Regardless of the immediate implications of recent Turkish political actions, it will be very interesting to see the role that Turkey has yet to play in current diplomacy.  Due to it’s large percentage of radical Islamists, it could easily become the world’s scapegoat, as Iran has recently become.  The perilous position occupied by Turkey could easily result in a new wave of terrorism throughout the middle east.  However, only time will tell of the damages that this action could cause within international politics, and the Middle East.

Obama’s rhetoric that has been used throughout this ordeal has angered many, and certainly not helped his image.  Finding “Who’s ass to kick” won’t find the solution to the thousands of barrels of oil filling our ocean.  After all, during this entire episode, we have focused on punishing BP.  However, one thing we must realize is that even if BP is mainly to blame for this spill, BP is not a single entity, it is made up of thousands of workers such as the ones that were killed in the oil rig explosion.  According to the London Evening standard, BP shares are hitting their lowest point since 1997.  Those who are actively trying to destroy BP for this ordeal are forgetting about the workers that will lose their jobs if BP goes under.  What happened at the oil rig was definitely negligence, and those in authority should be punished.  However, nationwide there is a new trend of focusing the blame on the entire company of BP.  Defaced BP signs at gas stations is just the beginning to the new fad of Anti-BP hysteria.

Just. Watch. The. Video.  In my opinion, Wikileaks is going to be the beginning of a revolution.

Leo Tolstoy once said: “To destroy governmental violence only one thing is needed: it is that people should understand that the feeling of patriotism which alone supports that instrument of violence is a rude, harmful, disgraceful, and bad feeling, and above all is immoral.” I completely agree with Tolstoy, that war, and especially nationalistic violence, is immoral.  I believe this for several reasons, which are listed as follows:  I view war as wrong because of the effects it has on other people (soldiers, civilians, etc…).  I also believe it is wrong because of what enables war to continue.  War requires money, which is taxed away from Americans, and often times against their will.  War also requires a nationalistic emotion that basically gives more value to an American life than to a non-American life.  Many who support war would deny that they believe this, but then they will shrug off the deaths of soldiers and civilians in war because “It was necessary for American security.”  Other times, World Peace is the goal of those who support war, and sometimes worldwide democracy is the goal.  Either way, the supporter of war is putting their goal in a place of higher importance than the lives that are destroyed in order to achieve that goal.  If you are reading this and support war I am not saying that you don’t care about the deaths, that would be a very ignorant thing to say.  However, I do believe that you view the end goal of war as more important than the lives that are lost to attain it, as it is the only logical conclusion of the support of a war that has taken countless lives.

My  first point against war is that war kills people – a lot of them.  I’m going to start by looking at the lives taken by the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.  According to the CRS report for congress (1) 86,661 – 94,558 civilians have died in the War in Iraq, 34,832 members of the Associated Press have been killed, and 40,174 wounded.  (Remember, these are not made up, these are exact numbers from the CRS report for congress).  Finally, over 4,000 US soldiers have died in the Iraq war.  Now lets take a look at the deaths in Afghanistan, once again, according to the CRS report for congress (2), 2,412 civilians have been killed, and 1,003 US soldiers have been killed.  Those are just the deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq, but what if we added up all of the deaths ever caused by American war?  I will not give you an official number, as it would be based off of estimates.  But if you wish to get an idea of all of the people killed in wars in which the US was involved, then I advise you visit this link: (3).  Really, I don’t pay attention to numbers, first of all because they are depressing, and second because every human life matters, whether its a million lives or just one.  If it was caused by American aggression than I don’t see any way to even remotely justify the war that caused the death of that one person.

A horrific story, reported by  the Washington Post Foreign Service (4), shows the true horrors of American aggression. “The thunder of the first explosions jolted Nasir Ahmed awake; he grabbed his 14-year-old niece and scurried into a communal courtyard. From there, he said, they watched as civilians who had survived the bombing run, including his niece and a woman holding her 5-year-old son, were gunned down by a slow-moving, propeller– driven aircraft circling overhead.  When the gunship departed an hour later, at least 25 people in the village, all civilians, were dead, according to accounts provided today by Ahmed, two other witnesses, and several relatives of people in the village.  The Pentagon confirmed that the village was hit, but officials said they believe the aircraft struck a legitimate target. Asked about civilian casualties, the official said, `We don’t know. We’re not on the ground.’ [A survivor said] `Americans are not good…. They killed my mother. They killed my father. I don’t understand why.’”

