by Garibaldi

Remember Daniel Pipes, the guy who former President George W. Bush nominated to lead the “US Institute of Peace,” and who was supported in that endeavor by the AJC, ADL and Neo-Con outfits such as his buddy Johnathan Schanzer‘s Foundation for the Defense of Democracies?

Well, here he is on the conservative news portal “Real News” (Glenn Beck affiliated) in a segment hosted by S.E. Cupp relaying his “peaceful words” on the conflict in Syria:

In the days when Pipes was nominated to that silly “Peace” institute he was supporting the Iraq War (before that, in 1987 he supported Saddam), remarking that the invasion would “reduce terrorism,” today he supports prolonging the civil war in Syria for as long as possible–”for strategic reasons.” Apparently, he’d be whistling Yankee Doodle if the Syrian civil war were to continue until the apocalypse!

He says, “I don’t want to see this end. I don’t want to see them turn their guns on us or our allies.”

His logic?

As long as they are not aiming their guns at “us,” such bloodshed, while really, really, oh so terrible (believe him for godsakes, he says “his hearts bleeds for all the suffering of the Syrians”) is in “our strategic interests.” Strategic interests is the lie that is pushed in every one of our interventionist wars, in our support for genocidal maniacs and our history of blocking attempts at peaceful conflict resolution.

This sick mentality is what produces future uses of the Orwellian term “imminent threat,” it also produces real “blowback,” and increases “anti-Americanism,” one of our gravest national security threats.

Some of the names of the children killed, so that we remember they are not statistics or collateral damage.

List of children killed by drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen

Compiled from The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reports

PAKISTAN
Name | Age | Gender
Noor Aziz | 8 | male
Abdul Wasit | 17 | male
Noor Syed | 8 | male
Wajid Noor | 9 | male
Syed Wali Shah | 7 | male
Ayeesha | 3 | female
Qari Alamzeb | 14| male
Shoaib | 8 | male
Hayatullah KhaMohammad | 16 | male
Tariq Aziz | 16 | male
Sanaullah Jan | 17 | male
Maezol Khan | 8 | female
Nasir Khan | male
Naeem Khan | male
Naeemullah | male
Mohammad Tahir | 16 | male
Azizul Wahab | 15 | male
Fazal Wahab | 16 | male
Ziauddin | 16 | male
Mohammad Yunus | 16 | male
Fazal Hakim | 19 | male
Ilyas | 13 | male
Sohail | 7 | male
Asadullah | 9 | male
khalilullah | 9 | male
Noor Mohammad | 8 | male
Khalid | 12 | male
Saifullah | 9 | male
Mashooq Jan | 15 | male
Nawab | 17 | male
Sultanat Khan | 16 | male
Ziaur Rahman | 13 | male
Noor Mohammad | 15 | male
Mohammad Yaas Khan | 16 | male
Qari Alamzeb | 14 | male
Ziaur Rahman | 17 | male
Abdullah | 18 | male
Ikramullah Zada | 17 | male
Inayatur Rehman | 16 | male
Shahbuddin | 15 | male
Yahya Khan | 16 |male
Rahatullah |17 | male
Mohammad Salim | 11 | male
Shahjehan | 15 | male
Gul Sher Khan | 15 | male
Bakht Muneer | 14 | male
Numair | 14 | male
Mashooq Khan | 16 | male
Ihsanullah | 16 | male
Luqman | 12 | male
Jannatullah | 13 | male
Ismail | 12 | male
Taseel Khan | 18 | male
Zaheeruddin | 16 | male
Qari Ishaq | 19 | male
Jamshed Khan | 14 | male
Alam Nabi | 11 | male
Qari Abdul Karim | 19 | male
Rahmatullah | 14 | male
Abdus Samad | 17 | male
Siraj | 16 | male
Saeedullah | 17 | male
Abdul Waris | 16 | male
Darvesh | 13 | male
Ameer Said | 15 | male
Shaukat | 14 | male
Inayatur Rahman | 17 | male
Salman | 12 | male
Fazal Wahab | 18 | male
Baacha Rahman | 13 | male
Wali-ur-Rahman | 17 | male
Iftikhar | 17 | male
Inayatullah | 15 | male
Mashooq Khan | 16 | male
Ihsanullah | 16 | male
Luqman | 12 | male
Jannatullah | 13 | male
Ismail | 12 | male
Abdul Waris | 16 | male
Darvesh | 13 | male
Ameer Said | 15 | male
Shaukat | 14 | male
Inayatur Rahman | 17 | male
Adnan | 16 | male
Najibullah | 13 | male
Naeemullah | 17 | male
Hizbullah | 10 | male
Kitab Gul | 12 | male
Wilayat Khan | 11 | male
Zabihullah | 16 | male
Shehzad Gul | 11 | male
Shabir | 15 | male
Qari Sharifullah | 17 | male
Shafiullah | 16 | male
Nimatullah | 14 | male
Shakirullah | 16 | male
Talha | 8 | male

YEMEN
Afrah Ali Mohammed Nasser | 9 | female
Zayda Ali Mohammed Nasser | 7 | female
Hoda Ali Mohammed Nasser | 5 | female
Sheikha Ali Mohammed Nasser | 4 | female
Ibrahim Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 13 | male
Asmaa Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 9 | male
Salma Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 4 | female
Fatima Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 3 | female
Khadije Ali Mokbel Louqye | 1 | female
Hanaa Ali Mokbel Louqye | 6 | female
Mohammed Ali Mokbel Salem Louqye | 4 | male
Jawass Mokbel Salem Louqye | 15 | female
Maryam Hussein Abdullah Awad | 2 | female
Shafiq Hussein Abdullah Awad | 1 | female
Sheikha Nasser Mahdi Ahmad Bouh | 3 | female
Maha Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 12 | male
Soumaya Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 9 | female
Shafika Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 4 | female
Shafiq Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 2 | male
Mabrook Mouqbal Al Qadari | 13 | male
Daolah Nasser 10 years | 10 | female
AbedalGhani Mohammed Mabkhout | 12 | male
Abdel- Rahman Anwar al Awlaki | 16 | male
Abdel-Rahman al-Awlaki | 17 | male
Nasser Salim | 19

Related:

-Yes, Pakistanis Really Do Hate America’s Killer Drones

Would you like your endless war with Coke or Pepsi?

As most of us grow eager for the deluge of campaign ads to finally come to an end, Philip Giraldi’s timely article strikes at the root of America’s misguided policies of bullying, preemption, scapegoating, and denial, all of which are likely to continue no matter who is elected this November.

Blaming the Muslims

It is perhaps human nature to seek to blame someone else for one’s own personal failings. But what is possibly only a misdemeanor in personal interactions becomes rather more serious when entire nations and races are systematically and comprehensively blamed for the failures of other nations to comprehend simple truths. I am, of course, referring to the disastrous foreign policy that we Americans have endured for the past 11 years, which is coming home to roost now in places such as Libya and Syria.

Consider what we have been hearing repeated over and over again about the Middle East and other trouble spots. American bullying, preemption, and a policy of might makes right have not been the problem; some ignorant folks just dislike us because of our freedom. The United States is “exceptional,” which means that it should set the standards for the “free world” and even the not-so-free world, whether they all like it or not. Washington has the right to intervene militarily anywhere in the world if there is even the slightest chance that there is some kind of threat lurking.

Neither President Barack Obama nor Gov. Mitt Romney has dared to say the truth, which is that the past 11 years have been disastrous for the United States because of a gross overreaction to a terrorism problem that we helped create. That overreaction has led to one unnecessary major war in Iraq that has helped bankrupt the country while also killing more than 100,000 people who had nothing to do with any threat against the United States. We have even punished the children of those we have killed: witness the stunning rise in birth defects caused by depleted uranium in parts of Iraq where the fighting was most intense.

America’s lashing out has also led to a prolonged slaughter in Afghanistan, which will be worse off when Washington leaves than it was when the U.S. military and CIA arrived. Elsewhere, the U.S. footprint is heavier than ever, with drone operations becoming the warmaking du jour in Africa and Asia. This week we have learned that the CIA is seeking more drones to extend its operations. It seems that the poor folks at Langley actually had to shift some drones from Pakistan to Yemen because they just did not have enough to go around. For those who care, it marks the beginning of the end of the CIA as an intelligence organization and its transition into an international outside-the-Geneva-Conventions killing machine under Director David Petraeus.

At home, the foreign wars have also had an impact. Drones have arrived in America while whole sections of the U.S. Constitution have been abandoned by “temporary” legislation to fight terrorists. Mitt and Barack are both intelligent men and they know perfectly well what is happening, but they will not say anything about it, as it would ruin the narrative that the United States is always good and noble. If only those damned Muslims just didn’t hate our freedom so much.

Make no mistakes that Muslims are the target of American wrath, even if it is largely unstated. The Republican Party is obsessed with bigger defense budgets to fight more wars in Muslim lands and, domestically, making illegal the greatly feared spread of Shariah law. Shariah, for what it’s worth, is the criminal code in only two Islamic countries: Saudi Arabia and Iran. Most other majority-Muslim states use a version of British common law or Roman law. In the United States the threat of any state adopting Shariah is nonexistent, unless one believes the content of the GOP platform.

Opinion polls suggest that Americans do not like Muslims very much. No surprise there, considering the steady diet of negative commentary. On the New York City subway one can learn from posters that Palestinians are savages while Israelis are civilized. For many years, the word “Islamic” has been used in much of the media as an obligatory prefix to the word “terrorist.”

No other group in the U.S. since the Communist purges of the 1950s has been singled out as much as Muslims as the enemy within. Congressman Peter King of New York has held a number of hearings on “The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and That Community’s Response.” Muslims have been targeted as a group by the New York Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The young Muslims who suddenly find themselves with a new friend in the form of an FBI informant eventually are entrapped into a confession or plea bargain and sent off to jail, with each arrest heralded as a major terrorism case. That many of those cases relied on an informant who offered the suspect a phony gun or bomb and then provided encouragement to commit a terrorist act is eminently clear if one reads the news accounts of the arrest and trial. If there is any evidence that American Muslims are not law-abiding, I have not seen it, and I suspect that if such a statistic were actually compiled it would demonstrate the opposite.

