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Christmas Letter - 2007 - Rejecting the War Agenda & Standing Up for Peace

That peace, which was initiated not by presidents or prime ministers,
but by the soldiers themselves, serves to this day as a reminder
that war is seldom so necessary -
nor so unstoppable -
as politicians would have us believe.

- John Nichols on the
Christmas Truce of 1914

 

Rejecting the War Agenda & Standing Up for Peace

Christmas Letter 2007
By Christopher Bollyn
 

Christmas is a truly wonderful time as Christians around the world celebrate the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, the Prince of Peace.  It is a time when the peace of God fills our hearts and souls.

 

Unfortunately, Christmas 2007 also marks the beginning of the 7th year of the fraudulent "War on Terror" and the 17th year of the utterly criminal and genocidal Anglo-American aggression against Iraq. 

In this dismal era of criminal governments and illegal wars of aggression, I am inspired by the Christmas Truce of 1914.  This spontaneous ceasefire on the Western Front during World War I began when German and British soldiers fighting in the trenches near Ypres, Belgium, became filled with the spirit of Christmas and started singing their beloved carols.

 

The unofficial truce began on Christmas Eve, when German troops began decorating the trees around their trenches. They put candles on trees and sang Christmas carols, most notably "Stille Nacht."  

 

"Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht," the Germans sang.  The British soldiers in their trenches responded by singing "Silent Night" in English.

Then, as it has been reported, a German soldier climbed out of the trench holding a small tree lit with candles and shouted in broken English, "Merry Christmas. We not shoot. You not shoot."

 

From the simple act of the soldiers in the trenches singing carols, the peace of Christmas spread quickly up and down the Western Front and the guns of war fell silent as more than one million men defied orders and personally rejected the war agenda.  The soldiers laid down their weapons, exchanged gifts, and played soccer with soldiers on the other side -- and buried their dead.




German and British soldiers enjoying the Christmas Truce of 1914
Like them, we should reject the war agenda - at Christmas and always.

 

Along some stretches of the Western Front, the truce lasted into January of 1915. The spontaneous truce started by the soldiers was strongly opposed by the higher levels of the military.  Senior commanders sabotaged the truce and forced the fighting to begin anew.  For the duration of the war, artillery bombardments were specifically ordered on Christmas Eve to prevent another Christmas truce from breaking out.

 

"A Carol from Flanders" by Frederick Niven (1878-1944) recounts the spontaneous Christmas Truce of 1914 when a million soldiers put down their guns and celebrated Christmas:

 

O ye who read this truthful rime

From Flanders, kneel and say:

God speed the time when every day

Shall be as Christmas Day.

 

"GOD SPEED THE TIME"

 

This Christmas, all of us should decide to be like those soldiers on the Western Front in 1914.  As citizens of America, Europe, Australia, and the other nations that have been deceived into fighting these evil wars, we should make a New Year's resolution to stand up for peace and completely reject the false logic and lies of the war agenda. 

We must not only pray for peace at Christmas, but as Niven wrote, we should endeavor so that every day "shall be as Christmas Day."

 

It is not wishful thinking or idealism to reject the war agenda.  It is our obligation as citizens.  We must stop the evil and fraudulent "War on Terror" if we want to preserve our way of life, the peace and prosperity of our nations, and the values of Western civilization.

 

After six years, we should realize that we can not wait for the media, the churches, or our government leaders to stop the war agenda.  They are clearly not at all inclined to do so.  These institutions are obviously supporting the "War on Terror."  Therefore, as individual citizens, we must decide that we will stand for peace and do everything we can to resist the war agenda. 

 

A COMPLETE CATASTROPHE

 

When the independent journalist Dahr Jamail, who has spent a great deal of time in Iraq, was interviewed recently, he was asked what life was like "for ordinary people in Iraq?"

 

Jamail responded:

 

There is no ordinary life. On all levels the basic infrastructure in Iraq is far worse than before the invasion.

 

Unemployment is between 60 to 70 percent, the average home has only up to five hours of electricity a day, there are ongoing gas shortages, and 70 percent of Iraqis do not have access to drinkable water.

 

Over half the medical workers have fled the country, and the situation in the hospitals is worse today than it was than during the punitive United Nations sanctions following the first Gulf War in 1991.

 

The occupation of Iraq is a complete catastrophe, and one could easily argue that is the result of a genocidal policy conducted by the current Bush administration, the former Clinton administrations, and the Bush senior administration before that.

 

This is a bipartisan war against Iraq by successive US administrations that has spanned decades and resulted in the destruction of the country.

 

By now it should be abundantly clear that the "War on Terror" is a huge criminal fraud.  The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were based on lies, false premises, and the intentional deception of the public.  Furthermore, the war agenda is bankrupting our national treasury and destroying our way of life. 

 

If we had a feud with a neighbor because we suspected that neighbor had stolen or damaged our property, but then learned that someone else had committed the crime, what should our response be? 

