the world over the weekend, including more than a million in London. Additional Statements by Various Christian Groups: The United Methodist Church A statement from the president of the Council of Bishops A letter to G.W. Bush from www.cmep.org/letters/2002Sep12_BushReIraq.htm The Episcopal Church A letter from the House of Bishops to Congress The Society of Friends A joint statement from several Quaker leaders The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Presiding Bishop Mark S. Hanson's statement on Iraq situation The Mennonite Central Committee A call to action in favor of non-violent resolution to the crisis (April 2002) The Presbyterian Church, USA News release on General Assembly Council's call to action The United Church of Christ Statement of United Church of Christ leaders opposing a war against Iraq The Unitarian Universalist Association A pastoral letter from association president Rev. William G. Sinkford,         There may be few Roman Catholics in the Bush family, but there are many millions of them in the country he leads, and the statements below reflect the long-standing teaching of that church that Roman Catholics are only allowed to engage in a war when it can be justified in their conscience as "a JUST war": USATODAY.com - Pope fears religious hatred in Iraq war Posted 3/29/2003 12:46 PM Vatican City (AP) — Pope John Paul II urged the faithful Saturday not to allow the Iraq conflict stir up hatred between Christians and Muslims, saying that would transform the war into a "religious catastrophe" . . . "In all of this, however, one must be careful not to yield to the temptation to define groups of people by the actions of an extremist minority," he said. "Authentic religion does not advocate terrorism or violence, but seeks to promote in every way the unity and peace of the whole human family." In the months before the Iraq war began, John Paul lobbied in favor of a negotiated solution.  He has said there is no legal or moral justification for the military action, and has worried about how it could affect relations between Christians and Muslims. Vatican Terms Preventive War Against Iraq Unjustifiable Aggression : Vatican City, Dec 17,2002 :         A senior Vatican prelate on Tuesday condemned any so-called "preventive war" against Iraq as "aggression".         Archbishop Renato Martino, who heads the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, said: "Preventive war is a war of aggression and does not come under the definition of a just war."         Martino was referring to the current US military build-up for a possible war with Iraq, which has been labelled a "preventive war" by US officials, including President George W. Bush.         The prelate, the Holy See's former representative at the United Nations, where it has observer status, made the comments as he presented Pope John Paul II's message for World Peace Day on January 1.(2003)-AFP The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops A letter from the USCCB's president, Wilton Gregory, to George W. Bush See more statements by the leaders of other major faiths below.

At the time that these religious leaders declared President Bush's war immoral, they did so on the grounds that it was declared without sufficient just cause.  They did so even without knowing what they learned later that many of the arguments in favor of the war were at worst a pack of lies, or at best incredibly inept intelligence, (which Bush's people nevertheless assured us was "rock solid").         These religious leaders also did not know that the war would be conducted in such an immoral fashion, using illegal means, such as the well-documented torture, and using immoral weapons which are resulting in horrible damage and suffering to innocent people not just in our time, to many, many, many generations to come.         www.web-light.nl/VISIE/extremedeformities.html shows many actual photographs of the horrible harm being done to innocent mothers and babies in our name, by our troops, using weapons that all Americans are paying for, whether they like it or not.         Here are more photographs, [ one of a portfolio of photos called "The Unseen Gulf War", to be found at: ] digitaljournalist.org/issue0212/pt_intro.html         Everybody knows that the bombs and missiles that George Bush & Tony Blair unleashed in our name did not just obliterate buildings.  They have brutally maimed or ended the lives of many beautiful perfectly innocent people like these. Click on this picture to see many more pictures from www.robert-fisk.com/iraqwarvictims. A friend of mine has observed regarding Americans watching and supporting the war as it was being televised:         "It struck me that what we are watching on TV is the modern equivalent of the Gladiators vs. the Christians in the Roman Coliseum.         We are getting our jollies by watching, live or nearly live, close-up and in "living" color, our proud warriors destroy a nation and a people that we consider worthless compared to us."         In Chiang Mai, Thailand, at the conference Religion, Gender Equity and Economics, the representative from South Africa said at the opening reception,  "What are you Americans going to do to the world this time?"  And before I could even try to reply, she went on,  "We are the people who should be voting in your election.  After all, your president affects our lives more than he does yours." [ an excerpt = "From Where I Stand : Have these people got an idea for you!" by Joan Chittister, OSB ]         "A great war leaves the country with three armies : an army of cripples, an army of mourners, and an army of thieves."  -- German proverb         "But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make when all those legs and arms and heads chopped off in a battle shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at such and such a place,' some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeared there are few die well that die in a battle."   King Henry V,  - - William Shakespeare         "There are but two powers in the world, the sword and the mind. In the long run the sword is always beaten by the mind." - Napoleon Bonaparte         How can anyone who professes to "support our troops, possibly support "Commander in Chief" George W. Bush?  See ExploitingMentalCripples.html. Proof positive that Bush wanted war with Iraq from the very first days of his presidency ! [ from a Republican campaign commercial : ]