More recently, some Republicans have called for eliminating foreign aid for countries that don’t like us very much and appear reluctant to support our policies. All those countries are, of course, Islamic, and the emails circulating to make the case show burning cars and buildings. All that is needed is cameos of angry-looking men in beards to seal the case. The what-have-you-done-for-me-lately argument fails to take into account what exactly the U.S. has been playing at in those countries for the past 50 years, supporting dictators and turning a blind eye to egregious violations of human rights.

And when the countries in question shake off the shackles of dictatorship and elect a government that takes its religion seriously, there is dismay in the post-Enlightenment West. The development is referred to as a problem that has to be closely monitored by the wise leaders in Washington and Brussels. What is wrong with those people? Don’t they want our freedom? For a Muslim, one’s religion shapes the relationship with the state. It is not firewalled from it and conditions how one behaves when in office, but the distinction apparently escapes those who are shaping our policies in the White House.

There are, of course, a number of political objectives to the Muslim bashing. A large, undifferentiated threat keeps the military industrial complex happy. For the friends of Israel, since Muslims are savages and terrorists, it means that negotiating with them in any serious way or treating them as human beings is a waste of time. For the politicians who spout an anti-Muslim agenda, it keeps them in the limelight and they see an opportunity to become a player in foreign policy. The real lesson should be that the turning on Muslims is not necessarily a problem with those who practice Islam but rather a problem with us. We are the ones who have created the enemy and we are the ones who should have the sense to realize that it is our policies and actions that have poisoned relationships all around the world, and not just in Islamic countries. Will Mitt Romney or Barack Obama someday express that reality? Somehow I don’t think so.

Philip Giraldi is a former counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). His recent interview debunking claims that Muslims are stuck in medieval times and have no yearning for democratic governance and commenting on recent events in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan can be found here. 

This is a part of LoonWatch’s Understanding Jihad Series.

The basic plank of Islamophobia can be summed up as follows:

Islam is uniquely violent compared to other world religions.

Of course, it’s just not true.  In previous articles, I’ve taken a Thor-sized hammer to shatter this myth by proving that Judaism and Christianity are scripturally and theologically just as violent, if not more so.  The Bible is far more violent than the Quran, and both the Jewish and Christian traditions have been just as problematic.

It’s also not true from a historical perspective.

Take Judaism for instance:  According to the foundational narrative in the Bible, for instance, the Hebrews were persecuted in Egypt, forcing them to flee to Palestine.  When they found the Promised Land to be already occupied by the native Canaanites, Moses and the Jews invoked their warrior god to mercilessly slaughter the indigenous population in what can only be called a genocidal holy war.

The Jewish kingdoms were then overrun by outsiders.  Eventually, the Jews came under the rule of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who sought to replace Judaism with his own religion.  The Jews revolted and overthrew him, leading to the emergence of the Jewish Hasmonean Dynasty.  Just previously facing down the barrel of religious oppression, the Jews did not lose a beat and immediately set out oppressing non-Jews.  By force of arms, they sought to expand their borders and to ethnically cleanse the land of infidels, either killing non-Jews, forcibly converting them to Judaism, enslaving them, or simply running them off the land.

This Jewish kingdom fell as well, and the Jews would have to wait until the twentieth century to rule again.  They faced several centuries of oppression and finally ethnic cleansing at the hands of the Nazis, but eventually regrouped in Palestine.  Just yesterday having chanted “never again!”, they seamlessly transitioned to the task of ethnically cleansing Palestine of its non-Jewish population.

Although it’s true that Jews have been on the receiving end of oppression for a great deal of history, it’s also true that they have oppressed when in a position of power.  Is oppression then a matter not of religion but simply of opportunity?

Christians had more opportunity for violence than any other religious group on earth, and it is therefore unsurprising that, from a sheer numbers perspective, they have been responsible for the most acts of warlike aggression than any other.  It is true that Jesus himself never engaged in violent action, but again, this seems to be an issue of opportunity rather than moral repulsion to violence: he was never in a position of political power and was in fact killed by the authorities.  But, according to the Biblical narrative, Jesus will return to earth as a conquering warrior king, flanked by a massive army of earthly and heavenly beasts.  He will then kill all his enemies.

The early Church was not pacifist as many modern-day Christians claim.  Instead, the early Church fathers enlisted themselves as prayer warriors for the imperial Roman armies.  The very minute Christianity rose to power with the conversion of the Roman Emperor Constantine, war in the service of empire and religion was adopted wholesale.  Once persecuted by pagans, Christians now set out to destroy paganism in Europe.  They sent forth armies to conquer new lands in the name of Christ.  Eventually, almost all of Africa, Australia, Europe, South and North America–as well as huge swaths of land in Asia–came under the boots of Christian soldiers.  Even today, the Religious Right in the U.S. leads the country down the path of war.

Not a single inhabited continent was spared by the Christian conquerors, so it is very difficult to accept the idea that Islam is somehow uniquely violent.

Of course, there is no denying that Islamic history had its fair share of violence.  Just as the Christian Church came under the tutelage of the Roman state, so too did many ulema ingratiate themselves to the rulers.  Expansion of the state was religiously justified, and the armies of Islam poured out of the Arabian Peninsula, conquering lands from China to Spain.

Islamophobes often complain that Islam gobbled up a significant part of the Christian world, which is true.  Yet, the Christians themselves had conquered these lands aforetime.  Is this simply not a case of Christians crying foul play when another religious group does to them what they did to the rest of the world?

It seems clear that Westerners of the Judeo-Christian tradition have no leg to stand on when they single out Islam.

But, what about Eastern religions, such as Buddhism?  Is violence merely a problem of the three Abrahamic faiths, as some would have us believe?

Westerners imagine a stark contrast between supposedly violent Muslims on the one hand and pacifist Buddhists on the other.  When we recently linked to a story about Buddhist oppression of the Muslim community in Burma, an Islamophobe quipped:

So, Buddhists acting like Muslims for once?

This remark reveals a profound ignorance of history.  Stereotypes notwithstanding, the Buddhist tradition is no stranger to violence.  This little known story is retold by Professors Michael Jerryson and Mark Juergensmeyer in the book Buddhist Warfare.  Jerryson writes:

Violence is found in all religious traditions, and Buddhism is no exception.  This may surprise those who think of Buddhism as a religion based solely on peace.  Indeed, one of the principal reasons for producing this book was to address such a misconception.  Within the various Buddhist traditions (which Trevor Ling describes as “Buddhisms”), there is a long history of violence.  Since the inception of Buddhist traditions 2,500 years ago, there have been numerous individual and structural cases of prolonged Buddhist violence. [1]

Prof. Jerryson writes in Monks With Guns: Discovering Buddhist Violence of armed Buddhist monks in Thailand.  He notes that the West’s romantic view of Buddhism

shield[s] an extensive and historical dimension to Buddhist traditions: violence. Armed Buddhist monks in Thailand are not an exception to the rule; they are contemporary examples of a long historical precedence. For centuries monks have been at the helm, or armed in the ranks, of wars. How could this be the case? But more importantly, why did I (and many others) hold the belief that Buddhism=Peace (and that other religions, such as Islam, are more prone to violence)?

He then answers his own question:

Buddhist Propaganda

It was then that I realized that I was a consumer of a very successful form of propaganda. Since the early 1900s, Buddhist monastic intellectuals such as Walpola Rahula, D. T. Suzuki, and Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, have labored to raise Western awareness of their cultures and traditions. In doing so, they presented specific aspects of their Buddhist traditions while leaving out others.

It should be clear that such “propaganda” need not necessarily be construed as something sinister.  Proponents of other religions–including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam–will, for obvious reasons, often give a positive spin to their faith traditions.  Many Buddhists believe their history to be relatively peaceful, because they view their religion to be so.  This is no different than Muslims claiming that Islam is “the religion of peace”.

The difference is that the politics of the War on Terror have caused the religion of Islam to be put under heavy scrutiny.  Therefore, there is great incentive to refute Muslim “propaganda”, an incentive which simply does not exist for Buddhist “propaganda”.  The enemy, after all, is Muslim, not Buddhist.  Thus, Buddhism flies under the radar, and Buddhist “advertising” is taken at face-value.

Buddhism’s relative inconspicuousness shields it from the harshest blows of public criticism.  Case in point: the Bible and the Quran are well-known and easily accessible to the public.  Finding the violent verses in them is just a click away on the internet.  Meanwhile, Buddhist scriptural sources are more obscure, at least to the average Westerner.  Most people don’t even know what scriptures Buddhists follow, let alone what is contained within them.

As a consequence, many modern-day Buddhists believe that their scriptural sources are in fact devoid of violence, that this is a problem only of the Bible or the Quran.  But, Prof. Stephen Jenkins points out that this is just not the case.  In fact, ”Buddhist kings had conceptual resources [in the religious texts] at their disposal that supported warfare, torture, and harsh punishments.” [2]

For example, the Nirvana Sutra, a canonical Buddhist text, narrates a story about one of Buddha’s past lives: in it, he kills some Hindus (Brahmins) because they insulted the Buddhist sutras (scriptures):

The Buddha…said…”When I recall the past, I remember that I was the king of a great state…My name was Senyo, and I loved and venerated the Mahayana sutras…When I heard the Brahmins slandering the vaipulya sutras, I put them to death on the spot.  Good men, as a result of that action, I never thereafter fell into hell.  O good man! When we accept and defend the Mahayana sutras, we possess innumerable virtues.” [3]

Porf. Paul Demieville writes:

We are told that the first reason [to put the Brahmins to death] was out of pity [for them], to help the Brahmans avoid the punishment they had accrued by committing evil deeds while continuously slandering Buddhism. [4]

Here we arrive at a disturbing theme found in Buddhist thought: “compassionate killing”.  Killing is normally forbidden because it is done with evil intent (hatred, vengeance, etc.), but if it is done with “compassion”, it becomes something permissible, even praiseworthy.

