"Incurables didn't pay attention to these women at all. If they made advances they turned away with disgust ....The ones who were to be discharged were once more given the possibility for homosexual relations but they refused the advances of the genuine homosexuals. There were, however, borderline cases who used both opportunities. Whether or not one can call them bisexual I can't judge. To be able to observe the life and habits of the homosexuals of all varieties, in connection with their incarceration, was highly informative for me."


While I, obviously, do not approve of the methods used by the Nazis to effect this change in sexual behavior it is nevertheless clear that some homosexual individuals can be motivated to abandon this "lifestyle." I sent the Höss information in a letter to the professor but he was apparently to busy to respond and seemed to follow the rule: My mind is made up, don't bother me with facts.

As mentioned earlier, like most everything else which involves human behavior there are gradations in the expression of a given trait and to deny those can only serve political purposes rather than lead to an understanding of the underlying condition. Numbers translate into votes and this is all that counts, never mind the facts. This attitude has also led to the medical absurdity that HIV-AIDS which is for all practical purposes, in this country, a preventable disease by simply abstaining from unhealthy practices, is actually the only politically protected infectious disease for which a cure must be found immediately. Since research money is limited this stance comes at the cost of removing valuable financial resources from other truly unavoidable and more common illnesses. Currently the AIDS epidemic in Africa is receiving a great deal of attention and the solution is also to be billions of dollars for research. But even in Africa the epidemic is caused by promiscuous sexual behavior. The plague could be eradicated worldwide by abstention from homosexual practices, by engaging in heterosexual intercourse with one partner only, and avoidance of intravenous illicit drug use. In contrast to nearly all other diseases AIDS (with few exceptions e.g. children of infected mothers, or recipients of tainted blood transfusions) is self-inflicted and preventable by adhering to a healthy life-style.

These verities are, of course, highly unpopular. Therefore, an attitude is fostered by the political and media establishments where even the use of the term homosexual is frowned upon and the word "gay" has been substituted. This is truly a perversion of language. Hardly any one of us, regardless of sexual orientation, is gay in the true meaning of the word for any length of time. Life has too many vicissitudes to allow us "gaiety" for more than short periods. To dignify sexual practices, which involve acts that are distasteful to the majority of people in our culture, with this euphemism is unconscionable. Homosexual activists may call themselves whatever they want but the much larger non-homosexual community should not be swayed by this misuse of language and call the behavior by its proper name.

Nevertheless even here a caveat is in order. To label somebody " a homosexual" as if this were the "be all and end all "of the individual's life, is just as uncalled for as using other potentially pejorative terms without some qualification. For instance, when I started my professional neurologic career it was common practice to talk about "the epileptic" or "the schizophrenic." I abolished these terms from my personal vocabulary because they are adjectives and should not be used as nouns. Instead I talked and wrote about patients (by the way, even this term has lost its meaning, because nowadays physicians, just like lawyers, tend to have "clients") with epilepsy or schizophrenia, or whatever the condition was. This retains the personhood of the individual and allows for a change in the condition, which can and does occur at times. I had to disagree with one of my professors early on whose favorite dictum was "once an epileptic always an epileptic." The statement was not only pejorative but simply factually wrong. I am glad indeed that my terminology, which was news in the fifties and sixties, has now been generally adopted by my colleagues.

This brings me to one of the major pitfalls in the thought processes of the human race and is clearly illustrated by the two mentioned newspaper articles. It is the inappropriate use of the "all or nothing," principle as it is called in neurophysiology. The law refers to the propagation of the electrical activity in a nerve. Once an impulse is strong enough to be propagated, the size of the response, and the speed of its conduction will be independent of the intensity of the original stimulus. Once fired up the nerve gives its all. This is how the peripheral nervous system works. But we also have a central nervous system which allows us to give graded responses before we put our nerves into action. In the present context for Mr. Thomas there are apparently only monolithic Palestinians who have to be expelled and for the professor of educational psychology there are only homosexuals who are incapable of changing. This is the same type of thinking which declared "the Jews" enemies of the German people, and which condemned "the Germans" as "the Nazis" when in fact only a small subgroup in these categories had engaged in undesirable or even outright criminal activities. Unless we stop thinking in terms of classes of people and hold only individuals responsible for their actions there will be no end to hatred in this world with concomitant injustices.

Since the purpose of these entries is to provide contemporary documentation of American life or Zeitgeschichte, as it would be called in German, you are being treated in this installment not only to opinions on current events but also to some personal information.

In order to escape from the incessant war- and scare-mongering of the national media my wife Martha and I decided to heed the President's advice, go on with our lives and stimulate the economy. Since flying and cruising is somewhat cheaper right now we thought it a good idea to take a long postponed cruise through the Hawaiian Islands on the good ship Independence of American Hawaiian Cruises.

