Today’s New York Times ran a story on its front page entitled “Aides Say Obama’s Afghan Aims Elevate War.” WASHINGTON — President Obama intends to adopt a tougher line toward Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, as part of a new American approach to Afghanistan that will put more emphasis on waging war than on development, [...]
Archive for January, 2009
Dying by the Sword in Afghanistan
Posted: January 28, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, Christianity, counterinsurgency, Jesus, Kabul, Karzai, nonviolence, Obama, Robert Gates
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Get Afghanistan Right Week
Posted: January 22, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, counterinsurgency, economic crisis, Get Afghanistan Right, Get Afghanistan Right Week, nonviolence
This past week I took a break from Return Good for Evil to work on a related effort: Get Afghanistan Right Week. A group of bloggers, writers and activists today launched “Get Afghanistan Right Week,” the start of an ongoing campaign to oppose military escalation in Afghanistan. From January 12-18, they will post stories and [...]
Sorry, Dear Readers!
Posted: January 13, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, Get Afghanistan Right Week
I’ve been throwing all my effort into Get Afghanistan Right Week. You should participate! Here’s a link to my latest contribution to that effort.
A Bad Week for the U.S. Military
Posted: January 7, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: John Doe letters, military recruitment, nuclear weapons, Pentagon
For those considering a military career, two good reasons to think again: You might be a guinea pig for horrendous mad scientist-type experiments. If you die, your family may get a letter referring to you as “John Doe.” To top this all off, the Pentagon was slammed this week for poor security and oversight of [...]
Bob Herbert: The Afghan Quagmire
Posted: January 6, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, economy, New York Times
Kudos to Bob Herbert, NYT columnist for hitting the nail on the head re: Afghanistan: The economy is obviously issue No. 1 as Barack Obama prepares to take over the presidency. He’s charged with no less a task than pulling the country out of a brutal recession. If the worst-case scenarios materialize, his job will [...]
The False Choice between the Old and the New, Part II
Posted: January 5, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Ahmadinejad, Arthur Waskow, Blackwater, Boeing, Christian nonviolence, Christianity, defense contractors, Jesus, Lockheed Martin, nonviolence, shomer shalom
As I said in my previous post on this topic, nonviolent and violentist Christians often mistreat the Hebrew scriptures. Violentist Christians assert that violence in the “Old” Testament tradition negates the possibility of nonviolence as a faithful interpretation of scripture. Nonviolent Christians concede the underlying assumption–that the only faithful interpretation of the Hebrew scriptures is [...]
Think Again on Afghanistan
Posted: January 3, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, COIN, counterinsurgency, escalation, nonviolence, surge, Taliban
A quick question for the proponents of an escalation in Afghanistan: What are we protecting from a revolution? The “surge” in Iraq was an exercise in counterinsurgency (COIN). Counterinsurgency is by definition the attempt to protect against a revolution. But in Afghanistan, the authority and structures of the corrupt Kabul regime do not and have [...]
CNN: Israeli troops moving into Gaza
Posted: January 3, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Gaza, Israel, nonviolence, Palestine
The situation in Israel/Palestine escalates. CNN’s breaking news ticker reports that Israeli ground troops are moving into Gaza. Those of us committed to nonviolence and justice must speak out against the continued escalation of this recent crescendo between Israel and the Palestinians. I’d encourage everyone to visit J Street and sign their petition. From their [...]
The False Choice between the Old and the New, Part I
Posted: January 3, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Christianity, Hans Kung, Hebrew scriptures, Jesus, Judaism, nonviolence, Old Testament
This is the beginning of a series I plan to work on over the next several days on the false dichotomy present in the Christian nonviolence tradition: the false dichotomy between the Hebrew scriptures and the Christian texts. The dichotomy works like this: Christian Violentist: Nonviolence isn’t biblical. God was violent and ordained violence in [...]
Once Upon A Time, the United States Fought a Good War
Posted: January 1, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, Mark Twain, nonviolence, Philippines
Its instigators argued for our involvement with the noblest of rhetoric: “Should our power by any fatality be withdrawn, the commission believe that the government of …would speedily lapse into anarchy, which would excuse, if it did not necessitate, the intervention of other powers and the eventual division of the [territory] among them. Only through [...]
