NOT SWALLOWING CAMELS.
War, militarism and the arms trade probably account for more than half the world’s injustice and evil. Jesus warned us about straining out gnats and swallowing camels. This is perhaps the world’s biggest camel and we swallow it like morning cereal. So, let’s face the camel of militarism which we have been made to assume is necessary and normal. The full evidence is devastating, but this is the fast version.
MILITARISM IS IN CONTROL.
World disarmament is off the menu, and has been except for a brief flurry around the end of the Cold War when it was quickly shut down. We cannot think disarmament because the military and arms people have run the show most of the time since 1900 and always tell us we need arms. A string of wars, big and small, have been accompanied by arming. Arms produce wars and arms, we are told, save wars. Blessed be the arms trade. They profit from conflict and are inside governments in Washington, Moscow, London and most of the capitals of the world, though they have learned to keep a low profile. Scares occur nearly every day to keep us in fear. Enemies are talked up. You need to be armed is conveyed as a moral imperative. Arms purchases increase, military dictators and militarised democracies abound, and disarmament is unthinkable as some kind of treason. You have been taught to rule out disarmament, to unthink it.
JESUS MAY HAVE A POINT.
But is this correct? Jesus is obviously the world’s greatest teacher. He backs peace and asks us to make it. He turns down the temptation of power over all the kingdoms of the world, unlike Caesar, Ghengis Khan, Napoleon and ‘itler. He requires us to love and understand our enemies and make peace. He spreads peace and asks us to pass it on. He deconstructs rows and turns away from any aggression. This is God’s way for us and it means the reconciliation of peoples; nation will speak peace unto nation. He fulfils what is spoken in the prophets. Isaiah says God will hammer swords into ploughshares and nations will never again go to war or prepare for battle. Psalm 46 talks of stopping wars all over the world. Jesus in one devastating sentence dismisses the military enterprise. “Those who take the sword will perish by the sword”, a prediction fulfilled in every decade of modern history. He is the Lamb on the world throne, bringing the rule of gentleness and not might. Paul replaced the Roman armour which ruled the world in the first century after Christ with peace, justice, truth, faith and the word of God as the “weapons” to fight with. Christianity is for peace and Christians say so in church every Sunday, and actually the Church manages quite well without an army. American Christians who say Christianity and guns go together are brainwashed out of Christianity. My peace, says Jesus, I leave with you.
But, say the militarists, this is just unrealistic. Christianity is out of touch with our age. It is a vague ideal, divorced from realpolitik. In reality we have to have armed forces, secret services, deterrents, military bases and keep ahead in the arms race and the technology of weapons. Terrorism is real, and the threats from Russia, China, North Korea and Iran cannot be avoided. Peace is for Christmas cards. Mostly, the churches have come round to accepting this. Now services bless our continuous at sea nuclear deterrent and we are safe. Every time peace comes up now, it is nice but not part of real politics. But is this the last word?
THE MILITARY SUCCESS OF THE UNITED STATES?
The United States is the world’s leading military power and its military success. Except, the US lost another war last week – in Afghanistan. Trump blustered but the US lost, after eighteen years and spending a trillion dollars. It has lost in Iraq in seventeen years of fighting after “Mission Accomplished”. That cost two and a half trillion dollars, and the mission was not accomplished since there were no weapons of mass destruction and it has spawned another generation of terrorism as Camp Bucca birthed ISIS. The US and the UK are losing in Syria, which is not surprising since it was unclear which side we were fighting. The War in Libya left a failed state in a mess with democracy not in sight. US and UK weapons in Yemen have produced horror upon horror. So, the US has spent six plus trillion dollars on failed wars which have killed a million, displaced some 10 million refugees, and produced five big failed states in the middle east. Really, Iran and Saudi Arabia are also unstable. US military policy is a shambles. Its wars do not work. Soon the world will wake up to this. Something has got to replace US militarism.
MILITARISM DOES NOT WORK.
