Thursday, March 06, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

'Worry.' 'No, be happy'

State Department, Raelians conduct dueling war lectures

By Newt Briggs

No matter how you slice it, the U.S. State Department and the Raelians (the international religious sect that worships aliens, supports human cloning and takes a former journalist as its prophet) don't have a whole lot in common. Particularly with regard to the war in Iraq, the two groups seem hopelessly divergent--the State Department aggressively pushing for war, the Raelians gently lobbying for peace.

Consequently, when the State Department and the Raelians held separate meetings last Wednesday around CCSN's West Charleston campus, a fascinating opposition was born. Not that there was ever any tension between the two, but the broad scope of their differences promised for lively (if not rational) dialogue concerning the looming war in the Middle East. And in the end--despite stark philosophical disparities--the meetings revealed that the two groups might not be wholly different after all.

The evening began with the State Department's address on foreign policy following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Espousing the reproachful rhetoric that has become typical of the Bush administration, Ambassador Donald Steinberg was quick to point the vague but accusing finger at Iraq President Saddam Hussein.

"His regime flouts basic norms of civilized behavior," said Steinberg. "He brutally represses his people. He has launched wars of aggression against his neighbors. He has murdered members of ethnic and religious groups. He has used chemical weapons against his own people and his neighbors, including the people of Iran. And he has diverted humanitarian aid intended to feed his citizens to expensive programs for weapons of mass destruction."

Furthermore, Steinberg rejected the suggestion that Iraq be given more time to disarm. "I hear frequently people say, `Let's give them a little more time,'" Steinberg said. "The French have now proposed another four months. Well, it doesn't take four months to answer some basic questions: Where are the 25,000 liters of anthrax that we know exist in Iraq? Where are the 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin? Where are the 5,000 tons of serin, VX nerve agents and mustard gas? Where are the 30,000 munitions to deliver chemical agents? It doesn't take four months to answer those questions; it takes four minutes."

Not far away, in the West Charleston Library, the Raelians were advocating far more peaceful solutions to the burgeoning conflict in Iraq. "The solution to such desperate acts of violence is not to respond with kneejerk declarations of war, but rather to remove the root causes of suffering by providing love and hope," reads an official statement on the Raelians' website (www.rael.org).

And who, pray tell, will provide the proposed love and hope? The Elohim, of course--the aliens that created life on Earth more than 25,000 years ago.

"The day that these people come back to Earth will mark the end of war as we know it," said Rick Roehr, professional musician and leader of the U.S. Raelian movement.

But according to Roehr, the Elohim cannot make their triumphant return until an embassy has been constructed to welcome them back from the sky. "If you see a model of the embassy we are trying to build, it looks just like a crop circle," Roehr said. "As a matter of fact, the aliens told Rael exactly what they wanted for an embassy, and he had an artist draw it, and about a year later crop circles started showing up that looked exactly like Rael's model."

In the meantime, though, Roehr endorses "sensual meditation" as a relief for everyday gloom. "We were created out of happiness to be happy. This is what's so important and matters right now, because only unhappy people commit violence."

And finally, as I hustled back and forth between the ambassador and the Raelians, I realized that the two groups share at least one tremendous similarity: Neither has any real proof to support its cause. Yes, the State Department can cite facts and figures, point to shipping invoices and generally hypothesize that Iraq is hiding weapons of mass destruction, but where is the so-called "smoking gun"? And as for the Raelians? They're going to have come up with more than far-out prophecies and reinterpretations of religious texts to disprove the work of Darwin.

Thus, both are left in something of a quandary, passionately advocating for an end they cannot justify. And sooner or later, they're both going to realize that the time has come to either put up or shut up. Perhaps that time is now.