Martin Bell is a former BBC reporter and a former Member of the British parliament.
At a recent forum on peace and security issues organized by Colchester Quakers, Martin Bell had this to say about his country’s part in the Afghanistan war:
“I think we British have gone AWOL from our history. There is not a regiment in the British army – not one – not the old regiments or the new merged regiments that does not have Iraq, Mesopotamia and Afghanistan on its battle honours over and over and over again and we never seem to learn the lessons.
Baroness Helena Kennedy described [former Prime Minister Tony] Blair’s Downing Street as a ‘history free zone.’ You might like to consider the consequences of that for the soldiers of 16 Air Assault Brigade up the road because they are the ones who pay the price.
We British are now fighting our fourth Afghan war. We might like to reflect on who won the other three.
We didn’t.”
So I’m walking through the Wal-Mart parking lot the other day –
(Yeah, I shop there. Whadda ya think — I live in one of your university-hugging, professional middle class greeny suburbs? This is army town, no time for that fluff. We had two Supercenters when I got here; now there’s five. Whole Foods & Costco are about ninety minutes away. I get there when I can; otherwise, cut me some slack here.)
— and I see the back of this parked van. On the rear window is a revelation.
I’ve glimpsed it before, driving past, but here it is, holding still, within reach of my pocket camera.
While the camera clicks, and clicks again (I operate on the “Bad Photographer” principle: take lots of shots to get a decent one), I begin thinking about military strategy. (You’ll see why in a minute.)
When war planners talk combat strategy, they put a lot of effort into finding and defining a target’s “center of gravity.”
A target’s “center of gravity” is whatever is most important in making it able to defend itself. It often involves more than simply weaponry; it may be a motivator, such as a beloved symbolic leader, for whom devoted followers are ready to fight to the last.
Similarly, in its home society, a military establishment’s “center of gravity” may not depend chiefly on guns or bombs. Rather, it can be the force which lends it the most legitimacy, which makes war and militarism worthy, honorable, deserving of support, even sacred. This is more likely to be a belief system than a stockpile of bombs or missiles; the belief system is what drives the stockpiling of bang-bang.
Diagram from a scholarly strategic study of the “center of gravity.” More on this here.
After working up-close and personal for several years with the US military, I think I can point to its center of gravity, or pretty close to it. I’m convinced that the “Spirit of War” that grips our society like the Beast 666 depends for its hold more than anything else on the devotion and blessing of US War Christianity.
American churches, many actively and others passively, have become tools of militarism’s influence over large segments of the citizenry.
There isn’t space here to describe this complex force in detail. It has infected Catholic as well as Protestant churches, and has a foothold in the Jewish community as well.
But here was a snapshot of it, starkly visible on the back of a van at Wal-Mart.
What are alleged peaceniks such as Quakers going to do about this “center of gravity” for the war machine? Answering that query will involve careful study, as much as for any other key element of the “Military Industrial Complex.”
But first it will require a waking up to the reality of the phenomenon. Very few American “Christian” scholars and activists have made that connection, alas.
(All you ‘”Christo-centric” and Evangelical Quakers who have read it, raise your hands . . . .)
The role and impact of US War Christianity is easy to demonstrate, and anything but metaphorical or symbolic. It ranges from rampant crusader infiltration of the military academies, to signs plastered on Humvees in Iraq declaring “Jesus Killed Mohamed.” To emblems like this on the back window of a van in a Wal-Mart parking lot.
It is also not new – indeed, it glorified the extermination of Native Americans, upheld slavery, blessed America’s entry into the “great game” of imperialism. These days, among other things, it justifies torture and scoffs at climate change. It helps fill our days with distractions (e.g., arguments about dress codes and same sex marriage) in the face of official horror.
In my view, real progress toward making the U.S. a law-abiding nation, will sooner or later involve major thrusts against US War Christianity, as a key “center of gravity” of U.S. militarism.
