Myths of the Just Wars

By Adel – PeaceMaker
February 4, 2010

Howard Zinn:
Myths of the Good Wars...

Myth of a benevolent America...

Myth of benevolent Western Civilization...

Myth of a good government...

The first and greatest heresy in the Christian faith occurred in the third century when Bishop of Hippo Regius, also known as Augustine or St. Austin penned the "Just War Theory" which gave the church's OK to violence perpetuated by the empire and our problems stem from our acceptance of this “mythical system”.

On December 10, 2009, in Oslo, Norway, President Obama espoused the first heresy of Christianity in his Nobel Peace Prize speech when he cited the concept of a "just war" furthering the fallacy "that war is justified”.

The late Historian, Author, Playwright: Howard Zinn Sponsored by Cape Codders for

Peace and Justice Filmed by Paul Hubbard at the Wellfleet Public Library on 9-13-09.

There also is a MYTH of western democracies, which make more wars and creates more elite power concentration within societies. Everywhere the unjust governmental power increases, expands more and more everyday, and so is the level of people voluntary obedience. If you call this trend democracy, be my guest. I suspect that we have been living in a myth of democracy fable up till now… It's slavery in disguise.

In Oslo, President Obama was mindful of Martin Luther King's Nobel speech, but he made no mention of what his peer stated regarding Vietnam, "The true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, is when it helps us to see the enemy's point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition."

War is never necessary, but is an expression of the violence within an individual's heart that inhabits a body with a mind that has failed to evolve and is thus blind to The Divine that indwells all beings and is within all of creation.

For decades, the military built a sense of solidarity out of a singular purpose, the Cold War struggle between free markets and state-planned economies – the shining city on a hill versus the evil empire… Communism… the dark alternative should we fail to unite. The end of the Cold War deprived militant evangelicals of that clarity [and] the emergence of “radical Islam” [became] the object of a new “Cold War."

The roots of American evangelism sprang from the original altar call for Christians to stand up against slavery. What has been passing for Christianity in our military today is the antithesis of what Jesus was all about.

"Everyone but Christians understands that Jesus was nonviolent." ~ Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

In his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" King noted:

Too long has The Peace Process been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue.

Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. We must come to see that justice too long delayed is justice denied.

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever and if repressed emotions are not released in nonviolent ways, they will seek expression through violence; this is not a threat but a fact of history.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives in the world can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.