Yet another story shows the effects of ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’, according to the Boston Globe (5) “From a hospital in Jalalabad `In one bed lay Noor Mohammad, 10, who was a bundle of bandages. He lost his eyes and hands to the bomb that hit his house after Sunday dinner. Hospital director Guloja Shimwari shook his head at the boy’s wounds. The United States must be thinking he is Osama,’ he said. `If he is not Osama, then why would they do this?’” Why does this boy have to live without eyesight or hands?  “Because the world must be safe for democracy!” “Because they attacked us first!” There are numerous reasons stated by our politicians and those who agree with them.  But I have a question for those who would give these excuses: Did Noor Muhammad fly a plane into the world trade center?  Did the 90,000 civilians carry out 9-11?  Moving on, I believe that war is wrong because it requires money from taxpayers to be taken, often times against their will.  

According to CRS reports for congress (6): “If the Administration’s request for $139 billion in war costs is enacted, cumulative appropriations for the Afghan and Iraq wars would reach $1.08 trillion dollars.” Other estimates are as high as three trillion dollars.  Once again, numbers are not incredibly important because we are dealing with ethics.  They do matter somewhat, as, for example, stealing 5 dollars is a lesser crime that stealing a trillion dollars, but either way, the government is taking money from taxpayers to support the war on terror.  Many taxpayers oppose the war, and thus they are being forced to fund something they view as immoral.  This situation is very similar to the problem that many Christians and non-Christians alike have with funding for abortions.  According to the Gallup poll (7), in March 2006,  21% of Americans thought the war in Iraq had a positive effect on the United States, and 58% thought it had a negative effect on the United states.  Also, according to the Gallup poll, in 2006, 14% of Americans thought the Iraq war would have a positive effect on them, and 39% thought it would have a negative effect on them.  These numbers mean that the government was forcing millions of people to pay for something that they thought would negatively effect them!  This is not in any way shape or form moral, in fact it is extremely immoral for the government to take money from Americans to pay for something that they oppose.  Once again, this is a common thing in American politics, but I am applying it to war in this situation.  Another point I would like to make is that even if 1% of Americans opposed the war, it would still be unjust for the Government to take their money and fund something that they viewed as immoral.

Finally, I would like to address the point that many make, that Americans are better.  Not all people who support war hold this belief, but many do.  I have no need to quote any evidence or say anything besides the fact that we are all equal and deserve to be treated equally.   No one is ‘better’ than anyone else.  However, this nationalistic spirit does not always mean that the person believes Americans are better.  Many people believe that the American government’s duty is to the American people.  And this belief is all well and good until it involves killing or exploiting others in order for the government to do it’s duty for the American people.  We see an analogy of this in the popular TV show LOST.  I love this show, and last night when I was writing the outline for this paper, this example came to mind.  In one of the seasons, Micheal, a father, is on the LOST island with his son.  His son is stolen by ‘the others’ and Micheal does whatever is necessary to get back his son ‘Walt’.  ’The others’ tell Micheal that he must bring them 4 of his friends, and then his son will be set free.  They also tell him that he must release their leader who is held prisoner by Micheal and his friends.  It’s a long story, but Micheal ends up murdering two of his friends, and betraying four others.  He gets his son back, but when Walt finds out what his father did to get him back, he becomes angry at his father and goes to live with his grandma.  In this analogy, Micheal was the government, and Walt was the American people who oppose war.  Micheal did whatever was necessary to save Walt, and Walt saw his dad for what he was – a murderer.  This is the case today.  The US government, in doing ‘it’s duty’ to the American people, is actually murdering innocent people in the process.  The analogy I used isn’t even entirely accurate, because our security is not threatened by the terrorists, (I’ll talk about this more in a minute, but you get the idea)

So now that I’ve gone over why I oppose war, I’ll refute some common arguments that people make in favor of war, and against the anti-war movement.  The first point that I desire to address is that many have said that because I’m anti war I do not support the troops.    But just because I oppose war doesn’t mean I don’t support the troops, I know people in the military, and some of my friends are going to be joining the military.  So just because I’m anti war doesn’t mean I’m like many of the hippies in the 60′s who spit on troops.  I believe war is wrong because it fights hate with hate.  So it doesn’t make any sense to fight hate with hate by hating soldiers.  So now that thats out of the way, I’m going to address the core pro-war arguments.