We booked our flight tickets separately (to get the cheapest fares) and paid for the ship with my credit card. One week before going came the call from the travel agency that the company had fallen victim to bin-Ladin's efficiency and declared bankruptcy. An immediate call to Merrill Lynch brought the good news that the $2435 had not yet been cashed and the transaction was red-flagged so that no money would be paid out. This left us, however, with the discounted airline tickets which were, of course, non-refundable. Instead of writing off the six hundred dollars we thought we might as well spend the money, Osama had saved us, on a hotel in Maui, where we could enjoy nature and converse with the birds and fish. The Kaanapali Beach Hotel fit the budget with $1200 for the two of us for one week, which left the other $1200 for food, drink and excursions. When all was said and done we actually came out ahead by about $300.

The hallmark of airline travel was that, although Delta provided us with excellent steaks coming and going across the Pacific, the safety considerations demanded that we had to eat with plastic knives and forks. Trying to cut a steak with a terrorist-prove small knife which bends in all directions is a feat which Martha was unable to accomplish with finger joints ravaged by age, so she had to return to the ways of our ancestors; simply wrap up the thing and eat it from her hand. About 500+ years of civilization was gone for reasons of "security." To enhance our security even further we had, obviously, to be at the airport two hours earlier but fortunately Salt Lake City and Maui as well as Honolulu still had curbside check-in, which avoided interminable lines. Contrary to our media pundits’ opinions people are still fond of flying and the planes were full.

On the return trip we would have to have left the hotel at 4 30 in the morning to make a 7 55 flight from Maui to Honolulu in order to catch the 10 a.m. flight to LAX. Since this did not correspond to my idea of a vacation we opted to take a noon flight from Maui to Honolulu one day earlier (I wanted to see Waikiki beach and Diamond Head anyway) and leaving the hotel at 7 30 am would have given us ample time for catching our plane to LA. This was not to be. The hotel to the airport shuttle people insisted that we have to leave at 7 a.m. in spite of the fact that the trip takes only 25 minutes. We had to submit to the rules and when we got to the airport 20 minutes later we found people patiently and uncomplainingly waiting in line to go through inspection for plant and animal material one might have wanted to bring along as souvenirs. Surprisingly enough there was no movement of that line and inquiry revealed that they don't open this inspection counter until 8 a.m. Such are the joys of today's travel. The civilized ways of former days are gone for good in our "Do it yourself" society which is strictly geared to the young and vigorous.

Mind you I am not complaining, I am simply stating a fact that we are going backwards in our civilization rather than forwards. On the other hand Maui was charming and one of my colleagues who had told me before going "you won't want to come back" was absolutely correct. Sitting on the beach looking out on the Lahaina Roads (stretch of water between Maui and the island of Lanai) watching the surf come in, visiting with the tropical fish and turtles on Black Rock beach, and eventually seeing the sun set behind Lanai more than made up for the follies we are currently being subjected to by the people who control our fate.

The contrast between the beauties of nature and human behavior was magnified when we turned on CNN after dinner and were treated to a daily dose of bombing Kabul, Taliban positions and anthrax scares. One asks oneself where is Homo sapiens - man the wise - when one sees conduct which is strictly contrary to all good sense. In September when President Bush was quoted as having said that he wouldn't send a million dollar cruise missile to hit a mud hut and kick a camel in the butt, I applauded him for his foresight. Media and other pressures made passion prevail over reason and we are now doing what he said we wouldn't.

Our Media hounds - and I really have no other word for them - constantly tell us what the "American people" want. Well, I am one of the American people and I don't want to bomb mud huts and camels. I also don't want our commandoes to go on ill defined missions with no adequate information on where the supposed targets, be they Osama or Mullah Omar, are really hiding. Our boys are sent into potential death traps and they deserve better. Some media commentators were surprised that the Taliban are fighting well. What's the surprise? It's their country and they have been doing nothing else but fight for decades, if not centuries. The arrogance, as well as ignorance, of some of these pundits is staggering. The British fought two wars in Afghanistan during the nineteenth century and left both times with a bloody nose, the Russians tried it recently and got out after ten years with the Soviet Union in shambles. For that I am grateful because I had no use for their system of government. But why in all the world should we be more successful? Because we are a high-tech superpower? Have we forgotten that the ridiculed black pajama-clad boys with a minimum amount of equipment, no air power but an indomitable will to succeed, kicked us out of Viet Nam? Does anybody really believe that Afghans will be any easier to defeat when we come to introduce our ideas of how the country should be run?

The American people I talk to are not particularly keen on this war either, but nobody asks them. I haven't found anybody who has been subjected to one of the famous public opinion polls. I miss especially a poll which would ask all of the 5000 or so families who have lost one or more of their members in the tragic events of September 11 whether or not they want a war with Afghanistan. They are the ones who have suffered and they should be heard. Fragmentary and anecdotal information seems to suggest that they don't want an eye for an eye. Gandhi has been credited for saying that the policy of "an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind" and that is also the truth.

