April 07, 2006

Hate Mail

Since my semi-retirement I haven't recieved much hate mail. Occasionally, I'll run across a piece from somebody angry about what I said months or even a year ago. Well, the following is such a piece of mail. Due to my current apathy and non-givashitness I vaguely skimmed instead of reading the whole thing. It looks like a winner and will be submitted to the carnival of the clueless this week. Feel free to pick hm to pieces at your leisure.

Sorry, I tried to enter this comment on your article on WMDs and the document that proved that we should have gone to war with Iraq, but your website didn't let me. I'm sorry if this comes across aggressive, but it is an issue I'm quite passionate about. Enjoy!

I'm sorry but this document is a joke. It discusses a so-called threat to American interests and security but never actually specifies what the threat is! It is just a "known threat." This is pathetic. Thousands of troops and innocent Iraqi civilians have died because of this known threat and I think their friends and families deserve to know cos' I sure as hell don't!

What's more Mr Warmonger (nice name by the way, really shows intelligence) you speak about how there were terrorist organisations being harboured in Iraq, some of which were responsible for 9/11 and that Suddam was supporting them. What confuses me here is that the CIA have admitted that the intelligence on this issue was faulty and that there were no such links between Suddam and terrorists!

When you mention that Iraq has used WMDs on its own people, I was wondering whether you knew who gave him the capabilities to do that. Oh yeah America! I was also wondering why we didn't attack Iraq at the time of this atrocity, this threat to security, because if it was a threat then surely it would make more sense to attack at the time. Oh that's right, because at the time America and Saddam were the best of buddies.

What is fantastically stupid about your point on Iraq having WMDs (which you don't even know exist!) putting them in violation of UN resolutions is that the war itself is in violation of UN resolutions. America and Britain had to go to war without the UN's approval.

Also I love the way you winge about human rights abuses that the Iraqis commit to their own people and how this has been banned by many UN resolutions. Its amazing! Have you even heard of Guantanamo Bay and the number of human rights abuses American service men are committing to people who have not even been allowed to stand trial. It's sick. To add insult to injury, in Iraq itself, American soldiers have been committing atrocities towards innocent Iraqi civilians. "NO!" I hear you say, "WE ARE MERELY LIBERATING THEM, WHILST LOOKING OUT FOR NATIONAL SECURITY AND INTERESTS" Oh really, well tell me this, since when does murdering and butchering innocent Iraqi civilians come under liberation. Oh maybe you are liberating them from the constraints of BEING ALIVE! What possible threat could innocent civilians pose to America and what possible interests could Americans have in murdering them! It makes no sense. And you wonder why the international community frowns upon your actions. I swear, all Bush has to do is attach the words liberation, freedom and democracy (values entrenched deep into the hearts of Americans) to any policy he wants and the Americans will love him for it. The good nature of Americans is being exploited for merciless needless killing that doesn't benefit anyone except oil companies (who are drilling right now in Iraq, by the way) and building contractors. And your in favour of this? What gets to me the most is when people like you argue that people who disagree with Bush and the war in Iraq are un-American and that they want to go and burn the flag. This is nonsense, I consider myself Pro-American for being anti-Bush. We're talking about a man who turned a record budget surplus into a record budget deficit, a man who has the lowest approval rating of any president, a man who didn't even really win the election that made him first become president, a man who has had more vacation time than any president, a man who lied to the American people about going to war and a man who lied about how foreseeable the disaster in New Orleans was.

Also do you actually think that going to war with Iraq is going to reduce the number of global terrorists? Surely it might have occurred to you that murdering 40,000 innocent civilians is going to have some repercussions. In doing what you have done in Iraq you have merely created more terrorists and put the international community at more risk. So in looking out for your own national security, you have but it in great danger.

Also the idea that Suddam is an evil dictator and needs to be stopped because of the atrocities he is committing towards his own people, well I am sorry but there are so many dictators all over the world doing far worse things to their people than Suddam was, are you going to attack them too? Or have you realised that that rather expensive, stupid, reckless tactic ends one way. With a pull out. Come on America, we watched you guys through Vietnam and we know how the story ends. Lets grow up and move on from such a primitive way of dealing with other nations. We could try mmmmmm.....NEGOTIATIONS! And I mean actual diplomatic processes where you do not get impatient with the workings of the UN because you aren't getting your own way fast enough!

