blessed be the peacekeepers: a critique of american foreign policy

8/8/2019 Blessed Be The Peacekeepers: A Critique of American Foreign Policy

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BLESSED BE THE PEACEKEEPERS:

A CRITIQUE OF AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

(Major Kong Rides the Bomb)i

There once was a man who lived in Sudan. He prayed a lot and gave to the poor.

The country needed a road, so he built it, from Khartoum to Shendi and all the way

to the Red Sea. He was well-liked by the people; those who knew him said, He is a

good man, a holy man.ii He was polite and respectful, and he tried to make the

world a better place. Sounds like a pretty nice guy, right? Now what if this guy

happens to be Osama bin Laden?

Why did bin Laden take up the sword, and why did he find such support in Sudan?

There Bush is not well-liked, but Clinton is called Shaytaan.iii Satan? Why? They

say it is because Clinton was the one who bombed North Khartoum, iv landing

warplanes in the Muslim Holy Land along the way. Clinton either did not consider or
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did not care about the consequences of this action. From their standpoint Muslims

considered this a severe desecration. Shaytaans actions had long-term, negative

repercussions.

How It All Started

There is a single thread of history, and it is impossible to go back and see how

things could have been different. Would bin Laden have gone berserk if the U.S.

hadnt stationed thousands of troops in his holy land? Or armed and trained him to

fight off the Soviets from Afghanistan, and then left the war-torn country to rot? Or

had him kicked out of his own country, Saudi Arabia, and then Sudan, prompting

him to return to Afghanistan, where his group planned the 9/11 attacks?

This we cannot know. But much of Americas future our safety, our national debt,

our energy usage, our retirement, our childrens prospects will be shaped by our

foreign policy. Defense spending, trade, and foreign aid all influence the lives of

each of us. Again, it is impossible to say exactly how it is all related, but on the

other hand it is implausible to argue that it is not all related.

Lets take an example: Jimmy Carter and Iran. The deposed Shah was ailing, and

Carter let him into the U.S. This was a caring gesture, but it enraged Irans new

theocracy. Soon thereafter the Iranians took hundreds of Americans hostage. In

1980 Iraq invaded Iran, offering the U.S. an indirect angle for retribution.

Throughout the Iran-Iraq War the U.S. and NATO supported Iraq despite Iraqs

extensive use of outlawed chemical weaponry. The war ended in 1988, establishing

a fragile balance of power between Iran and Iraq. Shortly thereafter, Saddam

Hussein, saddled with over $130 billion of war debts, decided to invade oil-rich

Kuwait. The U.S. easily fought back the Iraqis, and stopped at the border. Bush Jr.


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blamed this for his fathers election loss in 1992, and in 2003 Bush Jr. invaded Iraq

and finished off Saddam. The fall of Iraq empowered Iran, who has since been

making severe threats against Israels very existence. If Iran and Israel go to war it

will be the conclusion of a long chain of events, from Bush Jr.s vendetta all the way

back to Carters admission of the deposed Shah.

Granted, these are not nearly all the factors involved (see the oil chapter for

instance). The point here is that if Carter turns the Shah away and acknowledges

the Iranian Revolution, maybe none of this happens. No hostages, no Iran-Iraq War,

no Kuwait invasion, no Iraq invasion, no nuclear Iran, and much less worldwide

animosity toward the United States. Can we blame all our ills on Carter and

Clinton? Sure we can. We could blame them all on Reagan and Bush, too. That

does not matter. The point here is that our leaders really, really need to think

things through before meddling in foreign affairs.v

What Just Happened?

How would Jesus have invaded Iraq? Well after the events this question burns fresh

and fierce. At the time the What Would Jesus Do? crew favored the war,vi but so

did over half the country.vii Thousands of casualties and a trillion dollars later we

can only shake our head and ask, What in the world just happened? This merits a

deeper look.

How can one prove one has no weapons of mass destruction? Can you prove you

have never committed a felony? You can prove particular instances, certainly, but

can you account for every second of your life, with corroborating witnesses?