What are we dropping bombs for? Ostensibly to get rid of the Taliban and with their demise Osama would have no place to hide, except possibly Iraq, Libya and other assorted "rogue states" whom we would bomb thereafter. The world would then be safe from terrorism and in the words of the fairy tales "everybody would live happily forever after." This is so naive that I cannot believe anybody in government really believes this. I was born a European, have lived under Goebbels, and became American by choice. I am, therefore, sufficiently skeptical of propaganda and even a cursory knowledge of history shows that most wars and revolutions had ulterior motives. This gets me back to Hawaii. The revolution in 1893 was fomented by American sugarcane growers who saw their profits disappear unless the islands were annexed by America. The official reason was, of course, the undemocratic behavior of the Queen who threatened the lives of the American settlers. The Spanish-American war in 1898 was ostensibly to rid Cuba of cruel Spanish dictatorship; to extract revenge for the sinking of the Maine and to bring Christianity to the forsaken natives in the Philippines. The fact that the Filipinos had been Christians for centuries was disregarded. Also disregarded was the fact that the Spanish had absolutely no interest in fighting America and, in all probability, had nothing to do with the Maine disaster. The Spanish had to be driven out, not only from the Western Hemisphere but also the Pacific, because after Hawaii had been digested it was America's Manifest Destiny to bring good government to most everybody in the Pacific. In 1917 along came President Wilson who believed, with religious fervor, that the world must be made safe for democracy which could only be achieved by entering the war on the Allied side. The fact that the Allies were deeply in debt to America for all the arms they had to buy and that this debt could never be collected if the Central Powers had won the war, was obviously irrelevant. That the world did not become safe for democracy, as Wilson had so devoutly hoped and prayed for, and that instead another war, even more horrible than the first one, resulted from it, is ignored. So is the fact that the current Arab-Israeli turmoil also goes back to WWI and the subsequent division of the spoils among the victorious Allies. That the British promised, at that time, the same piece of real estate to the Arabs as well as the Jews nobody wants to be reminded of either.

When Arabs resist the values of Western culture and are feeling left out from the benefits which globalism is supposed to bring, when they see that the poor get poorer and the rich richer they cannot be expected to become enchanted forever with the carrot which is being dangled before their noses. If they try to assert themselves they get the stick in form of bombs or rockets as Saddam Hussein has found out. Increasing social unhappiness by the masses is bound to lead to unrest and there will always be educated people to provide leaders. Let us not forget that the leadership of the proletarian revolutions during the nineteenth and twentieth century was never in the hands of the working class but in those of intellectuals (Marx, Engels, Lassale, Liebknecht, Lenin, Trotsky, Adler to name just a few) who took pity on the downtrodden and promised them the blue from the sky in form of a socialist utopia. After the demise of the Soviet Union, socialist dreams have temporarily lost some steam and in its breach stepped religion which has always been useful to mask imperial aspirations.

Deny it as we might the current war against "terrorism" is indeed a religious war of ideas and, as mentioned repeatedly, it cannot be won by bombs or even ground troops in Afghanistan, Iraq or other places around the world. Even if the Taliban were to be defeated and a pro-Western government installed in Kabul, fundamentalist-nationalists would simply melt into the mountains and guerilla warfare, accompanied by terrorist tactics, would continue ad infinitum. It pains me to say so but Osama bin-Ladin has so far succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. A $200.000 investment in martyrs (which was recouped anyway by selling assets on the stock market before its expected crash) has produced, and continues to produce, billions of dollars of losses to the American economy, fear is being spread by the media and if we are to believe our politicians we are engaged in an Afghan war with a projected duration of several years. Even if we kill bin-Ladin now he will be a martyr (which is what he wants anyway) who goes to paradise and his image will spur on other fanatics to continue with his work of creating hatred for America in the Islamic world.

Even we in America are apparently fighting for religious principles because we have been told that this is a war of good against evil. Jesus' words: "Whoever is not against us is with us" have been turned into: "Who is not with us is against us!" There can be no neutrals now we are told; the world has to be strictly polarized. This is what the "Judeo-Christian tradition" apparently means. That Christianity and Judaism are supposed to operate on different premises can no longer be openly acknowledged. Jesus was a Jew we are told and, therefore, adhered to the Jewish religion to the bitter end. The fact that he changed Judaism fundamentally the moment he told the parable of the Good Samaritan in answer to the question: "who is my neighbor?" is not taken into account. This question of the scribe, as reported by Luke, was not rhetorical because Jews did distinguish very carefully between themselves and others. Jews were to help each other but they were to shun contact with foreigners. When Jesus told the scribe that your neighbor is anyone in need of help, even a despised Samaritan, he violated one of the most sacred taboos. In addition he had the audacity to tell the Jewish religious leaders that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath; to eat with "sinners," thereby abrogating the sanctity of the dietary laws; and ultimately going after temple money by overthrowing the tables of the money changers. This clearly put him beyond the pale of Jewish religious authorities and required a death sentence. We are now told by some that Jesus was a fanatical zealot and that is why the Romans crucified him. But this is only an attempt to exonerate the Jewish ruling circles of Jerusalem at that time and to foster harmony between Christians and Jews. But a harmony which is based on a wrong premise can never be lasting.

