Tag Archives: capitol police

February 11, 2021 · 14:59

The Impeachment Prosecutors Open: The defendants denounce the law under which their accounting is asked. Their dislike for the law which condemns them is not original. It has been remarked before that: “No thief e’er felt the halter draw with good opinion of the law.”

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I watched the second day of Donald Trump’s second Impeachment trial transfixed by the masterful way in which the House Impeachment Managers presented the documentary evidence and connecting the dots from the election night until 6 January. I struggled to think of a title for the article because the evidence was so overwhelming and massive it was hard to find just one thing.

The evidence is so overwhelming that if this were a normal criminal trial the defense attorneys would be doing all they could to make a plea bargain deal. But this is not a normal criminal trial and a large part of the Republican Senators serving as jury has sworn their undying fealty to Trump and will not honor either their oaths to the Constitution or the one they took as impeachment jurors. There is no crime evil enough for many of them to hold him accountable for his actions.

I was reminded of the closing arguments of Justice Robert Jackson at the major War Crimes Trial of senior Nazi leaders by the International Military Tribunal. In his closing Jackson said:

The defendants denounce the law under which their accounting is asked. Their dislike for the law which condemns them is not original. It has been remarked before that:

“No thief e’er felt the halter draw with good opinion of the law.”

Many of those involved in the insurrection before during and after said that they were acting on the orders or invitation of Donald Trump. They called the police defending the Capitol “fucking traitors” as they violently assaulted them, even using the Thin Blue Line Flags, symbols of support for police to assault individual police officers.




The images of the attacks by the terrorists were connected with his tweets in real time on that day, including threats against his own Vice President were starting. Watching former Vice President Pence, Senator Mitt Romney, dozens of Senators barely avoiding potential death from the angry mob which was calling for the deaths of Pence, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others which repeating his tweets by megaphone in real time to further enrage the mob. During the assault at least five people died or were killed, including Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, mortally wounded the attackers who slammed a fire extinguisher into his head. Two officers committed suicide in the following days, 140 more police officers were wounded. How any American could not hold the twice impeached former President responsible for his role over many months beginning before the election to radicalize his base into following his command to come to Washington on 6 January for a “wild time” which he further incited to attack the Capitol that day, something based on his previous orders they came to fulfill.

Trump wanted Pence, Pelosi, Romney, Liz Cheney, Chuck Schumer and others dead. It was a deliberate attempt to seize the Capitol and assassinate them and others. Had it not been for the courage of the outnumbered Capitol and DC Metropolitan Police, the former Vice President, many Senators and Representatives would have been killed, the Capitol taken, the Electoral College certification stopped, and Trump proclaiming himself as President.

But the House Managers were very smart to trace the insurrection back to Trump’s actions before the election and after. In the sixty days after the election, beginning at 2 AM on election night. It was then that the former President spent spinning lies and conspiracy theories about how the election was being stolen from him, and inciting violent revolts and threats against the attorneys general of several states, and elections commissioners at state and county level who were then still engaged in counting votes and in which some states would involve multiple recounts none of which changed the results.

Despite that Trump’s legal teams fired off a volley of over 60 factually and legally unsupported lawsuits which were shot down by Republican majority State Supreme Courts, US District, Appeals, and even the United States Supreme Court. Undeterred, Trump continued trying to overturn the votes, including trying to force the Attorney General Georgia, on 2 January to find the exact amount of votes to make him the winner or the race. On Wednesday Georgia announced that Trump is now being investigated on criminal charges for trying to influence the results of the election.

In spite of all those facts Trump continued to incite his followers. He told them to “walk to the Capitol” and “fight like hell”. In a fiery speech lasting over twenty minutes he urged them to fight more than 20 times, while only once telling them to be peaceful. He described how the election had been stolen and that in such a case “normal rules do not apply.” 

Within an hour Trump knew his private army was already inside the Capitol because even Republican Senators and Members of the House were doing all they could to get him to stop the attack. In fact 14 minutes after the terrorists breached the Capitol and Mike Pence and his family was being evacuated by his Secret Service detail Trump tweeted:

“Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!”

It was hours before a joyful Trump who thought the insurgents had stopped the . When he finally released a prerecorded statement he told the  insurgents “we love you” called them “patriots” and told them to “go home in peace.”