Saddam was faced with a logical impossibility. Naturally, he could not prove he had


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no weapons of mass destruction, nor did he want to reveal this weakness and invite

invasion from Iran.viii As a result, the U.S. unilaterally invaded a sovereign, secular

regime, one that we greatly supported throughout the 1980s in its war against

fundamentalist Iran. Saddam was Reagans ally. In 2006 we wiped him off the face

of the earth.

More startling was the massive propaganda on the major networks. Even CNN (the

Communist News Network) flashed endless tickers of Saddams abuses Saddam

put his political rivals in acid baths, he gassed the Kurds honestly, was any of this

news? Saddam was the same ruthless autocrat he had always been. Why support

him in the 1980s and destroy him in 2003? And why does the press pound us with

propaganda instead of thinking critically and objectively?

The administration did its best to manufacture consent. Bush flat-out lied, saying

The British government has learnedthat Saddam Hussein recently sought

significant quantities of uranium from Africa.ix The most credible member of the

administration, Colin Powell, was sent to the U.N. to convince the world of this. An

aide estimated a $100-200 billion cost to the war,x then was quickly disparaged and

replaced. Joe Wilson was sent to Nigeria to link Saddam to uranium mines. In a

New York Times editorial Wilson went public with his belief that there was no such

link, nor could there be.xi One week later his CIA wifes identity was revealed, the

administration pleading ignorance behind a veneer of plausible deniability. The

fact that the administration took office with a plan to attack Iraq indicates the war

was a foregone conclusion,xii as former Treasury Secretary Paul ONeill attested.xiii

Certainly, avenging his fathers victory was strong in Bushs mind. But the rationale

for the invasion was concocted, weak, and misleading,xiv as millions of Americans

believed at the time. Yet where were the voices of dissent?


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The left is supposed to protect us from the right (and vice versa), so where was the

liberal criticism of the war? The far-left Friedman was a vocal supporter, and

remained so, arguing that it was necessary for the redignification of its people.xv

Liberal senators waffled. Senator Clinton voted to authorize the war; later she

offered a half-baked apology: Had I known then what I know now I never would

have supported it.xvi This argument is unacceptable. As leaders it is your job to

know before you go. None of the major questions were answered. Why attack Iraq

when Al-Qaeda is still in Afghanistan? Why undermine a secular counterbalance to

fundamentalist Iran? Why go to war against a weakened country that has a

miniscule chance of harming your homeland? Forget voices of dissent where were

the voices of common sense? As so-called intellectuals, the lefts unthinking

support brings their ideology eternal shame.

Yes, Saddam was immoral. But America cant invade a sovereign nation just

because an immoral regime is in power. Think of how many times we would have to

invade ourselves.

Our Moral Leaders

Morally, how is the U.S. invasion of Iraq different from the Kaisers invasion of

France, or even the Crusades? In all situations, contemporary religious leaders

provided divine justification for war. In ancient Christianity, the rise of the Just

War concept coincided with the institutionalization of the religion.xvii As an

apparatus of the state it was required to do so. Yet the Book of Matthew quotes

Jesus as stating that those who take the sword will die by the sword.xviii This applies

to institutions and countries as well as individuals.


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So what would Jesus have done? Lets consider noted biblical scholar and admitted

peacemonger Walter Wink. In his exegesis of turning the other cheek and walking

the extra mile, Wink describes a lawful, non-violent response that seizes power and

initiative. If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.xix Do you

know what this means? In the Jewish culture at the time, the left hand could only

be used for unclean tasks, not for gesturing or hitting people. Therefore the initial

blow was a backhand with the right hand; intended to humiliate, not to injure. If the

servant turns the other cheek the master cannot slap with the right hand or use

the unclean left; he must punch with the right, which would be an act among

equals. Therefore turning the other cheek is not an invitation for more abuse; it is

an act of non-violent resistance that demands equality and respect. Likewise, under

law the Roman soldier could only force a civilian to carry his pack for a mile.