Statements by Various JEWISH Groups: The Union of American Hebrew Congregations Decision of the Executive Committee The American Jewish Congress A statement from the Executive Committee in support of intervention in Iraq The Jewish Council for Public Affairs A statement praising Bush's speech to the United Nations Statements by Various MUSLIM Groups: The Arab American Anti-Discrimination Council A press release about the resolution sent to Congress by the White House The Council on American-Islamic Relations A press release cautioning against unilateral action The Islamic Human Rights Commission An "urgent alert" against action in Iraq

War         v

s.         Peace

The first quote is the one in the graphic above from Nazi leader, Hermann Goering, ( before he was sentenced to death at the Nuremberg trials.) "The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie.  It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the state." Hitler's propaganda chief and successor, Joseph M. Goebbels "No triumph of peace can equal the armed triumph of war.  In strict confidence . . .  I should welcome almost any war,  for I think this country needs one." Theodore Roosevelt [ not his finest hour ! ] "Was there ever any domination that did not appear natural to those who possessed it?" John Stuart Mill, (19th century philosopher) "I am strongly in favor of using poisoned gas against uncivilized tribes.  The moral effect should be good. . .  and it would spread a lively terror." Winston Churchill Commenting on the British use of poison gas against the Iraqis after World War I [ not his finest hour ! ] "Our men (i.e. American soldiers) . . .  have killed to exterminate men, women, children, prisoners and captives, active insurgents and suspected people from lads of 10 up. . .  Our soldiers have pumped salt water into men to "make them talk," and have taken prisoners  people who held up their hands and peacefully surrendered, and an hour later. . .  stood them on a bridge and shot them down one by one, to drop into the water below and float down, as examples to those who found their bullet-loaded corpses." Philadelphia Ledger newspaper ( a dispatch from its Manila [Philippines] correspondent during the US war with Spain, in 1901. "We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world benefaction. . .  We should cease to  talk about vague and unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization.  The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts.  The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better." George Kennan, ( Head of U.S. State Department Policy Planning Staff, 1948 ) " Scare the hell out of the American people." Senator Arthur Vandenburg, (telling President Truman what he needed to do in order to tax the American people to pay for weapons and covert activities.) Richard Nixon to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger on the Watergate tapes :         "The only place you and I disagree . . .  is with regard to the bombing.  You're so goddamned concerned about the civilians, and I (in contrast) don't give a damn.  I don't care." . . .  "I'd rather use the nuclear bomb. . .  Does that bother you?  I just want you to think big."  "I want to scare the hell out of the rest of the world." General Colin Powell, ( talking about US military power prior to the Gulf War in 1991.) "Their sword will become our plow, and from the tears of war the daily bread of future generations will grow." Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf,Volume 1, Chapter 1)   "If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator." GW Bush ( during a photo-op with Congressional leaders on 12/18/2000. )   “Of the tyrant, spies and informers are the principal instruments. War is his favorite occupation, for the sake of engrossing the attention of the people, and making himself necessary to them as their leader.” - and   "A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. (for) Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side." Aristotle

