The Bible is packed with Gods commanding the Israelites to go out and murder entire populations, animals included. And the semitic religions are not alone in this kind of Deity-sanctified bloodlust..
Where, how, when, why and by whom were the Tsarnaev brothers “radicalized”? These are the questions mainstream journalism poses and strives to answer. But one antonym of “radical”—“superficial”—describes this line of approach.
Leave aside the fact that “radicalization” is a vague, unhelpful concept without any definite political or moral content, and that many of us have been radicalized about various matters in appropriate, positive ways. In the 1960s, a sort of “radicalization” was a function of political awareness and decency. (What was “radical” then—opposition to the Vietnam War, support for Black Power, women’s liberation, gay rights—is hardly controversial today.) This use of language insults (leftist, Marxist, anti-imperialist) radicals such as myself and posits implicitly a collaborationist “moderation” as the desired norm. But the main problem with this approach is that it obfuscates the real issue: how did the brothers come to believe that it was okay to kill random civilians?
You Shouldn’t Kill, But…
For most people it’s difficult to fathom. What’s more fundamental to the social contract underlying human society than the rule, “You shall not kill”? The principle is enshrined in all law codes and religious traditions. Still, these same traditions allow, even sometimes mandate, exceptions.
The same Laws of Moses that state “You shall not kill” require the execution of adulterers (Deuteronomy 22:22) and any man “who lies with” other men (Leviticus 20:13). Worse, the same god who sets down the law orders his Chosen People to wipe out whole peoples. He obliges the Hebrew leader Joshua to execute the “curse of destruction” on the city of Jericho: “man and women, young and old, including the oxen, the sheep and the donkeys, slaughtering them all” (Joshua 6:21). The Lord of Hosts orders King Saul to punish the Amalakites for deeds of their ancestors: “Now, go and crush Amalek: put him under the curse of destruction with all that he possesses. Do not spare him, but kill man and woman, babe and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and donkey” (1 Samuel 15:3).
One could go on and on with such citations, but I do not mean to solely target the Judeo-Christian tradition (or the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition, since these three Abrahamic faiths all draw upon Old Testament myths and values). Pagans’ moral codes similarly banned killing but with various exceptions. The Vikings had firm laws against homicide within their own communities. But when off on raids on the coasts of Britain, Ireland or France they had no qualms about slaughtering at random. Going a-viking was to take a break from the normal morals practiced around the fjords.
Normal domestic morality can contrast with the morality applied towards outsiders. This was nicely illustrated in 1944 when 13% of people polled in the U.S. declared that U.S. troops should “kill all Japanese.” On just one night in March 1945 U.S. forces killed 100,000 men, women and children in Tokyo through conventional bombing. This was the calculated intention; Gen. Curtis LeMay boasted of his desire to “scorch and boil and bake to death” countless Japanese. (LeMay went on to become the vice-presidential candidate on a ticket headed by segregationist Alabama governor George Wallace.) The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed over 200,000 more. Those ordering the strikes could justify in their own minds this deliberate infliction of terror. Truman felt no qualms about dropping nukes on babies. Why not?
Because they attacked us. So don’t they deserve to be bombed?
Surely there were other factors at play, not least of which was racism, which helps to explain the massive civilian death toll in the Korean, Vietnam, Afghan and Iraq wars as well. It’s easier to slaughter people if you think them less human than you. My point is just that the notion of collective guilt justified, and continues to justify, random butchery.
This willingness to conflate civilians and military, the guilty and the innocent, by virtue of nationality, and to kill “man and women, young and old,” is a feature of terrorist mentality. We are accustomed to associating it with “militant Islamists,” “Muslim extremists.” Some people associate it with Islam in general, although one searches the Qur’an in vain for tales of divinely ordered genocide such as those that occur in the Bible. But how many innocent civilians have been killed by Muslim terrorist attacks in the last century, and how many by U.S. bombs and U.S.-backed death squads?
Why Did the Tsarnaevs Come to Think It Was Right to Kill?
