Bloodshed (Updated)

But the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ‘You have shed much blood and have waged great wars; you shall not build a house to my name, because you have shed so much blood in my sight on the earth. 
- 1 Chronicles 22:8

3 guesses as to modern nation which closely models that described above?  Perhaps a great country built on bloodied backs of kidnapped slaves?

Could we say 'tis the country which unleashed the nuclear sword on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which although dread and terrible probably still killed less than the original sin of slavery?

Could we use the example of a country which fought 2 land wars in Asia: 1 which has not ended on the Korean peninsula and another where our Vietnamese allies became abandoned, the latter where US experts told politicians we could not win.

Or could we use the example of country which declared a global war on terror which will last for generations since we can't kill an idea?  This war recently claimed the lives of 4 American patriots in some homeless, misbegotten jungle.  Our leaders claim the right to blow anyone anywhere to bits, even Americana.

Whither our cival rights?  Whither the Constitution?

The Genius and Despair of the Human Race

First, let's consider the better nature of ourselves, that human desire to take what we see and transmit it to posterity in the form of paintings, dating all the way back to prehistory in the form of cave paintings, with perhaps finest examples found near Lescaux, France.

Just when one gets tempted to give up on the Internets as font of racism and home of trolls, troglodytes, and deviant porn, you accidentally find a Google Earth Tour of Florence, Italy, and just today found the Web Gallery of Art, the last web based collection of "European fine Art from the eleventh to nineteenth centuries, with artists from A to Z: Aachen, Hans von to Zurn, Michael.

Love me some Vermeer, Johannes in this case with the Geographer:

Right at your fingertips you can find the masters, indeed the Titans of European art; damn, that's some good stuff.

Now for the opposite side of the coin, today we find the 70th anniversary of the dropping of the second atom bomb, by the United States of Self Righteous America, the two unnecessary bombings comprising some of the worst crimes in the history of the world, akin to the angry as Hell old, white, bearded old Testament God instructing the Israelites to slaughter the Amalekites; men, women children and even the animals: God HISownSelf ordering a junior Holocaust.

 

Yup, here you see it, American exceptionalism at the best.

[Seventy years ago this week we vaporized 250,000 civilians, and yet still view the bombings as an act of mercy....   (Emphasis added)

(S)ome of America’s best-known World War II military commanders opposed using atomic weaponry. In fact, six of the seven five-star generals and admirals of that time believed that there was no reason to use them, that the Japanese were already defeated, knew it, and were likely to surrender before any American invasion could be launched. Several, like Admiral William Leahy and General Dwight Eisenhower, also had moral objections to the weapon. Leahy considered the atomic bombing of Japan “barbarous” and a violation of “every Christian ethic I have ever heard of and all of the known laws of war.” (Emphasis added again because Americans refuse to face facts.) http://www.salon.com/2015/08/05/americas_overdue_hiroshima_reckoning_the_revisionist_history_that_haunts_the_good_war_partner/

Most of us live in a fantasy world where force can solve everything, refusing to face even the basic fact use of nuclear weapons creates clouds of radioactive fallout which circle the globe.

"Nuke 'em until they glow," will kill us too, making it far preferable to seek peace through diplomacy and avoid becoming complicit in war crimes, except of course the odd drone strike which kills innocent civilians.  www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/24/-sp-us-drone-strikes-kill-1147

Gosh those make me feel safer; guess i can go back to the bread and circuses offered up by American telly.  Praise Allah the NFL started the preseason tonight.

Amen!

[The second atomic bomb attack of Japan took place on August 9, 1945 in the city of Nagasaki. The northern portion of the city was destroyed almost instantaneously, and an estimated 70,000 people were killed as a result. According to the statistics found within Nagasaki Peach Park, the death toll from the atomic totaled exactly 73,884, including 2,000 Korean forced workers and eight POWs, as well as another 74,909 injured. This does not include another several hundred thousand diseased and dying from fallout and other illness caused by nuclear radiation.]

http://www.japanfinds.com/nagasaki-travel-guide/

8:15 AM 6 August 1945: Hiroshima

Pictures of devastation after atom bomb explodes over Hiroshima from photo gallery at London Independent.