Foreign Policy Realism and the Prophetic Summons: Jeremiah, Syria, Ukraine and the West

Fools rush in to apply Biblical principles to the complexities of contemporary foreign policy - an exercise which often results in the espousing of bizarre and impractical opinions, and a lack of critical analysis, making the word of God look ridiculous.

It is with some trepidation, therefore, that I offer the following analysis of Jeremiah 27 and apply it retrospectively to the current situation in Ukraine and Syria. 

In the passage cited, the kingdom of Judah finds itself invaded by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, who has defeated the army and entered the city of Jerusalem. Having deposed the king (Jehoichin) and replaced him with a puppet ruler (Zedekiah), the Babylonian tyrant then forcibly removes from Judah the economic and social elite of Judean society, taking them into exile, and leaving behind "only the poorest people of the land." (2 Kings 24:14). Nebuchadnezzar, who was personally present in Judah during this military campaign, also removes the royal treasures from Jerusalem, as well as the precious metal artifacts from the Temple. 

 The best-preserved image of King Nebuchadnezzar II, standing next to one of the ziggurats built during his reign. 

Against this backdrop, the prophet Jeremiah (born c. 642 BC) addresses the new vassal king of Judah as well as the envoys of the surrounding nations - Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre and Sidon. These foreign secretaries have gathered in Jerusalem to discuss a possible coalition against Babylon, the new dominant power in the region.

Jeremiah's message to this would-be coalition summit is unambiguous: he urges them to abandon their plans and to submit to the king of Babylon as vassals. The following is typical of the prophet's approach:

This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: “Tell this to your masters: With my great power and outstretched arm I made the earth and its people and the animals that are on it, and I give it to anyone I please. Now I will give all your countries into the hands of my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; I will make even the wild animals subject to him. All nations will serve him and his son and his grandson until the time for his land comes; then many nations and great kings will subjugate him.


The consequences of pursuing the planned rebellion are severe, according to the prophet:

“If, however, any nation or kingdom will not serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon or bow its neck under his yoke, I will punish that nation with the sword, famine and plague, declares the Lord, until I destroy it by his hand. So do not listen to your prophets, your diviners, your interpreters of dreams, your mediums or your sorcerers who tell you, ‘You will not serve the king of Babylon.’ They prophesy lies to you that will only serve to remove you far from your lands; I will banish you and you will perish. But if any nation will bow its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon and serve him, I will let that nation remain in its own land to till it and to live there, declares the Lord.”

On the one hand, Jeremiah is preaching a message of God's sovereignty in the rise and fall of governments and nations. At the same time, he is urging what could be seen as a "realist" approach to international relations - a recognition that the practical consequences of rebellion will be far worse than the consequences of submission and vassal status. 

It is far too easy to engage in armchair politics and analyse contemporary and complex situations from a safe distance. Nonetheless, to the extent that the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria are directly impinging upon Britain - military intervention against IS, trade sanctions against Russia, and the vast numbers of displaced peoples resulting from the upheavals -  it is important to have a view on our nation's policy in these conflicts, not least of all in order to be equipped to respond to future scenarios.   

Initial support from some western countries for anti-Assad groups in Syria and for pro-western factions in Ukraine before and during the Euromaiden demonstrations are matters of record. In both cases, ideological motives combined with claims that such western support would reduce the numbers of civilian causalities affected by the two upheavals. An important question to ask therefore is whether, on balance, the civilian populations of both countries are better off or worse off as a result of these rebellions, and whether on humanitarian grounds alone, western support for them has been justified, quite apart from ideological considerations.  

In Syria, the statistics of the five-year war are staggering: 

• a quarter of a million people have been killed 
• 7.6 million Syrians have been displaced 
• 4 million of these have fled the country - a number equal to about 20% of the pre-war population 

The conflict has also seen widespread human rights abuses on all sides, massacres of civilians and combatants, and the rise of Islamic State who have made brutality a defining hallmark of their rule.  


Although overall casualties in Ukraine have been far lower, the displacement of over one million civilians within Ukraine, and the involvement of Russian "irregular" forces in the east of the country and the Crimea make the Ukraine crisis the most serious military situation in Europe since the Balkan Wars.    

