Why is war what we say we need?

We get what we prepare for.  We are preparing for war all the time. President Eisenhower called it the “military industrial complex.”  With weapons being built every day, when a problem arises, there are powerful voices that call for war.  We are hearing it again about Iran. 

Mohammad Mosaddegh was the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran from 1951 to 1953 when he was overthrown by the British MI5 and the United States CIA.  Why? Because he nationalized the Iranian oil industry.  He introduced many other progressive reforms including unemployment compensation, employer payment benefits to sick and injured workers, peasants freed from forced labor on landlords’ estates, and 20 percent of landlord rent money put in a fund for public baths, rural housing, and pest control.  Mosaddegh was imprisoned for three years, then put under house arrest until his death in 1967.  (Source: Wikipedia)

In his place our CIA supported the Shah of Iran, a dictator with a brutal police force.

Imagine all the goods things that would happen if we prepared for peace.  Today, Afghanistan, Iraq and many other countries would be living well and be our friends if we had helped them with tools instead of bombing them to hell on earth. 

In this season of Jesus’ birth, we should remind ourselves that he was the Prince of Peace.  He taught that we should love not only ourselves and our families and our countries but we should love our enemies.  Why? Because in loving our enemies we would soon make them our friends.  President Abraham Lincoln was confronted by a woman who complained that he wanted to treat the losers of the Civil War like friends – “With malice toward none and charity toward all …”  He responded, “If I make my enemies my friends, have I not defeated my enemies?”  So it should be with us. 

No one ever made friends by bombing them.  Make peace with Iran.  We are the country with thousands of nuclear weapons.  Why are we not dismantling those weapons instead of upgrading them?  Israel, Pakistan, India, Russia – all have nuclear weapons.  Iran has none – but lots of oil.  Sound familiar? 

Peace on earth will come only by preparing for peace.  You can read The Peace Agenda on my website: http://www.siue.edu/~rblain  Congressman Dennis Kucinich wants a Department of Peace.  I think that is an excellent idea.  How about you?