About the War & Peace Dialogue

November 30, 2009

by Ron and LouAnn Voth (rlvoths@msn.com)

We would like to respond to several statements at the November 22nd Peace & Justice Dialogue (with the four officers from the Command & General Staff College) that we didn’t have time to address:

1. Major Robert spoke of putting down his gun and using his mind in his military service as if that was not using violence.

Does this mean someone like Osama bin Laden or Khalid Sheikh Mohammed shouldn’t be accountable for the processes they facilitated on 9-11-01? We’re sure neither of them have personally initiated force for many years. They just facilitated and enhanced it’s use with their minds.

2. Major Robert spoke of a “CO” (Conscientious Objector) Commanding Officer.

Isn’t it odd for a Commander to order people to perform tasks they personally consider immoral? We try to imagine organizing someone to rob people because we can’t morally participate in stealing ourselves. It’s even more morally abhorrent to force someone else do something you personally believe to be wrong. Staying in his military position is either milking it for the benefits or not being brave enough to take a stand.

3. We’d like to revisit the tax resistance stand.

We’d like to hear a military view on the logic of prosecuting mosque’s in the United States for funneling money to Al Qaeda or the Taliban. We presume the mosques are considered accomplices in terrorist efforts for providing financial support. How does that extrapolate to our military support through personal income taxes? Are we also accomplices in attacking Iraq when we finance it with our current tax structure?

4. We’d like to revisit the problem of pacifists living under the protection of the military but not contributing to their protection:

There is a difference between working for the American kingdom and working for God’s kingdom.

Countries like Canada and Australia have at least as much freedom as we do and didn’t have to go to war to get them. It’s the art of negotiation.

It is important to recognize what the military protects…..and it is not necessarily the citizens or the Constitution- Will the military protect us from a government that tortures, kidnaps people on foreign soil and removes them to countries that torture? Would the military stand up against attacking countries without proof of wrong doing in hand, or be the invasion force? Will the military stand against a government that releases the names of CIA agents (if acceptable, that same government might do the same to it’s military personnel) or fires Federal Judges for political gain? Will the military oppose secret prisons or serve as guards? Will the military refuse to hold people arrested without charges or even protest a government that spies and wire taps it’s citizens? Based on recent history, we suggest the military’s allegiance doesn’t allow for them to protect us from abusive governments or Constitutional violators and are likely forced by their authorities to be the enablers.

It is not the military that will oppose abusive governments. It is the people that create change. It starts as a minority opinion, and with logic, persuasion, and media exposure civilians are the eventual force for change. In that sense, the military needs our protection to keep their government from sending them into harm’s way unnecessarily, from forcing them to abuse prisoners, or be accomplices in abductions and secret prisons.

We don’t fault the military for this powerlessness. They aren’t allowed to insert themselves into the political realm due to laws prohibiting it. But, we will ask the question of who is protecting whom? They actually need someone not obligated to serve the authorities to expose the authorities.

5. Our society will produce what we celebrate.

When the Iraq War is over, what will we put on the memorial? What will we want our society to remember about the war?

Here are our some of our choices:

a. The bust of a pacifist from Hesston College that negotiated with Iraqi leaders during the successful war-ending “surge.”

b. A checkbook that funded the war and paid Sunnis not to fight during the successful war-ending surge.

c. The dying face of a mother representing one of the 60,000 innocent Iraqi civilians that paid the ultimate sacrifice.

d. Or, the recruiting tool — a statue of one of the 5,000 soldiers killed while riding in an armored humvee.

6. We’d like to recognize the unique position “JAG” officers represent in being able to speak to these issues.

We are all products of the data we believe to be foundational to our life paradigms. This data was often imprinted by our upbringing which often has limited perspective and illustrates why the “apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” It is exciting to see two diverse groups talking about an issue we disagree on and risk inputting new data into our paradigm. We should recognize the unique position JAG officers have on legal issues and commitment to authority. Since the Bible represents several covenants, (of which we ascribe to adhering to the “New Covenant”) it would be useful to understand from a military perspective the “legal” obligations God has inserted into the New Covenant and how such a covenant is binding to our daily lives? And, conversely, what is the implication for our disobedience of His authority.

Reflections on War & Peace Dialogue

Nov. 23, 2009

by Jonne Long (jlong14@kc.rr.com)

Some quick reflections:

I would like very much to live in a world where violence is absent from the peoples' minds as well as from their actions, where a culture of nonviolence is so strong throughout the world that a military presence would be unnecessary.

I respect and agree spiritually and philosophically with the views expressed by you and your Mennonite brethren and sistren. Yet I know when push comes to shove, there would come a point when my resolve would weaken, and I would welcome some protection, even if it involved violence. And on a larger scale, it appears that some level of defense is needed to keep order in cities, states, and countries in the world today. Even so, I think it is very important to stand up for nonviolence as an ideal to be expressed as fully as possible in each of our own lives, and that we should always be found calling upon our institutions and organizations to resist the use of violence to the extent possible.

