The other day I learned about an effort underway to create a Department of Peace. I donât know the particulars of this effort, but it got me thinking. With all the talk from some on the extreme left about the U.S. military committing War Crimes, I wondered if it would be possible to commit Peace Crimes. What would be a Peace Crime? What would be the specific laws?
I know congress will not need my help to draft new laws since I am no lawyer, I offer my services here anyway. I think the new Peace Crimes should exist to prevent acts and punish those people who do things for the sake of peace that compels the U.S. government not to help people in immediate danger of death or even genocide. If a person is trying to help people by claiming to support peace, then it should be expected that the consequences of that personâs actions really bring demonstrated peace to the public.
Of course, this legal code would encompass various levels of intent, much like existing criminal law. Those breaking the laws who are doing so out of honest intent and not to win political power should only get a misdemeanor charge depending on the serious nature of the indicted act. Those who donât really care about the people they claim to represent in the name of peace, but utilize any opportunity to degrade the effectiveness of the U.S. military to embarrass the political opposition, would be charged with a felony.
I happen to have a few examples in mind to help the reader understand how these Peace Crimes would be enforced under the Department of Peace. Bare in mind, the Peace Crimes would be retroactive in the interest of preserving actual peace as opposed to the imagined peace of the violators.
CASE 1.
Cindy Sheehan; two counts misdemeanor of Peace Crimes;
The first count of the indictment would read:
On or about the summer of 2005, Cindy Sheehan began a campaign to impeach the President and force him to bring the troops home immediately. Despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of soldiers and their families opposed Cindy Sheehan, she continued to claim to speak for the sake of the soldiers to remove them from harms way as to incite peace. Furthermore, as it is demonstrated on 9/11 that if the U.S. does not fight terrorists, their organizations, and state sponsors then peace will be achieved until the next time they manage to kill 3000 Americans in a single day. Furthermore, her actions show a profound lack of understanding that this would leave a power vacuum in Iraq and massive civil fighting would ensue killing possibly hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and establish a powerbase for terrorist organizations who were displaced from Afghanistan. Because her actions are based on legitimate and understandable grief, the circumstances only rise to the offense of a misdemeanor.
The second count of the indictment would read:
Although Cindy Sheehanâs efforts were successful as demonstrated by a drop in confidence of the current President, she continued to press for peace in New Orleans where she demanded that the President withdraw the troops from New Orleans and wondered publicly what it would take to make the soldiers shoot her. Being as the soldiers were providing vital rescue service, security, and logistics support, this Peace Crime would rise to the level of a felony. Given the extenuating circumstances of grief for a fallen son, the charge here will be a misdemeanor.
CASE 2
Representative John Murtha; one count 2nd degree felony of Peace Crimes;
On or about 12/01/2005, Congressman Murtha declared publicly that the U.S. military was broken. This indictment does not discuss the crime of treason as the person in question is a war hero and appears to love the United States. Rather, the indictment only references the violation of a Peace Crime, 2nd degree felony count. Congressman Murtha is fully aware that every remark he makes in front of the camera goes straight into the ears of U.S. soldiers and their enemies because he experienced the same as a soldier in Vietnam. Yet, he chose to claim that his actions were for the good of the U.S. military, while it is quite clear these acts embolden the enemy. Because it is clear that Mr. Murtha was sincere in his remarks, his intent was not to harm the soldiers, the prosecutorâs office can only assume that Mr. Murtha is perhaps suffering from the early signs of aging. Because Congressman Murtha knows better than to do what he did in order to gain peace for U.S. soldiers, his actions show a unique lack of judgment that puts him in felony violation of the Peace Crime statutes.