Jeremiah's position was that submission to the tyrant provided better outcomes for the subjugated nation as a whole than armed rebellion. This claim had several related strands:

1. The "realistic" view that it was Babylon's time to be a world power - a reality wrapped in the mystery of God's sovereignty.
2. The "realistic" view that the minor nations of the near-middle east were going to come under Babylonian domination by the will of God
3. The claim that subjugation by Babylon was not the same as annihilation. It was in Babylon's interest to extract wealth from its subject kingdoms, not to massacre them or render them economically bankrupt
4. The time-limited nature of Babylonian domination. This prediction was fulfilled by the defeat of Babylon by the ascending Persian Empire under its ruler Cyrus the Great in 539 BC.

Looking at the carnage in Syria, and the fragmentation of Ukraine along nationalistic lines, it is difficult to argue against the view that. on practical grounds alone, the outcomes for the citizens of these two different countries would have been better if armed rebellion against a tyrant (in the case of Syria) or the forcible removal of an elected President (in the case of Ukraine) had not taken place when they did. Furthermore, it is hard to argue that the west's support for these developments has turned out to be in the best interest of the populations most affected by them.

Aristotle taught the virtue of slow revolutions in political life. Not all fundamental political change has to be sudden. The al-Assad regime could not have lasted for ever. The strengthening of civic society within Syria and Ukraine may have been a less dramatic but potentially more sustainable and judicious approach to supporting the democratisation of these nations.


Hard-nosed, biblically-informed realism should not be ignored when formulating policy in these complex arenas. The well-being of the people, combined with a measured assessment of the risks and outcomes, must be central to western responses. Ideology alone will deliver more pain, not less. 

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Drones

MQ-1L Predator UAV armed with AGM-114 Hellfire missiles (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This week, protests took place in my home city of Bristol outside a conference on the use of drones in counter terrorism.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism has found that since President Obama took office, between 282 and 535 civilians have been credibly reported as killed in drone attacks inside Pakistan. This despite no formal declaration of war in or against Pakistan. This total includes more than 60 children.

 

The United States government defends its right to target terrorists in other countries as it is at war with al-Qaeda. Many experts in international law strongly disagree with this analysis.

The question is, how would we react if Russia or China used drones to kill its enemies located in western countries, killing civilians in the process?

 

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Related articles

• Drone Strike Kills Four in Pakistan (wrc559.com)
• Hague to be sued for aiding US drone attacks in Pakistan (alethonews.wordpress.com)
• Civilian deaths in drone attacks (nation.com.pk)
• The C.I.A.'s Silence on Drone Strikes Is Getting Awkward (theatlanticwire.com)
• US drone campaign targeted rescuers, mourners (nation.com.pk)

Storm Brewing: Kenya, Somalia, Uganda and America

I'm nervous for Kenya, whose troops have for the last week been pursuing an aggressive intervention into neighbouring Somalia to hunt down Islamic militants from the al-Shabaab group, some of whom are believed to be behind a series of recent kidnappings and murders in the Kenya boarder area.

US forces are supporting the Kenyan incursion, with an American drone attack today killing 44 people and wounding 63 others in southern Somalia. 

US forces have also recently been sent to Uganda by Presidential decree, apparently to help combat the insurgent LRA in the north of the country. It seems that their presence will add support to US anti-terrorist operations in the horn of Africa.

Al-Shabaab will of course fight back, so the fear is for terror attacks in Nairobi and Mombasa as retaliation for the recent incursions.

I can't see it ending well. 

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Related articles

• Nairobi bomb attacks increase al-Shabaab fears (telegraph.co.uk)
• Kenyan troops near al-Shabaab town in Somalia (cbc.ca)
• U.S. Embassy Warns of Terrorist Attacks in Kenya (onebluestocking.wordpress.com)

Christians and Wikileaks

Reaction to the Wikileaks phenomenon among Christians has been mixed, but in my observation this week, it has gravitated towards being concerned or annoyed, with a minority being outraged. A short piece by Julie Clawson on the Sojourner's website has been the only article I have read so far from a Christian perspective that sees the publishing of the leaks as a qualified good.