I will not go into the full timeline and events. I could but the presentation of the Impeachment Managers, Congressman Jamie Raskin, Delegate Stacy Plaskett, Congressman Eric Swalwell, Congressman Joaquin Castro, Congressman Ted Lieu, Congresswoman Madeline Dean, Congressman David Cecilline, and Congressman Joe Naguse is so damning, so overwhelming that I cannot top them.

Instead I simply put one 39 minute segment of the evidence presented by the impeachment managers at the top of this post. However, these is so much more.

Watching the events took me back to Iraq in 2007-2008 and one of the boarding missions I was on during the UN Oil Embargo on Iraq in 2002. I never believed that in my lifetime that I would see an American President attempt to overthrow an election defeat and urge his supporters to commit violence when all legal means had failed.


But besides his direct attack on our Constitution, Republic and democracy before the election until 6 January is just one of many crimes that he and his administration could be prosecuted. I am thinking of the deaths of over 400,000 Americans from COVID-19 a deadly virus that Trump knew as early as a year ago was deadlier than many people thought, but then undermined every effort to contain it or help its victims.


Then there was the treatment of refugees and would be immigrants on the United States – Mexican border including the separation of families, locking children in cages without adequate sanitary or living conditions, and the alleged forced sterilization of women in the custody of the Immigration and Naturalization service and Border Patrol in private prisons on the border, his support for far right racist and White Nationalist extremist groups including Neo-Nazis in actions all over the country which have included attacks on Synagogues, Mosques, and Black Churches.

Likewise the use of heavy handed and brutal police assaults on mostly peaceful Black Lives Matters Protesters, while ignoring looters taking advance of those demonstrations to commit crimes. The most egregious of these was led by the former President himself in broad daylight in Lafayette Park where massive numbers of Metropolitan Police, US Marshals, and numerous other Federal law enforcement agencies backed by the National Guard with active duty Army units in reserve attacked unarmed people doing nothing more than singing or chanting near St John’s Church. The attack on the protesters was notable for its lack of restraint and the President, Attorney General, Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff being involved. The SECDEF and Chairman of the JCS quickly distanced themselves from the attack and condemned it, but few others in the Administration or GOP Senators or Congressmen raised a single protest.

On Friday the former President’s defense team is planing on showing videos of BLM protestors, but more focused on the criminal looters in order to draw a moral equivalency argument. They will also show videos of House and Senate members calling for justice after the race based murders of Black Americans by police and ordinary citizens. But none ever called for an attack on the Congress, the White House or the deaths of their opponents. They insisted that the justice system from local police, sheriffs and prosecutors to the Department of Justice obey the laws against unreasonable force and violence. That will be their argument beginning Friday. They will show rioters and burning buildings but not put them in context. It will be like how the Nazis used the Reichstag Fire to seize complete political and police control and shut down opposition political parties and publications.

Sadly, that tactic may work because it plays to the inherent and often violent racism of the GOP base, and many Senators lack the moral, physical, and political courage to confront that base. Of course there are some in the Senate many in the House, and even more in the State and local GOP that are completely on board with all of this, and even now are censuring, banishing, and challenging any GOP office holder that is that 100% in for Trump. This is not the Party of Lincoln, Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Reagan or either Bush. Instead it has become a fascist, racist, theocratic, authoritarian party committed to destroying the Constitution, our Republic, Democracy, and institutions. Despite their election loss they will continue to overthrow the Republic through legal and violent means, just like Hitler’s Nazis.

As a scholar of Weimar, the Nazi Era, the Holocaust and all of the Nuremberg Trials I do not make such comments flippantly, but only in the gravest situations. Trump and his political supporters have sown the wind and our national and people are now reaping the whirlwind that President Trump is most responsible. If he is not found guilty it will green light future Presidents and elected officials to do the same or worse. Police were murdered, 140 wounded, lives threatened, our Capitol building, a symbol of liberty around the world was desecrated.

This impeachment trial is not over, but the great trial facing our country has just begun. The violence is not over.

Until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

 

10 Comments

Filed under authoritarian government, civil rights, civil war, crimes against humanity, History, leadership, national security, nazi germany, News and current events, Political Commentary, racism, Religion, terrorism, US Presidents

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

January 18, 2021 · 15:37

“There are only two sides to the question. Every man must be for the United States or against it. There can be no neutrals in this war, only patriots – or traitors” The Words of Stephen A. Douglas and Padre Steve for Today

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Sorry I have not written in the past few days but I’ve been trying to sort out all that is going on in our nation between the relentless Coronavirus 19 Pandemic and the threat to our Constitution and Republic posed by the domestic terrorists, so-called militias, White Nationalists, Neo-Nazis, fascist authoritarians, Conspiracy theorists, QAnon thugs, and Christian theocrats dedicated to the person of Donald Trump. Their assault on the Capitol, Congress, and Vice President Pence should have exposed Trump and these thugs to his anyone and the criminal he is. However, according to an AP poll some 80% of Republicans and identified Trump supporters refused to admit that he was responsible in any way for that terrorist assault that he organized and cheered before, during and after it.

