The beginning of the Iraq War in 2003

[This article was written in 2004. It was never published, and I have decided, fifteen years later, to post it online here.]

The invasion of Iraq was declared for the purpose of ending the decades-long dictatorship of President Saddam Hussein — which was suspected of producing weapons of mass destruction and sheltering terrorists who threatened the US — and to replace it with a democratic government. The U.S. military’s mission objectives were:

1. End the regime of Saddam Hussein
2. Identify, isolate, and eliminate Iraq’s WMD, systems, and facilities
3. Capture or drive out terrorists sheltered in Iraq
4. Collect intelligence on terrorist networks and on Iraq’s illicit WMD activity
5. Secure Iraq’s oil fields and natural resources for the Iraqi people
6. End sanctions and immediately deliver humanitarian relief and assistance
7. Help the Iraqi people rapidly transition to a representative form of self-government that does not threaten its neighbors and is committed to the territorial integrity of Iraq

The United States and Britain already had combat-ready bases in Kuwait, which borders Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf southeast of Baghdad, and were able to ship soldiers to Iraq without meeting naval opposition (Murray 71). The troops stayed at these bases awaiting their next orders.

On 18 March 2003, President Bush gave Saddam Hussein 48 hours to leave Iraq with his two sons. Saddam showed no intent of doing so. Within hours after the deadline had passed, military intelligence identified a building where Saddam was believed to be hiding and U.S. Tomahawk and F-117 missiles hit the building in a “decapitation strike” on 20 March. Saddam and his sons survived the attack, but this fact was not known to the US for days. Journalists, having been told to expect a “Shock and Awe” opening show of 3,000 cruise missiles on Baghdad, were surprised by the restraint of this attack. (Ryan) Iraq, too, was probably expecting the US to begin the war with bombs as it had done in the first Gulf War in 1991.

“Shock and Awe” did indeed initiate the war on 21 March, with strike aircraft hitting a thousand targets, mostly the evacuated buildings of Baath Party bureaucrats (Murray 75, 169). The opening air campaign lasted several nights while invading ground troops made their way toward Baghdad. The attack plan was for the British, supported by U.S. Marines, to capture the port of Umm Qasr and Basra while the US closed in on the capital city of Baghdad from the west and the east. This did not happen exactly as planned. US Marines captured Umm Qasr on the first day of ground warfare, but the British were tied up in Basra for weeks in a protracted siege.

Baghdad fell, with only 100,000 American forces on the ground defeating 400,000 Iraqi soldiers, defying conventional military wisdom that an invading army needs to outnumber the defense three-to-one. (These 100,000 U.S. troops, though, were part of a total of 250,000 U.S. and Coalition forces that had been committed to the war.) Iraqi military power had been ravaged by 12 years of continuous bombing by the US dating back to the previous Gulf War. The Republican Guard was disorganized and lost its weapons early in the combat, while the Air Force did not even make an attempt at resistance, having only 320 aircraft, less than half of which were in working condition (Cordesman 27). The U.S. Air Force, by contrast, had 863 aircraft at the peak of the war, and that number was doubled by the contributions of other branches of the U.S. military and the Coalition. Foreign fighters arrived from neighboring Arab countries to defend Saddam’s rule and have their chance to shoot at American soldiers, but they were largely untrained and lacked an official alliance with Iraqis who sometimes treated them as an enemy.

A zero-visibility sandstorm that lasted from 24-26 March afforded the Coalition soldiers time to rest during their trek to Baghdad. However, the unexpected pause caused supplies to dwindle and anxieties to rise. During this time, President Bush requested $75 billion from Congress for the war effort, a request which was approved a week later. As soon as the sandstorm ended, reconnaissance forces were sent to determine the location and strength of the Iraqi Republican Guard near Baghdad. (Murray 128)

During the next few days, as ground forces approached the city, Baghdad continued to experience heavy bombing. On 3 April, with U.S. forces less than 10 miles outside the city, Saddam International Airport was captured and renamed Baghdad International Airport. The next day, 2,500 Republican Guard soldiers surrendered. On 7 April, two presidential palaces fell, and there was another attempted decapitation strike on a restaurant where Saddam was believed to be hiding. Baghdad fell on 9 April with the symbolic removal of a huge statue of Saddam, plunging the city into chaos. Iraqis rioted with a mix of jubilant celebration and criminal acts including the looting of historical artifacts from museums.

