FIGHTING SMARTER . . .

Should be the Dems' slogan (and program) for the Fall elections, to answer the "cut & run" bromide. Lord knows we need to fight terrorism alright, in many and better ways than we are doing now, especially smarter ways. Certainly we need to understand better what's going on in the Muslim world, and why.

Our woeful lack of understanding is costing us horrendously in Iraq. In a recent AP poll, 61% of Iraqis asked want the insurgents to win, and want our people dead. Not just beaten, but dead! That depressing, even shocking news is totally different from what we have been hearing from the White House. So it is even more baffling. How do you start to understand that?

It gets worse: five of Iraq's 25 million people are Kurds. They like us and wish us well, and even have friendly relations with Israel (who helped them train their own excellent army). They aren't Arabs though, with whom they have long had important differences. When you remove the 5 million Kurds from Iraq's 25 million population, leaving 20 million Arabs, the 61% of 25 million becomes 75% of the 20 million Arabs. Not good. That is backed up with the further poll results showing 3/4 of the population of Iraq think U. S. troops are doing more damage than they prevent, and should leave.

But we can't accept that: denial is not just a river, it's the name of a new book by Bob Woodward that informs us that contrary to what we have long been told, field commanders in Iraq have been asking for more troops for a long time, to no avail. They've been denied, just like the true
situation we are facing there, which Woodward says is far worse than we have ever been told. Woodward's findings, as reported by those who have seen them (I have not), back up what Congressman Murtha has been saying about how bad things are there, and explain some of Murtha's urgency and indignation. Murtha, of course, is a politician. Woodward is not, and is not noted for partisan views. He has, in fact, long been a favorite at the White House.

"The concepts and categories that are often cited in order to explain the Middle East to Western audiences --- modernity, democracy, fundamentalism, sectarian nationalism to name a few ---can no longer satisfactorily account for what is going on. It is rather the old feud between Shias and Sunnis that forges attitudes, defines predjudices, draws political boundary lines, and even decides whether and to what extent those other trends have relevance." p. 82, The Shia Revival
by Vali Nasr (the Author, a Shiite born in the Middle East, lives in the U. S., is fluent in Arabic, Farsi, Urdu, and travels widely and regularly throughout that region. He teaches at The Naval Post Graduate School.) Karen Armstrong (who has written a famous book on Islam) says of this book: "Brilliant, clear and erudite. This is indispensable reading for anybody who is trying to make sense of the tragic conflict in the Middle East." I have been studying Islam for years, and this is far the best I have seen on the Shia-Sunni conflict.

Like the pressures within a volcano may build for years before the top blows, Prof. Nasr explains the pressures and conditions in the Middle East that have now exploded with volcanic force. He relates how Sunni extremists have been growing in numbers and influence for a hundred years, and with it, a growing discrimination and oppression of the Shia, who were minorities in all Arab countries except Iraq, where although a majority, were still dominated, controlled, and suppressed. But in 1979 the Shah, a tyrant imposed on the people of Iran by the U. S. and Britain, was overthrown by a Shia revolt, marking a Shia resurgence that would be felt powerfully next door in Iraq.

As Prof. Nasr explains: "The war in Iraq came at a time when Sunni extremism was on the rise in the Muslim world. The decade preceding the war had witnessed the growing influence of Wahhabi and Salafi trends in Sunni extremist circles and a turn to jihadi activism and violence after the events of 9/11. The Iraq war provided a new arena for this militance to express itself. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi went to Iraq with the specific purpose of confronting the U. S. and providing al-Qaida's global war against the U. S. with a new venue. In Iraq's sectarian divide Zarqawi saw an opportunity. A Shia-Sunni war would destroy America's project in Iraq far more quickly and thoroughly than al-Qaida's terrorism could by itself." (p.243, op. cit.)

Clearly that is what has happened! America's project in Iraq has been destroyed. That is evident in the attitudes of the Iraqis as expressed above. "The conflict that mattered to the mobilization of extremists and support for them on the Arab and Pakistani streets was not the one Washington was focusing on --- it was not the battle of liberty vs. oppression but rather the age-old battle of the two halves of Islam, Shias and Sunnies. This ws the conflict that Iraq has rekindled and this is the conflict that will shape the future." (P. 245, Nasr) More on this later.

jgoodwin004@centurytel.net

FIGHTING SMARTER . . .