We must openly admit to the differences between the Jewish and Christian religion before we can agree on common principles. Judaism was and for true believers still is, essentially tribal in its nature. This may sound harsh but the disapproval of intermarriage, the insistence by rabbinical authorities on separateness and fear of assimilation are facts of life which cannot be denied. Careful reading of the sayings by the prophets makes it also undeniably clear that they were nationalists. The redemption of this world was to be brought about by Jews and the Law, to which all nations will have to subscribe, will come from Zion. The famous beating of swords into plowshares in Is. 2:4 is preceded by "people going up to the mountains of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law; and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge the nations and shall rebuke many people." While Christians may read this symbolically, fundamentalist Jews tend to think in terms of the here and now. It is the earthly, rather than the heavenly Jerusalem, to which all nations will have to flow and it will be the God of Jacob rather than the Heavenly Father of Jesus who will lay down the law! These statements may come as a surprise to those who believe that "Jews are just a quirky Protestant sect" as Stephen Feldman has put it in Please, Don't wish me a Merry Christmas. But while that book is clearly polemical, the one by Rabbi Neusner Jews and Christians. The Myth of a Common Tradition is scholarly, well reasoned and ought to be required reading for evangelical Christians of the Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell genre. They also ought to visit the website of a steadily growing subset of Orthodox Judaism at www.noahide.com. This should dispel any notion that Judaism and Christianity are simply variants of one common religion like Catholicism and Protestantism.

Where does this leave our Christian leadership which is engaged in this "Crusade" against terrorism as President Bush has unfortunately called it. I said "unfortunately" deliberately because the word has a bad connotation in the minds of Muslims. The Crusaders did not behave like followers of Jesus' teachings: they murdered, raped and plundered not only Jerusalem but even Christian Constantinople. The Muslim hero of the Crusades is Saladin, who soundly defeated and permanently crippled the Christian Crusaders at the battle of Hattin (A.D.1187). It is his example Saddam and Osama are trying to follow. I sincerely doubt that some of our fire-breathing media pundits have ever heard of this epoch making battle and the difference in the treatment of the inhabitants of Jerusalem first by the Christian and then the Muslim conquerors. The latter let the population of the city live while the former "put them to the sword," as the saying goes, regardless of what religion they belonged to. I am not extolling the virtues of Islam over Christianity, I am simply recounting historical facts and when it comes to politics Christianity has never been tried ever since it became the official state religion in the Roman Empire.

The reasons are obvious. Jesus' teachings such as: love those who hate you, when struck turn the other cheek and my kingdom is not of this world; have no place in power politics. Jews and Muslims are more honest in this respect because they make no such demands on the adherents of their faiths. Therefore, let us leave religious-moral sloganeering out of American propaganda and concentrate instead on actions which prove to the world at large and Muslims in particular that Americans, regardless of what faith they profess, do care for others who do not share their belief system. The month of Ramadan would be an excellent opportunity to do so. Instead of continuing to bomb and send commandoes we could use the money and the troops to feed and clothe the starving hundreds of thousands of Afghans in the refugee camps in Pakistan and in those areas of Afghanistan which are not under direct Taliban control. Dropping food from the air, as well as bombs, makes good propaganda but has little practical value. The impoverished Afghan people will have difficulty getting to it and when they are successful the Taliban can always confiscate it "for the good of the country." In addition, while the ordinary Afghan will have to walk or get to the drop points - wherever they are - by mule, donkey or camel, the Taliban who have trucks can get there first.

There is nothing we can do for the people who live under Taliban control at this time but we have a great opportunity to show our compassion - not through some nebulous relief agencies but through our troops - by helping, those who have escaped, with food and half-way decent housing for the upcoming winter months. That would be a display of genuine Christian charity. Although an effort of this type would probably be derided by Osama's followers as a propaganda ploy, the people whose lives we save rather than destroy would be grateful and the news networks including Al-Jazeera would broadcast the good news far and wide. It will not deter the likes of Osama but would-be followers might be persuaded that there is a better way than bombs and killing. To those who argue that this proposal is unrealistic I can only say: yes, as long as you don't try it! Actions always speak louder than words and we are judged by what we do rather than what we say.


Two years ago at Thanksgiving I wrote the final words for War and Mayhem and it is appropriate to repeat them in part at this time: "The challenges of the next century, let alone millennium, are going to be enormous. Will our 'opinion makers' and politicians conduct themselves any wiser than in the past? Will we be able to resurrect a universal moral code and live by it? Will we be able to meet criticism and differences of opinions without demonizing those who think differently and try to understand why they do so? Will we be able to look beyond generalizations to the individuals who make up the groups and deal with them according to individual behavior rather than preconceived notions which supposedly characterize the group?" I went on to say that if we could answer these questions affirmatively there is hope for mankind but if not we are going to slide into an abyss the magnitude of which can hardly be imagined at this time.