As of 11 April, according to Cordesman, the US had launched 17,000 precision-guided weapons, 8,500 unguided weapons, and 900 cruise missiles against Iraq. USCENTCOM claimed that most of the precision-guided weapons used GPS technology (Murray 72).

On 1 May 2003, only 42 days after the beginning of the war, President Bush declared major combat operations to be over. This was a symbolic period, as the 1991 war on Iraq fought by President Bush’s father had also been 42 days long.

Saddam Hussein survived the initial combat and was caught in hiding on 13 December 2003. Sovereignty was officially transferred from the U.S. to the new Iraqi government on 28 June 2004, over a year after major combat had ended. U.S. and Coalition troops were never planned to be withdrawn from Iraq, however, and they continued to be attacked with bombs on a weekly and sometimes daily basis.

The U.S.-led Coalition at least partly achieved its own objectives in that the Baath Party was decisively overthrown. However, a significant part of the Coalition’s mission, finding illicit weapons of mass destruction, was never achieved. President Bush finally conceded such weapons may never have existed. And the effort to drive out terrorists achieved the opposite effect, as foreign fighters poured across the border to defend Iraq and have their chance to take shots against Americans. A year and a half after the invasion, suicide car bombs and improvised explosive devices were still detonating daily in Iraq, causing Iraqi civilian and U.S. military casualties. The bipartisan Report of the 9/11 Commission determined that there never had been any connection between Saddam Hussein and the terrorists who perpetrated the attacks of 9/11. As for the objective of democracy for the Iraqi people, the significance of the war for the future of Iraq remains to be seen.

[Note: Again, this article was written in 2004. Readers may also be interested in my essay, There was no good reason for the US to invade Iraq in 2003."]

Sources

Anthony H. Cordesman. The Iraq War: Strategy, Tactics, and Military Lessons. Washington, D.C.: The Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2003.

Williamson Murray and Maj. Gen. Robert H. Scales, Jr. The Iraq War: A Military History. Cambridge and London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2003.

Mike Ryan. Baghdad or Bust: The Inside Story of Gulf War 2. South Yorkshire, England: Leo Looper, 2003.

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Chelsea Manning wrote in her memoir README.txt (2022):

"My friends — fairly liberal people — posted links to op-eds that reflected a deep misunderstanding of what was actually going on. They seemed to believe that simply having a Democratic president instead of a Republican one could solve something. Liberal, Obama-voting Democrats appeared to think our involvement in Iraq was suddenly working out just fine, at least since their guy had taken the oath of office. The drawdown plan that Obama’s administration was following had, in fact, been cooked up by the George W. Bush team, and the Obama team more or less rubber-stamped it."

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My Monday newsletter is going to be a "where are they now?" type piece about the media people who cheered on the invasion of Iraq, and oh boy is it depressing to see how little getting such a massive thing so horribly wrong actually affected their career trajectories.

— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) March 17, 2023

Anyway, sign up here if you want to get that when it goes out on Monday: https://t.co/rmsaGM2Gyp

— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) March 17, 2023

The Costs of War Project said the U.S.-led invasion and occupation "caused massive death, destruction, and political instability," killing hundreds of thousands of people while displacing millions more. https://t.co/sf9Hu66gjX

— Common Dreams (@commondreams) March 15, 2023

CNN's 20-year follow-up

The journalist Muntazer al-Zaidi threw his shoes at U.S. President George W. Bush. Regrets in 2023? No: "Iraqi journalist who threw shoes at George W. Bush says his only regret is he 'only had two shoes.'" Ahmed Shawkat and Haitham Moussa, CBS, March 21, 2023

2023 update

Here's my subscriber gift link so you can read this article unpaywalled: "The heat index reached 152 degrees in the Middle East — nearly at the limit for human survival." Scott Dance. Washington Post. July 18, 2023.

"When the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001 they named the war 'Operation Enduring Freedom.' In 2003, when the U.S. invaded Iraq on false pretenses, they called the whole enterprise 'Operation Iraqi Freedom.' Today we know these wars were utter failures that didn’t bring an ounce of freedom anywhere. Upwards of a million civilians killed, thousands of soldiers on both sides dead, a region massively destabilized and the Taliban back in power.

* * *

Many would have said that we were going after terrorists, but few could have explained how we were addressing the rise of terrorism, the reasons that some people around the world wanted to take up arms against our country. In fact, none of the top brass could’ve explained how the 'war on terror' was getting to the root causes of terrorism, because our plan was never to do that. The plan and the implementation were always war, violence, and the complete refusal to even look at how mass violence from the United States might lead to more people around the world resenting our military and our country."