"If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."          "Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. . . . [There is also an] inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and . . . degeneracy of manners and of morals. . . . No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare." (1793): James Madison "father of the Constitution" and later the 4th U.S. President "I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, as only one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidly ." (and ) "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, from those who are cold and are not clothed.  The world in arms is not spending money alone.  It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children." President Dwight D. Eisenhower " What a cruel thing is war: to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness God has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors, and to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world."Robert E. Lee, letter to his wife, 1864 "If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends.  You talk to your enemies." General Moishe Dayan "The guns and the bombs, the rockets and the warships, are all symbols of human failure." President Lyndon B Johnson "If you see injustice and say nothing, you have taken the side of the oppressor." Bishop Desmond Tutu. "What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy." Mahatma Gandhi "After each war there is a little less democracy to save." Brooks Atkinson "The pioneers of a warless world are the young men (and women) who refuse military service." Albert Einstein "Military power wins battles, but spiritual power wins wars." General George C. Marshall, ( 1880 - 1959 ) "When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?" Eleanor Roosevelt "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." John F. Kennedy "When the rich make war, it's the poor that die." Jean-Paul Sartre "All violence, all that is dreary and repels, is not power, but the absence of power." Ralph Waldo Emerson "The world is going mad in mutual bloodshed. And murder, which is considered a crime when people commit it singly, is transformed into a virtue when they do it en masse. The offenders acquire impunity by increasing their ravaging." St. Cyprian, 3rd century bishop of Carthage "Violence is the first refuge of the incompetent." Isaac Asimov "This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death." Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. "Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear - kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor - with the cry of grave national emergency.  Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it . . ." General Douglas MacArthur, 1957 "Patriotism is the belief (that) your country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." George Bernard Shaw "We're not made by God to mass kill one another . . . and that's backed up by the Gospel.  Lying and war are always associated.  Pay attention to war-makers when they try to defend their current war.if they move their lips they're lying." Father Phillip Berrigan "It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong." Voltaire "We live under a system in which the many are exploited by the few; and war is the ultimate sanction of that exploitation." Harold Laski "To delight in war is a merit in the soldier, a dangerous quality in the captain and a crime in the statesman." George Santayana This site had determined that the correct version of the quote attributed to Ben Franklin is not "Any society that would (or "The that can") give up a little liberty to gain (or "obtain") a little security will deserve neither and lose both."  but "Those who would give up ESSENTIAL LIBERTY to purchase a little TEMPORARY SAFETY deserve neither LIBERTY nor SAFETY." - (from the cover of a book published, but not actually written, by Benjamin Franklin.) Ben Franklin "Wars are not paid for in wartime. The bill comes later." Ben Franklin Human beings do not fight for economic systems: who would be willing to die for capitalism? Certainly not the capitalists.Sidney Hook Frankly, I'd like to see the government get out of war altogether and leave the whole field to private industry. - Joseph Heller, (in "Catch 22")

Dwight D. Eisenhower was not only a U.S. President (Republican) but he was the 5 star General who commanded the allied forces during World War II. And this is the way he viewed War vs. Peace : "A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both." "In most communities it is illegal to cry "fire" in a crowded assembly. Should it not be considered serious international misconduct to manufacture a general war scare in an effort to achieve local political aims?" "How far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without?" "We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security." "Though force can protect in emergency, only justice, fairness, consideration and cooperation can finally lead men to the dawn of eternal peace." "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." "War settles nothing." "Controlled, universal disarmament is the imperative of our time. The demand for it by the hundreds of millions whose chief concern is the long future of themselves and their children will, I hope, become so universal and so insistent that no man, no government anywhere, can withstand it." "Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative." "Humility must always be the portion of any man who receives acclaim earned in the blood of his followers and the sacrifices of his friends." "I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it." "Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion." "http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/d/dwight_d_eisenhower.html This quote was part of an editorial he wrote for the "Kansas City Star" durning World War I (May 7, 1918).         "The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else." "Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star"

A Marine's View From the Top Major Gen. S. Butler         If you feel that a U. S. Marine General who in his 33 years of service to his country and earned more medals and honors than any other Marine in our nation's history (to that date at least) earned the attention of all Americans, then listen to what he had learned and what he had to say to us: "War is a racket. . .   It may seem odd for me, a military man, to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to.  I spent 33 years in active service as a member of our country's most agile military force --the Marine Corps -- . . . I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914.  I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in.  I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long.  I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-12. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916.  I helped make Honduras 'right' for American fruit companies in 1903 . . . "Looking back on it, I feel I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best that he could do was to operate his racket in three city districts. We Marines operated on three continents". S. D. Butler - Marine Corps Major General       "Butler understood the more honest function of the Marines (and U.S.  foreign policy in general) was to forcefully maintain structures protecting the haves from the have-nots." { from www.VeteransForPeace.Org/military.htm}       Butler published a whole book on the subject, and you can read a great summary of that book at "War is a Racket".