The Buddhist does the unbeliever a favor by killing him, “an act of charity”:

In the Zen sect in Japan, they interpreted the argument for taking another’s life as “attempting to bring the other’s Buddha nature to life” (Buddha nature exists in virtually every living being), “by putting an end to the passions that lead astray…”

They make killing an act of charity. [5]

This is of course a disturbing belief to most of us.  As Prof. Bernard Faure puts it: “‘Killing with compassion’…remains a dubious oxymoron.” [6] One is reminded of the odd Christian belief that a Christian soldier can love his enemies even as he kills them.  Of what relevance is such “love”?

Jenkins writes:

If he does so with compassionate intentions, a king may make great merit through warfare, so warfare becomes auspicious. The same argument was made earlier in relation to torture, and the sutra now proceeds to make commonsense analogies to doctors and to parents who compassionately inflict pain in order to discipline and heal without intending harm. [7]

He goes on:

General conceptions of a basic Buddhist ethics broadly conceived as unqualified pacifism are problematic.  Compassionate violence is at the very heart of the sensibility of this sutra.  Buddhist kings had sophisticated and practical conceptual resources to support the use of force…The only killing compatible with Buddhist ethics is killing with compassion.  Moreover, if a king makes war or tortures with compassionate intentions, even those acts can result in the accumulation of vast karmic merit. [8]

There was a second reason to kill the infidels: to defend the Buddhist faith.  Prof. Demieville writes:

The Buddha’s second reason for putting them to death was to defend Buddhism itself. [9]

Faure notes:

Another oft-invoked argument to justify killing is the claim that, when the the dharma [i.e. the Buddhist religion] is threatened, it is necessary to ruthlessly fight against the forces of evil…promoting the need for violence in order to preserve cosmic balance… [10]

What about the first precept of Buddhism, which forbids murder?  Demieville writes:

In another passage, this same sutra (scripture) declares that there is no reason to observe the five precepts [the first of which is the taking of life], or even to practice good behavior, if protecting the Real Law is in question.  In other words, one needed to take up the knife and the sword, the bow and the arrow, the spear and the lance [to defend the faith].  ”The one that observes the five precepts is not a follower of the [Mahayana]!  Do not observe the five precepts–if it concerns protecting the Real Law…” [11]

The Nirvana Sutra reads:

The [true] follower of the Mahayana is not the one who observes the five precepts, but the one who uses the sword, bow, arrow, and battle ax to protect the monks who uphold the precepts and who are pure. [12]

The dye is cast for defense in the name of religion.  Elsewhere in the Nirvana Sutra, we are told of a king who goes to war in defense of rightly-guided monks:

To protect Dharma [Buddha's teachings], he came to the defense of the monks, warring against the evil-doers so that the monks did not suffer.  The king sustained wounds all over his body.  The monks praised the king: “Well done, well done, O King!  You are a person who protects the Wonderful Dharma.  In the future, you will become the indispensable tool of Dharma.” [13]

This king too was Buddha in a past life; Buddha declared:

When the time comes that the Wonderful Dharma is about to die out, one should act like this and protect the Dharma.  I was the king…The one who defends the Wonderful Dharma receives immeasurable recompense…

Monks, nuns, male and female believers of Buddha, should exert great effort to protect the Wonderful Dharma.  The reward for protecting the Wonderful Dharma is extremely great and immeasurable.  O good man, because of this, those believers who protect Dharma should take the sword and staff and protect the monks who guard Dharma…

Even if a person does not observe the five precepts, if he protects the Wonderful Dharma, he will be referred to as one of the Mahayana. A person who upholds the Wonderful Dharma should take the sword and staff and guard monks. [14]

Demeiville notes:

Along these lines, the Buddha sings the praises of a king named Yeou-to, who went to war to defend the bhiksu (monks). [15]

The general idea is that “[h]eresy must be prevented and evil crushed in utero.” [16]

As for the Brahmins whom Buddha killed, they were in any case icchantika, those who neither believe in Buddha or Buddhism–historically, the Buddhist equivalent of infidel.  Buddha says in the Nirvana Sutra:

If any man, woman, Shramana, or Brahmin says that there is no such thing as The Way [i.e. Buddhism], Enlightenment, or Nirvana, know that such a person is an icchantika.  Such a person is one of [the demon] Mara’s kindred [Mara = the Lord of Death].  Such a person is not of the world… [17]

An icchantika is “sinful…[because] he does not act in accordance with the Bhuddas’ injunctions.” [18]  ”Because the icchantika lacks the root of good,” he “falls into hell.” [19] In fact, “it is not possible…for the icchantika not to go to hell.” [20] The icchantika is “the lowest” and “has to live for an eon in hell.” [21]

Putting to death unbelievers carries no sin or bad karmic result.  Demieville writes:

Regardless, these Brahmans were predestined to infernal damnation (icchantika); it was not a sin to put them to death in order to preserve the Real Law. [22]

There are in fact three grades of murder, in increasing order of seriousness, but killing infidels is not one of them.  The Nirvana Sutra reads:

The Buddha and Bodhisattva see three categories of killing, which are
those of the grades 1) low, 2) medium, and 3) high.  Low applies to the class of insects and all kinds of animals…The medium grade of killing concerns killing humans [who have not reached Nirvana]…The highest grade of killing concerns killing one’s father, mother, an arhat, pratyekabudda, or a Bodhisattva [three ranks of Enlightenment]…

A person who kills an icchantika does not suffer from the karmic returns due to the killings of the three kinds above.  O good man, all those Brahmins are of the class of the icchantika.  Killing them does not cause one to go to hell. [23]

The Buddha says in the Nirvana Sutra that icchantika’s status is lower than that of the ants:

[T]he icchantikas are cut off from the root of good…Because of this, one may well kill an ant and earn sin for doing harm, but there is no sin for killing an icchantika.” [24]

In addition to issues of faith and unbelief, the Buddhist tradition offered sophistic justifications for killing and war:

[H]ow can one kill another person when…all is emptiness?  The man who kills with full knowledge of the facts kills no one because he realizes that all is but illusion, himself as well as the other person.  He can kill, because he does not actually kill anyone.  One cannot kill emptiness, nor destroy the wind. [25]

Furthermore, killing is sinful because of the evil it creates inside the killer’s mind.  But, a true yoga master can train his mind to be “empty” even while he kills.  If the killer has “vacuity” of thought, then the murder “did not undermine the essential purity of his mind” and then there is nothing wrong with it. [26] In other words, killing can be excused if it is done by the right person, especially a “dharma-protecting king”.

The Buddhist canonical and post-canonical texts not only provide the religious justifications for war and killing, but provide examples of meritorious holy figures who engaged in it, examples for all Buddhists:

Celestial bodhisattvas, divinized embodiments of the power of enlightened compassion, support campaigns of conquest to spread the influence of Buddhism, and kings vested with the dharma commit mass violence against Jains and Hindus. [27]

In these textual sources, we see dharma-inspired Buddhist kings who “have a disturbing tendency for mass violence against non-Buddhists.” [28]

Buddhist Warfare provides many other examples of the theological justifications for waging war and killing, but these shall suffice us for now: they provide the religious basis for Buddhist holy war: (1) Killing those who slander Buddhism as a necessity; (2) Anyone who rejects Buddhism is by default slandering it; (3) Killing infidels carries no sin; (4) In fact, it is not really killing at all.

These are not merely theoretical justifications found buried in religious texts.  Instead, these beliefs were acted upon historically, and continue to be so in the contemporary age.  The historical record is something we will explore in part II.

*  *  *  *  *

Disclaimer:

Prof. Michael Jerryson issues the following disclaimer:

Our intention is not to argue that Buddhists are angry, violent people—but rather that Buddhists are people, and thus share the same human spectrum of emotions, which includes the penchant for violence.

I could not agree more with Jerryson here.  My intent here is not to demonize Buddhism, but rather, to underscore the reality that all religious traditions, not just Islam, have had their fair share of violence.  This includes Buddhism.

It’s certainly something uncomfortable for me criticizing a religious tradition in this way, but it seems necessary to dispel the enduring myth that Islam holds a monopoly on violence.

I would also like to take this opportunity to distance myself from those who are using the violence in Burma to further Buddhaphobia.  Such claim that “people are ignoring what is happening to Muslims in Burma”, which is certainly true, but we all know that if the shoe were on the other foot–if it were Muslims in Burma oppressing Buddhists–then many of these Muslims would be the silent ones, or even be justifying such oppression (as I have seen many Buddhists doing now).

What is it other than rancid hypocrisy when some Pakistanis are up in arms about Muslims in Burma, but absolutely silent about the oppression of religious minorities in their own country?

How easily these people are able to transfer the same hatred against Islam that is directed toward them on a daily basis to Buddhism!

What I have learned about religions is the following:

#1: Adherents of a religion will cry foul when their coreligionists are the victims of oppression, but will remain silent or even justify such oppression when their coreligionists are the perpetrators of such oppression.  This includes Jews, Christians, Buddhists, and Hindus–as well as Muslims.

To this, I recall the words of the Prophet Muhammad, who said: “Help your brother, whether he is an oppressor or he is oppressed.”  The people asked him: “It is right to help him if he is oppressed, but how we should help him if he is an oppressor?”  Muhammad replied: “By preventing him from oppressing others.”

#2: The corollary to #1 is that religious groups will cry foul when they are oppressed by another religious group, but as soon as they themselves come to power, the very next minute they set to the task of oppressing the religious other.  Yesterday, the Jews were ethnically cleansed by the Nazis; today, they ethnically cleanse the Palestinians.  It is such a seamless transition–it happens with such mechanistic automatism and absolute obliviousness–that it is something quite amazing to witness.

