Our American Madness: About Winning the PEACE -- Not War!
Now in my 75th year and at last retiring from several possible careers -- theology, foreign service, journalism -- as well as my actual one as a legal, political, social philosopher, I am appalled by the madness that seems so deeply embedded in our American mentality. WW2 killed off something in the area of 50 million innocent people. Some 54+ thousand American soldiers died in the pointless Viet Nam war. I, myself, was fortunate that Eisenhower ended off the Korean war just before I would have had to commit to naval officer service.
The numbers of war killings engraved in my conscious memories are in the multi-millions. I remember Hitler's rants from our Movie Tone news reports that were blood chilling. Hitler, Mussolini and whoever was running Japan back then make Osama ben Laden look like a sandbox toy grabber -- pathetic reject of a wealth Saudi father with deep resentments towards the world in general. Any organization that sends young people to blow themselves up killing innocents is criminally insane!
Okay, so the U.S. had never experienced a direct attack on its homeland. The 9/11 horror was deeply disturbing to us. I felt it personally as my beloved wife had gone down there to a meeting and she could not reach me until she had walked out to a working phone several hours after I learned of the people destruction. But let us not forget the London Blitz with its thousands of lost lives, the Tokyo bombings that we executed with hundred of thousands fried well done -- also Dresden burned to a crisp by us, a city known only for producing quality pottery. And the totaled cities -- Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- destroyed in instants with long lifetimes of cancer affliction for the survivors.
None of the above speaks for our 'war' on an unseen enemy -- here, there, and elsewhere.
We have now learned that we have pretty well destroyed Iraq -- 15% refugees in and out, 1/3 destitute and dying from disease and malnutrition.
But them we hear that to wage 'the war' we must pump billions into military supplies for Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and others to be designated. We know the Saudis are now funding the Sunnis in Iraq who are shooting at our troops and the Iranians are funding the Shia -- Maliki, now on vacation so as to avoid any commitment to peace for his country. And we conveniently forget that our CIA destroyed democracy in Iran under Eisenhower in 1954!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Mossadegh
The American madness -- assuming that by playing good cops/bad cops we can police the Middle East and successfully wage war on THEM. Who is THEM -- terrorists vaguely identified and located at the fringes of things where we rocket, bomb, shoot and kill -- far more innocent civilians than terrorists so identified loosely by us.
To me all this is madness -- American madness. We have panicked and cannot see the realities before our eyes. We are living a psychosis that has told us that we can win a war by shooting at anything that moves -- or does not move out of our way fast enough!
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net
The numbers of war killings engraved in my conscious memories are in the multi-millions. I remember Hitler's rants from our Movie Tone news reports that were blood chilling. Hitler, Mussolini and whoever was running Japan back then make Osama ben Laden look like a sandbox toy grabber -- pathetic reject of a wealth Saudi father with deep resentments towards the world in general. Any organization that sends young people to blow themselves up killing innocents is criminally insane!
Okay, so the U.S. had never experienced a direct attack on its homeland. The 9/11 horror was deeply disturbing to us. I felt it personally as my beloved wife had gone down there to a meeting and she could not reach me until she had walked out to a working phone several hours after I learned of the people destruction. But let us not forget the London Blitz with its thousands of lost lives, the Tokyo bombings that we executed with hundred of thousands fried well done -- also Dresden burned to a crisp by us, a city known only for producing quality pottery. And the totaled cities -- Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- destroyed in instants with long lifetimes of cancer affliction for the survivors.
None of the above speaks for our 'war' on an unseen enemy -- here, there, and elsewhere.
We have now learned that we have pretty well destroyed Iraq -- 15% refugees in and out, 1/3 destitute and dying from disease and malnutrition.
But them we hear that to wage 'the war' we must pump billions into military supplies for Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and others to be designated. We know the Saudis are now funding the Sunnis in Iraq who are shooting at our troops and the Iranians are funding the Shia -- Maliki, now on vacation so as to avoid any commitment to peace for his country. And we conveniently forget that our CIA destroyed democracy in Iran under Eisenhower in 1954!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Mossadegh
The American madness -- assuming that by playing good cops/bad cops we can police the Middle East and successfully wage war on THEM. Who is THEM -- terrorists vaguely identified and located at the fringes of things where we rocket, bomb, shoot and kill -- far more innocent civilians than terrorists so identified loosely by us.
To me all this is madness -- American madness. We have panicked and cannot see the realities before our eyes. We are living a psychosis that has told us that we can win a war by shooting at anything that moves -- or does not move out of our way fast enough!
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net
posted by Ed Kent at 9:32 AM
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