Our response to the September 11 tragedy does not bode well for the future and the current November issue of Commentary contains chilling information. The lead article by Daniel Pipes: "The Danger Within: Militant Islam in America," depicts a nightmare scenario of Muslim forces taking over our government and turning us into an Islamic Republic on the model of Iran. One may laugh about this but Pipes is serious and provides documentation for his opinion. The second article by Mark Helprin: "What Israel Must Now Do to Survive," is equally eerie. Not only does Helprin advocate that Israelis need to arm themselves to the teeth now but he also asks: "Is it not obvious that now is the time, when American and Israeli interests plainly coincide, for Israel to destroy [emphasis added] the laboratories [of weapons of mass destruction], reactors, processing plants and depots where untold terror might arise?" Helprin concludes "Such a thing seems perilous, and it is, but hardly more perilous than its alternative." It seems that it was this type of thinking which caused Secretary of State Colin Powell to immediately reverse his criticism of the Sharon government at the time it sent tanks back into Palestinian territory and to call him “a dear friend" (Salt Lake Tribune, October 25,2001).

The American "public opinion molders" and our politicians who react to their pressure tend to be remarkably poorly informed about foreign affairs. This leads to government from crisis to crisis without a long range steadily pursued goal. This is outright dangerous. When Prime Minister Sharon said recently that Israel will go it alone if the U.S. does not condone his actions we have to keep Sharon's life history in mind. It is even more important than Arafat's. The ill-fated invasion of Lebanon in 1982 was planned and executed by Sharon. The Reagan peace plan, thereafter, was rejected by him and the massacre in the Sabra-Shatila Palestinian refugee camp, although carried out by Christian Lebanese Phalangists, was clearly condoned by Sharon. He was severely criticized for it by concerned Israelis and lost his job as Defense Minister. The details of this affair, as well as other injustices against Palestinians which have over the years been perpetrated by a succession of Israeli governments are well documented in Noam Chomsky's book: The Fateful Triangle. The United States, Israel & The Palestinians. The book was published in 1983 and should be required reading for everybody in government and the media. It is absolutely tragic that no attention has been paid to this book although the concluding paragraph states: "Meanwhile, at least this much seems clear. As long as the United States remains committed to an Israeli Sparta as a strategic asset, blocking the international consensus on a political settlement, the prospects are for further tragedy: repression, terrorism, war and possibly even a conflict that will engage the superpowers, eventuating in a final solution from which few will escape." The first part of the prophecy is a fact of life now and with Sharon's finger on the trigger of Israel's nuclear devices the last words are no longer far fetched either. If Israeli politicians were to feel themselves pushed against the wall The Samson Option, as it has been called by Seymour Hersh in his 1991 book, may well become attractive. Furthermore, if Israeli scientists were to have, in the meantime, perfected a neutron bomb which kills only people and animals, rather than destroy property, the world could be in dire straits. The vital oil installations might remain viable and could switch from Arab into Jewish hands. What a temptation for any government if it were to feel that its survival is at stake. The backlash which would subsequently ensue against America would be both vicious and interminable.

It is in this context that the third article of the current Commentary issue: "The Wages of Durban" by Arch Puddington needs to be seen. The UN World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) had concluded a few days before the September 11 catastrophe. The conference was marred by anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish polemics, as well as demands for reparations for slavery and colonial misconduct, by a variety of delegates. Nevertheless it was only Israel and the United States who walked away from the conference demonstrating to the world that: whatever you say or do we don't care we go our own way together! If our fate is truly irrevocably linked to actions initiated by the government in Jerusalem rather than Washington our war on terrorism is bound to fail. If we were to win but lose in the process the freedoms we still enjoy the victory would be a hollow one. What use is it to gain the whole world if you lose your soul?, the biblical writer asked. Yes indeed! I personally wish the Jewish people, both here and in Israel, well but as I said on previous occasions justice is indivisible and, difficult as it is, justified grievances by the Palestinians must be addressed now. Time is running out.

To do ought good never will be our task,

But ever to do ill our sole delight,

As being contrary to his high will

Whom we resist. If then his Providence

Out of our evil seek to bring forth good,

Our labor must be to pervert that end,

And out of good still to find means of evil;

Which oft times may succeed, so as perhaps

Shall grieve him, if I fail not, and disturb

                                     His inmost counsels from their destined aim.



The German language has another word for the devil that is quite fascinating: der Leibhaftige. It is used by the common people especially in the countryside when they don't want to "paint the devil on the wall." There is no single word in the English language which captures the meaning; therefore, it has to be explained. The word is a composite of Leib (body) and haftig, Haftig comes from the verb haften which can be translated as: to cling to, to stick to, or adhere to. The inherent wisdom of the people has thereby created a word which indeed provides the devil's essence. While God is in the German language also referred to as the Himmelvater (heavenly father), a term which encompasses the material and spiritual realm, the devil is thoroughly and exclusively wedded to bodies. The Leibhaftige has no room for the spirit which has to be denied, and the acquisition of material goods is to be the overriding objective.

While the Leibhaftige is German, there exists in the English language the word Mephistophelean which is defined as: cynical, crafty, sardonic, or fiendish. Thus, we do not have to look far for its presence among people. The challenge we face as human beings lies in the recognition that when we lie, cheat, or hate we create an adversarial environment and thereby help to keep Satan alive. It is from the lie that all the other evils spring. He who lies to himself will inevitably lie to others and trust, which can only be gained by truthfulness, has been destroyed. Without trust, societies cannot function, regardless of how many laws are invented. But trust has to be earned, it cannot be demanded, and it requires honesty. In our present-day society this is hard to come by. We are being lied to on an unprecedented scale by politicians, the media and commercial enterprises.

