Patrick Henry or Gideon?

Patrick Henry's famous quote:

"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"

Gideon's famous quote:

"For it is better that we should be in bondage than that we should lose our lives; therefore, let us put a stop to the shedding of so much blood."

Where do you come down?

Pro-Death Bona Fides

In a strange twist, Republican candidates now must seemingly prove their pro-death bona fides to the Tea Party extremist base.  In the last two Republican debates the crowd has made it clear that death is preferable to life, eye-for-an-eye-tooth-for-a-tooth is preferable to love thy neighbor and blessed-are-the-peacemakers and good-samaritanism and so forth.  (Videos below)

What's Wrong With Us? Some ideas.

Perhaps I'm just in a bad mood, politically, but I made a list of what's wrong with America right now.  Enjoy:

1. Pointless, horrible wars that we won't end.
2. An assault on our civil liberties, mostly due to the Patriot Act.
3. A complete lack of initiative and desire to do something about climate change and out-of-control consumption of fossil fuels.
4. The deterioration of our public school system.
5. The ever-growing income disparity chasm between the rich and poor.
6. A broken health care system and no universal health care on the horizon to fix it.
7. Underregulated crony corporatism.
8. Insulated, unaccountable politicians.
9. Incivility and bigotry.
10. The New York Yankees.

To sum it up: we have a bipartisan assault on peace, liberty, niceness, the poor, and the environment.  Am I missing anything?

Christian Pacifism, the Constitution, and War in Libya

The Libya situation is a classic rubber-hits-the-road situation for an evolving pacifist like myself.  On the one hand I believe strongly that the Gospel implores us to practice non-aggression, and practical experience shows that violence never begets less violence but only escalates it.  On the other hand you had peaceful protests from Libyans seeking to only secure democracy for themselves, but were met with violence from their government and it seems only right to send our military in to cripple their oppressive and aggressive government.  The world is, indeed, a complicated place.

But I can't support military action in Libya.  Not only do we have two wars of choice already being fought in the Middle East, not only is our military stretched thin, not only is our budget (and our military budget in particular) spinning out of control, not only does America tend to get bogged down in regime change messes, but I believe escalating the violence is the unethical response.

State of the Union Highlights

I was at scouts last night and couldn't watch the State of the Union Address, but as I've browsed through it there are several items that I believe are worth highlighting.  The theme was Win the Future, which I guess is the new Hope and Change.  In both cases, President Obama wants to exude optimism, which is something, as I've said before, we dearly lack around here.  So with optimism in mind, here are a few things worth looking at.

As some of you know, I'm a proud and moralistic environmentalist, so I appreciated the renewed emphasis on renewable energy:

Too Much Air in the War We Breath

War has become the single most pervasive theme in modern society. We wage War on Terror, sports arenas are battlefields, and any significant level of destruction is deemed a war zone. Even positive efforts fall prey to the theme - the War on Cancer, War on Drugs, and the Battle Against Hunger. It's become so common that we are desensitized to the violence conveyed with such a theme. Is the recent political rhetoric just a result of the common vernacular? Or is it the cause?

Violent, war-laced imagery exists on all sides of the aisle, and has been present for generations. Consider Lincoln's "House Divided" - , Roosevelt's "Man with the Muckrake" - , or more modern examples like McCain's 2008 GOP Convention Speech "Fight with me. Fight with me. Fight for what's right for your country", and even Obama last year in Ohio "I'll never stop fighting to give every American a fair shake.".

While the last two references seem relatively mild, the frequency and amplitude of the imagery has increased dramatically as of late; with phrases like "kill the bill", "battleground states", and the now infamous crosshairs from Sarah Palin. Current debate has arisen over the relationship between the political jargon and the horrible events in Arizona.

I personally haven't decided if there is a quantifiable dependence on the actions of psychopaths and the violent allusions of politicians, media, and society. Nevertheless, I do feel strongly that action needs to be taken against the perpetuation of violence. Joseph Smith had it right when he said, "Let us conquer ourselves, and then go to and conquer all the evil that we see around us, as far as we possibly can. And we will do it without using violence; we will do it without interfering with the agency of men or of women. We will do it by persuasion, by long-suffering, by patience, and by forgiveness and love unfeigned, by which we will win the hearts, the affections and the souls of the children of men to the truth as God has revealed it to us."

