BACEVICH/AUTHORITY By that measure, quoting the Book of Mormon, or a former Harvard-trained psychiatrist who is now a journalist, is an argument from authority. To me, at least, Bacevich's experience easily trumps Krauthammer's. Bracevich's pleas for national humility and his tragic sense of history also, to my mind, fit rather rather better with the Book of Mormon than Krauthammer's progressivist neopaternalism.
GIDGIDDONI: You mistook my point, which was that his people asked for a preventive war, but Gidgiddoni knew that his people were unready to face the Gadiantons until they had repented. They needed repentance, despite being a people that would choose prophets as civil and military leaders, and despite asking Gidgiddoni to pray before going out to battle. In wars with the robbers of Gadianton, the Book of Mormon always attributes Nephite woes to Nephite wickedness. Let me repeat that because I believe I may not have made it clear enough the first time. In every war with the robbers of Gadiantion, the Book of Mormon always attributes Nephite woes to Nephite wickedness. The only security available in a Nephite war with Gadianton robbers is through thorough Nephite repentance, and even that doesn't guarantee light Nephite causalties. If, as you and I both agree, the United States is facing modern reprises of the Gadianton robbers at home and abroad, and if, again, as you and I both believe, the inhabitants of this land are supposed to liken the Book of Mormon to themselves---this is sure proof, if it were otherwise needed, that this nation is in critical need of repentance. A nation is in a very bad way whether it is supporting secret combinations or simply fighting them---it needs repentance either way. A nation in such dire need of repentance is not a nation that has a mandate from heaven to forcibly stamp its image on any other nation.
But I could not see it clearly
For my sight was very dim (Hymn no. 273)
JUST WAR: I nevertheless welcome the chance to respond to what I had only taken a jibe at---you do not misunderstand my disgust at preventive wars. And it astonishes and perplexes me that you find, in comparing approaches to war, Catholicism to be more conscientious than Mormonism.
Nephite wars with Lamanites were fought on Nephite territory, in response to Lamanite invasion. They leave no garrisons on Lamanite soil after the Lamanites lose a war. (The US has over 700 foreign military bases.)The Nephites even give land to prisoners of war who make promises and want to re-establish themselves. (For comparison, the United states has resettled rather less than 10,000 Iraqis. Sweden, population around 7 million, has resettled around 80,000 Iraqis.)
Moroni and other Nephites regarded it as essential to act justly in military action:
Now it came to pass that when Moroni had received this epistle he was more angry, because he knew that Ammoron had a perfect knowledge of his fraud, yea, he knew that Ammoron knew that it was not a just cause that had caused him to wage a war against the people of Nephi. (Alma 55:1)
And now, Moroni, I do joy in receiving your epistle, for I was somewhat worried concerning what we should do, whether it should be just in us to go against our brethren. (Alma 61:19)
But behold, this was not the desire of Moroni; he did not delight in murder or bloodshed, but he delighted in the saving of his people from destruction; and for this cause he might not bring upon him injustice, he would not fall upon the Lamanites, and destroy them in their drunkenness. (Alma 55:19)
The Nephites were also taught to obey the law of the third offense.
And they were doing that which they felt was the duty which they owed to their God; for the Lord had said unto them, and also unto their fathers, that: Inasmuch as ye are not guilty of the first offense, neither the second, ye shall not suffer yourselves to be slain by the hands of your enemies. (Alma 43:46)
This law of the third offence sets a higher threshold than just war theory. And it is still applicable. (Doctrine and Covenants 98:23-48)
There is, of course, a sense in which all warmaking, like all civil punishment, is both pre-emptive and preventive. As George Savile, Marquess of Halifax, aphorized, "Men are not hanged for stealing horses, but that horses may not be stolen." Out of the pre-emptive or preventive actions we can take, some are forbidden to us, both in civil matters and as between nations. These limits come from something akin to the presumption of innocence. As Kingman Brewster observed,
The presumption of innocence is not just a legal concept. In commonplace terms, it rests on that generosity of spirit which assumes the best, not the worst, of the stranger.
Another important principle is accountability. I am aghast at the kind of thinking which says something like "Well we believed he had WMD. If we made a mistake, at least in was an honest one. So no-one should beat up on us too badly for that. It is the kind of error that anyone could have made..." Except it isn't. People with a real sense of accountability are much more cautious. If one starts a war, killing many thousands of people directly and then many thousands more indirectly, one is responsible for that bloodshed. If one does it on poor evidence---and the evidence was, on objective grounds, extremely poor---the blood of those killed cries from the ground against the perpetrators of the war.