My final point is about the validity of the authorisation. I'm not sure but it seems to me that this is a document of America authorising itself to go to war. Impressive, but the international community (the UN) need to sanction such activity as well for the war to be legal by international law.

Nice try, but you (like every pro-war individual I have met, listened to or read the articles of) have failed to acknowledge the glaring contradictions, double standards and pitfalls in the argument for going to war. Maybe I can understand people being silly enough to be in favour of war in 2003, but after all that has happened since (Civil war pending, Human rights abuses, 2000 American troops dead, 40,000 innocent Iraqi civilians dead, Iraq being a war torn circus) I cannot understand how someone of average intelligence in 2006 can still be in favour of such a farce. My only guess is that you were in favour in the beginning and having watched what you thought was a good idea crumble before your eyes and now you are trying your hardest to justify to yourself and everyone you can that the war was a good thing, whilst burying your head in the sand to the failings and atrocities that myself and other anti-war individuals knew were going to happen all along.

You make an entertaining read though.

Entertaining reading? For some reason I feel like Savage Nation now. That just caught me as funny. Sorry.

Posted by aakaakaak at April 7, 2006 01:32 PM | TrackBack
Comments

I wonder what planet this guy has been living on for the past twenty years? Another "educated" moron!

Posted by: Patty-Jo at April 8, 2006 01:58 PM

Jeremy, this guy is so wrong on so many counts, I'm not sure where to begin. Least of all his comment about your blog name. Sheesh! Where did he get his education? The Michael Moore School of Anti-USism?

There is no helping some folk, the will to be blind is amazing to say the least.

By the bye, I'm officially no longer being a stranger per your instructions. Good to see you blogging again, you add much to the debate.

Posted by: GM Roper at April 9, 2006 05:37 PM

Mr. Warmonger

Suppose you wanted to prove that Saddam had bombs (WMD), you should have proved it with your intelligence documents and his bombs confiscated. Instead of 'proving' it with your bombs and his documents.

If you wanted to prove that Saddam harbored terrorists, you capture some of them with help from your documents. What you have is American soldiers in Iraq holding Saddam's documents.

Just because it is Saddam's toilet paper doesn't mean you are not an ass. Heh

Posted by: chthon at April 10, 2006 01:56 PM

Not a well-informed person, to be sure, but hate mail? I've seen a lot worse. Thanks for sharing it.

Posted by: tyk at April 12, 2006 02:32 PM

Going to war without the UN is SMART, trollboy, and morons such as yourself that believe we should base our defense policies on the ideas and opinions of the very people that we are going to fight against (many times) and our sworn enemies simplt shows that you have reached the absolute pinnacle of not only cluelessness but moronic dysentery, a disease of the brain whereby every stupid talking point rushes forth to expose that afflicted one as a supreme moron.

Onto "winge". What the hell does this word mean? Is it supposed to be the word "whine"? Dude....get a dictionary or hit "spell check".....that isn't a word that was spelled badly, that is a word that was mangled, twisted diced, eaten, crapped out, burned and flushed.

That is, however, much the same process that your ideas seem to go through, so maybe it is a fitting word to leave within your little attaempt at a rant.

The "record surplus" is a lie, it never existed.

Do you really think that Bush does NO WORK on his "vacations"?

Did you really drink all of the kool-aid about new orleans?

Sudan schmudan......our governments primary job is to secure the wealth, safety and well bing of its citizens......there is no benefit to going to sudan.

Why do you goofballs all think it is Americas job to be the work police man in EVERY SINGLE CRISIS? Why can you not see the big picture?

Why do you insist on showing your idiocy to the world?

Thanks Warmonger....that was fun.

