For some who may wonder what my take is on the terrorist ISIS attacks in Paris and St. Denis yesterday. The following is my response on a blog I interact with called Knowledge Guild.
Nothing is ever so black and white. For hundreds of years the Western imperial powers enslaved, tortured and killed people who’s conquered lands they lorded over and profited from. Go back to the Crusades, and follow French invasions of north and central Africa. Islam was declared the enemy because it would not Christianize nor bow to the invaders. Moslems drowned in the blood of their friends and families at the hands of crusaders. As to current events, where do the sophisticated weapons used by ISIS and other terrorists come from? Who benefited from their sales? Well, the USA leads the pack at 31% of global arms sales; Russia at 27%; France, Germany and China each clock at 5% – but even 5% is a substantial amount given how much armaments are distributed daily all over the planet. Where are those arms going? Who is the watch dog that keeps the weaponry from falling into the hands of terrorists with a history of un-sated “need” for vengeance, whether real or imagined? Yes, cry the beloved country, but where are the people who should say “No” to the arms dealers before those same arms are used to kill within the country’s borders? ISIS; Al Qaeda and their likes are not something that just sprung out of the blue, surprise, surprise: they are the legacy of domination and jack-boot repression in the countries that subsequently could but engender and nurture terrorism. Let’s never forget the lesson of history regarding revolutions: a revolutionary is a terrorist to the oppressor but a hero in the homeland. How easy it would be for me, a French citizen, to feel emotionally self-righteous about yesterday’s events in Paris and to acquiesce to the rhetoric of vengeance. But I owe my allegiance first and foremost to history.
I just viewed President Obama's press conference in Turkey. Contrary to what many people believe, he laid out a carefully planned strategy that the United States and its allies, including France, have been employing to contradict extremist groups like ISIS [ISlL]. He cautioned those that claim that the United States (he) is being weak and not using enough "toughness" and resources against this threat. Obama said that he welcomes discussion of any strategies that will work, but that most of them that are being touted, the United States is already doing.
President Obama also reiterated that the problem is not religious but the problem of people being deprived to the point of being disaffected and thereby using religion as a justification for murder and terror. He emphasized that compassion for people of all faiths is much more important than belligerent bellicose rhetoric.
Personally, like 9/11, the federal building in Oklahoma City, and the numerous shootings by individuals determined to commit suicide by killing as many others as possible, we cannot stop all terroristic acts from happening in this country or others. But we can stop allowing civilians to have military weapons in their possession capable of murderous acts when they fall in the hands of the deranged.
You stated that their weapons were "sophisticated." In my estimation they weren't. These weapons were standard military Russian rifles and well-known suicide vests used by terrorist organizations for many years now. We forget the power of these surprise attacks is that they are carried out by people that are generally under the radar in countries like United States and Europe where many people of many nationalities and ideologies move around freely without being constantly check pointed.
These attacks more and more rely on social media, and the President pointed out that social media is perhaps the greatest tool we have for discovery and thwarting attacks like this. If they are shared on the Internet, we can find them out. If they're done in secret, they are very difficult to know about and to stop.
Finally, we can expect terrorist attacks in the United States and Europe to continue for some time. If, we can find a way to make everyone prosperous, then only the deranged will plot terrorism. As long as we make sure that billions are in poverty, oppression, and misery, some will rise and seek revenge.
Here is Regies, and article I've read yesterday, that supports your perception of event, there is also one more by Ron Paul (Media_)
It is a sad coincidence that today's readings centralize apocalyptic texts found in the Book of Daniel and in the Gospel of Mark. Both are war documents. That is, contrary to insistence by evangelical fundamentalists, apocalypse is not about the end of the world. Instead contemporary scholarship identifies it as a literary form always associated with war and resistance to empire. As such (it may shock us to know) the form is more sympathetic to the cause of ISIL and other "terrorists" than to the efforts of the U.S. and its close ally, France, to control their imperial outposts. Nonetheless, apocalypse in no way condones terror -- neither the wholesale terror of empire exhibited in its incessant bombings, nor the retail version we witnessed yesterday in France.