Now instead of a normal celebratory inauguration the Capitol is locked down with about 25,000 National Guard troops and countless Federal police from a multitude of Federal Law Enforcement agencies. Meanwhile around the country similar precautions are being taken due to the FBI assessment of potential violence of these violent Trump Cultist groups attacking Statehouses, Governors mansions, and other government offices, Federal, State and local. I personally expect them to make attempts to seize military weapons and equipment from National Guard armories as well as Army and Marine Reserve Centers not located on actual military bases.

We are not in a good situation. We face raging pandemic coupled with the very real threats of declared enemies, weakened alliances, a crumbling economy, and a tremendously unstable and narcissistic sociopath President capable of unleashing any destructive and dishonorable actions in his last few days in office cannot be underestimated.

Thankfully nothing happened over the weekend outside of small protests by armed protestors in a number of state capitols. That doesn’t mean that there have not been upticks in chatter about possible attacks, but it is possible that the response of the FBI in identifying and arresting the terrorists who attacked the Capitol and killed and wounded Capitol and Metro Police, the investigations by Congress, the Capitol Police, and FBI into the real possibility that Republican members of Congress, staffers, and members of the Capitol Police might have aided the attack.

Likewise the strong the stand of senior military commanders ad the deployment of thousands of National Guard troops and units, 25,000 in Washington D.C. alone and thousands in State Capitols might have acted as a major deterrent despite the threats of some of the terrorists to begin another Civil War. They banners they flew in their attack on the Capitol showed just that. They are not conservatives even though many call themselves Republicans. The are anti-U.S. Government radical extremists who hate the Constitution, its limits on Presidential power who are willing to kill to overthrow the government. That is demonstrated by history.

They are anti-United States Government, so long as they hold the Presidency, and absolutely committed to overthrowing it if they don’t hold it. These traitors bet their all on Donald Trump to be their Führer and savior. But Trump failed. He sent them into an attack and the abandoned them. So long as they think he has a minute chance they still might storm the Capitol Wednesday and attack soft targets in other states. But with just a few exceptions over the weekend they remained curiously silent, as if waiting for another order to attack.

That being said given the opportunity or a word from Trump they might might make another attempt before he leaves Washington or to cause death and destruction at the inauguration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. That too is a real possibility given the situation, there are some who have gone so far down the road of sedition and treason that they cannot turn back. Their only recourse is violence now, or violence later once they think they have a better opportunity.

I think that there is the possibility of both, but their failed Coup D’tat encouraged  by Trump and his surrogates for weeks failed and  more and more are being caught up charged, jailed and paraded before the world to see might tamper more large assaults. The more dangerous threats now are against individuals they identify as their enemies or raids or attacks on soft government targets, be the Federal, State, or local. That would include National Guard Armories and Army, Marine, or Navy Reserve Centers not located on an actual military base but those in the community where they might get inside help to seize military weapons. An up-armored HUMMV was stolen from a National Guard armory in Bell California over the weekend. Most of these armories or reserve centers have very few personnel on duty on non drill days, and an insider could facilitate the theft of weapons and vehicles that would facilitate further large or small scale attacks.

After Biden takes office I am more concerned about small terrorist cells or individuals making assassination attempts, kidnappings, and other violence against individuals or specific targets they believe to be vulnerable and which would send a statement. Terrorists of every kind resort to such tactics when defeated at the ballot box or military force. Our own history or Reconstruction and it’s subsequent defeat by Klansmen and other racist paramilitaries used such violence as to ensure that President Rutherford Hayes ended Reconstruction and threw newly freed and no enfranchised blacks to the wolves not only in the South but the entire country. After the failed Kapp Putsch and Bier Hall Putsch German right wing terrorists used individual assassination tactics throughout the 1920s instead of insurrection.

Like I said at the beginning of this article I apologize for not posting sooner. Even though I started this article days ago I had to wait complete it.