I was impressed by the thoughtfulness of all four of the Army representatives - their willingness to listen - and their lack of defensiveness about their own choices. It made me feel a little better about what is being taught to the officers at Ft. Leavenworth. Strength restrained by discipline and tempered by a deep-seated understanding that violence is a last resort is much better than undisciplined strength turned loose without thought or reason.

Did I hear you or someone say that another similar session or two might be planned within the next few months?

An Annual Event?

November 23, 2009 by Edward Neufeld (edneuf@yahoo.com) Wish I would have suggested we make this an annual event! I thought it was great. They were very impressive people, and I thought some of our folks and guests had done a lot of deep thinking about their pacifist position. It certainly led me to reflect more fully on my pacifist position, as well as helping me to not put all military persons in "stereotypical boxes!"

For the Officers

November 23, 2009

by Andrea Whitmore (whitmoreandy@hotmail.com)

I was so impressed with the officers who came to your church yesterday and want to thank you again for inviting me.

This afternoon, as it happens, I was reading Professor Stephen Walt (Harvard) on the Foreign Policy blog (http://walt.foreignpolicy.com) and by coincidence he addressed the problem of occupation that we discussed somewhat yesterday. I'll try to paste his comments below.

Prof. Walt, besides teaching at Harvard, wrote The Israel Lobby, you might remember, with John Mearsheimer of the U of Chicago ("short" version at the London Review of Books http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/john-mearsheimer/the-israel-lobby).

I think the people from Ft. Leavenworth yesterday are outstanding examples of fine Americans. I also think the the America they think they're defending may not be the America they're really defending. There is much that is unseen in our foreign policy that our military has to clean up--at great risk to beautiful young lives--due to tragic and craven decisions by our government that are driven not by virtue or pragmatism but by lobbying--and hence, corruption. Feel free to share with Major Magnell and the others.

Here is Stephen Walt's blog from today:

Why They Hate Us (I): on military occupation

Mon, 11/23/2009 - 11:58am

One of the many barriers to developing a saner U.S. foreign policy is our collective failure to appreciate why military occupations generate so much hatred, resentment, and resistance, and why we should therefore go to enormous lengths to avoid getting mired in them. Costly occupations are an activity you hope your adversaries undertake, especially in areas of little intrinsic strategic value. We blundered into Somalia in the early 1990s without realizing that we weren't welcome; we invaded Iraq thinking we would be greeted as liberators, and we still don't fully understand why many Afghanis resent our presence and why some are driven to take up arms against us.

The American experience is hardly unique: Britain's occupation of Iraq after World War I triggered fierce opposition, and British forces in Mandate Palestine eventually faced armed resistance from both Arab and Zionist groups. French rule in Algeria, Syria, Lebanon, and Indochina spawned several violent resistance movements, and Russia has fought Chechen insurgents in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. The Shiite population of southern Lebanon initially welcomed Israel's invasion in 1982, but the IDF behaved badly and stayed too long, which led directly to the formation of Hezbollah. Israelis were also surprised by the first intifida in 1987, having mistakenly assumed that their occupation of the West Bank was benevolent and that the Palestinians there would be content to be governed by the IDF forever.

Military occupation generates resistance because it is humiliating, disruptive, arbitrary and sometimes terrifying to its objects, even when the occupying power is acting from more-or-less benevolent motives. If you've ever been caught in a speed trap by a rude or abusive policeman (I have), or selected out for special attention crossing a border (ditto), you have a mild sense of what this is like. You are at the mercy of the person in charge, who is inevitably well-armed and can do pretty much whatever he (or she) wants. Any sign of protest will only make things go badly -- and in some situations will get you arrested, beaten, or worse -- so you choke down your anger and just put up with it. Now imagine that this is occurring after you've waited for hours at some internal checkpoint, that none of the occupiers speak your language, and that it is like this every single day. And occasionally the occupying power kills innocent people by mistake, engages in other forms of indiscriminate force, and does so with scant regard for local customs and sensibilities. Maintain this situation long enough, and some members of the local population will start looking for ways to strike back. Some of them may even decide to strap on explosive vests or get behind the wheel of a explosives-laden truck, and sacrifice themselves.

It is sometimes said that Americans don't understand this phenomenon because the United States has never been conquered and occupied. But this simply isn't true. After the Civil War, a "foreign army" occupied the former Confederacy and imposed a new political order that most white southerners found abhorrent. The first Reconstruction Act of 1867 put most southern states under formal military control, supervised the writing of new state constitutions, and sought to enfranchise and empower former slaves. It also attempted to rebuild the south economically, but the reconstruction effort was undermined by corruption and poor administration. Sound familiar? However laudable the aims may have been, the results were precisely what one would expect. Northern occupation eventually triggered violent resistance by the Ku Klux Klan, White League, Red Shirts, and other insurgent groups, which helped thwart Reconstruction and paved the way for the Jim Crow system that lasted until the second half of the 20th century.