Walking a second mile forces the soldier to take back his load or risk legal

prosecution. In a third parable, if someone would take your robe, give him your

undergarments as well. Nakedness was taboo, and brought more shame on the one

causing the nakedness than on the naked person himself. Again, this response

undermines oppressive, illegitimate authority.xx The problem with these analogies

is that we are the soldier, we are the aggressor. Inconveniently, the formative

Christians believed the world was about to end, so they did not leave guidelines for

the contingency of world domination. Saddam was perhaps a threat to our

overseas oil interests, but he posed no threat to us. Of course, some might say

Wink grossly distorts the meaning by taking it in context. What do real church

leaders say?

Public church leaders supported the war, some even calling it a new Crusade. The

religious peacemongers lost the war of words.xxi How would Jesus have invaded


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Iraq? Simple. Massive aerial bombardment followed by a heavy cavalry blitzkrieg

then infantry to clean up whats left. You dont need to be a born-again to figure

that out.

In Sum

If youre keeping score at home your humble narrator is accusing Bush of

destroying his family name by trying to save it and Carter of causing three wars by

an act of Christian charity. I am accusing the moral right of immorality and the

intellectual left of stupidity. Did I miss anyone?

Today the U.S. has troops in 130 countries and many entangling alliances (case in

point, if Georgia had joined NATO we would have been at war with Russia in 2008).

If our country truly believes in freedom and self-determination, why do we have

such an interventionist foreign policy? This is the height of hypocrisy. The cold war

is over. Why do we have 75,000 troops in Germany?xxii It is time to bring these

brave soldiers back home. This would greatly diminish the number of terrorist

attacks (see Lebanon, early 1980s) and make the world a safer place.

George W. Bush advocated this position in the 2000 presidential debates: Im not

so sure the role of the United States is to go around the world and say, This is the

way its got to be.I think one way for us to end up being viewed as the ugly

American is for us to go around the world saying, We do it this way; so should

you.xxiii Bush spoke out for a humble foreign policy, not a heavy-handed policing of

the world. Say what you will; that man would make a fine president.

Alexander and the Pirate


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Once a great pirate was captured and brought before Alexander the Great.

Alexander asked him, What is your reason for infesting the seas? The pirate

replied, For the same reason you infest the earth! But because I have one ship I

am a pirate; because you have a large fleet you are an emperor. The pirate was

executed, of course. His point, however, has lived for millennia. Both Alexander

and the pirate acted the same; the difference was one of degree and power. Put

simply, might makes right.

In the ancient world, what was the difference between civilization and barbarism,

orthodoxy and heresy, the elect and the fallen? The power of the pen. All religions

began as cults, and whichever cult fought off the others the Gnostics, Ebionities,

Marcionites, Arians, and pantheists that strain became the one true religion. Its

scholars then rewrote history, marginalizing its competitors and positioning its

triumph as inevitable, divinely ordained. As Berger & Luckmann put it, He who has

the bigger stick has the better chance of imposing his definitions of reality.xxiv

Today the U.S. is the most powerful country in the world. Compare U.S. GDP versus

the 2nd-largest economy (Japan) from 1986 to 2006.xxv Measure the size and

sophistication of the U.S. war machine against anything the world has to offer.

Consider how much the U.S. dominates global discourse. The U.S. loses thousands

on 9/11 and the world bows in mourning. How many Palestinians die each year?

We dont even know that does not even make the news. Consider how little we

made of Saddams torturing in the 1980s, how much we made of it in 2004, and

how little the world has made of U.S. torturing the last few years. (Who even talks

about Jose Padilla, who confessed to planning to set off a dirty bomb after being

subjected to various forms of torture: noxious fumes, sleep deprivation, drugs,

death threats, extreme cold?xxvi Honestly, after three years of that, who wouldnt


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confess?) Today there is no check to our power; if you openly attack the U.S.

government they will have you on the waterboard faster than you can say, habeas

corpus. There is no question - the U.S. is Alexander.

Where do we go from here? Do we continue to hold the world in fear? Do we

destroy our enemies and attempt to shape a world in our own graven image?

