SHOULD GOD DAMN AMERICA FOR WAR CRIMES?

Howard Kurz takes a shot at both Barack Obama and Jeremiah Wright in his column today in The Washington Post. Kurz objects to Wright's, "God Damn America," notwithstanding the American bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that led to Japan's unconditional surrender at the end of WWII.

Here's Kurz:

"As for context, Moyers played a long clip from the post-9/11 "America's chickens are coming home to roost" sermon. Wright said that America had taken its land by terror from the Indians; had enslaved Africans; had bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki (weren't we in a death struggle with Japan, which had attacked Pearl Harbor?); had bombed Iraq, Sudan and Panama; and had backed state-supported terrorism against the Palestinians.

"Moyers's question after this diatribe: "When people saw the sound bites from it this year, they thought you were blaming America. Did you somehow fail to communicate?"

"Thought he was blaming America? Where did anyone get that idea? "

I guess Howard Kurz thinks that America should never be blamed. Not even for Hiroshima and Nakasaki, where, in each city, over 100,000 innocent men, women and children were either incinerated or poisoned with lethal nuclear radioactive materials. Kurz seems to believe the destruction of the two Japanese cities was justified:

" . . . (weren't we in a death struggle with Japan, which had attacked Pearl Harbor?)"

Should God bless America for this, or should as Wright says, should God damn America? Let's admit it. What the United States did to Japanese people when it dropped the nuclear devices was a WAR CRIME. Nothing less. It will do no good morally or ethically for Howard Kurz or other defenders of "American exceptionalism" to claim that the bombing saved the lives of American troops. President Harry S. Truman was a war criminal. So were the crew of the Enola Gay that dropped the bombs. The rules of war make that perfectly clear. The end does not justify the means, not in Hiroshima, not in Hamburg or Dresden, not in the "War on Terror.

WORDS OF JEREMIAH WRIGHT HELP OBAMA, NOT HARM HIM

I watched and listened to Rev. Jeremiah Wright on the Bill Moyers Show this past Friday, then again this morning via C-Span tape when Pastor Wright delivered a talk to the NAACP, and finally again today, when he appeared live at the National Press Club.

This is one intelligent, educated and fair man. Barack Obama should embrace Rev. Wright, not run from him.

But how about the "God damn America" quote that bothered all the "patriots"? But isn't this what pastors are supposed to do, point out society's failings and condemn them? How about the Jews in Israel during the time of the prophets? I am sure they hated it when Isaiah or Jeremiah damned them for their failings. This is what Rev. Wright means when he says "God damn America." He thinks of the unjust war in Iraq, or the firing of missiles into small Somali villages which kill innocent women and children, or the prevalent discrimination against undocumented immigrants because they speak a language other than English.

The Rev. Wright is looking for reconciliation of all groups in American society, not division and dissension. How can anyone be against that?

Instead of disassociating himself from Jeremiah Wright's statements taken out of context, Barack Obama should take the time to point out how reasonable and fair Wright's comments really are.

Jeremiah Wright is not a bogeyman, he is a true American who follows in the footsteps of the prophets of old.

COMMENTS OF BARACK OBAMA'S PASTOR NOT OFF BASE

White America apparently is shocked, shocked I say, by comments of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, former pastor of Barack Obama's church in Illinois. But what has Wright said that is off base? Here are some of his quotes as provided in an AP story in The Washington Post:

" In a 2003 sermon, he said blacks should condemn the United States:

""The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.""

So what is wrong with Wright's assertion. Has America killed innocent people? Go no further than Harry Truman ordering the Enola Gay to drop a nuclear device on Hiroshima. More than 100,000 women, children and innocent civilians were incinerated that day.

Here is another quote from the AP story:

"In a sermon after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001:

""We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye," Wright said. "We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost."

Wright does not minimize the terrible loss of life in the Trade Centers on September 11th. But what he does do is to draw attention to the militaristic policy of the United States in fighting a war almost every 10 years. Wright also points out the de facto discrimination against Palestinians by Israel and the injustice against blacks in South Africa.

Here is the last quote from the AP:

"Promoting Obama's candidacy in a sermon last December:
"Barack knows what it means to be a black man to be living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people. Hillary can never know that. Hillary ain't never been called a nigger." "

Please tell me what Wright says here that is so objectionable. Americans adopted slavery in the 17th Century or earlier and slavery has been part and parcel of life in many areas of the United States long after it was abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865. It is a central dominating fact for descendants of slaves. Those of us not in this category can hardly grasp the emotional, social and economic effects that still linger.