CASE 3
Senator John Kerry; multiple counts 1st degree felony of Peace Crimes;
On or about his announcement of intention to seek the Presidency of the United States in the 2004 election, John Kerry sought to bash the war effort yet support the war effort simultaneously in a most heinous fashion. Mr. Kerry continues to adjust his attitudes on the war to whatever audience he is in front of like a scientist focusing his microscope on a specimen slide of bacteria. Because Mr. Kerry knows the affect his words have on U.S. soldiers, having been âswift boatedâ for slandering U.S. troops fighting in Vietnam, this is a particularly grievous violation. Senator Kerry shows a pattern of inconsistency by accepting medals for a war he claimed was immoral. Furthermore, his own statement of voting for the war, before he voted against it shows a unique ability to seek peace from all sides while only serving to hack everybody off. Because he seeks peace at the cost of anything to anyone that serves his own political agenda, John Kerry will be tried as a repeat offender with a long criminal history of violating the Peace Crimes statutes.
Okay, I think that is enough. There are plenty more criminals out there to indict for violating the Department of Peace codes. I canât get them all here, though I imagine Michael Moore will be the next one indicted, but that one would require a review of the evidence by watching his films and nobody here at the prosecutors office can take that incessant dribble long enough to develop the case.
- Ray Robison is a Sr. Military Operations Research Analyst with a major defense contractor involved in U.S. Army aviation and missile research. This is a private article not a professional work. His background includes over ten years of military service as an officer and enlisted soldier including the Gulf War and Kosovo operations. Most recently he worked as a contractor for DIA with the Iraqi Survey Group.
Posted by: Ray Robison ||
12/02/2005 13:46 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Oh, I throw all those anti-sanction activists who played useful fool and allowed Saddam to kill his people under the fake pretext that it was the US's fault.
#2
I think the new Peace Crimes should exist to prevent acts and punish those people who do things for the sake of peace that compels the U.S. government not to help people in immediate danger of death or even genocide.
The Bush administration has underestimated the changed nature of modern media. The mainstream media alone is not the problem. All these political subjects--the war, immigration--get discussed at length, all the time, on talk shows and across the great expanses of the Web wilderness. In this new environment, the emotional content has become stronger and even more important than the facts, such as they are. The facts have been demoted. What's more, the language, the very vocabulary of all these conversations, has been ramped way up. Shrillness has monetary value now, and it has political value. If this were traditional spin, as the White House assumes, it wouldn't matter. But in our time the spin has become a vortex.
The leading exploiter of this phenomenon is Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Despite the comparatively minimal numbers killed, his suicide bombers and car bombs have dispirited even normally clear-eyed supporters of the war effort and its purpose. Conservative columnists go from support for Iraq to advocating withdrawal and back to support depending on mood swings. Iraq has become simply "the violence." But if "the violence" has displaced the rest of reality, then the Bush model of ignoring the spin isn't viable. The result is John Murtha.
By not seeing that the spin is now a vortex, the White House let it suck down the president's support to a level that threatens his ability to govern.
Past need not be prologue. Under the old model, Mr. Bush nominated Harriet Miers and let the world scream. But there is a crucial difference between not caring what the MSM thinks and not listening to one's own party. Mr. Bush heard and changed the nomination. A legendary stubbornness, apparently, will not beget self-destruction. Now we have the Iraq counteroffensive in the opinion wars. Both the Washington Post and the New York Times followed the Annapolis speech with refutation articles (amusingly titled "Fact Check" in the Times). Fine. Now the MSM is reacting to the president's agenda rather than shaping it.
So far nearly all the recent addresses by Messrs. Bush and Cheney have been in front of military audiences or applause-prone conservative groups. The Green Zone is in Baghdad, not in the U.S. In the 2004 campaign Karl Rove sent Mr. Bush into an undiscovered America of right-leaning exurbs and edge cities such as Clermont County, east of Cincinnati. This is the real Bush base. The president should revisit it, to explain in person what he told the Middies at Annapolis--why he has taken them to Iraq and why we intend to see this through to an honorable victory.
#1
New York Times followed the Annapolis speech with refutation articles (amusingly titled "Fact Check" in the Times).
CNN had a piece that was nearly identical. I watched it to see what they were fact checking, but the accusations were lame so I turned the channel.
