Simple, lofty beginnings

Saturday, May 12th, Oklahoma State GOP Convention. I had joined the hundreds of lovers of liberty in support of Ron Paul. This group had been working tirelessly since 2008 to spread the message of individual liberty, culminating in an apparent showdown with the establishment at the state convention. The tension was palpable as soon as I joined the registration line. This tension boiled over when the chairman called for a voice vote rather than the standard role call vote to determine what kind of support would come from the 25 delegates and 25 alternatives from Oklahoma http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/ad-lib/2012/may/14/ron-paul-and-mitt-romney-supporters-brawl-oklahoma/. Instead of following their own rules and acknowledging every delegate's right to cast an individual ballot, the GOP asserted their tyrannical power over the preceedings and made sure their slate was passed.

This experience capped off years of searching, questioning, theorizing, pondering this overarching question: How do I, as a God-fearing Christian and believer in individual liberty in this world, relate to the culture at hand and ultimately affect change for the good of those around me? And more specifically, how does this play out in the politcal arena?

This blog is an effort to wrestle with the concept of in the world but not of it, to bring the intangible to the tangible; to use ideas and theories as building materials for concrete structures. 

Question everything, for Truth will prove itself. Alongside my good friend and co-blogger Lukus Collins, I endeavor to find Truth where it can be had; and for this end a revolution is in order.

Brenden Gateley 

Christians Should Honor the Military?

So, now that I've addressed a pastor's recent claim in front of his congregation that the U.S. military fights to preserve our rights (particularly that of free speech), I'd like to deal with the appropriateness of a pastor exhorting his listeners to give honor to those in the military. This is something I've read about, but never experience firsthand. It deeply troubled me for several reasons.

I find it interesting and perplexing why the profession of government soldier is more worthy of mention in the first place than other professions. I have a hard time believing that if said church member had been an investment banker, or a Starbucks barista, or a plumber that the pastor would have bothered telling us that we should honor him for his profession. In that case, it would have just been, "Let's pray for Joe Church Member who is moving." There wouldn't have been any reason to mention his profession. Who cares? It's irrelevant for the most part, assuming his profession isn't sinful (more on this shortly). He's a member of the church universal and the church local, and deserves our prayers whether he paints houses or designs websites or writes novels.

I have a problem with the elevation of military personnel above all others in society. It reflects an underlying but dangerous glorification of violence and killing that surely can't be good for societal health. How much more so that of the church, which is called to love sacrificially, to serve the poor and needy, to evangelize the lost; not to occupy the land of others and kill them.

In the early church, Christian participation in the military was forbidden. If a soldier came to Christianity, then he was encouraged to either quit or at least request a noncombatant role. This all changed with Constantine's conversion, which brought with it the corrupting power of the state. Suddenly, in order to fight in the Roman army, rather than committing fealty to the pagan Roman gods, one had to pledge allegiance to Christ. The empire needed the Church to abandon its pacifist heritage and find a way to justify Christian participation in war. As usual, there were theologians willing to bend to the state's wishes, and so-called just war theory was developed.

Of course, even a liberal interpretation of just war theory doesn't come close to morally justifying the current U.S. wars. Therefore, even if a Christian rejects pacifism, he is obligated to oppose Christian participation in the U.S. military at this time. Tragically, in America the opposite is largely true. In fact, military action finds wider support among Christians than among the general populace.

Even if we accept that the actions of the U.S. military are the reason we enjoy such great religious freedom, is this somehow a legitimate justification for actions that violate Christian morality? The Christians of the first three centuries suffered great political persecution, but never advocated or attempted violence in the pursuit of greater freedom. One of the great distinctions of Christianity is that morality applies to both means and ends. Don't get me wrong, religious freedom is a great thing, and should be pursued by all nonviolent means available. But no end is so precious as to justify immorality in its pursuit.

In most professions, it is possible to serve in a Christ-like way to at least some degree. But how, pray tell, does one war in a Christ-like manner? When the Christian pilot drops bombs, does he target his victims for the glory of Christ? When the Christian foot soldier kicks in the door of a private residence in the middle of the night and points his gun in a child's face, is he somehow furthering the kingdom of God? The answer is too obvious to miss. Many of us engage in tasks and activities that are largely irrelevant to our Christian mission. But a Christian soldier directly and proactively violates his. Is this who we should hold up for honor in our churches?

In my mind, it would be bad enough if Christians were neutral or silent on the issue of war and militarism. But that would be a drastic improvement over the current outspoken advocacy of war among the American church. Even greater than support for war though, is support for the military itself. Many of those who strongly disagree with the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan still venerate and extol the virtue of fighting in the military, much like the pastor mentioned earlier. I have no idea what his views are on the current wars. He seems like a decent, sober-minded person; far from a warmongering neocon. Yet he calls out a soldier for special recognition and honor in a church service. This is shameful and unnecessary.

