Is "Just War" an Oxymoron?

BOOKS-US:

Mark Weisenmiller

TAMPA, Florida, Jan 29 (IPS) - The author of a best-selling "biography" of cod and a world history of salt has taken on the weighty theme of nonviolence movements in his latest book -- why some thrive and others fail, and why the concept is so "profoundly dangerous" to the powers that be.

"Nonviolence: Twenty-Five Lessons From the History of a Dangerous Idea" by Mark Kurlansky (Modern Library Chronicles, September 2006), who also worked for many years as a journalist at the International Herald Tribune and other outlets, includes a foreword by the Tibetan Dalai Lama.

Kurlansky notes at the beginning of the book that "nonviolence" has "no word for it... while every major language has a word for violence, there is no word to express the idea of nonviolence except that it is not another idea, it is not violence."

As he guides the reader on a chronological tour of nonviolence movements from early Christianity (described as an "anti-war cult") through the activism against U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Kurlansky shows that, for a variety of reasons, human beings, and especially governments, tend to ultimately undermine pacifist systems.

Most of the notable people affiliated with nonviolence movements, "when they at first became prominent, were more interested in political causes than their religious beliefs," Kurlansky told IPS. "Two examples that immediately come to mind are (Mohandas) Gandhi, whose chief cause was the independence of India from the British, and (Reverend) Martin Luther King Jr., whose first priority was civil rights for blacks (in the United States)."

No one country or continent has been a leader in nonviolence, according to Kurlansky. Intentionally designed nonviolent states -- such as Quaker William Penn's colony in what is now the state of Pennsylvania in the U.S., and Kenneth Kuanda's dream of a peaceful South Africa free of the horrors of apartheid -- "have been undermined by outside influences," Kurlansky said.

"Because of the British Empire, regarding Pennsylvania, and the violent tactics of the ANC (African National Congress) in South Africa, these planned nonviolent states failed," he said.

Kurlansky presents a series of "lessons", such as once a state takes over a religion, the religion usually loses its nonviolent teachings; a propaganda machine promoting hatred always has a war waiting in the wings; and violence does not resolve problems -- it always leads to more violence.

Religion is usually thought of as being a necessary aspect of pacifism -- although "not always," Kurlansky noted -- and a discussion of how the four oldest of the world's religions stand on nonviolence is the main theme of the first chapters of the book.

Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism and Judaism are all examined by Kurlansky, who observes that "Hindus often repeat the aphorism 'ahimsa paramo dharmah,' nonviolence is the highest law, but this is not an unshakable principle of the religion."

"Nonviolence," the book, has in-depth examinations of the lives of Mohammad, Jesus and Buddha. Also given prominent mention as pacifists are the Quakers, which began in England, and the Anabaptists, whose land of origin was Switzerland.

Kurlansky argues that the United States' long history with violence and slavery derives from the fact that the country's early history is so closely tied to bellicose England.

Yet most countries have some type of violence in their histories. "Mexico has had an incredible history of violence and Canada was drawn into the violence of its early days by its colonialism with England. No country in Europe would qualify as having no violence," Kurlansky said.

Gandhi in the 1930s and Rev. King in the 1960s were the leading proponents of nonviolence in those decades. Who is the 'star leader' of nonviolence in the first decade of the 21st century? "Probably the Dalai Lama or Desmond Tutu," answered Kurlansky. "Currently, there are organisations for both the Israelis and the Palestinians that have large non-violent groups in them," he added.

Unlike most Western writers, Kurlansky does not beatify Gandhi in "Nonviolence." Gandhi, who was once memorably described by the late U.S. journalist John Gunther as "an incredible combination of Jesus Christ, Tammany Hall (the Manhattan building which became the headquarters of the New York Democratic Party), and your father", is presented as a man whose actions and beliefs do not comport to the mores of the century in which he lived. However, Gandhi's love of nonviolence is given due credit by Kurlansky.

The author told IPS that military veterans have had interesting reactions to his book.

"I have a lot of friends who are veterans and they agreed with many things in the book. Some of the strongest, most vocal organisations in the U.S. that are now protesting the American involvement in Iraq are Gulf War veterans groups and Vietnam War veterans groups. But veterans aren't the problem -- governments are," he said.