This guy is right. The president needs to get out in front more. The MSM has been discredited by anyone who is paying atttention. I'm to the point where I'm more apt to believe the kernel of truth in the Enquirer's headline on Brittany than I am to believe the kernel of truth in the headline of the NYT or WaPO.
The reality is that centrist Republicans and moderate Democrats often have more in common than either group does with the more extreme members of their own party. Add to this the rising number of Independent-registered voters â whose ranks have increased an average of 300 percent over the last 10 years alone â and the fact that a staggering 85 percent of Americans believe we need more elected politicians who vote independently rather than along party lines (according to a May 2005 Harris poll) and you start to see the broad-outlines of support for a centrist Independent candidate in 2008.
If Democrats insist on nominating a candidate associated with the left-wing of their party, like Hillary Clinton, while Republican activists veto the nomination of a centrist such as Rudy Giuliani or John McCain in favor of an un-charismatic social conservative, for the first time in American history there could be a strategic opening for a successful Independent candidate for president. As with Sharon, the larger cause would be a leader with the freedom to pursue the national interest without being held hostage by special interests â moving the country not left or right, but forward.
While this Fox opinion piece is quite interesting and certainly worth reading, it is important to note that itâs author is John P. Avlon: a former speech writer for Giuliani.
#3
Actually thick skin is incorrect, it just looks thick. They get sunburned easily like pigs.
Still for the center its a better mascot than the Dino (democrat in name only) which seems a bit extinct, slow witted and slow moving. Of course being in teh center they are more defense oriented so perhaps a Velocerapter could make a decent mascot.
ADL Director Abraham Foxman's wide-ranging attack on evangelical Christians, whom he has accused of launching a campaign to "Christianize America," is still reverberating in the United States. The leader of the Reform movement, Rabbi Eric Yoffe, echoed Foxman at that movement's biennial convention by condemning zealots on the religious right.
The issue has always been highly sensitive in Jewish quarters. Most Jews back a total separation between church and state even when it conflicts with crucial, long-term Jewish interests such as seeking state aid to subsidize the secular curriculum of Jewish day schools.
For some time there has been a simmering disquiet among liberal Jews over being regarded as allies of a group they regard as right-wing fanatics seeking to impose their standards on the community as a whole. That discomfort has intensified with the growing power of the evangelicals.
However, the truth is that while evangelicals are indeed a growing group representing up to 60 million adherents, like Jews they are not the monolith their critics seek to portray. They incorporate a wide variety of diverse opinions, some of which would undoubtedly be regarded as an anathema to Jews. But the vast majority, in addition to being law-abiding citizens, are simply seeking to promote their values - including those that mirror the Judeo-Christian heritage.
For example, Orthodox Jews are also distressed at what they perceive to be a breakdown in public morality and family values, and cultural nihilism in Western society. Traditional Jews ask why they, of all people, should be opposed to publicly displaying the Ten Commandments, one of our greatest contributions to civilization. And Orthodox Jews (as distinct from many liberal or secular Jews) are also strongly opposed to same-sex marriages and abortion on demand.
Evangelicals believe that human beings are involved in a struggle between good and evil - concepts which have effectively been purged from the lexicon of many liberals. This belief has some resonance with Jews living in a world suffused with a modernist penchant for drawing a moral equivalency between killers and their victims.
UNLIKE OTHER Protestant denominations evangelicals do not subscribe to replacement theology and regard Judaism as a component of the formation of Christianity rather than being replaced by it. Their attitude toward Israel also contrasts starkly with the disgraceful behavior displayed toward Jews by other Protestant churches, many of whom now lead the pack in demonizing, and even promoting, divestment from Israel.
Of course Jews differ radically on many fundamental aspects of their religious belief. In that context we would do well to hearken to the words of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, who warned Jews to avoid becoming involved in theological dialogue with Christians - as distinct from jointly supporting the promotion of our Judeo-Christian heritage in its broadest social sense and accepting their friendship toward Israel.
