Category Archives: History

December 6, 2015 · 07:00

Sub Sighted Sub Sunk: The USS Ward & the First Shot at Pearl Harbor

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

It is the day before the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and as I always do this time of year I spend a significant amount of time writing about it, so that we never forget the brave men of the Greatest Generation who were there.

One of these men was Lieutenant Commander William Outerbridge, the commanding office of the USS Ward DD-139. Outerbridge and veteran of 14 years of service, and he had taken command of the elderly ship less than 24 hours before she began her weekend Anti-Submarine patrol of the entrance to Pearl Harbor. In the inter-war years promotion was slow and opportunities for advancement slim. Outerbridge had been commissioned following graduation from the Naval Academy in 1927. He was the only Regular Navy Officer on the ship.

The Ward was old but had very few miles on her. She was a Wickes class destroyer displacing 1250 tons and was armed with four 4” 50 caliber and two 3” guns. She was launched and commissioned in 1918 and was decommissioned and placed in reserve in 1921. Recommissioned in January 1941 she was assigned to Destroyer Division 80 at Pearl Harbor. This squadron of elderly ships consisting of the Ward along with USS Schley, USS Chew and the even older USS Allen, was assigned to the Inshore Patrol Command.

As tensions between the United States and Japan increased the War Department and Department of the Navy issued a “War Warning” and Admiral Husband Kimmel, Commander in Chief Pacific Fleet ordered a “shoot on sight” against any ship or submarine operating in the security zone outside Pearl Harbor which effectively put the ships of DesDiv 80 on a war footing.

Outerbridge had taken command on Friday December 5th and taken the ship to sea 6th at 0628. He had no idea that in just over 24 hours the guns of his ship would be the first American warship to fire at an enemy combatant in the Pacific during the war.

As the Ward patrolled the area just a couple of miles off of the entrance to Pearl Harbor the minesweeper USS Condor (AMc-14) spotted a white wake near her at 0342. The Officer of the Deck and Captain determined that it was the periscope of a submarine. They signaled the Ward which was patrolling nearby: “Sighted submerged submarine on westerly course, speed nine knots” at 0348.

Outerbridge ordered the Ward to general quarters. After a futile search Outerbridge secured from General Quarters at 0443. At 0458 Pearl Harbor’s anti-torpedo net gate was opened to allow passage of Condor and a number of other small ships including the Stores Ship USS Antares (AKS 14). Antares was towing a target back to base when at about 0635 a lookout on Ward noticed a wake following the auxiliary between her and her the raft.

Outerbridge returned to the bridge and sounded general quarters at 0640. Outerbridge increased Ward’s speed to 25 knots and commended firing on the sub at 0645. Ward’s number three gun scored a hit at the base of the sub’s conning tower and Ward charged the sub. Coming close alongside the Ward dropped depth charges which sank the sub.

Outerbridge notified harbor control at 0651 sending the message “Depth bombed sub operating in defensive sea area.” Some of his own officers thought that it was possible that Ward had attacked an American submarine but Outerbridge was confident that the sub was hostile. To emphasize that this was different from false alarms that headquarters was accustomed sent another message at 0653 “Attacked, fired upon, depth bombed, and sunk submarine operating in defensive sea area.” It was just over an hour before the first Japanese planes would begin their bombing runs.

Delays in seeking more conformation and reluctance to believe the report resulted in the message not being rapidly transmitted up the chain of command. It was a symptom of a parochial and divided command structure which did not respond quickly to the needs of war.

The rest is history. Within two hours the Battle line of the Pacific Fleet was sunk or crippled, all told 18 ships were sunk or damaged. 2402 Sailors, Marines and Soldiers were killed and another 1247 wounded.

But the war for Outerbridge and the Ward was not over. Outerbridge was promoted and transferred while the Ward was converted to a Fast Transport and redesigned APD-16 in 1943. She participated in actions in the Solomon Islands, New Guinea and the Philippines.

Ward burning after Kamikaze Attack

On December 7th 1944 while conducting operations at Ormoc Bay the veteran ship was hit by a Japanese “Betty” Twin engine bomber. The large aircraft acting as a Kamikaze crashed into Ward and started fires and flooding that could not be controlled. One of the ships that came to Ward’s assistance was the USS O’Brien (DD 725) commanded by her former commander, William Outerbridge, who had commanded Ward at Pearl Harbor. Three years to the day after sinking the Japanese submarine Outerbridge was ordered to sink his former ship after rescuing her crew.

Outerbridge retired as a Rear Admiral in 1957 and died in 1986. Like others of his generation he served in war and peace. As we remember the attack on Pearl Harbor let us not forget him as well as the fine crew of the USS Ward. These men were alert that quiet Sunday morning 70 years ago and took action. They sunk a Japanese midget submarine intent on entering Pearl Harbor and reported their actions. One wonders what might have happened if Outerbridge’s reports had been acted on, interceptors scrambled and anti-aircraft defenses on ships and ashore been ready when the Japanese attackers swept in to attack Pearl Harbor. Of course we will never know.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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Filed under History, leadership, Military, Navy Ships, US Navy

Tagged as admiral husband kimmel, lcdr william outerbridge, pearl harbor attack, uss allen, uss antares, uss chew, uss condor, uss o'brien, uss schley, uss ward, wickes class

December 5, 2015 · 07:00

In Harm’s Way

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

As we go into the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor I am posting a number of older articles about the ships and men who endured that attack. During the attack eighteen ships were sunk or damaged, over 2000 Sailors and Marines aboard the ships along with Army personnel ashore were killed. Of the Sailors and Marines, over half lost their lives when the battleship USS Arizona blew up.

But amid the carnage and chaos a number of ship got underway. They were an odd collection; a battleship, two modern light cruisers, an elderly light cruiser and a collection of destroyers, destroyer minesweepers and destroyer minelayers. Yet in the midst of the din and bloody chaos of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor these ships, sometimes with only the most junior of officers in charge got underway and took to sea in order to seek out and engage the Japanese.

Their sortie is dramatized in the Otto Preminger film In Harm’s Way.

http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/477483/In-Harm-s-Way-Movie-Clip-Twelve-Bat-Blind-Ships.html

For the first forty minutes of the attack only two ships were underway. The USS Ward which had sunk the Japanese midget submarine outside the harbor entrance an hour before the attack began. The USS Helm was in the main channel as the attack began. They were joined over the next two hours by other ships.

The USS Nevada was the only battleship to get underway that morning and though she did not get out of the harbor, her example served to inspire those on the battered ships in the harbor and ashore. Nevada’s commanding officer and executive officer were ashore, along with many other senior officers. But that did not stop the officers still aboard from getting the great ship underway. Her Damage Control Officer, Lieutenant Commander Francis Thomas was a reservist, he took command and as the senior officer present on the ship got her underway. As the ship sailed past the blazing wrecks along Battleship Row the second wave of Japanese attackers set upon her. Heavily damaged Thomas realized that if the Japanese succeeded in sinking Nevada in the narrow main channel it would bottle up the fleet for months. Thomas skillfully grounded the now blazing ship off Hospital Point where she sunk into the mud.

The modern light cruiser USS St. Louis was moored outboard of her sister ship USS Honolulu at the Naval Station. Her sortie was enabled by members of her crew who chopped down the gangplank and cut water lines to the shore. Under command of Captain George Rood she got underway at 0931 and was the first cruiser to get underway.

The St. Louis was joined by her sister ship USS Phoenix and the elderly light cruiser USS Detroit which was moored on the far side of Ford Island. All three ships survived the war, and in a curious footnote to history, the Phoenix was sunk in the 1982 Falklands war as the Argentine ship General Belgrano.

