Religious Fundamentalism, Religious Wars and Cockroaches

At the end of World War II, after the U.S. had dropped two nuclear bombs on civilian populations and major cities worldwide were piles of smoking ruins, an estimated 72 million people were dead and vast areas of civilized nations were uninhabitable. There was no green grass, no shady trees, no blossoming flowers and no laughing children. There was nothing alive in these smoldering bombed out cities, except cockroaches. These hardy little creatures always seem to survive even in the worst possible environments.

It has often been quoted by pious religious philosophers that ‘the meek shall inherit the Earth‘. They must have undoubtedly been referring to the meek cockroaches. These small creatures may be meek, but they have survived and outlived almost every species of animal that has ever existed on our planet.

Geologist’s at Ohio State University have discovered fossil cockroaches from the Carboniferous period, over 300 million years ago. These robust little survivors were walking our planet 55 million years before the dinosaurs, and quietly watched as the giant reptiles came into existence and quietly watched as those giant rulers of the Earth became extinct. Cockroaches were survivors hundreds of millions of years before the first humans walked upright on the African plains. They will no doubt still be here millions of years after human extinction. The meek shall indeed inherit the Earth, or what’s left of it, after global warming, toxic waste, smog and water pollution and nuclear holocaust.

Apparently cockroaches don’t have religious wars. If humans want to survive, maybe we should follow their historical example. Cockroaches seem to have more tolerance for their own species than humans do. Maybe they deserve to survive. Maybe Natural Selection or Mother Nature is trying to make a point. (Don’t kill your own species.)

Millions of historical books, articles, photo essays, entertaining Hollywood movies and news accounts have been published about World War II. Apparently, humanity hasn’t learned any survival lessons from those millions of publications and productions, because that worldwide tragic event will most probably be repeated all over again, only the next time with even more fatal results. WW III may be the shortest war in the history of the world. Maybe lasting a total of one day. Some call it Judgment Day. After a very brief World War III has ended, there will be no best selling books, articles or breaking news accounts written describing the Last Days in human history. The final page in human history will never be written. No one will survive to write it. Cockroaches can’t write books and they will probably be the only survivors. They are quietly watching and waiting for humans to exterminate each other. Sometime humans are indistinguishable from lemmings (doomed conformists that blindly follow one another resulting in the destruction of all).

In WW II, human beings killed 72 million of their own species in less than ten years. In the entire World War, only two nuclear bombs were detonated. Today, the U.S. total stockpile of nuclear weapons is approximately 11,000. Other Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) presently possessed by the U.S. includes biological and chemical weapons. The U.S. currently has more WMD than any nation in history and has in the past, shown no hesitation about using them.

The U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, located in Fort Detrick, Maryland, produces small quantities of biological agents, such as anthrax, for use in biological weapons defense research. The U.S. government doesn’t invest millions of dollars in research unless they have some intention of using the results of that research. Theoretically, the research is supposedly for defense. Like everything else the present administration does, it’s classified Top Secret. How can anyone trust the U.S. government, when they have already used nuclear weapons, biological weapons and chemical weapons against civilian populations?

The United States ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention which became effective in April 1997. This banned the possession of most types of chemical weapons and banned chemical weapons development, and requires the destruction of existing stockpiles, essential chemicals, production facilities and weapon delivery systems.

At the present time, the U.S. has only destroyed part of the huge stockpile of chemical weapons that it has been producing and using for many decades. The U.S. military’s authorized use of antipersonnel chemicals (napalm, toxic gas, pesticides, poison defoliants and others) in Vietnam was tragically well known and documented.

According to the U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency, on June 18, 2007, the United States has destroyed 45% of the original stockpile of nearly 31,100 metric tons of nerve and mustard agents declared in 1997. The primary chemical weapon storage facilities in the U.S. are Umatilla Chemical Depot in Oregon, Pueblo Chemical Depot in Colorado, Newport Chemical Depot in Indiana, Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky, Anniston Chemical Activity in Alabama, Pine Bluff Chemical Activity in Arkansas and Deseret Chemical Depot in Utah. (statistics source: wikipedia.org)

The excuse for the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq was the bogus claim that Saddam Hussein had WMD. After the invasion and occupation, this turned out to be one of the Bush administration’s biggest lies. Iraq had no WMD. Hussein was called a terrorist because he had previously used chemical weapons against the northern Kurds within Iraq and poison gas against the Iranians during the 8-year war (1980-88). The U.S. conveniently forgot to mention that it was the U.S. and Britain that had manufactured those chemicals. The U.S. never objected at that time when Hussein was using them against Iran. The U.S. only objected later after they stopped supporting Hussein. How could the U.S. legitimately object when the American military had used chemicals against the Vietnamese people for eight years?