Many people say that war is necessary for American freedom.  However, when has a country we were fighting directly threatened our freedom as Americans?  The Iraqis weren’t going to take over America, and neither were the North Vietnamese or The Germans or the Japanese or the South.  No one who has studied American history can possibly say that any of our wars were out of self defense.  I will not address every single major American war because you would get bored reading it all, however, later on in this article I am going to address a couple wars.  But the fact is, even if wars were fought out of self defense, war isn’t the best road to defending out nation.  We see this when we look at the War on Terror.  The most common statement that comes up in War-on-Terror debates is that Terrorists hate us because we’re Americans, we’re Christians.  This, in fact, is not why they hate us, in fact it’s not even close.  Let’s see what Osama Bin Laden himself has to say about this.  He said (7) “You, the American people, I talk to you today about the best way to avoid another catastrophe and about war, its reasons and its consequences.  And in that regard, I say to you that security is an important pillar of human life, and that free people do not compromise their security.  Contrary to what [President George W.] Bush says and claims — that we hate freedom –let him tell us then, “Why did we not attack Sweden?” It is known that those who hate freedom don’t have souls with integrity, like the souls of those 19. May the mercy of God be upon them.  We fought with you because we are free, and we don’t put up with transgressions. We want to reclaim our nation. As you spoil our security, we will do so to you.” He doesn’t say anything about ‘Christianity’ or ‘Democracy’ in fact he says the opposite, he says that what George Bush has told us about the terrorists is in fact not true!  So what does he refer too?  He mainly refers to our occupation of the middle east prior to the Iraq war.  Rita Lasar (8), once said (9) “Critics of the bombing campaign argued that terrorism was rooted in deep grievances against the United States, and that to stop terrorism, these must be addressed.  The grievances are not hard to identify: The stationing of US troops in Saudi Arabia, site of the most holy Moslem shrines; the ten years sanctions against Iraq, which according to the United Nations, had resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children.”

According to Robert Bowman (10), “We are not hated because we practice democracy, value freedom, or uphold human rights.  WE are hated because our government denies these things to people in Third World countries whose resources are coveted by our multinational corporations.  That hatred we have sown has come back to haunt us in the form of terrorism..  Instead of sending our sons and daughters around the world to kill Arabs so we can have the oil under their sand, we should send them to rebuild their infrastructure, supply clean water, and feed starving children… In short, we should do good instead of evil.  Who would try to stop us?  Who would hate us?  Who would want to bomb us?  That is the truth the American people need to hear.” This is just one more example of why the terrorists hate us.  If you still think they hate us because we are Christians/value freedom/democracy, then you should probably go back and read that quote by Osama Bin Laden.  The fact is, War has never worked, if you don’t believe me, then lets read about some American wars that have completely failed.

I’ll start with WWI.  Interestingly enough, I am reading in my history book about WWI right now.  One thing I have noticed is that the United States joined because of because of some American ships that were destroyed by the Germans (11).  All of the allied powers happened to be democracies, and the war became all about “Making the world safe for democracy”.  This war was not even fought to oppose a tyranny, like Iraq, it was fought because a few American ships had been destroyed.  Well, the amount of people who died on those ships was soon outnumbered, as estimates of US troop deaths are as high as 50,000 during WWI (12).  The total cost of WWI was around 300 billion (12).  This number comes to about 4,975,287,607,270 if you figure in inflation (13).  This was a very large sum of money, and many lives were lost.  Did our reasons for going to war really provide a good excuse to waste resources and lives like this?

Next, lets take a look at the Vietnam War, because this is more recent, I am going to spend a considerable amount of time examining it.  Martin Luther King Jr. once said of the Vietnam war (14): “We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. We have destroyed their land and their crops. We have cooperated in the crushing of the nation’s only non-Communist revolutionary political force — the unified Buddhist church. We have supported the enemies of the peasants of Saigon. We have corrupted their women and children and killed their men.” During the Vietnam war, it is estimated that about one million people died, including US soldiers, civilians, and Vietnamese soldiers (16). Why did this war start? The answer isn’t obvious, but Lyndon B Johnson, president at the time that we went to war said (15): “Our purpose in Vietnam is to prevent the success of aggression. It is not conquest, it is not empire, it is not foreign bases, it is not domination. It is, simply put, just to prevent the forceful conquest of South Vietnam by North Vietnam.” Was the conquest by North Vietnam a good reason for one million people to die? George McGovern, in a speech addressed to the Senate, said (18) “We seem bent upon saving the Vietnamese from Ho Chi Minh, even if we have to kill them and demolish their country to do it….I do not intend to remain silent in the face of what I regard as a policy of madness which, sooner or later, will envelop my son and American youth by the millions for years to come.” Granted, Ho Chi Minh wasn’t the nicest person, he was a communist, and a radical revolutionist, but does this mean that we needed to invade Vietnam with hundreds of thousands of soldiers?