Really, however, militarism has not worked for a century. Its costs dog world history. Since 1914 two hundred million have died through war. Even more have been injured. The trauma among soldiers and civilians in all wars is probably over a billion, but covered up. Arms produce war. Four arms races sparked into WW1. The sabotage of the Geneva Disarmament Conference in 1932 allowed the arms companies and Hitler back in to start WW2. The Cold War was a useless forty year waste. Militarism has cost the world between five and ten per cent of total world income, often destroyed democracy, absorbed much of the most advanced science and technology and all for the purpose of destruction. It is the biggest failed experiment on the planet. Anyone allowed to think can see that, but usually we are just fatalistic. History is one damned war after another. We no longer ask Why? After all very few people profit from war. People die and are injured. Cities are destroyed. Economies collapse. Debts mount up. The young next generation is wiped out. Wars are difficult to sell when no-one profits from them. So why do we have them?
WHO NEEDS WAR?
The one group who need war are the arms manufacturers. They profit from wars and the rumour of wars. Their gear is used in war. Millions understood this between the wars in the biggest peace movement ever. Krupp worked on the Kaiser. Armstrong and Vickers had groomed the British Government for the Boer War and the Great War. Schneider-Le Creusot had the gun which would this time beat the Germans and were arming Russia. Skoda worked up Austro-Hungary against Serbia. Britain and Germany armed the Turks. There was the hyped “Dreadnought Crisis” and four arms races fanned by newspaper propaganda. Nobel was making a killing. . Belgian arms kept the Congo in subjugation and came in handy at Sarajevo. British battleship manufacturers sold battleships to Japan, with a bit of bribery, to help them beat the Russians in 1904-5. That upped sales around the world. As arms sales grew, often financed by debt, it needed only a spark to set off World War One. Who needs wars? The arms companies need wars, and by and large they get them.
THE PROBLEM SEEN, BUT TOO LATE.
After World War One most people saw the arms problem. There were cartoons of fat arms traders. Lord Grey, Foreign Secretary in the decade up to 1914 summed it up. “The moral is obvious; it is that great armaments lead inevitably to war…” They wanted to make it the War To End All Wars. Disarmament was written into the Versailles treaty and the League of Nations, not just for Germany, but for everybody. For a time, the arms companies were on the back foot. All the Churches got behind disarmament in a big way. But the Conservative Government of 1924-9 was able to stall the big disarmament Conference. Lord Cecil, leading its planning, fell out with them and nothing decisive happened except public support for disarmament around the world grew. Then in 1929 with a Labour Government and Arthur Henderson as Foreign Secretary the pace picked up again. In 1932, at last, the Great Disarmament Conference arrived, supported by petitions with tens of millions of signatures. President Hoover’s Plan to cut out all aggressive weapons like bombers, subs and howitzers and the rest of arms by a third received a warm welcome from almost all the countries of the world, including the USSR, France, China, Germany, Italy, Canada, Belgium, Brazil, Spain, Turkey, Cuba, Austria, Norway, Finland, Hungary, Denmark, Mexico, Sweden, Estonia, Switzerland, New Zealand, Roumania, Persia, Venezuela, Argentina, the Netherlands Luthuania, Afghanistan, Colombia, Latvia, Portugal, Bolivia, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and others. They enthusiastically welcomed the possibility of a disarmed world. Japan was missing because it was invading Manchuria (armed by Britain and other states). Key was the British response. It was lukewarm, noncommittal. It welcomed the proposal but said that it would submit its own proposal, but there was a problem. Most Conservatives in the House of Commons were against disarmament. There were links to the Navy. Eyres-Monsall, First Lord of the Admiralty wanted to keep all his battleships and aircraft carriers. Douglas Hogg, secretary of state for War wanted to keep his tanks and heavy mobile guns. Lord Londonderry, Secretary of State for Air wanted to save the bomber, and the arms companies were applying pressure in the background. The British put forward a counter-plan which allowed her to control her Empire, keep her Navy on the 8th July, 1932 and really it killed the Hoover Plan without saying so. It spoke words of further negotiation, but the proposal for Full World Disarmament was dead. Cabinet minutes of those weeks show that one of the main motives of the Cabinet was jealousy of the United States as the new dominant economic world power. It was that pathetic.
