[ http://www.great-liberal-insights.org/warvspeace.html ]

War vs. Peace

When this page was created, George W. Bush had gotten the U.S. into war with Iraq. Much of what I asembled for this page had to do with war and peace in general, and since that continues to be a matter of grave concern, those portions of this page are still relevant.
Since early 2012, however, the portions having to do with Bush's war have been moved to a separate page, called BushWar.html .
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'."
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".

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.

"Imperial Christians who equate patriotism with militarism and nationalism now have a book to guide them: The American Patriot's Bible.' See The American Warmonger's Bible, which I haven't read, but imagine uses some of the deplorably scripture that I feature at WhatKindofGod.org.

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."

"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

The PRINCIPLES of JUST WAR
as established by both religious and secular authorities.

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.� -
"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
"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace." Jimi Hendrix
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/pro-partisanship/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

Here is the reenactment of a large portion of that outstanding speech : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3_EXqJ8f-0&.
"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".

Coalition Proof that
theirs is a "Just" War :

blair&bush

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 C�l�bre: 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

In the eyes of (former) Pastor Ted Haggard, the founder of "New Life", one of America's most powerful megachurches, and the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, as quoted by Jeff Sharlet in "Inside America's most powerful megachurch," in the May 2005 Harper's (speaking of emerging evangelicals in the Ukraine) :
"They're pro-free markets, they're pro-private property. . . That's what evangelical stands for."
"I teach a strong ideology of the use of power," he says, "of military might, as a public service." He is for preemptive war, because he believes the Bible's exhortations against sin set for us a preemptive paradigm, and he is for ferocious war, because "the Bible's bloody. There's a lot about blood."

[ from http://www.harpers.org/SoldiersOfChrist.html ]

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