The cruisers were joined by a number of destroyers, often under the command of junior officers. The USS Blue got underway under the command of Ensign Nathan Asher, who had just three other ensigns with him as that ship got underway. She was joined by Monaghan, Dale, Henley, Phelps, Farragut, MacDonough, Worden, Patterson, Jarvis and Aylwin also under command of a junior officer, Ensign Stanley Caplan. Henley left without her commander under the command of Lieutenant Francis Fleck Jr.

The cruisers and destroyers were joined by a number of elderly former destroyers which had been converted to Destroyer Minesweepers or Minelayers. The Ramsay, Breese, Trever and Perry all got underway, Trever also minus her commanding officer.

Some of the ships formed in a vain search for the Japanese strike force while others conducted defensive anti-submarine operations in the waters off Pearl Harbor.

The fact that all of these ships were able to get underway and navigate through the chaos of the attack, often under the command of junior officers and without key crew members was a testament to the courage and initiative of US Navy Officers and Sailors. It is a courage and initiative still in evidence today.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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Filed under History, leadership, Navy Ships, US Navy, world war two in the pacific

Tagged as captain george rood, ensign nathan asher, ensign stanley caplan, general belgrano, in harms way, Lieutenant Commander Francis Thomas, lieutenant francis fleck jr, uss aylwin, uss blue, uss breese, uss dale, uss detroit cl8, uss farragut, uss helm, uss henley, uss honolulu, uss jarvis, uss macdonough, USS Nevada, uss patterson, uss perry, uss phelps, uss phoenix, uss ramsay, uss st louis, uss trever, uss ward, uss worden

November 30, 2015 · 07:00

Dehumanization & Genocide

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

One of the most terrible things about a national security crisis, real or imagined, is that xenophobic leaders, instill fear and terror about people who are different from the majority. It is shockingly easy to do, and is part and parcel of every human culture. In doing so they use language which enables people, often very good people, to view others as less than human, a process known as dehumanization. Right now we see the results of this. On one hand there are the fanatics of DAESH and other Moslems extremist groups that use propaganda to dehumanize anyone that does not adhere to their beliefs. On the other hand there is the response of some American and European politicians, preachers, pundits and media organizations which in responding to the extremists, dehumanize all Moslems and suggest the most severe measures to deal with what they call the problem of Islam.

David Livingstone Smith wrote, “Dehumanization isn’t a way of talking. It’s a way of thinking—a way of thinking that, sadly, comes all too easily to us. Dehumanization is a scourge, and has been so for millennia. It acts as a psychological lubricant, dissolving our inhibitions and inflaming our destructive passions. As such, it empowers us to perform acts that would, under other circumstances, be unthinkable.”

Once someone has succumbed to the idea that certain others are no longer fully human, or less than human the unthinkable becomes not only possible, but probable. Of course this process takes time, and usually comes from years of exposure to propaganda that first demonizes, and then dehumanizes those that the propagandists despise. At Nuremberg, Julius Streicher, the publisher of the Nazi tabloid Der Sturmer was asked by a prosecutor, “And do you think to call them “blood-suckers,” “a nation of blood-suckers and extortioners“– do you think that’s preaching hatred?” Streicher replied, “No, it is not preaching hatred; it is just a statement of facts.”

In Hitler’s Third Reich it was the Jews and others who were viewed as sub-human. When one reads the testimony of the major war criminals at Nuremberg, every single defendant admitted to the role that decades of anti-Semitic propaganda had in shaping their worldview.

The sad truth is that Hitler is not alone. Such beliefs and actions are all too common. In 1830s to the 1850s in the United States it was Irish and German Catholics; in the ante-bellum and the Jim Crow South it was African Americans who were said to be an inferior race; in the 1860s to the early 1900s on the west coast it was the Chinese. After Pearl Harbor, the Japanese who we put in internment camps. Let us not forget the protracted campaign to exterminate the Native Americans, something that Rush Limbaugh mocked in 2009 saying, “Holocaust? Ninety million Indians? Only four million left? They all have casinos — what’s to complain about?” Those are just European and American examples. One can see the same language and action in Rwanda, the Sudan, the Middle East, the Japanese campaign in China, the Soviet starvation and massacres of Poles and Ukrainians during the 1930s; and the list can go on and on.

One of the ways that they make it easy for their followers to approve of draconian measures is to dehumanize their victims and euphemistically refer to the situation as a question, a question that must have an answer or a solution. In the Third Reich it was the Jewish question, and the answer became the apocalyptic Final Solution.

The Nazis referred to the Jews as sub-human, a bacilli, or cancer. Today leading politicians in the United States and Europe are referring the Syria refugees, as well as other Moslems in a similar manner. Some of the worst offenders are men who beat on their chest and claim to be Christians. Mike Huckabee referred to the Syria refugees as “spoiled milk,” Ben Carson called them “rabid dogs.” The mainstream British columnist, Katie Hopkins called them “rats and cockroaches.” Plenty of other less prominent politicians, pundits and preachers have voiced similar opinions, and you cannot visit Facebook without seeing scores of memes and comments echoing those thoughts.

But others, particularly the media and already elected officials use other language to dehumanize people. The language of natural disasters, or war is common. Politicians, preachers and the media couple refugees and migrants with words such as influx, occupation, invasion, flood or flow. All of these terms are used to stoke fear in the minds of their listeners or followers. Floods must be controlled, invasions, defeated, occupations, ended. Eventually people just take it for granted that such threats must be dealt with, such questions, answered.

This language encourages their followers to approve of draconian measures is to dehumanize their victims. Somewhat euphemistically they refer to the situation as a question, a question that must have an answer or a solution. In the Third Reich it was the Jewish question, and the answer became the apocalyptic Final Solution. The Nazis preached that there would have to be a showdown between their pure “Aryan” race, and the Jews. Rudolf Höss, the commandant of Auschwitz noted the Himmler stressed “that if Germany was to survive then World Jewry must be exterminated and we all accepted it as truth.”

Höss told American Army psychologist Gustave Gilbert about how he accepted the orders f0or the Final Solution based on his beliefs:

“That was the picture I had in my head, so when Himmler called me to him, I just accepted it as the realization of something that I already accepted – not only I, but everybody. I took it for granted that even though this order, which would move the strongest and coldest nature – and at that moment this crass order to exterminate thousands of people (I did not know how many) – even though it did frighten me momentarily – it fitted in with all that had been preached to me for years. The only problem itself, the extermination of Jewry, was not new – but only that I was the one to carry it out, frightened me at first. But after getting the clear direct order and even an explanation with it – there was nothing left to do but carry it out.”

Gilbert asked Höss, “So, that was the background for accepting a mass murder order?” Höss replied, “Yes, when I think of it all, it is hard to figure out – but at the time I didn’t think of it as propaganda, but as something one just had to believe.”

But that is what millions of people are being asked to believe today in terms of all Moslems. It is not the fact that some Moslems are fanatical killers bent on war, and that we are at war with them; but that Islam itself, and thereby all Moslems are the enemy, and must be destroyed. The continual preaching of this will lead to, persecution, mass murder, and maybe even genocide, and it will be done by people like Höss, who are convinced that they are doing the right thing.

Until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

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Filed under History, holocaust, national security, News and current events, Political Commentary, Religion, terrorism

Tagged as ben carson, daesh, david livingstone smith, dehumanizing enemies, final solution, gustave gilbert, Holocaust, jewish question, julius streicher, katie hopkins, mike huckabee, rudolf hoss, rush limbaugh

November 25, 2015 · 07:00

The Unfolding of Miscalculations: Syria 2015

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

The tensions fuel by the incredibly complex and dangerous war in Syria just when up, as I like to say the “pucker factor” is very high, in fact it is getting close to stage ten. Barbara Tuchman wrote, “War is the unfolding of miscalculations” and it seems that right now there are whole a lot of miscalculations going on.