Thankfully modern commentators and politicians echo this same idea:





There is no need for violence. It has no place in our society, nor in our hearts.

Bomb Repeat Bomb

I had a post all ready to go about the procrastination around ratifying the New Start Treaty between the US and Russia. I've been blown away (pun intended) by the wavering Republicans that wanted to amend the treaty. The New Start Treaty is based on a previous treaty with Russia that is set to expire this month. As such, any amendment would require both countries to go back to negotiations.

I was going to write about Russia's response to the proposed amendments, "I can only underscore that the strategic nuclear arms treaty, worked out on the strict basis of parity, in our view fully answers to the national interests of Russia and the United States,” (Sergey V. Lavrov - Russian foreign minister) “It cannot be opened up and become the subject of new negotiations.”

I had a bunch written about how Senator McCain was pushing for a clause to be inserted that would maintain the US's ability to stockpile missiles in Germany and other European countries. As I wrote, I kept thinking about how completely asinine the GOP's arguments were, and how ridiculous the comment from Mr McConnell was accusing Obama of trying to force the treaty forward for political gain, "Our top concern should be the safety and security of our nation, not some politician’s desire to declare a political victory and host a press conference before the end of the year."

Then, just before clicking on the "Publish Post" button, this news was released. I can't express how delighted (and surprised) I am that congress has managed to approve a little bit of common sense. I'm glad that an the publishing of an explosive post was averted. Oh, and I'm pretty happy that congress came to their senses before we had to face the possibility of heating up a Cold War.

Rant Time: Pres. Obama is No Liberal

And he's certainly no socialist, despite the popular conservative argument otherwise.  Here's what we have seen so far:

1. He gave away the public option before the debate even began.  Health care reform ended up being a huge win for the health care industry which will soon be flooded with new customers thanks to the mandate.
2. The stimulus was too small and included too many tax cuts for corporations at the Republicans' behest.
3. He has failed to follow up on, pursue, and prosecute Bush Administration illegal activities such as torture and illegal wiretapping.
4. The war in Afghanistan, which pretty much everyone agrees we can't "win" militarily, has been escalated instead of ended.
5. The financial reform bill was watered down in the face of the powerful financial lobby to the point of likely being completely ineffectual to prevent the sort of the economic meltdown we are currently working our way out of, over two years later and with no end in sight.
6. He is now backing down from his stance of letting the tax cuts for the super-wealthy expire and extending the tax cuts for the vast majority of Americans permanently.
7. And now, reports are that the administration is stepping up covert attacks in Yemen.

Restrained and Intelligent Foreign Policy

In keeping with a recent tradition of writing an entire post just to announce I'm adding another link to the sidebar on a blog that very few people actually read (ahh! self-deprecation is nice!), I'm announcing that I'm adding a new link to the sidebar and I strongly suggest you click on this one.  The link is to a blog on the website Foreign Policy by Stephen M. Walt.  If you're interests range outside of domestic politics at all, and they really should, then Walt's blog is a must read, in my opinion.

In response to the odious Bill Kristol's recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal which uses fear-mongering to lobby for continuing the current insane level of funding for our bloated military-industrial complex, Walt gives several reasons why cutting "defense" spending is necessary but unlikely.  He concludes with this:

Which brings me to my main point. Although it is mind-boggling to realize that five percent of the world's population (the United States) now spends more on defense than the other 95 percent put together, this situation is hard to avoid when you see threats emerging virtually everywhere and when you think all of them are best met by an ambitious and highly interventionst foreign policy. If Americans want to be able to go anywhere and do anything, then they are going to have keep spending lots of money, even if all that activity merely reinforces anti-American extremism and makes more people want to come after us. (And for more on that latter point, read this book).

If you want to cut defense spending significantly, in short, you have to make some non-trivial adjustments in U.S. grand strategy. As some of you know, I think the United States would be both more prosperous and safer if we had a more restrained grand strategy and a more intelligent foreign policy. Until that happens, however, reducing defense spending itself is going to be an uphill fight, and our defense expenditures will be closer to the views of Kristol et al than to mine. Unfortunately.

A Culture of War

Glenn Greenwald has documented the increased desire of America to bomb Yemen.  Jeffrey Goldberg has documented the increased American desire to bomb Iran.  President Obama has committed to escalating the unwinnable war in Afghanistan.  Even though we are told that the combat mission in Iraq is coming to a close, there are still 50,000 troops there and combat will likely continue for a long time.  Meanwhile, experts are warning America that our reaction against the inaccurately-named "ground zero mosque" is fueling extremists.