See why many West Point Graduates are disowning the war created and mismanaged by our current "Commander in Chief" : www.westpointgradsagainstthewar.org and why so many others in the Military feel the same way : MilitaryFamiliesSpeakOut yahoo groups See the Conservative business leaders' treasonous plot to overthrow President Franklin D. Roosevelt Here is what Bush's friends in the business community are writing about this war in Business Week magazine Not even President George Bush I agrees with President Bush II's war ! This group proves that Military people don't have to be warmongers: MilitaryFamiliesSpeakOut-subscribe@yahoogroups.com The phoney campaign to discredit war protestors:         The stories about Vietnam war-protestors spitting on returning veterans was nothing but the deceitful inventions of Conservative dirty tricksters :         atlanta.creativeloafing.com/2003-03-26/fishwrapper.html         "Jerry Lempcke, a professor at Holy Cross College in Massachusetts, has scoured the records from the 1960s and 1970s.  "It simply never happened," he told me last week, adding that other researchers have found the same.  No news reports, no evidence that anti-war demonstrators abused our troops.         "The spitting story evolved as a way to discredit the anti-war movement," says Lempcke, a Vietnam vet.  "It was particularly used in 1990 and '91 to persuade people against opposing the first Gulf war.  The grounding of the story was as an alibi to explain why we lost the Vietnam war, that it was lost on the home front from a lack of patriotism.  And the clear record shows that the spitting did not happen and that the war was lost long before public opinion had turned against it." "Victory of the Loud Little Handful" ( the "Noisy Minority" ) by Mark Twain         The loud little handful - as usual - will shout for the war. The pulpit will -- warily and cautiously -- object. . . at first.  The great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly,  "It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it."         Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded, but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the antiwar audiences will thin out and lose popularity.         Before long, you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men. . .         Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception. Mark Twain, "The Mysterious Stranger" (1910) "When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fail. Think of it, always." Gandhi "I know not what weapons World War III will be fought with, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." -Albert Einstein         "What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?" Mahatma Gandhi, "Non-Violence in Peace and War"         "The nuclear arms race is like two people standing in a room up to their waists in gasoline arguing over who has the most matches." Carl Sagan

A Little-Known Conflict That Foreshadowed the Century to Come (20th) The American-Philippine War of 1899–1902 Jan 13, 2010, by Darryl Hamson         "The decision to crush the Philippine independence movement (by Republican imperialists,o President McKinley and Senator Albert Jeremiah Beveridge of Indiana) put America firmly on the path to imperialism and all its consequences.." [ Read excellent article at http://americanhistory.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_americanphilippine_war_of_18991902#ixzz0cpNmP02I ]

What REALLY Crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11 ?

