Subj: Re: your article about the pacifism debate 
Date: 11/5/2003 4:09:48 PM Central Standard Time
From: KEVIN4VFT
To: josh-answorth @ yahoo.com


In a message dated 11/5/2003 10:19:30 AM Central Standard Time, josh_answorth@yahoo.com writes:

I am writing a paper on "War and Peace" for my senior
college class.  Basically, I have to explain Just War
with supporting evidence, then I have to explain
pacifist with supporting evidence, then I have to
compare them to what Wink would say, then I have to
give my opinion and what I believe. 
It just so happens that I am working on a webpage on JustWar.
I am responding to an article on the subject that will soon be found here:

http://www.natreformassn.org/statesman/03/TOC146-4.html

You might be able to get a copy of the article by writing the author,
Bill Einwechter. I'm better able to tell you what I think about
JustWar theory than what I think Wink would say about it.


I used to be very
Just War and pro-republican all the way, but Wink has
made me re-think my stances. 
World War I - Wilson
World War II - FDR
Hiroshima -- Truman
Korea -- Truman
Vietnam -- LBJ
Bosnia -- Clinton

These are all DEMOCRATS
I'm not defending Republicans,
but I recommend not falling into partisan thinking. Both
Republicans and Democrats are war-mongers.

Republican and Democrat administrations are both
run by the same people. These elites don't really
care about party politics. That's window dressing.

http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/2000/12-04-2000/vo16no25_election.htm

The man popularly credited with devising the strategy that landed Jimmy Carter in the White House is Hamilton Jordan. A few weeks prior to the November 1976 election, he stated:
If, after the inauguration, you find a Cy Vance as Secretary of State and Zbigniew Brzezinski as head of National Security, then I would say we failed. And I would quit. You're going to see new faces and new ideas. 
After the election, Mr. Carter promptly named Cyrus Vance to be his Secretary of State and Zbigniew Brzezinski to be the head of National Security, exactly what Mr. Jordan had said would never happen.

But the real question is: What is it about Mr. Vance and Mr. Brzezinski that prompted Jordan to make such a statement? And the answer is that these two men are pillars of the very Establishment that candidate Carter so often attacked.

http://reformed-theology.org/jbs/books/insiders/part_1.htm

Both Republican and Democrat Party candidates attack
"the establishment," but it's all lies. "The Establishment"
continues to direct policy, in one new administration after
another, whether Democrat or Republican. Same people.

"Conservative" perspective:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/1996/vo12no19/vo12no19_cfr.htm

"Liberal" Perspective:
http://www.hermes-press.com/Voting/cabal_clark.htm

Note the quote by Quigley about the "two party system."
Quigley was Clinton's mentor at Georgetown.
Quigley literally wrote the book about "the Establishsment."

And war and militarism are central to Establishment policy.

I dont agree with parts
of Wink but I do think he has some very good points on
the role of the Church in concerning War.

I dunno, i'm in the middle of the paper and I still
cant decide if I am for Just War or the pacifist point
of view.  I am studing the Bible and it seems there
are good arguments on both sides.  Thats how I
happened upon your article.

Any thoughts on my thoughts? lol
Einwechter's article is the best hard-core Christian defense
of JustWar around. Many other analyses are "lukewarm"
defenses of Christian-pacifism or Christian-war. The
most consistent statements are best to analyze.

In general, here are my comments on the issue.

JustWar theory is politically unrealistic and abstract.
It deals only with the situation in which war is imminent,
just about to break out. A true Christian analysis must
look at the factors that lead to war. Those who defend
JustWar also defend the policies that lead to war. That
is not Christian. Christians must oppose the policies
that lead to war.

For example, imagine a US soldier in Vietnam. The
last thing he sees before being killed is an armored
troop carrier driven by the North Vietnamese communists
and manufactured in the largest factory of its kind in
the world, 36 sq.miles in size, on the Kama River in
the Soviet Union. This factory was built with U.S. aid
and staffed with "advisors" from Ford Motor Co.

Treason: or, How to Build Your Own Enemy

http://reformed-theology.org/html/books/best_enemy/

The US also propped up Saddam Hussein in his war
with Iran, and gave aid to Osama Bin Laden when
his mujahedeen were fighting against the tanks
manufactured in the U.S.-built Kama River plant.

http://KevinCraig.us/iraq.htm

How can a nation that BUILDS enemies be justified
in "going to war" against them?

Which brings up the next issue: what is "WAR"
When we say "the U.S. is going to war against
Saddam Hussein," what exactly does that mean?