Kurlansky cited former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower as a rare case of a military man who condemned violence. "In 1959, he (Eisenhower) said 'I think people want peace so much that one of these days governments better get out of the way and let people have it.' That's an amazing statement, considering that the military was such an important part of Eisenhower's life," Kurlansky said.

What does the author foresee for the future of nonviolence? "That's tough to answer," admitted Kurlansky, "but I do know that all anti-war people agree that the next six months (of the U.S.'s current involvement in Iraq) are critical because if the Democrats in the new Congress don't start to try to stop the war, they may never do it."

LIVING DANGEROUSLY

17/1/2007

Harry Throssell IN only 184 pages Mark Kurlansky’s latest book NON-VIOLENCE, THE HISTORY OF A DANGEROUS IDEA packs a mighty, well-researched account of war, peace and non-violence going back centuries. It includes the days of Jesus Christ and the beginnings of Islam right up to the current Iraq war. An important theme is how war is usually fought by the poor on behalf of the rich. David Low Dodge, who founded the New York Peace Society in 1815, said ‘Very few … who are instigators of war actually take the field of battle … The great mass of soldiers are generally from the poor of a country [and] for a few cents per day endure all the hardships’. In the Second World War, working class districts in England, Germany and Japan were deliberately bombed as a war strategy. Today, in relation to the war in Iraq, ‘Every time a voice … of the privileged … who present television news [in America] is heard saluting “the courage of our fighting men and women”… listen closely and you will hear the familiar strain from … Petr Chelcicky the 15th century Czech: the rich bamboozling the poor … The U.S. all-volunteer army is nothing more than a draft of the poor, the disadvantaged, and the unemployed’. The foreword is by the Dalai Lama who writes ‘it is important to acknowledge that non-violence does not mean the mere absence of violence ... The true expression of non-violence is compassion, which is not just a passive emotional response, but a rational stimulus to action’. Mozi (China 470 - 391 B.C.) is quoted: ‘To kill one man is to be guilty of a capital crime, to kill ten men is to increase the guilt ten-fold, to kill a hundred is to increase it a hundred-fold. This the rulers … all recognise and yet when it comes to the greatest crime - waging war on another state - they praise it! ‘If a man on seeing a little black were to say it is black, but on seeing a lot of black were to say it is white, it would be clear such a man could not distinguish black and white … So those who recognise a small crime as such, but do not recognise the wickedness of the greatest crime of all - the waging of war on another state - but actually praise it - cannot distinguish right and wrong’. Jesus Christ rejected warfare and killing: ‘the Christians … became uncompromisingly dedicated to pacifism … For 284 years [they were] an antiwar cult’. The sixth of the Ten Commandments, You shall not kill, doesn’t say ‘except in self-defence’ nor ‘except when absolutely necessary’. The Old Testament is full of accounts of warfare and even justifications for them but ‘This does not change the fact that the central law states “no killing” ’. Islam - the root of the word is salam, peace - was founded by seventh century prophet Mohammed whose revelations about society were collected in the Quran. Central is the building of communities with a just distribution of wealth, and Mohammed’s attempt at a perfect society in Mecca ‘enforced a complete ban on violence’. During the hajj, the required pilgrimage to Mecca, the faithful Muslim was not allowed to carry weapons, even for hunting, nor to commit any violence, including words spoken in anger. Later, Mohammed gave permission to take up arms for those ‘who have been attacked because they have been wronged’, but he still taught war was a last resort and that God blessed those who took a non-violent path. Jihad originally meant ‘an internal struggle to become the perfect Muslim’, persuading unbelievers with argument and non-violent activism. In 1258 Mongols invaded the Islamic cultural centre Baghdad where a young Sunni, Ibn Taymiyah, started writing works on Islamic law. To him jihad meant violent warfare and all fit males had a duty to fight. This is the man quoted by Osama bin Laden, according to Kurlansky. ‘Most war-makers try to claim that theirs is a holy war, a just war, that God is on their side’. Images of the Middle Ages and the