GEORGE AND HUGO

When our President spoke at the U. N. he was met with polite indifference. Who needs a lecture on justice and the rule of law from a lawless torturer? (O. K., what international law does he recognize and honor?) The standing ovation for Hugo Chavez said it all! Apart from H.'s "devil" bit, which was silly and out of line, his remarks about U. S. policy reflected the opinions not only of most Latin Americans, but most of the Muslim world as well.

The spurious charge by some of our pundits that "he hates the U. S." is not an argument: it's just a lie. Chavez (and Ahmadinejad, for that matter) expressed his affection for the American people. It is some of our government's policies that he (and many Americans) find odious. 60% of us now oppose the Iraq war (that number is due to rise shortly). Chavez understands that our people and our policies are separate and distinct entities. Why can't Fox News understand that?

Chavez backed his argument with a formidable authority when he held up one of my favorite books: Hegemony or Survival by Noam Chomsky. "Judged in terms of the power, range, novelty, and influence of his thought, Noam Chomsky is arguably the most important intellectual alive." ---The New York Times Chomsky's books are as jam-packed with documented facts as the auditoriums are whenever and wherever he speaks. You can't quarrel with his facts (which are often unflattering to current policies). His interpretations of the facts are, of course, debatable, and I sometimes disagree with him (usually not.) "Chomsky . . . is a major scholarly resource. Not to have read [him] is to court ignorance." ---The Nation One of the major plusses from Chavez's speech was the resulting boost in sales of Chomsky's book. It immed. shot to #1 in Amazon sales. It's a message that needs to be pondered and discussed in every coffee shop, bar, church, and legislative body in this country.

TURNING TO OTHER MATTERS:

In August U. S. forces shifted 10,000 troops from Anbar province (which they have given up on politically) to address the mounting sectarian violence in Baghdad. At the end of the month our military announced a 52% drop in the murder rate there, and we all felt encouraged. That is until the Iraqi Health Ministry released its figures for August, showing 1,536 violent deaths in the Baghdad area, about the same as the previous month. It turns out that our folks got their favorable numbers by simply omitting deaths by mortars, rockets, bombs and suicide attacks.
The latter aren't considered murder, I guess. Are they just "collateral damage"?

DON'T LET THE DOOR HIT YOU!

The Iraqi public want us out of there ASAP, according to a new poll that shows 65% of those asked favor immediate withdrawal of U. S. troops, while 71% want us out within a year. But 77% think we won't leave, no matter what they say, that we intend to hold permanent bases there.

While our government has repeatedly said it "has no plans" to remain in Iraq, it is building very expensive permanent bases there, and steadfastly refuses to state categorically that it will leave.
Of course it has no plans. That's been the story all along. It had no plans to deal with looting, the insurgency, sectarian violence, you name it! Anyway, we've bungled so badly for so long, they just want us out. They understand better than anyone else the consequences of that. Let's
see if their majority will is honored or ignored.

What's your guess? jgoodwin004@centurytel.net

MORALITY TEST: WILL THE REAL INFIDELS PLEASE STAND UP?

"If America is not good, America is not great."
--- Alexis de Toqueville
We were treated to a moral double whammy this past week: the Pope was seeking dialogue with the Muslim world by insulting (and misrepresenting) their Prophet, while our president was lecturing middle easterners at the U. N. on the blessings of freedom, democracy, decency, and human rights. No one at the N. Y. meeting (except for the Prez.) could help but be embarassed for him, knowing he stood before them morally naked. Everyone knew also that his people have been torturing Muslims routinely and were, as he spoke, fighting in the U. S. congress for permission to keep on torturing.

George Packer, writing in the Sep. 18 New Yorker "Talk of the Town," spoke of this craziness as "an ongoing strategic disaster around the world." As to Bush's repeated claim "The United States does not torture . . . I have not authorized it and will not authorize it," Packer says: "This was a lie, and most of the world knows it. The lie, and the reality that the phrase 'an alternative set of procedures' is meant to conceal --simulated drowning, sleep and sensory deprivation, induced hypothermia, beatings, and other forms of torture that are responsible for some of the dozens of detainee deaths considered to be homicides --- have done more to embolden America's enemies and estrange its friends than anything bin Laden might say or do."
(emphasis mine.)