Is the U.S. so great that we should force the rest of the world to be like us? With our

national debt, hate crimes, political corruption, disparity of wealth, drug addictions,

rampant obesity, and forgotten people are we the best of all possible worlds?

Maybe just maybe others might not want to live like this. If we truly believe in

liberty, why not respect the principle instead of imposing it on others? And even if

others choose to trade liberty for their traditions or their belief system, the

difference between them and us is one of degree. We have given up plenty of

freedoms we succumb to the police, we let the government take our earnings, we

limit our activity and speech constantly. This we all accept as the price to not live in

anarchy. But next time we unilaterally invade a sovereign nation lets not lie and

say it is in the name of freedom. It is in the name of power and our own self-

interest. Dont pee down their backs and tell them its raining.

Part Two:

Out of Africa

Slowly and painfully, we are seeing worldwide acceptance of the fact that the

wealthier and more technologically advanced countries have a responsibility to help

the underdeveloped ones. Not only though a sense of charity, but also because

only in this way can we ever hope to see any permanent peace and security for

ourselves.xxvii


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So helping alleviate suffering in the world also promotes peace and makes our

country secure thats a comforting notion, isnt it? Yunus notes the global

consequences of not doing so: Poverty and powerlessness are breeding grounds

for terrorism.xxviii For this and other reasons many individuals and organizations

feel the urge to help, donating over a trillion dollars to Africa alone.xxix

Sadly, by many measures Africa is worse off today than it was forty years ago.

Africas real per capita income is lower in 2008 than it was in the 1970s.xxx In 2009,

300 million Africans lacked enough food,xxxi and roughly half of sub-Saharan Africa

lives in abject poverty.xxxii

Theroux lived there in the sixties and visited again in 2005. He describes the

changes in bitter tone: Africa is materially more decrepit than it was when I first

knew it hungrier, poorer, less educated, more pessimistic, more corrupt, and you

cant tell the politicians from the witch doctors. Africans, less esteemed than ever,

seemed to me the most lied-to people on earth manipulated by their

governments, burned by foreign experts, befooled by charities, and cheated at

every turn. To be an African leader was to be a thief, but evangelists stole peoples

innocence, and self-serving aid agencies gave them false hope, which seemed

worse.xxxiii

This is a scathing critique of everybody involved. Why did good intentions go bad?

What are the processes at work? Regarding the concentrated delivery of aid, a

certain trend emerges.

The Golden Bough


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How would you like billions of dollars? All you have to do is depose the current

dictator. You are justified he is terribly corrupt, and he oppresses his people. Your

people need help, and you are the one who can save them. If you could better your

country and get billions of dollars for your trouble, why would you not?

If you are game, you would make a fine African charity-based dictator. The money

is intended for the people, but if you are simply handed billions of dollars, how

virtuous and abstemious would you be? Would you spend some to keep the

peace, fortifying your government against the next revolution? Naturally, you

would have to distribute some among your allies and ministers to reward their

loyalty in the past and ensure it in the future. Of course, you may want to use the

rest for the poor, but honestly, once you get the money it is yours. What you do

with it is entirely up to you. Think about it: when this happens in real life - when

you get some money in your pocket - how often do you immediately give it all

away? And what is more, if you did fix all of your peoples problems, the stream of

aid would stop. You would lose those billions of dollars, and with it the power to

protect your people from crazy insurgents. Who among us has the fortitude to do

that?

Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. The chief aim of power is to

sustain itself for as long as possible. This phenomenon is encapsulated in the myth

of the Golden Bough.

One could spend an entire academic career investigating the Golden Bough. Its

applications are manifold, perhaps universal. For present purposes, take it as a

story of ambition, envy, strife, and ultimately death. Very simply, a king guards a

bough of gold. His life is wholly directed to this task because possessing the Golden


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Bough has made him king. The king is ever-vigilant, watching and preparing.

Rivals will inevitably come, drawn by the Golden Bough and the prestige it brings.

