Tag: Paul

Know Your Enemy: Even Jesus Did This – Religion and Empire

While Sun Tzu said:

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

Jesus said:

“Love your enemies,
Do good to them who hate you.”

But do notice, in pragmatic terms, Jesus made himself scarce around the religious elites who were out to get him and his small band. He too encouraged the selling of a cloak (coat) to purchase a sword (gun) for the disciples to use as self defense in times of crisis.

However, the truth is there as Paul notes in his letter to those in Rome:

“But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.”

Jesus too set the stage for a unique way with dealing with those out to do one harm:

Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you.

While this all sounds like life on a personal level, this also extends to relationships between communities, cultures and countries as well. I am guessing I would get booed like Ron Paul did during a GOP debate in South Carolina years ago, but I stand by it. So would Francis Marion! But I digress.

The reality is that those that choose to do good in this world will find opposition. Even back in the 1st century Paul wrote to the Thessalonians:

“For we wanted to come to you — I, Paul, more than once — and yet Satan thwarted us.”

The Roman Empire had good roads too .. so this was not an infrastructure issue, but a real one with a real adversary. There is evil in this world that makes life difficult.

So on to the core of my message here and the article and book that led me down this strange path. “The (Real) Revolution in Military Affairs” by Andrei Martyanov does a convincing job at painting an accurate picture for the state of the American Empire, which by definition is the enemy of most of the people of the world and IF we were honest, considering our erosion of privacy and freedoms, it is also an enemy of its own citizens, not unlike the USSR of its day.

This book gives an insight into the evolution of weapons and the way they influenced international relations in the 20th and 21st centuries. It also defines Revolution in Military Affairs as manifested via policy, politics, and technology. It reviews some models which are useful in assessing the current geopolitical situation. This book also tries to give a forecast of the future development of warfare and the ways in which it is going to change the whole system of international relations, hopefully towards a new geopolitical equilibrium.

Some helpful early quotes from this book will help you see the value of knowing your enemy, knowing the truth, so that y’all can be prepared.

modern war between nation-states became so complex, in reflection of the tools of such wars, that it is an axiom, not even a theorem, that people who cannot grasp fundamental mathematical, physical, tactical and operational principles on which modern weapon systems operate are simply not qualified in the minimal degree to offer their opinions on the issues of warfare, intelligence operations and military technology without appropriate backgrounds. Failing that, what can one think but that they are merely in the business of content provision (filling space/entertainment) or of propagating the official line—of propaganda, in short—mostly with regard to warmongering? In today’s information-oversaturated world of massive egos nurtured by the dopamine of public visibility and of American politics turned into showbiz, these are the types who dominate the discussion on the most important, vital issue of war and peace in our time.

This is so true, the information overload renders most people helpless in sifting through the lies to find the foundational truth. So much of media is indeed government blow-horns used to confuse and disorient the sheep on any given day making them in fact impotent.

I can only hope that the knowledge readers will gain through this book will help to increase public awareness of the deadly consequences of even a conventional war between global superpowers and will help to dispel the war propaganda being pushed on the public by ignorant and incompetent pundits who have no business offering even an iota of their opinions on what is today a Revolution in Military Affairs of historic magnitude.

Again, the ignorance of the elite usually leads to the slaughter of the innocent. Herein lies the dilemma, how does one find the time to sift through all the Geo-politics while real life is raging right along side in real time in their own communities and their own relationships?

Those holding a modern Ph.D. in philosophy or political science, unless they have a serious education and experience in other fields, will be hard-pressed to derive any sensible conclusions on automation, for example, barring some self-evident and easily accessible truths such as that increased automation removes workers from the manufacturing floor, thus increasing unemployment. This same Ph.D. will have very little knowledge of what goes into the fundamental technological principles relating to the automation of modern industry or, for that matter, how G-code interpreters work for Computer Numerical Control machining centers and what is required to run them—a knowledge domain belonging to college-educated engineers.

This is why we have the blind leading the blind. Those at the top are ill-informed by their own ignorance in attempting to make good decisions. This happen not just in government committees, think-tanks or even at the state and local level, but this also occurs in most major corporations these days as technology has outpaced the knowledge that middle and upper management were taught as little as one decade ago.

The article by Moon of Alabama is a good one to understand the pragmatic situation we find ourselves in with the latest Russian technology advances (such as underwater drones pictured below) as well as the coordinated drone (two pictures down) strike on the Saudi oil production facility.