Yesterday a Russian Su-24 fighter plane was blasted out of the sky by a Turkish F-16. Reports conflict, Turkey say that the Russian aircraft had violated its airspace multiple times and had been given multiple warnings before the shoot down. The Russians claim that the aircraft was on the Syrian side of the border and that the attack was an unprovoked violation, and Russian President Putin called it a “stab in the back.” Russia is accusing Turkey of backing DAESH, while Russia’s forces, which are supposedly there to fight DAESH are spending more time attacking Syrian President Assad’s non-DAESH Syrian opposition, including Turkoman Syrians fighting the Assad regime in the area where the jet was shot down. Some think that it might be payback for the Russians bombing the faction supported by the Turks.

Admittedly, Turkey has a right to self-defense and the Russians are operating in Syria without any kind of international mandate. That being said, the Russians are there at the behest of the Assad government, which even if we don’t like it is still the legal government of Syria, a long term ally and client of Russia, going back to the old Soviet days.

However, the feud between Russia and Turkey goes back hundreds of years. They hate each other, and this hatred goes back to the days of the Tsars and the Ottomans. The hatred is generations old, and is cultural, religious and political. Maybe that is why we in the west do not understand it, but I digress…

The fact is that the actions of both nations, as well as most other nations in the West including the United States have helped to stoke the fire of the Syrian war, which is threatening to escalate into a regional conflict. I am not going to go into all the details of what has brought us to this point, because they are too many to cover. Some of course are saying that it could lead to a World War, but I do think that cooler heads will prevail. Of course I could be wrong, as Tuchman wrote, “To admit error and cut losses is rare among individuals, unknown among states.”

It is now time for President Obama to step up to the plate, and not rattle sabers, but to help pull everyone back from the brink. He needs to work with Russia’s President Putin to deescalate the crisis. Since everyone involved has a stake in what happens it Syria it cannot be ignored. The nations involved need to sit down and come up with a way to defeat DAESH and bring peace to Syria and Iraq. Of course this is easier said than done, especially since bullets are flying, blood is flowing, and tensions rising. The fallibility of human beings has been demonstrated time and time again in this war, and as Tuchman wrote in The Guns of August, “Human beings, like plans, prove fallible in the presence of those ingredients that are missing in maneuvers – danger, death, and live ammunition.”

In 1962 President Kennedy faced the real possibility of nuclear war with the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Kennedy had just read Tuchman’s The Guns of August which had just been published. He was shocked by the words of German Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg who when asked how World War One started replied “Ah, if only one knew.” Kennedy asked General Curtis LeMay what would happen if the Soviets did not back down, and the officer replied that he would order a nuclear strike. Kennedy could not go down that road, he referred to the book when he remarked, “If this planet is ever ravaged by nuclear war—if the survivors of that devastation can then endure the fire, poison, chaos and catastrophe—I do not want one of these survivors to ask another, “How did it all happen?” and to receive the incredible reply: “Ah, if only one knew.”

The downing of this Russian jet shows just how easily things can spin out of control. It is time for calmer heads to prevail and walk this back before things get really out of hand.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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Filed under History, middle east, Military, national security, News and current events

Tagged as barbara tuchman, bashir al assad, cuban missile crisis, curtis lemay, daesh, f-16, isil, president barak obama, president john f kennedy, russia, su-24, syria, syrian civil war, the guns of august, turkey, Vladimir Putin

November 22, 2015 · 07:00

Remembering JFK

Friends of Padre Steve’s World

President John F Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas Texas on a sunny November afternoon fifty-two years ago. The images of the event and its aftermath in photos and film still haunt us and find themselves etched in our individual and collective memory. The two shots that killed the President were fired by Lee Harvey Oswald according to the Warren Commission and subsequent inquiries although there are a host of conspiracy theories regarding the assassination. My purpose is not to prove or disprove the official version or any alternative explanation. I personally believe that Oswald was the lone gunman, but I have to wonder if there were others involved in the plot and at times if there was a second shooter.

However today my purpose is to remember Kennedy’s assassination, a horrible event in the life of our nation and to reflect on how easily something similar could happen again.

Kennedy was not the first President killed by an assassin. Four Presidents of the United States have died by the hand of assassins. The first was Abraham Lincoln killed by John Wilkes Booth on Good Friday 1865. That assassination carried out by a Southern sympathizer not even a week after Lee’s surrender to Grant at Appomattox stunned the nation and most likely altered the course of events after the war.

The second was the assassination of James A Garfield who was shot on July 2nd 1881 by Charles Guiteau. Guiteau was a disgruntled supporter who claimed that he had been commanded by God to kill a the President who he believed to be ungrateful for his support. I find it interesting that one of our four Presidential assassins was motivated by what he believed God to be saying. During his trial he said that some important Europeans told him to do it. Garfield died on September 19th probably due to the incompetence of his doctors. Guiteau died of a broken neck, expertly administered by a hangman after dancing to the gallows waving to the assembled crowd.

The third U.S. President to die at the hands of an assassin was President William McKinley who was shot by Leon Czolgosz on September 5th 1901. McKinley died on September 14th once again because of not so great medical care.

In all over 20 attempts have been made on incumbent or former Presidents. Theodore Roosevelt was wounded by an attempted assassin after his Presidency and John Hinckley Junior nearly killed President Ronald Reagan on March 30th 1981. Gerald Ford had two close brushes with female assassins within 2 weeks of each other in September 1975. More recent attempts have been made on George H.W Bush, Bill Clinton and George W Bush. There have been numerous threats on the life of President Obama, and even attacks on the White House in 2013.

However, Kennedy’s assassination tends to be the most talked about and studied. I believe that his assassination left a scar on the country that really hasn’t healed. I can remember the effect that his assassination as well as the subsequent killings of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F Kennedy had on my parents in the following years. My mother recounted how she felt when she heard the news of Kennedy’s death on Armed Forces Radio while we were stationed in the Philippines. It was an event that shattered the faith and idealism of many Americans.

I remember the times around the anniversary of his assassination we would watch television shows about it and the movie PT-109. While I do not have direct memories of President Kennedy’s assassination I do remember those of Dr. King and Senator Kennedy as well as the subsequent attempts on President Ford, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush.

John F Kennedy is one of my favorite Presidents. I know that he was a deeply flawed man and I do not gloss over his failings either as a man or some of his decisions while President. He was certainly not perfect but I still I admire him. I think one reason I admire him was his his ability to enunciate ideas that helped shape my more moderately liberal progressive pragmatism. One thing that he said is something that motivates me daily in our divided nation.

“Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.”

Kennedy volunteered to serve in combat on PT Boats despite having chronic lower back problems that kept him out of the Army and necessitated a waiver to enter the Navy. His actions in saving his crew after his PT-109 was sunk were nothing short of heroic and his crew knew it. After he his crew was rescued Kennedy elected to remain in action and commanded PT-59 in combat rescuing Marines on Choisuel Island. Kennedy’s citation for the Navy and Marine Corps Medal read:

“For extremely heroic conduct as Commanding Officer of Motor Torpedo Boat 109 following the collision and sinking of that vessel in the Pacific War Theater on August 1–2, 1943. Unmindful of personal danger, Lieutenant (then Lieutenant, Junior Grade) Kennedy unhesitatingly braved the difficulties and hazards of darkness to direct rescue operations, swimming many hours to secure aid and food after he had succeeded in getting his crew ashore. His outstanding courage, endurance and leadership contributed to the saving of several lives and were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.”

After his rescue Kennedy returned to action commanding PT-59 which though low on fuel was part of a two boat mission to evacuate Marines commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Victor Krulak from Choiseul. He remained in action conduction patrols and engaging Japanese forces until he was ordered to relinquish command for medical reasons on November 18th 1943 and evacuated to the United States. He was mentally and physically exhausted from his ordeal and had lost over 25 pounds between the sinking of PT-109 and his return to the United States.