My ideal is that pastors would use the pulpit to advocate Christians only taking part in peaceful activities and professions. At the very least, his call for prayer should completely leave out the fact that the subject of prayer is in the military. I don't think this Christian soldier should necessarily be condemned any more than I would condemn a drug addict or a prostitute. He should be gently and lovingly brought to a knowledge of the truth. But it is simply inexcusable for the pastor to hold up this member as worthy of exceptional honor solely and exclusively because he is a professionally trained killer dressed in a government uniform.

As nearly the entire congregation stretched out their hands in prayer for this soldier and his wife, in effect endorsing and blessing his every action as a soldier, I bowed my head and prayed that the Holy Spirit would convict him and help him to see the reality of his profession. I prayed that he would repent and refuse to serve any longer in the military. I just hope I wasn't the only one with this prayer.

The Military Defends My Freedom?

This Sunday, an unfortunate event took place at the church I attended. At the end of the sermon, in the midst of the call to ministry and prayer, the pastor called for prayer for a particular couple who are moving out of state. The reason for this move is that the husband is in the military and is being transferred to a new base.

The pastor mentioned that this church member has done more than one tour in some "hot zones", and is likely to be deployed again after the move. The pastor told the congregation, "these are the kind of men you honor," and, "no matter what your views are on the wars, you can have that freedom of opinion because of guys like this that have fought to protect your freedoms." At this, I heard 4 or 5 "amens" from around the sanctuary; 4 or 5 more, by the way, than I had heard during the entirety of the passionate, inspired, and challenging sermon. The pastor then had the rest of the membership stretch out their hands and join in corporate prayer for this soldier and his family.

One may wonder why I would find such a thing "unfortunate." (In fact I find it more than unfortunate; more like disturbing and tragic.) There are two main issues here that I'd like to deal with. One is the idea of special recognition and honor for members of the military within the church. The other has to do with the idea that freedoms unique to Americans have been won and are continuously preserved by the military and through war. I'd like to deal with this second idea first.

There are few more deeply and widely held American beliefs than the one that we owe our freedoms (which are unique among all nations on earth), and therefore our allegiance and reverence to the mighty U.S. military. Laurence Vance, who regularly contributes antiwar articles from a Christian perspective to LewRockwell.com, recently received a response from a reader parroting this grand American fallacy. There are several layers of error contained in this view, and I'll try to take them on as systematically as possible in an informal blog.

1) The military does nothing to protect our freedoms

Most military apologists seem to concentrate on freedom of speech as the quintessential right that the military has secured and is securing. I've heard things like, "you antiwar people only have the freedom to speak out against wars because of the wars that have protected your right to free speech." Which wars are these? The Iraqis and Afghans have never done anything to limit my right of free speech, much less any other right. Do we honestly think that if we weren't slaughtering hundreds of thousands, even millions of Middle Easterners that we would be in dire threat of being conquered by a Shiite caliphate?

A common retort is, "you'd be speaking German if it wasn't for the military." Well, since the Third Reich couldn't cross the English Channel, it's a pretty hard sell to convince me they could have crossed the Atlantic Ocean. For some crucial alternate views on WWII, please read these indispensable works by Nicholson Baker and Pat Buchanan. WWII, after all, was little more than a continuation of WWI, which was completely unnecessary and irrelevant to American freedoms. In fact, during WWI, dissenters were imprisoned by the Woodrow Wilson administration for speaking out against the war. So much for American wars protecting freedom of speech.

The same occurred during the Civil War, which freed slaves only as an unintended consequence of war strategy. The Spanish-American War, the Mexican War, the War of 1812; none of these achieved anything positive in the way of preserving American rights. One would have to go all the way back to the War for Independence to find any war in our history that could remotely be said to expand American freedoms, and even that is debatable. A reasonably sober-minded survey of our history reveals little if any correlation between U.S. military action and the preservation of essential American freedoms.

2) Our freedoms aren't all they're cracked up to be

What is it exactly that these heroes are preserving anyway? An opponent of war can count on the fact that at some point they will hear something like (as in the case of the letter to Vance), "if you don't like America (erroneously conflating government/military and country), then leave." This can only lead one to conclude that free speech really isn't all that important to supporters of militarism. In fact, it's more of a nuisance than a fundamental natural right. They'd just as soon have a monolithic militaristic state with no dissent allowed.

Of course, without the freedom of dissent, there really isn't any freedom at all. And during times of war, dissent, if not directly outlawed, suffers from intense social persecution. It's difficult to survey history and not recognize a correlation between war and loss of individual freedom. This brings me to my next point.