As always I have been getting threatened and harassed by Neo-Nazis, White Supremacists, and Christian Taliban and dealing with them and real life has been exhausting and I just didn’t have the energy to complete it.

Likewise, I put out a post on my Facebook page that if I found out that any member of my family or friends took part in or supported the attack on the Capitol that I would turn them in. Shortly after a cousin who I have sparred with many times because of his attacks on me his theocratic fascist beliefs, and unremitting support of Trump dropped and blocked me from his Facebook account.

I cannot prove it yet, but I believe that he might have be a conspirator or participant in this plot to overthrow the government. I plan on contacting the Norfolk FBI field office to let them know of my suspicions. I have his contact info and a recent photo to help the in their investigation. If he wasn’t involved I would be surprised.

Some would same that family ties should be stronger, but for me loyalty to the country, Constitution, and our democratic norms matter more. I cannot sit by and allow the Union to be overthrown by seditious traitors, regardless of the are family or friends. The American Civil War pitted brother against brother and so such threats against our Union pit me against anyone who threatens it.

I can only echo the words of Senator Stephen A. Douglas after he lost the 1860 Presidential election to Abraham Lincoln because his former Southern Democrat friends decided to splinter the party and torpedo his Presidential campaign by supporting a second Democratic ticket headed by James Buchanan’s Vice President and former Kentucky Senator John C. Breckinridge. Douglas, knowing he lost toured the South to try to convince Southern Democrats not to rebel or support secession. For doing so he was condemned. When the Confederates fired on Fort Sumpter, Douglas who had spent most of his political career brokering compromise said:

“There are only two sides to the question. Every man must be for the United States or against it. There can be no neutrals in this war, only patriots – or traitors”

Douglas, a man who had spent his entire career to further compromise with men who refused to do so finally recognized that the secessionist traitors were just that, and that there was not way to describe them as anything else. He was absolutely correct. Those who assault our Capitol, kill and injure police officers defending it, and calling themselves “Patriots” are not Patriots or freedom fighters. They are domestic terrorists, insurrectionists, and enemies of everything our founders believed was right and true. Honestly, I don’t care if the are blood relatives or long time friends. Anyone who attempts to overthrow this Union is my enemy. I did not spent nearly forty years in uniform swearing my sacred Oath to the Constitution not to tolerate or resist attempts by anyone regardless of their relationship to me to overthrow that Union and Constitution. I might be retired now, but I will remain faithful t my oath, and if any group ever launches an insurrection against the United States I will volunteer to my new State, the Commonwealth of Virginia and the Federal Government to serve to defeat it, not as a Chaplain but as a line officer in any component of the State or Federal military who will accept my service. With my experience as a company commander, battalion, group and brigade staff office before I was ever a minister, and my advanced military education I could command a company, battalion, or regiment of volunteers willing to fight for the Union.

I am angered by the insurgents and terrorists who turned their backs on the Constitution and our country to support the Coup by Trump and his Cult to overthrow it on 6 January. They are traitors. If anyone I know or are related to or served alongside supports their attempted overthrow of of our Republic and Constitution, they are my enemy. There is no room for compromise. There are only two sides now.

So until Tuesday I wish you the best. I have to finish an article for the German newspaper Die Zeit about pastoral for the dying in mass casualty and pandemic events where combat triage, that is treating those most capable of surviving first and giving palliative care to those who cannot. The. I have to finish my photograph credit section of my book Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory! Racism, Religion, Ideology and Politics in the Civil War Era and the or Continuing Importance, to send to the publisher and my agent by Wednesday.

I have more work to do after that, but I won’t stop writing or telling the truth. I know too much about these people to from previous associations with them and listening to their propaganda three to nine ours a day before I went to Iraq. I feel for it from the time I was a teenager and while never an extremist by any means I never spoke up against the lies and conspiracy theories until I came back from Iraq in 2008 to find out that most of the GOP, and other supposed conservatives neither cared about the international law that we as a nation established against war crimes at Nuremberg, the country or people of Iraq, or the military personnel sent to either conquer, subjugate, or occupy that unfortunate country. By May of 2008 I knew the GOP war party had betrayed all of us. They bankrupted the nation, abandoned the troops, and the people of Iraq who initially welcomed us as liberators only to find that we were not liberators but another in a long series of occupiers, from the Assyrians, to the Persians, to the Greeks, the Sunni forces of Mohammed, the British and finally us. I saw the suffering there, I met our friends and allies, and I saw the destruction that we did to that country. If we were held to the standards of the Nuremberg trials our nations leaders would have easily been convicted of the crimes that we charged convicted, and either jailed or executed the Nazis for their crimes. With the exception of committing genocide our leaders and military forces could have been convicted of three of the four counts we convicted the Nazis.

