Hamas Not Using Hostages

A key defense of powerful nations that terrorize with their military is that civilian casualties are unavoidable because the real terrorists fight dirty using hostages. When Israel besieged Gaza last year they alleged that Hamas was using mosques and hospitals and schools as weapon storage lockers and stuffing them full of civilians in order to incite international outrage when Israel bombed those sites. According to the UN this was a lie. When Israel bombed these locations, the civilians were there, yes, but not the armaments.

Ken Silverstein interviews "Desmond Travers was one of the four members of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, which produced the controversial Goldstone Report":

We found no evidence that Hamas used civilians as hostages. I had expected to find such evidence but did not. We also found no evidence that mosques were used to store munitions. Those charges reflect Western perceptions in some quarters that Islam is a violent religion. Gaza is densely populated and has a labyrinth of makeshift shanties and a system of tunnels and bunkers. If I were a Hamas operative the last place I’d store munitions would be in a mosque. It’s not secure, is very visible, and would probably be pre-targeted by Israeli surveillance. There are a many better places to store munitions. We investigated two destroyed mosques—one where worshippers were killed—and we found no evidence that either was used as anything but a place of worship.

So Israel's justifications for targeting these locations proves to be baseless. Will people stop screaming "anti-semitism" now every time the subject of war crimes comes up in relation to Israel? Probably not.

Here's the thing about the hostage argument: if a madman is holding hostages in a building the solution to the problem is never going to be to bomb the building. Negotiate. Wait them out. Prepare to pounce when they make a mistake. Do not, under any circumstances, start lobbing grenades into the room with the hostages! Hamas was not holding hostages, but even if they had been it would be unconscionable that Israel launch an assault under those circumstances.

Yes the terrorists fight unfairly. Sure their tactics are designed to inflict maximum international pressure on Israel. So why give them more ammunition by bombing mosques and hospitals? It just proves there are two madmen in this situation and they are holding everyone else hostage between them.

But What Will Protect Us From Orthodoxy?

Aric just put up an insightful post pointing out the speciousness of the argument that orthodox doctrine will save us from catastrophe. I must ask the question, however - What will save us from orthodoxy?

It is a fallacy to claim that orthodoxy is necessarily, or even on balance, a force for good in the world. For the vast majority of the history of Christianity, orthodoxy has been a stated justification for preventing women from being ordained, warfare, assassination, torture, execution as "heretics" of whoever is inconvenient to the status-quo, slavery, imperialism, genocide, repression, censorship, and any number of awful things you can think of.

Now I'll be the first to support the claim that political and theological motivations are complex. Sex, money and political power are caught up in claims of orthodoxy - of course they are, and we can't lay bad stuff at the feet of orthodoxy alone. What we can do is easily look back in history to find loads ways that orthodoxy has been used as a justification for really horrific things. Far from saving us from catastrophe, orthodoxy has been an engine of catastrophe.

Is it without value? Not at all. But the idea that orthodox = good does not hold water after even a cursory glance at history. So even given a case where we can point out where orthodoxy has staved off disaster, we must also acknowledge places where orthodoxy brought disaster upon us, or was called upon to justify what we would now identify as evil.

Perhaps I should say "what passes for orthodoxy", since too often supposed orthodoxy seems so distant from Christianity as I understand it that I feel like my head is going to explode. It must be said, however, that moving toward orthodoxy does not mean moving toward good, and the orthodox have been villains (as well as, yes, heroes) many times in our past.

Doctrinal Orthodoxy Doesn't Work

People I like and respect, and even people I usually agree with, sometimes repeat this idea that a certain theological doctrine is important or correct or true or good because it will protect us from... (insert atrocity here, bonus points if it involves Nazis). The version of this argument which pops up most frequently in the circles I navigate is the one about Barth, Barmen, and the Confessing Church in Germany.

The story goes like this: liberal protestantism, infected with natural theology, a loose-cannon Holy Spirit, romantic progressivism, the relics of christendom, (or your favorite theological punching bag), sold its soul to the national-socialists and contributed to the Holocaust. Barth in a stroke of unmitigated brilliance saw the doctrinal roots of this problem and courageously spoke against it, helping to write the Declaration of Barmen and thus nipping that problem forever in the bud.