[pullquote] But the distinction between the culpable regime and the innocent “American people” becomes muddied when you read polls showing that as recently as March 42% of the people in the U.S. believe the Iraq War was “not a mistake,” while (only) 53% believe otherwise. That forty-two percent of the U.S. adult population is roughly one hundred million people. Their opinions shouldn’t damn them; they are in any case largely shaped by the mass media, the pulpit and their own ignorance. But the fact that there is so much popular support at any particular time for U.S. atrocities among the people of this country (and sometimes it is overwhelming!) must make many around the world question the presumption of our collective innocence. [/pullquote]Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has told his interrogators that he and his brother were spurred to set off bombs in Boston on Marathon Monday by the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. That this should be the catalyst is unsurprising. A 2003 UN-commissioned study found that the “War on Terror” was in fact increasing terrorism. Gareth Evans, former Australian foreign minister and head of the International Crisis Group, noted the same thing in 2004: “The unhappy truth is that the net result of the war on terror, so far at least, has been more war and more terror.” A 2006 National Intelligence Estimate representing the consensus of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies stated that the Iraq war had “made the overall terrorism problem worse.”
Some become “terrorists” (or, in some cases, decide to take up arms against U.S. occupiers and invaders, whom Washington and the Pentagon might regard as terrorists—or “illegal combatants”—although we should feel free to question such designations) because a loved one perished in a drone attack or was tortured during interrogation. They are motivated by personal vengeance and honor. Others see fellow Muslims somewhere victimized by the U.S. and hear the call to jihad in some far-off country. Others opt to vent their fury by blowing up random people in what they see as the belly of the beast.
Let’s imagine that the Tsarnaev brothers were indeed outraged by the things that offend many normal people. Let’s imagine that both came to see the war in Iraq, raging from 2003 (when the boys were 9 and 16) to 2011 (when they were 16 and 24) for what it really was: a war based on lies, producing over 100,000 civilian deaths [Note: This is a highly conservative figure; some respectable sources claim the number is closer to one million, a proper sociocide.—Eds]. A horrendous war crime with enduring horrific repercussions for which no one has ever been tried or held to account.
No doubt they saw the disgusting photos of the humiliation and torture of Muslim prisoners in Abu Ghraib Prison in Baghdad made public in 2004. They could have made an impression on eleven and eighteen year old boys. Perhaps they learned that such treatment of Muslim prisoners, most of them charged with nothing and entirely innocent, was typical in Bagram in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo as well. One can imagine some feelings of indignation.
Maybe they saw the cockpit gunsight footage of the Apache helicopter attack over Baghdad in 2007, released by WikiLeaks in 2010, showing pilots and ground crew cavalierly discussing the killing of a dozen innocent Iraqi men including two Reuters employees. “Come on, let us shoot!” shouts someone requesting permission to fire as a van pulls up. The shooting resumes, injuring two children who were being driven to school. “Well, it’s their fault for bringing their kids into a battle,” one pilot says.
Maybe they were outraged, like regular decent folks, at the gunners’ bloodlust (maybe bolstered by the false belief that they were avenging the 9/11 victims). That outrage itself would have been entirely appropriate, would it have not?
Who is an Innocent Civilian?
Of course one should distinguish between those responsible for all these crimes and the people of this country, like you and me. That’s indeed our premise in asking: how did these young men ever come to think otherwise?
But the distinction between the culpable regime and the innocent “American people” becomes muddied when you read polls showing that as recently as March 42% of the people in the U.S. believe the Iraq War was “not a mistake,” while (only) 53% believe otherwise. That forty-two percent of the U.S. adult population is roughly one hundred million people. Their opinions shouldn’t damn them; they are in any case largely shaped by the mass media, the pulpit and their own ignorance. But the fact that there is so much popular support at any particular time for U.S. atrocities among the people of this country (and sometimes it is overwhelming!) must make many around the world question the presumption of our collective innocence.
Why, they surely ask, do the Americans enjoying the “freedom” to participate in elections, always elect these people who attack, invade and bomb us? Why do they not drive them from power when they do? Why do they instead re-elect them, and never prosecute any leaders for war crimes? If their government is really “theirs”—freely chosen and supported—are they not our enemies as much as their leaders?
(By the way: is it not also an outrage that these polls in the aftermath of wars, including those in Vietnam and Iraq, always give the respondent the two options “mistake?” or “not a mistake”? Those responsible for war are thus assumed to have had good intentions. There is no way to respond: “I believe it was a calculated crime.” This tells the world something about U.S. capacity for self-criticism.)