So now, some 57 hours before Joe Biden and Kamala Harris take their oaths as President and Vice President and former President Trump holds some kind of seditious rally when he trundles down the steps of Air Force One for the last time, without any military honors as he departs Washington D.C. he doesn’t deserve any honors of any kind. He has again been impeached and this time he may well be convicted. Likewise, he is going to face a multitude of State and Federal charges. I hope that he is put in the dock and convicted of every one of them. He needs to spend the rest of his natural life in prison as a traitor to the United States, as do many of his violent seditious followers.

So, until Tuesday, peace, be safe, and turn in anyone suspected of attempting to overthrow our Republic, Constitution, or those who want to do harm to our validly elected leaders.

Again I apologize for my delay in writing.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2 Comments

Filed under civil war, Coronavirus 19 Pandemic, crimes against humanity, ethics, faith, History, iraq, laws and legislation, leadership, Military, nazi germany, News and current events, Political Commentary, US Presidents

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

July 27, 2011 · 01:19

A Tuesday in DC: Lunch with a Dear Friend and a Night walk through the Monuments

Today was another good day, in fact really good day at the conference I am attending with the George Washington Institute for Spirituality and Health.  At lunch I was able to spend some time with my former commanding officer at Marine Security Forces.  It was good to see Mike again.  He and I went through some very trying times together and I treasure his friendship as well of that of his family.  I think that of all the commanding officers that have served under which have included some incredible men that he was the best.  We are a lot alike in many ways both rather cerebral and out of the box thinkers. We basically are the same generation as far as military service goes, when he was a young Marine Corps Officer I was a young Army Officer.

We reminisced about the way the country was back then how our leaders still worked together and even if we disagreed with the policies of those in the opposing party that we still knew that we were Americans and that at the end of the day we were friends.  I guess that Mike and I are dinosaurs now; we tend to look at the big picture and both being career officers of the same generation have seen the country change. We both entered the military during the Cold War and after the loss of Vietnam.  Our teachers were the men that served in that war, those who came home to a then hostile country.  Neither Mike nor I are service academy types nor the products of conservative military schools, Mike went to Harvard and attended Navy ROTC and I went to a California State University School, CSU Northridge and took Army ROTC at UCLA.  We both come from strong yet tolerant religious traditions and were influenced by chaplains early in our careers.  Mike’s academic background is Economics mine Theology and Military History and both of us hold advanced degrees in those subjects.  We both graduated from the Marine Corps Command and Staff College.  We have both served overseas and in combat.  We love our country and treasure our military service and that of the men and women that we have served with over so many decades.

I am honored that Mike will administer the Oath of Office when I am promoted on September 1st at Harbor Park in Norfolk Virginia.  By the way Mike loves baseball too and being from Boston he is a Red Sox fan.  His dad, a die hard fan died a few months before the Sox broke the “Curse of the Bambino” in 2004. My dad died a few months before his San Francisco Giants won the World Series in 2010.

Talking with Mike today made me think back to a time when things were not like what they are now, where political opponents were simply opponents and not “the enemy.”  I shared with Mike the terms the German Military used in the Second World War to describe those that they fought against.  The Western Allies were “die Gegener” or simply opponents and for the most part the German military observed the Geneva Convention and Laws of War when fighting the Americans, British and French.  However with the Soviet Unionit was different.  The Soviets were “Der Feind” or the enemy.

As divided as we were in the 1970s and 1980s there was still a modicum of respect for the other side and ability to work together when we needed and Mike brought up the relationship of Ronald Reagan and Thomas “Tip” O’ Neill, vigorous political opponents who remained friends.  However there is today and has been for the past 20 years or so for members of the extreme wings of both major parties to identify their opponents as “enemies.”  The language difference is significant. An opponent is a adversary that you hope to defeat but there is not a hatred involved and when the competition ceases the opponents remain friends and even colleagues even as they prepare for the next “game” so to speak.

Enemies are another matter.  To be an enemy is to assume that the other side poses an existential threat to your side or your agenda.  Thus there can be no compromise and the opponent is not simply to be defeated but destroyed and annihilated much like the Old Testament when the Israelites were commanded by God to kill everything even the babies and pregnant women.  So much for being pro-life but I digress….