Posted by: kender at April 12, 2006 04:22 PM

Father George Zabelka, a Catholic chaplain with the U.S. Air Force, served as a priest for the airmen who dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, and gave them his blessing. Over the next twenty years, he gradually came to believe that he had been terribly wrong, that he had denied the very foundations of his faith by lending moral and religious support to the bombing. Zabelka, who died in 1992, gave this speech on the 40th anniversary of the bombings.
The destruction of civilians in war was always forbidden by the Church, and if a soldier came to me and asked if he could put a bullet through a child’s head, I would have told him, absolutely not. That would be mortally sinful. But in 1945 Tinian Island was the largest airfield in the world. Three planes a minute could take off from it around the clock. Many of these planes went to Japan with the express purpose of killing not one child or one civilian but of slaughtering hundreds and thousands and tens of thousands of children and civilians – and I said nothing.
As a Catholic chaplain I watched as the Boxcar, piloted by a good Irish Catholic pilot, dropped the bomb on Urakami Cathedral in Nagasaki, the center of Catholicism in Japan.
I never preached a single sermon against killing civilians to the men who were doing it. I was brainwashed! It never entered my mind to protest publicly the consequences of these massive air raids. I was told it was necessary – told openly by the military and told implicitly by my Church’s leadership. (To the best of my knowledge no American cardinals or bishops were opposing these mass air raids. Silence in such matters is a stamp of approval.)
I worked with Martin Luther King, Jr., during the Civil Rights struggle in Flint, Michigan. His example and his words of nonviolent action, choosing love instead of hate, truth instead of lies, and nonviolence instead of violence stirred me deeply. This brought me face to face with pacifism – active nonviolent resistance to evil. I recall his words after he was jailed in Montgomery, and this blew my mind. He said, “Blood may flow in the streets of Montgomery before we gain our freedom, but it must be our blood that flows, and not that of the white man. We must not harm a single hair on the head of our white brothers.”
I struggled. I argued. But yes, there it was in the Sermon on the Mount, very clear: “Love your enemies. Return good for evil.” I went through a crisis of faith. Either accept what Christ said, as unpassable and silly as it may seem, or deny him completely.
For the last 1700 years the Church has not only been making war respectable: it has been inducing people to believe it is an honorable profession, an honorable Christian profession. This is not true. We have been brainwashed. This is a lie.
War is now, always has been, and always will be bad, bad news. I was there. I saw real war. Those who have seen real war will bear me out. I assure you, it is not of Christ. It is not Christ’s way. There is no way to conduct real war in conformity with the teachings of Jesus. There is no way to train people for real war in conformity with the teachings of Jesus.
The morality of the balance of terrorism is a morality that Christ never taught. The ethics of mass butchery cannot be found in the teachings of Jesus. In Just War ethics, Jesus Christ, who is supposed to be all in the Christian life, is irrelevant. He might as well never have existed. In Just War ethics, no appeal is made to him or his teaching, because no appeal can be made to him or his teaching, for neither he nor his teaching gives standards for Christians to follow in order to determine what level of slaughter is acceptable.
So the world is watching today. Ethical hairsplitting over the morality of various types of instruments and structures of mass slaughter is not what the world needs from the Church, although it is what the world has come to expect from the followers of Christ. What the world needs is a grouping of Christians that will stand up and pay up with Jesus Christ. What the world needs is Christians who, in language that the simplest soul could understand, will proclaim: the follower of Christ cannot participate in mass slaughter. He or she must love as Christ loved, live as Christ lived, and, if necessary, die as Christ died, loving ones enemies.
For the 300 years immediately following Jesus’ resurrection, the Church universally saw Christ and his teaching as nonviolent. Remember that the Church taught this ethic in the face of at least three serious attempts by the state to liquidate her. It was subject to horrendous and ongoing torture and death. If ever there was an occasion for justified retaliation and defensive slaughter, whether in form of a just war or a just revolution, this was it. The economic and political elite of the Roman state and their military had turned the citizens of the state against Christians and were embarked on a murderous public policy of exterminating the Christian community.
Yet the Church, in the face of the heinous crimes committed against her members, insisted without reservation that when Christ disarmed Peter he disarmed all Christians.
Christians continued to believe that Christ was, to use the words of an ancient liturgy, their fortress, their refuge, and their strength, and that if Christ was all they needed for security and defense, then Christ was all they should have. Indeed, this was a new security ethic. Christians understood that if they would only follow Christ and his teaching, they couldn’t fail. When opportunities were given for Christians to appease the state by joining the fighting Roman army, these opportunities were rejected, because the early Church saw a complete and an obvious incompatibility between loving as Christ loved and killing. It was Christ, not Mars, who gave security and peace.
Today the world is on the brink of ruin because the Church refuses to be the Church, because we Christians have been deceiving ourselves and the non-Christian world about the truth of Christ. There is no way to follow Christ, to love as Christ loved, and simultaneously to kill other people. It is a lie to say that the spirit that moves the trigger of a flamethrower is the Holy Spirit. It is a lie to say that learning to kill is learning to be Christ-like. It is a lie to say that learning to drive a bayonet into the heart of another is motivated from having put on the mind of Christ. Militarized Christianity is a lie. It is radically out of conformity with the teaching, life, and spirit of Jesus.