3) The military undermines and endangers what freedoms we do have

First there is the indirect way that times of military action, even when acting abroad, tend to limit and restrict the freedoms we enjoy here on the home front, as referred to above. One only needs to take the most cursory look at the expansion of the domestic American security state during the last 8 years to recognize this phenomenon. The Department of Homeland Security, the Patriot Act, the Banking Secrecy Act, the TSA and their body scanners, expanded executive power, illegal wiretapping and monitoring of citizens' phones and emails, illegal detention and torture of citizens; all these and more are justified and supported solely on the basis that we are in a time of war.

But there is the even more pernicious direct method of freedom-destroying power employed on the military's victims abroad. If the rights we hold so dearly as Americans are in fact natural rights granted to us by God, by virtue of our humanity, then those same rights must extend to all of humanity across the globe. This means that to the extent that the U.S. military kills, wounds, or destroys the property of noncombatants (and combatants if they are acting in self defense against aggressive invasion), they are acting as agents of destruction of those very rights they purport to be defending.

None of the current wars are in any way legitimate actions on the part of the U.S. military. The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the unofficial missions in Pakistan and Yemen have all been aggressive proactive actions on the part of the U.S. military. This means that anyone retaliating against U.S. forces is acting in defense. This effectively makes every U.S. victim an unjustified death. But even if we consider combatant deaths as legitimate targets, the American military has still managed to kill 40 times as many noncombatants. Millions have also been displaced from their homes and live as refugees. The level of crime this commits against natural human rights is almost inconceivable.

Noncombatant deaths made up approximately 43% of total deaths during WWI; about two-thirds of WWII deaths were suffered by noncombatants. Now, over 95% of deaths inflicted by the U.S. military fall on noncombatants. These figures scream of the injustice of the American cause.

4) It doesn't take an empire (or constant wars) to protect freedoms

The simple fact is that the citizens of many countries around the world enjoy a similar level of freedom without the burden of maintaining a gargantuan network of over 730 worldwide military bases. Switzerland, New Zealand, Canada, Hong Kong. These are just a few samples. Each nation in some ways is more free than America, and in some ways less free. The crucial point is that freedom is achievable and maintainable without a huge military spread across the globe.

Well, that turned out longer than I thought it would. I'll continue in an additional post with my views on church militarism.

UPDATE: Click here to read Part 2

Peace, Liberty, and the Tea Party

A couple of very good articles have surfaced recently taking on the hypocrisy in the Tea Party movement regarding war and its attendant attacks on domestic liberty, which the Tea Party activists supposedly hold dear. The first, by James Bovard, appeared in the Christian Science Monitor under the title "Tea Party Movement: Pro-War, Pro-Torture, Pro-Freedom?" The second, by Ivan Eland, "To the Tea Party: War and Liberty Aren't Fellow Travelers," was posted on Antiwar.com.

Both articles do a fine job of highlighting the consternating intellectual disconnect among many of the tea partiers in their simultaneous support for smaller government and the warfare state. I highly encourage you to read both articles.

Eland lays out a particularly clear historical case that growth in domestic government, which the tea partiers apparently so detest, has to a very large degree been the direct result of wartime policies. He goes so far as to say that "of all the causes of big government in human history, warfare is the most important."

Bovard recounts his experience at a recent tea party, where establishment Republican partisans spent more breath bashing Obama as a closet Muslim and fearmongering over Iran's nuclear program than espousing any principled defense of political and economic liberty. Bovard also points out recent poll results "showed that two-thirds of tea party members have a favorable opinion of Sarah Palin, and 57 percent have a favorable opinion of George W. Bush."

If warfare is the most important cause of big government, then G.W. Bush's boundless "war on terror" surely stands as one of the grossest excuses for the the expansion of government in American history. And yet a majority of small-government-supporting tea partiers still have a favorable view of him? What's going on here?

Now, I think it's important to point out that not all tea partiers are warmongers. After all, 43% don't view Bush favorably. We would do well to remember that the modern tea party movement began in late 2007 during the presidential campaign of Ron Paul, a true advocate of small government and peace. According to recent poll results the tea party movement is evenly divided between the originalist libertarian-leaning Ron Paul wing, and the usurping conservative-Republican-partisan Sarah Palin wing.

Since at least the Cold War, unquestioning support for the military and all its misadventures has been a core conservative doctrine. And with the election of a "liberal" Democrat president and Congress, conservatives have flocked to join libertarians in the tea party protests, bringing with them all of their Cold War baggage. Conservatives have been so inculcated for decades in their unflagging reverence for militarism, that it simply never occurs to them to reassess things in the light of their new found love of liberty. And now, with the popularity of the tea party movement attracting the vultures of the Republican establishment, the anti-Democrat message has become the loudest voice at most rallies.

If conservatives truly value freedom and limited government, then they must learn to recognize the ways in which the warfare state undermines and violates those ideals. I've heard and read conservatives say things like, "Thank God for the military, the one part of our government that works really well." I hate to break it to ya'll, but the military is just another bureaucracy, with all the attendant inefficiencies and perverse incentive structures as the DMV, the Post Office, or the IRS. In fact, it's not unreasonable to claim that the military is responsible for more pork and cost overruns than any other government department.