Today we are more divided than any time since the Civil War, blood is boiling and if there is compromise it will be a mere truce until the next round of political bloodletting which if we are not careful may become actual bloodletting and the enemies allow their unbridled hatred of each other spill out into open conflict.  Such affairs never end well and if we remember our history our Civil War’s military conflict was over in a few years and yet with the relatively primitive weapons of the ay killed more Americans than any other conflict.  The after effects well, frankly Scarlett took over a hundred years to recover from and I would dare posit that some believe that the war is not yet over.

Tonight I went to dinner alone cancelling my plans to head out to watch the Nationals play the Marlins. I needed the time and solitude and somehow a trip on the DC Metro seemed the last place that I would find it. I walked to the Gordon Biersch where I had dinner, drank a few beers and watched the Orioles beat the Blue Jays.  After dinner I detoured from my normal route back to my campus housing which takes me in front of the White House.

Amid the lights and the amazing splendor of the buildings adorned with American and District of Columbia Flags I walked and simply observed people.  Tourists from across the nation and the world were taking pictures, business people and government workers hurried about, vendors hawked their patriotic wares, mostly made in China I might add or snack foods.  Here and there a protester sought to draw attention to their pet cause, there is the anti-nuclear weapons protestor that has been camped across from the White House since 1981, people demanding to see the Birth Certificate, those protesting for the removal of various Arab dictators and others peppered about. Capitol Police and Secret Service officers were out in force and amid the fortress like surroundings of many government buildings and the offices such as the World Bank and major business and financial institutions armed police and private security stood watch with cameras watching every move.

When I passed the White House I was rather down.  So I decided to walk the monuments that adorn the Capitol Mall.  I passed the Executive Office Building and Washington Monument and crossed the street to the World War Two Memorial.  At each place I paused before I continued to walk into the night.  I then stopped by the Korean War Memorial and the Vietnam War Memorial, the stark reminder of the men and women killed and missing in that war as well as the rip in the fabric of the nation that I am not sure we have ever gotten past.  I then went and paused before the Lincoln Memorial and I thought of the immortal words spoken by President Lincoln in his Second Inaugural Address shortly before he was cut down by a bullet fired by John Wilkes Booth.  They are words of reconciliation spoken even while Americans fought Americans in the last months of the war.

Fellow-Countrymen:  At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.” If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

As I walked through the warm and humid night air I imagined what it must have been like for officers of the United States Army, Navy and Marine Corps as the nation split in 1861 with many Southerners leaving the service to enter the service of their own states.  Many tearful goodbyes were spoken by men that had served together in war and peace and on the lonely frontier of the nation, men who in a few moths time would be commanding American armies and killing their fellow Americans.  My family fought for the South being from Virginia.  I cannot say that I would have done different like them and so many Southerners or if like General George Thomas of Virginia I would have remained with the Union incurring the wrath of his family for the rest of his life.  Since I have never taken my Oath lightly I can only imagine that I would have done what Thomas did even if it meant the loss of family.

Today I fear that even if our leaders can avert a default on or debts that they have now set the stage for worse I the coming months and years. The open hatred and contempt of our leaders for one another and the ideas that each stand for has wounded the nation more deeply than any default or government shutdown could ever do. This is not simply partisan discourse it is a deep enmity and hatred that has not been seen in this country for 150 years.  If cooler heads do not prevail soon the damage may be irreparable and the consequences more terrible than we can imagine and why anyone would willingly continue down this road is beyond me, but hatred does terrible things to people and nations.

Since it was nearing10 PMI hailed a taxi by the Lincoln Memorial.  I entered into a conversation with the driver, an immigrant fromMoroccowho has been in the United States22 years.  I mentioned my concern and he was far more hopeful than me. He said he believed that a shutdown would be averted.  I love immigrants especially recent ones who have left home and family to become Americans.  My dad’s side family has been in this country since 1747 and my mother’s even longer.  It was inspiring for me to hear this man still be in awe of this nation despite all of our troubles. When I left the cab I thanked him, gave him a decent tip shook his hand and in my woeful Arabic said “Assalamu alaikum” or peace be unto you.

As a historian I tend to see the dangers in what is happening in our country and I do have legitimate concerns, but when I hear the words of hope and awe that this country engenders in those who come here to be free I hope again in spite of myself.

Peace

Padre Steve+

1 Comment

Filed under History, leadership, Military, philosophy, Political Commentary, remembering friends

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,