Now, brothers and sisters, on the anniversary of this terrible atrocity carried out by Christians, I must be the first to say that I made a terrible mistake. I was had by the father of lies. I participated in the big ecumenical lie of the Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox churches. I wore the uniform. I was part of the system. When I said Mass over there I put on those beautiful vestments over my uniform. (When Father Dave Becker left the Trident submarine base in 1982 and resigned as Catholic chaplain there, he said, “Every time I went to Mass in my uniform and put the vestments on over my uniform, I couldn’t help but think of the words of Christ applying to me: Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing.”)
As an Air Force chaplain I painted a machine gun in the loving hands of the nonviolent Jesus, and then handed this perverse picture to the world as truth. I sang “Praise the Lord” and passed the ammunition. As Catholic chaplain for the 509th Composite Group, I was the final channel that communicated this fraudulent image of Christ to the crews of the Enola Gay and the Boxcar.
All I can say today is that I was wrong. Christ would not be the instrument to unleash such horror on his people. Therefore no follower of Christ can legitimately unleash the horror of war on God’s people. Excuses and self-justifying explanations are without merit. All I can say is: I was wrong! But, if this is all I can say, this I must do, feeble as it is. For to do otherwise would be to bypass the first and absolutely essential step in the process of repentance and reconciliation: admission of error, admission of guilt.
There is no way to conduct real war in conformity with the teachings of Jesus.
I was there, and I was wrong. Yes, war is Hell, and Christ did not come to justify the creation of Hell on earth by his disciples. The justification of war may be compatible with some religions and philosophies, but it is not compatible with the nonviolent teaching of Jesus. I was wrong. And to those of whatever nationality or religion who have been hurt because I fell under the influence of the father of lies, I say with my whole heart and soul I am sorry. I beg forgiveness.
I asked forgiveness from the Hibakushas (the Japanese survivors of the atomic bombings) in Japan last year, in a pilgrimage that I made with a group from Tokyo to Hiroshima. I fell on my face there at the peace shrine after offering flowers, and I prayed for forgiveness – for myself, for my country, for my Church. Both Nagasaki and Hiroshima. This year in Toronto, I again asked forgiveness from the Hibakushas present. I asked forgiveness, and they asked forgiveness for Pearl Harbor and some of the horrible deeds of the Japanese military, and there were some, and I knew of them. We embraced. We cried. Tears flowed. That is the first step of reconciliation – admission of guilt and forgiveness. Pray to God that others will find this way to peace.
All religions have taught brotherhood. All people want peace. It is only the governments and war departments that promote war and slaughter. So today again I call upon people to make their voices heard. We can no longer just leave this to our leaders, both political and religious. They will move when we make them move. They represent us. Let us tell them that they must think and act for the safety and security of all the people in our world, not just for the safety and security of one country. All countries are interdependent. We all need one another. It is no longer possible for individual countries to think only of themselves. We can all live together as brothers and sisters or we are doomed to die together as fools in a world holocaust.
Each one of us becomes responsible for the crime of war by cooperating in its preparation and in its execution. This includes the military. This includes the making of weapons. And it includes paying for the weapons. There’s no question about that. We’ve got to realize we all become responsible. Silence, doing nothing, can be one of the greatest sins.
The bombing of Nagasaki means even more to me than the bombing of Hiroshima. By August 9, 1945, we knew what that bomb would do, but we still dropped it. We knew that agonies and sufferings would ensue, and we also knew – at least our leaders knew – that it was not necessary. The Japanese were already defeated. They were already suing for peace. But we insisted on unconditional surrender, and this is even against the Just War theory. Once the enemy is defeated, once the enemy is not able to hurt you, you must make peace.
Militarized Christianity is a lie. It is radically out of conformity with the teaching, life, and spirit of Jesus.
As a Catholic chaplain I watched as the Boxcar, piloted by a good Irish Catholic pilot, dropped the bomb on Urakami Cathedral in Nagasaki, the center of Catholicism in Japan. I knew that St. Francis Xavier, centuries before, had brought the Catholic faith to Japan. I knew that schools, churches, and religious orders were annihilated. And yet I said nothing.
Thank God that I’m able to stand here today and speak out against war, all war. The prophets of the Old Testament spoke out against all false gods of gold, silver, and metal. Today we are worshipping the gods of metal, the bomb. We are putting our trust in physical power, militarism, and nationalism. The bomb, not God, is our security and our strength. The prophets of the Old Testament said simply: Do not put your trust in chariots and weapons, but put your trust in God. Their message was simple, and so is mine.
We must all become prophets. I really mean that. We must all do something for peace. We must stop this insanity of worshipping the gods of metal. We must take a stand against evil and idolatry. This is our destiny at the most critical time of human history. But it’s also the greatest opportunity ever offered to any group of people in the history of our world – to save our world from complete annihilation.
August 17, 2005