Kennedy’s speeches still inspire me. As a child a had a copy of his book Profiles in Courage. I grew up with his promise to put a man on the Moon by the end of the decade, the creation of the Peace Corps, his backing of Special Forces, his love of the Navy, the great “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech, his support of the Civil Rights movement and and his defusing of the Cuban Missile Crisis all inspire me. His inauguration speech where he said “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country” was and still is a lot of my motivation for serving my country as a Naval Officer. When I was young John F Kennedy symbolized the hope of a country. I wonder so often what things might be like had he lived.

I could be critical and point out all of John Kennedy’s flaws and contradictions. But then too easy to do, People make a living doing that. But in doing so they often ignore the fact that Kennedy was a hero, not a perfect man but a hero.

I wish a quarter of our current elected officials served their country in combat as Kennedy did and understood real danger and heroism. Instead with very few exceptions we have elected men as much or even more flawed and contradictory than John F Kennedy with none of his personal courage to every level of office in the country, mostly because they have the money to win.

Kennedy’s wartime service always earned my respect. I tremble when I think that someone would have such a deep hatred of him or for that matter any other President that they would kill or attempt to kill them. That kind of hatred goes beyond me whether it be the hatred and smallness of John Wilkes Booth, Charles Guiteau or Leon Czolgosz.

Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald was a small and pathetic man who needed to be a revolutionary. Oswald needed to be important failing everything else he killed the President. Unfortunately there are people like Oswald on all sides of the political, ideological and religious spectrum who will gladly trade the life of a President or any other public figure for their moment in the spotlight and need to demonstrate their importance to the world.

I fear for our country because of the intense hatred that has become part and parcel of our political landscape. The hatred toward directed toward President Obama and the many threats made against his life and person are chilling. As I looked for images for this article I found pictures of Kennedy’s body after the assassination and they shook me. I have seen far too much in the way of violent and senseless death. Thus I do pray for the safety of President Obama as well as all of our leaders and for God to protect us from ourselves and those so possessed by hatred and their own self-righteousness that they would commit such an abominable act.

But I don’t believe that we should be governed by fear and to embrace the future. Kennedy said:

“The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were and ask, why not?”

Likewise I still believe in the call to action spoken by Kennedy:

“Now the trumpet summons us again. Not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need; not as a call to battle, though embattled we are; but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, ‘rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation’, a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself.”

I also believe in an era where the country seems to be withdrawing from engagement with an ever more globalized, interconnected yet dangerous world that his call to “bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”

While I do so I remember the President whose life was cut short by the bullets fired by Lee Harvey Oswald and pray that such an event will never happen again and even more importantly that American political leaders would begin to dream again, visions of hope for the country and world and instead of only seeing limitations, ask that one question in terms of ideas of hope and progress: “Why not?” As Kennedy said: “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.”

Peace

Padre Steve+

Paris & the Return of the Know Nothings

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

In the wake of the recent DAESH terror attacks there has been a resurgence in anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States and Western Europe targeting the Syrians fleeing the terror of DAESH, or as they call themselves the Islamic State. The parties that capitalize on this in both areas have long track records and usually mask their hatred of people who are not like them, in terms of security. The arguments are nothing new, they have been used against almost every immigrant group that has ever come to the shores of Europe or America.

If you have read my last few posts, you know that I do believe that we are in a war against an intractable foe that must be defeated. At the same time I believe that we cannot allow ourselves to forget the best of our heritage and our highest ideals in doing so. Unfortunately, it seems that we are about to make things worse by re-victimizing the victims, and emboldening the claim of DAESH to be the return of the Caliphate.

Many of the prominent candidates for the Republican nomination for President, numerous representatives, over half of the nation’s governors have announced their opposition to any immigration of Syrians to this country, their language often mirroring that of previous anti-immigrant groups. Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, and others have tapped into the vast reservoir of nativism that has always been a part of the American body-politic. These politicians, as well as the pundits and preachers who fan the flames of fear are gaining traction. One cannot go to Facebook, or other social media sites and not see some of the vilest memes and comments be the people who stirred up by them make some most ill-informed comments imaginable, and a lot of these people are the descendants of immigrants who were subject to the very kind of discrimination, and even race hatred that they spew at current immigrants, especially Syrians and others from the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

As I said, such attitudes and movements are nothing new. Anti-immigrant movements in the United States go back to our earliest days, ever since the first Irish Catholics showed up in the northeast in the late 1790s and early 1800s. Met with scorn and treated as criminals the Irish Catholics had to work hard to gain any kind of acceptance in Protestant America. But immigrants continued to come, seeking the freedom promised in the Declaration of Independence.

Many White American Protestants viewed Irish, German and other European immigrants to the Unites States in the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s as interlopers who were attempting to take over the country. The immigrants were regarded as poor, uneducated, uncouth, and immoral, and in the case of Catholic immigrants as representatives and foot soldiers of a hostile government, the Vatican, headed by the Pope and the bishops. Those who opposed immigration formed a movement that was aimed at forbidding immigrants from being granted full rights, especially the rights of citizenship and voting. The fear was pervasive. Many Northern Whites were afraid that immigrants would take their jobs, since like slaves in the South, the new immigrants were a source of cheap labor.

Northern Protestant church leaders and ministers were some of the most vocal anti-immigrant voices and their words were echoed by politicians and in the press. The movement grew and used government action, the courts and violence to oppress the Irish and Germans who were the most frequent targets of their hate. The movement eventually became known as the “Know Nothing” movement.

Know Nothing leaders were not content to simply discuss their agenda in the forum of ideas and political discourse, they often used mob-violence and intimidation to keep Catholics away from the ballot box. Mobs of nativist Know Nothings sometimes numbering in the hundreds or even the thousands attacked immigrants in what they called “Paddy hunts,” Paddy being a slur for the Irish. To combat immigrants who might want to exercise their right to vote, the Know Nothings deployed gangs like the New York’s Bowery Boys and Baltimore’s Plug Uglies. They also deployed their own paramilitary organization to intimidate immigrants on Election Day. This group, known as the Wide Awakes was especially prone to use violence and physical intimidation in pursuit of their goals. The Nativist paramilitaries also provided security for anti-immigrant preachers from angry immigrants who might try to disrupt their “prayer” meetings.

Know Nothing’s and other Nativist organizations, organized mass meetings throughout the country which were attended by thousands of men. The meetings were often led by prominent Protestant ministers who were rich in their use of preaching and prayer to rile up their audiences. The meetings often ended with physical attacks and other violence against German or Irish immigrants and sometimes with the burning of the local Catholic Church. They also provided security for preachers from angry immigrants who might try to disrupt nativist prayer meetings.

The violence was widespread and reached its peak in the mid-1850s.

Monday, August 6, 1855 was Election Day in Louisville, Kentucky. To prevent German and Irish Catholics from voting, Know Nothing mobs took to the street and launched a violent attack on immigrants as well as their churches and businesses. Known now as “Black Monday” the Nativists burned Armbruster’s Brewery, they rolled cannons to the doors of the St. Martin of Tours Church, the Cathedral of the Assumption and Saint Patrick’s Church, which they then were searched for arms. The private dwellings and the businesses of immigrants were looted. A neighborhood known as “Quinn’s Row” was burned with the inhabitants barricaded inside. At least 22 persons were killed in the violence and many more were injured. In Baltimore the 1856, 1857, and 1858 elections were all marred by violence perpetrated by Nativist mobs. In Maine, Know Nothing followers tarred and feathered a Catholic priest and burned down a Catholic church.

The Know Nothings did not merely seek to disenfranchise immigrants through violence alone, they were more sophisticated than that. They knew that to be successful they had to change the law. Then, as now, a new immigrant had to live in the United States for five years before becoming eligible to become a naturalized of the United States. The Know nothings felt that this was too short of time and their party platform in the 1856 election had this as one of the party planks:

A change in the laws of naturalization, making a continued residence of twenty-one years, of all not heretofore provided for, an indispensable requisite for citizenship hereafter, and excluding all paupers, and persons convicted of crime, from landing upon our shores; but no interference with the vested rights of foreigners.