So how do we know the truth of a given statement? In science we are dealing mainly with relative truth as available at the moment. Science, in contrast to religious faith, is work in progress and new information can readily invalidate previous concepts. Science is important for technologic and hygienic progress but every scientist knows that the fundamental questions: "why are we here?" and "what is our purpose?" do not lend themselves to scientific investigation. Philosophical or religious truths are also subject to modification as time goes on and conditions change but in spite of this there is an inner core of reality which defies time and is readily discernible when one reads literature which originated several centuries or millennia earlier. This core can be found in all religions regardless in what part of the world they originated. The names with which phenomena are described differ but the substance and the message are always the same. Because human behavior has remained constant over the ages so has the advice for achieving contentment in life. Faith in the ultimate goodness of God, perseverance with planning for the long range goal rather than immediate gratification, kindness, helpfulness, friendship, honesty, resisting anger and hate, but fostering instead a spirit of gratitude are just a few of the virtues human beings have always been told to aspire to. I have deliberately avoided the word love. When "making love" means having sexual intercourse and the word is being equated with lust, which disappears upon gratification, we have left the eternal for the temporary. Furthermore since love is an emotion, it must arise spontaneously and cannot be produced on command. "Love thy neighbor as thyself" goes beyond the capacity of human beings as history has amply proven. We have to be more modest and simply aspire to treating each other with kindness and consideration.

A fundamental difference between the satanic and the divine is that God has time! God's truth is still true after millennia while Satan's is fleeting. Satan constantly urges us that we must act now, immediately, lest we lose out either on revenge or on a tremendous advantage. We are thus coaxed to repeat the original sin. By recognizing that Satan is within us, just as the kingdom of God is, we can a turn a deaf ear to seduction. We don't have to hate Satan, and what he stands for, because hate is an unhealthy emotion and would serve his purposes. Instead, when we recognize the inner voice of seduction all we have to say is: "Thanks, but no thanks" and concentrate on the task at hand. If we hanker after, or stew over, an imagined past or a fantasized future, which will never happen the way it is imagined, we open the door to Satan's realm. But if we can stare the adversary in the face and can say: "no, there is a better way" we have achieved the victory which a simple denial of his existence cannot provide.

A few years ago our daughter, who knows of my interest in comparative religion, gave me for Christmas The Dhammapada which is part of the Sacred Writings Series. I already had a fair amount of other Buddhist literature so I wasn't immediately interested but in our "time of war" I picked it up again and found it rather useful. The book contains the essence of Buddhism in English translation as well as in the original Pali with explanations. In the context of the current topic verse number I: 5 is most appropriate:

Not by enmity are enmities quelled,

Whatever the occasion here.

By the absence of enmity are they quelled.

                                                    That is an ancient truth.


Isn't this what Jesus meant when he told us not to resist evil?


On September 12, 2001 our leadership had a choice. We had been viciously attacked and a response was needed. The entire world was with us in stunned grief at the outrage which had been committed. A wise government which had no ulterior motives in mind could have limited itself to promising: 1) with the help of international police and intelligence services we will track down and bring to justice the perpetrators. 2) For the families who have lost loved ones we will appoint a supervisory agency that sees to it that they do not suffer financial hardships in addition to their grievous emotional loss. 3) We will renew and redouble our efforts to seek justice for the oppressed in this world - wherever they are - and try to bind up wounds rather than create new ones.

This is what could have been done. Instead we have announced rather than declared war, which as it turns out now is a crucial difference because captured enemy personnel are not regarded as prisoners of war, with the rights they would be entitled to. We have bombed a country which was already devoid of infrastructure and we have destroyed the Taliban government but not the idea behind it. Although there is a pro-Western interim government in Kabul at this time its authority does not exceed the city limits. The rest of the country is in anarchy; people are starving and dying of exposure. International relief agencies still cannot get to the people who desperately need help because of marauding bands that steal and rob.

If we go through with plans to bomb other countries, whose policies we do not like, we will indeed continue to play Satan's role. Our current political conduct is likely to create more enemies rather than friends abroad. This in turn will hamper the primary goal of our mission: to find and disable terrorist networks around the world. For this we need the international community. Unless and until America returns to the ideals our country was founded upon and heeds the wisdom of Washington's Farewell Address, where he counseled us to avoid foreign entanglements, we are likely to glory in momentary ephemeral successes but lose our integrity. The leaders of our society seem to have struck a Faustian bargain: material well-being for the loss of our soul. The rest of the world is supposed to do so likewise. That some members of Islamic countries will not merely passively accept this idea but rebel was to be expected. What would be most helpful now is, instead of widening the war, to reflect on our ultimate aim of bringing peace to this world even if we thereby have to give up some pet notions that military might, and/or money is the answer to all problems.