#3: Following from #2, it becomes obvious that humans oppress when they are given the opportunity to do so.  It is not their religious creed that matters so much but rather whether they have opportunity or not.

#4: No major world religion is vastly different from the other when it comes to its propensity to inspire violence.

#5: Instead of using religious violence to demonize particular faiths–instead of using it as a battle ax to split open heads–we should hold in our hearts a continuous candlelight vigil to end inter-religious violence–holding hands with Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus–and start seeing each other as fellow human beings.

Danios was the Brass Crescent Award Honorary Mention for Best Writer in 2010 and the Brass Crescent Award Winner for Best Writer in 2011.

Footnotes:
[1] Jerryson, Michael K., and Mark Juergensmeyer. Introduction. Buddhist Warfare. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010. 3. Print.
[2] Jenkins, Stephen. “Making Merit through Warfare and Torture.” Buddhist Warfare. By Michael K. Jerryson and Mark Juergensmeyer. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010. 59. Print.
[3] Nirvana Sutra, Chapter 19.
[4] Demieville, Paul. “Buddhism and War.” Buddhist Warfare. By Michael K. Jerryson and Mark Juergensmeyer. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010. 41. Print.
[5] Ibid., 44.
[6] Faure, Bernard. “Afterthoughts.” Buddhist Warfare. By Michael K. Jerryson and Mark Juergensmeyer. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010. 212. Print.
[7] Jenkins, 68.
[8] Ibid., 71.
[9] Demieville, 41.
[10] Faure, 212.
[11] Demieville, 41.
[12] Nirvana Sutra, Chapter 5.
[13] Ibid., Chapter 19.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Demieville, 41.
[16] Ibid., 39.
[17] Nirvana Sutra, Chapter 22.
[18] Ibid., Chapter 24.
[19] Ibid., Chapter 34.
[2o] Ibid., Chapter 39.
[21] Ibid., Chapter 40.
[22] Demieville, 41.
[23] Nirvana Sutra, Chapter 22.
[24] Ibid., Chapter 40.
[25] Faure, 213.
[26] Demieville, 42.
[27] Jenkins, 59.
[28] Demieville, 63.

(Updated – see below)

Following the 9/11 attacks, President George Bush signed into law the Patriot Act and the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act (IRTPA), both of which gave “the government sweeping authority to spy on individuals inside the United States.”  IRTPA also established the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), which began publishing annual terrorism reports since 2005.  The 2011 report, released to the public last week, ominously warned of “the persistent treat terrorism poses.”

Yet, the NCTC’s own data belies its predetermined conclusions: the threat of terrorism to the average American is virtually non-existent.  In the entire year of 2011, exactly zero civilians in the U.S. were killed by terrorism.  In fact, not a single civilian in the U.S. has been killed by Islamic terrorism since 9/11, well over a decade ago.  Put another way: more Americans are killed from being crushed to death by their television sets than by terrorism, a realization that should put “the persistent threat” of terrorism into some much-needed perspective.

The same is the case across the pond: Europol has released yearly terrorism reports since 2006.  Going through these, one cannot find a single civilian in Europe who has been killed by Islamic terrorism.  (It should be noted, however, that the as of yet unreleased 2012 report will no doubt reflect the Toulouse shootings, which resulted in the death of four civilians.)  Indeed, the truth is that less than 1% of terrorism in Europe is done by Muslims.

In other words, the threat of Islamic terrorism in the Western world is very minimal.  It has been grossly exaggerated in order to justify the multiple wars being waged in Muslim majority countries.  The charge is led by anti-Muslim ideologues, but the overarching premise–that Islamic terrorism is a great threat to Western civilization (even an existential threat to it)–is accepted by virtually all segments of American society.

*  *  *  *  *

Not only do Muslims inflict zero civilian deaths in America and Europe, they bear the brunt of terrorism in the Middle East and South Asia.  The 2011 NCTC report found that the vast majority of deaths from religious terrorism were in fact Muslims.  The report reads:

• In cases where the religious affiliation of terrorism casualties could be determined, Muslims suffered between 82 and 97 percent of terrorism-related fatalities over the past five years.

• Muslim majority countries bore the greatest number of attacks involving 10 or more deaths, with Afghanistan sustaining the highest number (47), followed by Iraq (44), Pakistan (37), Somalia (28), and Nigeria (12).

• Afghans also suffered the largest number of fatalities overall with 3,245 deaths, followed by Iraqis (2,958), Pakistanis (2,038), Somalis (1,013), and Nigerians (590).

The bulk of these terrorist attacks were carried out by Sunni extremists, including Al-Qaeda and the Taliban (see p.11 of the report).

Based on these two facts–1) that Muslims are the number one victims of Islamic terrorism, and 2) that Sunni extremists such as Al-Qaeda and the Taliban are most responsible for this—the American mind, fully ensconced in the national mythology, reaches the conclusion that Muslims ought to support America’s War on Terror; or, worded in an even more imperial tone:

Muslims should be grateful to us for fighting for them against the Bad Guys.

And yet, grateful is the last word to describe Muslim sentiment.  Muslims around the globe (including in Afghanistan and Iraq), overwhelmingly disapprove of the so-called War on Terror.  In fact, they hold very negative views of the United States (at least in regard its foreign policy), viewing “‘U.S. interference in the Arab world’ as the greatest obstacle to peace and stability in the Middle East.”  This, in spite of the majority holding very negative views towards Al-Qaeda and its tactics.

So, why aren’t these Moozlums grateful for all that we’ve done for them?

It’s because they know what is painfully obvious: it is U.S. military intervention in the region that is most responsible for creating the problem of terrorism.

This becomes very clear if we look at the three countries that have reported the highest number of terrorism-related fatalities (according to NCTC data):  Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.  These three countries alone accounted for 64% of terrorism-related fatalities in 2005, 74% in 2006, 77% in 2007, 59% in 2008, 61% in 2009, 66% in 2010, and 68% in 2011.

Iraqis specifically have suffered the most from terrorism: according to the NCTC, from 2005 to 2007 some 55-65% of terrorism-related fatalities occurred in Iraq alone.  The 2009 report declared: “Since 2005, Iraq continues to be the country with the most attacks and fatalities due to terrorism.”

The report also stated that the group most responsible for terrorism was (and continues to be) Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI).  What the NCTC failed to point out, however, was that (in the words of Barack Obama) “Al-Qaeda in Iraq…didn’t exist before our invasion.”  Al-Qaeda in Iraq was founded with the intent to “[e]xpel the Americans from Iraq” and topple the interim government propped up by the United States.  The Iraqis can thank the United States for creating the conditions that spawned this terrorist group, as well as for the resulting violence.

In fact, is it very easy to see the correlation between the U.S. invasion and terrorism in Iraq using the RAND Database of Worldwide Terrorism Incidents (RDWTI), which has tracked terrorist incidents for several decades.

In the year before the Iraq War (from 3/19/2002 to 3/19/2003), there were only 13 terrorist attacks and 14 terrorism-related deaths in Iraq.  In the year after the Iraq War (from 3/20/2003 to 3/20/2004), there were 225 terrorist attacks and 1,074 terrorism-related deaths.  In other words, the U.S. invasion of Iraq resulted in an over 1600% increase in terrorist attacks and an over 7500% increase in terrorism-related deaths in just one year.  

At the height of the Iraq War, there were 3,968 terrorist attacks, resulting in 9,497 deaths–which amounts to an over 30,000% increase in terrorist incidents and over 67,000% increase in terrorism-related deaths as compared to pre-war years.

Here is a graphical representation to help visualize the data from RDWTI:

With the U.S. invasion Iraq went from having a virtually non-existent terrorism problem to becoming the world champion of terrorism, a title it continued to hold up until 2010.  It is difficult to attribute this to mere coincidence.

In 2011, Iraq dropped to second place, being overtaken by another one of America’s arenas of war: Afghanistan.  This war-torn country is a second example of how U.S. military intervention created the problem of terrorism.

According to the NCTC reports, the Taliban have been responsible for the vast majority of terrorism-related deaths in Afghanistan.  Yet, prior to the invasion of Afghanistan, the Taliban were not terrorists, at least not how the term is commonly employed today by the United States.  Certainly, they were theocratic tyrants who imposed a frighteningly fundamentalist interpretation of Islam on the Afghan people.  But, the Taliban at this time weren’t associated with Al-Qaeda style tactics such as suicide attacks, car bombs, or IED explosives.

The RAND Database of Worldwide Terrorism Incidents supports this assertion, recording only two incidents involving the Taliban in the year prior to 9/11: an assassination attempt of a rebel leader and a rocket attack.

As government documents reveal, it was only after ”[t]he Taliban was driven from power in late 2001, during the course of a United States-led invasion of Afghanistan” that “the Taliban has operated as a violent insurgent organization–bent on driving the United States and its allies from Afghanistan…resort[ing] to armed violence: car bombings; suicide strikes; rocket attacks; kidnappings; and murder.”  The Taliban resorted to terrorist tactics in their fight against foreign occupiers and the U.S.-installed puppet regime in Kabul.  This conflict, almost wholly a result of U.S. actions, is responsible for the violence and wave of terrorism that has rocked Afghanistan for the last decade.

Using the data from RDWTI, we find that in the year just prior to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, there were only three terrorist attacks in the country, resulting in eight fatalities.  By 2008, the number of terrorist attacks had jumped to 450 and the number of terrorism-related deaths to 1,228.  In other words, the U.S. War in Afghanistan resulted in a 15,000% increase in both terrorism related incidents and deaths. 

Here’s what it looks graphically:

The U.S.-led War in Afghanistan has created a worsening terrorism problem for Pakistan as well.  There are many complex reasons for this spike in violence within Pakistan (which are beyond the scope of this article), but all are ultimately rooted in America’s War on Terror.  Using the RAND Database of Worldwide Terrorism Incidents, we find that there was an over 650% increase in terrorism-related fatalities in Pakistan as a result of America’s war (568 deaths in 2008 as compared to 73 in 2000).

