Category: Joe Biden

Farewell to the War Criminal, Genocide Joe

While the doe-eyed Democratic apparatchiks begin their predictably patriotic accolades for president Biden — the self-sacrificing commander-in-chief who willingly surrendered his presidential prospects in service to America’s beleagured democracy — now is also the time to remind ourselves that president Biden has served as the chief facilitator of the most public genocide in world history.

Joe Biden had/has the power to stop Israel’s genocidal assault against the people of Gaza at any time.  But he chooses not to use it.

Why? Because his commitment to a racist nation-state is greater than what could have been his conscientious concern for human lives.

Biden (together with the US Congress) has not only allowed the Gaza genocide to continue, he empowered the Netanyahu government’s criminal assault by providing 12.5 billion dollars in American financial support as well as the vast majority of the high-tech weaponry used to slaughter Palestinian men, women and children.

Joe Biden, who is always proud to wave his Zionist bone fides before a campaign crowd, is a staunch, unreflective Zionist who has hardended his heart against Palestinian suffering. This will be his, and America’s, Middle Eastern legacy.

He is another racist Zionist who refuses to acknowledge the bloody, heartless reality presented by countless Al Jazeera reports, Palestinian Tik Tok posts and personal Instagram films, all creating an overwhelming record  about the truth of Israeli genocide in Gaza.

This record will stand on its own as an historical indictment of all those, like Biden, who insist that what is happening in Gaza is not a crime against humanity.

Biden has admitted that he does not believe the casualty figures documented by the Hamas Health Ministry, but he confidently accepts the grotesque, well-documented lies spread by the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) regarding the death toll on October 7.

[Nothing exemplifes the racist underbelly of Israeli/Zionist rhetoric more clearly than this example. European-looking Israeli Jews are always trustworthy, no matter how far fetched their claims. Whereas, brown-skinned, bearded Muslim Palestinians are inherently untrustworthy, prone to lies, dissimulation and violence.]

Only days after October 7, president Biden claimed to have seen the photographs of “beheaded babies” from the kibbutzim of southern Israel.

Except…such photographs never existed because there were no beheaded babies from the Hamas attack on October 7. (Biden’s administration had to retract the president’s statement and correct his lie the next day.) This Israeli claim has been thoroughly debunked by reputable news reporting. (See the reporting at The Electric Intifada, The Grayzone and Mondoweiss).

No babies were beheaded that day; 40+ babies were not killed; no infant was cooked in an oven; no baby was cut from its mother’s womb. These were all grotesque fabrications, incredible lies!, manufactured by sick Zionist minds who naturally shared in the widespread western, Orientalist assumption that European-looking Jews will always be believed because they always tell the truth (especially when under attack!).

Palestinian Arabs, on the other hand, are inherently violent and conniving, constitutionally predisposed to exactly the kind of reprehensible violence described by Israeli sources. So, of course, their denials will not be believed by the majority of western listeners.

Joe Biden’s penchant for lies and exaggeration when standing behind a podium has always been a well-known character flaw. But his tendency to spew self-serving misinformation has descended to new depths of disgust whenever he talks about Israel and Gaza.

Take a few minutes to watch British, independent journalist Owen Jones as he offers an across-the-pond perspective on Biden’s legacy:

Current Affairs Magazine: “Biden Couldn’t Care Less About Human Rights”

Nathan J. Robinson has an excellent piece in the online magazine Current Affairs detailing the utter disregard, indeed distain, with which President Joe Biden treats matters of human rights in international affairs.

Biden has filled his administration with neo-conservatives who push American imperialism above every other consideration. How foreign governments treat their own people, including their dissidents — most especially their dissidents — matters not one whit to this Biden administration.

He has proven his gross disinterest time and again.

Check out Robinson’s article filled with more than enough evidence to indict Biden as one of the most hard-hearted, inhumane presidents of all time.

Below is an excerpt:

. . . The pattern is consistent. Biden believes that U.S. global power matters far more than freedom and democracy (emphasis mine). As a result, he has totally ignored the pleas of human rights activists to exert even mild pressure on authoritarian regimes. 