We have been blessed with a wonderful country let us, therefore, not destroy it by continuing in an adversarial spirit at home as well as abroad. Let us cherish our diversity by learning about and from each other. Instead of adversarial conduct let there be cooperation even if we disagree at times on philosophical or religious abstractions. If we were to move forward on this basis we would have far fewer enemies and a great many more friends.



The article as it appears above was written about a week prior to President Bush's State of the Union speech on January 29. It contained an enumeration of American values all of us can heartily agree with, including the goal "to seek a just and peaceful world beyond the war on terror." On the other hand I felt quite concerned about the methods - seemingly mainly military - through which this goal is to be reached. The President also stated that this war will occupy at least the next three years of his presidency and may extend beyond it. This will involve considerable expenditures for external as well as homeland defense. He believes that we can keep at the same time the economy growing and the budget deficit under control. The last president who had tried the guns and butter approach was Lyndon Johnson and he failed on both counts. There seems little reason to believe that Mr. Bush will do better but time will tell.

Earlier in this update I failed to mention another hallmark of Satan namely pride. Our government seems determined to believe that only its ways are the correct ones regardless of the viewpoints of other nations. In the State of the Union address we received a "pep talk" the consequences of which, once the fine print is revealed, may not be to the liking of the average citizen whose life is going to become increasingly less free on account of "security" regulations which will increase geometrically. What is happening currently here in Salt Lake City on account of the Olympics, which are upon us, could well be a harbinger of what the future may be like.

”Now look at its consequences and the losses which it [anger] occasions. No plague has cost the human race more. You will see slaughter, poisoning, charge and sordid counter-charge in the law-courts, devastation of cities, the ruin of whole nations, persons of princely rank for sale at public auction, buildings set alight and the fire spreading beyond the city walls, huge tracts of territory glowing in flames that the enemy kindled [1:2,1].”

What accounts for it?

”{Anger is 'a burning desire to avenge a wrong' or, according to Posidonius, 'a burning desire to punish him by whom you think yourself to have been unfairly harmed' [1:2,3]. There is no need to chastise in anger if error and crime are to be repressed. Anger is a misdemeanour of the soul and one ought not to correct wrong-doing while doing wrong oneself [1:16,1]. Reason gives time to either side, and then demands a further adjournment to give itself room to tease out the truth: anger is in a hurry. Reason wishes to pass a fair judgment: anger wishes the judgment which it has already passed to seem fair [1:18, 1]”

”If we wish our judgment to be fair in all things, we must start from the conviction that no one of us is faultless For here is where indignation most arises - 'I haven't done anything wrong,' 'I haven't done a thing!' On the contrary you won't admit [emphasis in the original] anything! We grow indignant at any rebuke or punishment, while at that very moment doing the wrong of adding insolence and obstinacy to our misdeeds [2:28, 1].”

”How is it, then, that wrongs by enemies provoke us? Because we did not anticipate them, or certainly not on that scale. This is a result of excessive self-love. We consider that we ought not to be harmed, even by enemies. Each of us has within him the mentality of a monarch; he would like carte blanche for himself but not for any opposition. So it is either arrogance or ignorance of the facts that makes us prone to anger [2:31, 3].”

”'But there is pleasure in anger - paying back pain is sweet.' Not in the slightest! The case is not like that of favors, where it is honorable to reward service with service. Not so with wrongs. In the one case, it is shameful to be outdone; in the other to outdo. 'Retribution' - an inhuman word and what is more, accepted as right - is not very different from wrongdoing, except in the order of events. He who pays back pain with pain is doing wrong; it is only that he is more readily excused for it [2:32, 1].”

How about this moral clarity Mr. Bennett? Was this stoic pagan not more of a Christian than those of us who carry Jesus on their lips but ignore or pervert his real message?

But let's face it what is really behind most of the hatred against us? Is it not also in part our unqualified support of the state of Israel regardless of the conduct of its politicians? Even if it were just an excuse by the Arab world for their hatred of American policies (mind you they don't hate us, but merely what is done in our name), should we not remove this excuse from them rather than perpetuate it? Mr. Bennett had this to say about the state of Israel after he had on a previous page placed our "one-sided" support of that country in quotation marks, as if he really thought we were even handed in this matter. In the chapter "The Case of Israel," Bennett wrote :

”I want to put it positively. Our essential human kinship with Israel is something like our kinship with Great Britain, but it is also more particular and less blood-related than that. It is a deep-rooted feeling of linked destinies, a feeling that echoes back to our founding and to the earliest conceptions of the American experiment itself, that new birth of freedom which our fathers identified with the Biblical Israelite's emergence from the darkness of bondage. And I believe it also has to do with an understanding, almost religious in nature, that to our two nations above all others has been entrusted the fate of liberty in the world. That - the survival of liberty - is precisely what our efforts to eradicate terrorism are all about.

 Keeping faith with the people of Israel in their still unfinished confrontation with evil is, to me, a species of keeping faith with ourselves; breaking faith, a species of self-negation. It is exactly that simple, and exactly that difficult, and exactly that consequential.”

