‘Commentary’ Archives
Frank reflection What is war?
By FRANK ERICKSON Just to clear up any confusion, I always put quotation marks around “war” when writing about it. Quotation marks were not used on the “Iraq War” reference in my May issue Commentary in The Alley Newspaper May. That was a accidental editing omission. Nonetheless, I want to emphasize that I see “war” as not being accessible to humans since humans have claimed to be civilized. Apparently people think they can float back and forth between the animal and civilized worlds. This is not possible. You either have laws to govern civilized society or you don”™t. You can”™t conveniently step outside your laws and “war.” The “Iraq War” was the same as the Holocaust. This is not an anti-“war” approach. I am not an anti-“war” activist because it is counterproductive. This is a scientific approach based on physical science. It was physically impossible [...]
Mind-numbing Janjaweed
By PETER MOLENAAR Peter Molenaar On the western fringe of Alley News territory, there exists yet another progressive church. Was it more than 10 years ago that Plymouth Congregational (1900 Nicollet Ave.) hosted a sizeable public meeting in response to the Darfur Genocide? Indeed, events in this western province of Sudan, Africa had provoked the presence of such notables as Tim Walz and Keith Ellison. The genocide was carried out by the Sudanese government”™s “Arab” militias, known as the Janjaweed (translation: “devils on horseback”). The Janjaweed systematically destroyed Darfurians by looting and burning their villages, murdering, raping, and torturing”¦ and then, polluting their water supply with decomposing bodies. Over 480,000 were killed, 2.8 million displaced. Why, at the present time, would one choose to write about these things? Well, the stench of burning Janjaweed has returned now to waft among the reeds of [...]