No matter how many challengers the king wards off, eventually he will be slain and

replaced, just like his predecessor and successor. The king is dead; long live the

king.

Foreign aid is the Golden Bough. Its concentration of power makes it a self-

interested, self-perpetuating institution that defeats its own purpose. Which is why

foreign aid foments conflict. The prospect of seizing power and gaining access to

unlimited aid wealth is irresistible.xxxiv How many examples do you want?

Somalias unrest is largely a fight over large-scale aid.xxxv In the Ethiopian civil war,

aid extended the war by feeding the people, which freed the government to focus

on the war. In terms of leadership, Zaires President Mobutu stole about $5 billion,

the entire external debt of his country.xxxvi Nigerian President Sani Abacha stole the

same amount. These are not isolated examples. The World Bank admits as much

as 85% of aid flows are diverted and perverted, like power station funds going

toward a brothel.xxxvii Yet Zambian President Mwanawasa embezzled $80 million

from the World Banks Heavily Indebted Poorest Country (HIPC) program, which

requires its recipient countries to be free of corruption.xxxviii Again, the system is

incentivized to fail the more corruption; the worse the people are; the more aid is

required. The classic example of this is Zimbabwe.

Fifty years ago Zimbabwe was the most prosperous country in Africa. Then its

dictator Mugabe decided to appropriate all the white farmers land and give it to his

cronies.xxxix The cronies did not bother to farm the land and the economy collapsed,

necessitating a small flood of foreign aid - $300 million in 2006 alone.xl The worse

the country became, the more aid it received. The more aid it received, the more


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Mugabe and his cronies were able to destroy their own country. This vicious cycle

spiraled so far the hyperinflation was downright silly: by September 2009 three

trillion Zimbabwe dollars was worth 50 cents bus fare.xli

Thus, foreign aids concentration of power and corruption reduced the strongest

country in Africa to one of the weakest. Foreign aid is a permanent drip feedxlii

sustaining dictators and detracting from long-term development. It incentivizes

corruption and placates the masses who might otherwise rise up and depose the

regime that is starving them.

Please Just Stop

So what is the answer? Go around government and use NGOs?

Theroux cites example after example of African aid projects gone wrong. In Sudan,

he saw a school with no teachers, water, or food;xliii in Ethiopia were fancy yet

unusable duplexes;xliv in Kenya, an empty schoolhouse but an overcrowded bar;xlv in

Tanzania, defunct apiaries;xlvi in Malawi donor bulldozers exacerbated the mudslides

they were meant to mitigate;xlvii all over donated T-shirts and mosquito nets drove

out local businesses.xlviii

What do these all have in common? They were all done from intermittent charitable

acts, not an ongoing relationship. Concomitant with the Golden Bough

phenomenon is that of liberalisms oxymoron, or Dutch Disease; i.e., the more

you do for others the less they do for themselves. Like an overload of natural

resources that drowns out industry and initiative, so too does charity foster a

culture of dependency. As Moyo describes, aid is endemic. The more it

infiltrates, the more it erodes, the greater the culture of aid-dependency.xlix This


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act and its intermittent, disjointed, inefficient application make the people worse off

than they were before. Kenyan economist James Shikwati beseeches, For

(heavens) sake, please just stop.l

These acts stem from bad theory and lack of accountability. The urge to give is

often sequestered by religion, yet such calls by our spiritual institutions, moral

leaders, and pop stars cloud the issue. They hold that whether you call it tithe,

zakat, alms, or goodwill, it is good to give, not that it is good to help the poor out of

poverty. The poor are viewed as objects, recipients of aid, not subjects, with whom

to work out of poverty and toward a better world. We throw them scraps from our

table of plenty. It is a school here, a road there, some food for a year or two; it is

never a holistic, thought-out, engaged approach to alleviate poverty itself. Aid

effectiveness should be measured against its contribution to long-term sustainable

growth, and whether it moves the greatest number of people out of poverty in a

sustainable way.li

We see the hungry and want to feed them. That is a natural, healthy inclination.