The Muslim world knows too well (it's on their TV frequently) that we are holding 14,000+ of their young men in prisons in Iraq, three or four thousand in Afghanistan, plus secret numbers in secret prisons, and 400+ still in Guantanamo. Most of these, by far, including those at Gitmo are being held without charges, with little or no evidence, without lawyers or legal process, and without hope. (They are victims of Cheney's "1 percent doctine." To find out what that is, see Ron Suskind's terrific (I mean that literally) new book by that name.)

Last time I looked, only ten people at Gitmo had ever been charged with anything. That probably means that, for the rest, evidence is skimpy or nonexistent. Half of the original 500+ were Afghans caught on the battlefield defending their country. Since when is that a crime? No country, and no religion says it's wrong to fight in defense of your own homeland. Most, in fact, hold it a crime not to.

Many in Gitmo were turned in by corrupt warlords who collected bounties on them, and manufactured stories to go with the prisoners. (Those warlords, by the way, are still running Afghanistan, outside of Kabul, and are still on the CIA payroll. They also run the incredibly profitable opium and heroin trade, and pay off the Taliban where appropriate). Meanwhile, back at Gitmo, as to the treatment there, in a letter to the Oct. 2006 Harper's, Stephen Xenakis, M. D. writes:

" We cannot separate the decision of the detainees at Guantonamo to starve themselves from the grim facts of their imprisonment: 55 percent of the detainees have not been determined to have committed any hostile acts against the United States; they have not been accorded due process; and they have not seen their families or friends for over four years. . .The conditions of incarceration illustrate that our military health-care system has not taken all possible measures to prevent detainees from spiraling downward into a hopeless and helpless state, one in which self-starvation seems the only alternative."

Dr. Xenakis is understandably critical of doctors at Gitmo who are violating their Hippocratic Oaths by participating in these atrocities. The President claims the people held at Gitmo are "hard core terrorists." If that 's true, put them on trial and produce the evidence. Instead, the Prez. wants the power to torture them until they confess to something, and then use their tortured confession to convict them and incarcerate them permently. Never mind what this travesty does to our legal system (Packer says innocent men have languished for years). How is it viewed in the rest of the world? This is the kind of stuff Saddam did! It's also what Colin Powell means by asking about our moral bearings.

As for the supposed need for torture, we shoud note that some of the most convincing testimony against it comes from senior military combat veterans who say its use dishonors them, the uniform, the flag, the country. Its main advocates have not seen active military service (Cheney took five deferments) and can't be dishonored. You can't lose what you don't have.

Lt. Gen. John Kimmons is the Army's deputy chief of staff for intelligence. He was briefing reporters recently at the Pentagon on the new field manual that specifies which interrogation techniques will be forbidden. As reported by George Packer (in the New Yorker article already cited above), here is what the Gen. said about the usefulness of torture:

"No good intelligence is going to come from abusive practices. I think history tells us that. And, moreover, any piece of intelligence which is obtained under duress, through the use of abusive techniques, would be of questionable credibility, and additionally it would do more harm than good when it inevitably became known that abusive practices were used. And we can't afford to go there. Some of our most significant successes on the battlefield have been -- in fact, I would say all of them, almost categorically all of them, have accrued from expert interrogators using mixtures of authorized humane interrogation practices, in clever ways that you would hope Americans would use them, to push the envelope within the bookends of legal, moral, and ethical, now as further refined by this field manual. So we don't need abusive practices in there."

Packer again: "Last week, in the guise of calling for fair trials, the Pres. demanded that Congress give him the power to go on torturing detainees in secret prisons and use the evidence obtained against them." Is that really what America stands for? Why do we stand for it?

Fareed Zakaria is the reason I keep taking Newsweek. He's one of the best in the business. I hope he's not overly optimistic in writing in this week's issue of the mag:

"The secret prisons have come out of the dark. Guantanamo will have to be closed or transformed. . . The administration's policy has undergone a sea change. The executive branch has abandoned the idea that 'enemy combatants' ---that is anyone so defined by the White House or Defense Dept.---may be locked up indefinitely without ever being charged, that secret prisons can be maintained, that congressional input or oversight is unnecessary and that international laws and treaties are irrelevant. The Geneva Conventions, in particular, were dismissed during the administration's first term by the then White House counsel Alberto Gonzales for the 'quaint' protections of prisoners and 'obsolete' limitations on interrogations. Donald Rumsfeld publically announced that the Conventions no longer applied."

