Reflections on Military Intervention
It is clear that humanity is not yet ready to follow
the more challenging road of peace. This
cannot be expected at this stage.
Political institutions will continue to act as they have throughout
mankind’s history until the necessarily underlying change of consciousness is
accomplished.
It is important in times like this to understand
this basic truth, so as to not become disappointed or discouraged by the lack
of progress. It is certainly true that
retaliatory wars lead to a dynamic that makes it ever more difficult to
disengage and begin a process of peace.
It is also true however that the experience of mutual suffering can
bring both sides eventually to a state of “exhaustion” within which a ready
alternative may find a voice.
That alternative is to bring about an understanding
of the global dynamic and interplay between societies and ideologies, including
the world religions, that help us see what causes this
kind of fanaticism on all sides.
Certainly the Islamic people have suffered
enormously from Christian attack since the time of the Crusades more than 1000
years ago. They have not forgotten that
the terms of that warfare included the destruction of villages, along with
innocent women and children. They see
today’s world in many cases through this lens of history.
When they then look around at the actions of the
West, they see a malevolent force bent on world domination, gaining increasing
power through technology and economic strength.
They see this force using “any means necessary” to achieve its ends,
with no respect for honor or integrity.
They look at the historic process of slavery, genocidal warfare and
colonization undertaken by the European cultures to bring subjection to Africa,
India, the Middle East, China (to some degree) and of course, the American
Indian.
They see the treaties made by the Americans with the
Native Americans and they see the historical disregard of those treaties when
they no longer suited the American purpose.
The Sioux were granted the
They see the strong-arm tactics used by modern day
American civilization to export our “culture” to every corner of the globe,
while they see the tremendous toll this culture is taking on their traditional
ways of life and society. Their attempt
to wall off and prevent this is strongly disputed and penalties are exacted.
They see Americans living “fat and happy” while
their people are at a basic subsistence level.
While 35% of the people on the planet have no access to electricity,
Americans illuminate the night and burn fuel and create electricity on a scale
that is unsustainable if the rest of the people engaged in it. They see 5% of the world’s population
consuming more than 60% of the resources and creating more than 60% of the
pollution. And they see this obviously
exploitative culture using “any means necessary” to maintain its power and
gluttonous, wasteful
lifestyle. Everywhere else in the
world, the masses of humanity live a life of severe suffering, in some cases
directly caused by the inordinate and wasteful actions of the West. They see the climate changing due to global
warming, creating unprecedented droughts or floods and untold suffering. They see their own governing process
manipulated and controlled by the West for its own ends and goals.
I know that Americans are for the most part blind
and oblivious to these and similar issues and I know we would like to see
ourselves as somehow peace-loving, open-hearted people who rush to help those
in need at the first sign of trouble.
And of course, we have those characteristics as a people, despite the
machinations of the ruling class which governs this country, and which
manipulates us as well as the rest of the world.
It is similar to the idea that our armed forces bomb
people from 50,000 feet and never see any of the suffering. Similarly, the automatic actions of our
“god-given” right to exploit the planet and use all its resources and pollute
it, cause suffering we do not see nor understand.
If we for a moment put ourselves in the shoes of
those who undertake the kind of terrorist actions we recently saw, we can see
that they are fanatically devoted to the idea that our culture and its actions
are destroying their own people and the world, and they see us as a cancer on
the planet. Within that context, they
are prepared to sacrifice their individual lives to achieve a long term goal of
defeating this power before it destroys the planet.
If we understand this dynamic, it becomes very clear
that the idea of military retaliation has very little long-term benefit to
achieving real and stable peace. As long
as the underlying imbalances and mechanisms remain in place, the oppressed
people of the world will always find a voice.
The true solution comes about by our first recognizing how we are seen
by others around the world and finding ways to begin to address both the issues
of our past and those of our present to build a more harmonious and mutually
beneficial future for all of humanity.
This involves first an open acknowledgement of our
failures of the past and an act of true contrition in humility to accept that
the issues about which our society needs to make some amends are real. Then we need to specifically begin to address
the imbalances so that all the people and cultures on the planet can truly
co-exist in harmony with each other and the environment. This will certainly involve commitments and
changes with respect to our wasteful and arrogant use of resources and creation
of pollution. Further, it may involve
making commitments to some of the specific peoples who have been most directly
affected by our past history, such as returning the Black Hills to the Sioux
(The US Supreme Court even declared at one point that this was one of the most
egregious transgressions of fair-dealing it had ever seen!), providing real
reparations to Africa, while leaving the people there free to choose their own
lives and destiny with that support, providing real and free opportunity and
support to the Black people of this country who continue to be suppressed even
though they are “free”, because we cynically freed them without providing them
the basic underpinnings of success in this society through education, economic
power and the ability to create their own cultural identity based on their
historical roots.
There are probably dozens of ways we can reach out
and acknowledge that we don’t have all the answers. One of the most important will be to engage
in a process with the other countries of the world to address the world’s
concerns on a true multi-lateral basis, and rather than withdrawing from the
process and expressing our arrogant disdain for that process as has occurred in
the recent months (and which is a contributing cause to the dramatic increase
in tensions that has now broken out into military actions on both sides), we
should begin to hear the concerns of others and begin to address them, not with
the mind of a “superpower” but with the heart of peace and mutual well-being
that in fact is a basic potential characteristic we see in the American people.
There are of course risks we have to take in this
process, as we have a heavy karmic load to deal with. The good parts of our karmic past will help
us through this process, but there is no “painless” way out.
The question then comes down to whether by
destroying this particular network of opponents we have in fact achieved any
balance, or simply created hatreds and motives of revenge and “holy war” that
will haunt us for generations to come.
It has been seen all too often in the history of civilization that the
winning of the peace is much more difficult than the winning of the war.
If
It is clear that
This involves active recognitions as cited above
about our karmic load and our starting on the actions to bring about an
open-hearted spirit of humility and love.
In the end, it is only through a change in consciousness at this level,
that true peace can ever be achieved. It
is in times of extreme tension and stress and darkness that people begin to
open their hearts and minds to other opportunities and begin to reflect to some
degree. Thus, it is in times of darkness
that we have the greatest possibility of light.
So instead of becoming discouraged by the rabid military psychology that
has seized our country at this moment, we should recognize its inevitability,
and begin the process of true healing and understanding for the long-term
future.
Sri Au
I am not speaking here as a pacifist, nor as a
militarist; rather more as a practical seeker of real peace. I am simply pointing out the specific steps
we can begin to take, individually and collectively, to begin to move us beyond
the mentality of the vendetta and toward a future of peace and harmony.
Santosh Krinsky