The moral of this story is that if your theology is not Barthian you are a Nazi (or will soon become one).

This is not a new story. It is the same story that has always been used to command doctrinal orthodoxy. If you don't hold the right ideas, you will be responsible for disaster x. The church has spent the past two millenia, for the most part, doing exhaustive historiography to support this idea. Every bad thing that has happened, ever, has been explained somewhere by a champion of all that is pure and noble as stemming from heterodoxy. Orthodox doctrine could protect us from all of this, they allege. The question which never seems to get asked is, "does it work?"

I mean, according to the orthodox, the right doctrine has been available for a long time and it hasn't changed. It's been out there. People have believed it. Lots of people. Did it work? Did it protect them from... whatever it is this stuff is supposed to protect us from?

Orthodoxy certainly hasn't succeeded in eradicating heresy. Every heresy the church has ever named is alive and flourishing today. There are probably more Arians and Unitarians in the USA today than Chalcedonians. There are definitely more semi-pelagians around than "saved by grace through faith" reformed-types. Orthodoxy doesn't eliminate or diminish heresy - it's the opposite actually. Orthodoxy is the ground-of-being for heresy and vice-versa. They can't live without each other.

Even if orthodox doctrine could somehow "protect" us from bad ideas - and there are plenty of bad ideas out there - so what? Who made it a priority to be protected from the intellectually inane and the logically laughable? Besides that isn't what people claim. People claim orthodox ideas can actually save us from life-threatening catastrophes like the holocaust. So show me, in practical, non-ideological terms, how orthodoxy has accomplished this in the past. How many Jews did Barth save because he had the correct theological insights? Where are the concentration camps that would have existed if it hadn't been for his courageous opposition to the heresies of German liberal protestantism?

Honestly. I'd love to see the proof. Show me how orthodoxy protects us from something deeply and obviously harmful. You can't use Hell, either. Why? Here's why: if you don't finish reading this sentence a meteor will fall out of the sky and crush you where you sit. Aren't you glad you read that sentence now? I just saved you from a terrible fate you can't ever prove wasn't going to happen if you hadn't done as I commanded. Be grateful.

For the most part, ironically, I am a pretty orthodox guy (yes in my own estimation the same as it is with anyone else). But I'm really tired, in theological discussions, of everything being cast in apocalyptic terms as if the consequences of disagreement were really anything other than the usual social awkwardness of realizing that reasonable people frequently come to different conclusions, and yes sometimes those conclusions are downright wacky. Wackiness, however, is not a credible cause of genocide.

Hey Look, It's the Theology of Violence

Prisons: My view from the outside

Prisons: My view from the outside

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San Quentin: View from the inside part 2

San Quentin: View from the inside part 2

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San Quentin: View from the inside part 1

San Quentin: View from the inside part 1

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Ecumenical update: "The big Crete meeting"

Ecumenical update: "The big Crete meeting"

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30 Republicans Come Out In Support of Rape

I just needed to post on this because it was so disgusting and, even for a cynical person like me who so often assumes the worst, it was still surprising. Apparently, 3/4 of the Senate Republicans are, to put it blankly, in favor of U.S. contractors writing fine print into their own contracts preventing rape victims from suing them.

These august Senators, in their wisdom, think that arbitration is probably the better way to go.

From the article I linked below:

Makes sense — after all, it's really important for rape victims and the companies that hold them in locked shipping containers while disposing of evidence come to an amicable settlement in a friendly, non-litigious atmosphere. Bonus points if that atmosphere is controlled by the company, as opposed to an impartial court. Because since outsourcing the Iraq war to Halliburton worked so well, we might as well outsource the settlement of rape claims to them too.

Read the story for yourself.

As is often the case, Jon Stewart is the moral voice here.

In case you are a voter, here are the names of the Republican Senators who voted against legal rights for a woman who was gang-raped and then locked in a shipping container by employees of a U.S. contractor who is receiving billions of dollars of tax money.