In reflecting on the more general view among Christians whose comments I have read this week, which express concern or hostility, I have noted a number of theological and political assumptions which are influencing interpretations of the Wikileaks project. In addition, as we shall see, there are more personal concerns being raised about the nature of security and privacy in the Internet age.

1. A high view of government. The "key texts" of Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2 appear to represent a grid through which a deferential perspective on the role of political rulers is formed and expressed.
2. A concern about process. I have heard some say that while they see it as helpful for the public to know the facts about how its government has been operating, they are nervous about the manner in which Wikileaks have gone about disclosing the inner workings of the state.
   
3. A concern about lawlessness. The commencement of Denial of Service attacks against businesses which have withdrawn support from Wikileaks (including Amazon, Mastercard, Visa and PayPal) has, in my reading, raised the hackles of those who might otherwise be more sympathetic to the Wikileaks agenda. One church leader in the United States, for instance, has questioned whether these DOD attacks represent a "spirit of lawlessness" as described in 2 Thessalonians 2.
   
4. A concern for privacy - both at the institutional and individual level. It has been interesting to hear some express concern that the leaking of the State Department's internal memos could be a step in the direction of everyone's private thoughts and correspondence being broadcast online. Interestingly, I have not come across this particular Orwellian concern being expressed by anyone other than Christian writers in the last week.

What can we deduce from the above points, and are there alternative or complementary considerations that are worth taking into account when assessing the Wikileaks phenomenon? A few broad themes present themselves:

1. Romans 12 and 1 Peter 2 could be read against the backdrop of a New Testament that paints a rather more negative view of government than might be suggested if those two passages are taken in isolation. We see in the writing of the apostles rulers portrayed as routinely corrupt, immoral and bloodthirsty (think Herod), described as enemies of the gospel (emperors and their subordinates) and as members of an immoral world system that is under God's judgment, represented variously as a drunken prostitute and a many-headed monster.
2. We ought to think carefully about "why" it is that many believers appear to be more troubled by the process of the leaks than they are by some of the facts they reveal. In particular, the large (and previously unreported) number of civilians who have lost their lives as a direct result of the American and British invasion of Iraq ought, surely, to be of greater concern than any loss of prestige caused to the governments that have contributed to these loses. If this is not the case, we must ask ourselves some fundamental questions about our faith and the moral priorities that arise from it.
3. We should be careful not to equate lawlessness with disturbing the status quo. Blind obedience to rulers is not a virtue, Christian or otherwise, and all moral people will have some actions which they will not commit, even if required to do so by the State. Furthermore, we should be careful to not miss the fact that the leaks reveal spectacular acts of lawlessness on the part of those in government. Illegal phone tapping of citizens, and orders to obtain biometric data from UN diplomats, are revealed as just two of the most obvious examples of lawless activity that elected leaders stand accused of by their own official documents.
   
4. We should be careful to be historically consistent when analyzing such a phenomenon as Wikileaks. It is ironic, to say the least, to hear residents of a nation birthed in an act of armed rebellion (the United Sates) denying the right of citizens to take modest action to assert their freedoms and challenge the perceived injustices of militarized and increasingly dominant governments.
5. Concerns about individual privacy are important and valid concerns. However, the reality is that the greatest threats to our right to a private life come not from reporters such as Julian Assange, but from corporations and governments who have the power and the motive to pry, spy and intrude in ways unimaginable a generation ago. Against such a backdrop, the need for a free press (defined as one that says things some people don't want to have said) remains of paramount importance as a restraint against tyranny.
   

The War Your Don't See

The War You Don't See trailer from John Pilger on Vimeo.

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Tony Blair Doesn't Speak for Me When He Speaks of God

Image via Wikipedia

For the benefit of my four-and-a -half regular readers, and those others who stumble here unintentionally, here's my take on the Tony Blair-Christopher Hitchens debate taking place this week at the Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto on the question, "Is religion a force for good in the world?"

As a Christian believer myself (I hope I am a real one, converted to Christ from a secular background) it may be assumed that I will be pleased to support Mr Blair's case for God.

But I am not.

For a start, I do not support "religion" as a whole, as if the essence of Buddhism is essentially the same as the essence of Christianity, as the essence of Islam, etc.