Behold what the scripture says---man shall not smite, neither shall he judge; (Mormon 8:20)
If bloodguilt stains those who supported this based on false evidence, how much worse is it for those who knew, or should have known, better?.
PROPAGANDA: There is a great deal to suggest that they did not believe their own stories, starting with the succession of rationales offered for the invasion: first, it was Osama Bin Laden, and then weapons of mass destruction, and then the spreading of democracy throughout the Middle East. There were a great many lies attending the invasion of Iraq. I remember at the time seeing things that looked like rather thin propaganda at the time. I was right too. Here is a long and damning summary by Sam Gardiner, detailing about 50 propaganda stories. You must have heard at least some of these, and been dubious about others. The depth, tenor, and systematicity of the lying should tell you something, if you are listening:
http://ics.leeds.ac.uk/papers/pmt/exhibits/722/gardinerfullversion.pdf
HEADING AMALICKIAH: The example you give, Moroni's attempt to head Amalickiah, is no preventive war. It does not even rise to the status of a pre-emptive strike against a foreign army apparently mobilizing to invade. Amalickiah is a renegade Nephite who, after an abortive attempt to start a civil war, takes flight. Moroni's operation is a police action against a fleeing army of traitors. It is probably true that Moroni goes to as much trouble as he does here because he is trying to prevent Amalickiah from joining forces with the Lamanites---prevention is his stated motive. Nevertheless, had he succeeded in capturing Amalickiah, he would have put him to death not because of what he (rightly) guessed Amalickiah would do, but rather because of what Amalickiah had already done.
PREVENTIVE WAR: Preventive war, by the way, is different and worse than pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is when, seeing an army mobilizing to attack you, you seize the initiative and attack first. Preventive war is when, fearing that a prospective enemy may acquire the capacity to do you harm, you attack to prevent the development of that capacity. In a pre-emptive war, you are throwing away the opportunity that the other party may yet stand down the mobilization. In a preventive war, you are throwing away more---the chance that your presumptive enemy, whatever their attitude towards you, may never actually intend to act against you. (There is no evidence that Iraq ever wanted to go to war with the United States. Even in their earlier invasion of Kuwait, they checked in with the American ambassador, April Glaspie, first, and felt that they had blindeye permission. That is what Indonesia did with Ford and Kissinger on their visit to Jakarta---so Indonesia rolled into East Timor just after Ford/Kissinger left, and annexed it. I remember lefties complaining about the Indonesian annexation at the time. It took two decades, around 0.1 megadeaths, and an oil discovery offshore for the powerful nations to develop a conscience about what the East Timorese suffered at the hands of the Indonesians. It is simply easier to profitable deals with small states that have considerable oil wealth, like Kuwait or East Timor, than it is to deal with larger states that might be tempted to take appreciable shares for the national budget, like Iraq or Indonesia. There were other issues between Kuwait and Iraq. The Iraqis claimed that Kuwait has been diagonal drilling into Iraqi oil reserves---that had. But most of all, the Gulf States and the US had used Iraq to fight a long proxy war in which millions died, against the Islamic Republic of Iran, which they feared. Iraq provided the lives, and the other parties the money. After the Iran-Iraq war concluded, Kuwait welched on the deal.)
AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM AS A GUARANTOR OF US MOTIVES FOR WAR: You appear to believe that when the US acts militarily abroad, it acts from much cleaner motives than its chosen opponents. With even a little perseverance, one finds the truth to be rather less flattering.
Even the War of Independence was tainted by the colonists haste to expand into---i.e. invade---Indian lands, in contravention of recent British treaties with the natives, and also to some degree by Southern insecurity after the Somerset(t) court decision issued by Mansfield LCJ of the Court of King's Bench resulted essentially in the freeing of all slaves in England in 1772.
It is no defense of subsequent US motives to acknowledge a divine hand in the establishment of the land---if anything, past grants of divine sustenance only aggravate subsequent wrongdoing. As it is written concerning the Nephites:
And now behold I say unto you, that if this people, who have received so many blessings from the hand of the Lord, should transgress contrary to the light and knowledge which they do have, I say unto you that if this be the case, that if they should fall into transgression, it would be far more tolerable for the Lamanites than for them. (Alma 9:23)
First, the scriptures claim for the Lord an overall guiding destiny in the affairs of all nations, and also that he gives to all nations "all that he seeth fit that they should have". Providential treatment at a particular moment in history does not warrant the self-applauding exceptionalism to which both ancient Nephites and modern Americans are prone.
