The Top Video Award for 2010 Goes to...

This video has been awarded Yahoo!'s best video of 2010.  Since they beat me to the punch, I had to throw in my approval of their choice.  The only word that could come close to describing the drummer in this video is "Epic."  Fasten your safety-belts folks, it's...well, WOW!

LA Times Book Review: Family of Secrets by Russ Baker

Family of Secrets is the journey of investigative journalist Russ Baker into the lives a part of the Bush Family Dynasty.  Baker spends a good amount of time establishing continuity of relationships that have had, or often perceived to have had, a large impact upon American history.  This book is essential to understanding what American politics are.  Moreover, the end product is a gleaming example of how extraordinary Baker is as an investigative journalist.  Although there were a few chapters which slowed the progression of the book to a crawl, many other chapters did a fairly good job at making up for what the slow ones lacked.  All in all a good read.  It is essential for anyone interested in the politics of American government.  Moreover, it provides well documented support for alternative theories to the JFK assassination and many, many other important happenings in recent American history.  Baker does a fine job at documenting his progress.  One of the most prominent issues that Baker avoids all-together was attempting to investigate or elucidate an explicit connection between the Bushes finances and the terror groups funding the attacks on 9/11.

Essential, 2 out of 3 Knuts!

The original of the full review can be found on the Los Angeles Times' website here.

Works Cited

Ruttin, Tim. Book Review: Family of Secrets. January 7, 2009. http://articles.latimes.com/print/2009/jan/07/entertainment/et-rutten7 (accessed December 24, 2010).



Family of Secrets

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BOOK REVIEW

The charges of corruption the author levels at the Bush family are extraordinary and sensational--why, our reviewer wonders, would anyone legitimize them by publishing this book?

January 07, 2009 | Tim Rutten

The tendency Richard Hofstadter so aptly labeled "the paranoid style" in American politics operates independent of ideology. 

"American politics has often been an arena for angry minds," the great historian wrote in a 1964 issue of Harper's magazine. He called the expression of that anger "the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind."

Russ Baker is an independent investigative journalist who has published widely in national magazines and, nowadays, is active mainly on the Internet. If the paranoid style can be said to have a canon, his preposterous new book -- "Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, the Powerful Forces That Put It in the White House, and What Their Influence Means for America" -- surely deserves a place among its classics.

Baker begins this dispiriting tome with a couple of reasonable questions that probably are on a great many minds as George W. Bush's disastrous presidency sputters to a close: "What did the ascendancy of this frighteningly inadequate man signify? Could anything be learned from the George W. Bush phenomenon that would help us understand how we Americans choose our leaders and chart our collective course?"
It's all downhill from there -- though hardly in a straight line, since clarity and direct exposition are anathema to the wheels-within-wheels school of thought, in which Baker really should be given an endowed chair.
"One of the impressive things about paranoid literature is the contrast between its fantasied conclusions and the almost touching concern with factuality it invariably shows" is a characterization of Hofstadter's that might have been tailored to fit Baker's book. "It produces heroic strivings for evidence to prove that the unbelievable is the only thing that can be believed. Of course, there are highbrow, lowbrow, and middlebrow paranoids, as there are likely to be in any political tendency . . . [that] all but obsessively accumulate 'evidence.' . . . The higher paranoid scholarship is nothing if not coherent -- in fact, the paranoid mind is far more coherent than the real world."

Baker's coherent explanation of the world purports to be "a secret history" of a vast conspiracy stretching back more than a century in which a cabal of rich, interconnected men -- mainly involved in oil and gold extraction -- have used, first, private intelligence agents and then, later, the government spy agencies they helped found to manipulate . . . well, just about everything. Along the way, readers with enough stamina to wade through the mind-numbing accretion of names, dates and places will discover heretofore "hidden" explanations for the American entry into World War I, the formation of the CIA, the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the Watergate scandal (which, by the way, turns out to have been a secret coup engineered by the petro-intelligence access).

Here it's necessary to declare a personal bias. I regard the belief that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone as an important indicium of mental health. In fact, I think there are three things that every serious American needs to believe about our recent history: Kennedy was killed by a lone lunatic, Americans really did land on the moon and the Twin Towers were destroyed when they were struck by two fully fueled airliners that had been hijacked by Islamic extremists organized by Al Qaeda. People who do not believe in these things are, within reasonable limits, entitled to sympathy. They are not entitled to a seat at the table where serious discussions occur.

Lack of seriousness is not this book's real failing, however. What makes Baker's book singularly offensive is the way he recklessly impugns, in the most disgusting possible way, the reputations not simply of men and women now dead, but of the living. The great Satan in this fevered schema is not the current President Bush but his father, President George H.W. Bush, whom Baker alleges has been a covert intelligence agent since his teens. According to Baker, he also was at the very center of a successful plot to murder John Kennedy that included, among dozens of others, former CIA Director Allen Dulles, then-Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, the usual Cuban emigre suspects, a clutch of White Russian exiles living in Dallas, Sen. Prescott Bush and assorted Texas oil and money men.

By Baker's reckoning, there seem to have been about as many people involved in the plot as there were on Omaha Beach. With that many people involved in the conspiracy, it's a miracle it remained a secret long enough for Baker to "uncover" it. The elder President Bush is a public figure and, therefore, practically libel-proof. But using the tissue of innuendo, illogical inference, circumstance and guilt by tenuous association -- as Baker does in this book -- to indict rhetorically anyone, let alone a former chief executive, of an infamous murder is a reprehensible calumny.

The nadir of this particular chapter in the author's "secret history" may be the paragraph in which he rounds up all his key suspects and then darkly muses that each had an alibi that put him at a distance from Dallas on the day of JFK's assassination. What does Baker deduce from the consistency of his perpetrators' absence? Why, conspiracy to create cover stories, what else? One can't help but be reminded of the Crown prosecutor who argued that failure to produce a shred of evidence linking the Jesuits to the Gunpowder Plot simply was proof of how diabolically clever they were.