They are not all the same. Any superficial consideration of the matter will reveal that religions vary greatly, from the brutal sun-worshiping religions of pre-Colombian America, to the Salvation Army, the Catholic crusades, and the nature-worshiping Druids. Lumping them all together and assessing whether they are "good" or not seems analogous to lumping together one-state Marxism, participatory multi-party democracy and market-anarchism, and asking whether or not "politics" is a force for good.

Clearly, the devil in such a question is in the detail.

More significantly, however, is my objection to the participation of Tony Blair in such a high-profile debate. Although I am unqualified to comment on the reality of his Christian faith, and would not presume to do so, I am sure of this: the action of invading Iraq in 2003 set in motion a chain of events which, by 2010, has had catastrophic results for the Christian churches in Iraq - including the Roman Catholic wing of the church to which Tony Blair converted in 2007.

Christians are required to exercise discernment in their lives, and part of this discipline includes an assessment of the consequences (the "fruit") of a course of action, not only its abstract theoretical dimension. The fruit of the invasion of Iraq for the Christian believers in that nation has been to make them significantly more vulnerable to brutal attack and persecution than was the case before 2003.

The murderous Jihadists who cut off the heads of church leaders in Iraq, and who blow themselves up inside churches, were not committing these acts inside Iraq before the invasion. The same tragic story is unfolding in Pakistan, where Jihadists forced out of Afghanistan by NATO forces, have added to the volatile religious and political mixture in the country and have increased their violent attacks upon Christians and their churches.

The professing Christian Tony Blair, as Prime Minister, was a prime mover in these terrible events which have unleashed such harm onto the church, not to mention the wider non-Christian population. President Bush, also a professing Christian, was of course the senior partner in this folly.

In light of such harm that has been caused, to those the Bible encourages me to see as members of my extended spiritual family, I cannot passively accept that the man who helped to create the conditions which have allowed such suffering to the church, should be accepted in any way as a spokesman for "the faith" that we both profess to share, or for "faith" in general.

There was a time in history when a warrior-ruler who professed faith would be taken kindly but firmly in hand by a bishop and led on a path of repentance and humility. The phenomenon of a king abdicating in order to enter a monastery was not an uncommon occurrence in the pre-modern era. Today, the path for such a man appears to consist of book deals, speaking tours, six figure salaries and endless justifications for indefensible actions which have had catastrophic consequences.

Would it be too much to ask for Mr Blair to choose to lower his personal profile, to repent of his presumption in acting as apologist for God, and to head the words of the ancient prophet:

He has shown you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.

Micah 6:8

Or to heed the words of the prophet Jeremiah:

Stand at the crossroads and look;
ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
and you will find rest for your souls.

Jeremiah 6:16

In the meantime, as a Christian, I can accept Tony Blair as a repentant sinner, if that is what he is. I am one too and God knows my own need of forgiveness. But I cannot identify with Mr Blair's role as a religious apologist and, not for the first time, I am reluctantly left to say of his actions, "Not in my name."

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Related articles

• Tony Blair to debate Christopher Hitchens on religion (ctv.ca)
• Blair v. Hitchens: Is religion a force for good or ill? (theglobeandmail.com)
• Blair v. Hitchens poll (scienceblogs.com)

Aki Ra: DIY Landmine Clearance Hero

Having blogged on this site several times on the subject of land mines and cluster bombs, I was amazed to come across the work of Aki Ra, a former Khmer Rouge child soldier who now clears landmines by hand in his native Cambodia, armed with little more than a stick and a pen knife.

Thanks to Ben Thomson for alerting me to this incredible individual. Check out the video and read Ben's tribute here. Ra estimates that he has personally cleared about 50,000 landmines himself, and has trained over 1,000 fellow Cambodians to do the same, using low tech tools and methods.

As kingmanjim comments on YouTube, "How did Obama get the Nobel Peace Prize with this guy around?"