Artistic rendering of a drone submersible

Martyanov explains why the models the ‘experts’ use fail. He shows how the advantage of one weapon system against another one can be calculated. People who have had a military education know these formulas. Those who only studied political science have likely never heard of them.

I will allow MOA to be the expert on that aspect of this book.

Houthi drones on display

My own interest lies in the philosophic underpinnings of Martyanov’s book itself. More posts on this book will be in the works shortly.

Stay tuned.

-SF1

Prophets: Ignored and Marginalized .. Every Time

Anyone who has studied the Bible knows that the prophets (not “forth-telling” as in future telling, but “truth-telling”) were routinely seen as strange old men who reside on the edge of crazy and are in fact marginalized or worse, killed. From Noah, Moses and Samuel in the Old Testament to John the Baptist, Jesus, John and Paul in the New Testament, there was usually some tragic period in their life and also some truth-telling that usually had the masses turn away from following them.

Here is a modern day prophet whose message of peace was not well received but he did live until age 94. His name at birth in Germany was Helmut Osterman, born into a prosperous Jewish family in 1922 hear Hanover. His family saw the rise to power of the Nazis and in 1933 moved to Palestine. This 11-year old changed his name to the Hebrew, Uri Avnery.

Eric Margolis, in his Lew Rockwell article today, outlines Uri’s trajectory and allegience as well as his shift in his vision for the future of Israel:

In 1948, the young Avnery joined the underground Jewish guerilla force Irgun, fighting British and Palestinians and, later, Arab regular soldiers. Irgun committed numerous notorious terrorist acts and massacres that played a key role in driving the Palestinian population from their ancestral homes. He was seriously wounded and nearly died. Two years later, he and three friends started a political magazine, “One World.” Avnery was increasingly political and sided with Israeli expansionists.

As with a lot of prophets, there is a period where one’s belief structure is based in the traditional view and they are usually very passionate about it. (i.e. Saul, the best of the Jewish Pharisees, with a resume that is top-notch)

But then one day, or in a series of days, there is a stirring in the heart that something is not right, and that there is a better, although even non-traditional preferred way toward a future that aligns better with nature and its God:

… he gradually came to see that peace and cooperation was the only solution for Israel. After Israel’s smashing victories over the Arabs in the 1956 and 1967 wars, he formed a leftist pro-peace party and won a seat in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset. He helped found the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Council and the renowned Gush Shalom peace movement.

Avnery was one of the first Israelis to call for fair treatment of the Palestinians, over a million who had become refugees in 1948 and 1967. He urged Israel to sign a lasting peace accord with the Palestinians and return to them control of the West Bank, the old city of Jerusalem, Golan and Gaza – all occupied by the Israeli Army and growing waves of Jewish settlers.

It is a tough road to hoe when one is a pioneer in new thoughts that would help propagate the Golden Rule (do unto others as you would have them do unto you).

Uri became the target of decades of hatred by right-wing Israelis. He was stabbed. He said things that were not said in public. He kept reminding Israelis that their Jewish ethics demanded fair and decent treatment of Palestinians, whom Israeli leaders preferred to call ‘cockroaches’ and ‘wild animals.’

Yes, but in spite of the attacks (and the truth that when one is on target, one will take on a lot of flak!), Uri continued to share what would be best for all people groups in the region for a peaceful future (something that had been maintained in various areas of the Middle East over the past few centuries, like Syria, Lebanon and even in Iran)

There would never be peace in the region, warned prophet Avnery, until Israel returned at least some land taken from Palestinians, and created a viable Palestinian state with full democratic rights and freedoms … Never one to mince words, Uri called Israel’s right, which just enacted a law making Israel an exclusively Jewish state (thus excluding its 21% Muslim and Christian population) ‘semi-fascist Jews.’

Uri’s dreams seem like they will never come true. He was passionate about a path forward but has found resistance in BOTH Israel and in Washington DC / American Empire:

Avnery became fast friends with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. The two leaders could have created a viable Jewish-Arab state or federation. Sadly, Arafat was probably murdered and Avnery politically sidelined. In fact, Israel’s entire pro-peace left has dwindled to a fringe movement, isolated by its right-wing governments and Washington. Days after Uri died, Israel’s Likud coalition announced the expropriation of more Arab land on the West Bank to build 1,000 new homes for Jewish settlers.

As it is with prophets, years later people will find wisdom in the story of their life that may inspire them in another time and place in this world. Until then, it is important to share stories of people like this to give the next generations hope as well as to help them identify prophets in their midst, and take note.

SF1