— The War of Words: Waterboarding, Collateral Damage, and resisting euphemism. Joshua P. Hill. New Means (Substack). November 14, 2023.

The 'quid pro quo' in the Trump/Zelensky call transcript

Transcript of the July 25, 2019 phone call

Caveat within the transcript itself: "The text in this document records the notes and recollections of Situation Room Duty Officers and NSC policy staff assigned to listen and memorialize the conversation in written form as the conversation takes place. A number of factors can affect the accuracy of the record, including poor telecommunications connections and variations in accent and/or interpretation."

Gordon Sondland, testifying publicly on Nov. 20, said:

...members of this committee have frequently framed these complicated issues in the form of a simple question: Was there a 'quid pro quo?' With regard to the requested White House call and White House meeting, the answer is yes.

In late September, a week after news broke that a whistleblower had reported an inappropriate call President Trump had with Ukraine's President Zelensky, Trump attempted to defend himself by releasing what he referred to as a "transcript" of the call.

The document itself says it is "not a verbatim transcript."

Yet, beginning on Oct. 2, Trump has repeatedly referred to the document as an "exact" transcript of the conversation, Philip Bump explained in the Washington Post.

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who was on the call, subsequently testified that he remembers elements of the call that are not included in the transcript.

There is a quid pro quo in the interaction even if the words "quid pro quo" are not present. Monica Hesse wrote in the Washington Post:

When Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein invited a woman actor to his hotel room, the conversation (according to tape) went like this:

“Don’t ruin your friendship with me for five minutes,” he warned her. He said he was a “famous guy,” and if she left, she should “never call me again.”

One thing he didn’t say was, “This is a quid pro quo in which you’ll sleep with me or lose your career.”

Sentient humans could read between the lines.

She went on:

We have read Trump instructing Zelensky, 'I would like you to do us a favor.' We have read him saying, 'The United States has been very, very good to Ukraine.' We’ve combed through it all.

One thing Trump did not say is, 'This is a quid pro quo in which you’ll give me dirt on Joe Biden; and, in exchange, I’ll stop withholding your aid.' ... He didn’t say, 'Let's move onto the illegal part of the conversation now.' He certainly didn’t say, 'Real quick, let me abuse my power.'

But when we talk about what Trump said on that phone call, we’re really talking about what powerful people never need to say at all.

Similarly, Lt. Col. Vindman also recognized it as a demand.

My Republican colleagues may try to muddy the waters, but this fact is undisputed:

On the July 25 call, Trump asked Zelensky to investigate the Bidens.

There's no ambiguity about it.

And Lt. Col. Vindman understood that ask as a demand. pic.twitter.com/2g4EQ0j91H

— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) November 19, 2019

Trump's refrain, "Read the transcript," as if the transcript exonerates him, "is not an invitation for truth-seeking," Hesse said, but rather "a disingenuous feint provided by a powerful man who, like all people in power, knows that his wishes will be treated as commands, and his subtexts will be treated as boldface type." We need to acknowledge what we see in the interaction. As Hesse put it: "It’s such a bizarre folly to pretend we don’t understand what people are saying. It’s such a maddening exercise, to point at a collection of words and insist that the true meaning is in the white space between them. It makes you feel crazy."

Ukraine knew what Trump wanted (an investigation of the Bidens) as early as May.

AP Exclusive: U.S. State Department officials learned in May that Ukraine's president felt pressure from Trump administration to investigate Joe Biden, long before the July phone call with President Trump that sparked an impeachment inquiry, sources say. https://t.co/DmoDNxrfXL

— AP Politics (@AP_Politics) November 18, 2019

Others have tried to argue that there was no quid pro quo in the request to investigate the Bidens because Ukraine didn't know the money was being withheld. Ukraine would certainly have known that they had not yet received money, however. And, while Ukraine may not have known at the time of the July 25 call that the money was deliberately held back pending their explicit compliance with launching an investigation of the Bidens, they knew later, in August.