Watergate flood

Baker does something similar to the Washington Post's Bob Woodward, whom he accuses of being an intelligence agent who, with master co-conspirator John W. Dean, were the prime movers in a coup to remove Nixon for opposing the oil depletion allowance. Woodward's legendary work habits are cited as evidence of how engrossed in the plot he was.

We could go on, but why? Life is short and real problems are pressing.

In the meantime, we can avoid Baker's "Family of Secrets" and console ourselves with another of Hofstadter's wise observations: "We are all sufferers from history, but the paranoid is a double sufferer, since he is afflicted not only by the real world, with the rest of us, but by his fantasies as well."
--
timothy.rutten@latimes.com

NY Times Book Review: The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright

Joshua Carpenter:
Random-Knuts
Main Contributor

The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright has seriously altered my expectations for the quality of writing found in any genre of literature.  The care taken by Wright to describe each and every detail sets this book apart from most other non-fiction book.  Moreover, the exceptional writing drives home the point of the entire book: to show the connections and continuity between key individuals, groups and governments which make up the axis of terror that the War on Terrorism is currently fighting.  Unlike any other, this book caught my interest from the preface and kept me coming back for more, sans the typical dry-spells of interest.  No one can talk about terrorist groups or Islamic fundamentalism unless they know the message the information in this book brings.

Perfect Score, 3 out of 3 Knuts!

The original of the full review can be found on the New York Times' website here.

Works Cited

Filkins, Dexter. The Plot Against America. August 6, 2006. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/06/books/review/06filkins.html (accessed December 24, 2010).



The Plot Against America

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Review by DEXTER FILKINS

Published: August 6, 2006

THE LOOMING TOWER

Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11.

By Lawrence Wright.

Illustrated. 469 pp. Alfred A. Knopf. $27.95. 

Click to buy from Amazon!

When Mohamed Atta and his four Saudi confederates commandeered a Boeing 767 and steered it into the north tower of the World Trade Center, they began a story that still consumes us nearly five years on, and one that seems, on bad days, to promise war without end.

But the events of Sept. 11, 2001, were in many ways less the start of a tale than the end of one, or at least the climax of one, begun many years before in many different precincts: in the middle-class suburbs of Cairo, in the mosques of Hamburg, in Jidda, in Islamabad, in the quiet university town of Greeley, Colo.



Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Osama bin Laden



In its simplest terms, this is the story of how a small group of men, with a frightening mix of delusion and calculation, rose from a tormented civilization to mount a catastrophic assault on the world’s mightiest power, and how another group of men and women, convinced that such an attack was on the way, tried desperately to stop it.

What a story it is. And what a riveting tale Lawrence Wright fashions in this marvelous book. “The Looming Tower” is not just a detailed, heart-stopping account of the events leading up to 9/11, written with style and verve, and carried along by villains and heroes that only a crime novelist could dream up. It’s an education, too — though you’d never know it — a thoughtful examination of the world that produced the men who brought us 9/11, and of their progeny who bedevil us today. The portrait of John O’Neill, the driven, demon-ridden F.B.I. agent who worked so frantically to stop Osama bin Laden, only to perish in the attack on the World Trade Center, is worth the price of the book alone. “The Looming Tower” is a thriller. And it’s a tragedy, too.

In the nearly five years since the attacks, we’ve heard oceans of commentary on the whys and how-comes and what-it-means and what’s nexts. Wright, a staff writer for The New Yorker — where portions of this book have appeared — has put his boots on the ground in the hard places, conducted the interviews and done the sleuthing. Others talked, he listened. And so he has unearthed an astonishing amount of detail about Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mullah Muhammad Omar and all the rest of them. They come alive.

Who knew, for instance, that bin Laden, far from being a warrior-stoic fighting against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, was actually a pathetic stick-in-the-mud who would fall ill before battle? That the combat-hardened Afghans, so tired of bin Laden’s behavior, declared him and his Arab associates “useless”? Or that he was a permissive father and indulgent husband? Or that he is only six feet tall?
More important, who knew — I sure didn’t — that bin Laden had left behind such a long trail of words? Wright has found them in books, on film, in audio recordings, in people’s notebooks and memories. This has allowed him to draw an in-depth portrait of bin Laden, and to chart his evolution from a self-conscious step-child growing up in Jidda, Saudi Arabia, to the visionary cave-dwelling madman who mimics the Holy Prophet in his most humdrum daily habits.

Wright takes the title of his book from the fourth sura of the Koran, which bin Laden repeated three times in a speech videotaped just as the hijackers were preparing to fly. The video was found later, on a computer in Hamburg.

“Wherever you are, death will find you, Even in the looming tower.”
There is poetry, too. Here is a particularly chilling bit, found on another videotape, which bin Laden had read aloud at the wedding of his 17-year-old son, Mohammed. The celebration took place not long after a pair of Qaeda suicide bombers, riding in a tiny boat filled with explosives, nearly sank the billion-dollar guided missile destroyer Cole. At least with regard to his abilities as an author, bin Laden was unusually modest: he let someone else write the words. “I am not, as most of our brothers know, a warrior of the word,” he said.

A destroyer, even the brave might fear,

She inspires horror in the harbor and the open sea,

She goes into the waves flanked by arrogance, haughtiness and fake might,

To her doom she progresses slowly, clothed in a huge illusion,

Awaiting her is a dinghy, bobbing in the waves.

“The Looming Tower” is full of such surprising detail. Al Qaeda’s leaders had all but shelved the 9/11 plot when they realized they lacked foot soldiers who could pass convincingly as westernized Muslims in the United States. At just the right moment Atta appeared in Afghanistan, along with Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Ziad al-Jarrah and Marwan al-Shehhi, all Western-educated transplants, offering themselves up for slaughter. The game was on.