War profiteers...um...merchants of death...I mean...defense contractors bilk billions in profits from taxpayers to build unnecessary and notoriously unreliable weaponry. And the sole purpose of that weaponry: to destroy valuable resources, i.e. homes, buildings, roads, cars, sewage systems, schools. We may as well all have a giant money-burning orgy. At least then the purchasing power of the dollar might rise for once.

Conservatives still carry the Cold War fear of reductions in military spending. Do they know that the U.S. spends as much on it's military as the rest of the world combined? That we spend at least 7 times more than the second-highest country, China? Keep in mind that these figures only include the official Pentagon budget. Robert Higgs of the Independent Institute recently published a full accounting of military spending, which turned out to be 65% greater than the Pentagon budget alone. If conservatives want to shrink government, spending cuts must be made, and military spending should be the first candidate on the cutting table.

This is a rare time when libertarians and conservatives find themselves in common cause against government expansion. The pro-peace voices among us must speak out while this short window of opportunity remains. I'm sure it's quite tempting to hold back and concentrate on the issues held in common with conservatives. But this is a unique time in our history when conservatives are vulnerable to libertarian principles they would normally brush aside or not ever hear in the first place.

We must take advantage of this time to advocate for the cause of peace and liberty. We must expose and educate conservatives on the crucial link between peace and liberty, and the one that also joins war and tyranny. I'm sure there are many tea partiers who won't appreciate the message, and many who will refuse to see the light. But many will. How will they hear unless we tell them? This may be the one and only time in many conservatives' lives that they will ever be exposed to such ideas. We must rise to the challenge and boldly speak out for peace. Now.

Ron Paul Warns that Iran Sanctions Will Lead to War

News came today that the House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a measure to being talks with the Senate on drafting final Iran sanctions legislation.

The vote on the bill was 403-11. Antiwar.com news editor Jason Ditz writes that the final sanction vote will likely see a similar tally. The heroic 11 Representatives who took a stand for humanitarianism and peace included 7 Democrats and 4 Republicans, including of course Ron Paul.

In his speech on the House floor opposing the bill, Dr. Paul urged Congress to turn back from their senseless and baseless "push for war on Iran." Indeed, Dr. Paul went so far as to say that "a vote for sanctions on Iran is a vote for war against Iran."

According to Ditz, "The measure would attempt to block companies across the world from doing business with Iran in importing gasoline and other vital goods Iran does not produce domestically, a move with has been designed to “cripple” Iran’s economy in retaliation for refusing to abandon its civilian nuclear program."

Dr. Paul pointed out that, "The sanctions in this bill, and the blockade of Iran necessary to fully enforce them, are in themselves acts of war according to international law."

Is this really what Congress wants, what the American people want? A war with Iran? Another war in the Middle East? In his speech, Dr. Paul talked about the eerie parallels between this current bill and the lead-up to the Iraq invasion. Severe sanctions have many times been precursors to war. The UN securities council ratcheted up sanctions on Iraq in the years and months leading up to the 2003 invasion, and FDR cut off gasoline imports to Japan in 1941 in an attempt to provoke an attack.

What good could possibly result from such a barbaric blockade? How would we expect the U.S. government to react should some foreign power cut off our oil supply? It doesn't take much imagination to foresee the swift and violent retribution that would be visited upon such a maneuver.

In the midst of all the war propaganda, Ron Paul reminds that, "Iran, a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, has never been found in violation of that treaty. Iran is not capable of enriching uranium to the necessary level to manufacture nuclear weapons. According to the entire US Intelligence Community, Iran is not currently working on a nuclear weapons program."

Dr. Paul leaves us with a grim warning: "This legislation, whether the House or Senate version, will lead us to war on Iran."

Ron Paul has played the role of prophet more than once. I pray that Congress and the American people will heed him this time before it is too late.

UPDATE: here is a video of Dr. Paul's speech on the floor of the House:

American Soldiers Execute Handcuffed Minors in Afghanistan

On December 26, 2009, U.S. soldiers executed nine innocent young men during a night raid in Kunar Province, Afghanistan. All nine, ages 11-17, were shot either in the head or chest from close range after being detained and handcuffed. Eight were students in a local school, one was a visiting shepherd boy, and a tenth civilian victim, a teenage farmer, was shot and killed running out of his neighboring home.

From Jerome Starkey of The Scotsman: "Originally, NATO said the...victims were part of a terrorist cell. Yesterday, it admitted: 'Ultimately, we did determine it to be a civilian casualty incident.'"

The military uses such cold, lifeless terminology. Soldiers break into a house in the middle of the night, murder eight family members in cold blood, plus a couple of bonus kills, and it gets benignly filed away under "civilian casualty incident." Oops, shucks. Better luck next time. This "incident" capped off a two-week total of 63 confirmed civilian deaths at the hands of the American military.