Nor should we forget how long a profound sense of anger and resentment lasted. I was recently discussing this issue with a distinguished American journalist who grew up in the South, and he told me that one hundred years after the end of the Civil War, he was still being taught songs that expressed a lingering hatred of what the Yankees had done. Here are a coupl of stanzas from one of them -- "I'm a Good Old Rebel" -- written by a former Confederate officer and first published in 1914:

I hates the Yankee nation, and everything they do,
I hates the Declaration of Independence too.
I hates the glorious Union, 'tis dripping with our blood
I hates their striped banner, I fought it all I could.

Three hundred thousand Yankees lie stiff in Southern dust;
We got three hundred thousand, before they conquered us
They died of Southern fever, and Southern steel and shot,
I wish they was three million, instead of what we got.

Or to take a more recent (1974), less poetic example, from Lynyrd Skynyrd:

Well I heard Mr. Young sing about her,
Well I heard old Neil put her down.
Well, I hope Neil Young will remember,
A Southern man don't need him around anyhow.

This is what defeat in war and prolonged occupation does to a society: it generates hatred and resentment that can last a century or more. Hatred of the "party of Lincoln" kept the South solidly Democratic for decades, and its political character remains distinctly different even today, nearly 150 years after the civil war ended. (Among other things, Barack Obama has favorable job approval ratings in every region of the country except the South). And don't forget that unlike our current presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, the occupying forces of the North spoke the same language and had been part of the same country prior to the war; in some cases, there were even strong family connections on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line. Yet defeat in war and military occupation were an enduring source of division for many years thereafter.

The bottom line is that you don't need to be a sociologist, political scientist, or a student of colonialism or foreign cultures to understand why military occupation is such a poisonous activity and why it usually fails. If you're an American, you just need to read a bit about Reconstruction and reflect on how its effects -- along with the effects of slavery itself -- have persisted across generations. If that's not enough, visit a society that is currently experiencing occupation, and take the time to go through a checkpoint or two. Then you might understand why the local population doesn't view the occupying forces as benevolent and isn't as grateful as occupiers often think they ought to be.

ADAM JAN/AFP/Getty Images

Stephen M. Walt

About the War & Peace Dialogue

November 23, 2009

by Diane Eickhoff (diane.eickhoff@gmail.com)

I thought it was a very good experience, and I only wish Aaron could have been there. He would have relished the dialogue.

Since yesterday afternoon I have thought of many things I wished I or someone else had said, but I thought it was a great beginning with people on both sides listening to each other, being respectful, and wanting to learn. I wish the dialogue could continue, as both sides often only talk to people of like mind or talk AT one another.

About Today's Discussion

November 22, 2009

by John Mueller (jmueller245@yahoo.com)

1. I was disappointed that we didn't get more than a cursory start on the various questions that were proposed.
2. Also, it would have helped to see the questions (along with the names of the questioners).
3. The repeated statement, that the US military is the only agency capable of doing the major building-up type of work in developing countries, becomes more scaring the longer I think about it. Thoughts include the idea that if the only tool you have is a hammer, then all problems.... I don't doubt their logistical and structural capabilities; I just question the assumptions that make them the agency of choice.
4. Give the meeting a B+ in terms of civility and respect; give it a D+ in terms of dialogue; with a second try, its grade may improve.

Dialogue Questions 11/22/2009

November 19, 2009

by Dick Tatro (Taterchief@aol.com)

Moderator - I will introduce myself and give an opening statement. This will be followed by the introduction of the Officers. Eric if you want to you can introduce officers or you can have them introduce themselves.

I will start with the first question that Eric sent to me. “How do you reconcile the paradox inherent in pacifism that, whether or not want to, you relay on others willing to use force in order to preserve your right to practice your beliefs?”

The next question is for the officers. What were your original motivation /goal to have a dialogue with pacifists? Has this evolved or changed?

Question 3 Christian Pacifism seems to be based on a rejection of popular social norms and a belief in separation of church and state. So how do you justify advocacy of some public issues if you are unwilling to accept the authority of the government in all areas?

Question 4 The next question will be directed to the officers. My Suggestion: Do you believe that the military is justified in taking part in the political process in a country that cedes military control to civilians? Examples making public statements about the civilian leadership in an effort to sway public opinion. Example McArthur and Truman over tactics during the Korean War.

Question 5 The Army traditionally granted CO status to members of historically “Peace” churches. With no draft today do you support members of your church volunteering for the non-combat roles that were at one time filled by those of CO status?

Question 6 Do you think that the all-volunteer military is working? Or is it leading to the enlistment of candidates who might not be up to the standards that the draft did?

Question 7 Why did you personally make the decision to join the military? Has reality of the military of the military life changed your perception?

Question 8 Does the military accept the concept of civilian control?

1. Truman and the Atomic Bomb.
2. Truman and the firing of MacArthur

Open questions and answers.

First War & Peace Dialogue

Sunday, November 22, 2009

12 Noon -- simple meal

1-3 PM -- dialogue

Rainbow Mennonite Church

1444 Southwest Boulevard, Kansas City, KS 66103

Meet with Maj. Eric Magnell

and other officers enrolled at the

Command and General Staff College, Ft. Leavenworth, KS

RSVP: phil.rhoads@gmail.com