Just as dramatic as the portraits of bin Laden and Zawahiri is Wright’s account of the roots of Islamic militancy — the intellectual, spiritual and material world from which the plotters came. Wright draws a fascinating picture of Sayyid Qutb, the font of modern Islamic fundamentalism, a frail, middle-aged writer who found himself, as a visitor to the United States and a student at Colorado State College of Education in Greeley in the 1940’s, overwhelmed by the unbridled splendor and godlessness of modern America. And by the sex: like so many others who followed him, Qutb seemed simultaneously drawn to and repelled by American women, so free and unselfconscious in their sexuality. The result is a kind of delirium:

“A girl looks at you, appearing as if she were an enchanting nymph or an escaped mermaid,” Qutb wrote, “but as she approaches, you sense only the screaming instinct inside her, and you can smell her burning body, not the scent of perfume, but flesh, only flesh. Tasty flesh, truly, but flesh nonetheless.”
It wasn’t much later that Qutb began writing elaborate rationalizations for killing non-Muslims and waging war against the West. Years later, Atta expressed a similar mix of obsession and disgust for women. Indeed, anyone who has spent time in the Middle East will recognize such tortured emotions.
WRIGHT shows, correctly, that at the root of Islamic militancy — its anger, its antimodernity, its justifications for murder — lies a feeling of intense humiliation. Islam plays a role in this, with its straitjacketed and all-encompassing worldview. But whether the militant hails from a middle-class family or an impoverished one, is intensely religious or a “theological amateur,” as Wright calls bin Laden and his cohort, he springs almost invariably from an ossified society with an autocratic government that is unable to provide any reason to believe in the future. Islam offers dignity, even in — especially in — death. Living in the West, Atta and the others felt these things more acutely, not less. As Wright notes:

“Their motivations varied, but they had in common a belief that Islam — pure and primitive, unmitigated by modernity and uncompromised by politics — would cure the wounds that socialism or Arab nationalism had failed to heal. They were angry but powerless in their own countries. They did not see themselves as terrorists but as revolutionaries who, like all such men throughout history, had been pushed into action by the simple human need for justice. Some had experienced brutal repression; some were simply drawn to bloody chaos. From the beginning of Al Qaeda, there were reformers and there were nihilists. The dynamic between them was irreconcilable and self-destructive, but events were moving so quickly that it was almost impossible to tell the philosophers from the sociopaths. They were glued together by the charismatic personality of Osama bin Laden, which contained both strands, idealism and nihilism, in a potent mix.”

Frances M. Roberts/The New York Times

F.B.I. counterterrorism expert John O’Neill

who died in the Sept. 11 attacks.



In John O’Neill, bin Laden almost met his match. The supervisor of the F.B.I.’s New York office and of the team assigned to track Al Qaeda in the United States, O’Neill felt, as strongly as anyone in the government, that Al Qaeda was coming to America. He was a relentless investigator, a volcanic personality and sometimes his own worst enemy. In the end he broke himself on a government bureaucracy that could not — and would not — move as quickly as he did. O’Neill and others like him were in a race with Al Qaeda, and although we know how the race ended, it’s astonishing — and heartbreaking — to learn how close it was.

Some of the F.B.I.’s field agents, as we now know, had premonitions of what was coming. When the supervisor of the Minneapolis field office was admonished, in August 2001, for expressing fears that an Islamic radical attending flight school might be planning a suicide attack, he shot back defiantly that he was “trying to keep someone from taking a plane and crashing into the World Trade Center.” Amazing.

The most gut-wrenching scenes are the ones that show F.B.I. agents trying, as 9/11 approached, to pry information from their rivals inside the United States government. The C.I.A., Wright says, knew that high-level Qaeda operatives had held a meeting in Malaysia in January 2000, and, later, that two of them had entered the United States. Both men turned out to be part of the team that hijacked the planes on Sept. 11. The C.I.A. failed to inform agencies like the F.B.I. — which might have been able to locate the men and break up the plot — until late in the summer of 2001.

The fateful struggle between the C.I.A. and F.B.I. in the months leading up to the attacks has been outlined before, but never in such detail. At meetings, C.I.A. analysts dangled photos of two of the eventual hijackers in front of F.B.I. agents, but wouldn’t tell them who they were. The F.B.I. agents could sense that the C.I.A. possessed crucial pieces of evidence about Islamic radicals they were investigating, but couldn’t tell what they were. The tension came to a head at a meeting in New York on June 11, exactly three months before the catastrophe, which ended with F.B.I. and C.I.A. agents shouting at each other across the room.

In one of the most remarkable scenes in the book, Ali Soufan, an F.B.I. agent assigned to Al Qaeda, was taken aside on Sept. 12 and finally shown the names and photos of the men the C.I.A. had known for more than a year and a half were in America. The planes had already struck. Soufan ran to the bathroom and retched.

Great stuff. I just wish Wright had given us something, even a chapter, on the hijackings themselves; as

it is, he takes us right up to the moment, and then straight to the burning towers. Perhaps he felt that ground was too well-trodden. My other complaint is more substantive. Through the enormous amount of legwork he has done, tracking down people who worked with bin Laden and Zawahiri over the years, Wright has drawn up verbatim reconstructions of entire conversations, some of which took place more than a decade ago. Many of these conversations are riveting. Still, in some cases, it’s hard to believe that memories are that good.

“The Looming Tower” ends near the Pakistani border, where Zawahiri, or someone who looked like him, rode through a village on horseback and then disappeared into the mountains. It’s not a definitive ending; there is no closure. And that’s the point. For as amazing as the story of Al Qaeda and the road to 9/11 is, it’s not over yet.

Unconventional Warfare: The U.S. Military's 500 Pound Gorrilla

The United States has successfully led the nation through the post-war era.  While being the economic powerhouse from post-1945 up to today, it instigated a military-industrial-academic complex which led to a culture of consumerism and a boom in technological capabilities.  The post-war era became the Cold-War era and now, after the cusp of the millennium had been broken, we have ushered in the information age.  Although the information age may evoke thoughts of super-smart defense technology, infinite-distant remotes or a pulling together of the world's population, there is still one fatal flaw in the policy and operation of the United States' military - the soldiers lack of a basic training in unconventional warfare tactics supported by the U.S. military's failure to fight and win unconventional wars against, at the most, semi-stable adversaries.

