Tag Archives: soldiers

Rumsfeld Redefines “Success”

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Click on my latest political cartoon, the top one on the left side of this page, called “Success Redefined.” Always, the first victim of war is truth…. At various times, Secretary Rumsfeld has worked hard to redefine the terms, “torture,” “insurgency,” “victory,” “winning,” “enemy,” “mission accomplished,” “terrorism” and other words of war to make them fit his needs. 

Unfortunately, he's also having a hard time figuring out who and what we're fighting, and fighting for. Whose freedom? Whose liberty? Whose democracy? Whose rights? As defined by whom? Mr. Rumsfeld could use some thoughtful coursework in linguistics and ethics. 

The sad thing is that all violence is about fear, terror, hatred–call it whatever you will. As the Buddha once said, “the end of hatred is not hatred, but love.” The 60's hippies used to say “fighting for peace is like fucking for chastity.” It just can't be done. There is no way to peace: peace is the way. 

A just cause cannot justify an unjust (violent) means. We will all suffer some grave injustice in this imperfect new century, but we needn't add to its sum. It's a different way of seeing, yes. But John Lennon took that leap way back in the 60's. Isn't it about time to try to imagine all the world living life in peace? They may say you're a dreamer, but you won't be the only one….

Please write responses to epharmon@adelphia.net . Thank you for your caring and loyalty to the quality of human life everywhere.

 

 

 

 

A Way to Peace in the Middle East

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Today’s bloody unity in Iraq can be maintained only by imposition of yet another inhumane, repressive KGB-type police state, backed by a huge, permanent, deadly U.S. occupation. It is in no one’s best interests to continue to force our own fallible western institutions upon historically self-identified “Kurds,” “Sunnis,” and “Shiites” fiercely loyal to their own unique sets of traditions, religious beliefs, and leadership, and committed to political self-determination and separatist destinies. Remember that it was foreigners who once arbitrarily invented “Iraq’s” national borders, and who cynically installed a vicious dictator (Saddam) to squish these three distinct groups together for our own imagined selfish interests.

 

After a century of violent outside interference, “Iraqis” justifiably don’t trust us, and don’t want us over there “helping” them—except as invited guests. Before we drain the last drop of lifeblood from our grandchildren and our economy, we can choose to back away from all militaristic regional leaders, and instead transfer our most generous financial, diplomatic and media support to non-violent, popular cultural representatives of each distinct ethnicity, who can then work cooperatively to minimize civil unrest and instability, and light the way toward mutual achievement of their own (equally fallible) highest priorities, ideals and solutions.

 

And yes, the United States will have to stand in line humbly to buy oil at market prices, just like every other nation.

 

Terrorism breeds wherever angry youths seeth under inflammatory external ruthless tyrannies. There is no violent “way” to peace and stability in the Middle East, or at home. Peace is the way.

Questions and Perspectives on Iraq

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Will somebody please explain to me why it’s in anyone’s best interests for the west to continue to attempt to impose unity and western political institutions upon “Iraqis,” instead of helping self-identified “Kurds,” ”Sunnis,” and “Shiites” achieve self-determination, and their own highest ideals and priorities, each in their own unique and uniquely valuable ways?

 

I’m not a foreign policy specialist. I’m only a U.S. citizen loyally attempting to keep up with politics and uphold the highest traditional U.S. ideals by reading two newspapers and occasionally following CSpan. But try as I may, in all my reading and listening, I have not been able to conclude that Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis want to be united under one government. All evidence points to the contrary: each of the three groups apparently very much wants to control its own historically-separate destiny, now and into the future, each maintaining a fierce (and admirable) loyalty to their own unique set of traditions, culture, religious beliefs, values, and leadership.

 

How can we ever end this war and achieve long-lasting peace, in that region or here at home, without recognizing the very reason why each of these three ethnicities has so long been fighting against us and amongst one another—for the right (to which Americans give lip-service) to democratic political self-determination for all peoples everywhere?

 

After decades of cruel war and occupation by western countries, Iraqis seem to have reasonably concluded that they must fight back against western politicians who would encroach upon their families, friends, and the lands of their ancestors, and who would impose foreign values, institutions and approaches upon them through forced coalitions and nationhood.

 

I have read some of the regional instability arguments against partitioning Iraq into three nations, but am so far unconvinced that all interested nations and peoples—including “Iraqis”—wouldn’t be far better off if we in the U.S. just changed our foreign policy to support democratic self-determination and separate nationhood for each of the three historical ethnicities that we once, so unwisely, forced together under one dictator. I also remain mystified as to why (other than ignorance) the U.S. didn’t choose this more peaceful and lasting alternative approach to our current destructive, unjust, costly, protracted and unwinnable war, years ago. (But that’s another question….)