Second, divine protection for the ideal of liberty in the founding of the United States does not mean either that liberty was perfectly established---it was not---or that what Americans wanted in other respects had divine support---not all of it did---or that liberty as it is understood in the scriptures is now found here in any exceptional degree---it is not.
Third, the mandate of heaven can be lost---it is the children of the American revolutionaries who gave us the Trail of Tears, the murder of Joseph, Hyrum and many of the early brethren, the rape and murder of many of their women and children, their expulsion from the then United States. In particular, the fact that the US is not now at war with Mormons or Indians does not, ipso facto, mean that US has now learned to be governed by good motives, or to pick only deserving victims.
Fourth, while it is written that "the Lord raiseth up one nation", it is also written that He "shaves by a hand that is hired." Victory is no assurance of probity.
Even if you insist that the Lord has granted something in the nature of a permanent grant of favor upon the United States---a position I do not see as warranted historically, scripturally, or in any other way---you could at least consider a version of that exceptionalism similar to that offered by Joshua Reuben Clark, who at different points in his life was US Ambassador to Mexico and a member of the First Presidency:
For America has a destiny---a destiny to conquer the world---not by force of arms, not by purchase and favor, for these conquests wash away, but by high purpose, by unselfish effort, by uplifting achievement, by a course of Christian living; a conquest that shall leave every nation free to move out to its own destiny; a conquest that shall bring, through the workings of our own example, the blessings of freedom and liberty to every people, without restraint or imposition or compulsion from us; a conquest that shall weld the whole earth together in one great brotherhood in a reign of mutual patience, forbearance, and charity, to a reign of peace to which we shall lead all others by our own righteous example.
CHURCH LEADERSHIP SUPPORT FOR US SELF-PERCEPTIONS: It is not even a defence of US motives to point out that, at times, the church's leadership have been publicly supportive of US actions.
A particularly important example is Gordon Hinckley's address "War and Peace" in Sunday Morning closing address of the April 2003 general conference. It is all the more emphatic following his closing address in the preceding evening's priesthood session, "Loyalty". I took "War and Peace", and I think most members took it, as the closest President Hinckley could come to putting his blessing upon the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Rereading it just now, I am nevertheless impressed with the evenhandedness of the opening part of the talk, and with his explicit prefacing of the latter part of his talk, in which he comes down on the side of the war party, with the following:
However, we all must also be mindful of another overriding responsibility, which I may add, governs my personal feelings and dictates my personal loyalties in the present situation.
Did he come down on the wrong side here, even if only personally? I believe he did. Did he hope that much of the membership would come with him? It would seem so, and in any case, many did. I know that one of my sisters had doubts about the war before listening to this talk, and this settled it for her. Perhaps it still does. There were others, however, like my sister-in-law---who loved and loves President Hinckley as much as anyone I personally know---who saw the Lord's hand in how little President Hinckley was actually permitted to support his clearly prefered position.
My response followed a different track again. I talked to my then stake president, a member of a very prominent church family. You would recognize his last name. He told me not only that his view was the same as mine, but that his entire family, many of them lawyers, also regarded the invasion of Iraq as wrong and illegal.
I also studied scriptures, and reminded myself of church history. Balaam the son of Beor was a prophet, after all. He tried as best he could to support Balak the son of Zippor. In the end, his desire for Balak's friendship cost him his life. He was killed in a war ordered by another prophet---Moses.
Moses exemplifies a different kind of constraint. It is generally accepted in the modern church as in early Christianity that Moses brought the higher law with him when he returned from the mountain the first time. The people's behavior materially changed what their prophet-leader was able to receive on their behalf the second time. President Hickley said that he was prayerful, but he did not say that his prayers had been given any clear answer. I believe he got no clear answer, and then did what you or I do when we have done what we can to get guidance, and nothing has been given by the time we need to make a decision.
Captain Moroni might well have been inspired to threaten insurrection, but he was simply wrong to imply that Pahoran was a traitor.