The distinction between regime and people also blurs when you read that 65% of U.S. residents polled support the drone strikes producing more terror in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia. Or even when you go to Fenway Park in Boston, just wanting to enjoy the baseball, and are forced to listen to the requisite tributes to “our heroes” supposedly “defending our freedoms,” and note the enthusiastic crowd response to any mention of “our men and women in uniform.” Must it not sound to many like applause for the slaughter of innocents?
And mustn’t the sight of crowds of flag-wavers chanting USA! USA! USA!, aggressively affirming their pride in “their” country (uniting implicitly with the 1% who actually control this country) send chills down any conscious person’s spine? This after all sounds very much like this.
One might compassionately think, “Well, these people are ignorant, brainwashed.” Or one might think, these people are just evil. If you are a Muslim, part of a community under constant surveillance and suspicion, you might see every unprovoked U.S. killing of Muslims abroad as an attack on yourself. Is not mindless U.S. patriotism and knee-jerk support for each new war also a threat to yourself? How then to respond?
The U.S. responded to an attack on itself by some Muslims twelve years ago by attacking numerous Muslims with no connection to the attack. The ongoing slaughter in Afghanistan has nothing to do with al-Qaeda and 9/11 but is rather an effort to contain the resurgent Taliban (who are not and never were the same as al-Qaeda) and aligned forces fighting to topple the U.S.-imposed, highly corrupt, unpopular Karzai regime. In this effort, as in Iraq, U.S. forces are killing civilians with impunity.
The moral question thus arises: If George W. Bush could slaughter Iraqi civilians in the name of fighting Muslim extremism, and if Barack Obama can bomb innocents in several Muslim countries virtually at will, why can’t Muslims kill U.S. civilians in the name of fighting back? Isn’t it a matter of “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” as it says in the Bible (Exodus 21:24; see also the Qur’an 2:178)? At some point the older brother seems to have concluded precisely thus.
One should mention that there’s actually a difference between the tribal mentality “us vs. them” and the “eye for an eye” principle. The latter was apparently intended to curb the practice of indiscriminate and disproportionate revenge. Rather than killing everyone in the neighboring village for the death of one of your own at the hands of one of theirs, you just kill one and call it even. (I won’t digress on the irony involved in the fact that contemporary Israeli leaders, in effect rejecting Exodus 21:24, boast of their deliberately “disproportionate responses” to any attack on themselves. It is an effort to terrify all foes.)
In the history of religion one sees a further evolution from this “eye for an eye” principle to the (arguably higher) principle of forgiveness. Thus we find in the Buddhist Dhammapada:
“How will hate leave him if a man forever thinks,
‘He abused me, he hit me, he defeated me, he robbed me’?
Will hate ever touch him if he does not think,
‘He abused me, he hit me, he defeated me, he robbed me’?
There is only one eternal law:
Hate never destroys hate: only love does.”
And of course Jesus is supposed to have said (Matthew 5:38):
“You have heard how it was said: Eye for eye and tooth for tooth. But I say this to you: offer no resistance to the wicked. On the contrary, if someone hits you on the right cheek, offer him the other as well…” In the theology of St. Paul, the “New Law” of Christian forgiveness supersedes the “Old Law” of retribution of Mosaic law.
But such refined thoughts have rarely impacted the behavior of modern states. Indeed the rule has been: “Isn’t it ok to make them feel our pain—by killing their children, so rich in hope and promise, shattering their peace of mind as they go about their lives, actively or just tacitly supporting their government that has provoked us?” That’s how Gen. Curtis LeMay felt, surely, in waging his war without mercy. I think this is how the Tsarnaevs also came to feel.
Some Comparisons
On April 15, the brothers’ bombs killed two young women and a little boy, occasioning a national outpouring of grief and countless tributes to the imagined bravery of we Bostonians and the heroism of local police.
On that same day in Baghdad, according to Iraq Body Count, 30 civilians were killed by car bombs and IEDs for reasons directly connected to the U.S. invasion and occupation. In all 62 were killed in Iraq by bombs or gunfire for such reasons, just another typical day in that wrecked country.