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Lessons from Afghanistan

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Robert Blackwill, is a former U.S. Ambassador to India and was a member of the National Security Council during the Bush administration (with responsibility for Iraq). In a recent speech, Blackwill noted the following lessons that future policy makers should learn from America's Afghanistan experience:

• Keep U.S. policy objectives feasible. No dreams allowed.
• Take into account that local realities dominate global constructs.
• Stay out of long ground wars in general, and especially stay out of long ground wars in Asia.
• Reject the notion that America has the capability to socially engineer far-off societies fundamentally different from our own.
• Be cautious about making counterinsurgency the U.S. Army's core competence. Interacting with exotic foreign cultures on the ground, not to say dramatically changing them, is not exactly America's comparative advantage.
• Accept that diplomacy is almost always a better instrument of U.S. national purpose than the use of military force.
• Remember that often purported worst case consequences of U.S. external behavior don't ever happen, not least because we remain the most powerful and resilient country on earth.

Also from Stephen M Walt, who is the source of the above summary of Robert Blackwill's speech, is a great piece on 10 Reasons Wars Last Too Long. One of the many insightful quotes from the essay is:

Great powers often stay in losing wars not because the stakes in a particular conflict are so large, but because they fear that withdrawal will have profound effects on their reputation and far-reaching repercussions elsewhere. The scholarly literature on this issue suggests that these concerns are usually exaggerated, but that doesn't stop pundits from making this claim and doesn't stop politicians from listening to it.

A further lesson (my own I suppose) is to recognise that the perceived dangers of backing out of an un-winnable war (in terms of loss of national prestige) are far greater than those associated with staying in one.

Source of Blackwill quote is from Stephen M Walt.

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Guns, Government and Anglo-American Assumptions

When looking at America's constitutional position on bearing arms, most British people (I know, because I've talked to all of them!) make a number of assumptions about the American "right" to bear arms:

1. that it is an anachronism which has no place in the modern era where there is a functioning state and police force
2. that advocates of gun ownership are all right-wing bigots
3. that the presence of multiple privately-owned guns is one factor contributing to high rates of violent crime in the United States
4. that those who argue for private gun ownership are supportive of the American military, especially in its more recent, aggressive foreign policy operations since Vietnam.
   

Although there may be some truth in all of these assumptions (!), a new edition of an old book makes the case that private (as opposed to state) ownership of weapons is in fact a practice rooted in an anti-militarist mindset which sees the need for structural limits on the power of the state and the armed forces.

The Civilian and the Military: A History of the American Anti militarist Tradition, by Arthur A Ekirch, examines the tradition of civil authority and its decline since 1950. It seems strange on this side of the Atlantic to hear the words America and anti-militarism in the same sentence. But this, apparently, is at the heart of the idea of private gun ownership, according to the author.

I've not read the book, but it is reviewed here.

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US Nuclear Tests in Space - 1962

Back in the summer of 1962, the U.S. blew up a hydrogen bomb in outer space, some 250 miles above the Pacific Ocean. It was a weapons test, but one that created a man-made light show that has never been equaled — and hopefully never will.

Source.

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Corporations Profit From Permanent War: Memorial Day 2010

The following article by Bill Quigley is reproduced from today's Truthout under an Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Creative Commons Licence.

US law officially proclaims Memorial Day "as a day of prayer for permanent peace."

However, the US is much closer to permanent war than permanent peace. Corporations are profiting from wars and lobbying politicians for more. The US and the rest of the world cannot afford the rising personal and financial costs of permanent war.

Number One in War

No doubt, the USA is number one in war. This coming year, the US will spend 708 billion dollars on war, and another $125 billion for Veterans Affairs - over $830 billion. In a distant second place is China, which spent about $84 billion on its military in 2008.

The US also leads the world in the sale of lethal weapons to others, selling about one of every three weapons worldwide. The USA's major clients? South Korea, Israel and United Arab Emirates.

Our country has 5 percent of the world's population, but accounts for more than 40 percent of the military spending for the whole world.

Harm

Our nation does not respect our soldiers by engaging in permanent war. War is grinding up our children. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have cost over 5,000 US lives and tens of thousands more lives of people in those countries. Over 20 percent of those in our military who served in these two wars, 320,000 people, have war-related traumatic brain injuries. Suicide rates are up by 26 percent among 18- to 29-year-old male veterans in the latest Veterans Administration study. Mental health hospitalizations are now the leading cause of hospital admissions for the military, higher than injuries. On any given night, over 100,000 veterans are homeless and living on our nation's streets.