The Book of Daniel originates from Israel's resistance to the Hellenistic empire of Antiochus IV Epiphanes. In the year 168 C.E., he invaded Palestine and devastated Jerusalem. He hated Judaism and went out of his way to offend Jews at every level. He slaughtered them mercilessly. But he also defiled the Jerusalem Temple by offering a pig on its altar. He even erected a monument to Jupiter in the Temple. Patriotic Jews called it "the abomination of desolation." While occupying Palestine, Antiochus destroyed all the copies of Scripture he could find, and made it a capital offense to possess such manuscripts. It was against Antiochus and the Greek occupation of Palestine that the Book of Daniel was written. It assures the Jewish resistance (which the Greeks saw as a "terrorist force") that the Seleucid Empire, like all those preceding it, would fall in ignominy.
Something similar is happening in today's reading from the Gospel of Mark. Written around 70 C.E., its context is a six-month siege of Jerusalem by the Roman Emperor Titus. On September 8th of that year four Roman legions finally captured the city of Jerusalem from its Zealot defenders (whom the Romans considered "terrorists"). Moving from house to house (like U.S. soldiers in Iraq), the legionaries destroyed everything within reach, including the City's Temple. Palestine would not again belong to the Jews until 1948. It was the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans that Jesus predicts in today's Gospel excerpt from Mark.
But the excerpt also calls for a complete end to the politics of violence and domination. That meant not only obeying the command of Jesus to reject empire, but also to refuse alignment with the Zealots and Sicarii -- the resistance assassins who specialized (like Palestinian resisters today) in knifing occupation soldiers.
Though sympathetic to the resistance, Mark's Jesus evidently saw the counter-productivity of tit-for-tat violence. He exhibits no sympathy for the Zealot recruiters who between 66 and 70 traveled throughout Palestine calling on Jewish patriots to defend their homeland by joining guerrilla forces. Instead, Mark's Jesus counsels his followers to flee to the mountains (Mark 13:14-16). They were to do so not out of cowardice, but from apocalyptic conviction that God's order of justice could not be established by the sword. Obeying Jesus' direction meant that Christians were not only threatened by Romans but by Jews who accused Jesus' followers of treason.
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How should today's Liturgy of the Word affect people of faith whose Commanders-in-Chief repeat the crimes of the Seleucid Antiochus IV and the Roman Titus -- both of whom thought of themselves as doing God's work in destroying what they despised as a superstitious, primitive, tribal, and terrorist religion? (Yes, that's what they thought of Judaism!)
Today's readings recommend that we adopt an apocalyptic vision. That means attempting to grasp the worldview of empire's victims rather than of its agents -- i.e. attempting to understand the reasons behind acts of terrorism like those which unfolded yesterday in Paris.
More basically adopting apocalyptic vision means rejecting defense of the present order and allowing it to collapse. It entails total rejection of U.S. and French imperial ambitions and practices. It signifies refusing to treat as heroes those who advance the policies of destruction and desecration inevitably intertwined with imperial ambition. It means letting go of the privileges and way of life that depends on foreign conquest and vilification as "terrorists" patriots desperately defending their countries from invasion by imperial forces. It means determining what such rejection might signify for our consumption patterns and lifestyles, and supporting one another in the counter-cultural decisions such brainstorming will evoke.
Missing the insights of contemporary scripture scholarship, fundamentalists routinely teach that apocalypse is about the end of the world -- not about the end of particular empires. In a sense, they are right. Apocalypse is about the end of the world. The entire Jewish universe was anchored in the temple. Its defilement by the Greek Antiochus IV, its complete destruction by the Roman Titus seemed like the end of the world to the Jews. The threat of westernizing the Arab world might seem that way to the occupied Muslim world today. And the end of the American Way of Life premised on resource wars under cover of a "war on terrorism" might strike us as the end of everything we hold dear.
1 | 2
Mike Rivage-Seul is a liberation theologian and former Roman Catholic priest. Recently retired, he taught at Berea College in Kentucky for 36 years where he directed Berea's Peace and Social Justice Studies Program.Mike blogs (more...)
SAD: In All You Write You Do Not See Be
You Are Blinded By The Light...
Guess Who Is Behind It....Better Yet Guess
How Many People,Little Children In Los Angelese
Sleazy Mexifornia Are Maimed,**Killed,Shot In Alone
T V Glamorized CHP/LAPD Cops In Freeway Street
Chases Of Illegals Aliens Mexicanos!?