My discussions and correspondence with evangelicals over these past years have convinced me that during this difficult time for the Jewish people, when many of our liberal friends have forsaken us, we are fortunate to have the support of such a group who strongly back Israel and seek no quid pro quo in exchange for their friendship. I cannot recollect a single example of a mainstream evangelical leader making demands on the Jewish community in return for support for Israel.
And, contrary to what is frequently alleged, the attitude toward Israel of the vast majority of evangelicals is not related to ulterior motives such as a desire to convert Jews, or in order to hasten the Christ's return as the messiah. Most act unconditionally out of genuine love for those whom they consider to be God's chosen people.
These Christians pray regularly for the well-being of Israel and the Jewish people; they politically support our right to live in peace and security, including lobbying Congress to support us; and they even raise considerable funds to help Jews in distress.
Many Jews simply cannot comprehend that there are Christians who genuinely love them as the source of their own religiosity.
IN THIS environment, Foxman's incredible onslaught against "institutionalized Christianity in the United States," an attack that is not limited to evangelicals but blankets all Christians, is a regrettable lapse of judgment by a man who has an excellent track record of serving the interests of American Jewry with distinction.
As though he were paraphrasing an outburst by anti-Semites, Foxman warned of a conspiracy to "Christianize all aspects of American life, from the halls of government to the libraries, to the movies, to recording studios, to the playing fields and locker rooms of professional collegiate and amateur sports; from the military to the Sponge Bob Square Pants."
Such a statement is especially inappropriate for a Jewish leader whose life has been devoted to combating libels against Jews.
In these times we desperately need allies who accept us for what we are and do not make demands on us in return for their support. The evangelicals fall into this category.
And let us not play with words. Today evangelicals represent the greatest source of political support for Israel in the US. Even if many Jews feel that the evangelical stance on Israel is to "the right" of what they would support, that in no way invalidates the enormous benefits this support provides to Israel.
It is therefore highly regrettable that organizations devoted to promoting pluralism and combating anti-Semitism would paint friends as adversaries. This is hardly the way to retain the support of the one American major group that consistently and unconditionally supports Israel. It is surely wrong and counterproductive to insult friends and allies, even if we differ with them on many other issues.
If we had 50 million evangelicals in Europe the situation for Jews would be dramatically different. Conversely, we would do well to ask ourselves what the status of Israel and Jews in the United States would be in the absence of our evangelical supporters.
The writer chairs the Diaspora-Israel relations committee of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, and is a veteran Jewish international leader.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/02/2005 00:04 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Me personally? Well I love the goyim. Even the meshuganeh ones.
#2
Iff the Lefties were telling the truth and were of no threat to the mainstream then why, as in a recently reported case, does a Man have to, by court order, pay child support for the sake of a child which two Lesbians had promised or otherwise obligated themselves to each other to care for as iff a genuine, albeit female and gender-limited, Husband and Wife. Iff these women wanted the sanctity of traditional "marriage", as well as proclaim "equal rights" and "women's rights", and the man is only a sperm donor but not and never meant or intended to be any sort of parent or have any involvement with the lesbians' "child", THEN WHY ISN'T THE LESBIAN PERSONAGE WHOM LEFT NOT BEING FORCED BY THE COURTS TO PAY ANY FORM OF CHILD SUPPORT JUST BECAUSE AS A WOMAN SHE BY NATUR GENDER CAN'T PRODUCE SPERMAZOA. The reality is Lefties will inevitably break and demand andor take more than what they'd promised or agreed to - LEFTISM IS BY HISTORY ABOUT ANTI-DEMOCRATIC, ANTI-COMPROMISE, DISHONORABLE AND SELFISH POWER, CONTROL, AND DOMINATION OVER ANYONE AND EVERYONE, THE SELFISH POWER-MANIC FEW OVER THE GOODLY MANY. AND HIDING BEHIND A "FEW GOOD MEN" DOESN'T ALLEVIATE OR REMOVE THEIR GENERAL THREAT. The WOT for America's enemies is about getting or forcing America to become as poor and bedraggled as themselves, for the "Have Mores" to devolve and HAVE NOTHING, for America to come down from the surreal heights, NOT FOR THE FAILED AND FAILING SOCIALISTS TO REFORM ANDOR SHARE POWER. The Lefties believe they'll win because they lie to everyone, even their own.