Rising Costs of War

Since 2001, the US has spent over $6 trillion (a trillion is a million millions) on war and preparations for war. That is about $20,000 for every woman, man and child in the US. Iraq and Afghanistan alone have cost the US taxpayer over a trillion dollars since 2001.

No End in Sight

Earlier this month, Marine Gen. James Cartwright, the vice chair of the military Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Army Times that the US can expect continuing war "for as far as the eye can see."

In the name of this perpetual war against terrorism, the US still jails hundreds without trial in Guantanamo, holds hundreds more in prisons on bases and in secret detention worldwide, tries to avoid constitutional trials for anyone accused of terrorism, admits it is trying to assassinate an American citizen Muslim cleric in Yemen and launches deadly drone strikes in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen, killing civilians and suspects whenever they decide.

Who Benefits From Permanent War?

One support for permanent war is that there are corporations in the US which openly lobby for more and more money to be invested in war. Why? Because they profit enormously from government contracts.

President Dwight Eisenhower, who believed in a strong military, warned the US about just this in his farewell address to the nation in 1961. "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes."

War Is Big Business

War is very big business. People know that private companies are doing much more in war. In January 2010, the Congressional Research Service reported that there are at least 55,000 private armed security contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan and maybe many more - as many as 70,000 in Afghanistan alone.

But much bigger money is available to defense contractors. In 2008 alone, the top ten defense contractors received nearly $150 billion in federal contracts. These corporations spent millions to lobby for billions more in federal funds and hired ex-military leaders and ex-officials to help them profit off war.

For example, look at the top three defense contractors, Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Northrop Grumman. They demonstrate why perpetual war is profitable and part of the reason it continues.

Lockheed Martin

Lockheed Martin is the largest military contractor in the world with 140,000 employees, taking in over $40 billion annually, over $35 billion of which comes from the US government. Lockheed Martin boasts that they have increased their dividend payments by more than 10 percent for the seventh consecutive year - perfectly in line with the increase in war spending by the US. Its Chairman Robert Stevens received over $72 million in compensation over the past three years.

Lockheed's board of directors includes a former under secretary of defense, a former US Air Force commander of the US Strategic Command, a former deputy director of Homeland Security and a former supreme allied commander of Europe. These board members receive over $200,000 a year in compensation. Its political action committee gave over a million dollars a year to federal candidates in 2009, and is consistently one of the top spending PACs in the US. They appeal to all members of Congress because they strategically have operations in all 50 states. And since 1998, Lockheed has spent over $125 million to lobby Congress.

Northrop Grumman

Northrop Grumman is a $33 billion company with 120,000 employees. In 2008, it received nearly $25 billion in federal contracts. Its Chairman Ronald Sugar received over $54 million in compensation over the past three years.

Northrop's Board includes a former admiral of the Navy, a former 20-year member of Congress, a former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a former commissioner of the Security and Exchange Commission and a former US naval officer. The members of its board of directors received over $200,000 each in 2009. Its PAC is listed as making over $700,000 in federal campaign donations in 2009. Since 1998, it has spent over $147 million lobbying Congress.

Boeing

Boeing has 150,000 employees and took in over $23 billion in federal contracts in 2008. With revenues of $68 billion in 2009, its Chair James McNerney was paid over $51 million over the past three years. Its board members are paid well over $200,000 a year. Boeing's directors include a former US secretary of Commerce, a former White House chief of staff, a former vice chair of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff and a former US ambassador and US trade representative. It hosts the tenth largest political action committee, giving away more than one million dollars to federal candidates in 2009. Since 1998, it has spent $125 million lobbying Congress.

Time to Terminate the Permanent War

These corporations take billions from the government and profit from our perpetual state of war. They recycle some of that money back into lobbying the same people who gave it to them, and hire ex-military and government officials to help smooth the process. Their leaders make tens of millions off this work.

The trillions of dollars that it costs to wage permanent war are taxing the US economy. Yet, where are the voices in Congress, Democrat or Republican, that talk seriously of dramatically reducing our military spending? President Obama and the Democrats are effectively continuing the permanent war policies of the Bush years. It is past time for change.