Consider the case of Egypt. Earlier this month, the U.S. “approved $235 million in military aid for Egypt that it had withheld for the past two years because of the country’s repressive policies.” The details of the policy are ugly. That money was legally only supposed to be provided to Egypt if it met basic conditions of human rights. Eleven members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee sent a letter to Biden imploring him to withhold the aid, citing Egypt’s jailing of  “journalists, peaceful civil society activists, human rights defenders and political figures.” Biden ignored the plea and waived the legal requirement that Egypt respect basic human rights in order to receive this aid. The New York Times says the administration concluded that “national security interests outweigh congressionally mandated benchmarks for Egyptian progress on human rights.” Of course, nobody ever says how our “national security” is served by giving Egypt hundreds of millions of dollars without imposing any of the human rights requirements that Congress had demanded. Egypt has certainly learned the lesson that it need not make any human rights concessions to the U.S., because the money will keep flowing regardless. . . 

Read the entire article here.

American Stopped Being a Democracy Long, Long Ago

Early in September Christ Hedges published an essay at ScheerPost titled, “Let’s Stop Pretending America is a Functioning Democracy.”

I encourage you to read Mr. Hedges’ recounting of the many ways American democracy has been undermined over the decades. You won’t be wasting your time.

Recently, Chris Hedges was interviewed by Jimmy Dore and asked to explain what he meant by his claim that the USA is not a democracy. The clip is titled “Your Democracy Was Stolen Long Before January 6.”

Check it out below:

Chris Hedges: No Way Out but War

Chris Hedges’ most recent editorial at Scheerpost is titled “No Way Out But War.”

As thorough and prescient as ever, Mr. Hedges catalogues the many ways in

Chris Hedges

which the American political-corporate-industrial establishment — a thoroughly bipartisan, insatiable behemoth — is destroying our country through the pursuit of endless wars.

None of our wars are “wars of necessity,” as if there has ever been such an ugly but cuddly beast. No. American wars are unnecessary wars of imperial aggression, pure and simple.

And this includes the current war in Ukraine, for which the US bears a sizeable load of responsibility.

Below is an excerpt from Mr. Hedges’ article. All emphasis is mine:

Permanent war has cannibalized the country. It has created a social, political, and economic morass. Each new military debacle is another nail in the coffin of Pax Americana.

The United States, as the near unanimous vote to provide nearly $40 billion in aid to Ukraine illustrates, is trapped in the death spiral of unchecked militarism. No high speed trains. No universal health care. No viable Covid relief program. No respite from 8.3 percent inflation. No infrastructure programs to repair decaying roads and bridges, which require $41.8 billion to fix the 43,586 structurally deficient bridges, on average 68 years old. No forgiveness of $1.7 trillion in student debt. No addressing income inequality. No program to feed the 17 million children who go to bed each night hungry. No rational gun control or curbing of the epidemic of nihilistic violence and mass shootings. No help for the 100,000 Americans who die each year of drug overdoses. No minimum wage of $15 an hour to counter 44 years of wage stagnation. No respite from gas prices that are projected to hit $6 a gallon.

The permanent war economy, implanted since the end of World War II, has destroyed the private economy, bankrupted the nation, and squandered trillions of dollars of taxpayer money. The monopolization of capital by the military has driven the US debt to $30 trillion, $ 6 trillion more than the US GDP of $ 24 trillion. Servicing this debt costs $300 billion a year. We spent more on the military, $ 813 billion for fiscal year 2023, than the next nine countries, including China and Russia, combined.

We are paying a heavy social, political, and economic cost for our militarism. Washington watches passively as the U.S. rots, morally, politically, economically, and physically, while China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, and other countries extract themselves from the tyranny of the U.S. dollar and the international Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), a messaging network banks and other financial institutions use to send and receive information, such as money transfer instructions. Once the U.S. dollar is no longer the world’s reserve currency, once there is an alternative to SWIFT, it will precipitate an internal economic collapse. It will force the immediate contraction of the U.S. empire shuttering most of its nearly 800 overseas military installations. It will signal the death of Pax Americana.

