Even supposed America-hating liberals praise the military. Just tonight Admiral Stockdale came up in a conversation. For those who don't remember he was Ross Perot's running mate in 1992. He was also a Vietnam POW who with John McCain participated in Operating Rolling Thunder. By the time Johnson ended the campaign in November 1968 somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 Vietnamese were dead. Long before its conclusion both McCain and Stockdale were rotting in the Hanoi Hilton.
I pulled up a YouTube clip of the 1992 Vice-Presidential
debate and watched it for a minute with my kids. That's when Stockdale made his
famous opening quip "Who am I? Why am I here?"
Al Gore, the liberal vice-presidential candidate and fellow
Vietnam War veteran just lavishes praise on Stockdale. This man who murdered
Vietnamese in a country (North Vietnam) that never posed any threat to the
United States was awarded the Medal of Honor. I try and sympathize with his and
McCain's injuries and imprisonment and yet find it hard to do so. He was just
doing his duty many would say and was treated badly for it. Did they think the
North Vietnamese would thank them? What would Americans do to the pilots of an
invading army? Would it be any different if thousands of American children were
incinerated? That question can't be asked. It's out of bounds. Today I was
called 'ungodly' for raising these questions at another website and blocked
from the discussion.
Americans can't see those held in Guantanamo, Baghram, Abu
Ghraib or the archipelago of Black Site prisons around the world in the same
light. Many of these people really and truly did nothing. They just were in the
wrong place at the wrong time or had the wrong last name.
But these Americans...they killed children. To expect lost
people to not respond with violence is asking a bit much. I pity their
torturers and the men who endured it...but in another sense when they
demonstrate that they've learned absolutely nothing from it and show no remorse
and in the case of McCain still love and celebrate war at every turn. Then no,
I don't feel sympathy.
McCain perhaps more than anyone has led the charge to
intervene in the Syrian Civil War. Just today he snuck across the border to
meet with some of the rebel groups. He either understands next to nothing of
the demographic situation, or he doesn't care. And like Vietnam he's more than
content for even thousands more to die so that his game piece in the
geopolitical chess game can make a big move.
A lot of Vietnam veterans are bitter right now because in
the post September 11 world American soldiers are so praised and fawned over.
Many people were upset with the war protests and the rejection of American
soldiers returning from Vietnam. And so when the Gulf War buildup started in
1990, many people celebrated the way the military took control of the media and
prevented them from reporting the truth. Even the media were eager to kow-tow
to Colin Powell and other propagandists for the military. Since then this has
only increased and Vietnam veterans are astonished to see American soldiers
applauded in airports.
On the one hand I can sympathize with an 18 year old that
gets drafted, believes he's doing right, goes over to Vietnam, sees it for what
is and comes home disillusioned. But they're not going to celebrate it. Those
walking around today wearing the Vietnam Veteran baseball caps are to me worthy
of no respect at all. Sometimes I wonder how many of them actually saw combat?
Normally those who went through those things are reticent to talk about it. I
think of the one fellow I heard on the radio talking about how his unit was burning
a village and he got all worked up. A buddy had been killed recently and they were
frustrated. An old woman grabbed the sleeve of one of the American soldiers
imploring him not to burn her house. The soldier smacked her in the mouth with
the butt of his rifle leaving her a stunned and bloody mess. Laden with guilt
the soldier admitted that it was he who had done it and talked about how war
really is and how you do things you didn't think you could do. He talked about
the push for 'body counts' during the war which he and many others have said
led to nothing less than wanton mass murder.
I don't know if this guy was a Christian but he demonstrated
sober reflection. Parading around in your veteran hat shows something else.
Obviously the vast majority of Right-wing Christians are completely
unrepentant. Even worse they've baptized their deeds. US policy led to mass
slaughter in many places, El Salvador, and Indonesia just for starters.
Literally hundreds of thousands died. If you add in Vietnam the tally stretches
into the millions. Our 'liberal' media
fails to report any of this and I was astonished a few years back to learn how
violent destructive the Panama invasion was in 1989. We were never told.
Few Americans realize their American Dream is an absolute
hellish nightmare for many others around the world.