 

We would naturally want to apologize and make amends.  A gift to compensate for the hard feelings would be appropriate.  Why has something similar not happened with the United States vis-à-vis Iraq or Afghanistan?  Why have the Democrats, the opposition party in the United States, not demanded an immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from these disastrous and costly conflicts that were started on false pretenses and lies?  Why has the media not called for an end to the fighting?  Why are the leaders of the largest religious denominations absolutely silent on these highly illegal and unjust conflicts?

 

There is only one explanation for the compliance of these institutions with these illegal wars of aggression – they are all either supporting the "War on Terror" or are afraid of opposing it.

 

Rejecting the false and evil logic of the fraudulent "War on Terror," however, is a moral obligation we owe to our children, our nations, and our civilization.

 

We should try to see ourselves as the rest of the world sees us.  Imagine that the United States and Canada were independent peaceful republics that minded their own business, like Switzerland.  Imagine that instead of our nations, the great Russian Bear were engaged in global adventures and war-mongering. 

 

Imagine Russia's President Vladimir Putin were sending tens of thousands of troops into conflicts around the world and that Russian forces were supporting the occupation regimes in Palestine, Afghanistan, and Iraq while Russian companies stole their most precious resources.  Imagine that Russia were supporting an ethnic civil war in North America and providing troops and military equipment for an illegal drug-running militia bringing narcotics into the United States. 

 

How would peace-loving Americans and Canadians feel about President Putin and Russia if he were doing what we are?  Russia is not the war-mongering beast committing war crimes and aggression around the world – we are.  We have met the beast and it is us.  

 

ISLAM IS PEACE

 

This year, Christmas begins at the end of the Hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca.

 

Islam, grossly misrepresented in the Zionist-controlled media, is truly a religion that cherishes "Salaam" - peace.  The word "Islam" means more than "peace."  It means to give oneself completely to God and to enter into a covenant of peace with Him. 

 

The word "Islam" is derived from "Salaam."  The Arabic concept of Salaam is much more than the mere absence of violence and aggression.  It means total well being and happiness.  Al-Salam is also one of the 99 Names of God in the Koran.

 

The traditional Arabic greeting for both Muslim and Christian Arabs is "As-Salamu Alikum," which literally means "peace be upon you."  The response is, "Wa Alikum As-Salaam, or "and upon you be peace."  Peace is the true Islamic way of life.

 

The traditional Hebrew greeting, "Shalom Alichem," means the same thing.  Unfortunately, the Israeli government has been hijacked by radicals of the most extreme right-wing and militant faction of Zionism – the sons and daughters of the former Irgun terrorists of Vladimir Jabotinsky. 

 

These Zionist terrorists, people like Ariel Sharon, Benjamin Netanyahu, Shimon Peres, Ehud Olmert, and "Zippy" Livni, have created a fortress state in Palestine and are clearly unable to deliver peace or prosperity to the Israelis or the Palestinians.  These fanatical Jewish-supremacists are determined to create the same fear and bring their Zionist wars and fortress mentality to the people of the United States and the West.  As Westerners and Americans, we must reject this mentality, utterly and completely.

 

The false-flag terror attacks that now occur with sickening regularity are not Islamic terrorism.  They are false-flag attacks committed by Israeli agents, which are specifically designed to be blamed on Islam.   The purpose of this outrageous terrorism is to convince the people of the West that radical Muslims, all across the Islamic world, are waging war against us, when clearly it is we who are the aggressors. 

 

False-flag terrorism, such as 9-11 and the subsequent bombings in London, Bali, and Madrid, provide an excuse for Western armies to occupy Islamic nations and loot their wealth, which is the real logic behind the war agenda. 

Click here to view the photo bigger.


 
The British injured from "The Great War" that took more than 20 million lives.

Like the soldiers on the Western Front at Christmas 1914, we must forcefully reject the madness of the war agenda, individually and as nations, and stand up for peace at Christmas -- and forever more.

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please consider sending a Christmas donation via PayPal to:

 

shop@bollynbooks.com
  or   
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With many thanks and the best wishes for a
Merry Christmas,


Christopher Bollyn

 

Sources and Recommended Reading:


Final Declaration of the Axis for Peace Conference, Brussels 2005, Signed by Christopher Bollyn, Helje Kaskel, and scores of other peace activists

http://www.axisforpeace.net/article681.html

 

"International terrorism does not exist" by General Leonid Ivashov, Axis for Peace 2005

http://www.voltairenet.org/article133909.html

 

Denson, John V., "Soldiers Against War:  The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce"

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig2/denson4.html

 

Nichols, John, "Short Peace In A Terrible War"
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?pid=44799

 

"Dahr Jamail Interview: Iraq Occupation in the Eye of the Storm," Socialist Worker, 1 December 2007

www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=13631

 

Khaleel, Kaasen, Wrongly Blamed, 2007 Knowledge House Publishers, Buffalo Grove, IL
http://knowledgehousepublishers.com/proddetail.asp?prod=9002&from=ALL