Déjà vu

I find it depressing to watch and listen while the World, or the United Nations, or the West, or the Coalition of the Willing, or whatever “we” are calling “ourselves” today, tries to work out an agreement to attack Ira..., I mean Syria.

As we all know, the Syrians are the bad guys. By this I mean Sadda..., er Assad, of course. And the other Syrians, the rebels, are the good g..., well the not as b..., well, okay, their bad guys too, but they haven’t used weapons of mass destruction. At least we’re almost certain they haven’t because, as far as we know, they don’t have any. And we’re really good at knowing who has them.

Of course if the rebels had them they might very well use them, but we are told they don’t and didn’t. And our leaders do not lie. The Syrian government used them “on their own people”. – Where have we heard this before? – Admittedly, this is the nature of civil war, forces within a nation fighting other forces within the same nation, i.e., all fighting “own people”. But never mind all that. The government of Syria did it even after “we” told them not to, and now someone is gonna get hurt.

Will attacking them make “us” safer?

Not directly. But we’re not really in any danger from these weapons anyway.

Will attacking them make the world safer?

We can’t be certain. But it will surely send the clear and unequivocal message that “we” probably won’t put up with this sort of thing in future, and just might, depending on who does it, and what the situation is, attack the next folks who use them, if, of course, it’s determined to be in “our” interest to do so.

Will attacking Syria make the Syrian people any safer?

Who knows? We’re assured that this is not about regime change, so, presumably, the same folks will be in charge when it’s all over. But it might discourage the use of chemical weapons in future. And, then again, it might not. Que sera, sera.

So, what will an attack on Syria do?

It will serve as another example of the world’s only remaining super power, with or without whatever support it can muster, forcing upon a smaller nation compliance with international law.

To be sure, international law is a good thing, and the world would be a better place if nations complied. But the superpower in question is one that brazenly ignores international law when it is in it’s interest to do so. It indulges in assassination, torture, espionage on a colossal scale, and a weaponized drone program that terrorizes target populations. The one thing we can be sure an attack on Syria will do is radicalize more people and produce more terrorists. In this sense it will not make anyone safer.

Admittedly, just like the last time, I don’t have any solution to the problem of weapons of mass destruction.  I don’t make any, sell any, use any, or have any. And I think it’s insane for countries to have anything to do with them. And, incidentally, I also think it’s insane for a country to be arming rebels in another country in the hope that these folks will become allies if they win. In other words, I don’t think the US military or government has any solution either.

The Apostle Paul said “Do not repay anyone evil for evil.” (Romans 12:18), and Jesus said “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,...” (Luke 6:27). But what did they know?

Jesus also said "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight...”. (John 18:36) So in some sense, since I am a disciple of Jesus, none of this is any of my business. I just find it depressing to watch and listen to it all again.

IT’S THE HYPOCRISY OF IT ALL

It’s interesting to hear Justin Trudeau admit to using pot. This will date me, but it reminds me a bit of when Liberace was outed by AIDS back in the 1980s. Was anyone on earth really surprised that Liberace was gay? Surely we’d have all been amazed if somehow it had been confirmed that he wasn’t. What was revealed by Liberace’s “outing” was that few people really cared. Liberace became the highest paid entertainer in the world by pretending to be a gay pianist. We were no more surprised to discover that he actually was gay than we would have been to discover that he could actually play the piano.

Justin Trudeau is 42 years old. That alone makes it unlikely that he’s never smoked pot. He’s also the son of parents who smoked pot, and is a supporter of the legalization of marijuana. It’s a bit surprising to hear that he’s only smoked it a few times, but then I have to admit I only smoked it once. He doesn’t drink coffee, while I drink four to six cups a day. Tom Mulcair has smoked it, but won’t say how much or when. Stephen Harper hasn’t, but then he hastens to add that this is because of his asthma. See what I mean. It all becomes a bit silly.

What is not silly is a political system that continues to criminalize behaviour that so many politicians, with no apparent shame, admit to having participated in. It’s the hypocrisy of it all that does the real damage. So, if all the pot smokers would please stand up and vote accordingly, perhaps we could move on to some important things.

PS: The scandal in the Liberace story was never that he was gay, but that he so fiercely denied it during his lifetime, suing for millions of dollars and winning a palimony battle he probably should have lost. – Oh, what a tangled web we weave...

A SAD STATE OF AFFAIRS

I just finished a very interesting book by Andrew Bacevich, WASHINGTON RULES: America’s path to Permanent War. Bacevich is a retired career officer in the U.S. Army, and currently Professor of International Relations and History at Boston University. The book tells the story of America’s transformation from a handful of breakaway, anti-imperialist, British colonies, committed to avoiding the entanglements of foreign wars, to become the worlds great military superpower, permanently at war on every continent. It’s intriguing, surprising, insightful, troubling, and overwhelmingly sad.

Today the United States of America has taken on the role of policeman for the world. Many profess to believe this is a burden thrust upon America. Why else would any nation assume the horrendous cost, not only financial but in blood? The answer is really quite simple. War produces mountains of prestige and influence for politicians, generals, and elites of all sorts. And trillions of dollars for defence contractors and what has been called the “military-industry complex”. War doesn’t work for peace, for the world, or for most of America. But it certainly does work for those who are in a position to work it.

Note the words of one of the great prophets of the last century:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms in not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

These are not the words of some peacenik zealot, but President Dwight D. Eisenhower, taken from his “Cross of Iron” speech, April 1953.

Since the end of WWII 102,480 Americans have died in foreign wars, 58,209 in Vietnam, 2,229 in Afghanistan, and 4,488 in Iraq. And if you include the wounded the number of American casualties since WWII is 399,542. That’s a lot of suffering, a lot of blood. 

But the ideals of America have also been a casualty of war. We’ve seen America carry out assassination plots against foreign governments, and counterinsurgency operations that would be called international terrorism today. In recent years, under George W. Bush, we’ve seen indefinite detention, rendition, warrantless wiretaps, and the abuses of Guantanamo. And all of this has continued, even escalated under Obama.

In recent months we’ve seen leaks of classified material that show how, in the name of security, civil liberties are being eroded in America, Canada and throughout the world. And now, quite predictably, we see embassies closed and travel advisories issued based on the “vital information” gathered by these dubious surveillance systems. It would be nice to take these warnings at face value, but it does make you wonder.

As I say, it’s all very sad. And it’s hard to imagine a solution. Permanent war seems to be just about the only thing both Democrats and Republicans can agree on.