After World War II the military began to focus their tactical methods more on a "shock and awe" approach of invasion.  This is the United States military's modus operandi and it is why the United States is such a force with which is not to be reckoned.  These large scale, shock and awe-type strategies were used during both Iraq wars and during both World Wars.  They were also used in Afghanistan, Vietnam and Post-Saddam Iraq.  But the differences in modern warfare and the conventional warfare of the two world wars is simply in the fact that power is limited, but dispersed in a way that is difficult to be detected even through the best of methods.  This shift in focus from an organized modern-warfare state to a dispersed, covert state has led to a unique demand.  Prior to the World War I, the military operated predominately unconventionally.  But after the Second World War the world was introduced to a stronger political state because of a push for the protection of individual rights and a focus on nuclear physics which fueled big science. The Cold War did not help much either, as a fearful nation's over-speculation about the enemy's power over the U.S. led to a drastic increase in weapon production and technological change focused on the ideological and military power of an established nation-state.  The fact that many of the authors who write about world history define it through the Cold War only supports the fact that this focus on being more powerful than the enemy ruled the policy of the United States.  More significantly, it was the focus of preparing for an attack by established nation-states with stable political systems and economies that, ironically enough, led to the most significant weakness of the U.S. military.

Because the United States saw the most powerful threat of the enemy as being an operation from afar, it established political, military and diplomatic strategies, still in place today, which were built on the enemy being a geographically-identified force.  Politically it led to a greater focus on the rights of the individual.  This idea that an individual had basic rights that could be protected, whether they are a dissenter or patriot, necessarily led to opening up the option to dissent without public backlash – whereas in the past there would be public and governmental backlash.  And although not the proverbial glue that holds the ideology of nationalism together, there is an important role that barring one from the expression of their individual rights - whether or not freely chosen - plays in actively supporting their community, state and nation.  The current lack of political unity only supports this.

The fact that the enemy has become a part of many states instead of one has demanded a set of resources which are more spread out.  The Unites State's Ambassador is no exception.  Now, instead of conversing with a representative of the body with which the US desires to relieve conflict, there is no open method of communication because there is no formal state or place to do so.  Moreover, the fact that it is the policy to "not negotiate with terrorists" only exacerbates this problem.  The foreign relations with the enemy is important, but none so important than our defense and the simple fact is that since the change in training after the first and second world war, we have become incapable of successfully waging an unconventional war where, in the end, we are declared the winners.  This is supported many times over by failures in Vietnam and the dire troubles in achieving success in Afghanistan and Iraq.

So what's next?  How does a military, seemingly untrained in unconventional warfare (except for a few special groups), go about making up for 65-years of vital training.  There is no easy answer.  But shifting the public's focus on the individual as a part of a team is a good start and is already in progress.  There could be an increase in funding to Boy Scouts to increase interest in nature, although, this is questionable, given that current funding is in jeopardy due to their stance on homosexuality.  There could be a propaganda effort geared toward the elementary and middle school-aged children to evoke a passion for the outdoors - although controversial, it is not unheard of, just think of how the lesson that "George Washington never told a lie" affected views on honesty, or how textbooks of elementary children are so patriotic, instilling a sense of nationalism.  Whatever it is to be done, it needs to be done fast.  And the issue should be addressed because it is apolitical.  There is no need for major changes in defense spending because it is not the money that brings the problem into existence.  It is simply the method that is used to train our military.  But the only way that there can be a successful change is if those in charge admit that there is a gaping whole in the future defense system and there needs to be some sort of reform to combat such a terrible threat.  Otherwise, this will become a war on our own soil which will obligate the citizenry to become involved and only lead to critical complications of domestic freedoms which play a crucial part in the solidarity of the United States.

Historic Reforms in Christianity: Calvinism and the Origins of the Mennonites

The term "reform" can be both valuable and discouraging. The word alone evokes a certain complexity, but the definition reduces down to essentially meaning complete change. Although at first, it may be difficult to recognize, the process of reform is in fact painstaking. And this process was no less painful when considering the break from the Medieval Latin Christian Church in the 16th century. The Protestant Reformation brought about many movements that changed the way in which Christianity was viewed by both the Catholic Church and the public; however the name of the movement could be seen as deceiving. It is often assumed that Luther broke away from the church to declare and define Protestant theology. And from that point forward it disseminated and branched into history. But if one would delve deeper into the material, he would discover it was not that straightforward.

The establishment of Protestantism in Christian history can be characterized in four separate movements: Lutheranism, the "Reformed" Movement, the English Reformation, and the Radical Reformation Movement (Placher, History, 190.) Lutheranism dominated areas within Germany while eventually finding its way into parts of Scandinavia. The Zwigli-led "Reformed" Movement had predominately spread throughout Switzerland. The English Reformation, where England separated from the authority of the papacy, and declared the King the church’s authority (Placher, History, 227). The radical reformers are often seen as those who failed to establish a territorial church (Placher, History, 190). But nonetheless, this movement made substantial contributions to the Protestant Reformation, particularly its communal approach to the matter of church and state.

When all the facts are considered, it is not that these people are the losers of the Reformation, nor are they as radical as their name suggests. They were just so fundamentally different from the other movements within the Reformation. George H. Williams points out that the Radical Reformers can be broken down into three main movements: the Anabaptists (a movement that would birth the Mennonites), the Spiritualists, and the Anti-Trinitarians/Rationalists (Placher, History, 191). Although contrasting the theology of John Calvin and the Radical Reformers would serve a historical purpose, it does little to add to the debate which seeks to define the origin of many of these reformed movements. Moreover, it fails to identify whether or not any of the ideas of these movements were original. The most significant theological topics of Christian thought are the role of reason and revelation, works and grace, and church and state (Placher, History, 14-15).
John Calvin, the Radical Reformers and the Medieval Latin Christian Church have much in common. The theologies of each of these groups are, at times, similar. And rightly so, they were interconnected by the authority of scripture. However, they were disconnected by the way in which the scripture was interpreted, and while the connection between them established a common cause, their disconnection often led to sharp disagreements.

Much of the theologies and their differences were first begotten by many theologians of the medieval Christian Church. And although the people within the movements of Calvinism and Radical Reformers contributed much to their spread and growth, the atmosphere of reform within this specific era of time provided the primary impetus to allow these groups to cultivate and promote their doctrinal ideas. Both Calvin and the Radical Reformers addressed various topics, but their most significant contributions can be singled out. Calvin provided the movement with his doctrine of double predestination and the Radical Reformers provided an intriguing approach for separating church and state by creating a state within a state through establishing an isolated community open only to those privy and pure enough to be accepted.