And the Christian thing to do, because it's the Patriotic
thing to do is be 'proud' of it all and if there's a twinge of guilt...explain
it away or better yet get someone to whitewash the history.
And now more than ever I'm seeing Desert Storm and Iraqi
Freedom hats, 'I Served' bumper stickers etc... I suppose some of it has to do
with the narcissism of our age.
Who did they serve? They ought to read Smedley Butler one of
the most decorated Marines in history who came to reject his entire career. In
"War is a Racket" he rightly says:
"War is a racket.
It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable,
surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the
only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems
to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is
about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the
very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."
And,
“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service
and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for
Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a
gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for
American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for
the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of
half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I
helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers
in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar
interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit
companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went
on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few
hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I
operated on three continents.”
Butler was right and it's only grown worse over time. These
pitiable fools haven't 'served' their countries. They're dupes for the Empire
and even the citizens of the Empire don't benefit from Imperialism in whatever
form it takes. The massive profits end up in the hands of a few.
When the British Empire was at its height did the citizens
who had been forced off the land by The Enclosures and were now living in the
slums...did they benefit? They didn't but the wealthy grew fabulously rich
beyond anything ever seen in the history of the world. Remember that the next
time you're watching a BBC period drama. While those flitting about and
strutting in aristocratic clothing are certainly intriguing...remember the
morality it's all built upon.
Has the American citizenry benefitted? Economically in terms
of cheap consumer goods yes, maybe the average citizen has benefited from
Empire. Of course it could also be argued this economic set-up has also allowed
wages to stay low. The middle and lower class can buy things cheaper, of course
they're also cheaper made. The low prices and consequent low quality of goods
grants some short term satisfaction, but in the long term is actually harmful
to them and the overall economy.
Another economic sector that has benefitted the population
at large is in the realm of retirement accounts and investments. About half of
the country holds an interest in the stock market and gains some financial
benefit by the strength of the empire and its ability to dominate global markets.
Military contractors and energy companies play no small part in the American
economy and they have done very well as the Empire has expanded.
In the end though, the Dick Cheney's, Bush's and others have
made the lion's share. Overall Globalism has not been very kind to the American
middle class while it has made the wealthy far more so.
Many lament the decline of American society and often
associate it with the abandonment of God. They seem to have missed the fact
that America's moral decline has tracked equally with its growth in terms of
power and its exercise of domination. Those who think this started with the
1960's don't know history very well. The 60's did not just magically appear.
Cultural forces were long at work going back many decades. Society had long
been undergoing upheaval and even the golden age of the 1950's produced Marilyn
Monroe on the cover of Playboy, the birth control pill, Rock and Roll, Beatniks,
Teen culture, and beginnings of mass consumerism. I could cite many more
reasons why the 1950's were a time of great immorality and hypocrisy and why
not quite everything in the 1960's counterculture was bad. But for the sake of
argument, I wish to emphasize the moral decline was well underway even when
America was strong and supposedly moral.
These soldiers are servants of empire and are sacrificing
their own lives and the lives of others not for you and me, but for the wealthy
interests that actually steer this country.
But people are far more eager to embrace myth.
'If you can read this thank a teacher. If it's in English
thank a veteran.'
Maybe you've seen this bumper sticker? Pure propaganda and
yet so many believe it. I guess the power elites can be thankful for such a
pool of simple deceived people. Empires can't survive without them.
They haven't served society in any kind of moral terms. They
haven't protected anything. In fact they're part of a machine that if anything
makes us less safe. Their participation and sanctioning empowers an evil
government and often their actions 'serve' only evil purposes. Many of them are
murderers and nothing more. For many and sadly many Christians, the old 'baby
killer' epithet is quite appropriate.
These people are unrepentant should be put out of the Church
but instead they will be asked to stand and will be applauded. Memorial Day
sermons and those in the weeks that follow will decry as evil any sentiment
lacking a proper patriotic and military zeal.
In fact you'll be hard pressed to find any other issue that
gets Christians so readily upset.
Let's be candid. Many Christians in the United States would
happily see me die or hopefully beaten for what I've written here. At the very
least deported. I wouldn't object the latter. It's not that other countries are
so much better. It's the hypocrisy in our society and the way it is wedded to American
Christianity. I can't take it.