Dave Lindorff comments that, "Under the Geneva Conventions, it is a war crime to execute a captive.... It is a war crime to kill children under the age of 15...." Nine of the victims were captive, and three were under 15 years old. So far, the Pentagon and the Defense Department have kept silent on the identities of the soldiers involved or the existence of any investigation.

This story is but one particularly gruesome example of everyday life for the Afghan population terrorized by the American occupation. The drone strikes and night raids continue to escalate, for what meaningful purpose is difficult to determine. War turns fine young men into monsters, murderers, and victims. It's time for the U.S. military to come home before another life is wasted on the alter of empire.

Iraqi Christians Persecuted "on a biblical scale" Since Invasion

Today on the LewRockwell.com Blog, Christopher Manion links to a Catholic Online article illustrating the alarming persecution of Iraqi Christians since the U.S. invasion in 2003.

The article by Sonja Corbitt states that, "Iraqi Christians are being hunted, murdered and forced to flee – persecuted on a biblical scale in Iraq's religious civil war." With the Islamic government installed in Iraq by the U.S. in 2005, Christians have faced a level of violent persecution not experienced for over 150 years. Although Saddam Hussein was undoubtedly a cruel tyrant, his government was largely secular and Christians were able to worship with relative equality to Muslims. Corbitt explains that is now far from the case:

"But the invasion and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that removed Saddam Hussein have created political instability and an authority vacuum that has allowed a jihadist and supremacist power insurgence that preys on Christians in their midst with increasing brutality and boldness. In Iraq, half of the nation´s prewar 700,000 Christians have now fled the country since the fall of Saddam Hussein. Hundreds of thousands have been tortured and martyred."

What makes the Iraqi Christians' plight all the more bitter is that one of, if not the, major base of political support for the wars comes from American Christians. Manion highlights this vile hypocrisy in his blog post: "George Bush projected himself as the most publicly Christian president in our history. Yet his war on Iraq has virtually destroyed Christianity in that country."

In my experience (being virtually surrounded by Christian conservatives), the U.S. military and its wars are institutions held most dear by American Christians; perhaps even ahead of the Church itself. While I'd bet that most American Christians are blithely ignorant of their brothers' and sisters' tribulations in Iraq, I don't have much confidence that the knowledge thereof would instigate much change in their views of the wars.

Manion asks a disturbing but necessary question: "Could it be that today’s Christian warmongers don’t mind the killing of individual Christians (or a few million of them), as long as they succeed in bringing on Armageddon and the Rapture?" I might ask the question a bit differently: Are American Christians more willing to sacrifice their allegiance to brothers and sisters in the faith than to the American state and its military?

I'm afraid the evidence offers an answer that gives me great sorrow as a Christian. I can't help but think of Jesus's words, "By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” It is well past time for American Christians to heed this call to love before the Christian presence in the Middle East is completely annihilated.

Torture and Murder at America's Gulag

Scott Horton, international human rights lawyer, has broken shocking new details on the supposed suicides of three Guantanamo detainees back in June of 2006. His article, "The Guantanamo 'Suicides': A Camp Delta sergeant blows the whistle", is available now at Harpers.org. The article is a must-read; it's lengthy but unfolds like an Alfred Hitchcock nightmare, chock-full of damning evidence of torture and murder at a black site just outside Guantanamo's prison grounds.

Three prisoners, none charged with any crime and two scheduled for release, turned up dead around midnight on June 9, 2006. The official explanation from the military was that they had hung themselves in an attempt at "asymmetrical warfare." According to the official narrative, the three detainees hung sheets up to hide themselves in their cells, shaped pillows on their mats to appear to be in bed, then bound their own hands and feet, stuffed rags down their own throats, tied cloths around their mouths to keep the rags in, climbed up on their washbasins, secured nooses around their necks, and leaped to hang until asphyxiated. Somehow these impossible feats were all accomplished nearly simultaneously in non-adjoining cells, with the very limited amount of linens in their cells, and without attracting any attention from the guards until after hanging for two hours.

The truth is that they were taken to a secret interrogation site, unofficially known as Camp No, and when they were brought back, they were dead due to suffocation from rags stuffed down their throats. Gitmo leadership, along with NCIS, FBI, and Justice Department collaboration, then embarked on an elaborate cover-up, which continues to this day. Fortunately, the sergeant in charge of security that night has exposed the truth, as corroborated by at least three other witnesses. For more details about that fateful night, please read Horton's indispensable account. You can also hear a great interview with him on Antiwar Radio here.