 

As long as we ignore the self-deterministic aspirations of these three ethnicities, the U.S. must settle, in Iraq as we have elsewhere, for minimal, shameful goals of imposed “civil quiet,” via yet one more cynically-installed, tyrannical, ruthless, repressive KGB-type police state backed by an endless, costly, inflammatory, deadly U.S. occupation.

 

How did we ever conclude that violent suppression of a popular movement for personal liberty would more likely result in peace and freedom than generous support for local freedom of choice?

 

We cannot win this war until Middle Easterners feel that they too have won a freedom they can believe in. And we can’t achieve a win-win outcome by imposing an outdated political and military solution grounded in untested assumptions, a solution which many in the west persist in believing is “in our best interests.”

 

There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.

 

We can choose to minimize the impacts of future civic unrest during inevitable land grabs and power struggles in the Middle East, by withholding military and financial support from all regional leaders who have historically used militaristic, terrorizing, violent approaches to achieving peace, and offer instead generous financial, diplomatic and media support only to those leaders who are popularly respected as most peaceful and most representative of the highest ideals and traditions of each ethnic group.

 

President Bush’s proposed “Strategy for Victory in Iraq” has identified four goals to be achieved in Iraq before troop withdrawal: peace, unity, stability, and security. But before the war, most (albeit dispirited) “Iraqis” already “enjoyed” exactly those four conditions under Saddam–the only exception being dissidents fighting for political self-determination.

 

What then have we been fighting for? What has our costly war accomplished? And for what and for whom are we still fighting?

 

Terrorism breeds and grows in regions where angry young people seeth under unjust, externally-imposed militaristic tyrannies.

 

So will someone please explain to me why it’s in anyone’s best interests—ours, or any others’–to keep on imposing our own beloved but fallible western institutions and values upon the people of the Middle East—right on up to the time when we drain the very last drop of lifeblood from our grandchildren and our economy–instead of peacefully and generously granting (Christian!) charity to the best and brightest leaders of every region, assisting them in lighting their own peoples’ way to achieving their own unique and uniquely valuable (if equally fallible) highest ideals and priorities–each in their own way?

 

 

 

 

 

Please send your thoughts to epharmon@adelphia.net ! And thank you for your loyal and caring support for the quality of human life everywhere.

 

My Father the Terrorist

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He was a man who would kill and maim innocent children and civilians if he was told to do so by his leaders … Who would boldly face certain death for his beliefs … Who believed that death and destruction solved problems … Who believed in retaliating violently, and avenging losses … Who would kill anyone he was told was a threat to his safety, home, land, family, traditions and beliefs … Who would kill and die anywhere in the world to further his people’s interests, and to spread their ways around the world ….

 

He was a man who thought terror a reasonable means of achieving political, social and economic goals.

 

He was also a U.S. Army career officer, a highly decorated war hero, attorney, horseman, poet, woodsman, musician, scratch-handicap golfer, linguist, historian, and gentle, patriotic, idealistic, loving son, husband, brother, friend … father.

 

My father.

 

With such an admirable, lovable person in my family, how could I ever come to see soldiers in any way similar to terrorists, when they seem so completely different to everyone else?

 

True, both soldiers and terrorists deal in violence and death. But surely a righteous cause justifies a violent means? So, are terrorists ever right? Are soldiers often wrong? Is it possible that the problem is violence itself?

 

What could soldiers and terrorists possibly have in common?

 

Both soldiers and terrorists are often idealistic (or religious) youth, drawn to the disciplined, hard, masculine life and camaraderie of like-minded patriotic friends who share their desire to contribute to a better world. Soldiers and terrorists alike hope they won’t have to kill or be killed, and certainly not maimed, tortured or imprisoned, but yearn instead to do some good, to see the world, make a living, and maybe get in on some of the action they’ve seen in the movies.

 

Soldiers and terrorists often join up because they haven’t found alternative work they feel as passionate about. Both soldiers and terrorists often feel angry about the way the world is, and about their own lives, too. They feel their backs are against the wall, it’s someone else’s fault, and blood must be shed to right the wrongs.

 

Both soldiers and terrorists are fiercely loyal to armed forces of sorts, especially to their esteemed leaders and fellow-travelers. Soldiers take pride in being part of thrilling national armies; terrorists take equal pride in being part of glorious insurgencies against tyrannies or foreign invasions. Soldiers everywhere fight for governments they look up to and trust. Terrorists fight against governments they consider oppressive, illegitimate, unfair or unrepresentative. Both soldiers and terrorists, however, believe that what they’ve learned from their culture is true; both also believe they are right.