Remember this Memorial Day that, while thousands have been laid in their graves and hundreds of thousands wounded, private military contractors are prospering and profiting as the business of war booms.

The US should not only remember its dead, but work to reverse the profitable permanent war that promises to add more names to the dead and disabled in this country and around the world.

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A Brief History of Afghanistan

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On Obama's Nobel Peace Prize

To be honest, I was very surprised at the announcement that President Obama has been awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.

While I am pleased at Obama's multilateral approach and his commitment to strengthening international institutions - all in sharp contrast to the narrow nationalism of the Bush era - I agree with Paul Reynolds at the BBC who describes the unexpected award as "more of an encouragement for intentions than a reward for achievements."

The trouble is that the prize has not generally been awarded for intentions but for measurable accomplishments in promoting and achieving lasting peace in specific situations.

Consider 1998's Peace Prize Laureates, David Trimble and John Hume, for instance. They were at the heart of a painstaking process that brought a thirty-year civil war to a close in Northern Ireland, the fruit of this peace being felt every day by millions of people. Mandela and DeClerk in 1993 are at least as striking examples of peace achievers.

Changing the tone of America's international relations and beginning talks on nuclear disarmament - good though these moves are - hardly seem to be in the same league.

I hope this does not represent a devaluing of the currency of the Nobel Prizes. Even worse, I hope it doesn't mean that we've become so accustomed to permanent warfare that we've forgotten what peace actually feels like.

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Be Careful Who You Change Your Money With

Ever searched for a term in google and stumbled upon a site other than you one you expected and had always used?

Unsuspecting searchers run this risk with the popular XE.com online currency converter, described as "the world's most popular currency site" when they google the term "xe". That's because of the recently formed company known as "XE" which provides a rather different service from currency conversion for tourists and businesses.

The other xe company, based in North Carolina, describes its services as International Training, Mobility and Logistics, Innovative Technologies and Professional Resources.

Further light is shed on what these terms include when digging into the sight a little and discovering references to antenna systems, high-tech surveillance equipment, weapons and armor, armored vehicles and a list of current vacancies with the company which include Firearms and Tactics Instructor, Aviation Project Director and Navy Instructor (part-time).

XE is, of course, none other than the old Blackwater security firm, banned by the government of Iraq earlier this year after its involvement in the killings of 11 civilians in Baghdad's Nisur Square on September 16, 2007. Renamed XE this year, a move which had nothing at all to do with its similarity to one of the Internet's most visited sites, the company continues to provide over 900 contractors to the US State Department for various operations.

The XE company is one of the most prominent examples of the growing trend towards the outsourcing and commercialization of war.

And if that weren't bad enough, they don't do currency conversions.

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Iranian Election: no Excuse for Western Agitation

Watching the scenes of Iranians protesting in Tehran after the re-election of President Ahmadinejad and noting the predictions (on the BBC , for instance) of on-going antagonism between his government and those of Britain and the United States, I am reminded of the words of an Iranian friend currently seeking asylum in the UK.

When I asked him once whether he thought the United States would ever fight a war against Iran, my friend said that he doubted that would happen as the American government should be aware of the Iranian people's long history in unifying against foreign invaders - the country having successfully resisted all attempts at military conquest since 1501.

Instead, my friend said, he believed that if President Ahmadinejad continued in his provoactive stance towards the west, the Americans would attempt to ferment civil unrest within the country and seek to bring down the government in that way. In that scenario, thousands of Iranian civilians would be killed by the police and security services in the uprising. This, in effect, would, accoring to my friend, represent a proxy war fought against the Iranian government with Iranian civilians serving as the foot soldiers, with no loss of American lives and with no significant political damage if the uprising failed in its (American) aim of achieving regime change inside Iran.

Let's hope for the sake of thousands of innocent Iranian civilians that Mr Panetta and his colleagues at the CIA show the restraint needed to not contribute to such a bloodbath.

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Rumsfeld Preaches A Different Gospel

Former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered Bible verses to be placed on the front of top secret military intelligence documents prepared for cabinet and Presidential briefings during the Bush years.