Peter presided in the Church---but Paul tells us in words we take to be canonical:
But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. (Galatians 2:11)
Joseph Smith did, in the end, get permission from the Lord to lend Martin Harris 116 pages of manuscript. He trusted Harris too much.
Joseph Smith also appointed John C. Bennett an assistant to the first presidency, and made him essentially his de facto first counsellor. It was John C. Bennett who was able to get the Nauvoo City Charter through the Illinois legislature. Bennett had claimed to be a bachelor, but he in fact had an estranged wife and family. Smith forgave him that. But then Bennett started seducing Nauvoo women using the claim that he was practicing a higher form of marriage, a claim made credible by rumors of an impending revelation on plural marriage. Smith did not forgive him that. Bennett stuck around Nauvoo for a while, but eventually left, and went on tour denouncing Joseph Smith. Joseph Smith trusted Bennett too much too.
It would have to have been Brigham Young that incorporated words into the sacred ordinances about avenging the blood of the prophets. Those words were subsequently changed, so it cannot be argued that they were an eternal necessity. Young also knew within days what not only that his response to their question hadn't got through in time, but also what had actually happened at Mountain Meadows. He did not punish the perpetrators. Instead, he marshalled men in expectation of a retaliation. (My wife's patrilineal ancestor was hastily called away to this muster, just a few weeks later, leaving his sick and pregnant wife. He returned to find their new child already in its grave.) It is, on the one hand, fair to note that President Young gave orders against the massacre, if too late. It is also somewhat less than the truth to say that he is without responsibility. Susan Easton Black says that there was a rumor among the Saints that the Fansher company had "the gun that killed Old Joe". Had President Young used different words in the relevant ceremony, it is possible that the outcome would have been different. I don't know if it can be said that he trusted John Lee too much.
I am inclined to believe that similar instances could be found in virtually every First Presidency, right up to the present day. In particular, I believe President Hinckley trusted George W. Bush too much.
Another example is the appointment of Richard Bitner Wirthlin to the Second Quorum of Seventy by his cousin, Gordon Bitner Hinckley. Richard Wirthlin is most famous as Ronald Reagan's pollster. I happen to believe that Richard Wirthlin did a great deal of evil in that position. A quote I don't think I shall ever forget the gist of this quote of Wirthlin's, from Reagan's campaign bible, as it was called:
American democracy is less a form of government than a romantic preference for a particular value structure. (http://www.newint.org/issue146/democracy.htm)
Wirthlin's states truly the condition of the republic. What horrifies me is that Wirthlin, rather than bearing down in pure testimony against it, used it secretly and for manipulation.
Wirthlin was also instrumental, while working together with his former Reagan White House buddy Craig Fuller, who had moved to PR powerhouse Hill and Knowlton, in helping sell the war that expelled the Iraqis from Kuwait.
When Fuller joined its management, Philip Morris's already longstanding association with Wirthlin blossomed. Philip Morris (now Altria) is a tobacco company. He helped them as they assessed their plans around the world to forestall antismoking legislation. He ran surveys, hidden-nand and otherwise, not only among regular people but also among politicians.
To find documentary involvement of Richard Wirthlin's involvement with Philip Morris, go to http://www.pmdocs.com and do a search on Wirthlin. There are so many documents that I haven't really had a chance to sort through them all properly. I can show, however, the Richard Wirthlin was personally involved with Philip Morris from at least as early 1983, that he was still involved at least as late as 1995, that his research for them spanned Australia, Asia, the US and Europe. Look for yourself. This man was Reagan's pollster, President Hinckley's first cousin, Elder Wirthlin's brother, and the Presiding Bishop Wirthlin's son.
I believe President Hinckley trusted his cousin, and his cousin's political circle, too much.
In responding to the US invasion of Iraq, President Hinckley was in a exceptionally delicate position. His talk would seem to indicate that he was in some measure aware of that. Had his position---which I take to be a personal position, despite the setting---matched mine instead than the war party's, there would have been some very distressed LDS servicemen sitting in Iraq. I am well aware of that. But I am also aware of a number of my friends who were not, despite President Hinckley's entreaties, treated respectfully about their distrust of the Bush/Cheney invasion, and whose isolation has proved costly to them and a loss to the church.
You can claim, if you wish, that I have insufficient faith in the leadership of the church. But it is not in fact my job to have faith in them.
Perhaps the best answer here is a close reading of Mosiah 29.