 

Statesmen put their faith in negotiation, believing that even infinite diplomacy is ultimately more effective, humane, lasting, ethical—and less costly, in every sense—than recurrent, endless escalations of violence which create new problems for future generations while leaving old ones unresolved. Seasoned diplomats resign themselves to accepting that a certain amount of horrific injustice will unavoidably be inflicted upon even the just. Nevertheless, they resist threatening more violence, or using past injustices to argue for adding to the total sum of injustice.

 

Soldiers and terrorists, on the other hand, trust that somehow their violent acts will alleviate conflicts, solve problems, and create lasting peace. Soldiers and terrorists alike count on charismatic political leaders who often possess dubious legitimacy and logic, unreliable integrity, small abilities and selfish hidden agendas. Soldiers and terrorists nevertheless count on such fallible leaders to negotiate for them, and to tell them when their approaches to political change (peaceful protest, diplomacy, cooperative organizing, and other tedious and deliberate efforts within “the system”) seem not to be “working.” Both soldiers and terrorists believe their decisions to use violence are moral, since they’re following orders from a higher, more knowledgeable authority.

 

Many youthful idealists sign up for soldiering and terrorizing because they find action more comfortable than talk. Compared with diplomats and statesmen who’ve spent lifetimes acquiring subtle understandings of regional issues, history, culture, conflicts old and new, trade, treaties, protocol, language, negotiation and communication, soldiers and terrorists (and politicians) often have short fuses, and limited, black-or-white/right-or-wrong views on political realities and options.

 

One reason so many young men (and women) are enlisted to die in terrorist violence and war is that those with more life experience are less likely to jump in to violence as wholeheartedly and innocently as the more easily-persuaded young.

 

Soldiers and terrorists alike, in a sad, special sense, are defeatists; they’ve chosen their careers because they are philosophically prepared to turn to violence at a moment’s notice, whenever politics-as-usual is declared to be insufficient to insure their group’s safety or to protect or promote their interests. Although both soldiers and terrorists are often religious, they both reject, as unrealistic, too-difficult and “vague,” the universal teachings of religious faiths everywhere: treat others as you would wish to be treated, love thy neighbor as thyself, be meek and mild, thou shalt not kill, blessed are the peacemakers, be as gentle as doves, forgive seventy times seven, turn the other cheek, do unto others as you would have them do to you….

 

When urgently exhorted to war or to terrorist action by demagogues and impatient, opportunistic leaders, inexperienced soldiers and terrorists often turn too quickly toward alpha-male, testosterone-based, kill-or-be-killed, survival-of-the-fittest solutions. They and their less-experienced leaders find protracted negotiating an effeminate sign of weakness, a waste of time, preferring instead to rely upon immediate, power-based solutions such as lethal weaponry and overwhelming force.

 

When soldiers and terrorists see trouble coming, they are trained to shoot, not talk, to prevail and overpower, to shock and awe, never give a inch, and never show weakness. They look for advantage, not fairness; dominance, not equality. They see enemies, not future allies, and react to fear by inducing more fear in their foes.

 

Of course, both soldiers and terrorists alike invariably fervently believe that they are the good guys, “our” guys in the white hats—valiant saviours, protectors—while the evil ones opposing them are the bad guys in the black hats, the “enemy”—blood-thirsty, soulless, unfeeling, vicious, ignorant, faithless, cowardly, stupid, inhuman.

 

Sadly, both soldiers and terrorists believe in and contribute to the widely-accepted cultural notion that their violent roles are necessary and useful ones that will make an overall positive difference, at least for their side. Both soldiers and terrorists justify the chaos they leave behind them—the blighted lives, shattered dreams and pointless, gruesome deaths of civilians and combatants on both sides, the wanton killing of innocents from accidents, starvation, disease, economic disruption, and conventional and nuclear bombs—by blaming the stupidity, intransigence, and cruelty of their enemies, or by chalking up their own abhorrent results to “necessary collateral damage”—morally virtuous, because essential to a worthy cause.

 

Both soldiers and terrorists believe that violence saved “us” in the past and will save “us” again in the future—forgetting that only living victors get to write the history books, and that alternative non-violent solutions have never been given anything like a fair trial, have never received anything like equivalent consideration and financial and leadership support.

 

Both soldiers and terrorists choose any time, place or method necessary to defeat their enemies and win their wars, maximizing strategic, economic and political advantages, and minimizing losses. Both soldiers and terrorists believe that any means, however cruel and unfair, are justified by their own often changing noble ends and causes.