Tackling the war spirit in the churches will not be easy; the struggle will be unsparing spiritual warfare that truly deserves the name. Moreover, as a people, Friends in the US are generally not well-prepared for the struggle. On the pastoral/evangelical side, accommodation to “patriotism” is largely unquestioned; flags in “sanctuaries” are not uncommon.
On the other side, all too many liberal Friends have spent much time avoiding and escaping everything to do with these and most other varieties of Christianity, becoming secular (aka “spiritual”) in all but name. When it comes to challenging this homegrown behemoth, they’re not even in the arena, never mind in the contest, preferring to talk of politics, or “inner peace” as the priority.
Well, when push comes to shove, avoidance will not not suffice. The sooner we begin getting ready, the better.
Bible verses for the day:
Exodus 15:3: The LORD is a warrior; the LORD is his name.
And
A welcome Home banner for a Marine returning from combat in Irag.
There are two groups of Friends for whom this task of getting ready seems particularly urgent:
One is those who are headed for the YAF gathering in Wichita later this month.
Chicago and Ohio. May 4 2010 is the 40th anniversary of the Kent State killings of four students by National Guard troops during an anti-Vietnam war protest.
This was a very major event for me. I could say a lot about this day and its aftermath, but this tee shirt does it better:
And the music of the day brings it all back. Read this part of a poem for Allison Krause, one of the victims, and listen to Crosby Stills Nash & Young’s “Four Dead In Ohio:
Flowers & Bullets, by Yevgeny Yevtushenko
(English translation by Anthony Kahn)
Of course:
Bullets don’t like people
who love flowers,
They’re jealous ladies, bullets,
short on kindness.
Allison Krause, nineteen years old,
you’re dead
for loving flowers.
When, thin and open as the pulse
of conscience,
you put a flower in a rifle’s mouth
and said,
“Flowers are better than bullets,”
that
was pure hope speaking.
Give no flowers to a state
that outlaws truth;
such states reciprocate
with cynical, cruel gifts,
and your gift, Allison Krause,
was the bullet
that blasted the flower.
But don’t stop there. There’s much more on Kent State at this Wikipedia page. Look it over as you listen to the Buffalo Springfield and “For What It’s Worth”:
And for those who are shocked that’s it’s been 40 years (you know who you are), there’s solace in recalling that The Man can’t stop our music. Let the Zimmers show you; then go on to the next post, May 4 Part Two:
May 4 1886: “The time will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today!”
The Haymarket massacre (or Haymarket riot) took place on Tuesday May 4, 1886, at the Haymarket Square in Chicago. It became the September 11 of its time. It began as a rally in support of striking workers. An unknown person threw a bomb at police as they tried to disperse the rally.
The bomb blast and ensuing gunfire from the police resulted in the deaths of seven police officers, mostly from friendly fire. An unknown but likely larger number of civilians were also killed.
In the internationally publicized legal proceedings that followed, eight anarchists were tried for murder. No concrete evidence linking any of them to the bombing was produced; yet amid a newspaper-driven media frenzy, all were convicted. Four were put to death, and one committed suicide in prison.
August Spies, one of anarchists who was executed, declared just before his hanging, on Nov. 11, 1887: “The time will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today!”
The “Haymarket Martyrs” became double-edged symbols: on the one side for policemen, of the risks entailed in upholding “law and order”; on the other for the growing labor movement. Monuments to both now stand in Chicago. And the annual May Day rallies for workers right (not much in evidence in the US, but widely-observed elsewhere) trace their origins to Haymarket and its impact.
The sentencing sparked outrage from budding labor and workers movements, resulted in protests around the world and made the defendants international political celebrities and heroes within labor and radical political circles. Meanwhile the press published often sensationalized accounts and opinions about the Haymarket affair which polarized public reaction.In an article titled “Anarchy’s Red Hand”, The New York Times, described the incident as the “bloody fruit” of “the villainous teachings of the Anarchists”. The Chicago Times described the defendants as “arch counselors of riot, pillage, incendiarism and murder”; to other newspapers they were “bloody brutes”, “red ruffians”, “dynamarchists”, “bloody monsters”, “cowards”, “cutthroats”, “thieves”, “assassins”, and “fiends.”