Posted by: Stephen at April 13, 2006 03:23 PM

Father George Zabelka, a Catholic chaplain with the U.S. Air Force, served as a priest for the airmen who dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, and gave them his blessing. Over the next twenty years, he gradually came to believe that he had been terribly wrong, that he had denied the very foundations of his faith by lending moral and religious support to the bombing. Zabelka, who died in 1992, gave this speech on the 40th anniversary of the bombings.
The destruction of civilians in war was always forbidden by the Church, and if a soldier came to me and asked if he could put a bullet through a child’s head, I would have told him, absolutely not. That would be mortally sinful. But in 1945 Tinian Island was the largest airfield in the world. Three planes a minute could take off from it around the clock. Many of these planes went to Japan with the express purpose of killing not one child or one civilian but of slaughtering hundreds and thousands and tens of thousands of children and civilians – and I said nothing.
As a Catholic chaplain I watched as the Boxcar, piloted by a good Irish Catholic pilot, dropped the bomb on Urakami Cathedral in Nagasaki, the center of Catholicism in Japan.
I never preached a single sermon against killing civilians to the men who were doing it. I was brainwashed! It never entered my mind to protest publicly the consequences of these massive air raids. I was told it was necessary – told openly by the military and told implicitly by my Church’s leadership. (To the best of my knowledge no American cardinals or bishops were opposing these mass air raids. Silence in such matters is a stamp of approval.)
I worked with Martin Luther King, Jr., during the Civil Rights struggle in Flint, Michigan. His example and his words of nonviolent action, choosing love instead of hate, truth instead of lies, and nonviolence instead of violence stirred me deeply. This brought me face to face with pacifism – active nonviolent resistance to evil. I recall his words after he was jailed in Montgomery, and this blew my mind. He said, “Blood may flow in the streets of Montgomery before we gain our freedom, but it must be our blood that flows, and not that of the white man. We must not harm a single hair on the head of our white brothers.”
I struggled. I argued. But yes, there it was in the Sermon on the Mount, very clear: “Love your enemies. Return good for evil.” I went through a crisis of faith. Either accept what Christ said, as unpassable and silly as it may seem, or deny him completely.
For the last 1700 years the Church has not only been making war respectable: it has been inducing people to believe it is an honorable profession, an honorable Christian profession. This is not true. We have been brainwashed. This is a lie.
War is now, always has been, and always will be bad, bad news. I was there. I saw real war. Those who have seen real war will bear me out. I assure you, it is not of Christ. It is not Christ’s way. There is no way to conduct real war in conformity with the teachings of Jesus. There is no way to train people for real war in conformity with the teachings of Jesus.
The morality of the balance of terrorism is a morality that Christ never taught. The ethics of mass butchery cannot be found in the teachings of Jesus. In Just War ethics, Jesus Christ, who is supposed to be all in the Christian life, is irrelevant. He might as well never have existed. In Just War ethics, no appeal is made to him or his teaching, because no appeal can be made to him or his teaching, for neither he nor his teaching gives standards for Christians to follow in order to determine what level of slaughter is acceptable.
So the world is watching today. Ethical hairsplitting over the morality of various types of instruments and structures of mass slaughter is not what the world needs from the Church, although it is what the world has come to expect from the followers of Christ. What the world needs is a grouping of Christians that will stand up and pay up with Jesus Christ. What the world needs is Christians who, in language that the simplest soul could understand, will proclaim: the follower of Christ cannot participate in mass slaughter. He or she must love as Christ loved, live as Christ lived, and, if necessary, die as Christ died, loving ones enemies.
For the 300 years immediately following Jesus’ resurrection, the Church universally saw Christ and his teaching as nonviolent. Remember that the Church taught this ethic in the face of at least three serious attempts by the state to liquidate her. It was subject to horrendous and ongoing torture and death. If ever there was an occasion for justified retaliation and defensive slaughter, whether in form of a just war or a just revolution, this was it. The economic and political elite of the Roman state and their military had turned the citizens of the state against Christians and were embarked on a murderous public policy of exterminating the Christian community.
Yet the Church, in the face of the heinous crimes committed against her members, insisted without reservation that when Christ disarmed Peter he disarmed all Christians.
Christians continued to believe that Christ was, to use the words of an ancient liturgy, their fortress, their refuge, and their strength, and that if Christ was all they needed for security and defense, then Christ was all they should have. Indeed, this was a new security ethic. Christians understood that if they would only follow Christ and his teaching, they couldn’t fail. When opportunities were given for Christians to appease the state by joining the fighting Roman army, these opportunities were rejected, because the early Church saw a complete and an obvious incompatibility between loving as Christ loved and killing. It was Christ, not Mars, who gave security and peace.
Today the world is on the brink of ruin because the Church refuses to be the Church, because we Christians have been deceiving ourselves and the non-Christian world about the truth of Christ. There is no way to follow Christ, to love as Christ loved, and simultaneously to kill other people. It is a lie to say that the spirit that moves the trigger of a flamethrower is the Holy Spirit. It is a lie to say that learning to kill is learning to be Christ-like. It is a lie to say that learning to drive a bayonet into the heart of another is motivated from having put on the mind of Christ. Militarized Christianity is a lie. It is radically out of conformity with the teaching, life, and spirit of Jesus.