Sondland's public testimony on Nov. 20 "disrupts — actually, destroys — the defenses of both the White House and congressional Republicans," Chris Cillizza explained for CNN, "who have insisted that the Ukrainians had no clue that there were any preconditions to getting what they wanted most — a meeting between Zelensky and Trump and then, later, the release of the nearly $400 million in military aid from the US to Ukraine." Sondland testified: "I told President Zelensky in advance that assurances to 'run a fully transparent investigation' and 'turn over every stone' were necessary in his call with President Trump."

Sondland also testified that Zelensky was supposed "to announce the investigations. He didn't actually have to do them, as I understood it." A request from Trump which, as Chris Cillizza pointed out in another article, is more consistent with Trump attempting to generate a PR disaster for his political rival Joe Biden in the 2020 election campaign rather than having a genuine interest in identifying and stopping corruption in Ukraine.

Others have tried to argue that there was no quid pro quo because Ukraine eventually got the money. This is a bad argument. Giving the money was the quid in exchange for which they requested a quo. And even if the entire deal fell apart, attempted crimes are still crimes.

Downplaying an incomplete crime is called the "Sideshow Bob" defense, after a Simpsons character who complained in a 1994 episode, "Convicted of a crime I didn’t even commit. Hah! Attempted murder? Now honestly, what is that? Do they give a Nobel Prize for attempted chemistry? Do they?"

In Trump's case, the crime might even have been completed, since the goal was to temporarily withhold aid to prompt compliance from Ukraine; Trump may not have aspired for the hold to be permanent. Furthermore, releasing the aid may not have been Trump's decision. "It wasn’t Donald Trump who released the promised military aid to Ukraine," Mary Papenfuss wrote; it was federal lawyers who declared it was illegal for the White House Office of Management and Budget to block the aid. Because of this decision, a third of the money was quickly released, and, several days later, Trump claimed he had voluntarily chosen to release it.

Others (notably, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney) have tried to argue that such quid pro quos are done all the time and should not be a basis for impeachment. Ultimately, whether the offense is impeachable is up to Congress to decide (as per Article II, Section IV of the Constitution). A Vox/PerryUndem/Ipsos poll conducted November 5-6, 2019 found a partisan split about whether this quid pro quo is tolerable. A clear majority of Americans from both major political parties believe that “abusing the powers of office for political advantage” or “for personal enrichment” is a “high crime or misdemeanor.” (93% Democrats and 67% of Republicans have this assessment of “political advantage.” 95% of Democrats and 82% of Republicans have this assessment of “personal enrichment.”) However, when the question is narrowed to ask about “a president of the United States pressuring another country to investigate a political rival,” the Republicans drop out. (77% of Democrats believe this is a “high crime or misdemeanor,” but only 22% of Republicans make the same assertion.) Furthermore, Republicans are more likely to excuse this behavior as “something presidents do all the time.” (28% of Democrats say so; 65% of Republicans say so.) In other words, they don't think it's an abuse of presidential powers.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said on Nov. 17 that the quid pro quo situation could have been better "taken care of this behind the scenes," since "most people wanted to support Ukraine. We were trying to convince President Trump." He said it was unfortunate that a whistleblower "exposed things that didn’t need to be exposed." (Apparently, the thing that didn't need to be exposed was the president's ignorant machinations.)

Johnson said he would provide a written statement.

Nope.

Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) is a key witness.

He needs to be questioned under oath.

There is no *possible* explanation for allowing him to "write a letter."

This isn't a summer camp mash-note party, Republicans, this is, whether you like it or not, a g*ddamn impeachment. https://t.co/dXb3JdBCLO

— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) November 17, 2019

Praying with the U.S. president

In 1950, the evangelical preacher Billy Graham, then 31 years old, landed a brief private meeting with President Harry S. Truman at the White House. Graham offered to pray, and Truman consented.

Outside, on the White House lawn, reporters were waiting for Graham. Graham eagerly revealed details of the conversation. Tell us more about the prayer, the reporters asked. And Graham, not realizing the reporters were looking to sensationalize the story, knelt in prayer for the cameras.

Image caption: From left to right, Jerry Beavan, Billy Graham, Clifford Barrows and Grady Wilson. Photo by the Associated Press.

Truman was furious. He thought the preacher's prayer stunt looked ridiculous and made him look ridiculous by association.

---

What changed in the assumptions of proper presidential behavior?

Flash forward nearly 70 years. Today, the President allows people to pray for him — not just one preacher in private, but multiple preachers, touching him, with official cameras in the room.

Image caption: Christians in the Roosevelt Room in the White House, Oct. 29, 2019. Official White House photo by Joyce Boghosian.