Fareed is happy that the bad old days are gone for good! I sure hope he's right. I can't help but remember what the old eastern Oregon rancher said as he stepped onto his back porch with his deer rifle, and shot his faithful cow-dog, saying: "you can't break a dog from suckin' eggs." Let's hope that ancient folk wisdom has no application whatsoever in what we are discussing here! Cheers!

"Who shall ascend to the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place? He that has clean hands and a pure heart. . . .He has shown you O man what is good, and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."

I'd love to hear from you! jgoodwin004@centurytel.net

IS THE POPE CRAZY?

Here's a letter to the Editor I sent to Newsweek: "The Pope's remarks regarding Islam are unnecessary, unhelpful, and at least partially untrue. That Islam is "a religion spread by the sword" is, of course true but irrelevant: remember the Conquistadors? The Americas, the Phillippines, and the bottom three quarters of Africa were all "christianized" by military force.
What is the point?

That Islam is "evil and inhuman" is simply untrue, unless one is willing to say the same of Christianity, in equal amounts. (Inquisition, anybody?) He is pouring oil on a fire we don't need. Is it to help Bush?"

The Pope has, for whatever reason, greatly aided the Bush-Cheney (BC) effort to alienate the Muslim world and create a permanent battle between religions. (Unlike them, though, the Pope knows what he is doing. They are just rolling the dice to see what happens!)

Just as BC have skillfully used wedge issues related to religion to divide and conquer in this
country (and immobilize its problem-solving ability in the process), so it is determined to replace the old cold war with communism by fanning the flames of a new hot war with Islam that the
majorities on both sides do not want.

But why, oh why does the Pope weigh in on the BC side? Clearly to the extent U. S. Catholics
follow the Pope's lead, BC will benefit (while America loses) politically. Is the abortion issue so
important to the Pope that it is worth wars (plural) that will probably involve nuclear weapons?
Curious minds want to know!

Let me know what you think: jgoodwin004@centurytel.net

AH SO!

(That's Japanese for "I understand.") What I understand is how so many of our people supported our attack on Iraq: they believed the administration's oft-repeated claims linking Saddam with al-Qaeda. I can understand that now. Of course people are going to believe their government leaders in a time of crisis. Why wouldn't they? Our system runs on informed consent. If the public is misinformed, their consent is meaningless. Tom Jefferson said, "Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government." We weren't well informed. We rely on the fourth estate for that, and they let us down, big-time.

The public can't be faulted for trusting their government, but the press can be, and should be. They are paid and trusted to be skeptical, and to scrutinize evidence. They weren't and didn't. Heavyweights like The New York Times and The Washington Post fell down on the job. And a lot of people are now dead because of it.

The reason I never believed the government case was because I knew (as did the CIA, and they told the administration) that Saddam and Osama were bitter enemies. Saddam was regarded by Osama as an enemy and an apostate Muslim who brutally killed and tortured fellow Muslims, an unforgiveable violation of the Koran. Saddam was one of the secular, worldly, military dictators abusing his people like the ones we support in Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. (O. K., Saddam was much worse!) Osama held him in contempt, and would never trust him to know about or do God's work. Saddam, in turn, correctly saw al-Qaeda as a threat, and tried to capture al-Zarqawi when he was in northern (Kurdish) Iraq. That the CIA knew all this up front is well documented in Ron Suskin's sensational new book: The One Percent Doctrine. A must read, if you are interested in the whole story on Iraq, from the beginning.

Osama is not a crazy nut case. If still alive (which I doubt, but the Bushies need him to be), he is smart, dedicated, devout, and deadly. (He's the kind of fundamentalist that in this country, kills
abortion doctors.) He's also extremely gifted, capable, and charismatic. A great book for understanding him and his motivation is Machael Scheuer's Through Our Enemies Eyes (published under "Anonymous" instead of the author's name, as he was still at the CIA.) Scheuer was in charge of the Osama desk for nine years, and spent his time studying and tracking him. (That desk has now been eliminated, by the way.)

Osama has often explained his attacks on the West. They have nothing to do with who are what we are. It's all about things we are doing, and have done! He has said, "You'll have security and safety in your country when we have security and safety in ours." I started writing this on the grim anniversary of 9/11. Rudy Giuliani was explaining to Chris Mathews "why they hate us," and why we can expect more attacks: they hate us for our freedoms, our wealth, our way of life, our liberated women. Chris accepted that explanation without question. It is, of course complete and total hogwash! As Osama himself has pointed out, they don't attack Sweden. The Swedes have a democracy that is freeer than ours, its women are more liberated. They have a high per capita income, explicit early sex education, and clothing is optional on their beaches.