"The New American Legacy of George W. Bush" by David Fabie, (a former Republican and an HR/Learning and Development Consultant in San Francisco, CA, who says "my political party left ME in 1992". )         "I remember the day like it was just yesterday.  June 12th, 1987.  I was a 17 year-old exchange student in Germany.  Standing there at the Berlin Wall watching the President of the United States state in words so clear, so commanding that they seemed to reverberate through the crowd like an electric current.         "Mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"         An elderly man standing near me the crowd saw I was an American and the tapped me on the arm, asked if I spoke German and when I said yes, he pointed towards the podium and said "only the American President could say that and mean it." It wasn't until days later back in Munich I asked the grandfather in my German host family what did he think the man meant by that.  He explained to me at the end of World War II German soldiers were fleeing westward with one goal in mind: Escape the advancing Soviet troops and surrender to the Americans.  It was a known fact that the Americans would treat captured enemy combatants in accordance with the Geneva Convention and if you were caught by anyone else you were taking your chances.  It gave America a moral authority in the post war world that the Soviets didn't have.  It was "moral capital" that gave successive American Presidents from Truman to Clinton the ability to stand before the world, demand justice, speak for freedom lead the world and mean it.          It was moral authority that allowed Truman to fight communist aggression on the Korean Peninsula, Eisenhower to deliver his Atoms For Peace speech at the United Nations proposing an international atomic energy agency and peaceful development of nuclear energy.  It was moral capital that gave Kennedy the ability pull the world back from the very brink of nuclear war and face down Soviet military ambitions in Cuba.  It gave Richard Nixon the chance to move détente' from being a nice idea, to real dialogue in China, and over a kitchen counter in Moscow.  Moral authority that Americans and the world would find reassuring in hands of Gerald Ford, and it enabled Jimmy Carter to take two nations that had been at war since the time of Moses, and into the woods of Camp David and lead their two leaders to peace.         The moral authority that came from America doing the right thing, the fair thing and the just thing in war , forty years later would empower Ronald Reagan to call an evil empire by its name, and demand the wall it built through a city be torn down.  The trust that America does the right thing, would enable George Herbert Walker Bush to say in his inaugural address "When America says something, America means it.  Whether in an agreement, a treaty or a vow made on marble steps!" The faith that America does the right thing would let George H W Bush meet with that same soviet leader and end a cold war that gripped the world for decades.  The idea that America does the right thing would lead skeptical Arab nations to follow that same President Bush to free Kuwait from Iraqi aggression.  The faith that America does the right thing, would lead a hesitant and fickle Europe to follow Bill Clinton when he said the world community could not allow the ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia to go unchallenged.         That authority, that capital, that faith in America as the nation that does what is right, has been destroyed by George W. Bush.  The pictures from Abu Ghraib prison, the FBI reports on torture and abuse of enemy combatants takes that great American legacy of doing what was right, and tears it to shreds.         Rather than lead with the moral authority stemming from generations of American soldiers and leaders doing what was right.  We have a President of the United States who has to attack Amnesty International, ridicule the United Nations and insult traditional allies all to avoid admitting his own massive mistakes .  Such as claims in the State of the Union Address, they have to be "re examined " when they turn out to be completely false.  Now we find when the President of the United States needs most to enlist the help and support of the global community the best he can do is "You are either with us or you are with the terrorists".  Now we find when America goes to war, it is for reasons that are continually changed as they are proven to be fabricated, cherry picked and far more spin, than truth.         I was never so proud to be an American as I was that day in 1987.  The American President, MY President stood before the Berlin Wall and before the world and affirmed that American would demand what was right and mean it.  Now I watch the President and cringe.  For the last century when the American President spoke, the world stood up to listen.  Now when President George W. Bush speaks the best we can hope for is Scott McClellan won't be forced to "clarify" things when reality, facts and the truth continue to prove the President to be either wrong, or deliberately dishonest." What do you remember about Ford & the"Mayaguez incident"?         Everybody who lived through the Carter years remembers how impotent he appeared to be. What a contrast to strong Republican presidents like Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Bushes 41 & 43. If those who lived through the Gerald Ford administration, however, remember the "Mayaguez incident" at all, what they remember is that Ford acted forcefully to the hijacking of an American commercial ship by terrorists and quickly rescued all 39 of the American civilian captives. Even at the time nobody seemed to care that the cost of rescuing those 39 civilians was the lives of 42 military personnel, not to mention those who were badly wounded. Because Carter was cautious and patient and lost no American lives, he was deemed weak, while Ford was viewed as strong.

Coalition Proof that theirs is a "Just" War :         In his memoir, "A World Transformed," published in 1998, George Bush Sr.  wrote the following to explain why he didn't go after Saddam Hussein at the end of the Gulf War. "Trying to eliminate Saddam. . .  would have incurred incalculable human and political costs.  Apprehending him was probably impossible. . .  We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq...  There was no viable "exit strategy" we could see, violating another of our principles.  Furthermore, we had been consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world.  Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish.  Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land."         Listen (if you have working speakers on your computer) to recordings made by the Mike Malloy show of the actual voices of George W. Bush and of the members of his administration who have joined him in his mission of dishonesty : Bush absurdities & Bush Team of Liars         See the wonderful Letter to G.W.B.  from a great Democratic WWII war hero, George McGovern who would have been President of the United States, if the Republicans had not deceived America into voting for Tricky Dick Nixon, instead. For a great collection of international documents regarding Human Rights ( vs. Human Wrongs), see http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/diana/documents.htm