Democrat or Republican. It does not matter. War is the raison d’état of the state. Extravagant military expenditures are justified in the name of “national security.” The nearly $40 billion allocated for Ukraine, most of it going into the hands of weapons manufacturers such as Raytheon Technologies, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing, is only the beginning. Military strategists, who say the war will be long and protracted, are talking about infusions of $4 or $5 billion in military aid a month to Ukraine. We face existential threats. But these do not count. The proposed budget for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in fiscal year 2023 is $10.675 billion. The proposed budget for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is $11.881 billion. Ukraine alone gets more than double that amount. Pandemics and the climate emergency are afterthoughts. War is all that matters. This is a recipe for collective suicide. . .

. . .The 57 Republicans who refused to support the $40 billion aid package to Ukraine, along with many of the 19 bills that included an earlier $13.6 billion in aid for Ukraine, come out of the kooky conspiratorial world of Trump. They, like Trump, repeat this heresy. They too are attacked and censored. But the longer Biden and the ruling class continue to pour resources into war at our expense, the more these proto fascists, already set to wipe out Democratic gains in the House and the Senate this fall, will be ascendant. Marjorie Taylor Greene, during the debate on the aid package to Ukraine, which most members were not given time to closely examine, said: “$40 billion dollars but there’s no baby formula for American mothers and babies.”

“An unknown amount of money to the CIA and Ukraine supplemental bill but there’s no formula for American babies,” she added. “Stop funding regime change and money laundering scams. A US politician covers up their crimes in countries like Ukraine.”

Democrat Jamie Raskin immediately attacked Greene for parroting the propaganda of Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Greene, like Trump, spoke a truth that resonates with a beleaguered public. The opposition to permanent war should have come from the tiny progressive wing of the Democratic Party, which unfortunately sold out to the craven Democratic Party leadership to save their political careers. Greene is demented, but Raskin and the Democrats peddle their own brand of lunacy. We are going to pay a very steep price for this burlesque.

You can read the entire article here.

Col. Douglas Macgregor Offers Important Insights into the War in Ukraine

Former top Pentagon advisor retired Colonel Douglas Macgregor was recently interviewed by journalists Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate at The Grayzone.

The Colonel offers a VERY different perspective on the war in Ukraine, Russia, Putin, NATO, and the US role in this conflict than you will ever hear from the monolithic, pro-war, propaganda machine called “news” in this country.

Colonel Macgregor’s interview takes up the first 60 minutes of this two hour video. Max and Aaron discuss the issues in the second hour.

I strongly encourage you to listen to the Colonel’s words. If only Biden were listening…

The Full Story on Ukraine is Being Withheld from the American People, Part 3

I have decided to shift gears in this third part of this series about US propaganda and the Russian attack on Ukraine

American “news” rarely if ever mention the economic factors that have moved both Ukraine and Russia into their current hostilities.

The manipulative intentions of the European Union (together with NATO) , the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank are central to aggravating the relationship between these two countries.

My eyes first began to be opened to these issues years ago when I first decided that I needed to be better informed about US foreign policy. Two books were crucial to that formative education. The first was, John Perkins’ book Confessions of an Economic Hitman, with a new second edition called The New Confessions of an Economic Hitman.

Perkins tells his story of working for the CIA throughout Latin America on behalf of American corporations, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. It’s a mind-boggling account of how the CIA works on behalf of US corporate powerbrokers by forcing 3rd world governments into perpetual indebtedness.

The second book was David Talbot’s book The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government.  Talbot traces the origins of the CIA and the formative role played by US corporations in shaping its “mission” around the world.

