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The War on Terrror is couched in "US" versus "Them"--"for us or against
us"--and generally seeing any resistance as "thugs" or "criminals" or
"murderous terrorists". The general attitude of the current US administration and its prosecution of this war does not suggest that we are "doing our best,
each in our own way" to find resolution and reconciliation.
Governments and nations--extensions of individuals--are Called to be a separate and chosen people.
I would do all in my power to simultaneously
1) move our electorate and the principalities in high places (and such
'powers that be') into a consciousness that would allow us to: identify
enemy (like self) as the sons and daughters of "our" Father in Heaven; and
2) recognize and repent that we are complicit in the formenting of
terror--i.e. be humble before God and man; then
3) relinguish all economic and geo-political aims on establishing a
pro-Israeli/pro-US proxy government--a puppet entity that ignores the
current reality of Arab/Islamic sentiments locally and globally.
4) These internal, abstract, efforts would allow the "ground work" for the
"Terrorists" and "Thugs" and "criminals" and "Murderers" and child-killing
"Mafia" (the flip side of our selves, in fact) to come out of a defensive
(i.e. good offensive) posture; and re-make themselves into the same image of
God that we imagine ourselves to be.
5) Thereby: we would be doing all three of your "alternatives": a) getting
tougher--but on ourselves; b) staying the course--but religuishing
self-centered dominion; and c) pulling out--our awsome fire-power--in
exchange, investing a 200 billion dollar "ransome" for reconciliation.
Central to the War on Terror is the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict. Pro-Israeli minds shudder to think what would happen to Israel if the US should withdraw its support for them. Pro-Israeli hearts lament: is Israel the only source of the problem in that area?
The flip side of that question, from a pro-Palestinian viewpoint is: what do you think IS happening to the Palestinians--owing to the carte blanche we give Israel; and the pre-emptive, shock-and-awe, target-of-opportunity, targetted-killing example [we] promote? Are the Palestinians the only source of the problem?
Whichever 'side' you take, perceptions are tricky, indeed. For this reason; the only hope of objectivity lies in reading, seeing, hearing from both sides--striving to identify with all sides, especially with the "other" side:
Let's look at the "numbers" game from both sides, and consider why we are so often pulling back from the "brink of peace":
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"US" :
STEVEN ERLANGER
Twin Bus Bombings in Israel Kill at Least 15 and Wound Dozens
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/31/international/middleeast/31CND-MIDE.html?ex=1095307200&en=3dcb2c6d71761fa9&ei=5070&hp
BEERSHEBA, Israel, Aug. 31 ?Six months of relative quiet in Israel were exploded in dramatic fashion today, as two suicide bombers blew up two buses 100 yards apart in this southern town, killing at least 16 people, including a 4-year-old, and wounding more than 100 others.
"Them" :
Arjan El Fassed
Israel killed 436 Palestinians in past 'quiet' six months
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article3054.shtml
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Perceptions? Which is "right"? Which is most "accurate"? What does God "see"? Looking down on his descendents, whose side would Abraham, himself, embrace?
Point: Relative to reaching some solution; substantive changes must take place in mindset; attitudes; consciousness; self/Self-awareness; a broad/wholistic/organic historical basis... To 'go forward from here,' we need all of the above--not just brief, disjointed, sound-byte answers and cosmetic knee-jerk adjustments.
If sincerely we are doing our best to accomplish number [one],
simultaneously; then the mnistry of reconciliation will disarm the occupied,
displaced, and untouchable palestinians of the basis of their resentment and
'resistance.'
The praxis enjoined in Matthew 5 is a revolutionary 'tactic' and one that undershores the Calling we have received in 2nd Corinthians: We should be about the Ministry of Reconciliation (individually and collectively); should we not?
2 Corinthians 5
[18] And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation...
If we are sincere to execute this ministry of reconciliation; and if we have faith in God's good pleasure to work through us; then we can and shall win the hearts and minds of our enemies; just as Jacob did to that murderous, terrorist, thug (Esau) who sent a band of 400 enraged militiamen out to accomplish the blood-oath Esau had sworn to requite Jacob's deceit 21 years before.
We can not go forward without a sincere accounting of the past. Those who did the wronging cannot demand that the wronged "forget the past" and let's just go on from here.
But if we fulfill our Calling, our portion of responsibility; then and only then shall we see the day of God's good pleasure, when 'enemies' shall bring our sons in their arms, and our daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders.
Isaiah 49
[22] Thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people: and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders.
Regarding point three:
3) relinguish all economic and geo-political aims on establishing a
pro-Israeli/pro-US proxy government--a puppet entity that ignores the
current reality of Arab/Islamic sentiments locally and globally.
While these are not my sentiments, below; Americans should consider:
Our aims in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in the Middle-East is just as suspect as
*would be* Arab aims: were they the super-power waging a war of 'liberation'
to restore sovereignty to the First-Nations peoples of this hemisphere
(Native 'Americans'); and rid the western world of its Weapons of Mass
Destruction.
We are siimply not sensitive to the effect we have in the image we,
ourselves, create for ourselves, through our foreign policities and the
excesses of our nation-state consciousness. In our condescension, we ignore
(at the risk of perpetual war) the current reality of Arab/Islamic
sentiments locally and globally.
We in the US do so easily conclude that we have some legitimate, God-given mandate for the use of strong military power and might.
In that case we should not fail to realize that our 'enemies' (God's other fold, our "Father's" other children) also justify their claims to the legitimacy of 'just cause'... We call it "a crusade" -- they call it "Jihad."
But we would quickly deny all together that we would legitimize before any state the right for that state to kill our own children, our wife, our mother, and our father so flippantly under the copacetic lingo of "collateral damage."
We distinguish our legitimacy from theirs by advancing that the difference between "us" and "them" is one of intent. Many Americans would suggest that they know of no American who ever intentionally killed a child in order to accomplish a political aim.
Perhaps the notion is hard to imagine for some to imagine; but from the view points of many displaced peoples here and there, around the world: the whole history of the conquest of the America's and the formulation of the wealth and prosperity that some idea of "Manifest Destiny" has bequeathed to us is bathed in the intentional killing of children--to accomplish political aims. But we color over that 'intent' with such words as "Westward Expansion, Progress, and Bringing Civilization."
White collar crimes and structural violence makes "collateral damage" seem innocent enough. But the results are just as visceral, just as bloody and harmful.
We charge the terrorists with evil cowardice, saying 'those who hide behind their own people cannot place the blame on their enemy when they are hurt or killed. For "us," we would say, there is great remorse in all Americans for the children who have been hurt or killed in Iraq, and if we had our way, not a single one would be hurt. The terrorists, on the other hand, intentionally kill children and delight in it.
But is the distinction so sharp and clear, all across the board? Great remorse in All Americans?
We have our terrorist; we have those who represent the extremes of our views and our hatreds, as our 'enemies' have the same. We do not want to be characterized by that extreme among us; then, we too, should avoid such characterization. We too hide behind our children when we send our best and our brightest to execute iill-informed pre-emptive aggressions, based on revenge and Machiavellian geo-political aims.
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