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There can be no justification, in a spiritual sense, for a military attack by the United States on Syria, whatever the intention or cause.

The very first message of Conversations with God, on pg. 5 of Book One, says that We Are All One. If this is true (and it is), then killing each other to resolve our problems — even our biggest problems — can never be the answer.

There are those who say that the leadership in Syria (meaning Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his government and military minions) must “pay” for its alleged approval of the use of chemical weapons against Syria’s own people.

The U.S. says it has incontrovertible evidence that the chemical weapons attack that recently killed hundreds of men, women, and children in Syria was conducted by the military of the Assad regime. It says that a military strike against Syria would be limited to the destruction of that government’s own military apparatus.

The spiritual wisdom on this matter says that we cannot continue with the insanity of using killing to end killing, violence to end violence. Negativity only breeds negativity, and CWG says that the problem in the world today is that we keep trying to solve the problem in the world today at every level except the level at which the problem exists.

First, we try to solve it as if it was a political problem, because we are used to using political pressure on this planet to push energy around to get people to do what they don’t want to do. We hold discussions and write laws and pass legislation and adopt resolutions in every local, national, regional, and global organization we can think of to try to solve the problem with words—but it does not work. Whatever short-term solutions we may create evaporate over time, the problem reemerges. It will not go away. So we say, “Okay, this is not a political problem and it cannot be solved with political means. It must be an economic problem…” You see, we are used to using economic power on this planet to push energy around to get people to do what they don’t want to do.

So we try to solve the problem as if it were an economic problem. We throw money at it, or withhold money from it (as in the form of sanctions), to try to solve the problem with cash—but it does not work. Whatever short-term solutions we may create evaporate over time, the problem reemerges. It will not go away. And so we say, “Okay, this is not an economic problem, and it cannot be solved by economic means. It must be a military problem…” We are used to using military might on this planet to push energy around to get people to do what they don’t want to do.

So we try to solve the problem as if it were a military problem. We throw bullets at it and drop bombs on it to try to solve the problem with weapons —but it does not work. Whatever short-term solutions we may create evaporate over time, the problem reemerges. It will not go away. And so we say, “Okay, this is not an easy problem. This is going to be a long, hard slog. Many lives will be lost in trying to solve this problem. But we are not going to give up. We are going to solve this problem if it kills us.” And we don’t even see the irony in our own statements.

You see, we are very used to trying to force solutions in our world. Yet solutions that are forced are never solutions at all. They are simply postponements. I know that you have all heard the definition of insanity. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting to get a different result.

The sadness of humanity is that we are forever ready to settle for postponements in place of solutions. Only primitive cultures and primitive beings do that. Highly evolved beings would never, ever settle for a 10,000-year-postponement in the solving of their largest problem.

The problem in the world today is a spiritual problem. It has to do with what people believe. It has to do with our most fervently held thoughts and ideas about Life, about God, and most of all, about ourselves.

This problem of beliefs creates a condition of hopelessness, helplessness, anger, and rebellion. That condition produces a circumstance of run-away violence.

The problem of beliefs is a problem which all of us have helped to create. This is true because all of us have beliefs—and if those beliefs are mistaken, and we then pass on those beliefs to our children and our grandchildren and our neighbors and our friends, we join together to create a Cultural Story that creates the very Conditions which produce the very Circumstances we are trying to avoid. Yet we cannot eliminate them and we cannot avoid them until we eliminate and avoid the beliefs that created them.

And that is OUR work, my friends. That is OUR job. We must change the Cultural Story that created the Conditions that produce the Circumstances we seek to avoid. Yet we will never do that, we will never even be able to, as long as we refuse to acknowledge our own responsibility in the matter. It is as the headline on the masthead of this online newspaper reads.

It is WE who hold the beliefs that we hold, that create the Cultural Stories that start the spiral going. We, ALL of us — including the people who use violence to announce and to scream out their discontent — must change our cultural story, must change our beliefs, if we expect and hope to see a change in humanity’s behavior.

This is because all behavior springs from belief. All behavior. Everything you do, you do because you believe something. You believe something about who you are, you believe something about what is currently happening, you believe something about what you are doing—and, most sadly of all, you believe that you are “right” about all of that. The possibility that you may be “wrong” never even occurs to you.