This story is a tragic microcosm of the pure evil that is Guantanamo. We have been told for years by Republican politicians that Gitmo is practically a spa, a paradise of a prison where dirty rotten terrorists get better treatment than common American criminals. The claim is that Gitmo holds only "the worst of the worst", and that these diabolical masterminds will unleash untold violence and chaos on our land unless we deny them their unalienable rights to be charged, face their accuser, be tried, and then released if found innocent.

But the truth is that the huge majority of Gitmo detainees are innocent and should never have been imprisoned in the first place. In a recent interview on Antiwar Radio, Andy Worthington, author of The Guantanamo Files, revealed that the Geneva Conventions require that any prisoners captured in a time of war that lack the uniform or markings of an official enemy must go through an initial screening process to determine if they should truly be detained. In fact, during the first Gulf War, the U.S. captured 1200 such persons, and after review, released 900.

Without such processes in Afghanistan and Iraq, and with the U.S. offering bounties of $3,000 to $5,000, countless innocent men were detained and sent to Guantanamo. At least 759 prisoners have cycled through Gitmo, with the current population at 198. Worthington estimates that only 60 prisoners at the most actually deserve to be in custody.

As further evidence of just how many innocents are held at Gitmo, of the 41 Habeas Corpus suits brought by detainees over the last year and a half, 32 have resulted in a ruling releasing the prisoner. The standard of evidence at a Habeas Corpus hearing is the lowest of any legal proceeding. This means that for at least 32 Gitmo detainees, the government has absolutely no evidence or reason to hold them! Many of these rulings have come from conservative, Bush-appointed judges no less.

Now, after years or torture, abuse, and hopelessly indefinite detention, U.S. authorities are afraid to release innocent prisoners because of the fear they have been radicalized by their experiences. And this is to speak nothing of the prison camp at Bagram in Afghanistan, the black sites circling the globe, and U.S. detainees rendered to prisons in complicit foreign countries.

One of the things I find most discouraging in all this is that Christian conservatives, who loudly claim to adhere to the principles of the Constitution and their faith, support Guantanamo and the atrocities committed there, which directly violate those very principles they supposedly hold dear. I've been hearing a lot lately that the Constitution and Bill of Rights apply only to American citizens. This assertion is wrong both from a philosophical view and a historical view.

For the philosophical basis of the Constitution, we must visit the Declaration of Independence, which declares that our rights to life and liberty are endowed by our creator, embedded in our very humanity, and not in our nationality. Whether Christians like it or not, God created Muslims too -- even the evil ones -- and they therefore deserve to be treated with the same dignity that we would demand for an American (ever hear of the Golden Rule?).

The concept of Habeas Corpus extends back 800 years, and has been long relied on as a vital protection from unlawful detention. Every human, if he is to be imprisoned, deserves to be formally charged with a legitimate crime, have a chance to argue his innocence, and be convicted only by a reasonable and fair process. These rights are formally protected by the 5th through 8th Amendments to the Constitution. Evidently, the founders saw this as an important area; one far too often abused by rulers throughout the centuries.

The 5th Amendment begins, "No person...", and 6th, "In all criminal prosecutions...", so there should be little doubt that these not only apply to American citizens but also anyone who comes under the jurisdiction of the U.S. government. Some argue that Gitmo detainees are prisoners of war and therefore should not be afforded the privileges of the Bill of Rights, but instead fall under military justice. But keep in mind that 1) congress has not declared war constitutionally, so any legal arguments based on the presumption that we are at war start out on shaky ground, 2) the huge majority of detainees have not been arrested on a field of battle, and 3) "war on terror" detainees are not being held under normal, historical U.S. military justice.

There is also the important fact that we have a recent history of trying terrorists in federal court, both citizen and alien: Timothy McVeigh, "Shoe Bomber" Richard Reid, the 1993 World Trade Center bombers, and even 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussoaui. For a very good article on this subject, please see Judge Andrew Napolitano: "The Case Against Military Tribunals."

But even all these reasons should be secondary for a true Christian. The first call of every Christian is to love, even to love our enemies. And yet millions of American Christians support the atrocities committed at Gitmo and elsewhere, and sadly, by that support they are complicit. How can we claim to be followers of Christ and turn a blind eye to such horrific disregard for the image of God that every human carries? If we hold principles that we conditionally suspend for brown people of a different religion, are they really principles in the first place? Justice can and should be sought in a humane, Christ-honoring way.

Prominent Christains Call for Sanctions Against Iran

I learned today by way of Philip Giraldi's latest article at Antiwar.com of an open letter sent by Christian Leaders for a Nuclear Free Iran to top members of the U.S. Congress that pushes for "immediate passage of tough sanctions on Iran". Like Giraldi, I am appalled and saddened that this is what America's Christian leaders are now supporting. Sanctions are immoral and counterproductive.

Most importantly, the hardships of the sanctions recently passed by the House would by far fall most heavily on the most vulnerable of the Iranian population. Iran imports 40% of its refined fuel; this would all be cut off under the sanctions bill. Those most affected would be women, children, and the poor who would not be able to afford to heat their homes at the skyrocketing prices sure to result. This directly violates the Biblical mandate to tend to the poor.