The rational of the Know Nothings for the 21 year wait was that if a baby born in the United States had to wait until it was 21 years old he could vote, that immigrants were being permitted to “jump the line” and vote sooner than native-born Americans. But really what the Know Nothings wanted to was to destroy the ability of immigrant communities to use the ballot box. In many localities and some states Know Nothing majorities took power. The Massachusetts legislature, which was dominated by Know Nothings, passed a law barring immigrants from voting for two additional years after they became United States citizens.

A Know Nothing supporter recorded the 1856 Know Nothing Party platform. The similarities between it and many of the new nativists ideas are quite striking:

(1) Repeal of all Naturalization Laws.

(2) None but Americans for office.

(3) A pure American Common School system.

(4) War to the hilt, on political Romanism.

(5) Opposition to the formation of Military Companies, composed of Foreigners.

(6) The advocacy of a sound, healthy and safe Nationality.

(7) Hostility to all Papal influences, when brought to bear against the Republic.

(8) American Constitutions & American sentiments.

(9) More stringent & effective Emigration Laws.

(10) The amplest protection to Protestant Interests.

(11) The doctrines of the revered Washington.

(12) The sending back of all foreign paupers.

(13) Formation of societies to protect American interests.

(14) Eternal enmity to all those who attempt to carry out the principles of a foreign Church or State.

(15) Our Country, our whole Country, and nothing but our Country.

(16) Finally,-American Laws, and American Legislation, and Death to all foreign influences, whether in high places or low

In addition to their violent acts, the use of the courts and political intimidation the Know Nothings waged a culture war against immigrants. Latin mottoes on courthouses were replaced by English translations. Actions were taken to remove immigrants who had become naturalized citizens from public offices and civil service jobs as well as to use the government to persecute Catholic churches. In Philadelphia, all naturalized citizens on the police force were fired, including non-Catholics who has supported Catholic politicians, and in Boston, a special board was set up to investigate the sex lives of nuns and other supposed crimes of the Catholic church.

In the political upheaval of the 1850s Nativists tried to find homes in the different political parties. Some Know Nothings who were abolitionists became part of the new Republican Party, and Abraham Lincoln condemned them in harsh terms. He wrote his friend Joshua Speed about the hypocrisy that they displayed by supposedly being against the oppression of blacks while willing to oppress immigrants:

“I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor or degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that “all men are created equal.” We now practically read it “all men are created equal, except negroes” When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read “all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.” When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty — to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy [sic].”

As an organized movement, the Know Nothings died out by the early 1860s, migrating to different parties and causes. In the North many became part of the pro-slavery Copperhead movement, which opposed Lincoln on emancipation and the Thirteenth Amendment. In the post-war South the anti-Catholic parts of the Nativist movement found a home in the Ku Klux Klan and other white terrorist organizations which also used racist and nativist propaganda to perpetuate violence, and disenfranchise emancipated blacks in the decades following the end of the Civil War and the end of Reconstruction. The Nativist and anti-immigrant sentiments have periodically found a home in different parts of the country and the electorate. Violence was used against Chinese, Japanese and Filipino immigrants on the West Coast, against Mexicans in the Southwest, Italians, Slavs, Eastern Europeans and Jews in the Northeast.

Sadly it seems that it is being turned against others today. I find it strange that there are a host of people, mostly on the political right that are doing their best in their local communities, state legislatures and even Congress to roll back civil liberties for various groups of people. There is a certain amount of xenophobia in regard to immigrants of all types, especially those with darker skin white Americans, but some of the worst is reserved for Arabs and other Middle-Easterners, even Arab Christians who are presumed as all Middle Easterners are to be Moslem terrorists, even those who have been here decades and hold respectable places in their communities.

But immigrants are not alone, there seems to be in some states a systematized attempt to disenfranchise the one group of people that has almost always borne the brunt of legal and illegal discrimination, African Americans.

Likewise there have been numerous attempts to roll back the rights of women, especially working women; the use of the legislature by religious conservatives to place limits on the reproductive rights of women, holding them to the standard of a religion that they do not practice. Despite the Supreme Court’s ruling for Marriage Equality in Obergfell v. Hodges there still are numerous attempts to curb any civil rights, including the right to marriage or civil unions of the LGBT community.

As I said, this is nothing new, that hatred and intolerance of some toward anyone who is different than them, who they deem to be a threat is easily exploited by politicians, pundits and preachers, none of whom care for anything but their prosperity, ideology, religion, or cause. While I would not call them a new incarnation of the Know Nothings, I have to notice the similarities in their message and the way that they push their agenda. As for those among them who claim the mantle of Christ and call themselves Christians I am troubled, because I know that when religion is entwined with political movements that are based in repressing or oppressing others that it does not end well. As Brian Cox who played Herman Goering in the television miniseries Nuremberg told the American Army psychologist Captain Gustave Gilbert played by Matt Craven “The segregation laws in your country and the anti-Semitic laws in mine, are they not just a difference of degree?“

That difference of degree does matter, and there have been and still could be times when the frustration and anger of people, especially religious people can be whipped into a frenzy of violence and government sanctioned oppression by unscrupulous politicians, preachers and pundits. History is replete with examples of how it can happen. When I think of this I am reminded of the close of Spencer Tracy’s remarks in the movie Judgment at Nuremberg:

But this trial has shown that under a national crisis, ordinary – even able and extraordinary – men can delude themselves into the commission of crimes so vast and heinous that they beggar the imagination. No one who has sat through the trial can ever forget them: men sterilized because of political belief; a mockery made of friendship and faith; the murder of children. How easily it can happen. There are those in our own country too who today speak of the “protection of country” – of ‘survival’. A decision must be made in the life of every nation at the very moment when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat. Then, it seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy, to rest survival upon what is expedient – to look the other way. Well, the answer to that is ‘survival as what’? A country isn’t a rock. It’s not an extension of one’s self. It’s what it stands for. It’s what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult! Before the people of the world, let it now be noted that here, in our decision, this is what we stand for: justice, truth, and the value of a single human being.”

Who and what are we?

Peace

Padre Steve+

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Tagged as anti-immigration, anti-moslem extremists, ben carson, bowery boys, daesh, donald trump, islamic state of iraq and the levant, judgment at nuremberg, know nothing movement, louisville black monday, nativism, paddy hunts, plug uglies, politics of fear, ted cruz, terrorist attack in paris

November 18, 2015 · 07:00

DAESH’s True Believers

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Today kind of a pause for reflection. I have been working with the Staff College’s editor on an article for a professional journal, and that has been tiring. In 1919 T.E. Lawrence wrote a memorandum to the British Foreign Office warning of what we are seeing today: “A Wahabi-like Moslem edition of Bolshevism is possible, and would harm us almost as much in Mesopotamia as in Persia…” The self-proclaimed Islamic State, or better called DAESH is the fulfillment of that warning.

As I have said many times, I am a realist when it comes to human nature and the reality of the evil that human beings can do. I have been to war, and personally I can think of nothing worse than more war. For me war is part of the reality that I live with, and which I am reminded of every time I try to sleep. That being said, the war which has been going on for close to two decades is gaining in intensity and threatening to blow away what is left of the old “new world order.”

For most modern Americans and others living in the West, war is an often abstract concept regulated to small bodies of professionals fighting actions far away, of which we only catch occasional glimpses of on television or the internet. For most Americans and others in the West, modern war has become a spectator sport, and one far less interesting to most than either American or European football matches.