One begins to question exactly how evil Ho Chi Minh really was compared to our very own president at the time, Lyndon B Johnson when in the following letter, written to Lyndon B Johnson, Ho Chi Minh writes (17): “I wish to write your Excellency for strictly humanitarian reasons to the following matter. Two million Vietnamese died of starvation during the winter of 1944 and spring of 1945 because of starvation policy of French who seized and stored until it rotted all available rice…. Three-fourths of cultivated land was flooded in summer 1945, which was followed by a severe drought; of normal harvest five-sixths was lost…. Many people are starving…. Unless great world powers and international relief organizations bring us to immediate assistance we face imminent catastrophe.” Lyndon B Johnson ignored the letter, and never replied. This doesn’t sound like a communist oppressor, this sounds like someone who cared that 2,000,000 people dying, yet Lyndon B Johnson didn’t seem to care at all.

But these deaths, and particularly the civilian deaths, mean much more than a number, examples such as the My Lai Massacre are a taste of what it really was like for the Vietnamese inhabitants. BBC news describes the My Lai Massacre (19): “Soldiers went berserk, gunning down unarmed men, women, children and babies. Families which huddled together for safety in huts or bunkers were shown no mercy. Those who emerged with hands held high were murdered. … Elsewhere in the village, other atrocities were in progress. Women were gang raped. Vietnamese who had bowed to greet the Americans were beaten with fists and tortured, clubbed with rifle butts and stabbed with bayonets. Some victims were mutilated with the signature “C Company” carved into the chest. By late morning word had got back to higher authorities and a cease-fire was ordered. My Lai was in a state of carnage. Bodies were strewn through the village.” This is a graphic description of what 1,000,000 civilian deaths really means.

According to politicians, this war was meant to free the Vietnamese from Ho Chi Minh, but when we look at the My Lai massacre, one can’t help but wonder, did those people want to be saved? Granted, most of the soldiers didn’t do this, but no matter how we look at it, millions of innocent people died. This act of war did nothing for these people except cause them pain and suffering, and not only did it cause death, this war cost 584 billion dollars (20).  So there is an example of a war that was not only useless, it was extremely harmful.

Those were just a couple examples of the numerous American wars that have done nothing but cause pain and suffering for millions.  Earlier in this article, I described the horrors of the ‘War on Terror’ and I gave several examples of civilian tragedies.  I hope that I have done a decent job at explaining my opposition to war, and whether you agree with me about war or not, I would ask you to put yourself in the shoes of Noor Muhammad,  Imagine the terror you would feel when all you saw was an empty darkness.  You try to move your hands but they aren’t there.  Now get back in your own shoes and imagine what it would be like to tell him that his injuries are necessary for his freedom, for America’s freedom.  Most people wouldn’t have the courage to say such a thing to his face, but they have the courage to say it here, in America, where they are safe from bombs and wars, because all of our wars are fought in other nations.  War is brutal, ugly, and above all immoral – that is why I oppose it.

Sources:

1: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RS22537.pdf

2: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R41084.pdf

3: http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm

4: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3861/is_200205/ai_n9047848/

5: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3861/is_200205/ai_n9047848/

(story is also featured in “A people’s history of the United States” By Howard Zinn)

6: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33110.pdf

7: http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/29/bin.laden.transcript/

8: (Rita Lasar’s brother had been cited as a hero by President Bush, because he stayed with a paraplegic friend on a top floor of the collapsing building rather than escaping himself)

9: Quote featured in Howard Zinn’s book “A people’s history of the United States”

10:  Robert Bowman is a former lieutenant colonel of the US Air Force, who had flown 101 combat missions in Vietnam, and then had become a Catholic Bishop.  His quote is featured in the National Catholic Reporter.