People knew that no world disarmament would mean German rearmament. It had waited thirteen years for other states to do something. The failure of Geneva gave more power to Hitler and six months later he came to power. Most people did not know the Conference had failed. Britain talked about more negotiations and it struggled on into 1933. Roosevelt could not revive it. British politicians clamped down on what Britain had done, and the public still hoped that disarmament could happen. In 1934 the book, “The Merchants of Death” opened up the role of the arms companies, and the US Nye Commission did it further, but by now they were too late and US companies were queuing up to arm Hitler funded by US banks. World War Two was on its way. After World War Two the militarists made sure disarmament was buried without trace and so it has largely remained since. The arms companies are in the business of war and the major reason why they continue happening.
KEEPING THINKING AT BAY
Although the evidence for the failure of war and competitive arming is everywhere, people are kept from thinking about it by fear. Jesus attacked fear, because militarism’s real power comes through fear. Do this or I will kill you. Militarism sells fear most days. Ironically the most powerful are the most fearful. The militarists have re-created the enemies they need for their business. Russia, anxious for co-operation after the Cold War has been pushed into antagonism, especially by NATO action in Ukraine. China actually quite restrained in its international relations is being portrayed as a threat, like North Korea, also threatened by the US. Iran the useful adversary for the Iraqi arms gravy train. On top of this, trashing much of the middle east obviously generates the terrorism we are also scared of. A world-wide threat system is designed to keep the military system in business and to stop us from thinking.
THE FRAGILE WORLD CONTROL SYSTEM FOR MILITARISM.
So, the militarist hegemony keeps the show on the road. New contracts. New weapons. Replace the unusable nuclear weapons. US military budgets boom. 2% minimum military expenditure for any civilised country. All the members of the UN Security Council are the heaviest armed and the biggest arms exporters. New wars are being stoked. We must keep the show on the road. But it is unreal. It is the Judy and Punch show for the masses, the soap opera which will keep us servile.
But it is not real. Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction in 2003 and we had multiple sources of information that that was so, even though the world media were fed the opposite. The Arab Spring for Democracy was killed by western and Russian arms, and we are busy again supplying the military dictators in Egypt. The outrage about the Crimea was fake. Of course, the Crimea was going to join Russia. The US/UK seize an Iranian tanker in international waters at Gibraltar and then bluster when the Iranians do a tit for tat in the Straits of Hormuz. The US fulminates about the Chinese Navy in the China Sea, when it has bases all around the world. North Korea, scared stiff of the US and with an economy half the size of Lancashire, becomes a major world threat. The secret services do James Bond to keep us watching. But it is a show. The armour has no body, no meaning, no purpose. It is a washed up, self-promoting industry. Like the god, Dagon, it is a statue ready to fall. Militarism is really dead; we have to bury it successfully. More than this, it is mainly a western show. The arms production of the West, and its arms, dominate the world. We say, Peace, peace, but there is no peace, and now we do not even bother to say it.
THE TIME HAS COME.
This is no vague issue, but urgent. The Middle East is in chaos. There are 66 million refugees fleeing military activity world-wide. Fascism – always the link between big money and arms – is stalking the world again. In the US, Russia, China, UK and many other states, strong arm governments are in power. The position of the United Nations has been deeply challenged by the United States, and the military/arms/security systems are developing new technology systems every day which make us more vulnerable. More than this we cannot afford militarism. Armed forces mean people poverty. Wars destroy twenty years of economic development. Military spending brought down the USSR. It has and will bankrupt us. Militarism also moves to its own crescendo. Talk war and weapons and sooner or later you walk the talk. There is a slow train coming round the bend. So, we must act now. Jesus insistently says, “Be ready. Read and understand the times you live in.” We must be ready.
THE WORLD IS HEATING UP.
One more point is also decisive. Making weapons is one of the most energy intensive forms of manufacturing. Running the military is similar – planes, ships, bases, subs eat it up day after day. Wars are energy rampant – vast movements of troops and equipment, explosions of bombs, shells and the rebuilding and replacing of all that is destroyed. The military system and wars waste something like 5-10% of total human CO2. The planet is heating up. This must be stopped fast. It is imperative. Closing down this energy use gives us a chance of saving the planet from runaway global warming, perhaps our last chance.
