Tag Archives: war

Until the Prince of Peace shall come

War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

Of all the promises of Christmas one seemingly stirs our hearts above all others: that the Prince of Peace has come. The Old Testament prophet Isaiah, in one of the earliest writings about the Advent of the Messiah, indicated He would be “named Wonderful Counselor, Eternal Father, Mighty God, Prince of Peace” (9:6).

Most people would readily acknowledge such a hope has yet to be realized.

Iraqi soldiers exiting Iraqi air force helicopter [Image credit]

Following the mass murder in Newtown, Connecticut last week our thoughts again turned to violence. Twenty children killed before they could even reach the prime of life, whatever that is. Correlations were made to abortion, and, in the view of this writer, rightfully so.

By no measure of divine justice will violence outside the womb outweigh violence inside it.

Childhelp.org reports five U.S. children die each day as a direct result of abuse while 6 million are abused and/or neglected annually. That equates to another Sandy Hook every four days.

According to the International Center for Assault Prevention more than “40 million children below the age of 15 are subjected to child abuse each year” (2001). In addition the World Health Organization estimates that 150 million girls and 73 million boys under 18 experienced forced sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual violence during 2002.

What about war? Statistics on war deaths are varied and cover different periods of time, but this site lists conflicts since the American Civil War:

1860-65: USA civil war (628,000)
1886-1908: Belgium-Congo Free State (8 million)
1898: USA-Spain & Philippines (220,000)
1899-02: British-Boer war (100,000)
1899-03: Colombian civil war (120,000)
1899-02: Philippines vs USA (20,000)
1900-01: Boxer rebels against Russia, Britain, France, Japan, USA against rebels (35,000)
1903: Ottomans vs Macedonian rebels (20,000)
1904: Germany vs Namibia (65,000)
1904-05: Japan vs Russia (150,000)
1910-20: Mexican revolution (250,000)
1911: Chinese Revolution (2.4 million)
1911-12: Italian-Ottoman war (20,000)
1912-13: Balkan wars (150,000)
1915: the Ottoman empire slaughters Armenians (1.2 million)
1915-20: the Ottoman empire slaughters 500,000 Assyrians
1916-23: the Ottoman empire slaughters 350,000 Greek Pontians and 480,000 Anatolian Greeks
1914-18: World War I (20 million)
1916: Kyrgyz revolt against Russia (120,000)
1917-21: Soviet revolution (5 million)
1917-19: Greece vs Turkey (45,000)
1919-21: Poland vs Soviet Union (27,000)
1928-37: Chinese civil war (2 million)
1931: Japanese Manchurian War (1.1 million)
1932-33: Soviet Union vs Ukraine (10 million)
1932: “La Matanza” in El Salvador (30,000)
1932-35: “Guerra del Chaco” between Bolivia and Paraguay (117.500)
1934: Mao’s Long March (170,000)
1936: Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia (200,000)
1936-37: Stalin’s purges (13 million)
1936-39: Spanish civil war (600,000)
1937-45: Japanese invasion of China (500,000)
1939-45: World War II (55 million) including holocaust and Chinese revolution
1946-49: Chinese civil war (1.2 million)
1946-49: Greek civil war (50,000)
1946-54: France-Vietnam war (600,000)
1947: Partition of India and Pakistan (1 million)
1947: Taiwan’s uprising against the Kuomintang (30,000)
1948-1958: Colombian civil war (250,000)
1948-1973: Arab-Israeli wars (70,000)
1949-: Indian Muslims vs Hindus (20,000)
1949-50: Mainland China vs Tibet (1,200,000)
1950-53: Korean war (3 million)
1952-59: Kenya’s Mau Mau insurrection (20,000)
1954-62: French-Algerian war (368,000)
1958-61: Mao’s “Great Leap Forward” (38 million)
1960-96: Guatemala’s civil war (200,000)
1961-98: Indonesia vs West Papua/Irian (100,000)
1961-2003: Kurds vs Iraq (180,000)
1962-75: Mozambique Frelimo vs Portugal (10,000)
1962-75: Angolan FNLA & MPLA vs Portugal (50,000)
1964-73: USA-Vietnam war (3 million)
1965: second India-Pakistan war over Kashmir
1965-66: Indonesian civil war (250,000)
1966-69: Mao’s “Cultural Revolution” (11 million)
1966-: Colombia’s civil war (31,000)
1967-70: Nigeria-Biafra civil war (800,000)
1968-80: Rhodesia’s civil war (?)
1969-: Philippines vs the communist Bagong Hukbong Bayan/ New People’s Army (40,000)
1969-79: Idi Amin, Uganda (300,000)
1969-02: IRA – Norther Ireland’s civil war (2,000)
1969-79: Francisco Macias Nguema, Equatorial Guinea (50,000)
1971: Pakistan-Bangladesh civil war (500,000)
1972-: Philippines vs Muslim separatists (Moro Islamic Liberation Front, etc) (150,000)
1972: Burundi’s civil war (300,000)
1972-79: Rhodesia/Zimbabwe’s civil war (30,000)
1974-91: Ethiopian civil war (1,000,000)
1975-78: Menghitsu, Ethiopia (1.5 million)
1975-79: Khmer Rouge, Cambodia (1.7 million)
1975-89: Boat people, Vietnam (250,000)
1975-87: civil war in Lebanon (130,000)
1975-87: Laos’ civil war (184,000)
1975-2002: Angolan civil war (500,000)
1976-83: Argentina’s military regime (20,000)
1976-93: Mozambique’s civil war (900,000)
1976-98: Indonesia-East Timor civil war (600,000)
1976-2005: Indonesia-Aceh (GAM) civil war (12,000)
1977-92: El Salvador’s civil war (75,000)
1979: Vietnam-China war (30,000)
1979-88: the Soviet Union invades Afghanistan (1.3 million)
1980-88: Iraq-Iran war (435,000)
1980-92: Sendero Luminoso – Peru’s civil war (69,000)
1984-: Kurds vs Turkey (35,000)
1981-90: Nicaragua vs Contras (60,000)
1982-90: Hissene Habre, Chad (40,000)
1983-: Sri Lanka’s civil war (70,000)
1983-2002: Sudanese civil war (2 million)
1986-: Indian Kashmir’s civil war (60,000)
1987-: Palestinian Intifada (4,500)
1988-2001: Afghanistan civil war (400,000)
1988-2004: Somalia’s civil war (550,000)
1989-: Liberian civil war (220,000)
1989-: Uganda vs Lord’s Resistance Army (30,000)
1991: Gulf War – large coalition against Iraq to liberate Kuwait (85,000)
1991-97: Congo’s civil war (800,000)
1991-2000: Sierra Leone’s civil war (200,000)
1991-2009: Russia-Chechnya civil war (200,000)
1991-94: Armenia-Azerbaijan war (35,000)
1992-96: Tajikstan’s civil war war (50,000)
1992-96: Yugoslavian wars (260,000)
1992-99: Algerian civil war (150,000)
1993-97: Congo Brazzaville’s civil war (100,000)
1993-2005: Burundi’s civil war (200,000)
1994: Rwanda’s civil war (900,000)
1995-: Pakistani Sunnis vs Shiites (1,300)
1995-: Maoist rebellion in Nepal (12,000)
1998-: Congo/Zaire’s war – Rwanda and Uganda vs Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia (3.8 million)
1998-2000: Ethiopia-Eritrea war (75,000)
1999: Kosovo’s liberation war – NATO vs Serbia (2,000)
2001-: Afghanistan’s liberation war – USA & UK vs Taliban (40,000)
2002-: Cote d’Ivoire’s civil war (1,000)
2003-11: Second Iraq-USA war – USA, UK and Australia vs Saddam Hussein and subsequent civil war (160,000)
2003-09: Sudan vs JEM/Darfur (300,000)
2004-: Thailand vs Muslim separatists (3,700)
2007-: Pakistan vs PAkistani Taliban (38,000)
2012-: Syria’s civil war (14,000)

