Terrorism

by TOM HAYDEN

[Hayden was the author of the “Port Huron Statement,” a key leader of opposition to the US War in Vietnam, and a member of the California State Legislature. This is the first of a two-part essay.]

May 7, 2009

The concept of the “Long War” is attributed to former CENTCOM Commander Gen. John Abizaid, speaking in 2004. Leading counterinsurgency theorist John Nagl, an Iraq combat veteran and now the head of the Center for a New American Security, writes that “there is a growing realization that the most likely conflicts of the next fifty years will be irregular warfare in an ‘Arc of Instability’ that encompasses much of the greater Middle East and parts of Africa and Central and South Asia.” The Pentagon’s official Quadrennial Defense Review (2005) commits the United States to a greater emphasis on fighting terrorism and insurgencies in this “arc of instability.” The Center for American Progress repeats the formulation in arguing for a troop escalation and ten-year commitment in Afghanistan, saying that the “infrastructure of jihad” must be destroyed in “the center of an ‘arc of instability’ through South and Central Asia and the greater Middle East.”   Read more »

Mumbai & Beyond: Turning Horror toward Healing

Over the years, I have noticed a pattern like this: When some terrorist group claiming roots in Islam commits a mass murder, Muslim organizations denounce those actions. The “mainstream” US media ignore such denunciations. Then some people denounce the Muslim world for the absence of condemnations against terrorism, and grow new fury against Islam. 

In the hope of forestalling this sequence, I am sending (below) some quotations and citations of Muslim responses to the Mumbai murders. Below that are four other items: A Mourners Kaddish in Time of War & Violence; a memo on what President-elect Obama could do; a memo on what world religious bodies could do; and a memo looking at the attacks from a specifically Jewish standpoint.    Read more »

ASHES, STONES, & FLOWERS:
A LITANY ON MILITARISM, RACISM, & MATERIALISM
IN HONOR OF DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING

By Rev. Patricia Pearce, Tabernacle United Church, Philadelphia

Militarism

For each vibrant life and hopeful dream that is annihilated by war and written off as necessary collateral damage,
We lift up the ashes of our pain, O God.

For the millions who go hungry or suffer sickness because bombs are more lucrative than bread and missiles are deemed more important than medicine,
We lift up the ashes of our remorse, O God.

For each mind that is forever haunted and each body that is left broken by war,   Read more »

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow*
(Written on Sept.12, 2001).

When the Jewish community celebrates the harvest festival, we build “sukkot.”

What is a “sukkah”? Just a fragile hut with a leafy roof, the most vulnerable of houses. Vulnerable in time, where it lasts for only a week each year. Vulnerable in space, where its roof must be not only leafy but leaky — letting in the starlight, and gusts of wind and rain.

In the evening prayers, we plead with God — “Ufros alenu sukkat shlomekha” — “Spread over all of us Your sukkah of shalom.”

Why a sukkah?— Why does the prayer plead to God for a “sukkah of shalom” rather than God’s “tent” or “house” or “palace” of peace?   Read more »

By Jeremy Kuzmarov

History News Network
December 31, 2007

http://hnn.us/articles/45974.html

In his provocative 1993 book, *Culture and Imperialism*, Edward W. Said
examines how cultural representations in the West have historically helped
to stereotype Third World peoples as being passively reliant on foreign
aid for their social and political uplift, thus engendering support for
imperial interventions ostensibly undertaken for humanitarian purposes.

This was true, he argued, even in works critical of Western interventions,   Read more »

WE CALL FOR A NATION-WIDE FAST ON OCTOBER 8
TO DISCOVER THE TRUE AMERICA;

TO MOVE FROM CONQUEST TO COMMUNITY,
FROM VIOLENCE TO REVERENCE

A Call from the Tent of Abraham, Hagar, & Sarah

America stands in great danger of becoming addicted to violence, at home and overseas.   Read more »

Reopening the Tent of Abraham

Rabbi Phyllis O. Berman and Rabbi Arthur O. Waskow *

The world is falling helter-skelter down a steep incline toward a fatal cliff: an endless world war between the whole Muslim world and the West, or perhaps the United States. A war between the different families of Abraham.

Sometimes it seems we are already over the edge of the cliff, but perhaps, God willing, im yirtzeh hashem, inshallah, not quite yet. Barely.

Such a war would leave us all at constant risk of death, impoverishment for all public and many private goods, ridden and riddled with fear and rage. Write large – write “global” — the tip of Manhattan on September 11, 2001; the city of Baghdad all of June, July, August, 2006; Qana on July 30, 2006; Kfar Giladi on August 6.   Read more »

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow

The midterm Congressional elections of 2006 and their aftermath open up the possibilities of change.

During the election campaign, The Shalom Center scrupulously adhered to our obligation to focus on spiritually rooted policies, not on candidates for election. And the election results in terms of specific people and their connection to specific ethical policies are somewhat spotty.

But over-all, the window has been opened for fresh winds of change, to bring new life into what was an airless, lethal lock-box.

And this we should celebrate!

In the Passover Seder, there is a puzzling song that celebrates each step of liberation as if that step were enough. “If we had gotten to the Red Sea but the waters had not split for us - Enough! Dayenu!” “If we had gotten to Sinai but no Torah had appeared - Enough! Dayenu!”   Read more »

Michael J. Sniffen for Associated Press, 12/3/2004

U.S. MILITARY SAYS EVIDENCE GAINED BY TORTURE IS ACCEPTABLE
By Michael J. Sniffen

http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=news&cat=8&id=321015

WASHINGTON — Evidence gained by torture can be used by the U.S. military in
deciding whether to imprison a foreigner indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,
as an enemy combatant, the government concedes.   Read more »