WORLD MULTILATERAL DISARMAMENT IS FAR EASIER.
So, it turns out that world militarism, far from being realistic, is stupid beyond measure and we have been swallowing camels and ignoring Jesus for far too long. The 1932 Geneva Disarmament Conference was nearly ninety years ago. World Disarmament needs to be done. It must be done. There are two red herrings which need to be pickled. First, we nail the “unilateral” word. Unilateral disarmament is dangerous; what if you do it and nobody else does? So, normally, disarmament (unilateral) is ruled out. But why disarm unilaterally? Everyone should do it, as occurs with mot states other than the US which still insists on citizen’s rights to shoot one another. Why form the Basingstoke Disarmament Society when you can do it in the whole UK? We need Multilateral Disarmament and can have it.
Second, there is the disarmament has failed and will always fail mantra. A little bit of study shows that disarmament fails, partly because it is partial and not full, allowing all kinds of arguments, but mainly because the military insist on being in charge of it. Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas and the military screw up disarmament. Well, they would wouldn’t they? What is needed is a clear, decisive plan that helps the military and arms companies through the process, and then it can be done. World Multilateral Disarmament is far EASIER than any ongoing military development and wars would be. It is time to quit war and act as grownups. We need no threats, no weapons, but just law-abiding living and productive and useful business.
THE WORLD DISARMAMENT PLAN.
It requires a clear plan that everybody can understand, abide by and enforce. Yes enforce. This is not cosy wish fulfilment. If Fred has a machine gun in the garage, the police move in. It is a plan backed by the UN, international law and the UN member states. The power base for this transition is popular world-wide support. The world Christian community, which has not yet acted together, is over two billion. If they can be mobilised, conscripted, then we are nearly half way there. We will discuss that strategy shortly. The key issue is for us all to see where we are going. There are six points.
- CLOSE DOWN ALL MILITARY SYTSTEMS TOGETHER. Every state cuts military expenditure and all weapon types by 20% a year until it is all gone in five years. Weapons are destroyed or recycled to peaceful use. Disarmament is policed by a combined UN force which shrinks as the military system does.
- ARMS PRODUCTION STOPS. Arms manufacturers stop production immediately and are given 80%, 60%, 40% and 20% subsidies on previous arms revenue while they convert to civilian production.
- DEMOBILIZATION OF ARMED FORCES. Members of the armed forces are given similar payments in addition to their pensions while the military systems are closed down.
- TOTAL SURVEILLANCE AND ENFORCEMENT. There is open inspection of all possible arms sites by anybody at any time to ensure full compliance. Those most fearing states can require compliance.
- CLOSE DOWN TERRORISM. Terrorist (non-state) weapons are offered buy-back terms for a limited period of time, and then military teams move in to confiscate.
- LAW, JUSTICE AND ORDER. A UN Council and Courts System of International Law handles disputes as we do within nations. International law.
Everybody understands arms are eliminated in five years and all states do it. Penalties for failure are decisive. Military dependent rulers are given exit routes and democratic elections take over, and international relations become non-oppositional. Many states will have to forgive past aggressions but all international relations become and remain peaceful to the blessing of us all. It can be done, as long as the military are not put in charge. We could in six years’ time have a disarmed and warless world, end refugees and much world poverty and save 10% of the world CO2 generation. It is sensible, practical, Christian and good for all of us. So, what do we have to do to get it on the world stage.
THE NEXT MOVES.
TEN THOUSAND SEEING THE MILITARIST LIE AND UNDERSTANDING WORLD DISARMAMENT IS POSSIBLE AND EVEN EASY.