Crusades, still seen in movies, video games and toys ‘steep children at an early age in the culture of warfare and killing’. Kurlansky continues ‘In 2001, when U.S. president George W. Bush announced his “war on terror”, his words echoed the messages of Pope Urban II. He even used the word crusade …Urban’s famous speech had become the standard way to sell a war’. A wealthy merchant in Lyons in 1170, Pierre Valdes, gave all his material wealth to poor people and persuaded others to do the same. The movement he started, the Waldensians, rejected all killing including capital punishment and refused all military service. The Anabaptists in Europe had a long history of being persecuted because they refused to bear arms or declare oaths. Today few people swear an oath although young Americans are still required to pledge allegiance to the flag, ‘one of the first steps in conditioning young Americans for war’. The Society of Friends, or Quakers, have been pacifists almost since their beginnings in mid -17th century England when they rejected both sides during civil war. They refused to take oaths, tip hats as a sign of respect even in the presence of the king, and to this day many do not use titles, even Mr and Mrs. They were closely linked with the Diggers, a short-lived egalitarian agricultural commune whose founder, Gerrard Winstanley, called war a plague: ‘Victory that is gotten by the sword is a victory that slaves get one over another’. War was seen to burden the working class, traditionally the source of antiwar sentiment. Quakerism was exported to America in the shape of William Penn, after whom Pennsylvania was named, a colony that attracted people who denied the state its rights to war, colonial expansion, and slavery. Quakers controlled the Assembly and made rules favourable to non-violent sects. They ran their colony as though it were an independent state, adopted a foreign policy completely out of line with the British Empire, refused to conscript militias to fight the French, and would not fight native Indians, instead negotiating peaceful relations with them. Kurlansky argues most schoolchildren today are given the impression the American Revolution was a relatively benign war but in truth it was a brutal conflict not only with combat casualties but with bitter feuds between civilians, homes sacked, children viciously targeted, women raped. The ‘Founding Fathers’ were ‘far from the most progressive thinkers of the day. Slavery was the most celebrated flaw but they also set the stage for the genocide of some ten million American Indians’. In the 19th century there were wars between the Maori people of New Zealand and the pakeha, the white race. But a visionary Maori leader, Te Whiti, announced 1869 was to be ‘the Year of Trampling Underfoot’, meaning the time when those in power were to be humbled without use of force and there was to be a treaty between the pakeha and Maori, between equals. In spite of considerable provocation, Te Whiti insisted ‘If any man molests me, I will talk with my weapon - the tongue’. When they were attacked, Maoris often responded with song and dance. ‘Te Whiti and his movement are credited with stopping a war of genocide that would have meant the end of the Maori people … such leaders are rare’. Denmark managed to stay out of the 1939 - 1945 European conflict knowing the people could not survive a shooting war, but they opposed German occupiers by other means. ‘It became a point of national honour to work slowly, delay transportation, destroy equipment, and, above all, to protect anyone the Germans pursued’. They sabotaged trains, went on strike, and when the Germans announced Jews would be deported the Danes hid almost the entire Jewish population of 6,500 and took them by boat to neutral Sweden. Kurlansky’s section on the Allies’ neglect of Jews in Germany is not pleasant reading. ‘In recent years, formerly secret documents have been released that make it clear that the Allied governments and military forces were well aware of the genocide in progress and consciously chose not to interfere with it. The claim … that they didn’t know what was happening is simply not true’ and Intelligence messages, spies, and escaped prisoners told what was occurring in Auschwitz extermination camp. Jewish organisations asked the Allies to bomb Auschwitz but were told ‘It is too far away’. The bombing of civilians in cities in the UK and Germany reads as if the authorities were involved in a football match with the aim to score more civilian deaths than the other side. Then there was the unleashing of an atomic bomb on the people of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 