Does it not make him look ridiculous? It does indeed. To me, it appears that the president is the center of a cult and that he wants to be seen as such. Do these white evangelicals care that they are making themselves and the president look ridiculous to everyone who doesn't share their religion? Nope.

And do they care that the president secretly mocks them? Also nope. (Michael Cohen's 2020 book Disloyal reports that Trump said "Can you believe that bullshit?" after pastors "laid hands on him" to bless him in 2011.

Today, this is deliberately promoted. A lot has changed.

.@realDonaldTrump receives a blessing he attends a Church Service at the International Church of Las Vegas in Las Vegas, NV. pic.twitter.com/3pIiGLY03P

— Doug Mills (@dougmillsnyt) October 18, 2020

Maybe Graham himself didn't want it this way. Three decades after his interaction with Truman...

"On February 1, 1981, evangelical leader Bill Graham encouraged social conservatives to avoid jumping into a hard association with the Republican Party. 'It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political right,' he told Parade magazine. 'The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it.' Graham was worried that evangelicals would become corrupted by worldly political power, instead of recognizing that church teachings come first, and politics second.

But it was already too late."

— Matt Stoller, "On Lina Khan Derangement Syndrome," Substack, Feb 18, 2023

A statue of Billy Graham

As of early 2019, sculptors were sought "to design and cast a life like statue of the Rev. Dr. William Franklin 'Billy' Graham, Jr. The statue will become part of the National Statuary Hall Collection in the United States Capitol in Washington D.C."

Rev. Rob Schenck, a white evangelical who acknowledges that he himself once used "street theater" of religious performances (including publicly displaying a Bible, for example), has moved away from those tactics. He reacted to Trump's photo-op in front of St. John's church during the George Floyd protests as a "sacrilege." Schenck says he used to hear his fellow evangelical clergy speak about the transactional nature of their relationship with Trump, but that argument has become uncommon. "That's even more distressing to me," he said, "because what it seems to suggest is that a kind of final conversion has taken place, at least in their thinking, if not in their hearts." In other words, they believe what Trump is saying and doing. They no longer recognize their choice as an unpalatable transaction; it has become less objectionable to them. Schenck worried about their possibility of "reclaiming their moral integrity, regaining a sense of ethics and what is right and wrong — and if they have lost that ability to discern that, then they are indeed in very grave danger, personally. Certainly as a community: I mean, we know what the history of demoralized churches are. They quickly become relics of history, and not good ones. And then, of course, — I'm still a believer in salvation. I believe we have to have a certain standing before God. And if we lose that, we've lost everything."

The religious cult iconography may just be another version of overall fascist iconography, which I submit as an addition to Sarah Churchwell's observations in the New Statesman on September 2, 2020:

"The first fascists emphasised individual heroism and physical perfection: Trump emphasises it, too, but only in regards to himself. He is his own fascist sublime.

Anyone doubting this needs only to consider the iconography he and his family routinely share, such as the photo of Trump’s face superimposed on to the sculpted body of Rocky Balboa, which Trump himself trumpeted on social media. As historians have pointed out, this is fascist imagery, in its glorification of the physical perfection of a mythologised leader. Meanwhile, on 4 July, Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr, shared a meme of his father’s head Photoshopped on to George Washington’s body, standing in front of the American flag and holding a Minigun and an eagle. Both memes rework images from the entertainment industry, whether it’s Rocky or an image made by the Call of Duty video-game franchise, into neo-fascist propaganda."

Even and perhaps especially following his COVID-19 diagnosis, Peniel E. Joseph argues, he now embodies "a living church whose political insinuations of racial superiority attract unstinting loyalty from his most ardent supporters, no matter how nonsensical and dangerous he becomes; they seem comforted, not horrified, that he is capable of articulating and revising political, medical and personal doctrine on the fly." He "has managed to become a one-person church worshiped by an overwhelmingly, although not exclusively, White congregation that seems to believe he can do no wrong." His "uncanny ability to detect political vulnerabilities allowed him to not just remake the GOP in his own image, but to erect a kind of parallel religious faith — the Church of Trump — where in a crowd of White faces, wearing masks that might save the lives of fellow human beings during a pandemic is never required." If a church is "a gathering place or grouping point for like-minded individuals to learn, express and amplify a set of beliefs that they collectively define and refine over time," then that is what Trumpism is. "While unable to articulate any meaningful religious experience, biblical knowledge or deep belief system, the President has become, for many, the embodiment of a peculiar definition of American exceptionalism."