We are caught in a self-defeating cycle.  Some Islamic extremists hate America and want to hurt us.  So America takes military action against Muslims.  So more Muslims hate America and want to harm us.  So America does something else against Muslims.  So they are more enraged and hate us more.  So we react again.  And so on.  If one didn't know any better one might be inclined to think that we are purposefully created conditions that would justify our ongoing military presence in the Middle East.  But that would be silly.

In any case, we can either let this go on indefinitely until we have an all-out world war on our hands or we can step back and try to regain our sanity and perspective by trying out the role of peacemaker for a while.  We can either be a country that is more and more reliant on a massive military-industrial complex or we can choose to disentangle ourselves from foreign intrigue as George Washington presciently advised.

Frankly, though, I find it slightly terrifying how many people in America support escalating our military presence in the Muslim world.  They are positively gleeful at the thought of bombing Afghanistan, and Iraq, and Iran, and Yemen, oh and Pakistan.  I don't want to live in a world where war is the preferred way to solve our difficult international problems, but that's where we're headed if we don't start actively opposing it.

George Washington's Foreign Policy and the Middle East

Glenn Greenwald highlights, once again, the fundamental problem with America's current foreign policy towards the Middle East.  In an effort to combat extremism we have attacked and occupied Afghanistan and Iraq, committed torture, held supposed extremists in prison indefinitely without charges or hearings, and failed to push back against Israeli aggressions.  As a result, no surprise, we have likely created far more extremism than we have destroyed, we are likely less safe now than we were before 9/11, and we are certainly a bigger target.

After reading Greenwald I stumbled across the following (kind of long) passage from George Washington's farewell address regarding foreign policy:

Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it -- It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages which might be lost by a steady adherence to it?. . .

It's Time to Condemn Israel and Require More Concessions for Peace

What came first, the Palestinian terrorism, targeting of civilians, and suicide attacks on Israel chicken or the Israeli targeting of civilians and brutal oppression of Palestinians egg?

The latest escalation of the problem occurred over the weekend when Israeli commandos stormed a humanitarian aid ship headed for Palestine and killed at least ten civilians.  The ship was attempting to violate an Israeli embargo of Gaza.  This horrendous act is just Israel following the script, though.  The next few scenes will inevitably go something like this:  Palestinians will react to the killings at sea with protests and violence; Israel will react to Palestinian protests and violence by entrenching further, demolishing a few buildings, tightening their grip on Palestine and the decades-long embargo leading to even more soul-crushing poverty and desperation; Palestinians will resort to suicide bombings and terror; Israel will crush a Palestinian uprising.  The rest of the world will have some harsh critiques for the script but allow the play to go on.

* For some reason I'm having difficulties embedding the video, so go watch it on Youtube here.

Glenn Greenwald, of course, does a masterful job outlined just why this latest attack is so repulsive, and the inept handling of the situation by the Obama administration, which refuses to join countries like Russia, Turkey, Brazil, France, Spain, and China in condemning the attack.  This was a boat in international waters delivering badly needed food, medicine, and building materials to Palestinian civilians who live in abject poverty and under dictatorial oppression.  The United States must send a strong message that human rights and basic human decency are of paramount importance, more important than Israel's right to oppress the Palestinians, and condemn this act.

The Thirst For War

Al Qaeda is gaining momentum in the Arabian peninsula, and in particular in Yemen. Underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab confessed to being trained by al Qaeda in Yemen. As a result there is a growing sentiment among many conservatives that we should be preparing to launch a military campaign in Yemen. War.

I do not understand this insatiable desire to be at war. Dick Cheney continually complains that Pres. Obama refuses to admit that we are at war (despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Dick Cheney has an honesty problem). Many conservatives fear that if liberals do not regularly admit to and discuss being at war with Islamic extremists that the extremists will destroy America. The assumption underlying this rhetoric is that war is the only way to make America safe.

This assumption is wrong. The United States government, even under the Bush administration, and other independent sources have all concluded that our wars with and occupations of Islamic nations is the single greatest factor in creating anti-American extremists. We often hear that these extremists hate America for its freedoms and ideals, which is generally not the case. They hate America for its wars and occupation of Muslim nations and lands. This is not necessarily a reason for America to act differently, but it should absolutely be treated seriously.