Rather than explaining more myself, below are 3 conversations, or 3 parts

Journalist Bryce Greene

of a single conversation, with journalist Bryce Greene, a reporter for F.A.I.R. Media Watch discussing the importance of America’s enforcement of neo-liberal economics via the International Monetary Fund (IMF) throughout the world — including the European Union:

The third installment below is called “The History of US Intervention (in Russia and Ukraine)”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Seduction of War

Chris Hedges was a war correspondent for the New York Times for 20 years. As an on the ground reporter who has seen war’s destructive power up close and personal, he lost numerous friends and can tell his own near-death experiences.

Perhaps his most important book, in my opinion, is his dissection of war’s seductive, erotic power and the dehumanizing effects it has for all concerned. The book is entitled War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning.

I encourage you to read it if you haven’t already.

As the US government continues to beat its war drums, feeding our major news outlets with a steady stream of evidence-free accusations against Russia, all intended to stir American blood-lust, we should stop and ask ourselves why opposing voices are never given time publicly to explain their opposition to war with Russia.

Doesn’t that seem suspicious to you? Why is there no public debate?

Below is an excerpt from one of Hedges speeches during the lead up the war in Iraq. He summarizes his arguments from his book, War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. I encourage you to sit down and listen.

The Biden administration is working hard to convince us that America’s newest meaning and purpose is a violent conflict with another major superpower.

Don’t buy it. It’s a lie. It’s a lie forged in the pit of hell and now propagated by devilish warmongers who calculate only dollar signs when they should see precious human lives.

Glenn Greenwald: Civil Liberties Are Being Trampled by Exploiting “Insurrection” Fears. Congress’s 1/6 Committee May Be the Worst Abuse Yet.

Glenn Greenwald has published a lengthy, detailed analysis of the many ways in which the Democratic party is currently exploiting the Capitol Hill riot on January 6 to implement drastic government overreach and the curtailment of American civil liberties.

The mechanism for this overreach is the House Select Committee currently  investigating the January 6 riot.

I have excerpted the heart of Greenwald’s conclusions below. However, I encourage you to read the entire article at Greenwald’s substack space. It is truly impressive and deeply disturbing.

The article is entitled “Civil Liberties Are Being Trampled by Exploiting ‘Insurrection’ Fears. Congress’s 1/6 Committee May Be the Worst Abuse Yet.”

Below is the excerpt:

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) arrive for the House Select Committee hearing investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol on July 27, 2021 at the Cannon House Office Building in Washington, DC. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

This congressional committee is designed to be cathartic theater for liberals, and a political drama for the rest of the country. They know Republicans will object to their deliberately unconstitutional inquisitions, and they intend to exploit those objections to darkly insinuate to the country that Republicans are driven by a desire to protect the violent traitors so that they can deploy them as an insurrectionary army for future coups. They have staffed the committee with their most flamboyant and dishonest drama queens, knowing that Adam Schiff will spend most of his days on CNN with Chris Cuomo comparing 1/6 to Pearl Harbor and the Holocaust; Liz Cheney will equate Republicans with Al Qaeda and the Capitol riot to the destruction of the World Trade Center; and Adam Kinzinger will cry on cue as he reminds everyone over and over that he served in the U.S. military only to find himself distraught and traumatized that the real terrorists are not those he was sent to fight overseas but those at home, in his own party.

But the manipulative political design of this spectacle should not obscure how threatening it nonetheless is to core civil liberties. Democrats in politics and media have whipped themselves into such a manic frenzy ever since 1/6 — indeed, they have been doing little else ever since Trump descended the Trump Tower escalator in 2015 — that they have become the worst kinds of fanatics: the ones who really believe their own lies. Many genuinely believe that they are on the front lines of an epic historical battle against the New Hitler (Trump) and his band of deplorable fascist followers bent on a coup against the democratic order. In their cable-and-Twitter-stimulated imaginations, shortly following this right-wing coup will be the installation of every crypto-fascist bell and whistle from concentration camps for racial and ethnic minorities to death or prison for courageous #Resistance dissidents. At some point, the line between actually believing this and being paid to pretend to believe it, or feeling coerced by cultural and friendship circles to feign belief in it, erodes, fostering actual collective conviction and mania.