Even if no chemical or biological weapons are used in World War III, only a small percent of the presently existing nuclear weapons would be sufficient to exterminate almost all life on our small planet. The nuclear radiation and fallout after the blinding fireball holocaust would spread over the surface of the Earth causing vast amounts of genetic damage to all species of plants and animals that had survived the initial blasts. This radiation would last for thousands of years and the resulting genetic damage would create mutated, deformed and most likely sterile creatures. Few life forms could survive for very long. World War III will have no winners, just losers. World War III will be a psychotic act of species mass suicide and the Last Days of human civilization.

Many historians are convinced that the third World War will be a Religious War. During the Middle Ages, there were many nations throughout the world that had intolerant religious theocracies. These monarchial and priest led governments instigated war after war in attempts to destroy any conflicting beliefs or dogmas. Tolerance was almost nonexistent. Millions of people died, but this was only a prelude to the future Armageddon. Fortunately for the world, at that time, these Inquisitions, Crusades, Holy Wars and Jihads were waged with primitive weapons. This won’t be the case in the final war to end all wars. The next time religious fundamentalist theocracies commence a Religious War, they will have the most powerful weapons and delivery systems that modern technology can design. Multi-million dollar weapons systems designed by the most intelligent scientists that our nation can produce. Sophisticated weapons efficiently created to kill the maximum number of human beings. Strategically planned mass murder orchestrated by fundamentalist religious world leaders. Each religion having the naïve faith that their deity will protect only their group and annihilate all other groups. The Gods of War always encourage and support both armies.

The tragic irony of this scenario is that these murderous WMD will be deployed in the name of some Holy Religion. These religions that should be leading the world toward peace and cooperation rather than war and annihilation. These pious intolerant leaders will fall on their knees and pray to the Gods of War to give them victory over their hated enemies. And this insane tragedy will be enacted by all involved. Each believing that the ruler of the Universe is on their side as each group exterminates the other.

The world is fast approaching that critical confrontation. Civilization is facing a nuclear meltdown. There are presently approximately 2.1 billion Christians, 1.5 billion Muslims, 900 million Hindus, 394 million members of traditional Chinese religions, 376 million Buddhists and more than a dozen other religious groups with several million members each.

Some of the religious fundamentalists in the major religions now have control over, or strong influence over governments that have powerful military organizations, including the present U.S. administration and numerous theocracies in Muslim nations. The religious hostilities in the Middle East and Africa are continuing to escalate. Genocide is already happening in Darfur East Africa. Each hostile act by one group antagonizes and inflames the other group. Whatever small token of tolerance that might have once existed in the past is rapidly dissolving as fast as the polar ice caps.

Israel is not a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and refuses to officially confirm or deny having a nuclear weapons. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Federation of American Scientists, Israel possesses around 75–200. (wikipedia.org)

In the Middle East, the Jews probably have nuclear weapons (Israel does not confirm or deny this, but it really doesn’t matter, since they are supported by the U.S. which has thousands), the Christians have nuclear weapons and the Muslims are trying to obtain them. The U.S. is ready to use any means necessary to prevent any Muslim nation from developing any WMD. In other words the U.S. is willing to use WMD to prevent anyone else from using WMD. Where’s the logic in that insane policy? This kind of abstract ideological mentality is of little consolation to the countless dead. When thousands are dead, what difference does it make if they were killed by WMD or MWD (Mass Weapons of Destruction). One weapon can kill 1000 people, or 1000 weapons can kill 1000 people. The dead are just as dead. The present U.S. administration seems to approve of both WMD and MWD (but only for themselves) because they continue to produce and use both.

Apparently the Unitary Executive feels that it is his destiny as Commander in Chief to use his awesome military power to remake the world, starting with Iraq. This kind of grandiose delusions of grandeur in a small mind, is what started World War II.

Who made the U.S. the Decider? The U.S. has thousands of nuclear missiles (WMD) ready for instant deployment to any target on the surface of the planet. This can be potentially catastrophic when the U.S. Commander in Chief has no tolerance or compassion for any adversary.

The U.S. continues to sell Israel the most advanced military equipment, far beyond what they actually need for self defense. This is the illogical policy that has united the Islamic world against both the U.S. and Israel even before the U.S. was actively engaged in physical military combat in the Middle East. The nation of Israel is a small nation and a religious minority compared to the Muslim world. There are only about 14 million Jews in the entire world, compared to 1.5 billion Muslims.