If we followed the conservative hawks' desire to start a war with Yemen, it would do more harm than good. It would create more terrorists than it would destroy. It would stretch our military even more and put Americans abroad in even more risk. And then Al Qaeda would simply pack up and move to a new country. And we can't just start a new war with every nation that harbors terrorists, we do not have unlimited resources. When America became sufficiently blase about Yemen, like we have about Afghanistan, the extremists would move back in, like they have in Afghanistan. This is a conflict that simply cannot be won through war.

And let's not forget the human side. Most of us are so detached from actual war that we have no idea what it actually means for the nations we attack. I know I don't. But take a look at this article and this photo essay about Yemen and its citizens from Foreign Policy magazine. These are real people living normal lives who harbor no ill-will towards America. These are people whose homes, families, and ways of life would be forever shattered by a misguided attack by America. It was the same for Afghans and and Iraqis. That is not to say that war is never justified, but, again, we have to take it into account.

As members of the church we should be even more acutely aware of these issues. Do we really believe that Muslims are sons and daughters of God? Do we really believe that the Gospel is universal? Can we reconcile these beliefs with disdain for Arabs, disparagement of Islam, and a thirst for war? Protection of America against terrorists is certainly not mutually exclusive to the Gospel, but the way in which we go about it and the emotions and motivations that propel us should be carefully evaluated.

What To Do About Afghanistan

Here are three pretty convincing arguments about what Pres. Obama should do about Afghanistan.

The first argues that if we want a victory in Afghanistan we are going to have to decide to Get Nasty, send a lot more troops than even Gen. McChrystal is asking for, and use overwhelming military force to oust the Taliban and Al Qaeda for good. We can't win this war by going home or using half measures. We need to fully engage, no matter how politically unpopular the idea may be. Peace is only achieved through war.

The second argues that brute military force in Muslim countries is the actual cause of hatred towards America, and thus creates breeding ground for terrorism. Even if we oust the Taliban through military force, we will have lost the bigger goal of stamping out terrorism because the act of taking out the Taliban through military force will cause more hatred and terrorism towards America.

The third takes the middle ground and argues that our goal should be protecting and propping up a few major cities in Afghanistan by "throw[ing] at them all the resources they can absorb: military, civilian, financial, the works." We don't worry about the sparsely populated rural regions because if popular opinion turns our way in the big cities it will seep out to the rest of the country.

What is likely to happen will be more like the middle of the road suggestion than anything. We won't just leave, but it is too unpopular a stance to approve a major troop increase, so Pres. Obama will send a few more troops and hope it all works out.

You, of course, can decide which plan makes the most sense for you, understanding that very few of us can really understand the full scope of these foreign policy decisions. But that doesn't mean we can't have an opinion. We may not grasp the full implications of these decisions, and we don't have access to the intelligence information on which the government bases its decisions, but we can still have an opinion about how our government should generally make these decisions.

I want to re-post two quotes from modern-day prophets that guide my feelings on this subject. During World War I Pres. Joseph F. Smith said:

For years it has been held that peace comes only by preparation for war; the present conflict should prove that peace comes only by preparing for peace, through training the people in righteousness and justice, and selecting rulers who respect the righteous will of the people.

Pres. Marion G. Romney said:

We should find no pleasure in the fact that men’s strivings for peace have proved ineffectual. I wage no war against their efforts. Many of them are doing the best they can in the light they have. Nevertheless, I can see no justification for us, who have the clear light of the revealed gospel of Christ, to spend our lives stumbling around through the mists following the uncertain glimmer of a flickering candle lighted by the wisdom of men. Rather, we should devote our energies to spreading the true light, and leave the mists to those who do not see that light.

Wars are creations of man. They are only waged because we want them waged and we have created situations where they are then necessary. At some point we have to stop looking for opportunities for war and start looking for opportunities for peace. So I am personally ready to bring the troops home from Afghanistan and have our leaders start focusing on peace.

That may be naive at this point, especially to those in the government who have spent their lives in the "uncertain glimmer of a flickering candle lighted by the wisdom of men." They would say that we have to wage these wars to protect America from terrorism. Perhaps, though, we protect America best by focusing on peace and understanding instead of war.