And for what? Sanctions have never proven an effective tool. Rather than turn the citizenry against their domestic leadership (which is the story commonly told), sanctions embitter the people toward the foreign enforcer and entrench support for the domestic power structure. If there is a shortage of fuel in Iran, who do you think will get it? The State will take all it needs, leaving the populace in a far weaker position to oppose them even if they wanted to.

Many very prominent conservative Christian leaders and organizations are represented in the letter, including Richard Land, Pat Robertson, Chuck Colson, Gary Bauer, John Hagee, and Tom Minnery of Focus on the Family. FOCUS ON THE FAMILY!!! Supporting an evil act of war that will wreak horrific devastation on Iranian families.

I urge you to read Giraldi's well-written article. He points out several important inaccuracies and untruths contained the Christian Leaders' letter. One most important point is that Iran is in full compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and has been fully cooperative with the International Atomic Energy Agency. Giraldi points out that seeking a nuclear-free Iran "is particularly ironic as Iran is in fact nuclear-free."

I call upon these Christian leaders to abandon their warmongering, and turn instead to truly honor the Prince of Peace they supposedly follow. Many of them were also signatories to the recent Manhattan Declaration, which among other things, staked out a firmly pro-life stance. I challenge these leaders to take a consistent pro-life stance, and reject sanctions which will only bring death to many innocents while pushing peace out of reach.

Rising Military Suicides Reflect War's Moral Trauma

In an article released earlier this week, independent journalist Dahr Jamail documents the mounting mental toll on veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. For the first time since the Vietnam War, the Army's suicide rate exceeds that of the civilian population.

Multiple deployments to fight an illegal and unjust war are wreaking havoc on the mental health of American soldiers. According to Jamail, a RAND Corporation report found that 300,000 Iraq and Afghanistan vets suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or severe depression, yet only half sought treatment. Former sergeant, Chuck Luther is quoted in the article as saying that he has "heard commanders tell soldiers requesting psychological help that they are full of crap and don’t have PTSD."

18 veterans are killing themselves every day, according the a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) email cited by Jamail. He also reveals that the VA is logging 1000 suicide attempts per month among those under its care.

These reports are disturbing and tragic, but are they really surprising? While the American public blithely ignores the reality of war in general and these wars in particular, U.S. soldiers are buckling under the weight of their horrific experiences.

Compared to WWII, when less than half of U.S. soldiers actually discharged their weapons, new training techniques have resulted in over 90% of soldiers now firing at the "enemy". In addition to the fact that more soldiers now must deal with the guilt of personally ending human life, the current wars are taking place in more urban settings and among civilian populations, leading to an unprecedented level of "collateral" death. This would understandably carry a high price on one's mental stability.

Returning soldiers are not the only ones who suffer from PTSD. Military families are seeing a disturbing increase in domestic violence as well. How far must these trends escalate until the American public stirs from its insulated stupor? Since the end of the Vietnam war, 170,000 veterans of that conflict have killed themselves. How many lives and families must be destroyed before we cry, "Enough!"?

Is War Immoral Anymore?

Paul Craig Roberts' latest column at Antiwar.com makes an important and disheartening point about how antiwar arguments have morphed over the decades. Rather than the common perception that the the Vietnam war was brought to its brutal end by antipathy for the draft, Roberts argues that Americans had tired of the immorality of what was until recently our longest war.

Roberts credits a (marginally) more independent media, unafraid to cast the war in moral terms through such images as "the film of the naked little girl running in terror down the road burning with napalm", for "arousing moral opposition to the [Vietnam] war."

Today's conflicts in Iraq and Af-Pak are all too often judged only on materialist conditions, such as U.S. military deaths, what Roberts calls, "Karl Marx's explanation." Indeed, when John McCain argued during the 2008 presidential campaign that the U.SI. could remain in Iraq for 100 years, his sole justification was limiting casualties of U.S. soldiers. Never mind the morality of forcibly occupying the native land of people with the same inalienable, God-given natural rights as the rest of us.

Roberts' conclusion for why the American people have tolerated these morally indefensible wars for so long?:

The answer is that the United States is an immoral country, with an immoral people and an immoral government. Americans no longer have a moral conscience. They have gone over to the Dark Side.

Sadly, I think that Roberts' prognosis is spot on. Christianity's peaceful heritage has long ago been forsaken in America. Pacifism among American Christians was much more widespread prior to WWI than after. Especially since the Cold War, Christians have been the worst warmongers of any segment of society. I would definitely describe that as a moral decline.

This article needs to be taken very seriously by any American who values morality as the foundation of a sound society.