I know of one church that in theory at least regards official statements by that church's earthly head to be infallible. Like you, however, I am not a Catholic.
AFGHANISTAN: My point here is not that the Soviet government or the Afghan communist government were staffed by choirboys, but that a succession of American governments are perfectly happy to lie gratuitously to their own people, and conduct secret murders as it suits them. Since you appear to concur in their reasoning and their deeds, there is little more to say, beyond referring you to Mosiah 29, where the difference between the Nephite kingdom and the Nephite reign of judges is described in terms of the people equitably sharing in the burden of responsibility for acts of government.
SECRET COMBINATIONS We both agree that what the Book of Mormon says about secret combinations is highly relevant to present circumstances. We also both agree that there are secret combinations operating at home and abroad. Where we begin to diverge is on whether the people and government of the United States better resemble a Light unto the World or the Whore of Babylon. I suspect and hope that you are correct that it would be difficult to join a secret combination in complete innocence. Nevertheless, I rather expect that it would be like getting into drugs or adultery or violence---incremental:
And there are also secret combinations, even as in times of old, according to the combinations of the devil, for he is the founder of all these things; yea, the founder of murder, and works of darkness; yea, and he leadeth them by the neck with a flaxen cord, until he bindeth them with his strong cords forever. (2 Ne. 26:22)
The Book of Mormon certainly does put evil goals and intentions right beside what little it tells us of the oaths. I believe it is being emphatic about hidden or nascent motives and their longer consequences. Reading carefully, we are never told that the Gadianton oaths and covenants themselves contain direct promises either to be wicked or even to support wickedness preferentially. Rather, they are oaths of mutual support, of brotherly loyalty even in the most extreme circumstances.
But behold, Satan did stir up the hearts of the more part of the Nephites, insomuch that they did unite with those bands of robbers, and did enter into their covenants and their oaths, that they would protect and preserve one another in whatsoever difficult circumstances they should be placed, that they should not suffer for their murders, and their plunderings, and their stealings. (Hel. 6:21)
I rather doubt that murder or plundering or stealing has any explicit mention in the Gadianton oaths. We have each other's backs...all for one and one for all...we are a band of brothers...my buddies, right or wrong. Fun, almost innocuous, high-minded even---rather like preparing for an excellent war. The Gadiantons even have their own internal system of law and adjudication (Hel 6:24). Wicked? Of course! But I doubt that the Gadiantons would have admitted that to themselves. As it is written "Every way of a man is right in his own eyes:" (Prov. 21:2)
In a secret combination, I would expect to find "I am the governor of this the secret society of Gadianton; which society and the works thereof I know to be good;" and also self-proclaimed conservatism "and they are of ancient date and they have been handed down unto us." (3 Ne 3:9)
Are secret combinations packaged as pacts with the devil? Hardly! Inductees swear "by their everlasting Maker" (Hel. 1:11), or "by the God of heaven, and also by the heavens, and also by the earth, and by their heads" (Eth. 8:14). Rather, these oaths, covenants, and plans---the loyalty, the belonging, the clarity of purpose---are highly appealing to a bestirred people. (Hel. 6:21) They are also tremendously seductive :
And now, my son, I command you that ye retain all their oaths, and their covenants, and their agreements in their secret abominations; yea, and all their signs and their wonders ye shall keep from this people, that they know them not, lest peradventure they should fall into darkness also and be destroyed.You no doubt know what a false flag operation is. That is how I believe the secret combination thing works---would the Father of Lies put out job ads under his own name? Every secret combination, every tyranny must have its rich cloak of noble sentiment.
For behold, there is a curse upon all this land, that destruction shall come upon all those workers of darkness, according to the power of God, when they are fully ripe; therefore I desire that this people might not be destroyed.
Therefore ye shall keep these secret plans of their oaths and their covenants from this people, and only their wickedness and their murders and their abominations shall ye make known unto them; (Alma 37:27-29)
Even when it tells us that the secret combinations combine to kill the saints, there is no reason to think that the name of deity is no longer being used:
There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness. (Prov. 20:12)
...yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. (John 16:2)
Again, however, you missed my point---the Gadiantons started among the Nephites, and the Book of Mormon is absolutely consistent that when the Nephites suffer from troubles with the Gadiantons, it is contemporary Nephite wickedness that is to blame, and there is no salvation without repentance. For the Nephites, Gadiantonism is only ever a kind of mirror.
--Alma