And when fanatics convince themselves that their cause is not only indisputably just but an imperative for survival, then any doubts or questions about methods and weapons can no longer be acknowledged. The war they are fighting is of such overarching importance and righteousness that there is no such thing as unjust or excessive means to achieve it. Just a cursory examination of liberal discourse is enough to see that they have long ago arrived at and flew past this point of sectarian zealotry. And that is what explains their overwhelming support for state and corporate censorship of the internet, increasing reverence for security state agencies such as the CIA and FBI, love for and trust in corporate media, and a belief that no punishment or level of suffering is excessive when it comes to retaliation against their political enemies, including but not only those who participated in any way in the 1/6 protests.

This is, after all, a movement that has long opposed the death penalty and whose more left-wing factions spent 2020 rioting in cities to protest police violence and chanting “Defund the Police!,” yet their only lament about Ashli Babbitt seems to be that she was the only pro-Trump “fascist” shot and killed by noble police officers on that day. They have pranced around for decades as criminal justice reformists, denouncing harsh prosecutorial strategies and judicial punishments, yet are indignant that people who put their feet on Nancy Pelosi’s sacred desk or vandalized the sacred halls of American power with their dirty and deplorable presence are not spending decades in a cage. They spent 2020 depicting police officers as racist savages, only to valorize the Capitol Police as benevolent public servants whom only barbarians would want to harm, then gave them an additional $2 billion to intensify their surveillance capabilities and augment their stockpile of weapons. Their fury that Trump officials did not end up spending decades in cages due to vague associations with Russians is exceeded only by their rage that pro-Trump protesters at the Capitol are being sentenced to months rather than years or decades in prison.

A political movement that operates from the premise that its cause is too important to be constrained is one that inevitably becomes authoritarian. That such authoritarianism is the defining feature of American liberalism has been evident for several years. And an investigative congressional committee that they control, aimed squarely at their political enemies, accompanied by demands that anyone resisting it be imprisoned, can only lead to very dark and dangerous destinations.

You can read the entire piece here.

Why Guy Saperstein is Leaving America, And Why I Often Consider It Myself

First a short biography of Mr. Saperstein:

In 1972, he founded a law firm in Oakland which became the largest plaintiffs civil rights law firm in America, in the process successfully prosecuting the largest race, sex and age discrimination class actions in American history. Guy also prosecuted False Claims Act cases against Lockheed Missiles & Space Co. regarding satellite surveillance systems, and against Raytheon, Boeing and TRW regarding the sham National Missile Defense Program. A former president of the Sierra Club Foundation once described by Bill O’Reilly as “a member of the nefarious Left-Wing Mafia,” he is the author of “Civil Warrior: Memoirs of a Civil Rights Attorney.”

Below is an excerpt of his article entitled “Why I Am Leaving America“:

After six decades fighting for social justice and enjoying the embodiment of the American Dream, this couple are moving on from a lost nation.

My wife and I have spent sixty years fighting for social justice in America and trying to be good citizens, me as a civil-rights lawyer who litigated — and won — the largest race, age, and disability employment discrimination cases in American history, and my wife as a teacher, social worker, healthcare activist and philanthropist. I retired at fifty-one, having built an enormously lucrative practice, never losing a case as I pursued legal restitution on behalf of clients who had gotten the short end of the stick.

I was the very embodiment of the American Dream. But over the decades, I’ve become convinced that America is in terminal decline and that the battle for justice and equity is hopeless. The reasons are multiple. 

America once led the world in innovation. No more. We don’t even have one mile of high-speed rail, unless you count Disneyland. China has 30,000, and counting. Which country do you think is prepared to prosper in the next century?

We can’t even keep our roads repaired. America’s roads are a mess, many as bad as any Third World country. In fact, that is what America is becoming — a Third World country.