(Estimates are near 100,000,000 direct war deaths, government sponsored deaths and civilian casualties in the 20th century.)

Malcolm X is quoted saying, “Sometimes you have to pick the gun up to put the Gun down.” He might, on occasion, be sadly accurate. The Bible does say to live peacefully with everyone as much as it depends on us. That is to say Christ’s followers should view the sword as the very last resort.

God’s people, who are encouraged to be “peace makers,” should, more than most, long for the re-appearing of the Prince of Peace. We should be wary of those who would rush to war, the first to weary of war itself, and aware of the toll violence–in all its forms–takes on men, women, boys and girls the world over in every generation. Even when war is absolutely necessary we should be the first to critique its excesses and encourage its end. Until the Prince of Peace shall come.

One Christ follower thinks about Gaza, Israel and Palestinians, Part 2

In the first part of this series we considered a little of the history of modern Palestine. A few things were noted most evangelicals may not know including a position in the Israeli government since pre-1948: that the Palestinians should be dispossessed.

If you have not read the above I encourage you to do so before continuing. Some context will be helpful. For reasons probably obvious let me state I am not against Israel, their right to exist as a sovereign nation, nor their right to self-defense. If my posts seem one sided it is due to my effort in providing needed balance within the evangelical community. In most cases I am not reiterating that which is commonly accepted as true; those arguments have been made many times. I also do not defend terroristic or militaristic threats from either side.