The covers of these documents have now been made public and combine to paint a picture of a gospel of violence and nationalism.

The images, which can be viewed here, are a sober reminder of the dangers of misusing the word of God to support one's own agenda - in this case the Project for a New American Century , a right-wing think tank advocating the aggressive expansion of American diplomatic and military influence around the world, especially into the middle east. The Project was the first body to articulate the concept of a "regime change" in Iraq, several years before it was expressed as government policy by the Bush administration.

President Obama has ordered these Bible verses to be removed from future intelligence briefings under his administration - a move which may be criticised by some as evidence of the secular nature of the current administration but which, in my view, could be equally seen as the kind of action needed to purge a gospel of war from the corridors of power. Perhaps this act could be loosely compared with Hezekiah destroying the bronze serpent - an object that had been a means of grace but whose use had been perverted into a form of idolatry.

Historically, third stream Christian groups have included many pacifists or, as some would describe themselves, active peacemakers. Even those who have not been pacifists have been careful to avoid the trap of using Biblical proof texts to justify militarism, as Donald Rumsfeld has so crudely done.

CNN, Iraq and Twitter

The following video from CNN illustrates the routine banality of much of the American mainstream media as it seems to increasingly serve a light entertainment PR role on behalf of large corportations and celebrity culture rather than having a genuinely independent and investigative voice.

The clip consists of an interview between CNN's Kiran Chetry and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, who is in Iraq today to learn from local people about whether and how the social media platform might serve the cause of nation building in Iraq. Dorsey's patience with the infantile level of interviewing is to his credit.

The thudding noise in the background is either the reverberations from the suicide attack today north of Baghdad which claimed the lives of five civilians, or it might be me banging my head on my desk in despair.

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North Korean Rocket Launch - a Non-Event?

Not sure what to make of Postman Patel's claim that the reported launch of a rocket from North Korea did not really happen - at least on nothing like the scale reported in the western media.

He makes a reasonable case for there being no story of any substance.

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On Changing the Clocks

It's really only 08.50 as I start to write this.

The change to British Summer Time at 01.00 this morning routinely produces such conversations in households around the country.

The practice of moving the clocks forward one hour on the last Sunday in March was enshrined in British law in 1916. During World War 2, however, the country operated on double summer time, when the clocks went forward in October of 1940 and then were advanced again in the Spring of 1941. Less night time for enemy bombing raids, presumably. Or was it designed to save energy through less lighting being needed?

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents favours returning to the system of double summer time, claiming that the lighter evenings would result in fewer injuries and fatalities on the roads and elsewhere. Such a system, of course, would see sunrise occurring as late as 10.00 am in parts of Scotland and Northern Ireland, were it implemented across the UK. The Local Government Association also favours such a system. A failed Parilamentary bill of 2006 would have allowed Scotland and Northern Ireland to opt out of double summer time if it were introduced in England and Wales.

In the Middle East, meanwhile, while the British-friendly Kingdom of Jordan adopts the practice of changing the clocks twice a year, neighbouring Saudi Arabia and Kuwait take a different approach. They keep the time constant year round but move the working day instead. Kuwaiti workers will therefore arrive at the office on Monday an hour earlier than normal. The latter system would no doubt generate its own variations on the "where did that hour go?" conversations.

Which reminds me, it's 10.10, so I need to go (even though it's really only 09.10).

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When it's Cool to be a Historian

I read the following paragraph recently from Martin Gilbert's A History of the Twentieth Century (Volume Three, 1952-1999) and thought about how much fun he must have had writing it.

The section is about the invasion of Kuwait by the army of Iraq in 1990 and the response of the global community to it. Quoting President Bush (senior) from his memoirs, Gilbert writes:

"In the first few weeks of the crisis, I happened to be reading a book on World War II by the British historian Martin Gilbert. I saw a direct analogy between what was occurring in Kuwait and what the Nazis had done, especially in Poland....I saw a chilling parallel with what the Iraqi occupiers were doing in Kuwait."

I can imagine a fictitious conversation in the future:

What did you do during the war, granddad?

Well son, I used the excellent facilities of Merton College, Oxford to write books that influenced world leaders. Now bring me my slippers, there's a good lad.

Marvellous.







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