Christian Nation Hypocrisy

Many of today’s leading Christian Conservatives (CCs) often bemoan America’s moral decay as a betrayal of its explicitly biblical foundation. Growing up surrounded by such luminaries as David Barton, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, and Bill Bennett, I heard countless times that the USA was and is a “Christian Nation”. This tag seemed to be assumed from the fact that the Plymouth pilgrims were Puritans, that the majority of the founding fathers professed a Christian faith of some variety, and that Christianity has remained the dominant religion in American society.

An important facet of this Christian Nation Hypothesis is the belief that the American founders explicitly intended to base the nation’s laws and governmental form directly on the Bible, rather than on universal natural law. This has given Christian Conservatism a flavor of near-theocracy, as activists seek to permeate the public atmosphere with explicitly Christian symbolism, such as displays of the Ten Commandments in government courthouses and prayer in government schools.

One tragic result of this view of constitution as bible is that it often gives a holy aura of religious justification for the state in general and the American state in particular. This rationalization is seen no more clearly than in CCs’ reverence for the American military and its wars.

It is always an unspoken assumption among CCs that American wars are only commenced for the noblest of reasons, are prosecuted by the noblest of means, and that American soldiers inherently act with honor, nobility and sacrifice. This is as opposed to the evil enemy soldiers who torture innocents, kill indiscriminately, and take orders from ruthless, bloodthirsty tyrants, hungry for world domination and the extinction of the Christian heritage of freedom and democracy. If American soldiers ever cross the perceived line of morality, it can either be dismissed as an anomaly or excused as acceptable based on the greater evil of the enemy.

This fable is strengthened all the more by the fact that the enemy soldiers many times are of an inferior religion, such as the atheist communists of North Vietnam and North Korea, or the Muslims of Iraq and Afghanistan.

CCs often lament America’s moral decay, exemplified by teenage sexual promiscuity, the legalized murder of innocent unborn, divorce rates, and the widespread acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle. American society has demonstrably strayed from biblical mores to be sure. But glaringly missing from the list above is decade after decade of military incursion, occupation, and domination by American troops across the globe.

Christians are right to measure society against biblical standards in areas of sexuality, family, and the sanctity of life in utero. But why are obvious biblical teachings so easily ignored when it comes to questions of war, peace, militarism, torture, and the sanctity of foreign lives? It’s not as if the Bible doesn’t address such issues.

Jesus’ life on earth is a shining example of proactive, non-violent activism. He came to earth as Messiah to a place and time that interpreted the Messiah as a liberating military/political leader. He had every opportunity to rally his followers to arms. Instead, he led a mission of uncompromising peace and love in the face of virulent, and eventually violent, opposition.

When Christians cheer “shock and awe” bombing campaigns, do they think of Jesus’ words, “Love your enemies?”

When they defend the merciless torturing of prisoners based on the supposition that they are religiously-motivated killers, do they hear Jesus’ admonition to, “Pray for those that persecute you?”

When they justify violent retaliation for perceived wrongs, do they forget that, “Vengeance is mine, says the Lord?”

When they condemn the enemy’s actions as war crimes, are they oblivious is Jesus’ warning to, “first take the plank out of your own eye?”

When they excuse the death and destruction of foreign civilians’ lives as collateral damage, how to they expect to honor the Great Commission’s call to take the Gospel to the entire world?

When Christian leaders seek God’s forgiveness for the nation’s sins in order to restore God’s favor, do they recall Jesus’ promise that, “Blessed are the peacemakers?”

Some may contend that the Bible’s mandates for Christian peace apply only to individuals and not states. But what is a state besides a collection of individuals? A state has no soul, no conscience, no moral will other than that of its leaders and followers. And those leaders and followers are individuals who are ultimately accountable for their choices and actions as measured against the biblical moral standard.

Besides, even if the state was an entity exempt from individual moral responsibilities, if ours is a “Christian Nation”, it should therefore wholly reflect and promote Christ’s values. If the CCs are right about America’s Christian identity, then they are being grossly hypocritical in their application of biblical standards by cheering warfare. If they are wrong, then they still hold an individual moral duty to adhere to all biblical standards, supremely the call to love our neighbors and enemies.

American Christians need to abandon this tragic dichotomy and turn instead to consistently pursue the path blazed by the Prince of Peace. The Gospel of Jesus is a gospel of peace and reconciliation, of unwarranted compassion from a God of perfect holiness and justice. We do the Gospel great shame to practice anything less.

The U.S. Army is Spying on Americans

According to Dan Kennedy of The Guardian (citing a NY Times story), a U.S. Army operative infiltrated and spied on an antiwar activist group in Washington. Here is the original story as broken by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now:


There is no way this is an isolated case. Past experience tells us that operations of this nature are always broader than they first appear. Evidence from this more detailed report from Justin Raimondo would seem to indicate that a more widespread operation is likely.

Is this liberty? Is this the rule of law? Is this the America we think we know?