But in the chilling aftermath of numerous Al Qaeda and DAESH terror attacks that have spanned over 15 years, war has come to the west. The World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9-11-2001, the attacks on London and Madrid, and now Paris killed thousands of people. Of course this does not mention the hundreds of attacks committed by those groups in the Middle East and Africa. In the past two weeks nearly 400 people, almost all innocent civilians, have died in attacks in Paris, Beirut, and the Russian Metrojet airliner. Earlier in the year, Kenya, as well as incident after incident in places like Nigeria, and Mali. Of course, most of us in the west really could care less about the victims of DAESH and related groups in Africa or the Middle East. We have seen the videos of DAESH terrorists beheading aid workers and journalists, shooting mass numbers of prisoners, burning a Jordanian pilot alive in a cage, and throwing homosexual men off of tall buildings to their deaths. The accounts of their enslavement, rape, and forced conversion of women are too numerous and brutal to describe.

These attacks, coupled with the influx of massive numbers of refugees from Syria is bringing out the best and worst in us. If we are not careful we can find ourselves falling into the trap of imitating or e4xceeding the brutality of DAESH in order to win. Sadly the worst is how we are preparing to dehumanize and re-victimize people who have fled from DAESH, people who are victims of terror. I’ll leave aspect of the crisis that for the time being and probably return to it tomorrow.

The people of DAESH that we are fighting have embraced a fanatical cause, deeply rooted in a perverse understanding of their religion, but they are true believers. American philosopher Eric Hoffer described such people in his classic book The True Believer. Hoffer wrote:

“The fanatic is perpetually incomplete and insecure. He cannot generate self assurance out of his individual resources-out of his rejected self-but finds it only by clinging to whatever cause he happens to embrace. This passionate attachment is the source of his blind devotion and religiosity, and he sees in it the source of all virtue and strength. Through his single minded dedication is a holding on for dear life, he easily sees himself as the supporter and defender of the holy cause to which he clings….Still his sense of security is derived from his passionate attachment and not from the excellence of his cause. The fanatic is not really a stickler to principle. He embraces a cause not because of its justness and holiness but because of his desperate need for something to hold on to. Often, indeed, it is his need for passionate attachment which turns every cause he embraces into a holy cause. The fanatic cannot be weened away from his cause by an appeal to reason or moral sense. He fears compromise and cannot be persuaded to qualify the certitude of his holy cause. But he finds no difficulty in swinging suddenly and wildly from one holy cause to another. He cannot be convinced but only converted. His passionate attachment is more vital than the cause to which he is attached.”

Yesterday I outlined what I think is needed to overcome DAESH, and while the military aspect is just one component of that, it is still important, especially when dealing with the fighters and terrorists who are DAESH. Reza Aslan, the noted Islamic scholar understands the type of individuals fighting for DAESH batter than most people. He told CNN last year, “Number one, you do have to respond militarily to ISIS soldiers and fighters. These guys are fighting a war of the imagination, a war that they think is happening between the forces of good and evil. There is no negotiation. There’s no diplomacy. There’s nothing to talk about with these guys. They have to be destroyed.”

How to do this is another matter. I will touch on that topic soon, and discuss the potential dangers of such a war to who we are as a people, and to civil liberties and human rights.

Until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

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Filed under Foreign Policy, History, middle east, News and current events, terrorism, War on Terrorism

November 17, 2015 · 07:00

A New Grand Alliance to Defeat DAESH

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

We are now waking up to the fourth day in the next phase of a war that began too long ago, a war that too many people have been victimized by, which only is getting worse and more widespread.

Winston Churchill wrote, “If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.” That may seem an odd statement, Churchill made it in reference to the alliance with the Soviet Union to defeat Hitler in World War Two, but it bears a particular relevance to the situation that we find ourselves in with ISIL, or as they are also known, DAESH.

This is a follow up to my posts of the last few days regarding the attacks of Islamic State supporters in Paris and it will not be the last. French President Hollande has correctly noted that the attack was an act of war, and he promised that the French campaign against DAESH would be ruthless. Hollande and other leaders, including President Obama are now beginning to plan a coordinated strategy to defeat DAESH. That being said, any real strategy to defeat DAESH has to include more than a few partners, it must be truly a grand alliance.

I am a career military officer, an Iraq veteran and an anti-war liberal, but I am also a realist in terms of the world. I have no illusions about the world. I do not believe that the United States always acts with honor and I know in my heart of hearts that much of the chaos that we are seeing in the world, particularly the Middle East comes from years of misbegotten American intrigue and intervention. Of course the Americans were not the only ones involved in creating this mess, we can thank the French and the British for the Sykes-Picot agreement. That agreement and the subsequent post-war agreements artificially divided the Middle East based on British and French colonial interests and disregarded the traditional and historic interests of the people in the region. Those agreements also handed the Arabian Peninsula over to the House of Saud, rather than the more moderate Arabs that fought alongside the British against the Ottoman Empire. We can also thank the Russians for their contributions to the instability of the region, as well as the Israelis who in defending their interests have often made things worse. Finally we cannot forget the role played by many corrupt and despotic Arab leaders who have oppressed their people, and exploited their countries riches for their own gain. Finally, back to the Americans it was the ill-advised and criminal invasion of Iraq by the Bush administration that opened Pandora’s Box and unleashed what we now know as the Islamic State. Sadly, almost all the countries currently involved have had a hand in creating the monster that we know as DAESH and the Islamic State, and all should bear part of the responsibility for defeating it.

That being said, whether any of us like it or not we are at war, a war that has been going on in earnest since 2003. This is not a new war, it is simply DAESH’s continuation of the war that was declared by Al Qaeda, and that Al Qaeda Iraq fought against American, allied, and Iraqi forces from 2003 through 2011.

The genie of war is out of its bottle and it will not return on its own accord, and it will create more chaos, death and destruction, both in the Middle East, but also other parts of the world. The threats of DAESH need to be taken seriously and countered.

We have to understand that this war is not a movie, it is not a video game, and it has the potential to change all of our lives, and not for the better.

Likewise, the fight against DAESH will not be solved or won by military action alone. The falsehoods of the warn porn addicts who believe deploying ground troops without the support of the people in the region, nor dropping more bombs will win the war. President Obama noted correctly, in response to suggestions that large numbers of ground troops be deployed, “that that would be a mistake, because we would see a repetition of what we’ve seen before, which is if you do not have local populations that are committed to inclusive governance and who are pushing back against ideological extremes, that they resurface….” He is right for saying this because those who propose sending in large numbers of ground troops are not committed enough to the hard thing and fully mobilize the nation for war. Instead they would as they always do, put the burden of the war on an already worn out professional volunteer military force without being willing to work with other powers, even rivals that have an interest in defeating DAESH.

The full spectrum of national and international power must be deployed to fight DAESH. This includes the U.S., NATO, Russia, China, Japan, the Arab world, and even Iran. Yes, some of these nations are competitors and rivals, but all have a vested interest in defeating DAESH and all have capabilities that would be helpful in the fight. In the Second World War the President Franklin Roosevelt United States and Britain’s Prime Minister Winston Churchill allied themselves with the Josef Stalin and the Soviet Union in what was then known as the Grand Alliance to defeat Hitler. The Grand Alliance was a real world demonstration of the art of realpolitik. Realpolitik demands compromise and finding common ground with nations that we may not like. Those that practice realpolitik also understand that almost all alliances are temporary. This may be unsavory to idealists, but it is reality, and it is the only thing that will defeat DAESH. It is high time the world leaders to get real in combatting DAESH.

Military force seems always to be the first thing that people think of, and while important, it is not the only kind of power that must be used. If we are going to use military force, we need to work with our allies and commit ourselves to a massive use, on the order of World War II, and coupled with a massive new Marshal Plan for the Middle East. We must use diplomatic and economic power, intelligence and information, coordinate national and international law enforcement efforts, and seek to redress many of the wrongs committed against the people in the region.