11: Woodrow Wilson’s declaration of war on Germany.  In his speech he gave the following reason for going to war: “It is a war against all nations. American ships have been sunk, American lives taken, in ways which it has stirred us very deeply to learn of, but the ships and people of other neutral and friendly nations have been sunk and overwhelmed in the waters in the same way. There has been no discrimination.”

12: World History: People and Nations, history textbook, by Holt Rinehart and Winston.  Page 655.

13: http://www.westegg.com/inflation/  The inflation calculator.

14: http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/058.html

15: http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/058.html

16: http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat2.htm

17: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1967-vietnam-letters1.html

18: http://www.vietnam-war.info/quotes/quotes2.php

19: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/64344.stm

20: http://www.fas.org/man/crs/RL32090.pdf

According to Ethnologue, there are 6,809 languages in the world.  It looks to me like English is pretty outnumbered, so why should America choose English as it’s official language?  Well, some may say that because most Americans speak English, we should force everyone else to learn English.  This is democracy at it’s best – the majority oppressing the minority.  People for closed borders and a national language don’t seem to see a problem with forcing immigrants, legal and illegal, to spend large amounts of money and time to learn English.  Most immigrants have very little money, and are left with even less money once the Government has stripped them of the thousands of dollars required for legal citizenship.  The last thing they need is someone telling them to learn English and in turn spend valuable time and money, that could be used to help support themselves and their families

Another interesting point is that English speaking Americans have inherited this land from our ancestors.  But where did our ancestors get this land?  Well if you’ll turn in your history books to the time of the Puritans and the Louisiana Purchase, we see that our ancestors actually cheated the Indians out of their land.  This is beside the point, but the point is that before our English speaking ancestors got here, there were hundreds if not thousands of different Native American tribes that spoke hundreds of different languages.  Guess who was in the minority then?  Mhmm, the English were, but through fraud and deceit, they forced the Native Americans to speak English, or die, or go to prison, etc…  So now most of us speak English.  Now that’s something to be proud of!

So if you think that America is owned rightfully by the English speaking Americans, think again. If you think that because we ‘own America’ we have a right to force other people to do something they don’t want to do, think again.  Sure, it takes some extra effort to press a button, but I’m pretty sure that I would rather press a button than have to learn a whole new language.  Jesus once said “Whatever you did unto one of the least, you did unto me.” Can you see Jesus charging immigrants to come into America?  No.  Can you see Jesus putting “Illegal Immigrants” in jail?  Of course not, so lets stop thinking about our discomfort of having to press a button, and lets start to think about what these people have had to go through to get into America.

It’s a reflection of the chaos inside your soul

The perfection of your escape

It hangs a veil in front of your mistakes

It won’t destroy the disease eating away at your sanity

The pain inside, the scars of your own mistakes

It’s just the beggining

They can never ease the pain

They can only feed the demons in your head

What you call your escape

Only cages your mind and eats away at your resolve

This can’t be the end

Don’t give up you’ve only just begun

It’s just a matter of time

It’s up to you now, it’s coming back

It’s up to you, this pain will never be drowned

It can only get worse

Drop the blade and bind your wounds

Before it’s too late

[Chorus]

[Chorus]

Here you are!  All alone!

As the darkness seems to swallow you whole

Every cut, every scar, is a chapter in your life

Don’t let it destroy you, don’t give in

“..I am also drawn to intimate moments of hitting rock bottom and cleaning the slate.  Moments where depravity cannot take the human state lower, and both good and bad need to be wiped away before any positive momentum can be achieved.  As a child, I was told that when we are at our lowest, we are closest to God….”

This particular painting is one of Beckmeyer’s more recognizable paintings.  Basically, with most of his paintings you can’t figure out what it is that he’s painting.  Unfortunately, his  style of art, modern art, often times gets alot of negative reactions, depending on the person you’re speaking to.  I’ve heard it said that because this type of artwork lacks order, it is somehow not ‘art’.  Granted, it might take less effort to paint a peice of modern art than a more detailed peice, but that certainly doesn’t lower it’s artistic value.  Personally, I think that modern art can protray much more emotion and feeling than a painting by monet.  But I don’t go around saying modern art is the only kind of art.  I believe Drew Beckmeyer’s art is incredible, and I will write more about him in the future.

http://www.indiestar.tv/grafwall/2009/12/underoath-frontman-spencer-chamberlains.html