Since the first World War, the British and U.S. hegemony and occupations in the Middle East has created nothing but chaos. Decade after decade, almost every decision made has been disastrously wrong. These misjudgments were almost totally caused by a complete ignorance of the culture and the people of the Middle East, their Islamic religion and the complicated nature of Islamic politics. The Balfour Declaration in 1917 issued by Britain and the U.N. decision in 1948 to partition Palestine, which created the state of Israel has resulted in destitute Palestinian refugees and hostile conflicts between the Jews and the Muslims ever since. The haphazard method used by the British in the creation of the state of Iraq and Kuwait has resulted in sectarian and tribal conflicts for decades. The 1953 U.S. intrusion in Iranian affairs and support of the monarch Shaw Reza Pahiazi, inflicted suffering on the Iranian people for over 25 years (1953-79). Almost all of these decisions were made without any concern for the people of these nations and was done solely to exploit their vast oil resources.

All of these mistakes cannot be easily undone. But the real problem is that the U.S. and Britain don’t seem to ever learn anything from their tragic mistakes. They just keep compounding them by repeating them or making even worse blunders. The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was probably the most colossal mistake ever made. It was equally as insane as the 1965 invasion of Vietnam by the U.S, which resulted in the deaths of over two million people and achieved absolutely nothing. The world doesn’t like aggressor nations, and the U.S. has had an aggressive foreign policy since the end of WW II. The goodwill that was felt toward all Americans in 1945 has been completely reversed by the continuous meddling by the U.S. in the affairs of other sovereign nations.

Immediately before WWII, the U.S. had a much smaller military organization and foreign policy was based more on diplomacy. During the war, the U.S. military developed into superpower status. This created a basic change in foreign policy which has inspired successive administrations to become more intrusive in other nation’s affairs. The present U.S. military budget is astronomical. It is an unfortunate characteristic of military organizations, that the more powerful they become, the more likely they are to use that power aggressively.

The U.S. government refuses to even estimate the number of Iraqis that have been killed as a result of the present aggressive military occupation, as if the American deaths were of paramount importance, but the Iraqi deaths were not worth mentioning. Iraqbodycount.org has present estimates of between 75,000 and 82,000 Iraqi deaths. Some other estimates are as high as several hundred thousand and these casualties are almost all civilians. These are fellow human beings that every person in the world should empathize with.

The U.S. news media has been essentially acting as spokespersons for the current administration and they are keeping everything classified. Not because this information is of any military importance, but because the government simply doesn’t want the general public to know what they are doing. Without a completely free press, democracy cannot function properly because the public cannot make well informed judgments. Many European and Muslim nations have seen on daily TV, since 2003, the bloody carnage and destruction in Iraq, but almost none of these events are shown on American TV news broadcasts. It’s ironic that so many other nations have a much freer press and more freedom of speech than the U.S. does. Americans are being forced to get more complete news coverage from the less government controlled internet. The U.S. public is shown on broadcast TV only what the government wants them to see. This type of censored news is more characteristic of a dictatorship than a democracy.

Since the end of WW II, the nature of the U.S. government has been changing in one characteristic direction. Political power has been steadily shifting from the balanced three branches of government, that was always intended to safeguard the democratic processes and civil liberties, to a stronger Executive controlled government. A Unitary executive branch is essentially a Unitary government. Vice President Cheney has played a major role in this power grab. This unbalanced federal system is shifting toward a monarchy in which one individual is the ‘Decider‘.

A second change that has been taking place in the U.S. government since the Eisenhower administration (1953) is a steady deterioration of the separation of religion and state. The Radical Religious Right and the Christian Fundamentalists have been steadily encroaching upon the Executive branch. This is moving our nation toward becoming a Christian theocracy. This should frighten all religious minorities within the U.S. Theocracies have zero tolerance for alternate beliefs or religions.

These two fundamental changes are contributing to a federal system that was already essentially a republican system. George W. Bush was not elected by a direct popular vote, which would be the characteristic process of a true democratic election. His administration actually began more like a coup which was make possible by the intervention of the U.S. Supreme Court in the 2000 election dispute in Florida and the purely republican system of the Electoral College. There are distinct differences between a republican election and a democratic election. The U.S. will not have a truly democratic system until the Electoral College is abolished.

Instead of being a democratic system of government, a more accurate designation of the present U.S. administration, would be a Republican Christian Monarchy. Depending upon how much political power the religious right wing of the Republican Party has over the Executive, it might also be designated a Republican Christian Theocracy.

As a consequence of the Bush administration’s blundering intervention into Iraq, our present American Republican Christian Monarchy is running headlong into the Republican Islamic Theocracies of the Middle East. Add to this volatile confrontation, a besieged Jewish nation armed with nuclear weapons and the only result is a world in flames.

This final Religious World War is not going to end well. The enduring cockroaches are quietly watching and patiently waiting.