Hatred flows both ways in this struggle. Much is made about Hamas’ platform that Israel should not exist, but little is made of Israel’s ongoing desire (and forced effort) to occupy as much of Palestine as possible. Remember the King-Crane commission found a mindset among the Jews to completely dispossess the non-Jewish residents of Palestine. This matched the desire of many in the Arab nations to have neither the Jews in Palestine nor the displaced Palestinians in their own country (though thousands ended up inside those borders anyway).

So what is really going on in Gaza? This from Diane Buttu, a Canadian attorney who has counseled both the PLO and Mahmoud Abbas:

Today, the people of Gaza suffer from a brutal blockade that has lasted for more than 6 years and isolation that has lasted for more than 20 years. Israel strictly controls imports into Gaza and exports are virtually non-existent. Palestinian life is so controlled by Israel that the Israeli government even sets policies on the minimum number of calories needed to prevent malnutrition. Access to the sea – one of their main sources of livelihood – is strictly curtailed and the water of the Gaza Strip is barely drinkable, with less than 5 per cent of their water supply fit for human consumption.

This via Wikileaks and published in the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz:

“As part of their overall embargo plan against Gaza, Israeli officials have confirmed to (U.S. embassy economic officers) on multiple occasions that they intend to keep the Gazan economy on the brink of collapse without quite pushing it over the edge,” one of the cables read.

Israel wanted the coastal territory’s economy “functioning at the lowest level possible consistent with avoiding a humanitarian crisis”, according to the Nov. 3, 2008 cable.

Note two of the objectives: to regulate the amount of food–down to the number of calories residents received–to avoid an official humanitarian crisis (ie, Darfur), and keep the economy on the brink of collapse. Note the source of the economic warfare is not a shrieking Palestinian terrorist, but an official diplomatic cable.

Water is needed for any people to survive as we all know. Prolific author and M.I.T. professor, Noam Chomsky, wrote in a November 9, 2012 article,

Sitting in a hotel near the shore, one can hear the machine-gun fire of Israeli gunboats driving fishermen out of Gaza’s territorial waters and toward land, forcing them to fish in waters that are heavily polluted because of U.S.-Israeli refusal to allow reconstruction of the sewage and power systems they destroyed.

The Oslo Accords laid plans for two desalination plants, a necessity in this arid region. One, an advanced facility, was built: in Israel. The second one is in Khan Yunis, in the south of Gaza. The engineer in charge at Khan Yunis explained that this plant was designed so that it can’t use seawater, but must rely on underground water, a cheaper process that further degrades the meager aquifer, guaranteeing severe problems in the future.

The water supply is still severely limited. The U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which cares for refugees but not other Gazans, recently released a report warning that damage to the aquifer may soon become “irreversible,” and that without quick remedial action, Gaza may cease to be a “livable place” by 2020.

Writing in the Boston Globe last week, Sara Roy addressed the issues of arable land and fishing, both of which have been curtailed by Israel’s government:

Gaza’s economic decline is seen in the near collapse of its agricultural sector. One factor is the destruction of around 7,800 acres of agricultural land during Cast Lead. Consequently, approximately one-third of Gaza’s total arable land is out of production. Furthermore, Israeli-imposed buffer zones — areas of restricted access — now absorb nearly 14 percent of Gaza’s total land and at least 48 percent of total arable land.

Similarly, the sea buffer zone covers 85 percent of the maritime area promised to Palestinians in the Oslo Accords, reducing 20 nautical miles to three, where waters are fouled by sewage flows in excess of 23 million gallons daily.

And it is not limited to Gaza. According to Pakistani reporter M. AQavi, writing in the Tribune, dispossession is still taking place in East Jerusalem. From March of this year, he writes,

Sheikh Jarrah, an Arab neighbourhood in East Jerusalem, is across the road from the American Colony Hotel where Mr Tony Blair and his staff have their offices. It is also one of the sites where a Jewish Settlers’ organisation is planning to build a 200 unit Settlement in place of the existing Arab housing.

Arab homes are being forcibly occupied by Settlers and their Arab occupants thrown out on the street…A Mr Al Kurd, who is one of the evicted Arabs, stands out and of course a swarm of children from the neighbourhood also gather around. The routine is to gather around the Sheikh Jarrah mosque holding banners in Hebrew, Arabic and English and clutching Palestinian flags. After 15 minutes or so, we march to visit each occupied house in turn, to remind the new occupants they are living in someone else’s house. Each occupied house is guarded by border police, video monitors, and at one of the houses I notice barbed wire as well. On the way back from visiting the last occupied house I see male members of a Settler family heading home for the Sabbath, all dressed in fine traditional dress with circular fir hats and all that.

In the last few days, a Israeli government official, in response to the U.N. granting non-member observer status to Palestine, confirmed “a report that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had decided build the 3,000 units in response to the Palestinians success at the UN…’It’s true – in (east) Jerusalem and the West Bank,’ without saying exactly where.”