followed by one on Nagasaki three days later even though ‘Japan had been ready to surrender before the attacks’. Civilians were the target and in the two cities one hundred thousand people were killed. The big question is: even if the first bomb was thought necessary to bring an end to the war, why was the second used? Kurlansky: ‘atomic energy had been mastered for military purposes and the overwhelming scale of its possibilities had been demonstrated’. Perhaps another way to say it is the Japanese people were used as guinea pigs. ‘Or perhaps [General, later President] Eisenhower had it right when he observed that once you start the business of killing, you get “deeper and deeper”’. On to the Vietnam war, a particularly painful time for many ex-soldiers still alive in USA and Australia, a war opposed by many civilians, and indeed by many who fought there and later threw their medals away. Kurlansky: ‘Since the close of the twentieth century it has become commonplace to refer to it as the most catastrophically bloody century in history … In World War I, one-fifth of casualties were civilian … in World War II it went up to two thirds. In 21st century warfare, such as in Iraq, the casualties may be as high as 90 per cent civilian’. In October 2002 the U.S. Congress voted to give President Bush the authority to attack Iraq because it was building ‘weapons of mass destruction’. Kurlansky comments ‘It is a peculiarly accepted notion that the United States, the only country ruthless enough ever to have used atomic weapons - and used them against a civilian population - should be trusted with a monopoly on weapons of mass destruction. But worse, the claim of Iraqi weapons was a blatant lie contradicted by the United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq, among many other reliable sources’ Since Kurlansky’s book was published Bush has announced he wants to send 22,000 more American young people to Iraq. He argues his purpose is to bring democracy to Iraq, although he is flouting democracy in his own country with an Administration not democratically elected but chosen by the President, and the Iraq war is opposed by a majority of the people and in Congress. Bush, like UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and Australian PM John Howard, claims to be Christian but obviously rejects the church’s traditional teaching on non-violence. Already hundreds of thousands of Iraqi, American and other civilians and military have been killed or severely injured, plus homes, businesses, schools and hospitals destroyed since the U.S. Coalition invaded the country in March 2003. Of the 3000 U.S. troops killed 76 per cent were under the age of 30 years. Bush says ‘their sacrifice has not been made in vain’. On location in Baghdad, veteran reporter John Burns of the New York Times asks ‘What is being fought for in Iraq?’ Kurlansky’s book raises another question in the mind of the reader. Would Bush, Howard and Blair continue the war in Iraq if their own children, other family members, friends in their social class, and families of government members were required to risk death in this distant war? The 20th century was the bloodiest century in history. However, Kurlansky points out it was also the greatest century for non-violent action. This started with ‘a peculiar man in India’, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, once described by Winston Churchill as ‘this one-time Inner temple lawyer, now seditious fakir, striding half-naked up the steps of the Viceroy’s palace, there to negotiate and to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor’. At the end of his book Kurlansky has The Twenty-five Lessons. These include: Nations that build military forces as deterrents will eventually use them. Practitioners of non-violence are seen as enemies of the state. Somewhere behind every war there are always a few founding lies. A propaganda machine promoting hatred always has a war waiting in the wings. People who go to war start to resemble the enemy. If the violent side can provoke the non-violent side into violence the violent side has won. The longer a war lasts, the less popular it becomes. Violence does not resolve. It always leads to more violence. Wars do not have to be sold to the general public if they can be carried out by an all-volunteer professional military. Once you start the business of killing, you just get ‘deeper and deeper’, without limits. Violence is a virus that infects and takes over. The hard work of beginning a movement to end war has already been done. ……………………………. Mark Kurlansky, NON-VIOLENCE, THE HISTORY OF A DANGEROUS IDEA, Jonathan Cape, London 2006.

