Tikkun magazine and Rabbi Michael Lerner tend to galvanize an audience. Whether one agrees with him or not, at least he's consistent. In the November / December issue of Tikkun, Rabbi Lerner pens an editorial under the title above. His position on the war isn't surprising and his arguments are well-defined and actually ground that's been walked over for several years now. Here's a case in point:
The whole notion of a war on terrorism is fundamentally misguided. Terrorism is a tactic used by people who do not have the powerful armies of the world at their disposal, and hence they will use homemade or stolen weapons against those who they believe to be oppressing them.
That dog's been hunting for quite some time. Of course we're fomentingI a new generation of terrorists be doing exactly what we're doing now: Kicking in doors in the wee, small hours of the morning, rousting people out of their home without regard for their dignity, and propping up a government that isn't favored by the people. (We can work out the parallels between Hamid Kharzi and Jean Baptiste Ngo Dinh Diem at a later date.)
Rabbi Lerner draws in another well worn line of argument when he writes, While claiming to bring democracy, we've simply imposed governments that agree to protect American corporate power. Again I think we've paced over this ground before, at least since O. Henry coined the expression, banana republic at the end of the 19th century.
I think there are deep and profound reasons rooted in Halacha that convincing argue for the United States to immediately end it's wars of empire around the world. I'm disappointed that Rabbi Lerner didn't use his pulpit to bring these to light, but respect him for directly addressing the situation.
Here's a link to the entire article.
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