**IT Is In 100s If Not 1,000s!
How In Name Of (God) What You Call See As History
Is Only Future In Your Face,i.e. What Is Difference
You French Me Jew By Blood ?
Do I Look Like Talk Out Both Sides Of My Mouth? There Is Plotted
Propagandized Filth,i.e.IT Is BLOOD $ To Create More War$---
To Make You Feel Pity For France Whence Entire Holy Hell
World Is In Same Realm Of Destruction! Is It CIA,USA,RUSSIA,
CHINA Behind IT? IT Is You Every Human Being Who Turns Looks
Other Way Takes IT For Granted And Duly,Truly Believes:
.................................IT Will NEVER Happen TO Me...
Yes, you are right. Arms dealers and war-mongering expansionists are as responsible for the atrocities that happened in at least 5 countries over the recent few weeks as are the fascist organisations that carried them out. The shock at the Paris attacks is bound to bring that to light as well, as it is hammering home how things have gone way too far. The danger of ISIS, as did that of Hitler's Germany, lies in the fact that they are able to draw in supporters by means of instrumentalising justified grievances. But fascist ideologies are never what they seem, and the ideological reach of ISIS is extremely limited despite their financial power and sophisticated weaponry. As long as intentions are constructive and as long as a certain measure of common sense is allowed to prevail the elimination of this threat will present no major difficulty.
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President Obama also reiterated that the problem is not religious but the problem of people being deprived to the point of being disaffected and thereby using religion as a justification for murder and terror. He emphasized that compassion for people of all faiths is much more important than belligerent bellicose rhetoric.
Personally, like 9/11, the federal building in Oklahoma City, and the numerous shootings by individuals determined to commit suicide by killing as many others as possible, we cannot stop all terroristic acts from happening in this country or others. But we can stop allowing civilians to have military weapons in their possession capable of murderous acts when they fall in the hands of the deranged.
You stated that their weapons were "sophisticated." In my estimation they weren't. These weapons were standard military Russian rifles and well-known suicide vests used by terrorist organizations for many years now. We forget the power of these surprise attacks is that they are carried out by people that are generally under the radar in countries like United States and Europe where many people of many nationalities and ideologies move around freely without being constantly check pointed.
These attacks more and more rely on social media, and the President pointed out that social media is perhaps the greatest tool we have for discovery and thwarting attacks like this. If they are shared on the Internet, we can find them out. If they're done in secret, they are very difficult to know about and to stop.
Finally, we can expect terrorist attacks in the United States and Europe to continue for some time. If, we can find a way to make everyone prosperous, then only the deranged will plot terrorism. As long as we make sure that billions are in poverty, oppression, and misery, some will rise and seek revenge.
Ron
It is a sad coincidence that today's readings centralize apocalyptic texts found in the Book of Daniel and in the Gospel of Mark. Both are war documents. That is, contrary to insistence by evangelical fundamentalists, apocalypse is not about the end of the world. Instead contemporary scholarship identifies it as a literary form always associated with war and resistance to empire. As such (it may shock us to know) the form is more sympathetic to the cause of ISIL and other "terrorists" than to the efforts of the U.S. and its close ally, France, to control their imperial outposts. Nonetheless, apocalypse in no way condones terror -- neither the wholesale terror of empire exhibited in its incessant bombings, nor the retail version we witnessed yesterday in France.
The Book of Daniel originates from Israel's resistance to the Hellenistic empire of Antiochus IV Epiphanes. In the year 168 C.E., he invaded Palestine and devastated Jerusalem. He hated Judaism and went out of his way to offend Jews at every level. He slaughtered them mercilessly. But he also defiled the Jerusalem Temple by offering a pig on its altar. He even erected a monument to Jupiter in the Temple. Patriotic Jews called it "the abomination of desolation." While occupying Palestine, Antiochus destroyed all the copies of Scripture he could find, and made it a capital offense to possess such manuscripts. It was against Antiochus and the Greek occupation of Palestine that the Book of Daniel was written. It assures the Jewish resistance (which the Greeks saw as a "terrorist force") that the Seleucid Empire, like all those preceding it, would fall in ignominy.