On the same day, nine Afghan civilians were killed in the ongoing civil war sparked by the invasion and occupation. A roadside bomb killed seven. Four were killed by an IED the next day. A week before U.S. airstrikes had killed 17 civilians including 12 children in Kunar province; the public clamor forced President Karzai to order U.S. special forces out of the province.
According to NATO, 475 civilians were killed in the Afghan conflict from January to March of this year. In Iraq, 561 civilians were killed in bombings or shootings in April alone. Such is the magnitude of suffering inflicted by U.S. imperialism on just these two countries within the Muslim world. Meanwhile Libya is worse off then ever after getting “liberated” by U.S.-NATO bombing; Mali suffers from the fallout of the Libya intervention; Syria and Iran remain in the U.S. crosshairs; and in Yemen resentment smolders at the drone strikes (up to 54 in April alone).
Some Muslim clerics—one must stress, a tiny minority—look at this big picture and say, “Islam is under attack from the U.S. It is our religious obligation to defend our brothers and sisters. Since we cannot defeat this enemy through conventional ways, we must use terror to make them realize there is a price for their own terror.” It is precisely the sentiment conveyed by an unknown Hebrew poet two and a half millennia ago, in venting his rage against the Babylonians who’d conquered and dispersed his people:
Daughter of Babel, doomed to destruction,
A blessing on anyone
Who treats you as you treated us,
A blessing on anyone who seizes your babies
And shatters them against a rock!
Spine-chilling you say? Yet it is, for Jews and Christians, Holy Writ: the ending of Psalm 137:8-9. And you will find no end of Jewish and Christian cleric-bloggers who jump to its defense. “One of the unsurpassed biblical hymns of all time,” says one. “Nowhere does it say that God approves of the Psalmist’s request,” writes another, “ or that he fulfilled it. Just because it is recorded that the Psalmist wrote the imprecation, doesn’t mean it was approved by God.” Another writes: “Now the psalmist says that soon someone will destroy Babylon. He was right!” Others write that the poet is simply expressing satisfaction that prophecy will be fulfilled.
An Eye for an Eye, Including Your Baby’s
But there’s really no question that this justifies mass-murder, or at least surely did, for some people, for a period of time. It is more than “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” It’s “the eye or the tooth of any of your people including the innocent child” or rather an expression of the notion that there are no “innocents” in this great conflict between the People of God and their enemies. There is no great leap between this (sick) mentality and that of the occasional Islamic imam who depicts everyone in this country as an appropriate target.
But did the Tsarnaevs need some sort of religious-political mentor (the mysterious Misha, William Plotnikov, Mansur Nidal, Awlaki) to make the leap from mere outrage to the righteous shattering of babies against the rock? Or was the moral model already at hand, there in the wars based on lies, in the Abu Ghraib photos, the Blackwater Baghdad murders of Sept. 2007, the Baghdad collateral murder video?
“It’s their fault for bringing their kids,” said the pilot in the leaked video, proud to have picked off eight Iraqis. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, proud to have killed three Bostonians, might say with precisely the same degree of moral legitimacy, “It’s their fault for attacking Muslim kids!”
To fail to understand this is to invite the endless exchange of eyes for eyes and teeth for teeth. One senses this was what Osama bin Laden wanted when he planned or approved the 9/11 attacks. He reasoned that the U.S. would launch a general crusade, including attacks on targets with nothing to do with al-Qaeda (like Iraq) thereby uniting more Muslims in hostility to itself. Prompting more terrorism, it would respond with more, begetting more in response, and so on, polarizing the world, drawing an ever firmer line between the west and a revived Islam with visions of a new global Caliphate. Could he have imagined that two irreligious Avar-Chechen boys from Kirgizia, growing up in the U.S., would ever climb aboard the jihadi-terrorist bandwagon?
He probably wouldn’t have been surprised, supposing that the course of events itself would “radicalize” those hitherto apathetic. An online al-Qaeda publication reportedly urges supporters in western countries to stay at home and take action in their own countries. The current leaders probably think that exploits like the Marathon bombing will sharpen the sense of “us vs. them,” produce anti-Muslim backlashes, leading to more violence within clearer battle lines, paving the way to ultimate victory. The vision, while insane and impossible, acquires more resonance with each new report of a Muslim civilian death at U.S. hands.