Yet that impulsive reaction is often unhelpful and sometimes disastrous. Moyo (or

Fergusen?) shrewdly notes the conversation about what to do with Africa has been

colonized by white Westerners just like Africa itself was colonized two centuries

before.lii Scarcely does one see Africas (elected) officials or those African

policymakers charged with the development portfolio offer an opinion on what

should be done, or what might actually work to save the continent from its

regression.liii Theroux says the same: No Africans are involved.liv Consequently,

much of this one-sided conversation speaks out of ignorance. Did you know, as

Armatya Sen writes, that famines are rarely caused by a lack of food?lv Or, as

microfinancier Muhammad Yunus writes, The fact is that there is plenty of money


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in any country to lend money to the poor?lvi Few of us know exactly what is going

on in these places. That is why when the West sees a problem and shows up with a

Western solution, it is doomed to fail.

The Conclusion Comes Into View

We have had enough of the twin evils of kill them all, let Jesus sort them out

versus will somebody please think of the children? This is a false choice. In logic,

it is a complex question, like, On your descent into hell, do you want to have a

chocolate or vanilla ice cream cone? Whether you answer chocolate or vanilla you

tacitly admit you are headed to hell. Is that the choice you want?

Foreign charity has been a disaster. Trying to police the world will bankrupt our

country. There must be better ways.

For a moment, remove morality from the equation. The purpose of defense

spending is to defend the country. From a purely economic standpoint, what is the

most efficient deployment of capital?

Think about Charlie Wilsons War. We spent billions on CIA actions and nothing on

CAI actions. If we had overcome aids self-serving solipsism and helped Afghanistan

rebuild and stabilize, we wouldnt have had to come back. This would have been

much cheaper over time. Likewise, the trillion spent on Iraq could have made the

U.S. energy independent, undermining the petrodictators and strengthening

national security. After a trillion dollars of aid, Africa is a poorer, more dangerous

place than it was forty years ago. Instead of improving the world through

development and cooperation, we focus on military bodybuilding: the U.S.s $1

trillion annual national defense budget is almost as much as the rest of the worlds


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combined.lvii Clearly, the current ways are not working. The only people benefitting

are charity owners, defense contractors, and dictators. The people themselves are

forgotten.

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Footnotes


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i Major Kong Rides the Bomb: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcW_Ygs6hm0

ii Paul Theroux, Dark Star Safari (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2003) 71.

iii Theroux 73.

iv Theroux 58.

v See Michael Scheuers Imperial Hubris; summarized at

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/scheuer1.html

vi Religious leaders favored the war:http://erlc.com/article/the-so-called-land-letter/

vii USA Today poll:http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-03-16-poll-iraq_x.htm

viii Secular regime: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1097288.html

ixLearned:http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/01/print/20030128-

19.html

x Bush Economic Aide Says Cost of Iraq War May Top $100 Billion. The Wall Street Journal,

9/16/02, pp. A1, A8.

xi What I Didnt Find In Africa: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/opinion/06WILS.html?

pagewanted=1

xii War was a foregone conclusion:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/09/04/september11/main520830.shtml

xiii Paul ONeill: http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/13/oneill.bush/

xiv Misleading rationale: http://www.americanprogress.org/kf/priraqclaimfact1029.htm