Lest Democratic supporters be tempted to think that the blame belongs to George Bush’s administration alone, let them be informed that war-making has bipartisan consensus.  President Barack Obama has continued the legacy of warring in the Muslim world.

We can actually trace American war-making using Muslim corpses as an indicator.  Obama promised to shift focus from Iraq to Afghanistan.  U.S. troop levels in Iraq were a quarter of what they were in 2011 as they were in 2007; coincidentally, in the same time span Iraqi fatalities from terrorism fell to a quarter of what they were (according to NCTC data).

Meanwhile, Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama tripled U.S. troops in Afghanistan between 2008 and 2011.  According to NCTC data, between 2008 and 2011 there was an over 130% increase in terrorist attacks and 68% increase in terrorism-related deaths in Afghanistan.

Obama has also stepped up the war in Pakistan.  NCTC data reveals a 500% increase in terrorism-related fatalities in Pakistan from 2005 (338) to 2011 (2,033).  For the past few years, Pakistan has earned the dubious rank of third when it comes to terrorism, behind only Iraq and Afghanistan.

*  *  *  *  *

Before the so-called War on Terror, levels of terrorism in Muslim lands were similar to what they were in other parts of the world.  For example, the RAND Database of Worldwide Terrorism Incidents indicates that, up until the U.S.-led War on Terror, the Middle East and Latin America had similar incidents of terrorism; it was only after the U.S.-led War on Terror that terrorism in the Middle East shot way up:

In the year 2000, there were a total of 404 terrorist attacks in all of the Middle East and South Asia.  By 2006, this number jumped to 5,738–an increase of more than 1300%!  This is what America’s War on Terror has done for terrorism in the Muslim world.

The same trend holds for terrorist attacks globally.  In the year 2000, there were 1,151 total terrorist attacks.  By 2006, this number had rocketed up to 6,660.  In other words, the U.S.-led War on Terror caused a more than 470% increase in worldwide terrorism.

Islamophobes would have us believe that it is Islam itself that is responsible for the upsurge in terrorism.  Most Americans, even many liberals, believe that “radical Islam” is the root of the problem.  The data, however, suggests that it is the United States of America that is most responsible for creating the conditions on the ground that inexorably lead to terrorism.

It is difficult to deny the correlation between the U.S.-led War on Terror and the rise of terrorism worldwide.  Is it not a great irony of our times that the very policies designed to combat terrorism are most responsible for creating terrorism?  To add another layer of perverse irony, the steep rise in terrorism–a direct result of U.S. action–is used to justify further such action.

In the words of Glenn Greenwald:

How could any rational person expect their government to spend a full decade (and counting) invading, droning, cluster-bombing, occupying, detaining without charges, and indiscriminately shooting huge numbers of innocent children, women and men in multiple countries and not have its victims and their compatriots be increasingly eager to return the violence?

But it is Muslims who not only have to deal with American “inva[sions], droning, cluster-bombing, occupying, detaining without charges, and indiscriminately shooting huge numbers of innocent children, women and men”, but also have to bear the brunt of the terrorism that inevitably follows.  It is truly a double whammy for them.

The vast majority of Americans will never face religious terrorism in their lives: less than 1% of victims of religious terrorism are U.S. civilians.  Meanwhile, up to 97% are Muslims.

It is truly an Orwellian world we live in.  The nation most responsible for creating rampant terrorism lays the blame on the victims of such terrorism.  Muslims are told that “they aren’t doing enough to combat terror”, even while Americans do their utmost to reflexively continue such action as would ensure the continued survival–nay, the rapid proliferation–of terror.

Danios was the Brass Crescent Award Honorary Mention for Best Writer in 2010 and the Brass Crescent Award Winner for Best Writer in 2011.

Update I (6/19/12):

The original version of the article suffered from minor mathematical errors, which have now been corrected (h/t JSB).

(cross-posted from Salon)

By Glenn Greenwald

It is supporters of Obama’s aggression, not its opponents, who are likely to provoke another Terrorist attack

(updated below [Wed.] – Update II [Wed.])

Today’s defense of President Obama from Andrew Sullivan isdevoted to refuting Conor Friedersdorf’s criticism of Obama’s drone program. Says Sullivan:

What frustrates me about Conor’s position – and Greenwald’s as well – is that it kind of assumes 9/11 didn’t happen or couldn’t happen again, and dismisses far too glibly the president’s actual responsibility as commander-in-chief to counter these acts of mass terror.

Another Memorial Day is about to pass in the shadow of war and conflict, as it has more often than not since the first, official Memorial Day.

Flag-draped coffins of dead soldiers still return home:

DOVER, DE - MAY 26: The transfer case of U.S. Marine Cpl. Keaton G. Coffey lies in a transport truck

Veterans with missing limbs, fractured bodies, and PTSD outnumber the dead. 18 Veterans a day commit suicide. 23% of the homeless population in the USA are Veterans.

This is ostensibly a solemn day, a day where we are supposed to remember the fallen and their families.

It is not a day for those on the wrong side of America’s wars, the so-called “collateral damage,” the silent, faceless, nameless, mostly (in the past few decades) Muslim, forgotten victims of the most powerful war machine known to human history.

It is a day to remember our fallen.

It is not a day to question why we invaded Iraq based on a lie. It is not a day to question our continuing presence in Afghanistan and the Afghan-Okinawa we plan to leave there over the objections of Afghans. It is not a day to count the ever increasing (over 1,000) US bases in foreign countries. It is not a day to question the escalating drone warfare in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, etc. that is killing civilians and breeding “resentment.”

Privileged politicians come together to offer platitudes and prayers for the fallen in a display of faux unity. Many haven’t seen war or served in the US Army, and like Dick Cheney did everything in their power to dodge the draft. Our Politician-in-Chief, the ironic Noble “Peace” Prize Award winning President Barack Obama prays in Orwellian-speak,

On Memorial Day, we honor those who have borne conflict’s greatest cost, mourn where the wounds of war are fresh, and pray for a just, lasting peace.

What does a “just, lasting peace” mean? Will it be achieved with “sugary-sweet” words and empty prayers? Is a “just, lasting peace” reached with the continued enhancement of the Military Industrial Complex?

Memorial Day has become like many other national holidays, one in which feigned piety  and American Exceptionalism combine with the crass consumerism of making a quick buck. For most, Memorial Day has become “a made-to-order signal for a pre-summer shopping spree.”

But all of that is not to be talked about, it is a day to remember the fallen.

The soldiers, many from the lower, despised, forgotten rung of society, who joined the Military for economic and educational opportunity and have been used as so much cannon-fodder are to be remembered.

It is not a time to recall the Islamophobic courses teaching soldiers that we are at “War with Islam,” that we may have to employ “Hiroshima” tactics to “defeat Islam.” It is not a time to recall the warnings from soldiers about the Crusader mentality pervading the ranks of the Military.

No, it is a day to remember the fallen.

Prayers and reminders of the old lie, “Dulce et Decorum Est/Pro patria mori,” (It is sweet and meet to die for one’s country) are to be repeated ad nauseum, to justify the violent preservation of the American Empire.

Dulce Et Decorum Est

by Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!– An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.–
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,–
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Rabbi Colonel Eyal Karim

Israeli journalist Yossi Gurvitz describes himself as a former Orthodox Jew who claims to have seen the “light” and turned atheist at the age of 17. We are unfamiliar with his work but received this tip from a reader regarding one of his recent articles.

It is titled, IDF Colonel-rabbi implies: Rape is permitted in war. Colonel Eyal Qarim was questioned, (seemingly while not in uniform) about whether rape is permitted in war, and his answer implied that it was allowed.

Now I am unfamiliar with halacha or Jewish law, but my guess is it is a system as varied and expansive as Sharia’. Most likely you can find any opinion under the sun within halacha and so I am sure many will insist that the opinion proffered by the IDF Rabbi is not the only one, and is not the position of the IDF.

However, looking at the question and answer it exposes a troubling indication that an IDF Colonel Rabbi who was once being considered for the position of Chief Rabbi held the view that “rape is permitted in war.” More over it is not the first time that extremely problematic views have been expressed by influential IDF Rabbis.

It also brings us back to the question, “what if they were Muslim?”  If a prominent Muslim scholar had offered such an opinion one can be assured that it would be all over MEMRI.

Gurvitz omitted the whole question from the reader to the Rabbi, but we provide an approximate translation via. Google for context:

There have been various wars between nations, such as the First World War, for example, different nations fought each other, and no one was particularly good for the Jews or bad for the Jews…

But if they had captured a village and there were Jews and Jewish girls were raped, it is considered, rightly, a disaster and tragedy to the girl and family.

If yes, rape in war is considered a shocker. How, then was I told that a long, beautiful woman is allowed, according to some authorities, even before the process described in the Torah, I mean, surrender and lay with it created, and only then take her home, etc.?

This seems contradictory. After all, if rape is considered a civil war and not something shocking, why, apparently, Jews allowed?

Is it allowed in our days [sic] for an IDF soldier, for example, to rape girls during a fight, or is such a thing forbidden?

