BROKEN FAITH

"The idea that religion and politics
don't mix was invented by the devil
to keep Christians from running our
own country." -- Rev. Jerry Falwell

Running the country, or ruining it?
Clearly the country was better off
following the devil's advice! Rev.
Falwell's religious right has been
"the decider" in the last two pres.
elections, proving Lincoln's adage:
"You can fool most of the people
most of the time."

What they gave us was a fake
Christian posing as a cowboy posing
as a patriot, who is none of the
above. Christians tell the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth! They don't go to war
unnecessarily, bomb civilians, or
torture prisoners and then lie
about what they are doing, and why.

Christians (and patriots) really
support the troops by removing
them from harm's way, instead of
continuing to squander their lives
in a senseless and useless effort
to referee a sectarian civil war.
The armed forces' own newspaper
polled the troops in Iraq a year
ago in Feb., and found that 72%
believed we were making no
progress, and should be out of
there within the year. If we are
truly supporting them, we will
listen to and heed their advice,
instead of lying about supporting
them and then lying repeatedly
about their rotation, equipment,
and after-care when they are home.

As for the "progress" we keep
hearing about, Iraq . . "is a
nation that is now devastated,
where two million people have
fled, another two million are
internal refugees, militias run
large parts of the country and
the government sanctions religious
repression, ethnic cleansing
and vigilante violence."
(Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek 4/2/07)
So much for the famous elections,
which merely aggravated the
sectarian divisions, and so much
for the "sovereign government"
which has accomplished exactly
nothing of any value. (Fareed
again, on the "benchmarks":)
"They included new election laws,
the scheduling of provincial
elections, laws on investment
and oil revenue sharing, the
disbanding of militias, the
reversal of de-Baathification
and the granting of amnesty...
none of them have taken place."
In fact, Baghdad has given up
on plans for de-Baathification.
The amnesty law also appears
dead in the water. Without
those last two, there can be
no reconciliation. Our boys
(and girls) are dying in vain.

Continuing to lie about all
this, and staying the (wrong)
course is wrecking our military,
bankrupting the nat'l treasury,
and destroying our middle class,
our children's future, and our
moral standing in the world. I
hope the Falwells and the
Limbaughs in the country are
satisfied; we shouldn't be!

jgoodwin004@centurytel.net

CRASH AND BURN

Evil men are stupid! They see only short-term gain.
The Bible says the wise man looks to long term
consequences, and avoids the evil ones, while the
foolish man plunges ahead and is punished.

This illustrates well the difference between bogus
pragmatism and the real thing: the bogus is short-
term, tactical, expedient, unprincipled. It is well
exemplified by the Scooter Libby debacle, and
indeed, the larger fiasco in Iraq. False pragmatism
is base on lies and then has to keep lying. We've
seen that over and over. It's dishonest from day
one!

The popular misunderstanding of pragmatism is
that it is unprincipled. It isn't. Real pragmatism,
the kind taught by William James, John Dewey
and earlier by Confucius, the Buddha, and
other great teachers, is highly principled. Jesus
said, for example, "By their fruits you shall know
them." Fruit is a long term production. You plant
a tree and wait. Little kids keep running out to
see if there is any fruit yet. When it does appear,
they can't wait for it to ripen. When you plant
an apple tree, you shouldn't be surprised when
you get apples. You should be surprised if you
don't! You reap what you sow. It's natural law:
karma. William James said, "Sow a thought,
reap an action. Sow an action, reap a habit. Sow
a habit, reap a destiny." Our destiny in the
Middle East is a direct and predictable result
of our actions we have sowed and are sowing.

To the Muslim world, the West is a "world of
false gods." Among these are rationalism,
materialism, hedonism, skepticism, and
militarism, to name a few. This is what
makes us "infidels," in their eyes. That word
means "unfaithful." They don't use that term
for true Christians who actually practice the
teachings of Jesus. Christians in Shia Iran
are respected and protected.

Muslims know that Christian moral teachings
such as "just war doctrine" require humane
treatment of prisoners, and forbid killing non-
combatants. Both of these are regularly
violated by us in Iraq and Afghanistan, where
civilians are frequently killed in our attacks
on bad guys. Our air-mail bombs are much
deadlier than those hand-delivered by
suicides. But we keep no count of civilian
casualties, which tells Muslims: we don't
care. It says that there lives mean little to
us.

As for our massive and notorius mistreat-
ment of prisoners, this is a shocking and
ongoing denial of basic human decency that
is widely broadcast throughout the Muslim
world, and well documented in their media.
We have zero moral credibility in their eyes.
We are truly "infidels."

It is justified on our part by bogus pragma-
tism. It sacrifices our long-term interest for
illusory short-term gains. In addition to the
torture at Guantanamo verified by our FBI,
and the ongoing daily abuse there, extra
outrage and contempt is occasioned by our
official lying, not only about prisoner treat-
ment, but also about the legal basis for
putting prisoners beyond the reach of any
court or judge or means of legal protection.
Remember, these are suspects. They have
not been found guilty of anything! Out of
over 400, only 10 have ever been charged
with anything, and after five years, none of
them have been brought to trial.

Prisoners at Guantanamo have no contact
with their families, most of whom don't
know where they are. Suicides and attempts
are common there, as people give up hope
of ever getting a fair trial or seeing their
families again.