Peace-loving Nuns Have Become Cause Célèbre: http://commondreams.org/views03/0724-06.htm         We like to think of ourselves as a just nation.  So if you want to hold onto that thought, you might want to stop reading here.         Our story today is of the three nuclear nuns, who, in the name of peace and in the name of Jesus, committed this crime at a Minuteman III site in northeastern Colorado: They cut a chain-link fence; they banged a missile silo with a hammer; they poured some of their own blood on the silo; they waited in their hazmat suits to be taken away.         Your government decided that criminals such as Sisters Carol Gilbert , Jackie Hudson and Ardeth Platte, who have dedicated their lives to saving the lives of others, should spend two or three years in federal prison.
How can the U. S. military be expected to respect the scriptures of Muslims when they have so little appreciation for the Christian Scriptures that they think it amusing to name a 70 ton killing machine, an Abram tank, "the New Testament"? from an official U.S. Marine Corps page .

John Shelby Spong, retired Episcopal Bishop, Jan. , 2004         "The war hype was not related to reality.  Iraq posed no imminent threat to the United States.  Iraq had nothing to do with the September 11 terrorist attack.  Attacking Iraq was a policy decision made before the Bush Administration took power on January 20, 2001. There were no weapons of mass destruction. There was no atomic capability. There was no germ warfare that could be made ready in 45 minutes. The American case was so weak that major allies would not join the war effort. The propaganda that called these troops "Coalition forces" was stretched beyond reasonableness.  It was an Anglo-British force with a sprinkling of others. The cost of the war was grossly underestimated.  The cost of reconstruction has only recently begun to be embraced. The "pinpoint" new precision weapons that were supposed to minimize civilian casualties were a joke since we know that some 14,000 Iraqis died, about half of them innocent citizens. There was no exit strategy. Terrorism is not fought with bombs and missiles. Terrorism is fought by addressing the causes of despair and hopelessness that give rise to a willingness to die in order to inflict pain on those the terrorists hold responsible for your pain. The truth about this military adventure was never told. The benefits do not offset the loss of more than 500 American lives. Unilateral military action breaks trust in the family of nations. I think the war was fought for three unspoken reasons: The first President George Bush had made a mess of the first Iraqi war.  Not only did he not complete his mission but he encouraged dissident Iraqis with promises of help to rebel against what he thought was a crippled Saddam Hussein.  They rebelled, received no help and were murdered by Saddam, while that first President Bush stood by meekly, hoping to ride his "victory" to a second term in the White House.  He failed.  His son, the second President Bush, wanted to clean up his father's mistakes. Iraq had oil reserves, which American oil interests wanted.  Neither North Korea nor Libya, both of which posed a greater threat than Iraq to their neighbors and to the world with their known arsenals of destructive weapons were invasion targets.  In these places we sought a diplomatic or "negotiated settlement."  The difference?  Neither North Korea nor Libya has oil. After 9/11, the leaders of Saudi Arabia told the Bush administration that they could not survive politically if American military personnel continued to operate from Saudi Arabia.  The U.S.  needed a Middle Eastern country to solidify its military presence in that region.  Iraq was the choice.  These facts mean to me that this present administration has not been honest with the American people.  They, therefore, do not have my trust.         When President Jimmy Carter spent a year negotiating with the Iranians for the release of over 60 Americans whom they were holding, this Democratic president was considered a whimp because it took him so long to liberate these hostages, bring them all home.         President Gerry Ford, on the other hand, was considered a macho hero because he wasted no time bringing home the crew of the Mayaguez, a merchant ship captured by Kmer Rouge forces in May 1975.  It didn't seem to matter to anybody (but their families perhaps) that the lives of 43 heroic American military men were lost (and others were no doubt wounded) in the fierce battles that resulted in the rescue of 39 other Americans, because the rescue was so dramatic, forceful and hasty.         The International Red Cross warned Sec. of State Colin Powell about the immorality and/or illegality of the Bush administration policies very early on : www.truthout.org/060309J

Contact   Ray@Liberal-Insights.Org There is much more where this came from, at and/or