Now, brothers and sisters, on the anniversary of this terrible atrocity carried out by Christians, I must be the first to say that I made a terrible mistake. I was had by the father of lies. I participated in the big ecumenical lie of the Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox churches. I wore the uniform. I was part of the system. When I said Mass over there I put on those beautiful vestments over my uniform. (When Father Dave Becker left the Trident submarine base in 1982 and resigned as Catholic chaplain there, he said, “Every time I went to Mass in my uniform and put the vestments on over my uniform, I couldn’t help but think of the words of Christ applying to me: Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing.”)
As an Air Force chaplain I painted a machine gun in the loving hands of the nonviolent Jesus, and then handed this perverse picture to the world as truth. I sang “Praise the Lord” and passed the ammunition. As Catholic chaplain for the 509th Composite Group, I was the final channel that communicated this fraudulent image of Christ to the crews of the Enola Gay and the Boxcar.
All I can say today is that I was wrong. Christ would not be the instrument to unleash such horror on his people. Therefore no follower of Christ can legitimately unleash the horror of war on God’s people. Excuses and self-justifying explanations are without merit. All I can say is: I was wrong! But, if this is all I can say, this I must do, feeble as it is. For to do otherwise would be to bypass the first and absolutely essential step in the process of repentance and reconciliation: admission of error, admission of guilt.
There is no way to conduct real war in conformity with the teachings of Jesus.
I was there, and I was wrong. Yes, war is Hell, and Christ did not come to justify the creation of Hell on earth by his disciples. The justification of war may be compatible with some religions and philosophies, but it is not compatible with the nonviolent teaching of Jesus. I was wrong. And to those of whatever nationality or religion who have been hurt because I fell under the influence of the father of lies, I say with my whole heart and soul I am sorry. I beg forgiveness.
I asked forgiveness from the Hibakushas (the Japanese survivors of the atomic bombings) in Japan last year, in a pilgrimage that I made with a group from Tokyo to Hiroshima. I fell on my face there at the peace shrine after offering flowers, and I prayed for forgiveness – for myself, for my country, for my Church. Both Nagasaki and Hiroshima. This year in Toronto, I again asked forgiveness from the Hibakushas present. I asked forgiveness, and they asked forgiveness for Pearl Harbor and some of the horrible deeds of the Japanese military, and there were some, and I knew of them. We embraced. We cried. Tears flowed. That is the first step of reconciliation – admission of guilt and forgiveness. Pray to God that others will find this way to peace.
All religions have taught brotherhood. All people want peace. It is only the governments and war departments that promote war and slaughter. So today again I call upon people to make their voices heard. We can no longer just leave this to our leaders, both political and religious. They will move when we make them move. They represent us. Let us tell them that they must think and act for the safety and security of all the people in our world, not just for the safety and security of one country. All countries are interdependent. We all need one another. It is no longer possible for individual countries to think only of themselves. We can all live together as brothers and sisters or we are doomed to die together as fools in a world holocaust.
Each one of us becomes responsible for the crime of war by cooperating in its preparation and in its execution. This includes the military. This includes the making of weapons. And it includes paying for the weapons. There’s no question about that. We’ve got to realize we all become responsible. Silence, doing nothing, can be one of the greatest sins.
The bombing of Nagasaki means even more to me than the bombing of Hiroshima. By August 9, 1945, we knew what that bomb would do, but we still dropped it. We knew that agonies and sufferings would ensue, and we also knew – at least our leaders knew – that it was not necessary. The Japanese were already defeated. They were already suing for peace. But we insisted on unconditional surrender, and this is even against the Just War theory. Once the enemy is defeated, once the enemy is not able to hurt you, you must make peace.
Militarized Christianity is a lie. It is radically out of conformity with the teaching, life, and spirit of Jesus.
As a Catholic chaplain I watched as the Boxcar, piloted by a good Irish Catholic pilot, dropped the bomb on Urakami Cathedral in Nagasaki, the center of Catholicism in Japan. I knew that St. Francis Xavier, centuries before, had brought the Catholic faith to Japan. I knew that schools, churches, and religious orders were annihilated. And yet I said nothing.
Thank God that I’m able to stand here today and speak out against war, all war. The prophets of the Old Testament spoke out against all false gods of gold, silver, and metal. Today we are worshipping the gods of metal, the bomb. We are putting our trust in physical power, militarism, and nationalism. The bomb, not God, is our security and our strength. The prophets of the Old Testament said simply: Do not put your trust in chariots and weapons, but put your trust in God. Their message was simple, and so is mine.
We must all become prophets. I really mean that. We must all do something for peace. We must stop this insanity of worshipping the gods of metal. We must take a stand against evil and idolatry. This is our destiny at the most critical time of human history. But it’s also the greatest opportunity ever offered to any group of people in the history of our world – to save our world from complete annihilation.
August 17, 2005