The battle is lost. America is in terminal decline and nearly 75 million Americans seem to be willing to pull it down further. How can it be that so many millions voted for a man who failed in everything he ever tried—a man who started more than a score of businesses and every one failed, who cheated repeatedly on three wives before each marriage failed, who is despised by even members of his own family, who went out of his way nearly every day to show that he is a racist and a sexist, a man who has been caught, according to the Washington Post, in more than 30,000 lies in just the four years he was president, who cheated at nearly everything, including golf, how is it that such a man is held up as a paragon of virtue by nearly half of the electorate? Something has gone seriously off the rails. 

I can no longer bear the chest-thumping triumphalism of the No-Nothing Party. I can’t stand the self-congratulatory promotion of the hoary notion of American exceptionalism. People who think America is the greatest in all things are people who simply have never been anywhere else. America is not now — and has never been — a representative democracy and won’t be in my lifetime and probably not in yours, either. Biden won by 7.3 million votes — a smashing win, right? — but if just 43,000 votes in a few states had switched, Donald Trump would still be president today. In California, Governor Gavin Newsom could have received 49% of the vote in the recall election and have lost and some Republican hack could have received 18% and won. And because each state has two senators, 18% of the electorate elects 51% of senators. Explain that to Cleisthenes.

We now have an active right-wing attack on voting itself, much of it racially motivated, but imperiling us all. And then, alas, we have the filibuster, which has almost made America ungovernable.

I want out. I’m tired of waking up to some crackpot ranting that COVID is a hoax, or vaccines don’t work, or masks are an assault on freedom, or that the 2020 election was stolen and Joe Biden is not really President, or that January 6 was just a peaceful gathering of fun-loving people.

While Trump has been diminished, we are surrounded by his supporters — Americans who voted for one of the most despicable men who ever strut upon the American stage, most of his supporters continue to believe — with no evidence — that he won. Most prefer superstition to science, many would apparently rather die than wear a mask or take a vaccine, and tens of millions believe cockamamie conspiracies. These people are not going away.

This woebegone predicament is likely to get worse. Moreover, our priorities as a nation seem perilously upside down. We spend more than twice the amount for healthcare as any developed nation and get the crappiest healthcare system in the world because the medical Establishment — mainly the drug companies — has Washington in its pocket. And that includes Biden. 

We have among the worst economic disparities in the world — which are getting worse — a hollowed-out middle class, money overwhelming politics, and even the Democrats unable to do anything about any of this. . .

You can read the rest of the article here.

I’ve got to tell you, Mr. Saperstein is my kind of guy.

America needs many, many more principled, morally astute, courageous fighters for equality, justice, and peace like Mr. Saperstein. His pending emigration will be a great loss to this country.

The fact that he has come to the conclusion that America is hopelessly circling the drain; that our democracy is doomed; that the future looks increasingly bleak; that far from being a shining city on a hill, America has devolved into a neo-fascist corporate state, addicted to endless entertainment, violence, and self-gratification; that any and all efforts to slow our national decomposition — if not reverse it altogether — are a hopeless waste of energy doomed to failure presents us with the tragic lessons learned by a man who has spent his entire adult life fighting in the trenches on behalf of the poor, the marginalized, and the dispossessed.

I happen to agree with his conclusions. And I often think about moving to another country myself.

However, unlike Mr. Saperstein, I have never expected to see substantial outbreaks of justice and equity in my lifetime. Perhaps I am too much of a cynic. Or maybe I just take the Christian doctrine of original sin too seriously.

Nevertheless, apparent failure here and now can, indeed, become extremely depressing. Even to cynical believers in human sinfulness like me.

But I cannot allow such disappointments to become debilitating; they never provide a reason for throwing in the towel.

Because I am always, first and foremost, a citizen of the kingdom of God. That is where my loyalty lies, not in the US of A.

I have been placed in this country as a witness to God’s kingdom even as I, along with Mr. Saperstein, watch America’s rampant, rampaging imperialism, militarism, and economic exploitation ravage its citizens together with everyone else in the world who happens to possess something that America wants for itself.