#3
The ADL is an advocacy group. Like all advocacy groups, when there aren't any legitimate grievances or impending dangers, they have to invent ones. Perhaps the ADL's funding drives are stalling up on the Upper West Side. Maybe they're freightened and tired of combatting the implaccable overwhelming hatred of the Islamicists and need a softer target. Maybe, as predominently North Easterners, they still harbor latent fear and suspicions of their compatriots in the heartland. As we all know, in identity politics, the name of the game is to claim the title of poor, oppressed "vicitm." The ADL and other American Jewish groups can no longer compete with most other minorities in this category, the browner, poorer and much put-upon Muslims in particular, so there's not much to be gained in going after Palestinian or other groups promoting anti-Semitism. It's probably a combination of all of these.
Whatever it is, it's danged stupid. This essay was stern but ever so polite. I wouldn't have been so civil. Of course I wouldn't expect much better from the ADL, but of the hundreds regular folk I know who also happen to be urbanite Jews, I think it's a real tragedy that most cannot bear to look at the giant cauldron of violent hatred boiling in the Islamic world. Sometimes I can understand the urge to find a more manageable target to criticize (American Evangelicals are open to reason, after all, and even when they're not, they're not likely to blow up your wedding party). But ultimately this is cowardice and self-defeating behavior.
Posted by: meshuganeh me ||
12/02/2005 1:34 Comments ||
Top||
#5
As a member of a main stream Protestant Church and been to Jewish Services....
Half the texts, format of the service, memes and such are pretty much the same. Even to the point of standing and sitting at certain points. The Jewish service tends to be more informal and longer. This is more like the evangelicals. Of course the big difference is the New Testament and its message and directional change. That said either party can recognize each others service.
When people push division they miss the common ground.
#6
The Jewish community should heed this man's words. The groups Foxman attacks in many cases hold Jewish/Israeli welfare as a higher priority than many secular Jews. A lot of them to the point of being willing to fight for Israel, something that a considerable number of Israeli haredim would not do.
Posted by: mac ||
12/02/2005 5:58 Comments ||
Top||
#7
sigh.
I found this article both true and offensive on many levels.
This is true: These Christians pray regularly for the well-being of Israel and the Jewish people; they politically support our right to live in peace and security, including lobbying Congress to support us; and they even raise considerable funds to help Jews in distress.
and this in spite of being dismissed as sub-human by both the Jewish and the liberal community for as long as I've been around.
I found the wording These Christians ie: implying only "Evangelical Christians" to be offensive. While it is true that the Protestant, (including the Episcopalian, Methodist, Presbyterian) chuches have a policy of divesting in Israel, this is relatively new and a result of the fact that they have been overtaken by types that resemble the Archbishiop of Canterbury. This is a recent development and doesn't represent the majority view of those who may continue to attend those churches.
As a Christian, I found this comment extraordinarily offensive, so much so that I'm not even going to comment on it. Today evangelicals represent the greatest source of political support for Israel in the US. Even if many Jews feel that the evangelical stance on Israel is to "the right" of what they would support, that in no way invalidates the enormous benefits this support provides to Israel.
Ok..I said that I wouldn't comment, but I will say that Christians, and not just evangelical Christians don't have the same "usefullness requirement" in order to provide support to good people of ANY RELIGION ...or for that matter.. for ANYONE. The basis of Christianity is that the church is full of sinners - that we are all sinners and that we can all be saved through the grace of God. You need not be useful to a cause to receive grace. (shakes head in disgust)
As someone whose extended family includes Christians, Muslims, Jews, Athiests, Agnostics, and (sort of) Buddhists I can say that I thought this part of the article "gets it": However, the truth is that while evangelicals are indeed a growing group representing up to 60 million adherents, like Jews they are not the monolith their critics seek to portray. They incorporate a wide variety of diverse opinions, some of which would undoubtedly be regarded as an anathema to Jews. But the vast majority, in addition to being law-abiding citizens, are simply seeking to promote their values - including those that mirror the Judeo-Christian heritage.