Now it’s very clear that the questioner is asking whether or not rape is allowed in war time. This is the answer that Rabbi Qarim gave (translation via. Gorvitz):

“The wars of Israel […] are mitzvah wars, in which they differ from the rest of the wars the nations wage among themselves. Since, essentially, a war is not an individual matter, but rather nations wage war as a whole, there are cases in which the personality of the individual is “erased” for the benefit of the whole. And vice versa: sometimes you risk a large unit for the saving of an individual, when it is essential for purposes of morale. One of the important and critical values during war is maintaining the army’s fighting ability […]

As in war the prohibition against risking your life is broken for the benefit of others, so are the prohibitions against immorality and of kashrut. Wine touched by gentiles, consumption of which is prohibited in peacetime, is allowed at war, to maintain the good spirit of the warriors. Consumption of prohibited foods is permitted at war (and some say, even when kosher food is available), to maintain the fitness of the warriors, even though they are prohibited during peacetime. Just so, war removes some of the prohibitions on sexual relations (gilui arayot in the original – YZG), and even though fraternizing with a gentile woman is a very serious matter, it was permitted during wartime (under the specific terms) out of understanding for the hardship endured by the warriors. And since the success of the whole at war is our goal, the Torah permitted the individual to satisfy the evil urge (yetzer ha’ra in the original  -YZG), under the conditions mentioned, for the purpose of the success of the whole.”

Gorvitz comments on this:

Wow. Herein lies a hornet’s nest. The first is that according to Qarim, the rape of female prisoners is not just permitted, it is also essential to war; the success of the whole at war relies on it.

….

Another problem is that Qarim invokes here the usual apologetics of those who speak of “Jewish morality”: he claims war is a conflict between nations, not individuals, and that the individual has no importance at war. The raped woman is not a woman, is not a person, has no feelings and if she feels pain it is unimportant: she is not a woman or a person, just an individual of an enemy tribe whose misfortune was to be captured. Furthermore, Qarim says that rape during wartime is immoral if carried out by a rival tribe – but all Jewish wars are, by definition, mitzvah wars. If the rape of the defenseless is part and parcel of “Jewish morality,” it’s not hard to reach the conclusion it is inferior to all modern morality systems. It is also worth noting (Hebrew) that “Jewish morality” is a by-product of German blood and iron romanticism.

Yet a third problem is that, essentially, Qarim says there is nothing which may be prohibited in war, if it is done “for the success of the whole.” We know that the killing of armed combatants is permitted (this is, after all, the essence of war), and we now learn that, for His Blessed Name, the rape of women is also permitted. Then we must ask ourselves whether it is also permitted, for the sake of victory, to also kill unarmed people. Children, for instance, who we have good reason to think may seek one day vengeance for the death of their fathers and brothers and the torturing of their mothers and sisters. The notorious book “Torat Ha’Melekh” answered in the affirmative; it would be interesting to know what Qarim thinks, and whether there is anything he thinks a Jewish soldier ought not to do for victory.

But the real problem here is that Eyal Qarim is an IDF colonel (Aluf Mishneh), and is a senior officer in the Military Rabbinate, i.e. is in a senior position in the IDF religious edicts apparatus. I’ve sent the following questions to the IDF Spokesman:

1. Is the rape of women during wartime agreeable to the IDF Ethics Code?
2. If not, why does a prominent military rabbi promote it?
3. If not, does the IDF intend to end the service of Col. Qarim, or bring charges against him?
4. How does the IDF Spokesman intend to deal with the anticipated damage to its image in the international arena, resulting from Col. Qarim’s ruling?

Frankly, I did not expect an answer, but surprisingly enough an enraged officer from IDF Spokesman New Media Unit called me. His official response was that Qarim was not an officer in active service when he wrote that ruling, and furthermore that my question “disrespects the IDF, the State of Israel and the Jewish religion,” and hence his unit will no longer answer my questions.

I told him that, as an Israeli citizen, I considered Col. Qarim to be a ticking time bomb, which will blow up in the IDF’s face should a soldier rape an enemy woman: it would automatically be seen as official policy. I told him this happened in the past. He vehemently denied it, and wouldn’t listen.

I think that the fact that Qarim was on hiatus at the time – earlier he was the religious officer of a crack unit, Sayeret Matkal (commando unit) – is unimportant. What is important is that the Military Rabbinate chose to re-call an officer who wrote such a ruling to active service. Qarim was briefly considered a candidate for the position of the Chief Military Rabbi. This is the face of the IDF in 2012, and this is the face of the rabbis it chooses to employ. There are certainly more humane rabbis than Qarim; yet somehow these are not the rabbis who are promoted.

The war-mongering calls for the invasion and destruction of Iran are multiplying at a horrific pace.

We saw this in the lead up to the decimation of Iraq, now we have Conservative pundits such as Tucker Carlson blatantly calling for “annihilation” as well as oddly claiming that the USA is the only country that has “moral authority” to engage in “pre-emptive war.”

Eli Clifton has some excellent analysis of all this (H/T: BA):

Tucker Carlson: ‘Iran Deserves To Be Annihilated

by Eli Clifton (ThinkProgress)

As the “drumbeat to war” with Iran, as Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) warns of, grows louder, a number of journalists have begun to compare the hawkish rhetoric from pundits with the calls for military action against Iraq in 2002. Scott Shane, writing on the frontpage of today’s New York Times, observed, “Echoes of the period leading up to the Iraq war in 2003 are unmistakable, igniting a familiar debate over whether journalists are overstating Iran’s progress toward a bomb.” Indeed, the ombudsman of The Washington Post and the public editor of The New York Times criticized their own journalists for overstating the evidence of Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program.

Over the past week, journalists have raised the alarm about the increasing carelessness of the mainstream media in hyping the calls for war with Iran. But Fox News commentator and The Daily Caller editor-in-chief Tucker Carlson openly called for war against Iran and argued for the full-scale annihilation of the Islamic Republic during an appearance on Fox News’s late-night show Red Eye. Carlson responded to a question about U.S. military action:

CARLSON: I think we are the only country with the moral authority [...] sufficient to do that. [The U.S. is] the only country that doesn’t seek hegemony in the world. I do think, I’m sure I’m the lone voice in saying this, that Iran deserves to be annihilated. I think they’re lunatics. I think they’re evil.

Carlson, having called for the annihilation of Iran — a country with a population of over 74 million people — went on to acknowledge that “we should assess what will happen to the price of energy were we to do that.” Watch the clip:

arlson doesn’t bother to make a case for why the U.S. should destroy Iran. But presumably he’s referring to the crisis over Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program. However, neither the IAEA norU.S. intelligence reports conclude that Iran has restarted its nuclear weapons program. The IAEA and U.S. intelligence have expressed concerns about possible military aspects to Iran’s nuclear program and suspicions about Iran’s program intensified after Tehran refused IAEA inspectors access to facilities thought to be used for tests on how to produce nuclear weapons. Tehran also refused to agree to a process by which it would address IAEA concerns about “possible military dimensions” to its nuclear program.

But, much as in the case of the lead up to the invasion of Iraq, many journalists and politicians areignoring the facts on the ground and pushing forward with calls for increasingly aggressive actions. Carlson, however, may stand alone in publicly calling for Iran’s outright annihilation.

Update: Tucker emails Glenn Greenwald:

It’s my fault that I got tongue tied and didn’t explain myself well last night. I’m actually on the opposite side on the Iran question from many people I otherwise agree with. I think attacking could be a disaster for the US and am worried that Obama will do it, for fear of seeming weak before an election. Of course the Iranian government is awful and deserves to be crushed. But I’m not persuaded we or Israel could do it in a way that doesn’t cause even greater problems. That’s the main lesson of Iraq it seems to me.

That’s my sincere view, but I’d rather take some lumps and be misunderstood than seem like I’m reversing myself due to pressure from Twitter.

“I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one.” -President Theodore Roosevelt, at the turn of the century [1]

Islam is inherently more violent than other religions.  This is the Supreme Islamophobic Myth.  Yes, there are other core beliefs of Islamophobia (Islam is sexist, oppressive, discriminatory, the list goes on…), but nothing is more critical to anti-Muslim bigots than associating Islam with violence, war, and terrorism.  This, in turn, is used to justify bombing, invading, and occupying Muslim countries–what I call the Supreme Islamophobic Crime.

We see this quite clearly in the jingoistic rhetoric against Iran, a Muslim country that is portrayed as being inherently violent and warlike.  This is then flipped around, using the argument that we must attack them before they attack us.

Yet, this is a Myth–the Mother of all Myths.  It is the United States that has been waging wars of aggression, not Iran.  Ahmed Rehab challenged Bill O’Reilly on this point by asking him: “How many countries has Iran attacked in the past 50 years?”  The answer is, of course, zero. Meanwhile, the United States and her “stalwart ally” Israel have attacked numerous Muslim countries, as I recently portrayed in this graphic: 

The U.S., in the name of fighting terror, is waging seemingly Endless War in the Muslim world.   The “We are at War” mentality defines a generation of Americans, with many young adults having lived their entire lives while the country has been “at war.”  For them, war is the norm.

But if the future of America promises Endless War, be rest assured that this is no different than her past.  Below, I have reproduced a year-by-year timeline of America’s wars, which reveals something quite interesting: since the United States was founded in 1776, she has been at war during 214 out of her 235 calendar years of existence.  In other words, there were only 21 calendar years in which the U.S. did not wage any wars.

To put this in perspective:

* Pick any year since 1776 and there is about a 91% chance that America was involved in some war during that calendar year.

* No U.S. president truly qualifies as a peacetime president.  Instead, all U.S. presidents can technically be considered “war presidents.”

* The U.S. has never gone a decade without war.

* The only time the U.S. went five years without war (1935-40) was during the isolationist period of the Great Depression.

When we look at the present situation (see map above) and our violent past (see timeline below), is it not a bit hypocritical of us to point the finger at Muslims?  Whenever I hear “good Judeo-Christian American patriots” telling me how violent Muslims are and how Islam supposedly endorses Perpetual War–I cannot help but think of how their own “Judeo-Christian nation” has been locked in perpetual warfare since its inception.

The U.S. was born out of ethnic cleansing, a violent process that had started long before 1776 and would not be complete until 1900.  In other words, more than half of America’s existence (about 53%) has been marked by the active process of ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population, which was ultimately all but destroyed.

