War Versus The Magnificent Peace Tax Seven

Though this article isn't about Blandford, the town does have an army base nearby, so todays post may be of interest to you if you live in or close by to Blandford, as well as anyone in general who is against war in all it's guises...

Caught On Camera

The distasteful and offensive actions of a few US military personnel have made recent news again, this time due to a video coming to light which shows four US Marines urinating on the dead bodies of Afghans. This deplorable behavior has been condemned by the Pentagon, the US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta and US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton as well as many other high profile political American figures including President Barak Obama, although as of yet he has not made an official statement about this matter which must be very embarrassing as it coincides with ongoing peace talks with the Taliban.

Principles Of War ???

The above subtitle "principles of war" is a nonsensical play on words that are virtually in opposition to one another because in its nasty essence, war is fundamentally an unprincipled action - one nation cannot get it's own way and convince another country to give in to its demands concerning some matter/s of "national importance" and so then instead resorts to waging warfare against the resisting country, to try to achieve it's objective/s.

War is never principled because at it's core war is based on the deprivation of the most important of all human rights - the right to life - war ignores the right to human life and when this first and foremost of all human rights is violated, then one cannot be too surprised that all practical purposes which evolve from the theoretical "need" of war, for instance a living and breathing flesh and blood army - in turn also further violates other human rights, including the right not to be tortured, raped and in this latest case, not to have ones body desecrated by urination or other fowl behaviors. Expecting men not to become disturbed and engage in vile crass conduct, who are indoctrinated and manipulated via political rhetoric, theory, dogma and ideology and so are thus trained and desensitized to fight and kill so called enemies, for the betterment of one country though to the detriment of another nation - is like putting a cherry on a sewage pie.

The Peace Tax Seven

I found an interesting website the other day, which is just the positive antidote requisite to the above two paragraphs and more particularly in practice - on the ground, in the air and on the sea - war (huh what is good for ? absolutely nothin say it again...).

"War has shattered many a young mans dreams made him disabled bitter and mean"

The website I write of is www.peacetaxseven.com it's title lends itself to partially explaining what its all about - though to elaborate, this fascinating site is made up of just 7 people who live around the UK who are all conscientious objectors.

This amazing small group of people feel so strongly against war that they're putting their principles into action by taking their matter of complaint - paying a portion of their taxes which through no say of their own contribute towards warfares and the killing and maiming of other human beings which they quite rightly and sanely morally disagree with, to The European Court of Human Rights under Article 9 which is freedom of thought, conscience and religion. The peace tax seven therefore have to reconcile the need to obey the law, ie pay all of their taxes with the superior and more ethical necessity to obey their own consciences by withholding a portion of their taxes to ensure that they are personally not contributing to the funding of war, it looks like the European Court of Human Rights is going to have a bit of a fight on it's hands !