Their is nothing mysterious in the slightest about why we are widely (but not universally) hated in the Muslim world, though they actually (the majority) admire our political freedoms and want them for themselves (according to Gallop World Poll). The same poll shows that from 91 to 95 percent of Muslims worldwide do not consider the U. S. to be trustworthy and friendly. Nearly 80 percent believe that we do not care about human rights. Guatanamo, plus the president's
determined fight to keep the ability to go on torturing, prove they are right. Reading their press and blogs on the internet, we can readily discover what else about us is is bugging them. It's a long record of backing, and in the case of Iran, installing tyrants in Muslim lands. Iran had a democratically elected government in 1952, which we and the Brits overthrew to put the Shah in power. The Shah was a brutal tyrant, and used torture and the secret police to stay in power.
He was overthrown by an Islamic revolt that resulted in the current regime.

And then, as I have previously written, there is the long criminal history of Israeli occupation and ethnic cleansing in Palestine (in continuing defiance of repeated U. N. resolutions.) Of course that kind of oppression will bring about suicide bombings born of desperation. American Indians terrorized settlers, using suicide missions for the same reason. Terrorism is, of course, inexcusable, as are the crimes that cause it. What is our excuse?

Any ideas? Let me know at: jgoodwin004@centurytel.net

GET IT RIGHT

(This is a letter I wrote to the editor of the Albany Democrat Herald. It's for the public to get it right, not the editor. He's okay!)

Dear Editor: Your good summary (ed. 9/7/06) of our terrorism struggle asks the crucial question: "what choices do we have?" As you point out, "the fight is not against foreign armies or countries." So references to old wars, cold or hot, don't help much here.

As to choices, wouldn't that depend on our over-all strategy? If our plan remains to just capture and kill terrorists (important as that is), as we are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan, then we must ask not only about the results vs. costs ratio, but whether we can, in fact, kill them faster than they can replace their losses. If not, it's a losing situation, but it can go on for years. No better outcome than we are seeing now appears likely in either country, no matter how long we stay.
The Taliban is back in strength in Afghanistan. And that country's pretend government is riddled with corruption (as is Iraq's), and ruled by warlords. If our plan was to "democratize" the Middle East, that's not going to happen. Islam is theocratic.

And since the search and destroy plan includes killing huge numbers of innocents (as in Lebanon, Gaza, and Iraq), it is guaranteed to inflame and alienate ever larger numbers of Muslims all over the world. There must be a better way to go!

A different strategy might seek meaningful conversations with countries like Syria and Iran, who sponsor terrorists as we sponsor Israel. Believe me, the latter is a terrorist nation in the eyes of the Muslim world -- all of it! (If you doubt that, surf the Muslim blogs and press.)

Both Syria and Iran shared important intelligence with us after 9/11, and sought talks with us,
which we refused. That was a bad mistake. We could also put sufficient pressure on Israel (we
give them $3 billion a year) to end their illegal (criminal) occupation of Palestine (which is a root cause of Islamist terrorism in the first place.) Until that quarrel is settled fairly with an agreement everyone can live with, there will be no end of terrorism, period. The one thing that unites all the Muslim terrorists, in spite of their own bitter hatreds and divisions, is their mutual rage against Israel. (And our support for Israel.)

A real strategy, it seems to me, would include political, economic, diplomatic, cultural, educational, and other elements aimed at winning those priceless "hearts and minds" we hear so much about, but do so little to win, and so much to repel. If we win that battle, we win the other one as well (assuming we continue to refine our intelligence and policing skills.) If we lose
that battle, we can forget about winning the other one. It's as simple as that. And as deadly.
If we fail to win over for peace the bulk of the Muslim world, we can expect sooner or later, to see the nukes Saddam was supposed to have. Someone like Osama will have them. One will come in a ship probably, or by a rocket launched 100 miles at sea. We have some time to get it
right, but not a lot. Let's pray it's enough.

jgoodwin004@centurytel.net

I LOVE MY COUNTRY

I shouldn't need to say this, since I have served twice in the Army, both times as a volunteer, and would gladly serve again if needed. (Not likely at my advanced years.)