Alexander (R-TN)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Graham (R-SC)
Gregg (R-NH)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johanns (R-NE)
Kyl (R-AZ)
McCain (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Wicker (R-MS)

I wonder if any of these...people...have daughters? Or children at all?

I wonder, if their daughter (or son) was gang-raped and locked in a shipping container while evidence was destroyed, whether they would feel that arbitration would be the right way to go.

Well done, Senate Republicans. I didn't think I could still be desensitized.

My Letter to the PC(USA) Special Committee to Study Issues of Civil Unions and Christian Marriage

My Letter to the PC(USA) Special Committee to Study Issues of Civil Unions and Christian Marriage

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Part 1| Obama Addresses Gay Rights Group [Human Rights Campaign]

Worth checking out.

"You will see a time in which we as a nation finally recognize relationships between two men and two women as just as real and admirable as relationships between a man and a woman." -President BHO

Mutual forbearance, Presbyterian style

Mutual forbearance, Presbyterian style

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The No-Peace Prize

President Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. No one thinks he actually deserves it - even the White House speech writers. The Peace Prize Committee itself says they are awarding it more on his future potential than based on his peacemaking accomplishments thus far. They hope the award will spur him into living up to some of his promises. I hope they are right - I really do, but it seems like an epic fail at the moment.

We are only 9months into his presidency so I continue to hold out hope that he has some kind of long-game which will turn everything for the better but thus far Obama has been a disaster for the cause of peace. He has extended and expanded the war in Afghanistan. He has not pulled out of Iraq. Gitmo is still open and it looks increasingly likely that he will miss his own 1year deadline. Worse - he has aggressively fought in the courts for the continuation of all of the horrific Bush/Cheney policies including indefinite detention, extraordinary rendition, the legal blackhole at Bagram. He has tried to evade or demolish the Freedom of Information Act, he is pushing warrant-less wiretapping, he has continued embargoes on Cuba, and he made no progress on major peace promises from his campaign like nuclear disarmament. In fact, on issues related to war and terrorism his policies are virtually indistinguishable from the Bush administration.

Granted his rhetoric is very different from Cheney and friends, and I am not one who believes words are worthless. He has changed the climate already in foreign relations. America is much less reviled than it was a year ago. His diplomacy with Iran has already yielded tangible results. His negative stance on Israeli settlements in Palestine is a courageous shift from previous administrations. He continues to promise much and if he comes through with it then he may actually deserve this award, but he is nowhere even close at the present time.

Even if he were to end all our current wars and usher in the era of transparency he promised however, could he really be a credible dove? Could any president of the United States? We are the country that continues to spend almost as much on our military as the rest of the world combined. We sell about 70% of all arms worldwide. We are a perpetual warmongering state. Throughout the latter half of the 20th century and into the 21st we have moved continuously from war to war to war without break, all of them wars of aggression. We invade, we destabilize, we reconstruct, and we abandon country after country with undetonated mines, clusterbombs, and depleted uranium left behind in our wake to terrorize for decades. What would it take for the commander in chief of our military to actually qualify as any kind of peacemaker?

Conservatizing the Bible

Because the Bible has a well known liberal bias.

A project to authorize a completely conservative translation of the Bible is underway. Their goals include removing later liberal additions, emphasizing the "Free-market parables", and ensuring the hyper-masculinity of the text. I love people like this. They completely remove my need to create straw-men.

I'm curious though, will they rely on the past two centuries of liberal scholarship that has constructed the annotated hebrew and greek manuscripts now universally regarded as the best available source material? Maybe as true conservatives they should use the Vulgate and then they can just write a New King James Version. Oh wait, that already exists.

I Am Excited About This

Michael Westmoreland-White over at Levellers is starting a series on the Biblical basis of Christian pacifism. With all of the arguments over homosexual ordination and marriage, this is gearing up to be a series about something that I actually think is an essential praxis of Christianity - nonviolence. I always like MW-W's combination of rigor and passion, and am looking forward to seeing where he goes with this series on Christian pacifism.