Since I am a realist, I understand that whether I want it or not, that this war will most likely remain part of our lives, maybe for a generation or more. Honestly, if we do not make a full effort, I expect that a hundred years from now that young men and women will still be fighting this war. Most will have no idea how it began, even as their governments, corporations, and others make a steady profit off of the war.

I will continue this tomorrow with some thoughts on the civil liberties that we will undoubtedly lose as this war progresses. I think that I will write about the dangers of how xenophobic racists, and others who demonize all Moslems, and who want to punish all Moslems for the actions of DAESH, especially those who are the victims of DAESH who have fled to Europe and other areas to escape them. That is already beginning in this country.

But that is all for today,

Peace

Padre Steve+

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Filed under History, middle east, Military, national security, News and current events, Political Commentary

Tagged as adolf hitler, daesh, france, francois hollande, franklin roosevelt, isil, islamic state of iraq and the levant, josef stalin, middle east, Sykes-Picot Agreement, terrorist attack in paris, winston churchill

November 16, 2015 · 07:00

Hard Truth, War, & ISIL

The Imagined Caliphate of ISIL

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Please know this is a difficult article to write. I have been to war, I have seen its devastation and heartache and I came back changed from the experience. I hate it. That being said, despite being a progressive who hates war I am also a realist. I am not one that finds any romance or glory in war, but I know that sometimes it becomes unavoidable and sometimes necessary. I have written about the nature of war, the kind of war we are now engaged in with ISIL and some of the ethical and moral compromises that could easily be made in such a war. Thus what I write here is a continuation of those thoughts and I encourage you to look at those articles. That being said, I do intend on adding some more thoughts to this in the coming days.

I do not expect that all of my readers will agree with me. In fact I had a reader who took exception to yesterday’s article because he could not agree with the fact that the Bush administration’s criminal war against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was a major cause of today’s problem. He proceeded to lecture me that I was wrong, despite all of the evidence from Congressional hearings, the CIA, and other analysts that disproved his point. That is disheartening, but I expect that now.

That being said I know that there are people on the political right and the political left who will disagree with what I write today. All I ask is that people, regardless of their ideology actually read and take the time to think about what I write before they write me off.

I will be writing more on this subject in the coming days, including about the moral and ethical dangers, as well as the potential threat to our own civil liberties.

Peace

Padre Steve+

Over the past two weeks elements of ISIL have brutally slaughtered nearly 400 civilians outside of areas that they control. The attacks on the Russian airliner, Beirut, and Paris were committed against innocent civilians going about their daily lives. In the areas that they control in Iraq and Syria, where their brutality is unmatched in modern times. This is disconcerting for those of us that would prefer a peaceful solution to the current conflict. But it is the truth.

Despite having served in the military for over thirty-four years, I am not a warmonger, and I am not enamored with the supposed glory of war, or American military superiority. I hate war, but I am a realist. I am a historian with a considerable background in ethics, philosophy, sociology, and political science. I have experience serving with American advisers in Iraq’s Al Anbar province.

Since 2012 ISIL has invoked a reign of terror in the areas of Syria and Iraq that they control. Massacres of opponents, videotaped executions of captives, including humanitarian aid workers and journalists, ethnic and religious cleansing, the forced conversion of female captives with the added element of rape, before and after their capture and enslavement, the execution of homosexuals, and the destruction or religious, cultural, and historic treasures. ISIL is not seeking peace, but rather to destroy everything that they find abhorrent. They are no different than Christians, Jews, Hindus, and even Buddhists that use the police and military power of the state to persecute those who do not believe just like they do.

We must recognize the significance of the attacks of the Islamic State in the past two weeks. These attacks have killed nearly 400 civilians and wounded close to 400 more. ISIL is not targeting military targets, but innocent people; as such their actions are nothing short of criminal. If they were a real nation state, their leaders would be war criminals.

Islamic scholar Reza Aslan understands ISIL better than many people. Aslan told CNN last year:

“Number one, you do have to respond militarily to ISIS soldiers and fighters. These guys are fighting a war of the imagination, a war that they think is happening between the forces of good and evil. There is no negotiation. There’s no diplomacy. There’s nothing to talk about with these guys. They have to be destroyed.”

Let that set in for a moment.

That is not the opinion of an American or Eurocentric scholar; it is not the ranting of an Islamophobic pundit or preacher, but it is the opinion of a learned, moderate, Moslem scholar. As such it needs to be given a lot of credibility. Aslan’s comment takes me back to the words of General William Tecumseh Sherman during the American Civil War. Sherman, who had to deal with insurgents and other Confederate sympathizers who attacked his supply lines and isolated garrisons noted, “This war differs from other wars, in this particular: We are not fighting armies but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war.”

President Obama came into office as a President determined to end the wars that the United States was engaged in and usher in an era of peace. That did not happen. The genie of war and chaos that was unleashed when President Bush stopped pursuing Al Qaeda and attacked Saddam Hussein’s Iraq refused to go back into its bottle. Obama, dealt with the situation with quiet diplomacy and soft power. One cannot blame him. He was hamstrung by the financial crisis of 2008 which blew up just as he became President, as well as the consequences of the Bush foreign policy, and the deal that the Bush administration made with the Shia Moslem regime of Maliki in Iraq for the withdraw of U.S. troops. Since Obama took office, new and more violent terrorist groups have been spawned from the loins of Al Qaeda Iraq. Now, the dogs of war that have been unleashed on the region, which threaten all of the peoples who live there, and now have reached out to other regions.

I know that many of my readers are liberals, and progressives who lean toward pacifism. I am okay with that, because at my heart I am a pacifist, I have been to war, and I hate it. Even the must just war, waged for the best of reasons, and with right motives, still can bring about evil. The well-respected ethicist and philosopher Michael Walzer understands the moral, ethical, and legal aspects of war. He wrote in his book Just and Unjust Wars:

“We don’t call war hell because it is fought without restraint. It is more nearly right to say that, when certain restraints are passed, the hellishness of war drives us to break with every remaining restraint in order to win. Here is the ultimate tyranny: those who resist aggression are forced to imitate, and perhaps even to exceed, the brutality of the aggressor.”

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is different than Al Qaeda. It is a hybrid that will not be defeated by traditional means. ISIL is a terrorist group to be sure, but it is also an embryonic state, which is conquering territory, subduing people, butchering its enemies and murdering innocents in cold blood. The leaders of ISIL boast in their atrocities and honestly believe what they are doing is blessed by their God. They have grown up and been nurtured by a culture of victimhood which they believe that past or present oppression justifies their actions. Eric Hoffer wrote something that is quite poignant if we are to understand the mindset of ISIL:

“It is doubtful if the oppressed ever fight for freedom. They fight for pride and power — power to oppress others. The oppressed want above all to imitate their oppressors; they want to retaliate.”

The leaders and fighters of ISIL are 12th Century people living in the 21st Century. They make use of 21^st Century communications technology to further their crusade against all opponents. As Reza Aslan noted, they are incapable of negotiation, seeing it as only weakness and a way to impose their will on those unable to, or unwilling to resist them. Hoffer described their mindset well in his book The True Believer:

“A doctrine insulates the devout not only against the realities around them but also against their own selves. The fanatical believer is not conscious of his envy, malice, pettiness and dishonesty. There is a wall of words between his consciousness and his real self.”

Thus this war will be something different, something that we in the west do not want to comprehend. We want war to be neat, fast and comparatively bloodless, but this will not be the case in the war against ISIL. Such wars may be possible against traditional nation states with weak militaries. But to believe that war with ISIL will be neat, fast, and bloodless is wrong headed and dangerous because it ignores the nature of that group. Carl Von Clausewitz noted that:

“Kind-hearted people might of course think there was some ingenious way to disarm or defeat the enemy without too much bloodshed, and might imagine this is the true goal of the art of war. Pleasant as it sounds, it is a fallacy that must be exposed: war is such a dangerous business that the mistakes which come from kindness are the very worst.”