The Muslim world is increasingly bitter about
this travesty. Next to the apartheid being
clamped on the Palestinians (with our help
and financial support), Guantanamo and the
rest of the gulag system recruits more young
people into violent Islamism than any other
single issue. These atrocities are tragically
and severely staining the history and
testimony of this "Christian nation."

I referred above to the legal fiction that
Guantanamo is on foreign soil and not part
of the United States. The facts are that our
naval base there has been ours for over
100 years, on a permenent lease that can't
be changed without our consent. That, my
friends, constitutes ownership. We are
there against Cuba's will, and they refuse
to accept rent or recognize our right to be
there. Every realtor understands that
when property is held openly in a hostile
manner over a long period of time (usually
ten years), ownership passes by "adverse
possession" to the party holding the land.
Every bank recognizes the same thing, and
loans on the basis that a permanent lease
that can't be broken is the same as owner-
ship. Since we own the naval base at
Guantanamo, we are lying when we say
it's not U. S. territory. It's as much ours
as Guam or Saipan, which we claim as ours.

Still wondering why a lot them (and more
all the time) hate us?

jgoodwin004@centurytel.net

DEFEAT IN IRAQ

(This is a letter to the editor, Corvallis, OR
Gazette Times, dtd. 3/3/07)

Charles R. Nelson wrote (G. T. 3/1/07):
"Congressional Democrats have a new
strategy for accomplishing the defeat of the
United States in Iraq; it is called 'slow
bleeding'." Many of us prefer slow to fast
bleeding, Charles, and would much prefer no
bleeding at all! At least when the bleeding is
unnecessary, pointless and futile! That was
part of the message of last fall's election,
which gave us a Democratic House and
Senate for just that reason. Or did somebody
miss that message? (I mean besides Bush?)

As for "accomplishing the defeat of the U. S.
in Iraq," Mr. Bush has already seen to that,
as was reported by the Iraq Study Group (ISG),
which was not led by Democrats, and which
found the situation there "dire and deteriora-
ting." They advised getting out, and suggested
the best possible ways of doing just that. Tom
Ricks, in Fiasco, explains masterfully how and
why we lost it in the early days of the occupa-
tion, giving rise to the insurgency and civil war.
Gen. Casey was removed for telling the truth:
a military solution is no longer in the cards,
and the presence of our troops feeds the
insurgency.

So we can go on bleeding at the appalling rate
we are seeing now, and for as long as we are
willing to keep feeding our bravest and best into
that meat grinder. We can't be actually defeated
militarily in Iraq -- only politically. Nor can we
win there. We can just continue to be chewed
up. That fits the definition of insanity!

We aren't hurting the terrorists, as Mr. Nelson
believes. We are helping them big-time with
recruiting and on-the-job training. The ISG
recognized this, as did the latest National
Intelligence Estimate, which observes:
"rather than contributing to eventual victory
in the global counterterrorism struggle, the
situation in Iraq has worsened the U. S.
position" (emphasis mine). If they are
gaining, how is that helping us? It doesn't
compute!

We are also helping finance them, as Seymour
Hersh reports in the 3/5/07 New Yorker. (He
also first broke the story on Abu Ghraib and
Mai Lai.) He found that we are supplying
money through the Saudis to Sunnis in Lebanon
who are fighting Hezbollah (which is Shia).
Those anti-Shia Sunnis in Lebanon have ties to
al Qaeda (also Sunni). So we are stoking terrorism
(and financing it) in Lebanon, while helping and
training and financing Shias to fight Sunni terrorists
in Iraq! Will the real terrorist fighters please
stand up? We can't tell the players without a
program! Can someone find and apply the brakes
on this runaway truck, before it goes over a cliff
in Iran? Gen. Petraeus, who is heading the
"surge" told our own Sen. Gordon Smith that
it (the surge) has a one in four chance of
succeeding. That's the odds you have of filling a
four-card flush in a poker game! But we are
gambling people's lives. Think about it.

jgoodwin004@centurytel.net

AL GORE'S HOME-OFFICE

(A letter I wrote to the Ed., Albany Democrat-
Herald):

Ted Salmons (Mailbag, March 1) joins the
Drudge Report, Fox News, and multiple
right wing blogs in being outraged at Al Gore's
electric bill! Hypocracy, they cry!

Ted's concern for truth is touching, and
would be even more so if he had all the facts.
Does he know, for example, that both Gores
run very busy offices in their home? Or how
many staff people work in each office? Or
how many computers, copiers, scanners,
printers, shredders and other office equipment
operate there? Both Gores write books, you
know, have busy speaking schedules, and
are involved in numerous charitable works.

As ex-VP, Al has 24-hour security, including
live-in security personnel. Is there live-in
domestic help also, with their own TV and
other appliances? Also, there's guest house,
with that additional use of juice. Jay Leno
said Als house has 5 bathrooms, and a couple
of them are even indoors!

Does Mr. Salmons know how Mr. Gore's
electricity is generated? Is it perhaps by
wind? Solar? Or from methane gas from a
garbage dump? Or all of the above? I hear
that he pays an extra $5,000 a year to get
his electricity from Green Power Switch,
thus subsidizing that worthy endeavor.

You won't get any of these facts from Fox
News, Ted. It seems to me that the
charitable thing is to give people the
benefit of the doubt, absent of all the facts.
Just a thought.

jgoodwin004@centurytel.net