Reason versus revelation is a topic that is still debated today (Placher, History, 14). If one uses reasoning to understand the divine, then he may find difficulty in recognizing part that faith plays. And yet if he relies merely on faith, then he may turn blind to reason. Calvin, for instance, believed that there was a place for both reason and revelation. "Each of us must…be stung by the consciousness of his own unhappiness as to attain at least some knowledge of God…[but] it is needful that another and better help be added to direct us to the very Creator of the universe" (Placer, Readings v II, 60.) And while he may maintain that we must be "…stung by the consciousness of our own unhappiness," his stance on irresistible grace makes revelation some part of the process outside of reason-especially when considering his focus on his own conversion (Placher, History, 219).

The stance commonly held by the Radical Reformers concerning reason and revelation can be seen in the Anabaptist leader Thomas Muntzer’s sermon before the princes. He speaks of how often revelation is rejected and calls out Marin Luther as one who often does this – pejoratively referring to him as "Brother Soft Life." He goes on to say, however, that "the beloved apostles had to be diligent to [the meaning of] visions because it is clearly written in their Acts." Further, he says that the use of revelation is, indeed, the mark of a truly apostolic, patriarchal and prophetic spirit. Placher comments that Muntzer maintained that the Holy Spirit speaking to the public had more authority than the scriptures as interpreted by scholars (Placher, Readings v. II, 28-29.)

While reason and revelation played a part of the theologies of the Reformation, this was not the first time the debate between the two had arisen. As a matter of fact, one of the earliest theologians of the medieval times struggled with this. Anselm of Canterbury approached the quandary unlike any of his predecessors. Although many of the theologians up to this point approached reason and revelation the same way as Anselm – faith seeking understanding – they rarely, if ever, bounded faith and reason as tightly as Anselm. He had done this "as daringly as anyone has" (Placher, Readings v. 1, 144), as Placher puts it. Anselm’s style was intriguing. He would often structure his writing as an A and B argument, evoking a mathematical or logical feel,

A: Thus to sin is the same things as not to render his due to God.
B: What is the dept which we owe God?
A: Every inclination of the rational creature ought to be subject to the will of God.
B: Nothing could be truer. - (Placher, Readings v. 1, 148)

But Anselm was not the only theologian from the medieval church that focused on the role for the reason and faith. Thomas Aquinas focused on it a great deal. So much so that there is a realm of philosophy, Thomism, named after him. Aquinas took Aristotle’s thought that the senses are largely needed for knowledge and applied it to his reasoning behind his theology. Concurrently, he took the Augustinian idea that all knowing begins with faith and turned it on its head. His Summa Theologiae balanced faith and reason, nature and grace (Placher, Readings v. 1, 156). Aquinas believed that there was a part for revelation and for the philosophical sciences, which are devised by human. It is therefore expedient that there be another science which is divinely inspired, besides the philosophical sciences, which are devised by human reason. It is therefore expedient that there be another science which is divinely inspired, besides the philosophical sciences" (Placher, Readings v. 157).

On the other side of reason, there were the "Mystics." Mysticism focused on the revelation of the individual. Its practitioners still focused upon the orthodoxy of the church, but because they emphasized the revelation of the individual there was a redundancy which necessarily came when defining the role of the church. A good example of how mysticism parallels the radical reformers stance on revelation can be seen in an excerpt from Meister Eckert’s Sermons. "Here God enters the soul with all he has and not in part. He enters the soul through its core and nothing may touch the core except God himself" (Placer, Readings v. 1 176). This is mysticism defined, no logical explanation of how God enters the soul, nor scripture to support these claims. Mysticism has existed well before the radical reformers, whether there is an absolute connection from which they drew their theological convictions from is another story.

The simple fact is that although Calvin sought to balance reason and revelation, he was preceded by a long-standing Augustinian thought which was focused on by those quite close to him in time. Additionally, the idea that revelation can be the means by which the knowledge of God is obtained did not begin with the radical reformers. The mystics of the late medieval period came before the reformation and had trodden down that oath quite often. Anselm was central to the idea of reason and revelation because he was the first to introduce logic and reason in a way that was more intense than his predecessors. Aquinas is important in this context because he maintained that there ought to be a balance between revelation and reason.

The role of works and grace was the center piece of the Reformation. For Martin Luther it was defining the role works played in the act of receiving salvation. Calvin’s legacy, though, is plagued and seemingly will be plagued with his view on grace and predestination. The Augustinian view maintained by the medieval church coincides with John Calvin. Moreover, the Augustinian stance on works and grace can be seen, not only in the number of theologians in the church which maintained its principles, but also in the backlash that came out of theologians straying into "Pelagian territory," focusing on freewill in choosing ones salvation (Placher, Readings v. 1, 133-137). Additionally, there is support for this view in later theologians as well: Aquinas (Placher, Readings v. 1, 161) and Thomas Bradwardine (Placher, Readings v. 1, 183).

One part of the argument for works and grace which was established concretely by Calvin was the ideas of irresistible grace and dual predestination. Calvin maintained the individual has freewill outside of choosing his own salvation. The grace for salvation is not given freely by God because it is only for the elect. And those who are elected as believers, then, are so compelled by grace that they cannot turn from the invitation of salvation. It was during and because of these reflections on how we are saved that Calvin drew his view on predestination (Placher, History, 221).

Calvin’s view on predestination was not necessarily a precedent, but his making an explicit stance on the idea of dual predestination was. Augustinian thought maintained that people were predestined to be saved. And although it could be inferred, it was not necessarily explicitly stated that this also meant that people are predestined to hell as well. John Calvin stood by this idea and explained that we are all deserving of the punishment of damnation and no one gets less than what they deserve. Some do get more than what they deserve, but only because it pleases God to do so (Placher, History 222).