Just as an aside, those of you who don't grasp Christianity here's a clue... The church is full of sinners..who acknowledge that fact and seek redemption in much the same way that Alcoholics Anonymous is full of drinkers, Weight Watchers is full of overweight people and your local Gym is full of people both fit and overweight - seeking to improve themselves.
#8
One article I read on Foxman's comments pointed out that the ADL HQ is protected by elaborate security measures -- metal detectors, double security doors, etc -- due to threats from Islamists. Yet they find it necessary to rail about the "dangers" from Christians...
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
12/02/2005 7:58 Comments ||
Top||
#9
The author of the article, Isi Leibler, makes good points as do the Rantburg commentators.
However, some may be under the misapprehension that the ADL ignores the problem of anti Semitism, violence worship and bloodthirstiness in Islam. The ADL hasn't ignored that. It has tried to combat it using the techniques used to combat anti Semitism and racism in the US (basically by pro pluralism information). The problem is these techniques haven't worked. They are slowing moving to a more 'let's shine more light on the hatred within Islam' (actually I think hatred-of-the-other is a core competancy of Islam) but they haven't yet transitioned from the 'pro pluralism' position. It will take time.
You make a good point. The anti-Israel feelings of many in the reform movement as well as the secular Jews is remarkable. They seem almost oblivious to the fact of Islamofascism.
It seems to me that conservative and orthodox jews have a problem recognizing Islamofascism for what it is because the source is the holy islamic texts themselves and conservative and orthodox jews have an instinct for associating holiness and goodness. But this instinct would not effect the reform and secular jews. However, as you point out, this theory is completely contrary to the observations.
#13
Maybe they're freightened and tired of combatting the implaccable overwhelming hatred of the Islamicists and need a softer target.
Exactly. In fact, this is a problem for the left in general. It's like the police forces in certain towns that are good at issuing parking tickets, but who couldn't solve a violent crime if their own lives depended on it.
#14
Evangelical support of Israel is not entirely selfless: The last promise God made to the entire world was in Genesis 12, when he told Abram that He (God) would bless those who blessed him (Abram). There is no need for a Jew to reward a Gentile for Good works, for it is God himself who provides the reward, apart from the Jew's ability or inability to give that reward.
Both Christianity and Judaism are not monolithic: there are sections that take their scriptures seriously as pronouncements from God that must be heeded and obeyed (right), and there are secions that impose a "liberal" interpretation in order to clothe their own agenda in religious terms (left). This has nothing to do with politics: its a matter of "I will spin things my way to get my way", or "There is an objective reality that I must heed and to which I must conform." The left in Judaism and the left in Christianity will find common cause, and so will the right in Judaism and the Right in Christianity.
Foxman is a member of the Left, and has captured the ADL to serve leftist purposes: an alliance between the Christian Right and the Jewish Right is both his nightmare and the American Left's, and so he's cementing his relationship with the American Left by firing on the Christian Right.
The ADL, for all its works and talk, is what we in Christianity would classify as a "parachurch" (para synagogue?) organizaton. The New Testament clearly designates the church as the locus of religious authority and legitimacy, and a parachurch organization is judged by how well they support the local church as well as their particular Christian mission. Thus, it is the church that judges the parachurch, not the other way around, and Evangelical parachurch organizations will be the first to tell you that. The Charismatic parachurch orgs are even more fanatical about this, having been burned with the Jimmy Bakker/PTL scandal that they felt was caused by a lack of accountability to a larger body that derives its authority by being a congregation.
On the other hand, leftists, not being in the seat of power, will work to create alternate power structures and work for the illusion of authority and legitimacy: see "Christian" "Peacemakers". The ADL is the Jewish version of the evangelical parachurch organization, trying to get a legitimacy that is superior to the Synagogue.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