If the Islamophobes insist that the Armenian Genocide, which took place in the span of eight years, defines the Ottoman Empire (which existed for over 600 years, meaning the Armenian Genocide lasted only 1% of its existence), then would they be consistent and use this logic to argue that the ethnic cleansing of the American Indians (which spanned more than a century and a quarter, or 53% of America’s existence) defines the United States?  Or would they use it to demean Christianity overall as they do Islam? (Note: Benjamin Taghov has made this comparison on our website before; see here.)

By looking at America’s many wars throughout history, it becomes apparent that it is not radical Islam that propels the country to war.  Rather, it is America’s trajectory of war and conquest, which has always been in the direction of expanding hegemony.  In the start, the country expanded by occupying American Indian lands, portraying its indigenous population as inherently violent and warlike.  In 1823, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall wrote: “The tribes of Indians inhabiting this country were fierce savages, whose occupation was war…” [2]

The American Indians were thought to be an existential threat to the United States (a classic case of projection or role inversion): John Quincy Adams, for example, wrote that “the savage Indians” were out to “wage an exterminating war” against the “peaceful inhabitants” of the United States [3].  It was the same message then as it is now: we must attack them before they attack us.

As Indian land was gobbled up by the use of force and fraud, the U.S. border expanded to the periphery of Mexico (which at that time consisted of most of the West Coast and Southwest of the modern United States).  Hungry for this land too, the U.S. invaded Mexico, and “Mexicans were portrayed as violent and treacherous bandits who terrorized” the people [4].  American belligerence towards Mexico heated up in the 1800′s, culminated in the U.S. annexation of half of Mexico’s land (leaving right-wingers today to wonder “why so many Mexicans are in our country?”), and seamlessly transitioned into the Banana Wars of the early 1900′s.

Once the Americans had successfully implemented Manifest Destiny by conquering the land from sea to shining sea, the Monroe Doctrine was used to expand American influence in the Caribbean and Central America.  Thus began the Banana Wars, a series of military interventions from 1898 all the way to 1934, which attempted to expand American hegemony to the south of its borders.  America’s brutality in this part of the world is not well-known to most Americans, but it is well-documented.

During this time period, Hispanics were portrayed as “cunningly dangerous bandits” [5].  The Banana Wars came to an end in 1934 with the adoption of the “Good Neighbor Policy,” a policy that was adopted because “World War II was looming in Europe and Asia” and the U.S. wanted “to secure Latin American allegiances and hemispheric unity as a protection against foreign invasion” [6].

For a brief period, from 1935-1940, America rested from war, thanks to the emergence of isolationism during the Great Depression.  But, with the start of World War II, the U.S. emerged as a super-power, ever hungry for more conflict.  Thus began the Cold War period from 1945 all the way to 1991, with the U.S. fighting “the (exaggerated) menace of Communism” all over the world, even when it meant bombing, invading, and occupying countries that had done no harm to the U.S.

The Cold War had not even ended before the U.S. found its new target: the Middle East and the Muslim world.  By 1990, the U.S. was already bombing Iraq in the First Gulf War–a country that the U.S. would go on to bomb for over two decades.  Needing another boogieman now that the Soviet Union was dead, the U.S. turned to “radical Islam” as the enemy.  And that’s why you have the map as it is above.

It should be noted that American plans to dominate the Middle East date back to at least the end of World War II, when it was decided that the region was of critical strategic value.  Now that the U.S. has followed through on this plan, do you think “radical Islam” is really “an existential threat” just as American Indians were “fierce savages” waging “an exterminating war” against the “peaceful inhabitants” of the United States; or how Mexicans were “violent” and “terrorized” people; or how Central Americans were “dangerous bandits”?  The rampant Islamophobia that abounds today is part of a long tradition of vilifying, Other-izing, and dehumanizing the indigenous populations of lands that need to controlled.

The objects of American aggression have certainly changed with time, but the primary motivating factor behind U.S. wars of aggression have always been the same: expansion of U.S. hegemony.  The Muslim world is being bombed, invaded, and occupied by the United States not because of radical Islam or any inherent flaw in themselves.  Rather, it is being so attacked because it is in the path of the American juggernaut, which is always in need of war.

*  *  *  *  *

Here is a graphic depiction of U.S. wars:

And here is the year-by-year timeline of America’s major wars:

[Note: This is a non-exhaustive list, and I purposefully excluded all sorts of military interventions so as to be very conservative; the list excludes, for example, "peaceful means" used to ethnically cleanse the land of American Indians, i.e. fraudulent treaties and other coercive means; it excludes many outright massacres of American Indians; it further excludes several instances of the U.S. landing troops in various countries to "protect American interests"; it also excludes virtually all CIA interventions and other covert wars; lastly, I may have omitted wars due to my own ignorance of them, although I am sure that readers will give their input so we can add to the list as needed.]

Year-by-year Timeline of America’s Major Wars (1776-2011)

1776 – American Revolutionary War, Chickamagua Wars, Second Cherokee War, Pennamite-Yankee War

1777 – American Revolutionary War, Chickamauga Wars, Second Cherokee War, Pennamite-Yankee War

1778 – American Revolutionary War, Chickamauga Wars, Pennamite-Yankee War

1779 – American Revolutionary War, Chickamauga Wars, Pennamite-Yankee War

1780 – American Revolutionary War, Chickamauga Wars, Pennamite-Yankee War

1781 – American Revolutionary War, Chickamauga Wars, Pennamite-Yankee War

1782 – American Revolutionary War, Chickamauga Wars, Pennamite-Yankee War

1783 – American Revolutionary War, Chickamauga Wars, Pennamite-Yankee War

1784 – Chickamauga Wars, Pennamite-Yankee War, Oconee War

1785 – Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian War

1786 – Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian War

1787 – Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian War

1788 – Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian War

1789 – Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian War

1790 – Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian War

1791 – Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian War

1792 – Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian War

1793 – Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian War

1794 – Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian War

1795 – Northwest Indian War

1796 – No major war

1797 – No major war

1798 – Quasi-War

1799 – Quasi-War

1800 – Quasi-War

1801 – First Barbary War

1802 – First Barbary War

1803 – First Barbary War

1804 – First Barbary War

1805 – First Barbary War

1806 – Sabine Expedition

1807 – No major war

1808 – No major war

1809 – No major war

1810 – U.S. occupies Spanish-held West Florida

1811 – Tecumseh’s War

1812 – War of 1812, Tecumseh’s War, Seminole Wars, U.S. occupies Spanish-held Amelia Island and other parts of East Florida

1813 – War of 1812, Tecumseh’s War, Peoria War, Creek War, U.S. expands its territory in West Florida

1814 – War of 1812, Creek War, U.S. expands its territory in Florida, Anti-piracy war

1815 – War of 1812, Second Barbary War, Anti-piracy war

1816 - First Seminole War, Anti-piracy war

1817 - First Seminole War, Anti-piracy war

1818 – First Seminole War, Anti-piracy war

1819 – Yellowstone Expedition, Anti-piracy war

1820 – Yellowstone Expedition, Anti-piracy war

1821 – Anti-piracy war (see note above)

1822 – Anti-piracy war (see note above)

1823 – Anti-piracy war, Arikara War

1824 – Anti-piracy war

1825 – Yellowstone Expedition, Anti-piracy war

1826 – No major war

1827 – Winnebago War

1828 – No major war

1829 – No major war

1830 – No major war 

1831 - Sac and Fox Indian War

1832 – Black Hawk War

1833 – Cherokee Indian War

1834 – Cherokee Indian War, Pawnee Indian Territory Campaign

1835 – Cherokee Indian War, Seminole Wars, Second Creek War

1836 – Cherokee Indian War, Seminole Wars, Second Creek War, Missouri-Iowa Border War

1837 – Cherokee Indian War, Seminole Wars, Second Creek War, Osage Indian War, Buckshot War

1838 – Cherokee Indian War, Seminole Wars, Buckshot War, Heatherly Indian War

1839 – Cherokee Indian War, Seminole Wars

1840 – Seminole Wars, U.S. naval forces invade Fiji Islands

1841 – Seminole Wars, U.S. naval forces invade McKean Island, Gilbert Islands, and Samoa

1842 – Seminole Wars

1843 – U.S. forces clash with Chinese, U.S. troops invade African coast

1844 – Texas-Indian Wars

1845 – Texas-Indian Wars

1846 – Mexican-American War, Texas-Indian Wars

1847 – Mexican-American War, Texas-Indian Wars

1848 – Mexican-American War, Texas-Indian Wars, Cayuse War

1849 – Texas-Indian Wars, Cayuse War, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Skirmish between 1st Cavalry and Indians

1850 – Texas-Indian Wars, Cayuse War, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Yuma War, California Indian Wars, Pitt River Expedition

1851 – Texas-Indian Wars, Cayuse War, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Apache Wars, Yuma War, Utah Indian Wars, California Indian Wars

1852 – Texas-Indian Wars, Cayuse War, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Yuma War, Utah Indian Wars, California Indian Wars

1853 – Texas-Indian Wars, Cayuse War, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Yuma War, Utah Indian Wars, Walker War, California Indian Wars

1854 – Texas-Indian Wars, Cayuse War, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Apache Wars, California Indian Wars, Skirmish between 1st Cavalry and Indians

1855 – Seminole Wars, Texas-Indian Wars, Cayuse War, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Apache Wars, California Indian Wars, Yakima War, Winnas Expedition, Klickitat War, Puget Sound War, Rogue River Wars, U.S. forces invade Fiji Islands and Uruguay

1856 – Seminole Wars, Texas-Indian Wars, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, California Indian Wars, Puget Sound War, Rogue River Wars, Tintic War

1857 – Seminole Wars, Texas-Indian Wars, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, California Indian Wars, Utah War, Conflict in Nicaragua

1858 – Seminole Wars, Texas-Indian Wars, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Mohave War, California Indian Wars, Spokane-Coeur d’Alene-Paloos War, Utah War, U.S. forces invade Fiji Islands and Uruguay

