Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the
children of God. Matthew 5:9
I am writing these words before Good Friday (including Orthodox
Christian) 2017. Tensions between nations have never been greater. Although
there are tens of millions of people in America who profess the Christian
faith, there appears to be very little in the way of public protests against
military actions and incipient war.
Recently,
conservative talk show host Michael
Savage publicly criticized President Trump’s decision to attack
Syria. His conversation with author and columnist Pat Buchannan is on
this YouTube of
his broadcast on April 11th. In his book, Trump’s War, Mr. Savage wrote in the chapter
“Trump’s War against the War Machine” these wise observations:
Just after
the election, I saw Mel Gibson’s movie Hacksaw Ridge. It’s about the U.S. Army medic
Desmond T. Doss, who served at the vicious Battle of Okinawa in World War II
but refused to kill anyone. He became the first man in American history to win
the Medal of Honor without firing a single shot.
This was
the perfect movie to see in the context of Donald Trump as an anti-war
President. While I was watching this moving film, Trump was speaking to Russian
president Vladimir Putin, even though Trump hadn’t been sworn in yet. The two
men vowed to work together…
One of the reasons I worked so hard to get Trump elected is I
believe he will be a man of peace. Put everything else aside. The most
important thing in this world is not the economy. It’s peace.
I’ve written about Desmond T. Doss and there
are several excellent articles on Lew Rockwell’s site; I’ve also written
about the work and writing of Professor Stephen
Cohen. In his appearance on Tucker Carlson’s show on April 12th, 2017, he
discussed the bombing of Syria:
[Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev] said American-Russian
relations are absolutely ruined—ruined. He’s considered the most pro-Western
member of the Russian leadership…and the politics in Russia today as we talk is
if not the conviction the concern that America is preparing for war against Russia…my
concern is that Russia will overreact…
(In forty years as a Russia expert) I’ve never been as worried
as I am today about war with Russia.”
Yet far
from most of the political leadership agreeing with Professor Cohen, they react
with outrage against those who challenge their agenda; witness the attacks against Congresswoman Tulsi
Gabbard:
Sporting a
sweet new “Resist” picture on Twitter, Neera Tanden, President of the Center
for American Progress and author of numerous embarrassing email exchanges with
John Podesta, called on Hawaiians to oust their Representative, Tulsi Gabbard,
for having the audacity to question whether Assad was responsible for the
recent chemical weapons attacks in Syria…
Gabbard
told CNN on Friday that she wants to achieve peace in Syria, “Why should we just blindly follow this escalation of a
counterproductive regime-change war?”
“There’s
responsibility that goes around,” Gabbard said. “Standing here pointing fingers does not accomplish peace
for the Syrian people. It will not bring about an end to this war.”
Meanwhile, former DNC chair Howard Dean also decided to join in
on ganging up on Gabbard, but he immediately got shut down by a follower who
asked the obvious question of why engaging in dialogue was disqualifying for
Gabbard but violating federal record retention laws and a Congressional
subpoena was perfectly fine for Hillary.
Here is
Gabbard’s official statement that enraged so many of
our elected representatives:
It angers and saddens me that President Trump has taken the
advice of war hawks and escalated our illegal regime change war to overthrow
the Syrian government. This escalation is short-sighted and will lead to more
dead civilians, more refugees, the strengthening of al-Qaeda and other
terrorists, and a direct confrontation between the United States and
Russia—which could lead to nuclear war.
This Administration has acted recklessly without care or
consideration of the dire consequences of the United States attack on Syria
without waiting for the collection of evidence from the scene of the chemical
poisoning. If President Assad is indeed guilty of this horrible chemical
attack on innocent civilians, I will be the first to call for his prosecution
and execution by the International Criminal Court. However, because of our
attack on Syria, this investigation may now not even be possible. And without
such evidence, a successful prosecution will be much harder.
I am not a Russia expert like Professor Cohen yet I believe we
ignore his warning at our peril. Right now, there is the potential for military
conflict with North Korea, Syria, Russia and Iran. Yet for a few righteous
voices crying out and being either scorned or ignored, there are sadly too few
Americans who value the teachings of Christ on the primacy of peace—or at least
value them enough to fight for them. How will God judge us for not taking a
stand when now more than ever it matters so much and literally the world is at
stake?
Yvonne
Lorenzo [send
her mail] makes her home in New England in a house full to bursting
with books, including works on classical Greece and by Mises, Tom Woods, Joseph
Sobran, and Lew Rockwell. Her interests include mythology, ancient history,
plasma cosmology and classical music, especially the compositions of Handel,
Mozart, Bach, and the Bel Canto repertoire. She is the author Son of Thunder and The Cloak of Freya.
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