On June 13, 2023, immediately after his arraignment in the documents case, Trump was blessed by two clergy members. According to this article in Salon, one was "right-wing evangelical Christian pastor named Mario Bramnick," and the other was "Isaac Aretuo (also known as Alex Isaac Aretuo and Alejandro Isaac Aretuo). He is affiliated with Congregation Najamu Ami in Miami," a Messianic Jewish (i.e., Christian) congregation.

In 2023, General Mark Milley said he erred in allowing himself to be in the frame of a photo when President Trump was holding up the Bible in Lafayette Square during the George Floyd protests in 2020. Later in 2023, he gave a speech saying that the military won't pledge loyalty to "a king, or a queen, or a tyrant or a dictator," nor a "wannabe dictator." Instead: "We take an oath to the Constitution and we take an oath to the idea that is America – and we’re willing to die to protect it."

When Bob Woodward interviewed Milley for his 2024 book War, Milley called Trump "a total fascist" and "fascist to the core."

Bills to bring chaplains into public schools

"The bills have been introduced this legislative season in 14 states, inspired by Texas, which passed a law last year allowing school districts to hire chaplains or use them as volunteers for whatever role the local school board sees fit, including replacing trained counselors. Chaplain bills were approved by one legislative chamber in three states — Utah, Indiana and Louisiana — but died in Utah and Indiana. Bills are pending in nine states. One passed both houses of Florida’s legislature and is awaiting the governor’s signature."

— Putting chaplains in public school is the latest battle in culture wars, Michelle Boorstein, Washington Post, March 22, 2024

Trump's spiritual adviser:

"Robert Morris, founding pastor of Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas, which attracts an estimated 100,000 worshipers weekly, has confessed to “inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady” more than 35 years ago while he was a young pastor after a woman accused him of sexually abusing her over multiple years beginning when she was 12."

— Pastor Robert Morris confesses to ‘moral failure’ after woman claims he began molesting her at age 12, Leonardo Blair, Christian Post, June 15, 2024

More prayer

Christians flock to Washington to pray for America to turn to God — by electing Trump: Conservative organizers of the “Million Women” worship rally billed the event — and the November election — as “a last stand moment” to save the nation from satanic forces. Mike Hixenbaugh, NBC, Oct. 12, 2024

On handling negative emotions with purpose

If we dwell on negative emotions too heavily, they can consume us. "At least one must keep one's head out of it so as not to be eaten up entirely by emotional ape-men," C. G. Jung wrote in a personal letter. But, at low levels, they may simply endure as conditions of our being. "Ressentiment is not rash, but sluggish; it is a mood or a low-energy state in opposition to the vehement nature of violent rage, horror, or grief," wrote Thomas Brudholm. "More interestingly, the diminution over time that seems to be an essential feature of the passions contrasts with the excessive duration or endurance of emotions and memories taken into ressentiment."

Intense negative emotions exist for a reason and are not necessarily bad. They may need to be named and released, not cured or erased. The Zen teacher Alan Watts said: "Such words as anger, depression, fear, grief, anxiety, and guilt suggest uniform states which tend to persist if no action is taken to change or release them. As fever was once considered a disease instead of a natural healing process, we still think of negative feelings as disorders of the mind which need to be cured.
" Releasing them lets us move on, said Martin Laird: "If we can name the thought (anger, fear, pride, etc.) instead of spinning a commentary about the thought, which is our usual response, we stand a much better chance of simply letting go of the thought and returning to our practice."

And even for the moment we experience that feeling, the moment before it subsides, may be important. Sam Keen said, "When the elemental emotions are shrouded or repressed, we cease to experience the sublime nature of all life and we begin to respond to our environment in purely utilitarian ways. Our inborn sense of reverence is occluded, and the dignity of being is replaced by the frenzy of doing. We exchange our sacred birthright for a cultural myth because it promises a secure identity, a necessary role, and a sense of belonging to the tribe." When we choose to experience the feeling consciously, we can direct our actions. Daniel Condron advised that "the more you speak your thoughts as they arise, the more control you have over your thoughts and emotions. The emotions are a way to complete the thoughts; they are not the cause of your thoughts." He continued: "The emotions are not a way to re-act to the world but instead are a way to act or take action in the world."


