On this Palm Sunday we are reflecting on the 10thanniversary of the start of the Iraq War which the U.S. government, in its hubris, titled “shock and awe”. Many of us were among those who protested the Iraq war as foolish and criminal and yet our assessment was overridden by a corrupt U.S. government and the majority of U.S. citizens at the time who wanted vengeance for 9/11. Those citizens, fanned by the corporate media, didn’t care much about who the scapegoat would be for their loss and grief as long as somebody paid to make them feel better.
It is astounding to realize that the majority of Americans who supported the criminal pre-emptive attack on Iraq believed, based on the lies perpetuated by American media, that Iraq had something to do with the attacks on 9/11. This false belief is evidence of the psychotic delusions that fuel so much of U.S. policy and support for the corporate-military complex which has taken over the U.S. government which President Eisenhower warned us against back in 1960.
The problem is not so much the corporate-military complex which has taken over the United States government but the spiritual poverty of Americans who are so quick to believe what their corporate masters tell them. The Nuremberg trials demonstrated that the rationalization of “just following orders” does not exonerate culpability of those who perpetrate crimes against humanity. The Nuremberg position makes manifest the idea that there is a higher morality than the legalities of a particular nation. It raises the spiritual and moral question of one’s duty when one’s nation engages in activities that violate the human rights of others?
Here in Brockport we have seen public support for those who engaged in crimes against humanity branding them as “Hometown Heroes”. These “heroes” are aware of the crimes they have committed against other human beings and this awareness has lead to what is known as PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and suicide rates which now exceed the number of military causalities from combat.
In spite of some Brockporters attempts to assuage the guilt of military personnel and their families, the soldiers themselves know the moral truth of their activities for which they volunteered which leads to self loathing that leads to their self inflicted death to end their psychological torment.
Rarely, other than the Winter Soldier project and Bradley Manning's leak of documents through Wiki-leaks, are Americans told the truth about their support for their governments misguided policies and criminal behavior. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney cannot set foot outside of the United States because of the fear of their arrest for their war crimes. Will we ever see justice done? Probably not because most Americans are just as guilty having supported their policies and actions.
On Palm Sunday we see Jesus ride into Jerusalem to popular acclaim only to be arrested, tortured, and executed by the same popular acclaim a week later.
Popular sentiment is a fickle phenomenon easily manipulated by the 1%, those in power. The ease with which the population is manipulated is explained by the spiritual poverty of that population who does not have a deep morality upon which to rely in making good judgments about human dignity and world wide justice.
The war in Iraq had the largest popular protests of any war to date around the world indicating that the population on the planet may be waking up and developing a higher sense of morality than has ever been witnessed before on the planet.
Some of us knew that the Iraq and Afghan wars were a big mistake. It turns out ten years later that we were right and the United States will be doing penance for our wrong doing long into the future. Our crimes will be placed on the shoulders of our children and grandchildren and they will wonder whatever possessed us to engage in such destructive behavior to assuage our grief?
This coming week, Jesus will be crucified and rise again, which demonstrates that the truth cannot be killed, goodness cannot die, and that attack and killing are all a bad dream from which we, as a species, have yet to awake.
Some of us knew the truth, increasing numbers of us, and we encourage the rest to move ahead and raise their levels of consciousness so that the Atonement can be achieved. If we learn anything this Easter may it be that war makers are not “hometown heroes” and that redemption does not come from violence. The lesson of Jesus death and resurrection is not that redemption comes from death and suffering as Mel Gibson would have you believe, but that redemption comes from rising above suffering and death and realizing that it flows from love for one another and the realization that we are One. Jesus words as he was crucified "Father forgive them for they know not what they do" stand out as a challenge to us to increase our awareness and understanding of what in the world we are doing. If we did, we would not be doing it, or having done it, we would repent the error of our ways and get ourselves on a new and better track. We should know, having reflected on our sins, that there is a better way.
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