As we approach this new year, we continue to work and pray, with the intercession of Blessed Franz Jagerstatter, who would not fight in Hitler's wars, for and end to the war mentality, at home and worldwide. I reprint here personal, and open letters sent in the past year to President Obama, in hopes that we can all begin to study, and invest in, the ways of peace--a much needed new year's resolution.
In addition to the four books cited at the end , I would now add "Peace in the Post-Christian Era," by Thomas Merton, just published after almost 50 years sequestration. In the reading of Merton's book, substitute "terrorism" for "communism" to reveal how little moral progress has been made this half century.
FEBRUARY 26,2009
DEAR PRESIDENT OBAMA,
OUR FAMILY WORKED HARD FOR YOUR ELECTION, TO END THE WARS IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN. PLEASE DON'T INCREASE ARMED FORCES IN AFGHANISTAN--WHY 30,000 MORE, WHEN >30,000 FOR 7 YEARS HAS BROUGHT ONLY GREATER CIVILIAN DEATHS, AND STRONGER TALIBAN? WE NEED TO COME PREPARED FOR 3 CUPS OF TEA, AND EXPAND THE EISENHOWER ROADWAYS IN AFGHANISTAN, THAT MADE THE USA RESPECTED DURING THE EARLY YEARS OF THE COLD WAR.
OUR BOOTS ON THEIR GROUND, AND KILLER DRONES IN THE AIR, ARE THE PROVOCATION FOR PROLONGED VIOLENCE IN THESE MUSLIM COUNTRIES. WE DESPERATELY NEED MORE WELL TRAINED PEACE CORPS, IN LANGUAGE AND CULTURE, SHARING APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY, NOT FURTHER INUNDATIONS OF WEAPONS EXPORTS & MILITARY BASES. THANKS FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION.
YOURS TRULY,
MICHAEL MCCARTHY
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AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA
November 24, 2009
Dear President Barack Obama,
As you consider new policy directions in Afghanistan, please consider this fundamental change in our national defense policy, starting with our role in Afghanistan. Thanks for your consideration.
STOP ALL FURTHER TROOP DEPLOYMENT TO UNWINNABLE WARS IN AFGANISTAN AND IRAQ—START RETURNING ALL SOLDIERS HOME
Unjust wars can never be ultimately won. America has been marshaled into unlimited premeditated unnecessary war. A War on Terror that daily creates more terror. 911 was perpetrated by Saudis, and we’re not about to invade there. Afghanistan was only to provide the excuse to invade Iraq and take its oil. The American public was to be softened up by a few quick victories there, then on to the real goal—Saddam’s oilfields. But eight years later we’re still bogged down, in both quagmires. Our soldiers were sent into combat by politicians acting as armchair generals, belligerent bureaucrats full of themselves and the beauty of single superpower status that they thought their responsibility to wield unrestrainedly.
Stop! No more troops should be deployed to unwinnable battles against whole populations. Support our soldiers, bring them home. Bring the conflicts to resolution by removing the occupation provocations. Time to look for real lasting solutions to the ongoing fatal confrontation between haves and have-nots in our world.
A first step is to thoroughly re-think the way we spend our time and resources. I suggest a national read/study/discuss program to include the elements outlined below. As my conservative Roman Catholic Republican mechanical engineer Dad would say, “Engage brain before opening mouth [and spilling forth contents of the public purse].
How big can we build the golden calf--Military Industrial Complex—before we feel the thunder from God’s mountain and suffer at the hands of our own folly?
Yours truly,
Michael McCarthy PA-C
Blue Water Pax Christi
Port Huron, MI 48060
mccpax@comcast.net
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{Leaflet distributed in front of the NYSE on 7-2-09, on moving my daughter to first job, in new Bldg. 7 of the Trade Towers}
FOUR BOOKS TO READ FOR THIS NEW MILLENNIUM—A CHALLENGE TO PUT FINANCIALS AT THE SERVICE OF THE GREATER GOOD
• Connect the dots from Wall St. to Washington’s Pentagon—Unjust wars have had a multiplier effect on fiscal irresponsibility, and our collective demise.
• We invaded Afghanistan and Iraq to fight terrorists who came from Saudi Arabia, and, more likely, to secure future oil access & profits.
• Our leaders have rallied us to fight an unending War on Terror with off-budget imaginary supplemental funds, unlimited public spending.
• Instead of sacrifice, citizens were urged to splurge, ramping up patriotic unsecured personal spending.
Let’s inform ourselves about the opportunity for deep and lasting change. Time for America to repent of devotion to the war industry, and fully invest in the future of our children, and the spiritual & material development of ourselves and all the world’s people. There are practical ways to do this—tools to create better life, discoveries to be made by removing our dependence on implements of destruction.
Please consider spending time with the books listed below. Read, think, contemplate, pray over the ideas presented by their authors. Discuss with friends, family, competitors and opponents. May God bless our efforts to discern the difficult yet effective way that leads to a true happiness that can be realized by all.
• The Three Trillion Dollar War by Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel prize in economics at Columbia University, and Linda Bilmes of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. The costs of the Iraq & Afghanistan wars, outlined herein, continue to escalate.
• Enough by John Bogle, a founder of Vanguard Funds. Like a grandfather, compassionate & conservative in his concern for his extended kin, the author pleads for a return to moral values in the financial marketplace. He contends there is also a calculated increased value to be gained, by investment, as opposed to speculation.
• The End of Poverty by Jeffery Sachs. By answering the Millennium Challenge the most developed nations’ focused investment in the least developed can give those countries the tools to work themselves out of poverty.
• Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson. A man who climbed mountains in Pakistan’s impenetrable tribal areas, now, listening to and sharing these Muslim people’s needs, builds schools, according to their design, that serve both boys and girls. They provide a real alternative to some madrases in these territories that recruit for Bin Laden. They exist through the will of local communities wanting a better choice—and finally being respected by an outsider.
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