Radicalized Here or There? What Difference Does It Make?
Gandhi is supposed to have said “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” The even more primitive “us vs. them” mentality has long since blinded most of the political class and the mainstream media.
In the face of the Boston tragedy, all they can ask is, “Were the boys radicalized abroad? Or did it happen here?” Rephrased: Was their decision to express their outrage at the Iraq and Afghan wars through terrorism something implanted in their minds by Muslims met abroad, in dangerous mosques in Dagestan or Chechnya? Or did it stem from their own failure to assimilate into U.S. society, and a hatred towards this country rooted in their own hereditary religion? Either way the issue becomes merely us versus “radical Islam”—leaving the wars unmentioned, as though they played only a marginal role in the boys’ “radicalization.”
The blind are leading the blind. George W. Bush’s instinct the day of 9/11 was to attack Iraq! and to declare an indefinite “War on Terror” against anyone who could be smeared with the charge of supporting “terrorists” or pursuing WMD programs. Never mind that these are very different phenomena in themselves, or that the U.S. supports terrorists on occasion and also maintains half the world’s nuclear arsenal. While insisting publicly that the U.S. was not against Islam (gosh, he wondered, why would anyone think that?) Bush used ignorant anti-Muslim sentiment to garner support for his war on Iraq, depicting that war as one of response to 9/11.
“You’re for us or against us,” he bellowed, obviously and shamelessly invoking Jesus’ statement “Anyone who is not with me is against me” (Matthew 12:30), to divide the world in two. Obama has not stepped back from that crude Manicheanism. He criticized the Iraq War as a “strategic blunder” but has never questioned the morality of using the “us versus them” mentality to garner support for that criminal act. Instead he has praised Iraq War vets as “heroes” and pointedly declined to direct the Justice Department to pursue any charges against officials responsible for a criminal war.
He has always embraced the invasion of Afghanistan, sharply escalating it while terrorizing the people of neighboring Pakistan presumed collectively responsible for aiding the Taliban(s) that now flourish in both countries. He contemplates attacks on targets in Syria, Iran, perhaps Mali, that pose no more threat to you or me than Saddam’s imagined WMDs.
Much of humankind sees all this. It is not blinded. It looks on in unease if not horror at the scale and impunity of U.S. violence. If it becomes radicalized (in a positive life-affirming way), it is not by religion or a passion for holy war, but by natural human revulsion at the antics of a wounded Cyclops—the one-eyed monster that is twenty-first century U.S. imperialism.
GARY LEUPP is Professor of History at Tufts University, and holds a secondary appointment in the Department of Religion. He is the author of Servants, Shophands and Laborers in in the Cities of Tokugawa Japan; Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan; and Interracial Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion, (AK Press). He can be reached at: gleupp@granite.tufts.edu
I am always amused when jesus is quoted as a pacifist: ‘And of course Jesus is supposed to have said (Matthew 5:38): “You have heard how it was said: Eye for eye and tooth for tooth. But I say this to you: offer no resistance to the wicked. On the contrary, if someone hits you on the right cheek, offer him the other as well…” In the theology of St. Paul, the “New Law” of Christian forgiveness supersedes the “Old Law” of retribution of Mosaic law.’ Despite the beautiful rhetoric jesus also condemned all those who did not follow him… Read more »
Can we PLEASE leave rants against this or that religion out of our discussions? It detracts from the true perpetrators, who like Kiss, Brzezinski and all their minions don’t give a fig for any spiritual construct. To lambast one religion or another is to anger its adherents; a path we can hardly afford to follow, and portrays a raging bias that mocks allegiance to civil discussions. Let’s try to focus our attacks on the perpetrators, not on our petty grudges. Such attacks truly demean what is at stake; an Orwellian world, devoid of humanity,or freedom of thought, or a viable… Read more »
Mary, It is not possible to ignore the religious roots of so much violence around the globe. It is not possible to ignore the actions of the CIA, as they correspond directly and in kind, intent and fury to the biblical myths which infuse our culture. If these myths are not dispelled, then neither will be the corruption, cruelty and deceit of organizations which take their cue from archaic beliefs that serve neither man, nor animal kind. The religious wars go on whether we expose them or not. Better then, to expose the root cause of so much slaughter, then… Read more »