There are three keys to turn. The first one you may already have done. It is seeing that WMD makes sense when everybody else is not thinking about it and that it can be implemented. There is nothing special about the arguments here, but if you are reading this you probably have some idea of the problem and how disarmament makes sense. If you do not, just think about gun ownership in the United States… The conclusion can be obvious for people of all faiths and none. This is not a sectarian policy. We need to be a hundred, a thousand and then ten thousand reasonably articulate people who see the point and spread it, an active community of faith and conviction, each one a self-starter prepared to open things up. Groups like CAAT are already working in the field, some people are pacifists, but the big agenda needs to be on the table and understood by each of us. Getting to a thousand quickly is not difficult. Some people get there in ten minutes. The ten thousand figure is probably the critical one. Once the issue is fully on the public agenda, it will explode, just as it has been suppressed. So are things roughly as laid out here. You’ve read it. What do you think? The old have too much thinking shaped by the military orthodoxy and lived under Cold War rhetoric for much of their lives and maybe cannot change quickly, so the young may be decisive. It is not just having a view but making a movement for full-disarmament-pacifism and taking on intellects like Trump. It’s that difficult.
THE WORLD-WIDE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY WAKES UP.
Second, the challenge is to get Christians worldwide to see the integrity and point of Christian teaching about arms and Christian peace. Frankly, a lot of Christians have sentimentalized peace, or made it an individual person issue. In some areas it is not difficult. Pope Francis is already saying most of these things. Often Christians are too nice to confront and have fitted in with the militarism of their governments and side-lined obvious Christian teaching. Peace with God, peace in our hearts, but we forget that nation shall speak peace unto nation stuff. We do not believe peace can work. That is the tragedy of the present Christian Church. Peace is real – the way we all actually live our lives, work, trade, play and learn. Peace is ordinary and good. The military pie in the sky – “home by Christmas”, “Mission Accomplished”, “Only weapons keep us safe” is the false religion; it needs calling out. So, there is some kind of spiritual change needed here. Opening up Christian groups has hitherto not been a fast operation. Here something drastically different needs to occur. How it might happen is anyone’s guess. God continues to wait.
Another Christian change is moving to the worldwide Church. Churches are strongly national, aside the Catholic Church, and the whole Church has never acted together, although perhaps nearly in 1932. This time round, we must all agree and push in the same direction. For US gun owning Christians that seems unthinkable, but the underlying Christian argument cannot be assailed. You Shall Not Kill obviously entails not producing millions of killing instruments. If abortion is wrong, militarism and arms is too. So the sanctity of life before God is seamless and all Christians should support it in international affairs. There are 2.3 billion Christians world-wide and if they act, each with a tiny bit of faith, in concert, World Multilateral Disarmament will be unstoppable/
PETITIONS WORLDWIDE
The main weapon of disarmament, as it was in the early 30s is Petitions. Petitions are without aggression. They state what people believe and ask governments to act. They are faster than elections, which have a long drift of policy change. They are specific, addressing one issue. Governments have promised responses and by and large the response depends on the number of votes behind the petition. They are a lever. In recent times there have not been international petitions. This one aims to be replicated and grow in all countries. Of course, multilateral disarmament is a threat to no-one, because no-one disarms until we all do. The military lobby will scream that it is impractical, unthinkable, dangerous, unpatriotic, like the gun lobby in the States, but we have seen through weapons and war. So, we move petitions. That is largely work. Emails, tweets, facebook, media, talks, discussions. Some will be good at it. We all can work at it. We do not want media primadonnas, just ordinary people who will move the mountain. The numbers are needed to make it democratically irresistible. Ten million here, twenty million in the US, China, Russia, India and the momentum is worldwide and the UN takes over. It will be a fight, but not against anybody, but only for them.
So, we are on the road. I’ve just opened a Parliamentary Petition on 13/3/2020 and it must be up to 10,000, but preferably tens of millions in six months time. It needs to move fast and that is mobile/phone/computer and contacts for an hour or two a day from us all The principle is interesting. Jesus said, “Faith can move mountains” but he probably meant in buckets, thousands and then millions of individual commitments adding up. In 1932 some petitions had tens of millions of signatures. We should do better than that now with the technological ease. So, what do you think? Does it chime with your faith? Do you agree? Can you be a growth point so that we can disarm the world. We have martyrs and people of peace down through history whom it has cost dearly. Surely our generation can do better than this. A million peace petition signatures fast and the UN in 2022.. Get out your bucket. Somebody needs to set up websites, get links going, and do the business. I try incompetently. Over to you.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/300818
alan@storkey.com