In Israel possession continues to be 10/10ths of the law and dispossession is the means of keeping it.

After 6+ decades of dissension there is no end of examples, but Bob Roberts, Jr. can summarize the situation better than I. Theologian, missiologist, pastor and statesman, Roberts has friends in both Israel and among the Palestinians. He has been on the ground there. He is aware of the dire situation in Gaza. This is an excerpt from his blog on November 17, 2012. All emphasis is mine.:

First, each side overwhelmingly in every survey done wants a two state solution. From Jewish & Palestinian college students, cabbies, men, women, faith leaders, and yes – even governmental leaders on each side, I’ve heard the same thing.

[…]

Second, as one Palestinian scholar told me – the biggest problem is they are both “victim” cultures. The Jewish statement “never again” causes overreach on the part of the Jews in how they can be heavy handed with the Palestinians. The displacement of millions of Palestinians having been driven from their homeland after centuries and millennia prevents them from thinking about moving forward with where things are versus what they wish they could go back to.

[…]

Third, not just during this current crisis – but everyone who has been living in bunkers with sirens for the past 60+ years – this has got to be incredibly destabilizing for people as individuals and culture in general. Gaza is the most densely populated places in the world. Putting a wall around it with automatic movement operated machine guns, mines and trying to cut the people off from the world and daily necessities is a recipe for an explosion. People when forced to live in that animal environment become animals. Frankly, I’m amazed there hasn’t been more conflict – if it was Texas, speaking as a Texan – I assure you there would be. Ever heard of the Alamo?

[…]

Let’s be clear, there are Palestinian terrorist [sic] that don’t want to compromise, respect Israel, her right to exist and would circumvent any movement towards peace – this cannot be. Let’s be equally clear, it isn’t a fence or a barrier – it is a 30 foot concrete wall, with machine gun towers pointing down on the people that has been built around Palestinians in Gaza, Bethlehem, Ramallah, other cities – putting entire populations of millions in virtual “prison” – this is simply unsustainable.

I have thought often about the scenario Roberts references in his “Remember the Alamo?” statement. Unless you literally move to flatten every structure in Gaza and commit genocide on this race of people, the increases in pressure will result in eruptions. Whether a masked Hamas terrorist, a teenager throwing rocks or a kid making obscene gestures, there will be a response. And we should not be surprised when there is.

Ground Zero, Syria [PHOTOS]

“It is well that war is so terrible otherwise we would grow too fond of it.”
Robert E. Lee

“I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower

My son Timothy alerted me last week to this blog, the LiveJournal of Ilya Plekhanov, editor of military and literary almanac, The Art of War. These sites are in Russian some of which Chrome will translate into English. (See also Plekhanov on the Russian edition of Forbes.) All of the photos below are from the collection on the LiveJournal blog.

While viewing the photos I was reminded of the hell of war. I also question why so many who follow Christ seem given over to it, at times with virtual bloodlust. For people who follow the Prince of Peace, who often made fun of the “peace-niks” of the 60s, we should be reminded yet again that Jesus words, “There will be wars and rumors of wars,” was not intended to be a foreign policy statement.

What questions should Kingdom residents ask? Is the violence in Syria merely a civil war? How are we involved behind the scenes? Is this all about installing a democracy friendly to U.S. interests? Passive toward Israel?

How many of the people in the pictures below do not or did not know Christ? How many have never or had never heard a clear presentation of the gospel? How many are now or soon will be in a Christ-less eternity?

In the below photo gallery, compiled during October and the first of November 2012, the struggles of Syria are chronicled. There is a warning before the more graphic ones. But I encourage you to look unless you absolutely cannot. Be reminded. War is hell. People die. Eternity never ends.

When is it worth it? When is it not?

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING PHOTOS INCLUDE SCENES OF INDIVIDUAL VIOLENCE, BLOOD AND SOME GORE

Two men with guns accost an apparently unarmed man.

The unarmed man appears to be attempting evasive action.

The unarmed man lies dead from a bullet to the head.

A man appears to be running for cover.

Apparently the man has been wounded.

As someone extends help to the man in the street, I wondered if the man laying wounded or dead on the sidewalk is the man who was in the foreground in the first picture of this series.

People are people. Nobody wants their child to die.

U.S. drone use challenged in court

On March 17, 2011 at least 42 people were killed by a United States drone strike in northwestern Pakistan. Four have been confirmed as Taliban members, while the others were civilians, including tribal elders who had gathered for an administrative meeting. Reports the Global Post on October 10, 2012:

Opponents take the stance that these strikes are not part of an armed conflict and the rules of war, thus, do not apply. The armed conflict claim is a legal fiction and the United States is cherry picking the legal framework that protects its conduct under the rules of war, thus doing indirectly what they cannot do directly under international human rights laws. Shamsi contends, “I think the key issue here is that the US is claiming that the laws of war apply in places where they absolutely do not apply.”