These are the words of Sir Bertrand Russell. They can hardly be described as a rant or a petty grudge: “Then you come to the moral question, There is one very serious defect in my mind to Christ’s moral character,and that is that he believed in hell. I do not myself feel that any person who is profoundly humane can bleieve in everlasting punishment. Christ certainly as depicted in the gospels did believe in everlasting punishment and one does find repeatedly a vindictive fury against those people who would not listen to his preaching – an attitude which is not… Read more »
Oh, I don’t know if the Semitic religions are any crueler than what Buddhists or Animists do or have done to others. To state this sort of thing is pure US thought extremism that arises entirely from the usual arrogance of ignorance. When one listens to idiots like Bill Maher who condemns without knowing a single fact about Islam, how violent that religion is, that kind of complete lack of insight in what the world is like outside the borders of this nation becomes crystal clear except to those who reason from totally unreasoned and uneducated prejudices. The fact is… Read more »
There are 3 billion individuals who subscribe to the semitic religions… Together they are responsible for almost all the aggression and currently ongoing wars… Surely that indicates there is some sort of defect in these religions which encourages so much violence. To ignore this and shrug it off because there are other examples of cruel beliefs will do little to end the internecine holy wars of the semitic tradition, There is a religious belief that has led to greater compassion for animals especially and for humans as well. The Jain tradition of india is based on the concept of ahimsa:… Read more »
You guys need to know there are multiple CIA connections to this case. It’s being censored nearly everywhere, including the “alternative” press. http://politicalfilm.wordpress.com/2013/05/02/censored-uncle-ruslan-tsarni-may-have-funded-terrorists-bostonbombing-tsarnaev/ http://politicalfilm.wordpress.com/2013/05/09/another-cia-connection-to-the-boston-bombing-bostonbombing/ As for who “radicalized” him, we have his “history” professor (CIA) to look at: “Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s high school project “mentor,” Brian Glyn Williams. Brian Glyn Williams happens to work for the CIA, on Islamic suicide bombers, Chechnya, and jihadi terrorism. Williams is also an associate professor of history at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, the university where 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was enrolled, and where he spent many of his last free hours between the Boston Marathon bombing… Read more »
OMG! Just another CIA cog in the wheel of global destruction! And, those media maggots who will never divulge the truth if their lives depended on it, are shown just how low they will sink to serve their overlords. Is there NO WAY to inform the public about the charade being used to aid and abet “Home grown terrorists” whose roots are supposed to be far from where they are, as you so perfectly depicted in this essay. A lesson I won’t soon forget or equally will inform my friends of the reality behind the fog front of Mudoch and… Read more »
Jainism like the Baha’i religion (the worship of the unity of humankind) are but small sects that require degrees of self abnegation. They are the intellectual opposites of the Dionysiac human trait, the urge to indulge in the wild orgy of the senses. That many wars and cruelties are done in the name of a religion, does not make that religion in and of itself damnable. What I argued against is the one-sided viewpoint of politicized discourse that elects to put forward some elements in order to prove its point while ignoring those elements that would negate the intent of… Read more »
You state: ‘Semitic religions have as goal the amelioration of human fate and the relief of suffering.’ On the contrary – the semitic religions have as a goal, the creation of human misery – as noted by Sir Bertrand Russell in his book of Essays, Why I am not a Christian,, as the advantages of suffering push many join these religions with the false belief that it will end their misery. In other words the semitic religions capitalize on human suffering to increase wealth, power and numbers. It is not just the Roman Catholic church, but all the institutions of… Read more »
Peter. Violence and cruelty are committed in the name of the semitic religions – because they sanction violence and cruelty, encapsulated by dominion… Violence and cruelty are not committed in the name of Jainism because it endorses ahimsa. Doctrine that excuses violence under certain conditions is indeed responsible for the result – ongoing holy wars, prosyletizing, land grabs and appartheid states. It is unrealistic to expect forgiveness as a basis for progress when the option of violence is readily available and tolerated. The primary example being complete retribution towards those who, in the case of Christianity, are unwilling to accept… Read more »