When logic fails in a discussion of public policy, and facts fail to support a particular view, the dissenter from an official position may be accused of "hating America," or "defending terrorists," et. cetera. Such ad hominem attacks commit fallacies of irrelevance, we were taught in logic 101 (which I taught for 20 yrs., by the way.) They are admissions of defeat, as far as arguing a point on its merits. (Some of our citizens may actually hate the country, though I can't figure out why or how. Or why they would stay here, if that was the case.)

When I speak of loving this country, I'm thinking of the land, its people, and its legitimate institutions (properly administered.) I love New York, where I lived and worked for three years. (I was a caseworker for the NYC Welfare Dept.) New York has a giant, truly awsome public library, great museums, opera, Broadway, Wall Street, and the best newspaper in the country. (Not always accurate, but still the best.) As a caseworker there, I learned a lot about poverty, and the myths surrounding it. I expect I'll be getting into that more fully here at a later date.

I also love Washington, D. C. It's beautiful in the Spring, with its national buildings, monuments and memorials. I love West Virginia, where I spent 10 yrs. and where my kids grew up. I hate to go back there now, because its once scenic mountains are being removed to expose their treasures in coal. The "overburden" is pushed into once fertile valleys below, burying the fishing streams under tons of rocks. That
"mountain mama" is being raped, robbed, and ruined.

I have great affection for the people of W. Virginia. They are the salt of the earth: hard working, God fearing, decent and devout. In the last election, the Republican National Committee flooded the state with mail warning the the dems, if elected, planned to ban the Bible! In W. Va. that would be worse than legal gay marriage and flag burning combined (both of which would also be seen as unthinkable.) It's a lie, of course. No politician in his or her right mind, of any influence at all, would ever dream of such a stupid, self-defeating bunch of nonsense. But it worked nevertheless in Bible Belt West Virginia (and Arkansas as well). God, guns, and gays
will trump jobs, education, and health care every time, no matter how badly the latter are needed. Most of the money from the coal goes out of state, by the way.

Lincoln said, "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all the people some of the time." We've yet to learn whether you can fool all the people all the time, but the attempt is definitely in the works. My guess is "no."

Its a great country, and will come to its senses one of these days. The pendlum will swing back toward balance and sanity. And you can take that to the bank. Of course, the bank may be broke by then! That's life.

Let me know what you think: jgoodwin004@centurytel.net

MORAL PHILOSOPHY: BASIC QUESTION

It pops up early in Genesis: Am I my brother's keeper? Only two answers are possible: yes or no. (Let's not quibble about situations or semantics. That's
diversionary.) This is Kant's Categorical Imperative! The question, and how it's
answered, reveal the two basic types of people: the truly religious, and the truly
irreligious. (I'm being descriptive here, not judgemental). Religion is fundamentally and intrinsically relational. It may be both vertically and horizontally relational
(Judeo-Chris., Muslim, Hindu), or just horizontally so (Buddhism and Confucianism). If you want clarification on any of these, see Houston Smith: The
World's Religions. (There are better [more thorough] treatments of individual
faiths, but this is the best all-around authority on all the great religions, and is written
clearly. I used it as a text in religion classes for twenty years.)

If your answer to the basic question is "yes," you are a communitarian, whether you know it or not: shared responsibility (which is what "keeper" means) includes shared
effort and energy. If your answer is "no" then you are a libertarian (or social Darwinian), whether you know it or not. That doesn't make you a "bad" person, just an irreligious one, in any true meaning of that term. (For more on this, read any of Martin Buber's works, such as I-Thou and Good and Evil.)

We're talking basic beliefs here, not actions. Social Darwinists do charitable acts for any number of reasons. They just don't believe they have to do them. Genuinely religious people (communitarians) have no option in helping the needy. That's true in all the major religions. It's summed up in the Golden Rule, found in some form in all of them. More on this later, when I hope to get into food issues. (Not as unrelated
as you may think.)
To be continued. Write me at jgoodwin004@centurytel.net

CONFUSION RAINS

I was going to say that it reigns (or reins), but both of those suggest control, and there is no control of the confusion that floods the media with non-stop nonsense. It keeps pouring. The same pre-fab fables and fabrications are repeated without end. One of these is the 9/11 connection to Iraq. 70% of the G. I.s in Iraq think they are there to avenge 9/11. 80% of Fox viewers believe the same thing.