Yet we are wrong. About almost everything. Certainly about almost everything that is important, such as God, and who God is, and what God wants. And Life, and how it works, and its purpose and function. And we are wrong about each other, and about ourselves, and who we are in relationship to each other, to ourselves, and to God.

The problem in life is a spiritual problem—and the spiritual problem is a simple problem of misidentification. We have misidentified Who We Really Are. We have failed to answer accurately life’s four major questions: Who are we? Where are we? Why are we? What are we doing here?

Most people have not even asked themselves those questions, much less answered them.

If the United States goes to war in Syria — and it very much looks as if it may — the world will have once again used precisely the wrong tactics to solve the world’s problems. What is wrong with all the nations of the world who disagree with the alleged actions of the Syrian government simply and powerfully boycotting that government? Refusing to sell it anything, give it anything, supply it with anything, or deal with it in any way?

There are those who say that won’t work. Russia and China, two huge allies of Syria, will give its government all that it needs to keep things going over there and to stay in power. But surely there must be some effect that the combined nations of the world which disagree with Syria can have on that country, other than raining rockets down on its military facilities and killing more people.

More killing cannot be the answer. Have we become so barbaric as a species that more killing is the only answer the world can come up with? Or have we so utterly failed to crawl out of our Original Barbarism? Is there no way we can advance as a species? None at all?

If I were President Obama, I would hold a globally televised news conference immediately, and place before the world every last bit of evidence that I had that Syria’s government forces were responsible for the chemical weapons attack on its own people. As of writing this update (Friday, Aug 30, 1 p.m . PST), U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has done that, to the degree that he can, without revealing or placing in danger U.S. intelligence methods and sources.

Then I would ask the whole world, “Is this where we have fallen? Is this what we are willing to tolerate in the name of non-intervention in a so-called sovereign nation’s affairs? Are we willing to stand by and do nothing while, according to the irrefutable evidence we have obtained and shown you here, a despotic government kills its own people by the thousands to stay in power?”

UPDATE: U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has, in essence, done that as well. His statement may be seen and read here:

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/30/20261297-read-secretary-of-state-kerrys-full-speech-condemning-syria-attack?lite

Then I would dare both Russia and China to respond to the incontrovertible evidence which has been gathered and placed before the world. I would demand that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad respond to the evidence. This is something that Mr. Kerry has not done.

I would boldly and publicly challenge Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, to respond to this evidence, and to do so now. I would demand that he give an explanation of his regime’s actions and stop pretending that the intelligence evidence of thousands of sources, including satellite technology picking up rocket launchings from regime-held areas of Syria and landings in the opposition-held areas, mean nothing.

I would demand, as well, that the rest of the world — Russia and China in particular — respond to these intelligence findings, and stop blocking every attempt to economically and politically punish the Assad regime for its actions, to show him and all of the world’s real or would-be despots that humanity will not tolerate despotism, or the killing of a nation’s own people by a nation’s own government, by any means — to say nothing of the most heinous.

Why do we not do that, I wonder?

UPDATE (Sat., Aug 31, 3 pm pst) As you must know if you are following this international story, President Obama has said that he will not order a military strike by the United States on Syria’s chemical weapons capacity unless the U.S. Congress votes to authorize him to do so. If you are wondering what you can do, please read the headline story on this newspaper’s front page, then join me and Marianne Williamson in the Global Collective Prayer Initiative, Monday, September 2, at 16:00 GMT (that is 9 a.m. Pacific Time). We will pray solidly and intentionally for ten minutes that the U.S. will not launch air strikes on Syria, and that the larger Syrian conflict may end, at last, with peace and harmony prevailing.

UPDATE (Sun. Sept 1, 12 noon pst) Pope Francis today told a papal audience: “Never has the use of violence brought peace in its wake. War begets war, violence begets violence.” NBC News reported that the Pope made his remarks “ahead of the traditional Angelus prayer on Sunday.”

“I appeal strongly for peace, an appeal which arises from the deep within me. How much suffering, how much devastation, how much pain has the use of arms carried in its wake in that martyred country, especially among civilians and the unarmed! I think of many children will not see the light of the future!”, the television news network quoted Pope Francis as saying.

The Pontiff, of course, denounced the use of chemical weapons, saying that he condemned “with utmost firmness” such use.