Six Months of President George Bush's “War on Terror”

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His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami
Prabhupada
Founder-Acarya of the
Hare Krishna Movement

Today is the six month anniversary of the tragic September 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington DC last year. It seems an appropriate moment to reflect on the cause of this terrible attack on America. Here in the United States there is a feeling that America is a peaceful God-loving country and this attack on America was completely unjust an unwarranted. Madhudvisa dasa (03-11-02)

One could say the cause of the September 11 attacks on America was the fundamentalist Muslims who planned the operation and hijacked the planes. This is the position taken by George Bush, the President of the United States of America. He has put all blame on terrorist groups who have some issue against America. And he has vowed to rid the world of any group of people who have an issue against America and the American way of life. On one level this is true and it is certainly the duty of the President of the United States to protect the citizens of his country from the attacks of the envious miscreants.

“Dishonest miscreants flourish because of cowardly and impotent executive heads of state. But when the executive heads are strong enough to curb all sorts of dishonest miscreants, in any part of the state, certainly they cannot flourish. When the miscreants are punished in an exemplary manner, automatically all good fortune follows.”

So there is no doubt that a strong executive head is required and he must rid the world of envious miscreants who want to terrorize the population of the world. In this respect President George Bush is setting the perfect example.

However, we know from the Vedas that every action has an apparent cause and a remote cause. We see the attack on America was from a group of fundamentalist Muslims but the attack could only have been possible if there was some fault on the part of America. Even in the Bible we find it stated that “what you sow so shall you reap.” So we get the reactions of the actions we perform.

One may wonder what wrong could the United States of America have done? We can turn to the Vedas for some inspiration on this point.

“The principal sign of the age of Kali is that unqualified men without spiritual knowledge will be dressed like administrators or kings, and the principal business of such rulers will be to kill the innocent animals, especially the cows and the bulls, who shall be unprotected by their masters, the mercantile community. In the Bhagavad-gita (18.44), it is said that the mercantile community are meant to deal in agriculture, cow protection and trade. In the age of Kali, the degraded mercantile men are engaged in supplying cows to slaughterhouses. The administrators are meant to protect the citizens of the state, whereas the mercantile men are meant to protect the cows and bulls and utilize them to produce grains and milk. The cow is meant to deliver milk, and the bull is meant to produce grains. But in the age of Kali, unqualified men are in the posts of administrators, and the cows and bulls, or the mothers and the fathers, unprotected by the mercantile community, are subjected to the slaughterhouses organized by the unqualified administrators.”

We find that the United States has created a “hamburger” culture that slaughters countless innocent cows and bulls every year and is busy exporting this “hamburger culture” to every other country in the world. Thus the karmic reaction for slaughtering so many innocent animals is unimaginable. If animals, particularly the cow and the bull, are slaughtered in such great numbers the reaction will be that the slaughterers and those who eat the slaughtered animals will themselves have to be slaughtered in acts of terror as we have seen on September 11 and in the subsequent wars that follow.

“The next symptom of the age of Kali is that principles of religion will be attacked by the uncultured population of the age. In the age of Kali, for want of sufficient education and culture of Vedic wisdom, the unqualified population will defy the principles of religion, and persons who are religiously endowed will be terrified by such men. They will declare themselves as adherents of no religious principles, and many “isms” and cults will spring up in Kali-yuga only to kill the spotless bull of religion. The state will be declared to be secular, or without any particular principle of religion, and as a result there will be total indifference to the principles of religion. The citizens will be free to act as they like, without respect for the holy men, the scriptures or the spiritual master. Even the fragmental existence of religious principles will be embarrassed by so many obstacles as if in the trembling condition of falling down at any time.”

The four pillars of sinful life are illicit sex life, meat eating, gambling and intoxication. These four activities destroy religious life.

The United States of America claims to be a religious country, printing “in God we trust” on the money and in the wake of September 11 displaying hundreds of thousands of banners calling out “God Save America.” The USA has one of the highest rates of church attendance in the world. Still we find the USA is very active in promoting sinful life both within the country and internationally.

