{"id":1071,"date":"2009-10-08T15:53:22","date_gmt":"2009-10-08T15:53:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newwf.benfredaconsulting.com\/?p=1071"},"modified":"2022-01-31T22:33:29","modified_gmt":"2022-01-31T22:33:29","slug":"a-new-commandment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newwf.org\/a-new-commandment\/","title":{"rendered":"A New Commandment"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

Could we make a rule \u2014 a kind of eleventh commandment — which requires us, every time we honor soldiers killed in battle, to remember: thou shall not kill?<\/h3>\n

As I sit and write these words at least\u00a0774 members of the U.S. military have died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan<\/a>\u00a0because of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, which began in late 2001. Five hundred and ninety five of those killed were because of hostile action. Just on Saturday alone eight U.S. and two Afghan soldiers died after two outposts were attacked in eastern Nuristan province. Six other U.S. soldiers were killed in four separate incidents on Oct. 2 and Oct. 3.<\/p>\n

And yet the fighting doesn\u2019t look like it will end. President Barack Obama met with top national security and military advisers on Sept. 30 to decide whether to boost troops in Afghanistan by 40,000. Then on Oct. 2 he met Army General Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, aboard Air Force One on the tarmac in Copenhagen.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not saying we should, heaven forbid, declare no to war. I\u2019m saying every time we honor a courageous soldier— let\u2019s formally lament our loss.<\/p>\n

We too easily focus on the hero and on the battlefield, without also considering the idiocy that snuffs out young lives.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Every time we number battlefield losses, on whatever side, let\u2019s also discipline ourselves to heave a very big sigh of regret. Each death could be an imperative to stop this murderous reflex.<\/p>\n

The majority of Americans, according to the latest polls, want it to stop. Fifty-one percent of adults said the war in Afghanistan wasn\u2019t worth fighting and 46 percent said it was, according to an\u00a0ABC News\/Washington Post poll<\/a>\u00a0conducted Sept. 10 to Sept. 12. This comes after polls in March in which 56 percent said the war was worth fighting and 41 percent said it wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Sometimes war is a last resort, sometimes it\u2019s a preemptive action. It\u2019s always the result of the belligerent behavior leading up to it. I don\u2019t know how we disentangle from the biological wiring, but we could at least put that on the agenda by creating a sincere ritual of higher order thinking. Oh, and going to war for political ambition and electoral calculation is murder. It\u2019s a lot worse than pork barreling a budget, though it usually does that too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Could we make a rule \u2014 a kind of eleventh commandment — which requires us, every time we honor soldiers killed in battle, to remember: thou shall not kill? As I sit and write these words at least\u00a0774 members of the U.S. military have died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan\u00a0because of the U.S. invasion of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nA New Commandment - New World Foundation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/newwf.org\/a-new-commandment\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A New Commandment - New World Foundation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Could we make a rule \u2014 a kind of eleventh commandment — which requires us, every time we honor soldiers killed in battle, to remember: thou shall not kill? 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