Since the attacks of September 11, protection from terrorism has become the United States’ national obsession. Demands for security from the terrorists that seemingly menace the country at every turn have led the U.S. military to occupy two countries and expand the hundreds of bases that it maintains in dozens of foreign nations.

Reflection on why people in the United States have consented to such a radically expansive military response has been as absent from the process as funding for wars has been limitless. Which is why Tom Engelhardt’s observations on these monumental changes in The American Way of War arrive none too soon.

In this edited collection of articles originally published online, Englehardt depicts the fundamental reshaping of U.S. perceptions of the world and presents his own thesis of the causes of current U.S. thought on terror. A combination of fear and divorce from the realities of war, he argues, allows people in the United States to live in peace at home while at war abroad.

Source from Foreign Policy in Focus: http://www.fpif.org/articles/review_the_american_way_of_war_how_bushs_wars_became_obamas

Barack Obama came into the office of the presidency proclaiming hope and change and a personal adherence to the teachings of Jesus Christ, who preached a message of peace, love and nonviolence. Yet any hope that Obama’s professed religious beliefs might lead him to put an end to the endless wars was short-lived. Indeed, rather than dismantling the military empire that became a hallmark of George W. Bush’s presidency, Obama has continued to spread American troops around the globe.

Boasting the biggest war budget since World War II (the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have now passed the $1 trillion mark, with Congress recently approving an additional $37 billion in war funding), Obama’s war machine is wreaking havoc far and wide on communities and families devastated by mounting military and civilian casualties, on the already faltering economy, and on America’s once-noble standing in the world. Even the recent disclosure of more than 90,000 secret military files documenting a failing Afghanistan war riddled by undocumented civilian casualties has not managed to slow Obama’s steadfast march to war.

To Read More go to: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-w-whitehead/obama-and-war-what-would_b_667815.html

As we enter our ninth year of the War in Afghanistan with an escalated force, and continue to occupy Iraq indefinitely, and feed an endlessly growing Surveillance State, reports are emerging of the Deficit Commission hard at work planning how to cut Social Security, Medicare, and now even to freeze military pay.  But a new New York Times article today illustrates as vividly as anything else what a collapsing empire looks like, as it profiles just a few of the budget cuts which cities around the country are being forced to make.Does anyone doubt that once a society ceases to be able to afford schools, public transit, paved roads, libraries and street lights — or once it chooses not to be able to afford those things in pursuit of imperial priorities and the maintenance of a vast Surveillance and National Security State — that a very serious problem has arisen, that things have gone seriously awry, that imperial collapse, by definition, is an imminent inevitability?

If you want more then go to: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/08/06/collapse/index.html

This conference  organised by the Centre for Dialogue at La Trobe University will be held in Melbourne at the Bundoora campus from July (7^th to 9^th) . It will include young Christians, Jews and Muslims in dialogue about the difficult issues that face everyone who cares about peace in the region.

We do recognise that there are difficulties addressing issues that are deeply felt and sometimes painful to discuss. However the ‘Centre for Dialogue’ has a great deal of experience in the process of  true dialogue – this is much more about listening to each other than speaking. 

It is about hearing opinions and stories and working to listen with an open heart and mind to these stories of the ‘other ‘.  What we are trying to achieve –  in essence is that sense of real DIALOGUE – of truly hearing each other.

The Director of the Centre, Professor Joseph Camilleri will oversee this conference and he has 30 years of experience in dialogues such as those in Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka and Cyprus as well as Arab- Jewish dialogue in Melbourne.

Contact:  Larry Marshall Ph  9479-1419 Email: l.marshall@latrobe.edu.au

Join us on 28th April

Please Come along to the UCA, 130 Litlle Collins Street Melbourne at 5pm on the 28th and join us for this lively Inter-faith Forum. Baptist Minister Simon Moyle will be one of the speakers and he has written the article listed below.

A few days ago, a group of Christians interrupted the workings of a secretive military facility in Victoria. One of them, Baptist minister Simon Moyle, explains why the time had come to act.

In the mainstream media, people who take action are often marginalised by being painted as irresponsible fringe radicals. “Activist” is made to sound like a dirty word. Yet the four of us are actually very ordinary people. Each of us has a family ? two of us are married with children. We are all Christians with stable jobs and responsibilities (despite the epithets hurled at us by our arresting officers, such as the stereotypical, “Why don?t you get a job, you f***wit?”). I, for example, am a church