There is no way of knowing this, but I suspect America may have been better off if we never went to Korea, Vietnam, Iraq (twice), Somalia, Afghanistan, and all the other places we've taken our military might. There is not a decisive victory in the entire list, and all we've reaped is more hatred and bitterness towards our country. And now people are even talking about going after Iran. This type of thinking has to stop.

So I say, bring the troops home from Afghanistan, start creating understanding and diplomatic ties, start focusing on peace and commonalities. That, to me, is the best way to ensure peace and change the world.

Torture

I think it is time to talk torture. This is perhaps the most sickening and anti-Christian legacy of a Bush Administration that has out-done itself in creating an ugly legacy.

The Senate Armed Forces Committee just released its "Inquiry Into the Treatment of Detainees In U.S. Custody." What we learn is that in December 2001 the administration was already planning its use of torture. On February 7, 2002, Pres. Bush signed a memorandum stating that the Geneva Convention did not apply to the conflicts with al Qaeda and the Taliban, which meant that Common Article 3, which affords basic humane treatment to detainees, did not apply.

In August 2002 the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel issued two legal opinions. The first of which redefined torture:

Physical pain amounting to torture must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death. For purely mental pain or suffering to amount to torture under [the federal torture statute], it must result in significant psychological harm of significant duration, e.g., lasting for months or even years.

The second opinion analyzed and approved of specific torture techniques, including waterboarding (the simulation of drowning). These memos are referred to as the First Bybee Memo and the Second Bybee Memo because they were approved of and recommended by Jay Bybee, Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel. Jay Bybee is (sigh) a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and a graduate of BYU undergrad and law school. I am ashamed.

Pres. Obama recently released the memos to the public. The memos are legal documents describing and justifying brutal interrogation methods including "forced nudity, the slamming of detainees into walls, prolonged sleep deprivation and the dousing of detainees with water as cold as 41 degrees," as well as "keeping detainees awake for up to 11 straight days, placing them in a dark, cramped box or putting insects into the box to exploit their fears."

Keep in mind that this is the United States government we are talking about. Our government. The policies and practices of our government represent our shared values and the image we present to the world. But lets continue.

These "techniques" were used in both Afghanistan and Iraq. It is much harder, I think, to make the argument that the Geneva Convention does not apply to those wars. I can agree that the larger war on terror may not be the type of conflict that is contemplated in the Geneva Convention (though I adamately disagree with its total suspension in those cases), but the Afghani and Iraqi Wars were the type of conventional wars that were contemplated by the Geneva Convention. To suspend it and use torture in those wars is an absolutely inexcusable breach of justice and humanity.

Now, perhaps, the most disgusting revelation of them all. A former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist has stated that the Bush Administration pushed for torture to be used in order to create a link between al Qaeda and Iraq. Top al Qaeda detainees were waterboarded dozens and dozens of time in an effort to extract information that the intelligence community had already advised the administration did not exist. It is clear now that the Bush Administration knew it was going to war with Iraq (despite claiming that war was always a last resort). In order to build a case that it was told could not be built, it ordered torture. Torture was not just used to extract information of imminent threats to America, it was used for political purposes. This makes me sick to my stomach.

There is not much to add to any of this. The arguments have been made that torture produces more false confessions and evidence than facts. The arguments have been made that our use of torture creates more animosity and, as a result, terrorists, because we are known torturers. The arguments have been made that America and Americans are supposed to be the shining example of freedom and justice in the world. We are supposed to be the beacon that the oppressed and hopeful flock to in order to flee oppression and fear.

After initially stating that no prosecutions would be forthcoming at any level as a result of torture, it now appears that those that devised and ordered the torture policies will be subject to possible investigation and prosecution. This is the way it should be. We are a nation of laws, and when those laws are broken justice must be done. We have to assure that this will never happen again. We have to cleanse our government of this type of thinking. These decisions will be made independent of the administration through the Department of Justice (what? You forgot that the Department of Justice is an independent agency after the Bush Administration abuses of power? That is understandable).

There is a significant argument put forward by conservatives that it was dangerous for the Obama Administration to release the torture memos. We need to remember that these are memos that outlined the legal foundation for the use of torture. These are not memos that give specific names, dates, or locations of torture. The only people put at risk by the release of these memos are the criminals that authorized, drafted, and approved of them. These memos reveal the arguments in favor of torture, which needs to come to light so we can avoid this type of reasoning in the future. Everyone in the world already knew America had become a torturer, now we know the depraved reasoning that got us there.