And I do see small glimpses of the righteousness of God’s kingdom here and there, flashing narrow, intermittent shafts of eternal light into very dark, otherwise hopeless, places.

So, even though part of me wants to flee with Mr. Saperstein, I can’t.

I will continue to wait and to work and to “fight the good fight” in the land where Jesus’ placed me as I wait for His return.

I pray that you will, too.

It’s Upsetting to Sit in a Church Applauding for More War

I believe that the speaker at my morning worship service was trying to be nonpartisan. And I appreciate that.

But it’s hard to keep our biases in check, especially when they are rarely confronted by someone who sees the world differently.

Hers were showing this morning.

In the opening moments of the sermon, the speaker began to lead a prayer

A person wounded in a bomb blast outside the Kabul airport in Afghanistan on Thursday, Aug. 26, 2021, arrives at a hospital in Kabul. The Pentagon confirmed at least two blasts outside the Kabul airport and said there were a number of casualties. (Victor J. Blue/The New York Times)

on behalf of the families of the 13 soldiers recently killed by 2 suicide bombers in Afghanistan. She didn’t mention the 170+ Afghan civilians, men, women, and children who died, as well.

Then she included a prayer request for the Christians in Afghanistan who will almost certainly suffer under Taliban rule. I could see people nodding their heads in agreement.

But the real enthusiasm was yet to come.

Finally, she mentioned the need for our nation’s leaders to be directed by

God’s wisdom in their decision-making. Wow. Suddenly, the congregation erupted in applause and loud “amens” rippled throughout the auditorium.

Obviously, the community agreed heartily that THIS was the most essential request — “God, give us leaders with greater wisdom.”

I agree with these words, but I know that the kind of wisdom I was praying for is very, very different from the “wisdom” my fellow church members believe is now lacking in Washington, D.C.

You see, I know my community.

I know that the majority of the folks in my church are devoted consumers of Fox News. Many also watch Christian television, with people like Pat Robertson offering their “religious” views on world events. Consequently, their perspective on world affairs is shaped heavily by these dual propaganda outlets of the Republican party. (CBN news is only Fox News with a smile.)

Ever since president Biden initiated our withdrawal from Afghanistan (which, remember, will never entail a complete withdrawal of all special forces, intelligence operatives, and drone strikes), the Republican party and the entire assembly of corporate, cable news outlets have all uniformly condemned Biden’s withdrawal efforts.

More than that, they continually argue that US troops should remain in Afghanistan. But, of course, remaining in Afghanistan means more war, more killing and destruction, more dead Americans, more slaughtered, innocent Afghans.

No doubt, the current withdrawal could have been planned more thoroughly. But it is far from clear that all the blame should fall on Biden’s shoulders. There is more than enough blame to go around, and we ought to be heaping shovel-fulls of it onto the culprits in the Pentagon, the CIA, the State and Defense Departments, the weapons contractors, and the entire military command structure that all perpetuated this $2.35 trillion, 20-year boondoggle of a horror show on the Afghan and American people.

However, I know that the vast majority of the men and women who were enthusiastically applauding for “leaders with divine wisdom” in my worship service this morning were not thinking about the selfishness or the guilt of America’s bloodthirsty military-industrial complex — a complex that enriched itself to the tune of billions of dollars over the past 20 years.

No. They were condemning the president who finally decided “to end” this 20 war.

They were also — knowingly, self-consciously — endorsing the litany of war-mongering media figures now  calling for American troops to remain in Afghanistan to keep up the fight.

Implicitly, they were praying for more death and destruction because, rather than thinking with the mind of Christ, they have been thoroughly propagandized and brainwashed by our corporate media whose corporate owners ALL LOVE WAR.

It is always a struggle for me to worship with people who embrace without question (and applaud with both hands) the egocentric brutality of the American Empire with its colonial hubris and penchant for human exploitation.

But I am a part of Christ’s church. So I stay. And I pray in my own way. And I try to talk with others about these things whenever I can. Though few will listen for long.

I also pray for Jesus to return soon.