Election 2008: War and Buddhism
Should be a short blog post. Campaign issue -- war. Buddhism is against it. OK, you say. But can we fight in self-defense, or to defend others? Must we be conscientious objectors?
As in most moral issues, Buddhists must go beyond a simple right/wrong dichotomy to make a personal decision. Please see "War and Buddhism" for further discussion.
As a campaign issue -- the United States is, most regrettably, engaged in war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and there is potential for further war in the near future. Our choice of president may mean life or death for many people. And it is not always possible to predict how the candidates will react to crisis. If, eight years ago, someone had told me George W. Bush would be a war president, I would have laughed.
So, it is possible either of these candidates would choose to engage in war. One suspects Senator Obama is the less warlike of the two. At least, he places greater emphasis on diplomacy than does Senator McCain. But there are no guarantees.
Regarding Iraq, both candidates present their broad views on the Iraq War on their web sites. Here is John McCain's Iraq Page and Barack Obama's Iraq Page. In my opinion, Senator McCain has a fixation on "victory" but does not clearly explain what "victory" means given the reality of the war. It's not as if anyone is ever going to surrender. You are welcome to make up your own minds on this matter, however.
Comments
The observation that if anyone had told you Bush would take the country into two wars was a surprise chilled me to the bone. The men who have had the behind-the-scenes power are connected to Project for a new American Century, an organization that has made it clear that they want to conquer and control oil producing areas of the Middle East. The wars were never a matter of “if,” but of when and with what pretext. I beg all Americans to study what is really going on in this country. This isn’t a wacky conspiracy theory but easily documented information.
Hi, Barbara! I just wanted to let you know that I named your blog as a “Blog I Love” at my blog:
http://chaplaindanny.blogspot.com/2008/10/i-your-blog.html
Yes, Anita, I know all anout the Project for a New American Century now, and I published some web articles about PNAC in 2002 and 2003, but I didn’t know about them in 2000. Can you honestly say you knew about PNAC in 2000? There’s aren’t many who weren’t full-time activists at the time who can.
It seems you are equating the war in Iraq with the actions occuring in Afganistan. It should be noted that the actions in Afganistan(war if you like but also rebuilding and humanitarian efforts) are a UN sanctioned mission led by NATO. As a Canadian I bring some distance to this issue can see major differences between the two conflicts. Our own parliment under two different governments both supported the mission in Afganistan(we withdraw from a combat role in 2011). Further I do not “regret” helping the people of Afganistan in any way. Unless you just meant you reget war as a general thing-which at the end of the day is a rather meaningless statement since the Buddhist flip side to that is that you’d also regret not going to war and helping the people of Afganistan! Regrets are nice I suppose but Buddhists, sadly, also live real world and have to make informed and tough decisions.
It seems you are equating the war in Iraq with the actions occuring in Afganistan.
No, I am not. If it interests you, I personally supported the action in Afghanistan and regret the U.S. abandoned the effort to go into Iraq. But I’m not here to spout my political opinions (although I realize they seep through sometimes).
War is regrettable even when it is unavoidable (see essay, “War and Buddhism“). The circumstances of the war do not change that.
War is a huge burden, just look at the many countries that have fallen into a sinkhole over war, Vietnam was a prosperous country, until we went to war with them! All for what? Just because they didn’t have a capitalist form of government?
But sadly war is and always have been going on…