Contrary to the US stance, this interpretation holds that, regarding Anderson’s explanation, “There is no war going on in a legal sense, and if there is, it is strictly limited to hot battlefields of Afghanistan. [Drone strikes are] governed by standards of international human rights and domestic law, and therefore any killings that take place under the circumstances are not protected by the law of war and instead are just extrajudicial executions, and frankly murder.”

Meanwhile, the CIA wants to up the number of drones that it denies having. Reports Policymic.com:

While the 2012 presidential election racket focuses on gaffes, Romney’s binders, and Big Bird, the CIA and the Pentagon are currently busy finding ways to increase their military power and influence around the globe. According to the Washington Post, CIA Director David Petraeus wants an increased drone fleet to “bolster the agency’s ability to sustain its campaigns of lethal strikes in Pakistan and Yemen and enable it, if directed, to shift aircraft to emerging Al-Qaeda threats in North Africa or other trouble spots.”

In case you miss the significance here, the CIA is running a covert war using a kill list known to exist but which the president denies. Our “intelligence agency” requests even more drones at a time when the international community is already questioning the legality of how we are using them. In America there is little argument that “intelligence agency” = “paramilitary organization.”

Finally, the Daily Mail reports that two specific Americans could be investigated for murder related to their roles in drone strikes.

A damning dossier assembled from exhaustive research into the strikes’ targets sets out in heartbreaking detail the deaths of teachers, students and Pakistani policemen. It also describes how bereaved relatives are forced to gather their loved ones’ dismembered body parts in the aftermath of strikes.

The dossier has been assembled by human rights lawyer Shahzad Akbar, who works for Pakistan’s Foundation for Fundamental Rights and the British human rights charity Reprieve.

CIA attorney John A. Rizzo [Image credit]
Filed in two separate court cases, it is set to trigger a formal murder investigation by police into the roles of two US officials said to have ordered the strikes. They are Jonathan Banks, former head of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Islamabad station, and John A. Rizzo, the CIA’s former chief lawyer.

[…]

The plaintiff in the Islamabad case is Karim Khan, 45, a journalist and translator with two masters’ degrees, whose family comes from the village of Machi Khel in the tribal region of North Waziristan.

His eldest son, Zahinullah, 18, and his brother, Asif Iqbal, 35, were killed by a Hellfire missile fired from a Predator drone that struck the family’s guest dining room at about 9.30pm on New Year’s Eve, 2009.

Asif had changed his surname because he loved to recite Iqbal, Pakistan’s national poet, and Mr Khan said: ‘We are an educated family. My uncle is a hospital doctor in Islamabad, and we all work in professions such as teaching.

‘We have never had anything to do with militants or terrorists, and for that reason I always assumed we would be safe.’

History may ultimately adjudge our current drone war on the same level as the secret bombing of Cambodia and Laos during the Vietnam war.

I’ve also written about America’s drone war in these posts:
The Drone War and the kingdom of God

One former British soldier talks about drone warfare

The drone war and the kingdom of God

A week or so ago results from a recent in-depth investigative report on America’s drone war were released. Despite horrid reviews for President Obama’s involvement in it, several “mainstream” news outlets reported the findings.

A CNN report entitled Drone strikes kill, maim and traumatize too many civilians, U.S. study says states

The report accuses Washington of misrepresenting drone strikes as “a surgically precise and effective tool that makes the U.S. safer,” saying that in reality, “there is significant evidence that U.S. drone strikes have injured and killed civilians.”

It also casts doubts on Washington’s claims that drone strikes produce zero to few civilian casualties and alleges that the United States makes “efforts to shield the drone program from democratic accountability.”

When I wrote about drones in September (“One former British soldier talks about drone warfare”) a linked Washington Post story revealed 92 U.S. drone attacks from January 2011-June 2012 resulted in only five Al Queda leaders being killed. That is 87 misses out of 92 tries.

“Misses” being qualified by saying many people have been killed or injured, just not so much the actual enemy. The surgical precision about which our government likes to brag is akin to using a chainsaw to take out an appendix. The scars being about equal.

In the second of his two broadsides on why he will not vote for either major party candidate, Atlantic staff writer, Conor Friedersdorf, notes this about drone warfare:

Obama terrorizes innocent Pakistanis on an almost daily basis. The drone war he is waging in North Waziristan isn’t “precise” or “surgical” as he would have Americans believe. It kills hundreds of innocents, including children. And for thousands of more innocents who live in the targeted communities, the drone war makes their lives into a nightmare worthy of dystopian novels.

Forgive me, but the word “terrorizes” is tellingly ironic.

Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee, can be expected to dial up the hubris meter during the election approach. He may even hit 11. To fire up his base he must demonstrate he is even tougher on terrorism than Obama, which, following the most recent 9/11, should not be difficult. But Romney has offered no indication he would scale back the targeted killing program Predators provides.