It is not explicitly clear about the radical reformers’ theological stance on works and grace. Both the Anti-Trinitarians and Spiritualists were often noted for their tolerance (Anti-Trinitarians were the more doctrinally tolerant) (Placher, History, 193, 194). And the Anabaptists had a strong focus on post-infant baptism, which might suggest a doctrine of freewill (Placher, History, 191) (Placher, Readings, v. II, 26). But it is quite a coincidence that those known for tolerance have not openly stated their stance on predestination or freewill, especially during a time when there is such a focus drawn upon them. The wording in the Schleitheim Confession of Faith only supports the ambiguity which suggests a tolerance for moderate doctrinal plurality: "First. Observe concerning baptism: Baptism shall be given to all those who have learned repentance and amendment of life and who believe truly that their sins are taken away by Christ" (Placher, Readings, v. II, 31).

The final topic which these three groups shared is the role of the church and state. This topic is complicated when considering the medieval times. It seemed that incorporating the church with the state was doomed from the start. Augustine was in a conundrum. Although he was so influential in both civil and spiritual affairs, he still felt torn on the matter of whether to use state force to oversee the implementation of a theological decision. This was seen by his indecisiveness in using force against the Donatists in North Africa (Placher, History, 114). Regardless of whether he was at ease with his decision, this choice is often seen as the beginning of a long road of bad decisions for the church (Placher, History, 115).

The progressive nature of the theologians who questioned the role of the church and state seems to be a cycle of inquiring about the papacy’s authority throughout the Middle Ages. Giles of Rome had taken Aquinas’ view that the papacy had power over spiritual matters and the state had authority over the temporal matters, and, for lack of better words, destroyed it. Giles said that since heavenly power transcends all other power-nature, art or the state – and the papacy was the people’s authority of that power, the papacy, then, has the power to transcend the state (Placher, Readings v. 1, 165). Dante Aphigieri, only realizing the power the people had to tear the state apart, argued that there be independent rights for the emperors (Placher, Readings v. 1. 168). Later while dealing with the fact of two, possibly three popes, the church sought the answer to how a council would choose the pope in such an emergency in the future. Dietrich of Niem, then, argued that ecumenical councils have authority over the papacy. "Today the unity of the head is lost, for three dare to call themselves pope. A pope as pope is a man and as pope can sin as a man can err. The pope is bound to obey such a council in all things. Such a council can limit the power of the pope" (Placher, Readings v. 1, 189-190). Although the medieval church may have, at times, attacked the authority of the papacy, the Reformation attacked the entire system. And by doing this, it led to the establishment of churches with new internal structures, and of course, doctrines. These new developments, caused by the dissemination of papal authority, led to those within the Reformation to necessarily establish a new stance on the topic of church and state.

Calvin saw the state being separate from the church (Placher, Readings v. II, 64). He says that "…spiritual government, indeed, is already initiating in us upon earth" and that the role of the civil government is "to cherish and protect the outward worship of God, to defend sound doctrine of piety and the church, to adjust life to the society of men, to form social behavior to civil righteousness, to reconcile us with one another, and to promote the general peace and tranquility (Placher, Readings v. II, 65). But Calvin doesn’t stop there. He makes a broad exception. Calvin wittingly leave room for a revolt, he states that "…sometimes [God] raises up open avengers from among his servants, and arms them with commands to punish the wicked government and deliver his people, oppressed in unjust ways, from miserable calamity…" (Placher, Readings v. ii, 65). This idea of an all-encompassing protection of religious rights as opposed to a state-mandate depicting your religion and the practices therein sharply differs from many of the radical reformers. The difference is seen in both the state and its people.

The radical reformers were pacifists and sought to be disassociated with the state, so much so that they even refused to participate in military action. Because of their refusal to acknowledge the authority of the state, they created their own communities, establishing then away from communities away from those already established by the state. Part of the logic behind the doctrine of the Anabaptists ("rebaptizers") was that the transformation, however it happened, had already occurred and that infant baptisms were not scriptural. Therefore, in order to have a church with truly devoted members, those who were baptized as adults would essentially be wholly committed to the church (Placher, History, 191.) Many in the movement wanted to establish this type of church because there was a belief that the church of the past had been corrupted since the conversion of Constantine (and some maintained since the beginning of the apostolic succession) (Placher, History, 191). This could hold some reasoning behind their lack of civil obedience. Essentially, since they did not believe that the state had a place in their governing, or at least they do not see that it has authority over their spiritual life, they are withdrawn from society. But this withdrawal is intriguing and shines a light on their views about church and state. Although they are civil pacifists and they do have a form of excommunicating individuals, whether daily or not, they do these things with and within a tightly-knit community separate from the already established communities by the state. So, it could easily be said that, although they may not have a place for civil governing, concerning society as whole, they do have a preference and place for communal governing. Drawing from and contrasting this with Calvinism, Calvin told his followers that they should be obedient to the state, whereas the radical reformers were telling each other to be obedient to the community. And because the radical reformers rejected the formal state and were pacifists, they would not revolt. In fact, this contributed much to the abuses they experienced. Additionally, their focus on a communal government, which superseded the authority of the governing state in which they were established, was not something that was often seen in any of the Christian subgroups before the Reformation. If there were preceding communities who had a "communal doctrine" similar to the radical reformers, the groups were not significant enough to be mentioned in the literature.

The Reformation gave birth to many movements which sought to reform those aspects of the church with which they did not agree. Calvin put his foot down and formally established the ideas of double predestination and irresistible grace. Additionally, he argued that there should be a balance between revelation and reason by necessarily leaving salvation as an act of revelation through the rejection of freewill and the role of irresistible grace. He also tells his followers to be submissive to the state because they are the ones who give you the freedom to practice their religion. Moreover, he demands that if there is a point at which the citizens are experiencing oppressive and violent forces, it could very well be the cleansing of their immorality. Of course, Calvin made an exception which opened the path for the citizens of the state to revolt if they felt that the governmental authority was acting malevolently.

