Escalating Towards War
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I wrote recently about ISIS and what we should do. However serious that situation is what set me off on my pilgrimage for peace had to do with our increasing conflict with Russia. Recently many administration officials and military officers have made statements to the effect that Russia is now our main enemy. I interpret that to mean that Russia is the next country that we want to destabilize.
I think we all are aware that Russia or the Soviet Union has been attacked numerous times by European forces from Napoleon war of 1812 to the first and second world wars. They have lost tens of millions of lives at the hands of European aggression. That is not to say that Russian aggression has not also existed. Any leadership of that country would not survive if it allowed a build up of military forces on its borders. But that is just what NATO, which includes the US, is doing. Arming the Baltic states and actively destabilizing Ukraine.
I have written earlier that these aggressions are not for resources any longer. The wars fought in the last two centuries and the use of nuclear weapons have fixed for all time a global economic system. There is no return to self-reliance. Paul Krugman made the case in the NYT in August of 2014, “Why We Fight Wars, adding as an economist that war does not pay. The modern use of warfare is for financial control, control of democratic initiatives. We can see that exertion of power now playing out in the financial machinations in Greece. It is also why we are concerned over a small country like Haiti electing an ex-priest as president or the Honduran people’s choice for more economic equality.
When a presidential candidate like Bernie Sanders says that the financial elites are controlling our democracy his explanations are limited to here in the US. This is a global phenomenon. One hundred individuals own as much wealth as the poorest 3.5 billion people. The Pope and the World Council of Churches have made the connection between the lack of economic equality, global climate change, and civil dissolution much more forcefully than I can. But what I am trying to add to this conversation is that those of us here in the US who want to address climate change must also at the same time be active for peaceful cooperation. Peace will not reduce atmospheric carbon, but without peace we never will be able to.
Peace,
Dan Monte
I will be posting at: <Bicyclingforpeace.blogspot.com>, and linking to my
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Or give me a call 707-393-1948. I do email too, danmonte33@gmail .com.
I’d love to hear from you on my journey
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