1859 Texas-Indian Wars, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, California Indian Wars, Pecos Expedition, Antelope Hills Expedition, Bear River Expedition, John Brown’s raid, U.S. forces launch attack against Paraguay, U.S. forces invade Mexico

1860 – Texas-Indian Wars, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Apache Wars, California Indian Wars, Paiute War, Kiowa-Comanche War

1861 – American Civil War, Texas-Indian Wars, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Apache Wars, California Indian Wars, Cheyenne Campaign

1862 – American Civil War, Texas-Indian Wars, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Apache Wars, California Indian Wars, Cheyenne Campaign, Dakota War of 1862,

1863 – American Civil War, Texas-Indian Wars, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Apache Wars, California Indian Wars, Cheyenne Campaign, Colorado War, Goshute War

1864 – American Civil War, Texas-Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Apache Wars, California Indian Wars, Cheyenne Campaign, Colorado War, Snake War

1865 – American Civil War, Texas-Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Apache Wars, California Indian Wars, Colorado War, Snake War, Utah’s Black Hawk War

1866 – Texas-Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Apache Wars, California Indian Wars, Skirmish between 1st Cavalry and Indians, Snake War, Utah’s Black Hawk War, Red Cloud’s War, Franklin County War, U.S. invades Mexico, Conflict with China

1867 – Texas-Indian Wars, Long Walk of the Navajo, Apache Wars, Skirmish between 1st Cavalry and Indians, Snake War, Utah’s Black Hawk War, Red Cloud’s War, Comanche Wars, Franklin County War, U.S. troops occupy Nicaragua and attack Taiwan

1868 – Texas-Indian Wars, Long Walk of the Navajo, Apache Wars, Skirmish between 1st Cavalry and Indians, Snake War, Utah’s Black Hawk War, Red Cloud’s War, Comanche Wars, Battle of Washita River, Franklin County War

1869 – Texas-Indian Wars, Apache Wars, Skirmish between 1st Cavalry and Indians, Utah’s Black Hawk War, Comanche Wars, Franklin County War

1870 – Texas-Indian Wars, Apache Wars, Skirmish between 1st Cavalry and Indians, Utah’s Black Hawk War, Comanche Wars, Franklin County War

1871 – Texas-Indian Wars, Apache Wars, Skirmish between 1st Cavalry and Indians, Utah’s Black Hawk War, Comanche Wars, Franklin County War, Kingsley Cave Massacre, U.S. forces invade Korea

1872 – Texas-Indian Wars, Apache Wars, Utah’s Black Hawk War, Comanche Wars, Modoc War, Franklin County War

1873 – Texas-Indian Wars, Comanche Wars, Modoc War, Apache Wars, Cypress Hills Massacre, U.S. forces invade Mexico

1874 – Texas-Indian Wars, Comanche Wars, Red River War, Mason County War, U.S. forces invade Mexico

1875 – Conflict in Mexico, Texas-Indian Wars, Comanche Wars, Eastern Nevada, Mason County War, Colfax County War, U.S. forces invade Mexico

1876 – Texas-Indian Wars, Black Hills War, Mason County War, U.S. forces invade Mexico

1877 – Texas-Indian Wars, Skirmish between 1st Cavalry and Indians, Black Hills War, Nez Perce War, Mason County War, Lincoln County War, San Elizario Salt War, U.S. forces invade Mexico

1878 – Paiute Indian conflict, Bannock War, Cheyenne War, Lincoln County War, U.S. forces invade Mexico

1879 – Cheyenne War, Sheepeater Indian War, White River War, U.S. forces invade Mexico

1880 – U.S. forces invade Mexico

1881 – U.S. forces invade Mexico

1882 – U.S. forces invade Mexico

1883 – U.S. forces invade Mexico

1884 – U.S. forces invade Mexico

1885 – Apache Wars, Eastern Nevada Expedition, U.S. forces invade Mexico

1886 – Apache Wars, Pleasant Valley War, U.S. forces invade Mexico

1887 – U.S. forces invade Mexico

1888 – U.S. show of force against Haiti, U.S. forces invade Mexico

1889 – U.S. forces invade Mexico

1890 – Sioux Indian War, Skirmish between 1st Cavalry and Indians, Ghost Dance War, Wounded Knee, U.S. forces invade Mexico

1891 – Sioux Indian War, Ghost Dance War, U.S. forces invade Mexico

1892 – Johnson County War, U.S. forces invade Mexico

1893 – U.S. forces invade Mexico and Hawaii

1894 – U.S. forces invade Mexico

1895 - U.S. forces invade Mexico, Bannock Indian Disturbances

1896 – U.S. forces invade Mexico

1897 – No major war

1898 – Spanish-American War, Battle of Leech Lake, Chippewa Indian Disturbances

1899 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars

1900 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars

1901 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars

1902 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars

1903 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars

1904 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars

1905 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars

1906 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars

1907 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars

1908 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars

1909 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars

1910 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars

1911 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars

1912 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars

1913 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars, New Mexico Navajo War

1914 – Banana Wars, U.S. invades Mexico

1915 – Banana Wars, U.S. invades Mexico, Colorado Paiute War

1916 – Banana Wars, U.S. invades Mexico

1917 – Banana Wars, World War I, U.S. invades Mexico

1918 – Banana Wars, World War I, U.S invades Mexico

1919 – Banana Wars, U.S. invades Mexico

1920 – Banana Wars

1921 – Banana Wars

1922 – Banana Wars

1923 – Banana Wars, Posey War

1924 – Banana Wars

1925 – Banana Wars

1926 – Banana Wars

1927 – Banana Wars

1928 – Banana Wars

1930 – Banana Wars

1931 – Banana Wars

1932 – Banana Wars

1933 – Banana Wars

1934 – Banana Wars

1935 – No major war

1936 – No major war

1937 – No major war

1938 – No major war

1939 – No major war

1940 – No major war

1941 – World War II

1942 – World War II

1943 – Wold War II

1944 – World War II

1945 – World War II

1946 – Cold War (U.S. occupies the Philippines and South Korea)

1947 – Cold War (U.S. occupies South Korea, U.S. forces land in Greece to fight Communists)

1948 – Cold War (U.S. forces aid Chinese Nationalist Party against Communists)

1949 - Cold War (U.S. forces aid Chinese Nationalist Party against Communists)

1950 – Korean War, Jayuga Uprising

1951 – Korean War

1952 – Korean War

1953 – Korean War

1954 – Covert War in Guatemala

1955 – Vietnam War

1956 – Vietnam War

1957 – Vietnam War

1958 – Vietnam War

1959 – Vietnam War, Conflict in Haiti

1960 – Vietam War

1961 – Vietnam War

1962 – Vietnam War, Cold War (Cuban Missile Crisis; U.S. marines fight Communists in Thailand)

1963 – Vietnam War

1964 – Vietnam War

1965 – Vietnam War, U.S. occupation of Dominican Republic

1966 – Vietnam War, U.S. occupation of Dominican Republic

1967 – Vietnam War

1968 – Vietnam War

1969 – Vietnam War

1970 – Vietnam War

1971 – Vietnam War

1972 – Vietnam War

1973 – Vietnam War, U.S. aids Israel in Yom Kippur War

1974 – Vietnam War

1975 – Vietnam War

1976 – No major war

1977 – No major war

1978 – No major war

1979 – Cold War (CIA proxy war in Afghanistan)

1980 – Cold War (CIA proxy war in Afghanistan)

1981 – Cold War (CIA proxy war in Afghanistan and Nicaragua), First Gulf of Sidra Incident

1982 – Cold War (CIA proxy war in Afghanistan and Nicaragua), Conflict in Lebanon

1983 – Cold War (Invasion of Grenada, CIA proxy war in Afghanistan and Nicaragua), Conflict in Lebanon

1984 – Cold War (CIA proxy war in Afghanistan and Nicaragua), Conflict in Persian Gulf

1985 - Cold War (CIA proxy war in Afghanistan and Nicaragua)

1986 – Cold War (CIA proxy war in Afghanistan and Nicaragua)

1987 – Conflict in Persian Gulf

1988 – Conflict in Persian Gulf, U.S. occupation of Panama

1989 – Second Gulf of Sidra Incident, U.S. occupation of Panama, Conflict in Philippines

1990 – First Gulf War, U.S. occupation of Panama

1991 – First Gulf War

1992 – Conflict in Iraq

1993 – Conflict in Iraq

1994 – Conflict in Iraq, U.S. invades Haiti

1995 – Conflict in Iraq, U.S. invades Haiti, NATO bombing of Bosnia and Herzegovina

1996 – Conflict in Iraq

1997 – No major war

1998 – Bombing of Iraq, Missile strikes against Afghanistan and Sudan

1999 – Kosovo War

2000 – No major war

2001 – War on Terror in Afghanistan

2002 – War on Terror in Afghanistan and Yemen

2003 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, and Iraq

2004 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Yemen

2005 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Yemen

2006 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Yemen

2007 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen

2008 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Yemen

2009 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Yemen

2010 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Yemen

2011 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen; Conflict in Libya (Libyan Civil War)

President Barack Obama repeated the now infamous words of George W. Bush, declaring: “We are at war…”  Yes, and we have been, ever since 1776.

Danios was the Brass Crescent Award Honorary Mention for Best Writer in 2010 and the Brass Crescent Award Winner for Best Writer in 2011.  

Update I:

It goes without saying that I am not arguing that all of America’s wars listed above were wars of aggression and therefore unjustified–but arguably the vast majority of them were.

Update II:

To put this into greater perspective, Iran has not invaded a country since 1795, which was 216 years ago. (h/t LW’s Ilisha)

Footnotes:

[1] Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States, p.297

[2] Steuter, Erin. At War with Metaphor, p.43

[3] Chomsky, Noam. Deterring Democracy, p.34

[4] Mraz, John. Looking for Mexico, p.60

[5] Ching, Erik. Reframing Latin America, p.228

[6] Ibid.