It does NOT mean "going to war against Saddam
Hussein." It means "going to war against the
PEOPLE that Saddam Hussein claimed to rule."
The U.S. has an explicit policy of NOT killing
the leaders of any nation against which the U.S.
is at war. This no-kill policy was designed to
prevent other nations from trying to kill Clinton
or Bush. The U.S. did not drop an atomic
bomb on Tojo, we nuked the PEOPLE in
Hiroshima. War is seldom if ever against
dictators and tyrants, it is against fathers
and brothers, and increasingly, mothers and
sisters.

Finally, war is never defensive, it is vengeance.
Even though "justwar"theory talks about
"defensive wars," "war" is never defensive.
War is about killing people, not preventing
those people from killing. There is a big difference.
The military never proposes to use sodium pentothal
to put potential enemies to sleep and then
disarm them. The military proposes to KILL them.

"Just War" is never truly defensive. It is offensive.

Nicola Tesla provides an astonishing example of
this. Tesla was a genius of staggering proportions.
He invented Alternating Current. Every scientist of
his day, including Thomas Edison, denounced Tesla's
work as a violation of natural law. They said AC was
physically impossible. They would have prevented us
from entering the modern world by trapping us in a
battery-powered world. Edison, who had financially
invested heavily in Direct Current, tried to undercut
AC power by convincing New York prison authorities
to execute a death row inmate with AC. Tesla, on
the other hand, had a contract with George Westinghouse
giving Tesla a penny per horsepower generated by AC.
It soon became obvious that Tesla would become a
quintillionaire if he enforced the contract, but would
have driven Westinghouse into bankruptcy. Tesla was
a humanitarian, and his only goal was to provide
humanity with the benefits of electrical power. He
released Westinghouse from the contract so that
AC power could be fully developed. But ACpower
was only the first of Tesla's inventions. And just as
the scientists of his day said AC power was impossible,
so you might think that other of his inventions were
also impossible. He invented wireless transmission of
power. His laboratory had light bulbs all over the place,
unconnected to any fixture, providing light without wires.
Tesla showed how the entire planet could be lit up
using the magnetic belts that surround the planet, and
how this energy could be tapped to provide unlimited
free energy.  And Tesla drew up plans for a high-energy
force-field that could prevent any aerial attack. He offered
to give these plans to every nation on earth in order to
ensure world peace, but the U.S. State Department denied
his proposal. His papers were seized by the government
shortly after his death.

http://www.rastko.org.yu/istorija/tesla/oniell-tesla.html
Biography by NewYorkTimes science editor, John J. O'Neill

This is one example of how *truly defensive* proposals
are never considered. "JustWarTheory" does not
consider any such proposal, but only focuses on
ways to justify killing and vengeance. The whole
debate is thus truncated and one-sided.

Truly peaceful alternatives are precluded in each of
the points of "JustWarTheory." Einwechter divides
the theory into seven points, and says war is just
if it meets these criteria:

1. The war is conducted by legitimate civil authority.

As an anarchist, I object to this.  Suppose the
communist chinese are mounting an attack on
the U.S. West Coast. Government intelligence
knows that the Chinese are on their way.
We now know that FDR knew about Pearl Harbor
in advance, but wanted to get the U.S. into war
as a way of getting out of the Great Depression
(which had gone on for over a decade).

http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north26.html

We also know that The Establishment has long
favored Communist expansion in China, and
continues to promote Chinese interests over
American security:

http://www.thenewamerican.com/focus/chinagate/index.htm
http://vftonline.org/XianAnarch/pacifism/debate.htm

So it is not implausible that the U.S. government
would not intervene in a Chinese attack on the U.S.

Now imagine that Bill Gates decides to use his
multi-billion dollar fortune to defend the State
of Washington against the Chinese ( who are
notorious for pirating Microsoft products).

IN the face of a government-armed opponent
(that is, an enemy armed by the U.S. Establishment)
"JustWarTheory" says Bill Gates can't defend
himself and his neighbors, only the civil magistrate
can do so.

What's with this?

This emphasis on the civil magistrate as opposed to
decentralized or "market" responses to an enemy
represents a long historic prejudice in favor of
"the State."

http://www.mises.org/fullstory.asp?control=1356

The requirement that a "justwar" be carried out by
"the State" ignores the fact that the State is inherently
imperialistic. It is always expansionist, never purely
defensive. Asking the State to reduce war is like
asking the Mafia to reduce crime. "War is the health
of the State," said Randolph Bourne. "War is a function...
of States," he writes, "and could not occur except in
such a system."

http://www.zetetics.com/mac/articles/warfreem.html

States come into being to levy war. The United States
was formed (1776) as an agent of war against Britain.
The primary justification for union in the Federalist Papers
is war. "The State" exists to do what individuals could not
and do not normally do: commit collective murder.