The radical reformers, no doubt, maintained that revelation was the way to God. Like their predecessors, the mystics, there was room for divine intervention. But for the radical reformers, the room was enough to experience God without the use of scripture because they felt that this could solely be revealed to them via revelation. Moreover, some believed in the literal interpretation of scripture, which, in fact, implies the thought that God reveals himself through the words of scripture – without any focus on reasoning. Again, others took the bible so literally that they did not accept the idea of a trinity because it was not explicitly stated. Additionally, they did not believe in infant baptism because it was not explicitly stated in scripture.
The radical reformers were sometimes known as being tolerant of other Protestant doctrines. Although some groups were more tolerant than others, the simple proof is in the ambiguity of the wording of their doctrine and the lack of establishing an explicit position on freewill or predestination. If the greatest contribution of one of the groups of the radical reformers were needed to be pointed out, it would be the formal establishment of the communal government within an already established state. And although the goal of other movements within the Reformation was to establish territorial churches, the radical reformers’ view was completely different. They established territorial communities. These communities served as the church and the state – they governed both spiritually and temporally. This contribution to Protestantism is important because of the prevalence of Mennonites and Amish within the United States. And the significance lies not only in the ubiquity of the group within parts of the United States, but maybe more importantly, the impressive longevity and preservation of the movement.

Placher, William C. Readings in the History of Christianity v.1. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1988.

—. Readings in the History of Christianity v.2. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1988.

Placher, William. The History of Christian Thought. Louisville: Westminster Knoxville Press, 1983.

What constitutes a violation of US National Security?

Everyone has an opinion.  And whether or not the opinion is true is not necessarily the most significant factor. The most important issue with an opinion is how well it can be disseminated into the general public.  Moreover, another important aspect of an opinion is how well it can change the public’s mind.  It can be especially damaging if it were to be false, persuading, and reach into the majority of the public.  This is such the case, more so today than any other time in history.  The world, brought so close through technology, has become an intimate place in which to live.  Someone from the United States could very much get to know someone in Germany without moving away from their keyboard or cell phone.  Like many of the advances within the world, not only can it be used for a positive impact on the general public, it can also be used for attack.  At the stroke of the keyboard, sensitive information can be sent to a community of people within milliseconds.  This is the method used by cellular and cyber-bullies as well as others who wish to do damage to larger entities like corporations and governments.  After the actions of some dissenters of the United States government, it became blatantly clear that many of the citizens within the United States do not know what national security is exactly and the steps necessary to secure the future of the largest, most powerful country in the world.  It seems that there is confusion with what information indicates foul play and should be publicized, and which information necessarily needs to be classified.  Most importantly, this culture which calls for government transparency is manufacturing a false sense of justice for the curious by counterfeiting value in the publicizing of sensitive information.

A country’s goal in national security policy is the securitization of those assets, at home and abroad, which guarantee the country’s longevity and are essential for that nation to attain those goals set by its people.  It is not necessarily an easy task securing resources vital to the operation of a country.  And often there are disputes – sometimes violent – over who gets what.  There are also agreements between two parties which lead a country to acquire resources non-violently.  Obtaining resources both violently and non-violently is dependent upon information.  The more informed the government is the better chance they have at controlling that resource.  This information does not just appear out of nowhere, nor does it come served on a silver platter.  It is provided by those people who lay their life on the line, to gather information in a foreign land that is, more often than not, unfamiliar to those working in it.  Although dangerous, this is often the case.  The informants pepper the urban landscape.  Some are recruited in-country, some brought to the country, but all are spies.  These people are often funded with money not traceable to one certain government, person, or company.  But this is not unknown.  As a matter of fact, this is something for which Japan is often noted.  Their equivalent of information gathering agencies, like the CIA and NSA, are those businesses within their country.  In addition to the U.S. government’s use of private businesses as informants, they also have governmental agencies in other countries.  Recruiting of informants for the goings on within the country happens with both businesses and governmental agencies in the U.S.  Although the government agencies are accounted for in the U.S. budget, the businesses which work with the agencies within each respectful country are not.  This is an advantage for the U.S. because it can enter a country by funding an opposition under the radar.  It is often done this way; it is not anything unavailable to the general public.

It should be obvious that the funneling of money to a coup that is set the overthrow or disrupt any foreign country is illegal, regardless if it is done through businesses or by any other means.  It is this very scenario which is the foundation of the United States’ national security policy.  Because of the means by which the government operates to implement and develop its national security policy, there are often many questions which arise concerning the morality of the U.S.’s operations.  Much of the public curiosity originates from the knowing of operations the U.S. was associated with in the past.  The causes for dissent lay in not knowing the correct context in which to view the operations.  This goes for past and present operations.  Dissenting without considering the context of the situation often leads to a mistaken view of the actual intent of the U.S. government’s actions.  And although the context can vary from situation to situation, there are certain situations that necessarily call for the publication of governmental operations.

First and foremost, any actions which violate the constitutional rights of any U.S. citizen in a domestic or foreign land, regardless if it is something necessary to keep the masses safe, should be publicized.  It is better to ask for forgiveness than for permission – especially when those you are protecting are unaware of the gravity of the situation.  One of the most publicized programs of this sort is “Program MKULTRA.”  This program was funded by the U.S. and sought to use U.S. and Canadian citizens to study the effect of many extreme measures (LSD, Isolation, verbal and sexual abuse, etc…) on the human psyche.  Another program, the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, was a study on the natural progression of syphilis in the human body.  This was preformed on impoverished African-American sharecroppers which were United States citizens.  But violent acts upon United States citizens is not necessarily the only carte-blanche situation that calls for the immediate publication of government covert actions.