xv Yes, redignifcation:http://www.slate.com/id/2093620/entry/2093763/

xvi Had I known then: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2006/12/hillary_clinton.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcW_Ygs6hm0http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/scheuer1.htmlhttp://erlc.com/article/the-so-called-land-letter/http://erlc.com/article/the-so-called-land-letter/http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-03-16-poll-iraq_x.htmhttp://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-03-16-poll-iraq_x.htmhttp://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1097288.htmlhttp://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/01/print/20030128-19.htmlhttp://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/01/print/20030128-19.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/opinion/06WILS.html?pagewanted=1http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/opinion/06WILS.html?pagewanted=1http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/09/04/september11/main520830.shtmlhttp://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/13/oneill.bush/http://www.americanprogress.org/kf/priraqclaimfact1029.htmhttp://www.slate.com/id/2093620/entry/2093763/http://www.slate.com/id/2093620/entry/2093763/http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2006/12/hillary_clinton.htmlhttp://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/scheuer1.htmlhttp://erlc.com/article/the-so-called-land-letter/http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-03-16-poll-iraq_x.htmhttp://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1097288.htmlhttp://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/01/print/20030128-19.htmlhttp://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/01/print/20030128-19.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/opinion/06WILS.html?pagewanted=1http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/opinion/06WILS.html?pagewanted=1http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/09/04/september11/main520830.shtmlhttp://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/13/oneill.bush/http://www.americanprogress.org/kf/priraqclaimfact1029.htmhttp://www.slate.com/id/2093620/entry/2093763/http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2006/12/hillary_clinton.htmlhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcW_Ygs6hm0


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xvii The latter by Constantine, the former by Augustine, both in the 4th Century C.E. See J. Denny

Weaver, noted in Walter Wink, The Powers That Be (New York: Galilee Trade, 1999) 90. Even by

this standard Iraq fails: the war must be formally declared; it must be a last resort; prisoners

must be treated humanely; etc. (Wink pp 132-133).

xviii Live by the sword, die by the sword: http://bible.cc/matthew/26-52.htm

xix Book of Matthew verse 5:39b.

xx See Wink pp 101-106. If we do not understand what turning the other cheek really means, how

many more parables do we not understand?

xxi Peacemongers statements: http://lutheran_peace.tripod.com/statements_on_iraq.html

xxii See Ron Paul, The Revolution (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2009) 179.

xxiii Paul 11.

xxiv Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality(New York: Doubleday,

1966) 109.

xxv 1986: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_gdp-economy-gdp&date=1986; 2006:

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_gdp-economy-gdp&date=2006

xxvi Paul 121.

xxvii Sir Edmund Hillary Schoolhouse in the Clouds, quoted from Mortenson p. 53.

xxviii Muhammad Yunus, Creating a World Without Poverty(New York: PublicAffairs, 2007) 117-118.

xxix Dambisa Moyo, Dead Aid(New York:Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009) xviii.

xxx Moyo 5.

xxxi 300 million lacked food: http://www.agra-alliance.org/section/news/chairman_speech

xxxii Moyo 5, also see p. 47.
http://bible.cc/matthew/26-52.htmhttp://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_gdp-economy-gdp&date=1986http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_gdp-economy-gdp&date=2006http://www.agra-alliance.org/section/news/chairman_speechhttp://bible.cc/matthew/26-52.htmhttp://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_gdp-economy-gdp&date=1986http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_gdp-economy-gdp&date=2006http://www.agra-alliance.org/section/news/chairman_speech


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xxxiii Theroux 1-2.

xxxiv Moyo 59.

xxxv Moyo 60.

xxxvi Moyo x.

xxxvii Moyo 39.

xxxviii Moyo 53.

xxxix Appropriate the land:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/09/22/zimbabwe.farmers/index.html?eref=igoogle_cnn.

Also see Theroux p. 350.

xl Moyo 147.

xli Bus fare:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090816/ap_on_re_af/af_zimbabwe_zimdollar

xlii Theroux 292.

xliii Theroux 74.

xliv Theroux 113.

xlv Theroux 165.

xlvi Theroux 254.

xlvii Theroux 294.

xlviii

Theroux 194, also see Moyo p. 44.

xlix Moyo 37.

l Paul 99.

liMoyo 45.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/09/22/zimbabwe.farmers/index.html?eref=igoogle_cnnhttp://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/09/22/zimbabwe.farmers/index.html?eref=igoogle_cnnhttp://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090816/ap_on_re_af/af_zimbabwe_zimdollarhttp://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090816/ap_on_re_af/af_zimbabwe_zimdollarhttp://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/09/22/zimbabwe.farmers/index.html?eref=igoogle_cnnhttp://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090816/ap_on_re_af/af_zimbabwe_zimdollar


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blessed be the peacekeepers: a critique of american foreign policy

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