Here We Go Again

Islam is in the middle of a war between Sunni and Shia Muslims; its own version of the Thirty Years' War between Catholics and Protestants in Europe (1618-1648). Only this war will be far longer than thirty years. There was no United States in the 17th century, so we don't know for certain whether or not the US would side with the Protestants, though I imagine we would. But when it comes to the Islamic version of this war, we can proudly say that we are not taking sides, and in fact support both sides.

When we went to war in Iraq we took out the Sunnis and supported the Shia. Now as we start a short march to war in Syria we will take out the Shia in support of the Sunnis. In other words we helped Iran in Iraq and nowAl Qaeda in Syria.

The US aligning with Al Qaeda? You can't make up this stuff.

I know the president says we are only arming rebels we like, but if you think the weapons we are about to send to Syrian rebels will only fall into the hands of New Republic subscribers, you have another think coming.

We are going to war with Hezbollah backed by Iran and Russia. Which means we are siding with Al Qaeda and other Sunni fanatics and the Muslim Brotherhood. More accurately, we are entering into a proxy war with Iran and Russia. This is huge. We are moving into Armageddon country.

This is what End Times believers have warned us about for decades. John Hagee told us the day is coming when Iran and Russia will descend on Israel and seek her complete annihilation. Well, that time is almost upon us. This war in Syria is a not a war but a front in a war that will engulf the entire Arab world. Egypt is already ramping up its rhetoric against Syria which is just another way of saying the Muslim Brotherhood is ramping up for war with Hezbollah which is another way of saying that the war between Sunnis and Shia is escalating wildly.

And who is going to reap the unintended consequences of all of this? Israel.

I don't have a foreign policy suggestion for the President regarding Syria. But I would suggest the following points to the President, to Jews (both American and Israeli), and to the American people as a whole:

To the President I suggest that 1) For every dollar we spend on arming both sides of the Muslim civil war (and we are doing that), he would urge the President to get Congress to spend 100 times that on helping Israel prepare for the jihad that is coming regardless who wins in Syria, and 2) I would ask that the President to push to reinstitute a universal draft as soon as possible: The only thing that will stop the US from going to war in Syria (against Iran, Russia, and Shia Islam) is to make sure that the children of the 1% are as vulnerable to dying there as the children of the 99%.

To Jews I would suggest 1) that we use our lobby efforts to support the two proposals just mentioned, and our communication skills to begin an all out propaganda campaign to convince Americans that having their sons and daughters die defending Israel is a worthy cause, and that all out war with Russia and Iran to save the Jews is somehow in America's best interest. I worry that for all our talk of loving Israel, few Americans are willing to die for her. And 2) that we send our children to train in the Israeli defense force so that they are ready to fight and die for the country we endlessly claim in our homeland.

3. To the American people I suggest that, give the failure to implement my previous suggestions, we all become Southern Baptists and pray that the Rapture will take us into heaven before Iran, Syria, and Russia erase Israel and then America from the face of the earth.

Religion This Week

I’m sitting in LAX reading the NYTimes. On page A8 there is a snap shot of religion at its worst:

Item A: Salvador Court Denies Abortion to Ailing Woman. A woman with lupus is pregnant and her doctor tells her that carrying the baby to term may well kill her. The court denied her an abortion saying that the life of the mother cannot trump the life of the unborn baby. But wait, there’s more. The mother has another young child to care for at home, so her death will impact not only her unborn baby who will born without a living mother and her already born child who will be left motherless. But wait, there’s more. The unborn baby is missing most of its brain and will not survive once born. So the mother’s life is forfeit for a baby whose life is also forfeit. Is this really a moral dilemma? Is a grown woman equal to a brain dead fetus? Somebody’s God thinks so.

Item B: Israel is moving ahead with plan to draft Ultra-Orthodox Israeli Jews. The fact that Haredi Jews feel they have no obligation to defend their country while their country is obligated to take care of them, and their non-Haredi cousins are obligated to die to protect them is mindless. Read your Torah, people: God is always ordering the faithful into battle, and while there are exemptions, being religious isn’t one of them.

Item C: The Parliament of Papua New Guinea has just repealed that country’s Sorcery Act that made killing witches ubiquitous and legal. The new law will make the killing of witches a capital offense punishable by death. Will this law stop the murder of witches? Of course not. Why not, because witches are convenient. When we want to eliminate someone all we have to do is claim she is a witch and kill her. It isn’t that people will believe in anything, but that people will believe in anything that allows them to do what they want to do. But at least the government is trying to free itself from its religious fanatics.

Add to these items the never ending slaughter of Muslims by other Muslims, and we have to wonder if religion has anything of value to offer. Sure not all religions do evil today, but this is only because they don’t have the power to do so.