It is therefore completely illogical and dangerous to
say that the only "just war" is one committed by
"the State." Wars committed by individuals or
corporations would be characterized by shorter
duration and lesser intensity because market
forces do not reward destruction. It is mythology
like "patriotism" that fuels genocide and war.

http://KevinCraig.us/patriotism.htm

And it is the coercive power of State taxation that
makes war feasible.

http://vftonline.org/XianAnarch/taxation.htm


The second element of JustWar Theory:

2. The war is based on a just cause.

From a Christian perspective there is no just cause
for a war. Jesus said we are to love our enemies,
not kill them. Even proponents of capital punishment
do not believe that robbery is a capital crime, punishable
by death. War, even construed as a defensive measure
against an enemy committed to pillaging our nation, is
essentially a claim of a right to kill someone
who is attempting to rob us.

There is no right found in the New Testament for
killing someone who wants to substitute his
form of civil government for yours. Personally,
as an anarchist I don't have a "form of government."
But the Cold War, and the threat of MAD (mutual
assured destruction, the threat to annihilate tens
of millions of innocent Russian civilians in the
event of a Soviet first strike), was a means of
preventing the Communists from changing our
system of government from whatever-it-is to
whatever-communists-advocate (the distinction
eludes me:

http://KevinCraig.us/constitution.htm )

Nothing in the Christian ethic justifies killing anyone.
Better to give your own life than take another.

http://vftonline.org/TestOath/pacifist.htm

http://vftonline.org/XianAnarch/pacifism/index.htm

Better to be taken over by the commies than kill
fathers, brothers, mothers, and sisters who were
forced to serve in the military by a communist
dictator. Not "better red than dead," but
"better alive and ministering to the invaders
than guilty of killing them."

The sinless Jesus did not kill those who attempted to kill Him.
No more "just cause" could be imagined or
found in all of human history.

3. The war is waged with right intention.

But how can you tell what the "intention" of the
government is when all documents which reveal
the true intention of Clinton and his friends at
Loral Space and Communications Corporation,
or Bush/Cheney and their friends at Halliburton,
are blocked from public inspection in the interests
of "national security?"

http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/1998/vo14no16/vo14no16_dragon.htm

4. The War is undertaken as a last resort.

"Last" resort is inappropriate when the very
FIRST steps we should have taken have never
even been considered. See discussion of truly
non-violent defensive measures above under
Tesla, as well as discussion of terminating
foreign aid to enemies.

5. The war is fought on the basis of a reasonable
chance of success.

"Chance" is the giveaway here. How do we assess
the odds of future events? The Bible plainly says
that a nation that follows God's Commandments
will be protected by Divine Providence against
enemies. The Bible plainly declares that God sends
war against nations that reject Him. Calculations
by the Pentagon are thus completely unreliable,
because they ignore the odds as defined by God.
There is no such thing as "chance" in God's Creation.

http://vftonline.org/vftfiles/security.htm

6. The War has the establishment of a superior peace
as its goal.

In World War II, 60 million people died to fight
Hitler and Tojo. If we had not fought, we would
have saved those lives, but we would be living
under German fascism or Japanese fascism,
instead of whatever-it-is we have now.
The "peace" which was paid for with the lives
of 60 million people was the rise of Communism
in Eastern Europe and Communism in China,
and over 100 million people murdered by communists.
If we had not gone to war at all, 160 million lives
would have been saved, and who would have
died? The Jews? Contrary to popular myth
the Germans likely would not have killed all
the Jews if the US and other western nations
had allowed the Jews to enter their harbors.
The US sent emigrating Jews back to Nazi Germany!

http://www.fff.org/freedom/0691a.asp

http://www.fee.org/publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=911

http://www.fff.org/comment/com0302c.asp

The "peace" established by wars in the 20th century
has always been a negation of basic rights and
an expansion of the power of coercion and
violence in the hands of "the State."  All the
evidence suggests that things are worse off
after war, not better.

http://www.mises.org/misesreview_detail.asp?control=15

http://www.independent.org/tii/news/941200Higgs.html

This is not an accident. The State instinctively understands
that war is a great way to advance the interests of
the State, regardless of the effect on the People.

7. The war is waged with the proper discrimination
between combatants and non-combatants.

The modern State has completely repudiated this
principle. It is difficult to see how it could ever be
followed. Many "combatants" are conscripts.
That is, they are civilians who have been ripped
from their homes at gunpoint and forced to fight.
But non-combatants are always held to be
participants in "the war effort" because their job
supports the economy governed by "the enemy."  Thus
they are fair game. The 20th century was
characterized by the rise of secularism and
the abandonment of this medieval Christian principle:

http://vftonline.org/XianAnarch/humanism/crusades.htm

A lot of information here.
Hope some of it helps with your paper.
Be sure to write back with any further questions you have.




Kevin Craig
www.KevinCraig.US
----------------------------------------------------

And they shall beat their swords into plowshares
and sit under their Vine & Fig Tree.
Micah 4:1-7

Next: An answer to William Einwechter, National Reform Association