There is a fine line between a major case of human right’s abuses and genocide.  The latter obligates the U.S. to intervene, the former does not.  Any connection of the state to genocide – or “the G-word” as it is known in the State Department, is a crime against humanity itself and any covert or overt programs are difficult to justify, even as an act of national security.  Moreover, a military or violent action against an entire culture of people, justifying it by national security, is considered immoral on many different levels as well as an international crime against humanity.  The repulsiveness of these actions is usually dumbed-down through euphemisms.  For example, in the Rwandan revolution between the Hutu and the Tutsi, the genocide of the Tutsi people was referred to as “bush clearing.”  By referring to the genocide as bush clearing, the seriousness of the acts of murder and rape calmed the public’s perception of the magnitude of the mayhem going on right under their nose.  This is a tactic often used by the Nazi’s in the holocaust, communism in Russia, China, and Cambodia and the Socialist Slobodan Milošević in Yugoslavia.  Therefore, because violations of international crimes against humanity – domestic or foreign – ultimately endanger the criminally acting nation’s civilians and the receiving nation’s civilians, the actions of the state that is violating international law should be publically known.  The problem with human right’s abuse being separated from genocide is one that can only be determined with a definition of both terms.  Most interestingly, the United States government, to the best of my knowledge, has failed to define either.  It is not surprising though, because if there were explicit definitions of the two, it would then obligate the U.S. to intervene in all future escalations – and that is a difficult and demanding responsibility.

So far, the justification for publicizing confidential government documents has been limited to the disclosure of violent acts against citizens of the United States for national security and violence against a specific culture or race because they are a part of the culture or race – regardless if they are in a foreign or domestic setting.  The final point which may justify publicizing confidential government documents is simply any actions a country takes which evoke fear or terror within other people or countries, but more specifically, those actions are being executed without the justification of national security.  And those acts employing a counterstrike should be supported by sufficient evidence, intelligence and information.  Moreover, the intelligence and information is the most important part of these counterstrikes because they hold the keys to the knowledge needed to accurately and successfully defend the country and attack the enemy.  But the most important issue does not end with the obtaining the information, it must be conveyed in a way that is unknown to the enemy.  And regardless of the efforts of the Ambassadors for the U.S., a breech in the confidentiality of the method information is sent to the White House proves disastrous to any foreign relationship, regardless of how strong the relationship was when the line of communication was perceived as secure.  Therefore, any information disclosed to the general public at the expense of national security, should, in fact, be seen as an attack, not only on the confidentiality of our information, but more seriously, as an attack on the United States itself.  And because the information available to a sphere of people unfamiliar with the context of the confidential material - including those in the host country - it should, more importantly, be seen as a lingering threat needing to be taken out, immediately.

The Current Conundrum of North Korea

It is no surprise that the country of North Korea had been fairly unknown to the average American before 2002.  They first entered the world political scene when President Bush announced many of the organizations that supported terrorism (Bush, 2002).  To the informed, it was not so surprising that, given its history, it became one of the world’s most dangerous countries.  But to many throughout the world Kim Jong-Il and his regime came in a seemingly arbitrary manner.  The country was small and relatively unknown.  Although a neo-communist country, its government is not what is the most threatening to the world.  The threat lies in the fact that the North is quite possibly on the verge of collapse.  Consequently, they are more than willing to go to extremes in order to keep their government and country alive and operating.  But there is a factor that plays a larger part than the nuclear weapons they wield.

North Korea is bordered by two countries, China and South Korea.  They received the largest portion through the Chinese government.  South Korea has been at odds with the North since 1945.  In fact, they have yet to sign a peace settlement, which means, technically, the North and South are still at war.  The United States played an integral part in the reconstruction of the South after the Korean War.  Therefore, the United States is largely interwoven within the South Korean economy.  The military position and strength of the South combined with the efforts the United States could easily end the North’s oppressive regime by means conventional warfare.  But if this were to happen, China would be obligated to support the North because of their mutual alliance.  But the U.S. is already in two theatres.  And because enrollment in the military is still relatively low, creating a third war, regardless of a withdrawal from Iraq, would exacerbate the already fatigued military.  If for any reason the North Korean regime would suddenly fall, China, South Korea and the United States would all be constrained to raising the funds necessary to reestablish the North as a new nation-state.  In addition to the costs, China and South Korea would face an influx of an inconceivable amount of people seeking refuge and assistance (Jensen, 2010).  If this were the situation, South Korea would seek the assistance of the United States.  Because the South does not have access to the resources needed to support such a tragedy, it would become the job of the U.S. to step in and coordinate the efforts to restructure the North.

Although the problem of North Korea could be remedied with a U.S.-funded coup de tat, the recruiting efforts would make it an impossible task.  Since 1945, Korea has been governed by Kim Il-sung and then his son Kim Jong-Il.  The plans have already been put into effect for the son of Kim Jong-Il, Kim Jong-un, to be in power.  The way the people of the North are governed is nothing new.  Following the lead of Soviet-style governance, the North teaches their citizens from childhood that their ruler is their Supreme Being and that adherence to the ideals of North Korean communism is how the leaders are to be worshipped.  In such a regime, there is nothing allowed that requires the love and devotion of the individual because it, in essence, limits their love and devotion toward the goals of the North Korean communist government.  The most prominent concern for China, South Korea and the U.S. is that this type of oppression keeps the citizens oppressed through fear and indoctrination.  Therefore, a regime change by means of subversion would be nearly impossible because of the forged love and devotion the North Korean people have for their regime.  Moreover, the rising up of those who wish to disband would face the task of recruiting those who are terrified of the repercussions if they are caught in the act.

Thus the U.S. faces the dilemma to either pay for most of the restructuring if the North collapses or risk a nuclear attack if it chooses to invade on the justification of the “G-word” (genocide) – a subject known widely as taboo within the State Department.  If the U.S. tries to keep the North from collapsing by leaving them alone, then it is quite possible that they would attempt to intimidate the rest of the world by flaunting their nuclear capabilities and intent to harm.  Another significant factor is that Kim Jong-Un, the current leader’s son, has been appointed as the country’s military leader.  This suggests that along with his inheritance of the national throne, he will also be crowned as its military leader.  This has not happened with any of the prior leaders.  Thus there has been a great deal of attention drawn on finding a solution before it becomes too late and the world is faced with either another catastrophe or genocide.  But either way, the situation continues to remain serious.

Works Cited

Jensen, Dr. Erik N. "HST 296: World History Since 1945." How post-Cold War are We? Oxford, Ohio, December 1, 2010.

Bush, George W. "State of the Union Address" Washington, D.C., January 29, 2002.

The Central Intelligence Agency. CIA: World Fact Book. November 09, 2010. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/kn.html (accessed December 04, 2010).