If we wait for people to grow beyond religion, nothing will change. If we work to strip religion of power, we have taken a big step toward positive change.

Droning on About the NSA

Here’s why one fellow in my town is against the NSA’s massive surveillance efforts: it's an act against God.

“Listen, God is the only one with the right to know what you’re thinking and saying. God, not the government. That giant NSA surveillance facility they’re building in Utah is a huge Temple of Satan. America is God’s nation, but as we give up our guns and surrender to the gays and the government we are giving ourselves over to Satan.”

I’m not sure about the guns and gays thing, but amen to the rest. You don’t have to be paranoid to worry that the PRISM program is bad for democracy. Sure, Google and Facebook collect more data on me than the NSA, but they want to use that to make money. I can live with that. Go ahead, Google, sell my info to Jockey and let them try and sell me more underwear. I can take it.

But the government doesn’t want my data for money, they want it for power. At some point I will have enough underwear. At no point does the government have enough power.

I agree with Sir Acton: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” Again, that last part may be too much, but the temptation to use the info it has will corrupt the NSA and any president who has access to it. Good men and women will go bad if they can convince themselves that going bad is really going good. And they always convince themselves of this.

If Google wants to send an ad to my phone, fine. But the government is going to send a drone to my doorstep—not so fine.

I don’t believe in Satan, but I do believe in the satanic. No, not that ship that sank with Leonardo DiCaprio on it. I’m talking about the capacity of good people to make bad decisions in the name of good ends. This may have nothing to do with Satan, but it will plunge us all into hell. 

Apocalypse Now

 I just celebrated my 32^nd year as a rabbi.

When I entered rabbinical school I thought Judaism was in need of a major overhaul. Sadly, the very issues I thought were destroying Judaism then are the very issues newly ordained rabbis are worrying about today: lack of relevancy, outmoded theology, illiteracy among Jewish adults…. Nothing has changed.

Of course this is a general Boomer refrain. We protested Vietnam and did nothing to stop the American Empire. We marched against the military–industrial complex only to add media and finance to it. We sang for peace and paid for war after war after war. We ended the draft and created a warrior class of the poor. We invented Earth Day and poisoned the planet beyond repair. We celebrated a post–capitalist society and created banks too big to fail and bankers too powerful to jail. So maybe this is our problem and the kids will do better.

Maybe. But I doubt it. It is too late for reform, and we are too comfortable for revolution. Only apocalypse can save us now.

Religion and Power

It seems to me that almost every time the expanding tragedy of Syria is discussed on NPR commentators rush to deny that religion has anything to do with it. “This isn’t about religion,” they say, “it’s about power.”

This is stupid: Religion and power are inseparable. Look at fundamentalist Jews in Israel and New York State; look at Hindu Nationalists in India, look at Buddhists in Myanmar, look at Sha’i Islam in Iran and Hezbollah, and Sunni Islam in Saudi Arabia and Al-Queda, look at the Christian Seven Mountains movement and the Religious Right in the United States. Of course there are religions that lack power and therefore pretend that religion isn’t about power, but give them some power and they will change their tune in a heartbeat.

Not so, I’m told: People just use religious language to stoke the fires of hatred but religion itself is peaceful. 

Nonsense. The fact that religious language is useful to foment hatred suggests that religion is not an antidote to hatred but a catalyst for it. When, for example, the leader of Hezbollah declared last week that Sunni Moslems are Takfiris (apostates), and Hezbollah fighters have a religious obligation to fight them, and those who die doing so will go to heaven, he is using religious language to make it easier for Shi’a Moslems to kill Sunni Moslems in quest of power. This only works if Islam is already inclined in that direction.*

I’m not opposed to religion, but neither am I naïve regarding it. If we are to create religions of peace we must put an end to politically correct talk about religions of war.

*I am using this as an example only. I am not saying Islam is more warlike that any other religion.

If You Can’t Beat ‘Em

 Last week we learned that the NSA is secretly collecting data on millions of Verizon subscribers of which I am one. There isn’t much I can do about this, but I can have some fun with it. I know that the government says it isn’t listening to conversations, but it could, and if it could it will, and if it will it is.

So if you, like me, are providing data to Big Brother at least make it interesting. I’m toying with the idea of no longer answering my cellphone, and letting the following message play for the benefit of the NSA:

“Hi. You have reached Rami Abu Aaron’s cell phone. I’m at a tea party with my Islamic friend Imam Jihadi scheduled for 9:11. We’re sharing a plate of hamas and pita, and planning to start a C-4 non-profit. Sorry I missed you, but remember whatever happens today, you’re da-bomb.”