Finally, and I realize this is getting long, but I want to stress again that the way we use language is so important. The great David Foster Wallace said it best:

There's a grosser irony about Politically Correct English. This is that PCE purports to be the dialect of progressive reform but is in fact--in its Orwellian substitution of the euphemisms of social equality for social equality itself--of vastly more help to conservatives and the U.S. status quo than traditional SNOOT prescriptions ever were. Were I, for instance, a political conservative who opposed taxation as a means of redistributing national wealth, I would be delighted to watch PCE progressives spend their time and energy arguing over whether a poor person should be described as "low-income" or "economically disadvantaged" or "pre-prosperous" rather than constructing effective public arguments for redistributive legislation or higher marginal tax rates on corporations. (Not to mention that strict codes of egalitarian euphemism serve to burke the sorts of painful, unpretty, and sometimes offensive discourse that in a pluralistic democracy leads to actual political change rather than symbolic political change. In other words, PCE functions as a form of censorship, and censorship always serves the status quo.)

We call "torture" things like enhanced interrogation, harsh interrogation, techniques, coersion, aggressive interrogation, a necessary tool, mistreatment, tough interrogation, freely interrogate, refined interrogation, etc. We refer to stress positions and waterboarding, sleep management, sexual humiliation, and non-injurious physical contact. We hold illegal combatants at black sites. In short, we use non-offensive language to maintain the status quo and prevent real discourse and real progress.

We held human beings, children of God, in secret prisons and tortured them. Now that we are being honest about it, it's time for social progress.

Six Years of War

Today marks the six year anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq War. The arguments for and against this war are scratched all over the internet (including this site), newspapers, magazines, and any other media of expression. So I will not go over them again. I did go back and read some talks and articles written by our church leaders about war, however, and wanted to make sure to make them available to anyone who is interested.

President Hinckley's talk called War and Peace, given about six months after the beginning of the Iraq War, is a must read. He seems to genuinely struggle with the Iraq War. He, of course, glories in peace and condemns war generally, but adds that is personal feelings tend towards the conclusion that the war is like the war that Captain Moroni fought to protect their families and liberties. He makes clear to note that those are his personal feelings and that the members, being worldwide and diverse, have a right to protest and oppose the war.

Elder Oaks gave a talk called World Peace in 1990. In it he proclaims that peace isn't the absence of war, it is the affirmative existance of the gospel of Jesus Christ. While reducing war and the opportunity of war reduces its horrible costs (in terms of lives lost, the growth of hatred, money spent), true peace comes from living and spreading the gospel of peace.

President Marion G. Romney, in The Price of Peace, noting the first and second world wars, stated that we are failing miserably at peace because we are not paying the proper price. I love this quote and I think it sums up his message:

Now, while I feel that the many people of the earth today are so infected with the works of the flesh that they do not recognize them as such, and, therefore, many people are not possessed of the moral courage to pay the price of peace, still we should not, Jonah-like, sulk under a vine if some of them should turn to apply the principles of the Prince of Peace and find its joyful rewards. On the contrary, we should rejoice, for to proclaim peace is the sole purpose of our life’s mission. We should find no pleasure in the fact that men’s strivings for peace have proved ineffectual. I wage no war against their efforts. Many of them are doing the best they can in the light they have. Nevertheless, I can see no justification for us, who have the clear light of the revealed gospel of Christ, to spend our lives stumbling around through the mists following the uncertain glimmer of a flickering candle lighted by the wisdom of men. Rather, we should devote our energies to spreading the true light, and leave the mists to those who do not see that light.

If we leave the machinations of war and peace to our hope in human intelligence, we will fail. The only lasting peace comes from spreading the peace that the Savior proclaimed and personally living its precepts.

There are other pronouncements and talks given on the subject of war and peace that are easy to find. I think my thoughts are perhaps best summed up by this quote from President Joseph F. Smith, speaking during WWI:

For years it has been held that peace comes only by preparation for war; the present conflict should prove that peace comes only by preparing for peace, through training the people in righteousness and justice, and selecting rulers who respect the righteous will of the people.

Are we now a nation that is preparing for war or preparing for peace? What about us as individual members of the church, are we preparing ourselves and our children for war or peace? Are we a nation that rejoices in the gospel of peace or the hope that human ingenuity alone can bring peace? Is the Iraq War another example of "stumbling around through the mists" looking for peace where it was certain not to be found? I believe it was.