 

Older, battle-weary soldiers and terrorists gradually lose their faith in violent solutions, bitterly shutting down their sad memories. A few hold onto their past convictions even more strongly, angrily defending them. Many keep right on walking the lonely paths they’ve carved out. A gutsy few manage the difficult shift to exploring new kinds of civilian or military contributions.

 

Ninety percent of the victims of both terrorism and war are civilians….

 

It is difficult indeed to change the way one has traditionally seen soldiers and terrorists, to reverse millennia of cultural conditioning, to come around instead to recognizing that both soldiers and terrorists began as well-meaning, misguided victims themselves, brainwashed into analogous goals, methods and results which both later find repugnant, impossible to live with and to explain.

 

Every mother’s son, every child’s father, every lover’s darling, every beloved brother and friend, whether soldier or terrorist, was born to be a giving, kind, tender and beautiful good soul, the person we love and know them to be.

 

The only difference between our soldiers and their terrorists (and soldiers) is that the ones we love use violence for our side, to defend and further our interests, while the ones we hate use violence to fight for their side. Without a doubt, both ours and theirs, soldiers and terrorists alike, resort to unspeakably appalling violent solutions to achieve political, social and economic goals.

 

My gentle father would, I think, have been proud to honor the selfless sacrifices of all our courageous and well-intentioned dead and maimed, past and present … all our brave revolutionary sons and daughters … all our uprising slaves and civil war champions on both sides … in fact, all courageous soldiers and veterans and impassioned idealists everywhere, from every time and place … and all their victims, with this request:

 

May we reconsider whether we wish to repeat the violent mistakes of the past. May we recognize that there are as many ways to live in this world as there are people who live in it. May we accept that people everywhere want the same thing—to live out their lives in peace. May we all work non-violently to understand and serve the priorities of others everywhere who are different from us. May we learn the thousand and one non-violent ways to resolve conflicts….

 

Life on earth is at stake.

 

I think my father would have been proud to see today’s soldiers and terrorists put down their weapons and become non-violent warriors fighting this century’s magnificent battles by protecting people everywhere from the ravages of disease, injustice, hopelessness, hunger, greed, environmental degradation, natural disasters, ignorance, addiction, prejudice, nuclear proliferation, crime, poverty, war, terrorism, and yes, violence itself. I think my father would have saluted their expanded allegiance and heartfelt pledge, to protect, respect, and support, with their lives, and not only their deaths, human life everywhere.

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net .

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What Are We Getting For Our Pentagon Dollars?

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We have a huge Pentagon budget which pays for neither the costs of wars nor for protecting our homeland. So what do they do with all that money? To be sure, someone still needs to have the financial wherewithal necessary to protect and defend America’s economic and strategic interests abroad, as well as (on occasion) our heedless or haplessly wandering citizenry.

 

But America’s global economic and strategic interests could be far better attended to by a well-funded Commerce and State Department. Our citizens should stay out of countries where they’re not wanted, and behave as polite guests where they are invited. And if they find themselves innocently threatened? Well, that’s what the marines are for. Keep on paying them.

 

If America redirected just half the amount of funding we give to the Department of Defense to Commerce and State, we would all reap the rewards of wise, mutually advantageous longterm trade deals and proactive diplomatic dialogues. We’d be far less likely to feel any need to throw our unrecognizable, camouflaged firstborns into the maw of all those foreign hellholes we ourselves created by having a military budget so huge it dwarfs any other country’s tenfold. America’s primary diplomatic tool is a hammer. No wonder foreign countries all look like nails.

 

Which leaves us still with the necessity of defending our homeland. If our foreign policies precluded pushing smaller countries around to suit our pride and greed, if we refrained from occupying other lands with hundreds of farflung military outposts, not to mention callous and inequitable trade policies, then perhaps we’d have fewer terrorists angry at us because our governments underwrote their despots, our tycoons pillaged their resources, and our national interests left their families in danger, economic slavery, and without rights. I don’t see any terrorists threatening Canada, or Norway, or Sweden, and they top most lists of being the so-called envied lands of the rich and free. Now why is that?

 

It is our present policy to give great unaccountable gobs of money to a Department of Defense that cannot keep us safe from terrorists, cannot win unwinnable wars, and can only add terror and injustice to the terror and injustice already caused by others.

 

Our beloved America can do better, must do better if we are to live up to our wonderful traditions and ideals. I hope Americans soon decide to spend our taxes more wisely, for our own sake, and for the sakes of so many others.