These are deeply disturbing passages, from a chapter which is full of them, especially when they come from a person who is widely respected and listened to by our administration. I don't believe that most Americans feel a "kinship" with the state of Israel, they might with the people, but not necessarily the state. Americans may also love the country, for biblical reasons, but this does not imply that they, therefore, have to endorse the policies which are carried out in that country at the present time. To link our "destiny" with the policies of a foreign state strikes me as absurd. The Bible should not be our guide to foreign policy, just as it should be impermissible to use the Koran for that purpose by some Arab fanatics. I also have a feeling that Mr. Bennett, who seems to be so enamored with the ancient Israelites, is unaware that the honor for having carried out the first jihad in recorded history belongs to Moses! Wars have, of course, always been with the human race but the ancients were more honest about them. They fought either to enlarge their lands, take prisoners for labor purposes, and enrich themselves; or in self defense. The introduction of religious war, ostensibly for the sake of religion, was Moses' idea.

In the book of Numbers we can read that there was serious discontent in the Israelite camp about intermarriage and the introduction of the worship of Baal. Moses' authority was challenged by a highly regarded individual, Zimri, who had married a Midianite wife and was loath to divorce her just on Moses' say so. Zimri and his wife Cozbi where then killed by faithful Phinehas who has subsequently become a role-model for religious zeal. Thereafter Moses launched a full scale attack against the Midianites. A fuller version of the dispute between Zimri and Moses can be found in Josephus' The Antiquities of the Jews. It would seem, however, that the punitive expedition had the additional purpose of diverting the people's attention from the internal problems and concentrating it on an external enemy. This is, of course, still common practice today when politicians are in trouble. Although Moses himself had been involved with at least two foreign women, the "Cushite" and Zipporah, this did not matter. Moses was in charge and intended to remain so. One may also wonder whatever happened to father-in-law Jethro - the priest of Midian - who had treated Moses so hospitably, when the latter had been a refugee from Egypt where he was wanted for homicide. This war was not against some foreign enemy whose land one wanted to conquer, but against Moses' in-laws and seems to represent the first purely religious war. It was fought with appropriate fury as Numbers 31: 1-18 testify to. First the Israelites killed every male. The cities were burned and the "spoil," which included women and children, as well as all the property, was brought before Moses. Instead of being pleased he was incensed: "Have ye saved all the women alive?" Those were the ones that brought on the trouble in the first place "now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves." Thus the pattern for religious persecution was established and has been followed ever since. Mohammed used the Arabic word for "holy war," but the practice had been established and endorsed by the Jewish religion more than a millennium earlier.

And how does Prime Minister Sharon see the future of his country? Bob Novak, a conservative commentator, wrote in the National Weekly Edition June 24-30, 2002 of the Washington Times an editorial headlined, "Sharon rivets senators with his take on the Mideast." The Prime Minister "Speaking off the record to mostly uncritical American politicians, the old soldier-statesman was even more blunt. Mr. Sharon pointed to no Israeli-Palestinian deal for at least 10 years and talked of a hundred years struggles with Arabs. Warning of Egyptian and Saudi duplicity, he informed the senators that removal of Saddam Hussein from Iraq would be the best way to deal with the Palestinians." Sharon wants to keep the West bank and Gaza, because they were promised to the Israelites by God, expand the settlements therein and for that purpose hopes to get one million Jewish immigrants from France, Russia and Argentina. This is precisely the scenario I outlined in Whither Zionism? and why I wrote the book in the first place. It is updated in the January and April 2002 installments on this website Whatever Mr. Arafat or any newly elected Palestinian leaders may want or do is irrelevant and to be used only as a smokescreen for perpetuating and expanding Jewish presence on Palestinian soil. Americans are not only to condone this program but finance it as well.

There's moral clarity for you Mr. Bennett! You want us to fight this war on terror until victory is achieved, but you fail to define what this victory consists of. Since the war is also regarded as between "good and evil," there can be no end because evil and good are intermixed in every human being. You have condemned our children and grandchildren to an interminable religious struggle on foreign soil while we are losing our religious freedom here. Grade school children must not be exposed to the word "God" by their teachers, although they can be instructed in the joys of sex! This is the Western civilization we seem to be defending.

From one Catholic to another I would like to ask you Mr. Bennett please reconsider your stance, for the sake of God and our children. Go to the occupied territories, talk with Hanan Ashrawi, read her book This Side of Peace, spend a week with ordinary Palestinians, listen to them, and then write another book in the light of correct information rather than being swayed by religious sentiment and Israeli propaganda. You are a decent, intelligent person and can serve our country better than with the opinions expressed in Why We Fight.

To Our King George II

A bush thou art, Alas no tree.

Yet Fortune lifted thee

High above all other men.

Power undreamed of eons before

Is yours; but not forever more.

Two years, or maybe six,

And you'll return to Texan sticks.

What deeds you do in this allotted span;

The choices made, for good or ill of man,

Are yours alone, with no one else to blame.

Let, therefore, this your warning be:

Brute force does serve expediency;

Yet in its wake the victimized

Will shout for vengeance; always highly prized.

Unless obstinacy does to wisdom yield,

And friendly counsels rule the field,

The seeds you sow no good will bring.

And of your downfall future bards will sing.