Just yesterday, October 1, 2012, a Washington, DC, CBC affiliate reported drones will soon be able to seek and destroy on the battlefield without human input.

Ronald Arkin, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, believes that drones will soon be able to kill enemies on their own independently.

“It is not my belief that an unmanned system will be able to be perfectly ethical in the battlefield, but I am convinced that they can perform more ethically than human soldiers are capable of,” Arkin told AFP.

Arkin added that robotic weapons should be designed as “ethical” warriors and that these type of robots could wage war in a more “humane” way.

And we thought Skynet was so far in the future.

A Predator drone fires two Hellfire missiles

Dutifully the military asserts humans will remain involved in drone manipulation, that they will not be autonomous. And we are expected to to believe the military without question. Because the military never lies and the government never participates in cover-ups.

Right.

This post, however, is not primarily concerned with the politics involved with the drone war. My concern is the relationship of its effects to the kingdom of God.

We have been told that drone warfare provides safety to American troops and provides for less collateral damage than other types bombing. Drones are able to provide visuals clearer than a set of latitude and longitude coordinates, I suppose. A Hellfire missile launched from a drone should cause fewer casualties than a Tomahawk fired from a ship. Cleaner shots, better identification, direct hits. All of this adds up to more dead terrorists and a better protected homeland.

Except it doesn’t.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism in London, reports,

from June 2004 through mid-September 2012, available data indicate that drone strikes killed 2,562-3,325 people in Pakistan, of whom 474-881 were civilians, including 176 children. TBIJ reports that these strikes also injured an additional 1,228-1,362 individuals. Where media accounts do report civilian casualties, rarely is any information provided about the victims or the communities they leave behind. This report includes the harrowing narratives of many survivors, witnesses, and family members who provided evidence of civilian injuries and deaths in drone strikes to our research team. It also presents detailed accounts of three separate strikes, for which there is evidence of civilian deaths and injuries, including a March 2011 strike on a meeting of tribal elders that killed some 40 individuals.

Also noted in the report is whenever men of fighting age are killed, even if they are completely unknown, and even if their activity is undefined, they are classified as combatants. That is, if a Hellfire missile lands in the middle of 20 sixteen to eighteen year olds playing soccer, they are classified as enemy combatants. Why? Because we killed them in the course of prosecuting a war. Not because they have been or are in a training camp or have plans to join Al Queda.

A quick review: How do we know they were enemy combatants? Because the government said so. How does the government know they were enemy combatants? Because we killed them.

They might as well be since, as the NYT reports, “some in the Obama administration joke that when the CIA sees ‘three guys doing jumping jacks,’ they think it is a terrorist training camp.” Very funny.

The drone war in Asia and the Middle East has become the “War on Terror” equivalent of the bombing of Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam War.

As if this were not enough our drone strategy includes the very behaviors for which we would condemn terrorists: double strikes.

Drones hover twenty-four hours a day over communities in northwest Pakistan, striking homes, vehicles, and public spaces without warning. Their presence terrorizes men, women, and children, giving rise to anxiety and psychological trauma among civilian communities. Those living under drones have to face the constant worry that a deadly strike may be fired at any moment, and the knowledge that they are powerless to protect themselves. These fears have affected behavior. The US practice of striking one area multiple times, and evidence that it has killed rescuers, makes both community members and humanitarian workers afraid or unwilling to assist injured victims. Some community members shy away from gathering in groups, including important tribal dispute-resolution bodies, out of fear that they may attract the attention of drone operators. Some parents choose to keep their children home, and children injured or traumatized by strikes have dropped out of school. Waziris told our researchers that the strikes have undermined cultural and religious practices related to burial, and made family members afraid to attend funerals. In addition, families who lost loved ones or their homes in drone strikes now struggle to support themselves. Emphasis mine

One report has a drone striking a funeral where mourners had gathered to remember the victims of a previous drone strike.

Additionally the

FATA [Federally Administered Tribal Area] suffers from one of highest poverty rates in the world. The per capita income is approximately US$250 per year, with 60 percent of the population living below the national poverty line. Undeveloped infrastructure and low per capita public development expenditure have resulted in an overall literacy rate of only 17 percent. Most of the population depends on subsistence agriculture, manual labor, small-scale local business, or remittances from relatives working abroad or in other regions of Pakistan for survival. In North Waziristan, chromite mining operations also provide limited contract jobs near the Afghan border. There are only 41 hospitals in the region, and an estimated one doctor for every 6,762 residents.

Who lives there?

FATA is inhabited almost entirely by Pashtuns, a group of tribes that first settled in the area more than 1,000 years ago. The various Pashtun tribes live not only in FATA, but also in large parts of south and east Afghanistan. Altogether, there are some 25 million Pashtuns worldwide, making it one of the largest tribal groups in the world.