Posted by: Stephen at April 13, 2006 03:23 PM

A few more graduates of the Barney Fife College of brainless wonders!
You would think that they would at least have a clue about what they are ranting about. It looks like they just pick up bits and pieces of junk and try to make something out of it. What a pitiful lot they are.
If they are so certain that a nice chat over tea would settle this issue, why don't they have a shot at it?

Posted by: Mountain Mama at April 18, 2006 12:11 AM

mgtjhcao

Posted by: aciphex at April 29, 2006 05:48 AM

rbpjujmco

Posted by: actos at April 29, 2006 06:54 AM

xossmcbl

Posted by: adderall at April 29, 2006 07:25 AM

pyudugu

Posted by: advair at April 29, 2006 08:37 AM

kzaxysiemmw

Posted by: albuterol at April 29, 2006 09:14 AM

When did people get so delusional about their views that they feel the need to leave 2000 word essays for comments? Get to the point, I'm not going to read a manifesto.

Just thought I'd swing by and say, what up?

The letter: Ehh, spins his wheels, full of emotional heat without depth or fact. Harmless really.

Posted by: Rene Merced Jr at April 29, 2006 05:04 PM


What is with you people?

A person voices there opinion and you call it "Hate Mail" with out even reading it!

You call him a moron because you don't agree with his opinion.

Land of the free? Free Speech? Have you ever even read your constitution? I mean really read it? I'm from Australia and I bet I know the U.S constitution better then most of you.

How about trying to respect and treat ALL Americans with dignity and tolerance.


Posted by: Jimmy at May 6, 2006 11:41 PM

And we have every right to call him a moron. Would you stifle OUR free speech to save another's? I have him more free speech than he deserved. I could have just deleted his statement. I didn't. I published it.

He has every right to voice his opinion.

We have every right for voicing our opinion relating to his lack of intelligence.

Freedom all around!


Have a nice day!

Posted by: American Warmonger at May 6, 2006 11:58 PM

"I'm from Australia and I bet I know the U.S constitution better then most of you."

I love a person with humility.

Cry baby.

Posted by: Rene Merced Jr at May 8, 2006 11:15 AM

Thank you!
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Posted by: Gina at July 20, 2006 07:36 PM
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