Faith Perspective on War & Peace II

First Biannual Request for Support Subscriptions –

Working independently and without staff since inception on Faith Perspective on War & Peace these past four plus years leads me to attempt a new business model. Writing and working for peace should have some hope of making a small profit in our society. But incomes have thus far been significantly smaller than expenses. Magazine articles and speaking engagements have provided some inputs, but I've not tried to put any dollar amounts on this webpage. I’d like to now merge an old technology with this new one.

Rather than monetizing the space with disruptive ads, this is a request for support subscriptions of $10 per year made by check sent to this address—Michael McCarthy, Faith Perspective on War & Peace II, 2714 Stone St., Port Huron, MI 48060. Your check is your receipt.

Since I don’t indulge the “Comments” section, of the page, and the “google” hit count statistics vary widely and erratically, this will also give me a more direct idea of readership and level of interest. Please send any suggestions with payments, or to my email – mccpax@gmail.com.

Whatever the outcomes I’ll continue to try to write and illustrate informative articles that seek to unite on common ground the concerns of liberal, radical, conservative and devotional members of our churches and communities.

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Limits of Firepower in Libya, et. al. -- Blows Up in Our Faces -- Again

Lybian rebels celebrate in 2011 - file photo from current U K Gardian article

"The deadly network: Revealed - guns for sale on Facebook" - now too dangerous to have reporters there.

Headline in our local paper this Sunday: “Gun free-for–all in Libya fuels unrest.” Didn’t we win Libya in 2011?

Libya—lost. Just as in Iraq, we helped decapitated the despicable leader, only to find the bad guys multiplied like the heads of a hydra, each group armed with formidable weapons. And guys we deemed good and assisted through back channels to weaponize, now are bad—and we have to send in the special forces to keep them from stealing tankers-full of oil from their own powerless government.

When it comes to massive firepower and violence, there is a domino effect that goes well beyond politics. In the case of the “victory” of the rebel forces we supported in Libya the collateral damage fast spread to Mali a year ago, when some of the more zealous rebel forces returned home, now well- armed, and toppled their own government. As the 2-8-13 NYT stated then --

“According to the conventional wisdom of governments and arms manufacturers, well-coordinated arms exports can help strengthen vulnerable states, professionalize military forces and promote stability. In Libya, the opposite occurred, and the related dangers radiated outward. This presumed influx of weapons to Mali from Libya has in turn underscored the unwanted effects of a war supported by the West, and raised questions anew about why NATO and the allied militaries that helped defeat the Qaddafi military did little to contain weapons that foreign military intervention helped set loose.”

e have a weapons-based foreign policy. Might makes right, and as the world’s dominant arms merchant, we’re mighty right. But the guns and bombs we sell to one, become the recycled death machine of the other, and the only winner is war. We will never learn to make peace as long as we are the best at making war. War profiteers may appear to prevail.

But death will overtake us all, as warns James 4:13-16

Come now, you who say,
“Today or tomorrow we shall go into such and such a town,
spend a year there doing business, and make a profit”–
you have no idea what your life will be like tomorrow.
You are a puff of smoke that appears briefly and then disappears.
Instead you should say,
“If the Lord wills it, we shall live to do this or that.”
But now you are boasting in your arrogance.
All such boasting is evil.

There is a way out of the vicious cycle. “…it is in prayer that we encounter Jesus, who is our peace, and learn from him the way to peace.” #290 U.S. Bishops’ Challenge of Peace, 1983

References ---

http://news.yahoo.com/libyas-guns-free-fuels-regions-turmoil-074412594.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/08/world/africa/looted-libyan-arms-in-mali-may-have-shifted-conflicts-path.html?_r=0
U.S. SEAL Team Raids a Tanker and Thwarts a Militia’s Bid to Sell Libyan Oil - 3-18-14

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/18/world/middleeast/libya-oil-tanker.html?ref=world&_r=0

Plus ---
http://www.globalresearch.ca/cia-gun-running-qatar-libya-syria/5345464

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/10218288/CIA-running-arms-smuggling-team-in-Benghazi-when-consulate-was-attacked.html

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/10/25/was-syrian-weapons-shipment-factor-in-ambassadors-benghazi-visit/

Illumination by Kathy Brahney