Ultimately, despite the fact that I almost always counsel that war should be avoided and peaceful solutions found to resolve conflict, there are times that wars must be fought. If ISIL were a true nation-state with a conventional understanding of diplomacy and the relationship between nations it would be conceivable that the United Nations or perhaps the Arab League could help broker a deal. But ISIL is neither your father’s terrorist organization, nor a real nation-state. It is a hybrid that is not driven by realpolitik but rather a fanatical religious belief in their cause. This allows them to dispense with diplomatic niceties and allows them no compromise with those they believe are the enemies of their God; including other Moslems.

Their war has been raging for some time in both Syria and Iraq. What they are doing is further destroying the mosaic of peoples who are part of the Arab heritage in both countries. The atrocities committed by ISIL against Shi’ite Moslems, secular Sunnis, Yidazi and Christians have been displayed around the world. Mass executions, beheadings and the destruction of historic sites, which are important parts of the Christian, Moslem, and Jewish heritage, are only part of their crimes.

The only condition for peace given by ISIL to those it considers the enemy is “convert or die.” Whether we like it or not, war is now unavoidable, the attacks on the Russian airliner, the citizens of Beirut, and the people of Paris show that.

Some politicians and pundits seem to think that this will be easy, simply destroy ISIL where they stand. But that belief is illusory. ISIL and its sympathizers may seem to be concentrated in Iraq and Syria, which is enough of a problem for us, but their supporters, financial supporters and sympathizers are worldwide. Interestingly Pope Francis noted: “Even today, after the second failure of another world war, perhaps one can speak of a third war, one fought piecemeal, with crimes, massacres, destruction….”

That being said there is a warning that all must remember about this war. It is at its heart ideological and for ISIL is driven by a perversion of religion. The war will be long, brutal and most importantly, the Islamic State believes that it can and will win it.

Winston Churchill said:

“Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events…. Always remember, however sure you are that you could easily win, that there would not be a war if the other man did not think he also had a chance.”

Thus in this war we cannot waver, and we must believe in our ideals of freedom, justice, equality and the value of a single human life. We must do this even though our own practice often makes a mockery of them. But they are still ideals that are worth fighting for, because without them we lose something of our already flawed humanity. Carl Clausewitz recognized this and wrote:

“If the mind is to emerge unscathed from this relentless struggle with the unforeseen, two qualities are indispensable: first, an intellect that, even in the darkest hour, retains some glimmerings of the inner light which leads to truth; and second, the courage to follow this faint light wherever it may lead.”

Barbara Tuchman said, “War is the unfolding of miscalculations.” For over a century the leaders of the West as well as Arab leaders throughout the region have miscalculated far too many times, and what is going on now is the tragic and bloody result of all of those miscalculations. The suffering and the human cost will be great. It was General William Tecumseh Sherman who wrote:

“You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out…

The young Union hero of Little Round Top at the Battle of Gettysburg, Colonel Strong Vincent wrote his wife about how he believed the Union had to defeat the Confederacy. His words were much like Sherman’s and in dealing with ISIL I would hope that the American, Iraqi and coalition forces will take them to heart in combating ISIL: Vincent wrote:

“We must fight them more vindictively, or we shall be foiled at every step. We must desolate the country as we pass through it, and not leave a trace of a doubtful friend or foe behind us; make them believe that we are in earnest, terribly in earnest…”

Sherman and Vincent’s words may sound unduly harsh, but ISIL knows no other kind of war.

Pray my friends for peace, but remember reality, peace is not possible when the kind of religious extremism that motivates ISIL is the driving force. That kind of ideology cannot be negotiated with it has to be defeated.

It has been a long time since we in the west have had to wage that kind of war and it will come at some cost to our psyche, and it will take some getting used to, if you can ever get used to the evil, the carnage, the suffering and the devastation that is the essence of war. As William Tecumseh Sherman said “War is Hell.”

To be continued…

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Filed under Foreign Policy, History, middle east, Military, News and current events, Political Commentary, terrorism, War on Terrorism

Tagged as al qaeda, bush administration, carl von clausewitz, eric hoffer, General William Tecumseh Sherman, isil, islamic state of iraq and the levant, just and unjust wars, michael walzer, pope francis, reza aslan, strong vincent, terrorist attack in paris, the true believer, winston churchill

November 15, 2015 · 07:00

The Lamps are Going Out: Paris & the End of the Illusion of Peace

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

It is barely a day and a half after the massacre committed by Islamic terrorists in Paris, and the shock is still being felt around the world. In watching the images and listening to the words of various leaders I feel that something has changed; that the illusion of peace that we have lived under, has been shattered.

In two weeks the self-proclaimed Islamic State has claimed credit for the downing of a Russian airliner over the Sinai Peninsula, an attack in Beirut Lebanon, and, on Friday night the horrific series of attacks in Paris. The combined death toll for the three attacks is close to 400, almost all of who were innocent civilians doing nothing more than going about their daily lives. Hundreds more were wounded in Beirut and Paris. ISIL has promised to conduct more attacks on all nations that oppose them in Syria and Iraq. The attacks have awakened people to the fact that ISIL is not just a threat to the Middle East, but around the world.

Some are now calling this war, and in fact it is, a war that most of us have ignored though it has been going on for over two decades. But in just two weeks, the hybrid terrorist state known as ISIL has changed the course of that war. The war as we know it began in the years after the First Gulf War as young Saudis returning from Afghanistan, led by Osama Bin Laden took up arms against the “infidel” Americans based in Saudi Arabia. In the 1990s the terrorism was confined to Al Qaeda attacks throughout the Middle East, and included attacks on American military personnel, installations, and ships. Then on September 11^th 2001 Al Qaeda changed the narrative by attacking the United States, killing nearly 3000 people at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and aboard four airliners. The United States responded by going after Al Qaeda and its supporters in Afghanistan.

Had the American response been contained to that action, the war might have taken a different course, and we might not be here today. But within months of 9-11 the Bush Administration began planning to attack Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and propagandizing the American people to support it, with or without allied or United Nations sanction. The operation to topple Saddam opened Pandora’s box, and who knows when we will ever live in peace again. Twelve years after President Bush announced the end operations in Iraq aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln with a banner that boldly proclaimed, “Mission Accomplished” behind him, the war that he unleashed in Iraq has spread in ways that even the most pessimistic critics of Bush did not predict.

With the war now entering an even more troubling and dangerous phase we should remind ourselves of the words of Winston Churchill, “Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events…. Always remember, however sure you are that you could easily win, that there would not be a war if the other man did not think he also had a chance.”

As I observe events on I am reminded of Barbara Tuchman’s description of Sir Edward Gray on the eve of the First World War, “Watching with his failing eyes, the lamps being lit in St. James Park, Grey was heard to remark that “the lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them again in our lifetime.”

Sadly, I do believe that the last lamps of peace are going out around the world in the fight against the Islamic State. I have no idea when, how, or even if this conflict will end.

Praying for peace,

Padre Steve+

7 Comments

Filed under Foreign Policy, History, iraq,afghanistan, middle east, News and current events, Political Commentary, terrorism

Tagged as 9-11 2001, al qaeda, barbara tuchman, isil, islamic state of iraq and the levant, mission accomplished, osama bin laden, president george w bush, sir edward grey, terrorist attack in paris, winston churchill

Category Archives: History

Sub Sighted Sub Sunk: The USS Ward & the First Shot at Pearl Harbor

In Harm’s Way

Dehumanization & Genocide

The Unfolding of Miscalculations: Syria 2015

Remembering JFK

Paris & the Return of the Know Nothings

DAESH’s True Believers

A New Grand Alliance to Defeat DAESH

Hard Truth, War, & ISIL

The Lamps are Going Out: Paris & the End of the Illusion of Peace

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