Something similar is happening in today's reading from the Gospel of Mark. Written around 70 C.E., its context is a six-month siege of Jerusalem by the Roman Emperor Titus. On September 8th of that year four Roman legions finally captured the city of Jerusalem from its Zealot defenders (whom the Romans considered "terrorists"). Moving from house to house (like U.S. soldiers in Iraq), the legionaries destroyed everything within reach, including the City's Temple. Palestine would not again belong to the Jews until 1948. It was the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans that Jesus predicts in today's Gospel excerpt from Mark.
But the excerpt also calls for a complete end to the politics of violence and domination. That meant not only obeying the command of Jesus to reject empire, but also to refuse alignment with the Zealots and Sicarii -- the resistance assassins who specialized (like Palestinian resisters today) in knifing occupation soldiers.
Though sympathetic to the resistance, Mark's Jesus evidently saw the counter-productivity of tit-for-tat violence. He exhibits no sympathy for the Zealot recruiters who between 66 and 70 traveled throughout Palestine calling on Jewish patriots to defend their homeland by joining guerrilla forces. Instead, Mark's Jesus counsels his followers to flee to the mountains (Mark 13:14-16). They were to do so not out of cowardice, but from apocalyptic conviction that God's order of justice could not be established by the sword. Obeying Jesus' direction meant that Christians were not only threatened by Romans but by Jews who accused Jesus' followers of treason.
- Advertisement -
How should today's Liturgy of the Word affect people of faith whose Commanders-in-Chief repeat the crimes of the Seleucid Antiochus IV and the Roman Titus -- both of whom thought of themselves as doing God's work in destroying what they despised as a superstitious, primitive, tribal, and terrorist religion? (Yes, that's what they thought of Judaism!)
Today's readings recommend that we adopt an apocalyptic vision. That means attempting to grasp the worldview of empire's victims rather than of its agents -- i.e. attempting to understand the reasons behind acts of terrorism like those which unfolded yesterday in Paris.
More basically adopting apocalyptic vision means rejecting defense of the present order and allowing it to collapse. It entails total rejection of U.S. and French imperial ambitions and practices. It signifies refusing to treat as heroes those who advance the policies of destruction and desecration inevitably intertwined with imperial ambition. It means letting go of the privileges and way of life that depends on foreign conquest and vilification as "terrorists" patriots desperately defending their countries from invasion by imperial forces. It means determining what such rejection might signify for our consumption patterns and lifestyles, and supporting one another in the counter-cultural decisions such brainstorming will evoke.
Missing the insights of contemporary scripture scholarship, fundamentalists routinely teach that apocalypse is about the end of the world -- not about the end of particular empires. In a sense, they are right. Apocalypse is about the end of the world. The entire Jewish universe was anchored in the temple. Its defilement by the Greek Antiochus IV, its complete destruction by the Roman Titus seemed like the end of the world to the Jews. The threat of westernizing the Arab world might seem that way to the occupied Muslim world today. And the end of the American Way of Life premised on resource wars under cover of a "war on terrorism" might strike us as the end of everything we hold dear.
1 | 2
Mike Rivage-Seul is a liberation theologian and former Roman Catholic priest. Recently retired, he taught at Berea College in Kentucky for 36 years where he directed Berea's Peace and Social Justice Studies Program.Mike blogs (more...)
The most effective way to prevent Muslims from killing non-Muslims is to stop trying to prevent Muslims from killing Muslims.
SAD: In All You Write You Do Not See Be
You Are Blinded By The Light...
Guess Who Is Behind It....Better Yet Guess
How Many People,Little Children In Los Angelese
Sleazy Mexifornia Are Maimed,**Killed,Shot In Alone
T V Glamorized CHP/LAPD Cops In Freeway Street
Chases Of Illegals Aliens Mexicanos!?
**IT Is In 100s If Not 1,000s!
How In Name Of (God) What You Call See As History
Is Only Future In Your Face,i.e. What Is Difference
You French Me Jew By Blood ?
Do I Look Like Talk Out Both Sides Of My Mouth? There Is Plotted
Propagandized Filth,i.e.IT Is BLOOD $ To Create More War$---
To Make You Feel Pity For France Whence Entire Holy Hell
World Is In Same Realm Of Destruction! Is It CIA,USA,RUSSIA,
CHINA Behind IT? IT Is You Every Human Being Who Turns Looks
Other Way Takes IT For Granted And Duly,Truly Believes:
.................................IT Will NEVER Happen TO Me...
TRASK...
Love ya!
Jane