How many churches will praise these former and current
military members and hallow the ancestors who 'died for you'? ....a total myth.
How many churches will sing patriotic songs, celebrating
tribe and nation over Christ, or as the Brethren leader said last week,
"Let's sing some hymns to our country."
At least he's honest about what he's praising and
worshipping. I stayed only a few minutes more.
Jeremiah 12 says:
Righteous are You, O Lord, when I plead with You;
Yet let me talk with You about Your judgments.
Why does the way of the wicked prosper?
Why are those happy who deal so treacherously?
2 You have planted them, yes, they have taken root;
They grow, yes, they bear fruit.
You are near in their mouth
But far from their mind.
Yet let me talk with You about Your judgments.
Why does the way of the wicked prosper?
Why are those happy who deal so treacherously?
2 You have planted them, yes, they have taken root;
They grow, yes, they bear fruit.
You are near in their mouth
But far from their mind.
In Isaiah 5 we read:
Woe to those who
call evil good, and good evil;
Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness;
Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness;
Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
21 Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes,
And prudent in their own sight!
And prudent in their own sight!
And in Revelation
17-18 we read of the Whore which rides the Beast. Keeping with Old Testament
language and imagery we define the Whore as the covenant people, the Church in
a state of apostasy. The false Church rides the Deified Imperial State, the
Beast. The Beast couldn't destroy her (Chapter12) but instead apparently
pursued her and won her over by enticing her to play the harlot.
2 And he cried mightily with a loud
voice, saying, “Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become a
dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every
unclean and hated bird! 3 For all
the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, the kings
of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the
earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury.”
4 And I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues. 5 For her sins have reached to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. 6 Render to her just as she rendered to you, and repay her double according to her works; in the cup which she has mixed, mix double for her. 7 In the measure that she glorified herself and lived luxuriously, in the same measure give her torment and sorrow; for she says in her heart, ‘I sit as queen, and am no widow, and will not see sorrow.’ 8 Therefore her plagues will come in one day—death and mourning and famine. And she will be utterly burned with fire, for strong is the Lord God who judges her.
When the Beast turns on the Whore and destroys it we read in chapter 18.20:
20 “Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you holy apostles[f] and prophets, for God has avenged you on her!”
Rather than celebrate the victories of either the Whore or the Beast we are exhorted to 'Come out'. Consider that as you watch these proceedings in your local church.
What God do they serve? If you choose to stay and make a difference, then be careful not to deceive yourself and remember you will meet hostility. They will realize you're trying to make a difference and they will surely want you gone.
As it was in Jeremiah's day God (it would seem) is removing the oracle/Word from among them. (Jeremiah 23)
Being in the grip of false teaching and no longer able to see or understand the Word is judgment from God. He threatens in Revelation to remove the candlestick, the light, the Word-legitimacy that makes them legitimate congregations.
Perhaps America is in decline because the Church in this land has embraced evil and called it good? Perhaps the church in wedding itself to the Beast is helping to bring curses down on it and the nation it worships. Who can say?
Perhaps success, wealth and power are part of the curse? Who can say? We cannot read the secret counsels of Providence and neither can those who claim God is on their side or the side of their nation throughout history.
But think on these things as you watch the church play the harlot, or think about it as you're walking back to your car and listening to the muffled sound of people singing about the American army crushing the head of the serpent with a gospel of steel, a terrible swift sword, dying as Christ did to redeem men. Think about it as you drive away looking at the sacrilegious messages on the 'church sign' or the flags planted at its base or in the flower beds.
When you grasp it, the scope of this becomes overwhelming leaving you stunned and speechless. And even then you're only beginning to see. In time with open eyes you will start to see the bleeding pulsating cancer permeating the American Church and you realize this isn't the Body of Christ at all. This is a cheap sham, an evil deception.
You begin to understand what the New Testament teaches about the Kingdom's warfare and the nature of the war we're fighting. These evils can only be defeated by proclaiming the Word of God, worship, faith, repentance, and prayer.
Then you start to 'see' the real body and you realize we live in a dark time and the only sun on the horizon is our Coming Lord.
Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!