The 8-hour day — the concrete goal of the labor organizing which produced the Haymarket rally, and the wave of repression that it encountered. For too many workers, in the US and around the world, the 8 hour day is still a distant goal.
May 1 is the seventh anniversary of the day that banner hung above the USS Abraham Lincoln. Remember?
What painful memories that image brings back!
Arrogant presidential swagger. The repetition of so many falsehoods. Misuse of the sacrifice of our troops and sailors. Glorying in the destructive orgy called “Shock & Awe.” The shroud of invisibility thrown over tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians left dead or homeless.
Among all the lies of that shameful day, none was more profoundly false and corrupting than the claim that “in the battle for Iraq,” victory was ours.
Few Americans were more deceived that afternoon than the sailors and troops who loudly cheered these assurances, and the implicit promise that they would soon be coming home, safely, and to stay.
But as they know today only too well, their mission was not accomplished – not then, not now.
From where I sit, the impact on US troops and families is the most visible: more than 5000 dead, tens of thousands wounded, families damaged, the list goes on.
But I’m also mindful of the much larger toll of Iraqi dead and wounded, especially civilians. This sign from one of our peace vigils speaks to it, however inadequately.
Study War Some More (If You Want To Work for Peace) presents a new strategic approach to peace work, based on 40-plus years of experience at Quaker House, up close with the Military Industrial Complex. Seven concise chapters, 60 pages, with discussion questions. More information at the Quaker House site.
OMG! OMG!Hysteria Alert — Why Am I always the last to know???
Was listening to the Cardinals game on the way home tonight, and heard that on June 24th in Busch Stadium the greatest thing since the last World Series there (maybe even greater) will happen:
It’s . . .
(Be still my heart)
It’s . . .
(OMG-OMG!)
It’s . . .
I can’t STAND it:
THE DIXIE CHICKS!!!!!!!
YES — the three most magnificent accidental heroes of the war years, The DC’s are BACK.
(Okay, so you probably guessed that from the headline. But still.)
Well, for eight tour dates, that is. The Busch Stadium gig is the last one. And they’re not headliners — the top of the bill is some other band named after a bird: the Buzzards, maybe; or the Snowy Egrets; could it be the Quaker Parrots? Blue Herons? (Can’t seem to remember.) It’s not the Cardinals; that’s baseball.
Ennyway, let’s review: the Chicks leaped into my personal pantheon in 2003 after Natalie Maines, their totally dreamy and mouthy lead singer, let fly her famous wisecrack in London about how they were ashamed that the (still un-indicted) president who pre-emptively invaded Iraq, started an official torture program and committed numerous other crimes, was from their home state of Texas.
Not that I noticed at the time, because I really hadn’t been a fan. But then came the firestorm, when much of their less-enlightened fan base went nuts and dropped them like a plate of too-hot barbecue. Then I started paying attention.
When this fat hit the shin, the Chix had EVERY REASON to buckle, fold, give in, surrender, yield, hoist the white flag, quit, succumb, submit, throw in the towel and otherwise sell out under this barrage — after all, they’re not a political band, no peaceniks, nothing but some mighty fine, sassy and sexy musicians, who at the time were running what seemed like a nonstop money machine, which none of them wanted to mess with.
But there it was, messed with BIG time. Yet when Bush — I mean push came to shove (not to mention came to radio blackouts, gig cancellations, hate mail and death threats), they didn’t turn tail or drink the kool-aid.
By god, the spirit of the Alamo lived, and The trio rose to this unexpected occasion, standing tall for their feelings and their rights as Americans. Theirs was a defiantly real and creatively patriotic spirit that could make a cynical old man cry.
This amazing story is told in the fantastofreakinfabuknockemdeadulous documentary, “Shut Up And Sing,” pieces of which you can find on YouTube, like here:
but if you haven’t seen it–
STOP, go directly to Netflix.com and rent it. Right now. Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect even 200 cents. No excuses will be accepted.