We have already mentioned America is intent on exporting its “Hamburger culture” to the rest of the world. America is also the biggest producer and distributor of pornography in the world. Everyone knows if one sits down to watch pornographic movies or read pornographic books anywhere in the world at least ninety percent of them are “made in America” and the “stars” are all American. More than ninety percent of the pornography on the internet comes from the USA and the USA makes no attempt to stop this large-scale distribution of pornographic literature which destroys the morals of the people who view it. So the USA is also intent on exporting pornography to the world. This is not Christian, not spiritual and not at all Godly. In fact it is down right evil.

Of course a large part of the “American way of life” is alcohol and so many other forms of intoxication. They are also busy exporting that. And gambling… Another American export to the world.

These four activities—meat eating, illicit sex, gambling and intoxication—destroy religious principles. Meat eating destroys the quality of compassion, illicit sex destroys the quality of cleanliness, gambling destroys the quality of honesty and intoxication destroys the quality of austerity. So the USA are slaughtering unlimited numbers of cows and bulls every year and trying to export this culture which is based on cow-killing, illicit sex, intoxication and gambling to the rest of the world. This is a most demoniac civilization and even though they may call out “God bless America” how can we expect God to bless America when the society is based on cow killing, illicit sex, intoxication and gambling?

“The next symptom of the age of Kali is the distressed condition of the cow. Milking the cow means drawing the principles of religion in a liquid form. The great sages would live only on milk. Srila Sukadeva Gosvami would go to a householder while he was milking a cow, and he would simply take a little quantity of it for subsistence. Even fifty years ago, no one would deprive a sage of a quart or two of milk, and every householder would give milk like water. It is the duty of every householder to have cows and bulls as household paraphernalia, not only for drinking milk, but also for deriving religious principles. The cow’s milk is required for the sacrificial fire, and by performing sacrifices the householder can be happy. The cow’s calf not only is beautiful to look at, but also gives satisfaction to the cow, and so she delivers as much milk as possible. But in the Kali-yuga, the calves are separated from the cows as early as possible for purposes which may not be mentioned in these pages of Srimad-Bhagavatam. The cow stands with tears in her eyes, the milkman draws milk from the cow artificially, and when there is no milk the cow is sent to be slaughtered.

“These greatly sinful acts are responsible for all the troubles in present society. People do not know what they are doing in the name of economic development. The influence of Kali will keep them in the darkness of ignorance.

“Despite all endeavors for peace and prosperity, they must try to see the cows and the bulls happy in all respects. Foolish people do not know how one earns happiness by making the cows and bulls happy, but it is a fact by the law of nature. Let us take it from the authority of Srimad-Bhagavatam and adopt the principles for the total happiness of humanity.

“In the age of Kali, the poor helpless animals, especially the cows, which are meant to receive all sorts of protection from the administrative heads, are killed without restriction. Thus the administrative heads under whose noses such things happen are representatives of God in name only. Such powerful administrators are rulers of the poor citizens by dress or office, but factually they are worthless, lower-class men without the cultural assets of the twice-born. No one can expect justice or equality of treatment from once-born (spiritually uncultured) lower-class men. Therefore in the age of Kali everyone is unhappy due to the maladministration of the state. The modern human society is not twice-born by spiritual culture. Therefore the people’s government, by the people who are not twice-born, must be a government of Kali in which everyone is unhappy.

“In a civilization where God is conspicuously banished, and there is no devotee warrior like Arjuna, the associates of the age of Kali take advantage of this lawless kingdom and arrange to kill innocent animals like the cow in secluded slaughterhouses. Such murderers of animals stand to be condemned to death by the order of a pious king like Maharaja Pariksit. For a pious king, the culprit who kills an animal in a secluded place is punishable by the death penalty, exactly like a murderer who kills an innocent child in a secluded place.”

[Quotations are from Srimad-Bhagavatam Canto 1 Chapter 17 Punishment and Reward of Kali by His Divine Grace AC Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada]

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