Toxic Militarism

In addition to our individualistic absence of compassion, our entire nation is now built on the horrible foundation of a giant Military-Industrial-Complex. Furthermore, a half century ago our wise President, “Ike” Eisenhower ominously warned our nation about the perilous future consequence of this toxic threat becoming so deeply embedded in our entire culture. But no one could have guessed the awful extent our myopic leaders and pundits have allowed this evil to progress nor their sick efforts to ignore the imminent danger posed to the United States that his dire warnings revealed.

We have countless military officer training academies which include three comprehensive programs. We have a multitude of ships, large and small, which patrol the oceans of our globe. Our pervasive air power can reach every corner of our world with amazing rapidity. In over seventy different nations we have at least one heavily weaponized military base to help us enforce our will other nations. In Hillary Clinton's words to Newsweek, our militarism is the most important part of our “toolbox” so that we can effectively practice “coercive diplomacy” with other nations so that we have become almost universally dreaded if not hated.

I must be obvious to our compassionate God and to our omnipresent Risen Messiah that our nation can no longer be trusted to lead the world to higher moral ground.

This appears to be true because especially our key leaders have become infected with a toxic, entitlement, militaristic mentality. We presumptuously ask ourselves, “why should we show loyalty to a God of compassion when we can trust and serve our own created “God of Fortresses?”

We feel we can be certain we are always safe because we have leaders like Dick Cheney, Carl Rove, and Paul Wolfowitz who have taught us to trust in a foreign policy pillar of pre-emption. Through this convenient policy we can easily eliminate non-existent threats and imagined threats such as we are now doing to our innocent victims in Iraq.

Our new blasphemous militaristic hymn of worship has become: “We can go kill them on the mountains, over the seas, hills and everywhere, so why should we trust in our Risen Lord?”

But, this cruel song that is now echoing throughout Iraq is being greeted with a more ancient echo from the ancient, Prophet Ezekiel. He gravely warned: “Since you have not hated bloodshed, bloodshed will pursue you” (Ezekiel 35:6)

Ominously, this twenty-six hundred year old warning should cause much more frantic concern from each of the inflammatory pundits on cable news than any comment by any controversial Pastor. This proven Prophet's warning should have much more sobering relevance to the present Presidential campaign than any contemporary observations about “chickens coming home to roost”.

Amen!