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Nonviolent civil disobedience and Iraq

Doug Allen

Tuesday, January 09, 2007 - Bangor Daily News

On Sept. 21, 2006, International Day of Peace, 11 of us were arrested for refusing to leave Sen. Olympia Snowe’s office. She, along with Sen. Susan Collins, has consistently voted to support and fund the Bush administration’s Iraq war and occupation, and she was unwilling to pledge to work for a speedy end to the war in Iraq by endorsing the national Declaration of Peace.

We preferred not to face arrest. With the overwhelming majority of Mainers opposing the war, we hoped that Snowe might represent the views of her constituency and perhaps take a desperately needed leadership role in ending this illegal, immoral, disastrous war.

We planned our action of nonviolent civil disobedience in the tradition of Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi. Our court date for sentencing, Jan. 9, is just before Martin Luther King Jr. Day and should remind us of King’s true activist commitment to peace and justice.

For more than three years, even well before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, we assembled the facts. There was no imminent threat to the United States. Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. Saddam Hussein and Iraq had no ties with Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. Iraq had no connection with the terrorist attacks of 9-11. The Bush administration’s policies leading up to the invasion and then justifying the occupation of Iraq were based on the manipulation and distortion of U.S. intelligence information and other data and involved blatant lies told to the American public.

In short, we assembled the facts that clearly show that U.S. political and corporate policies have resulted in an illegal, immoral and unjust war and occupation of Iraq. Our direct action was the next step after assembling the facts, sharing information, phone calls, petitions, letters, office visits, rallies, calls for town meeting, and arrests of others for acts of nonviolent civil disobedience.

Following the Gandhi-King model, civil disobedience must be carried out upholding the following three criteria. First, direct action is done openly. The police, authorities, media and others know ahead of time what may occur so they can prepare to handle the action in a calm, orderly manner. The main point is to minimize any potential for violence. In addition, when one takes such a dramatic action openly, it increases possibilities for discussion and engaging others about the injustices of the Iraq war that gave rise to the action.

Second, direct action is done lovingly. Gandhi equates hatred with violence. One undertakes action with a spirit of love, compassion and nonviolence. You keep open the possibility for reconciliation with those opposing the action. However, this nonviolent action is not passive. You are determined to be active in exposing, resisting and overcoming the injustice.

Third, those committing the nonviolent civil disobedience are willing to accept the consequences. Even if such punishment seems unjust, this shows that you are well intentioned, and this directs attention to the injustice that must be removed. In addition, you show that you are willing to accept suffering rather than inflicting suffering on others. As Gandhi and King repeatedly assert, such a position can be educational and transformative in motivating others to struggle against injustice.

I accept a basic teaching in the ancient Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita, that inaction or nonaction is an action and has consequences. This applies to us today with regard to the Iraq war and occupation, as well as other examples of imperialism and militarism, class exploitation, racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, domestic violence, environmental devastation, and concern for family and neighbors. Through our nonviolent civil disobedience, we affirmed that inaction is an action and has disastrous consequences. We must resist and not be complicit. We must send a clear message: Not in our name. Nonviolent civil disobedience can be one of many ways not to be complicit, to send such an antiwar peace message, and to build a peace and justice movement

Previously those arrested for nonviolent civil disobedience for the first time had been sentenced to community service. We felt by performing community service we would be able to contribute in a positive way to our community. However, it now appears that that will not be an option, and we are willing to accept sentences of jail time and fines. We still hope Collins and Snowe will work with us to end the Iraq war and occupation, bring our troops home, and redirect resources from war to reconstruction of Iraq and to providing health care, education, good jobs, and real security in Maine.

If our nonviolent civil disobedience is effective, it will be one part of building an antiwar, peace and justice movement. If we are effective, it will be because others will be motivated to join us in doing more to stop the death, suffering and destruction. Nonviolent civil disobedience is not for everyone. It should be a small part of antiwar actions to end the war.

In building a larger and more effective peace and justice movement, we can share information, speak with others, write letters, make phone calls, sign petitions, and help publicize actions. We can support current impeachment campaigns. We can help organize the major demonstration of our concern for the human and financial costs of war planned for March l7, the fourth anniversary of the Shock and Awe bombing of Iraq. We can join or support antiwar, peace and justice groups that focus on war, violence, human rights abuses, class exploitation, racism, sexism and environmental destruction.

Doug Allen is education coordinator of the Peace and Justice Center of Eastern Maine.

By BDN Staff

Human Rights Watch Must Retract Its Shameful Press Release

updated Nov. 29, 2006 12:40pm

A comment by Norman G. Finkelstein

11.29.2006

Even by the grim standards of Gaza, the past five months have been cruel ones.

Some four hundred Palestinians, mostly unarmed civilians, have been killed during Israeli attacks. (Four Israeli soldiers and two civilians have been killed.) Israel has sealed off Gaza from the outside world while the international community has imposed brutal sanctions, ravaging Gaza's already impoverished economy.

