Religions and War
The study of religions and war is somewhat inchoate, yet for many years scholars have noted the important role religion plays in national, ethnic and international conflicts. Many have recently pointed to the use and abuse of religious symbolism by politically motivated leaders who employ religious language as a means of generating support for purportedly righteous causes.
We have become increasingly aware that when conflicts are couched in religious and moral language, followers often quickly and enthusiastically fall in line many willing to make ultimate sacrifices to fight on God s behalf, or at least on God s side as defined by their leaders.
Whether such political leaders are sincere in espousing religiously-imbued rhetoric or whether they are simple demagogues, the approach clearly works. It works to a great extent because it seems that many people, no matter what their political leanings, prefer to reduce complex socio-economic, or political conflicts into a zero-sum values game of right and wrong.
The Marshall Plan Mystique
The war in Iraq had not even begun when public discussion began on the rebuilding of Iraq by the US. Is this to be another “not the Marshall plan”? David Ekbladh calls for rethinking the approach to so-called Marshall Plans.