Who are the Pashtuns? They are virtually all Muslims who span the border between Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan. This means they are not followers of Christ. This means they are being bombed into a Christless eternity.

As a follower of Christ it disturbs me to know my government is randomly, regularly, inefficiently, deceptively, and erroneously killing people with whom we are not at war; targeting first responders and mourners for missile strikes; creating an ongoing situation where bearers of the gospel cannot enter with eternal good news. Why do we who give money for missions, pray for the fulfillment of the Great Commission, long for the day when some from every nation tribe and tongue sing praises to our great God seem so content to have one of those tribes bombed into oblivion? Have we bought so thoroughly into a kingdom of this world it has priority over the kingdom of God? Are we so fearful of what might happen to us we are willing to overlook anything that is happening to people around the world?

My friend Emily said today in a Facebook conversation, “I think we should do our best not to have these conversations in a theoretical moral and ethical sphere that is separate from the Christian narrative. The crucifixion and resurrection of Christ should be the basis for thinking through all of these things, IMHO.” If we are to call ourselves “followers of the Way,” then, I believe, it must thus be.

You can read or download the entire report pdf from Stanford-NYU here.

Thoughts on President Obama’s Afghan war speech

Attacking during the Russian invastion of Afghanistan

Attacking during the Russian invasion of Afghanistan

Last evening President Barack Obama addressed the nation from West Point (His speech can be seen on C-Span). The focus of the last night’s speech by President Barack Obama was a troop surge of an additional 30,000 men and women into Afghanistan until troop withdrawal from Afghanistan begins in 18 months. The president did a very good job in a brief review of why we went into Afghanistan to begin with and a good job of communicating what he, as commander-in-chief, wants to see accomplished by the placement of $30B worth of additional military power in this year alone.

Three objectives:

1. Deny Al-Qaeda a safe haven.
2. Reverse the Taliban’s momentum and deny it the ability to overthrow the government.
3. Strengthen Afghan security forces and government.

Three strategic elements:

1. Pursue a military strategy that will break the Taliban’s momentum and increase Afghan capacity over the next 18 months.
2. Work with our partners and the United Nations to pursue a more effective civilian strategy.
3. Act with full recognition that success in Afghanistan depends on our partnership with Pakistan.

NATO troops in Afghanistan. Photo: Getty Images

President Obama responded to three counter arguments he’s already heard:

1. Afghanistan is another Vietnam. He gave three reasons why this is not like ‘Nam, including the fact that Al-Qaeda attacked us from Afghanistan.
2. We cannot leave Afghanistan in it’s current state, but keep only the troops we have. He objects that this would leave us in our current muddled condition.
3. Should not propose our time frame, some calling for an open ended campaign. The president states that we cannot afford a 10-year nation building program.

The president has already taken flack (see FOX News analysts) from not giving specifics as to how these things are going to happen. Frankly, I thought that’s why we have generals on the ground. They have the responsibility to work out the details. 99.9% of Americans are not military strategists and 100% of news anchors are not, therefore, spelling out of such details would not really help me know whether or not such information would help us reach his announced objectives. If the president had given 20 minutes worth of details he would have been derided for making the same mistakes made in Vietnam, to wit, letting politicians fighting the war instead of the military.

Whether or not President Obama has the clout or backbone to see it through will remain to be seen. Nearly a year into his administration, he has famously (as lampooned by Saturday Night Live) not closed Guantanamo though he repeated in this speech his intention to do so, while neglecting many other promises of his campaign (where he stands arm in arm with virtually every other holder of our nation’s top office). Personally, I’m thankful that he has not committed us to a war we cannot afford; heck, we cannot even afford the wars we have. I wonder if Dave Ramsey has been consulted on this…

I was at least glad to hear a reference to the average American making sacrifices, though I fear it is far to little and far to late. World War 2 saw community metal drives, rubber collections, etc, to provide raw materials for the war effort. War bonds were sold for financing the expense. People shut off their electric lights at night for the dual purpose of obscuring potential targets and saving the power. When the War on Terror started, we were famously encouraged to “Go shopping” as if Al-Qaeda would be defeated by the collective re-shoeing of American school kids and a new theater system in every home. That was and remains balderdash.

Being vigilant is a must without question and protection of the citizenry is a God given responsibility of any government. We have reached the point, however, where our economics must catch up to our ability to wage war afar while we fortify protection at home, lest we lose our capacity to do either.

A few specific quotes from last night:

“As president, I refuse to set goals which go beyond our responsibilities, our means or our interests.”

“We cannot simply afford to ignore the price of these wars.”

“Our prosperity provides a foundation for our power.”

“The nation that I’m most interested in building is our own.”

“America will have to show our strength in the way that we end wars and conflict…and we can’t count on military might alone.”