"Gaza is dying," Patrick Cockburn reported in The Independent, "its people are on the edge of starvation….A whole society is being destroyed….The sound that Palestinians most dread is an unknown voice on their cell phone saying they have half an hour to leave their home before it is hit by bombs or missiles. There is no appeal."

"Gaza is in its worst condition ever," Gideon Levy wrote in Haaretz. "The Israel Defense Forces has been rampaging through Gaza – there's no other word to describe it – killing and demolishing, bombing and shelling, indiscriminately....This is disgraceful and shocking collective punishment."

Predictably Gaza teetered on the precipice of civil war. "The experiment was a success: The Palestinians are killing each other," Amira Hass wryly observed in Haaretz, "They are behaving as expected at the end of the extended experiment called ‘what happens when you imprison 1.3 million human beings in an enclosed space like battery hens.'"

It is at times like this that we expect human rights organizations to speak out.

How has Human Rights Watch responded to the challenge?

It criticized Israel for destroying Gaza's only electrical plant, and also called on Israel to "investigate" why its forces were targeting Palestinian medical personnel in Gaza and to "investigate" the Beit Hanoun massacre.

On the other hand, it accused Palestinians of committing a "war crime" after they captured an Israeli soldier and offered to exchange him for Palestinian women and children held in Israeli jails. (Israel was holding 10,000 Palestinians prisoner.) It demanded that Palestinians "bring an immediate end to the lawlessness and vigilante violence" in Gaza. (Compare Amira Hass's words.) It issued a 101-page report chastising the Palestinian Authority for failing to protect women and girls. It called on the Palestinian Authority to take "immediate steps to halt" Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel.

Were this record not shameful enough, HRW crossed a new threshold at the end of November.

After Palestinians spontaneously responded to that "unknown voice on a cell phone" by putting their own bare bodies in harm's way, HRW rushed to issue a press release warning that Palestinians might be committing a "war crime" and might be guilty of "human shielding." ("Civilians Must Not Be Used to Shield Homes Against Military Attacks")

In what must surely be the most shocking statement ever issued by a human rights organization, HRW indicted Palestinian leaders for supporting this nonviolent civil disobedience:

Prime Minister Haniyeh and other Palestinian leaders should be renouncing, not embracing, the tactic of encouraging civilians to place themselves at risk.

The international community has for decades implored Palestinian leaders to forsake armed struggle in favor of nonviolent civil disobedience. Why is a human rights organization now attacking them for adopting this tactic?

Is it a war crime to protect one's home from collective punishment?

Is it human shielding if a desperate and forsaken populace chooses to put itself at deadly risk in order to preserve the last shred of its existence?

Indeed, although Israeli soldiers have frequently used Palestinians as human shields in life-threatening situations, and although HRW has itself documented this egregious Israeli practice, HRW has never once called it a war crime.

It took weeks before HRW finally issued a report condemning Israeli war crimes in Lebanon. Although many reliable journalists were daily documenting these crimes, HRW said it first had to conduct an independent investigation of its own.

But HRW hastened to deplore the nonviolent protests in Gaza based on anonymous press reports which apparently got crucial facts wrong.

Why this headlong rush to judgment?

Was HRW seeking to appease pro-Israel critics after taking the heat for its report documenting Israeli war crimes in Lebanon?

After Martin Luther King delivered his famous speech in 1967 denouncing the war in Vietnam, mainstream Black leaders rebuked him for jeopardizing the financial support of liberal whites. "You might get yourself a foundation grant," King retorted, "but you won't get yourself into the Kingdom of Truth."

HRW now also stands poised at a crossroads: foundation grants or the Kingdom of Truth?

A first step in the right direction would be for it to issue a retraction of its press release and an apology.

HRW executive director Kenneth Roth "commended" Israel during its last invasion for warning people in south Lebanon to flee - before turning it into a moonscape, slaughtering the old, infirm and poor left behind. It would seem that Palestinian leaders and people, too, merit some recognition for embracing the tactics of Gandhi and King in a last desperate bid to save themselves from annihilation.

(Many HRW staffers have reportedly been appalled by the press release. Your letter of protest can make a difference. Email HRW Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson: whitsos@hrw.org - and HRW executive director Kenneth Roth--RothK@hrw.org.)

NEW: Reader letters

http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=705