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Friday, July 21, 2006
Thomas Sowell :: Townhall.com Columnist
Pacifists versus peace
by Thomas Sowell
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Before there were "peace" movements and the U.N., sending troops into those islands could easily have meant finding British troops or bombs in Buenos Aires. Now "world opinion" condemned the British just for sending armed forces into the South Atlantic to take back their islands.

Shamefully, our own government was one of those that opposed the British use of force. But fortunately British prime minister Margaret Thatcher ignored "world opinion" and took back the Falklands.

The most catastrophic result of "peace" movements was World War II. While Hitler was arming Germany to the teeth, "peace" movements in Britain were advocating that their own country disarm "as an example to others."

British Labor Party Members of Parliament voted consistently against military spending and British college students publicly pledged never to fight for their country. If "peace" movements brought peace, there would never have been World War II.

Not only did that war lead to tens of millions of deaths, it came dangerously close to a crushing victory for the Nazis in Europe and the Japanese empire in Asia. And we now know that the United States was on Hitler's timetable after that.

For the first two years of that war, the Western democracies lost virtually every battle, all over the world, because pre-war "peace" movements had left them with inadequate military equipment and much of it obsolete. The Nazis and the Japanese knew that. That is why they launched the war.

"Peace" movements don't bring peace but war.

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About The Author
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and author of The Housing Boom and Bust.
 
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War Is A Suicidal Racket
Marine Corps General Smedley Butler, the only two-time winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor, wrote a book after he retired about his military service to the US government. The book, still in print, is *War Is A Racket*. In that book, in which he described himself as a paid muscleman for Wall Street, General Butler wrote:

"WAR is a racket. It always has been.

"It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

"A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."

In his book *The Presence of the Kingdom*, Christian theologian Jacques Ellul trenchantly describes contemporary participants in modern civilization as having a powerful collective impetus to suicide, as evidenced by, among other phenomena, the veritable worship of military violence as the world's panacea for its problems.

If Thomas Sowell is not a tithing member of the "war for peace" congregation, which is in the process of encouraging its own (and everyone's) annihilation under the rubric of perpetual war for perpetual peace, it is by no means evident from his currently published thoughts on the subject.





















Precision
Dr. Sowell seems to interchange the following terms; pacifism, peace (movement) and cease fire. To me they are strikingly different.

Pacifism is a way of life, a belief set if you will. As a Mennonite (think Amish), I believe that Jesus was serious when he said "Love your neighbor as yourself." Their are several other teachings that I could go into, but many of you seem to be Christian so I will spare you what you already know Jesus commanded. So, as a Christian (defined as Christ-like, or follower of Christ) it is a no brainer for me to be a pacifist. Jesus teaches us to live separate from the world, that our reward lies in Heaven. I am sure you Christians here agree with that. SO I am not concerned about earthly things. Many of my forefathers, were Martyred for speaking out against the State church in the middle ages. Thousands were put to death. Their crime? Reading the Bible and developing a greater understanding of what Christ calls us to. They were more than willing to die to spread the good news of Christ. It often surprises that many of today's Christians have forgotten this.

Secondly, the word peace. Many think of peace as an absence of war. Peace is not regarded as something, rather as what isn't. Did I lose you? Sorry. To me, peace is an everyday activity. An example, I bet many of you guys here are sportsmen. I bet seeing trash in the woods or on the lake really ticks you off. For me, things like not littering are acts of peace in the world. Just as trying to not pollute, or not fight with people, etc. Even if I disagree with someone, nothing of me at my core has been compromised. Peace is an act of loving. To me, I am living Christ's commandment to love.

Cease fires can only take place within a war. You need a war in order to have a cease fire. I agree, cease fires are nice, but usually just a chance to reload, stretch and sleep a bit. It is really just low level -- very low level conflict. Cease fires are still a military manuever in one sense.

I just think we should be less sloppy with these words when having a discussion like this.

It is a bit ironic for all you Christians, that when the Lord comes, the lion will lay with the lamb. I guess that is peace. It shows me, that as mere people, we will not achieve peace alone. Not because peace does not work, but because we are not in a state as human to enact it. Evil reigns now, that is why peace is absent. Peace is the WINNING enterprise, that will not change. I am just confused as to how you "guns and Jesus" Christians miss this seemingly apparent and obvious point. (As well as the others)

To come at it from a p.o.v. other than Christian; I submit the following. 2500 plus US servicemen fallen in Iraq. I weep for them and their families. To who's advantage? Ours? (the US) Not in our lifetime. It will be to the advantage of the globalists and their corporations. We worship at the feet of the beast when we serve corporate masters. The only team currently winning are the executives and shareholders of the military-industrial complex and related entities. Outside of Africa, this is the last frontier, we need to bring these markets online. Yet the capitalist line won't garner support like lines that include "freedom and democracy." If its framed like that, you get ardent support.

That last paragraph is a shaky at best, but hopefully you get my point. I am a pacifist because to me, that is Jesus's message, I long for peace ideallistically. But I do know that the President and his minstrels don't care about Iraqis. Hell, they didn't do anything for the good citizens of Louisiana and Mississippi last year did they?

Why is it considered unpatriotic to not want to serve corporations? Should not the military servicemen feel angry about this? To spill blood on a land so far from home so that Starbucks can set up shop in 10 years seems crazy to me. Look at Eastern Europe, we don't really care that the Romanians are living freer do we? Don't we just like that our economy is growing into those new markets? The Europeans love the cheap labor and cheap clothes.

My lunch break is over, so is this.
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