If you doubt me, first click on the link below and watch this video of their song, “Goodbye Earl,” and prepare to be astonished (as well as entertained):
I mean, come on — how do three cute country girl singers who call themselves “chicks” pull off something as subversively feminist , hilarious, irreverent, yet unquestionably All-American as this within the conventions of country music??? You just have to see it to believe it.
The upshot was that they not only survived this repressive onslaught (which despite all the media blitz and glitz was a dead-serious attempt to shut down even their brief moment of dissent), they fought back with a Number One, multiple-Grammy-winning-Album-of-the-Year stick-it-in-your-ear-George CD in 2006. Here they are in the song that says it all, with killer visuals, “Not Ready To Make Nice”:
Totally cool, but they have been quiet and offstage for more than four years since. And in the meantime, many of us stuck here in the DixieChick-less darkness have been weeping buckets and gnashing our teeth down to the gums.
Okay, as the movie shows, it turns out they all have lives (what a concept) — something like seven kids among them, and decided to live them for awhile. Meantime, that creep who started these monumental fiascoes proceeded to turn himself into a historic national disgrace and finally crept back to Houston under cover of darkness. Fair enough.
But now the page has turned, and they’re coming back. No new album yet, they say; tho a greatest hits collection is on tap; and when the crowds go totally, utterly, bonkers nuts for them in June, as they will or my name isn’t Burke Hickenlooper, can more new music be far behind??
Two of the eight gigs are in Canada, the place where true American values go to hide out til the freeze thaws, as it’s beginning to. I’d head for the Winnipeg gig myself on June 22, but alas I think it’s already sold out.
So if I don’t get to one of the live shows, there’s certain to be dozens of cell-phone videos from them online, so all of you and me too can catch up that way, screaming and blubbering in the privacy of our own computer screens, so no one will ever know about the total meltdown of our phony dignified facades. (You know who you are.)
Either way it will be a historic win-win for both their fans and All freedom-loving Americans. God save America, and God save Texas (never thought I’d say that) and if the Dixie Chicks are really BACK, there won’t be much more of those blessings left to come to pass, will there? (Okay, we still need some war crimes indictments; we’re on it).
More here, including a video interview with Natalie Maines (and dig her totally butch do):
But after all the celebrating is done, there’s still one nagging question:
For several years I’ve frequently visited Camp Lejeune, a large Marine base two hours east of where I live, on the North Carolina coast.
I go because they have a brig — a jail — and several of the GIs I have worked with as resisters to war have served time in it.
Here’s a photo of the gate there from which prisoners are released; the man just about to emerge is Clifford Cornell, a GI resister who was released in January.
Early on in these visits I noticed homemade banners hanging on a fence along the public highway to the base. They were made by families to welcome Marines back from combat deployment in Iraq.
Many of the banners were very simple: “Welcome home Corporal x, we missed you.”
But many were more than that: funny, touching, naughty, and catch-in-the-throat.
They were also ephemeral: hanging on the fence, ripped by wind and weather, til they fell off or someone took them down to put up new ones.
Soon enough, I started taking pictures of the most striking ones, to document this remarkable form of military “folk art.” That was in 2004.
Five years later, the wars are still going on, and the combat deployments for Marines have piled up. And as a result, I have dozens of these photographs.
I believe they give a very special glimpse into the impact of the wars on the American families who bear their brunt. And these expressions, at once both intimate and public, deserve a wider audience.
So I’ve made a one hundred-page book: Priceless: Welcome Home Banners For US Troops Returning From War
It’s now available at the print-on-demand site, blurb.com. The link above will take you to a sample of what’s in it; you can also see some of the banners at the Quaker House website here.
BTW there’s no “political” commentary in the book. I want to let the pictures do the communicating, and leave readers to their own reactions. For me, the banners are full of silent eloquence.
Successor to the independent monthly print newsletter, published between 1981 and 1993.NOTE: Except where otherwise noted, the views and opinions expressed here are solely my own.