“We have forged a new interest with those in the Muslim world.”

“We must draw on the strength of our values…We must promote our values by living them at home.”

“As a country, we are not as young, and perhaps not as innocent, as we were when Roosevelt was president.”

On Gettysburg, war and peace

From the Gettysburg National Military Park Museum Photo: Marty Duren

The day after Thanksgiving, I was able to visit the Civil War battlefields at Gettysburg, PA. After watching a short movie about the war in general and the Battle of Gettysburg in particular, we went through the museum. To say that I was overwhelmed with information would be exercising the gift of understatement to its limit as display after display had quotations from period sources and historical players, uniforms, firearms, books and photos of farms and soldiers, crude but effective medical instruments and movies from the History channel. One rather significant item on display was a booklet entitled “Slavery Ordained Of God,” by Rev. Fred A. Ross of Huntsville, AL, demonstrating how some southern Christians defended the institution that brought wealth to both the North and the South.

We spent half an hour or so in the National Cemetery that pre-dated the war by several years and was the location of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863. This was the cemetery referenced in Cemetery Ridge and Cemetery Hill where Union forces fell back under duress on July 1, 1863, the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg, ultimately forming the upper curve of the fishhook shaped line that ran south to Big Round Top. It was this line that was unable to be breached by Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, leading to heavy losses and injuries on both sides, but the retreat of the Confederates on July 3.

The battlefields at Gettysburg Photo: Abigail Duren

The battlefields at Gettysburg seen from Little Round Top Photo: Abigail Duren

So fierce was the fighting that more than 4,000 were killed in one skirmish in “The Wheatfield,” (seen distantly in the photo above) while more than 5,000 Confederate soldiers were killed in a single hour during a maneuver famously known as “Pickett’s Charge,” an advance nearly a mile wide with soldiers. The three day battle, considered by most to be the turning point of the war, saw killed and wounded on both sides total more than 51,000 men and a few women.

Since the Civil War the United States has been involved in numerous conflicts worldwide and not a few wars. The century alone has saw World Wars 1 and 2, Korea, Vietnam, The Gulf War and this century joins with the ongoing War on Terror. (For the purposes of this writing, I’ll not include the War on the Unborn, which has claimed hundreds of millions of lives worldwide since its inception.) While Augustine argued that some war can be just (righteous), Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson called it, “The sum of all evils.” Augustine may be theologically and philosophically right, but the problem is that wars are not fought only theoretically and philosophically, but in reality and because they are fought in reality many times we find in them the sum of all evils.

Memortial to the PA Infantry Reserves on Big Round Top Photo: Abigail Duren

Memorial to the PA Infantry Reserves placed on Big Round Top Photo: Abigail Duren

Those evils often take place with suicides among the troops, intentional killing of civilians, rape of the defenseless and death by friendly fire. They also take the form of government cover ups to boost enthusiasm for the conflict for political means and ends. Perhaps this is the worst evil of all.

Who can forget the much publicized, though personally shunned, entrance into the Army Rangers program of Arizona Cardinals’ safety, Pat Tillman, in May 2002? Portrayed as a real American, an example of sacrifice and patriotism, Tillman refused all interviews or preferential treatment, even when he had an “Army excuse” for early discharge before the tour that eventually took his life. His entry and his death were used, against his wishes, by the Bush administration to bolster American support for the war, posits Jon Krakauer in Where Men Win Glory. Tillman’s death was due to friendly fire following a Keystone Kops episode of bad command decisions. The cause of death was hidden for months from his family, the press and the world so it could be used for political expedience. Former White House press secretary under Bush, Scott McClellan hypothesizes in his book, What Happened?, that the “permanent campaign” of politics makes it impossible for any aspect of decision making to happen without an eye to the polls and political ramifications and this includes, or, perhaps especially includes, war.

Since even a theoretically possible “just war” is often led and fought by unjust men, it would behoove Christians to be careful not to support a war simply because a liked president is “Commander-In-Chief,” or to oppose it simply because an otherwise disliked president is stopping the buck. Some Christians tend to make support for the war a test of fellowship or something as if lack of enthusiasm for an earthly military action is akin to renouncing one’s heavenly citizenship. Most seem oblivious to the fact that patriotism is a commitment to the constitution, not the ever-so-often selected first-chair occupants of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave or that our commitment to the kingdom of God supersedes both.

While it is certainly a truth that Scripture gives governments the right to wage war in certain circumstances, Scripture also records that followers of Christ are to be wagers of peace above war. I don’t think this leads inevitably to pacifism, but it cannot mean less than our striving to seek peace from the playground to the boardroom to the battlefield. I think it was George Washington who said, “Sometimes you have to have war before you can have peace,” but Lee reminded, “What a cruel thing is war; to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness God has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors, and to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world!”

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