How can so many be so confused? "No credible connection found," said the 9/11 Commission. Pres. Bush admits no connection has been found. But he keeps the fiction alive by insisting that all terrorists are connected. They aren't. That's hogwash. We support Israeli terrorism against unarmed civilians in Palestine and Lebanon. We support torture in many places. That's terrorism. We have supported terrorism in Central and South America for years, along with the use of torture. (See Noam Chomsky: Hegemony or Survival? For chapter and verse on our record in this regard.)

"If we don't win there, they'll follow us here." Guess what? If we do win there, they'll follow us here. In fact, more so. Ergo, Iraq is irrelevant to what happens here. Who exactly are "they" who will follow us here if we lose there, but not if we win? Is it Iraqi's, who make up 95% of the Sunni insurgency? They have their hands full with the Shia, and will, for the forseeable future. Is it the Shia, whose militias are fighting each other for control in Iraq? Won't they have their hands full with each other? They have no interest in us, except to get us out of Iraq so they can finish off the Sunnis there, including al Qaeda, against whom they are mortal enemies.

All of that could change of course, should we be dumb enought to attack Iran. Then the Shia in Iraq would turn on us there in full force. That is the only case in which they might join forces with al Qaeda Sunnis. Al Qaeda considers the Shia apostate Muslims, worse than infidels, and to be killed at every opportunity, as Zawahiri was urging before we did him in.

Mr. Bush does not believe for one instant that Iraqis will follow us here and fight us in the streets of San Francisco. If he did, we'd be spending the bucks here on homeland security that we are wasting in Iraq. Sen. Boxer said that the cost of one week in Iraq (2.5 billion) would pay the full cost of inspecting all our ports and the cargo containers coming in to them. It's not being done. Nor is the checked baggage going into the holds of our airliners thoroughly inspected. So we aren't serious about security. It's a fear factor: more empty talk.

Bush says it isn't a civil war over there, because only a few violent people are doing all the killing. It isn't the number of killers that's important. It's the number of victims, and why they are killed. The educated middle class are steadily leaving Iraq in the thousands. That's how you know it's a civil war. "We are losing each day, as an average, 50 to 60 people (killed) throughout the country, if not more," former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi told the British Broadcasting Corp. last month. "If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is." God does, but Bush doesn't. Someone should tell him. He hasn't a clue what's going on, or why. And our guys and gals keep dying, along with scores of Iraqis each day. What should we do?

Let me hear: jgoodwin004@centuryTel.net

The Sunni insurgency in Iraq is 95% Iraqis.

NEWS OF COMING DISTRACTIONS

I've just subscribed to Christianity Today, the leading evangelical publication, and the one most recognized for intellectual respectability. It was started by Billy Graham, over fifty years ago. Speaking of Mr. Graham, an excellent cover story in a recent Newsweek told of the famous evangelist's movement in his later years away from the strict Biblical literalism that had characterized so much of his ministry. The same thing has happened to me. My seminary training was in an ultra-conservative
bastion of pre-millenial, pre-tribulational orthodoxy (Dallas Theological Seminary).
I have nothing but the warmest regards and deepest respect for those folks, but our
paths have diverged in understanding the Bible.
St. Augustine said, "discern the times, and the Scriptures harmonize." That's good advice. I would add: "understand the trope (figure of speech) and keep your hope." You might keep more than your hope (faith), actually. Origen, one of the great early church fathers, was tormented by his sexual urges, and had himself castrated. You know, it says, "if your hand offends you, cut it off. If your eye offends you, pluck it out," and so on. As he got older and wiser, he regretted that decision, and became leery of literalism in scriptural interpretation. He realized that not everything is meant to be taken literally. Sometimes hyperbole may be used to make a point. Origen was one of the Church's great intellects, and became a leader in understanding the Bible metaphorically and figuratively. He came before St. Augustine, and had a great influence on him.
The great divide in Protestantism today is between the literalists and the "spiritualizers," who look for a deeper and often metaphorical interpretation. Jesus confronted that division in his time, when he accused the Pharasees of following the letter of the law and missing its deeper meaning. The "fundamentalists" (and the same division is found in Islam as well) say that truth doesn't change. They are right, of course: how could it? What does change is our understanding of it. That's what Billy Graham was bearing witness to in Newsweek. When my Christianity Today
subscription kicks in in a few weeks, I'll probably take issue with something in each issue. More on that later.

Your suggestions welcome: jgoodwin004@centuryTel.net