Joe G. placed a very important comment with referrals to blog sites exposing political connections that frankly should not surprise us at all. The convoluted efforts to contain this country more and more by counter-espionage and policing will restrict the public boundaries till everyone is chained to the menace of a fibrillated society, a bureaucratic paradise for the vested interests. It will mean the end of legal and personal freedom. How long it will take for the populace to resist this will determine the final breakdown of this society. The secret services are in the vanguard of preparing the citizenry… Read more »
Peter wrote: ‘The secret services are in the vanguard of preparing the citizenry for imaginary (and real) adversaries and always on the premise that the country is an innocent player in world events, that the military is there to protect people not corporate interests and that everyone is entitled to a pursuit of happiness.’ This article traces the roots of violence in religious doctrine. There is a clear parallel between the endless genocides and revenge killings of the bible and the actions of the CIA. Both the semitic religions and the CIA must have an enemy, a scapegoat to rally… Read more »
From CIA machinations to hatred of religion, surely we must suffer from a batch of self righteousness. I do not claim any more perspicacity than anyone else, but I see Marxism and Capitalism as religions too. It is just what you feel comfortable in: “ I believe for every drop of rain that falls, A flower grows. I believe that somewhere in the darkest night A candle glows. I believe for everyone who goes astray, someone will come To show the way. I believe, I believe”. Now I personally think that Marxism is far more humane than Capitalism, even though… Read more »
Ruth, It is unfortunate that you equate all of humankind’s tragedies to a religious source. Lighten up! History is replete with inhumanity done in the name of empire, revolution, the French being a prime example, and the rule of the wealthy simultaneously with the servitude of the other socio/economic classes. I would not for one minute say that some wars have not had a religious zealotry, but far more have had a tyrannical origin. To only attribute man’s cruelty to man to a spiritual prime mover is to show an naivete formed by ignorance. The French Revolution was hardly a… Read more »
It is not fair to say I attribute all violence to the dominion religions, but it is most noteworthy that the three billion followers of these religions are always at odds with others of the same tradition. Christian nations invade moslem nations on the pretext of ending terrorism, as they soldiers march in with bibles to convert the heathens. This is occurring in Afghanistan, iraq, pakistan and yemen and is just the latest version of the inquisiitons, crusades and forced conversions which have occurred throughout history. Moslem nations seeking to defend themselves against the infidel reply with violence. Israel was… Read more »
Ruth, Reading your polemics leads me to believe that your “war” is not against the Orwellian enemies of freedom and democracy, but any vestige of religion. Your attacks seem devoid of polemics to the destroyers of our republic. Trust me, I dare say that the Kissingers/Brezenskis, Rockefellers are hardly singing in any choir, but reside in their lairs of NWO think tanks. The power players rarely exposed to the public’s purview, are more than happy to have the opposition to their grand plans, diluted to petty personal vendettas that leaves them blissfully empowered to pursue their nefarious goals Your crusade… Read more »
I am afraid you have misunderstood the purpose of shedding light on the intention and meaning of dominion, by labeling the effort a crusade. It is merely an effort to shed light on the harm done by religions that sanctify violence. Call this effort what you may, an honest appraisal of the harm implied in dominion is an effort is intended to provide information for consideration. You may reject it if you chose, but there will be those for whom this information is helpful. In my primary work to end animal abuse and exploitation, there is often appreciation for the… Read more »
Peter, you state: It is unfortunate that you equate all of humankind’s tragedies to a religious source. Lighten up! Again I dont attribute all lifes tragedies to a religious source, but having been born into a semitic religion and leaving it has considerably lightened my view…. It is not necessary for me to become involved in the endless arguments about who did what to whom in this tradition of never ending squabbles…. The failure to grasp the importance of reverence for life, as you state: ‘The Jain religion holds many attractive tenets but few people are prepared for a vegan’s… Read more »
The article by Prof Leupp is concerned with radicalization of terrorists within the semitic religions. As such he draws on his background in religion to list tales of biblical violence as a potential source for the political, religiously based, violence that confronts us globally. The intention, as Mary puts it to ‘fight fascism’ is not undermined by exposing the inherent fascism of religions that inspire violence and terrorism, but simply addresses its moral legitimization with archaic superstitions and justifications, steeped in the full authority of religious fervor. Religion claims to be a moral force and as such must be held… Read more »