Sources

Thomas Brudholm. Resentment’s Virtue: Jean Améry and the Refusal to Forgive. Philadelphia: Temple, 2008. p. 105.

Letter from C. G. Jung to Jolande Jacobi, 26 August 1943. Printed in C. G. Jung. Aspects of the Masculine. (Collected Works.) Translation by R. F. C. Hull. New York: MJF Books, 1989. p. 126.

Alan Watts. Nature, Man, and Woman. New York: Vintage Books, 1991 (Copyright 1958). p. 92

Sam Keen. In the Absence of God: Dwelling in the Presence of the Sacred. New York: Harmony Books, 2010. p. 79.

Martin Laird, O.S.A. Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. p. 82.

Daniel Condron. Superconscious Meditation: Kundalini and the Understanding of the Whole Mind. Windyville, Missouri: SOM Publishing, 1998. pp. 151-2, 154.

Quotes: On the symbolism of scars

"Most of my body lives,
But the scars are dead like the grooving of a frown,
Cannot be changed, and ceaselessly record
How much of me is already written down."
- William Dickey, Memoranda, Of the Festivity, 1959

"I have heard the [Native American] tradition said in this way: When you die, you meet the Old Hag, and she eats your scars. If you have no scars, she will eat your eyeballs, and you will be blind in the next world."
- Robert Bly. Iron John: A Book About Men. New York: Vintage Books, Random House, 1992 (originally 1990). p 216. Also quoted as "Carved on a bus bench on Hawthorne" from http://devrandom.net/~aidan/sphere.html Accessed August 31, 2003

"Although a man has the scars of healed wounds, when he appears before God they do not deface but ennoble him."
- Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, Long Text, Chap. 39. Trans. E. Spearing (Harmondwsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1998), p. 96. Quoted in Martin Laird, O.S.A. Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. p. 132.

"Undergoing unnecessary surgical operations—"unnecessary," that is, from the point of view of pathophysiology—often fulfils this function. The patient here plays the illness game and seeks validation of the sick role from the expert. The surgeon who consents to operate in such cases performs a psychologically and socially "useful" function, albeit his usefulness cannot be justified on surgical grounds. His action consists essentially of legitimizing the patient's claim to the sick role. By operating, then, he enables the patient to "win." The surgical scar is official proof of illness. It is the diploma, the trophy, the prize that goes to the winner!"
- Thomas S. Szasz. The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct. New York: Delta, 1961. p. 257.

"So you're on this journey with Jesus. You've hit a moment. What are you going to do with it? How are you going to change? What need to change? And what will you carry with you—maybe even as a scar—as you go forward?"
- Dick Foth. Quoted by David Kuo. Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction. New York: Free Press, 2006. p. 94.

"The universal incidence of puberty rites suggests that they are archetypal — a fundamental requirement of the soul. It is little wonder, then, that adolescents in secular Western society, who are deprived of official rites, unconsciously seek authentic initiation through drink, drugs, sex, rock ’n’ roll. They long to get out of themselves, get out of their heads; they positively need fear and pain and privation to know if they can stand it, to know if they are men and women, know who they are. They want scarification — scars, tattoos, piercings — to show off. Some even commit crimes specifically to incur punishment — the initiation of prison — only to be given ‘counseling’ instead.

For all its admirable compassion and humaneness, modern Western liberalism has a horror of that fear and pain which seem to be essential components of initiation. Still, happily or unhappily, there is always enough fear and pain to go round. Whether we like it or not, we suffer sickness, bereavement, betrayal and anguish enough. The secret is to use these experiences for self-initiation. Instead, we are usually encouraged to seek a cure for them, rather than to take advantage of them for self-transformation. It is, on the whole, a mistake to medicalize suffering and even death because they are primarily matters of soul and only secondarily of the body."
- Patrick Harpur. The Philosopher's Secret Fire: A History of the Imagination (2002). Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2003. pp. 90-91.

"I've learned I can't save myself with the fire

of my own hands. I've scarred my chest, gouged eyes,

scorched my tongue. I've destroyed my life to live it.

If something else now could bow me to

its brutal divinity, I would drop like a beggar.

That's no good bet, either. Like all gods,

we've gotten older, our power's in doubt. The mother's

long banished to apocrypha. We sought mercy

in the cold arms of statues. but how else might we

have worshipped a world we tried so hard to love?"
- 
Gaylord Brewer, from "Moving the Stone," Eclipse, Vol 11, No. 1, Fall 2000