Tuesday, August 23, 2005
The Imperative of the War in Iraq
As a theologian, I get asked my opinion on the idea of just war and whether people should be in favour of the war in Iraq. The subject though is neither easy nor simple. With all do deference to Cindy Sheehan and the Michael Moore’s of the world, just pulling out of Iraq is not going to change the world we live in. So, here is my take on it...The Imperative of the War in Iraq
The events of recent days regarding the war in Iraq have deeply touched many Americans. Whether it be the loss of the Marines from Ohio, the repeated car bombings, including the bombing that killed dozens of Iraqi children, and of course the media coverage around the mother of a dead soldier, Cindy Sheehan, has reminded us that we are in a real war, with real casualties. Living as I do in city with many military bases, including a U.S. Army post that has suffered hundreds of casualties, these events have touched me and brought a renewed concentration on this war which is clearly still far from its last stages. Clearly I am not alone as the polling agencies have been pumping out a regular set of new and more pessimistic results showing that the majority (and a growing number at that) now disagree with the war (or at least its current handling). While I readily admit that I am an evangelical Christian theologian and a Republican, I take no joy from war anywhere. No one I know does. But, the question you must ask yourself is, “What is worse than war?”
Gaining Perspective from History
What are we to make of this war? One of the problems living in a post-modern age (and I myself am as postmodern as any 35 year old), is that we lose a sense of history. This war is now in its third year, and we are closing in on 1,900 American dead. No one knows the number of Iraqi dead, both from American munitions in the earliest stages of the invasion and those who have been killed by the combination of Sadaam loyalists, insurgents and out-an-out terrorists since the fall of Baghdad. While we feel the pain of the Iraqi and should mourn their dead with full reverence and sadness, it is the American toll upon which American public opinion rises and falls. It is for this reason that we really do need a historical re-awakening if we are to make any sense of our progress to date.
The almost 1,900 dead is a tragedy to their families and communities and a deep loss for all Americans, even if we never knew these people or know their families. When soldiers, Marines, sailors and airmen die in the cause of their nation, they die for us. No one wants them to die for us, and some indeed are angry that they are dying for us at all. I respect this position. The question is, “Are we paying too high a price for the goals of Iraq and the war on terror.” (Which, whether Iraq was at the beginning a part of this war, it is clearly now one.)
This war has been compared by various historians and commentators to many other American wars. The first that comes to my mind is that of the Civil War. When I think of our 1,900 dead over these two plus years, I am brought immediately to the Battle of Antietam. There the Union dead, in twelve hours of combat, numbered 2,100 (I will leave out the Confederate dead since, as Americans who have benefited from our united nation, the price of victory for the Union is the more important to us). Think about that number – 2,100 in twelve hours. For what? The Army of the Potomac that day gained several miles of farmland, but that was all that was gained for those 2,100 deaths. While Lee’s invasion (or raid) into the North was stopped and the Emancipation Proclamation was issued soon thereafter, the Battle of Antietam was, militarily, a small event in the course of that war. It could be argued that those 2,100 died, to use a common phrase being bandied about today, for nothing. The war swept on for two plus more bloody years, with thousands more Union dead and wounded. I honor those men who died that day to preserve the Union and to help end slavery, just as I do those who have died in the dessert, cities and towns of Iraq. Had the Union lost the war, would those dead have died for nothing? No, for they fought and died for the best of American and human principles – self-government, the rights of all humans, and liberty for the common man. All lives are precious and all deaths are painful for a nation. But before we are overwhelmed by the current casualty totals, remember that our nation has endured much greater tragedy and without immediate benefit.
Then there is World War II, which provided similar days and events in the number of causalities – on D-Day, Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Iwo Jimo, and the Invasion of Italy. The Gold Star, which was placed in the windows of American homes in towns and cities across our nation were numerous, and at times may have seemed meaningless. It is only in the light of our eventual victory in both theaters of combat that we as 21st century Americans can resolutely say our thanks for their sacrifice and thanks to those who did not die but lost years of their youth to fighting evil.
But perhaps the best analogy from the past for the war in Iraq lies in Korea. There over 50,000 died while America carried on economically, politically, and in every way successfully. The results in Korea were at best mixed. Today South Korea has joined the developed world, with her millions of people growing in prosperity and expression of freedom. Whenever I watch re-runs of M*A*S*H, one of my favourite shows of all time, I cannot help but recoil at Hawkeye’s anti-war sentiments, as I think of the Koreans I meet who today benefit from the sacrifice of those tens of thousands who died at Porkchop Hill, the Pusan Perimeter and the Battle of Souel. But the comparison is most true when we consider what became of North Korea. There a dictator and his oligarchy have ruled for the past 50 plus years, impoverishing its people and subjecting them to what can only be called a human-rights inferno. Further, as we now have come to see, the North has become a safe haven for the worst militants of the world and a potential armourer of fanatics and dictators. When we consider the possible future of Iraq, we do well to focus not on a what we wished Iraq was, but what on what North Korea has become. Do we want Iraq to become, after a hasty American skedaddle, a safe-haven for the worst of the fascist ideologues and terrorists in the Middle East and beyond?
Mistakes Have Been Made
Since the war began there have untold instances of reporters and commentators asking President Bush to admit to specific mistakes and to apologize for his failures. There are certain streams in America that desire to see our leaders admit mistakes and ask for apologies, for various reasons. But again, lets gain some perspective from history. We need to remember that the father of our nation, George Washington, may have had the worst record of any winning commanding general in history. In my historical research, I can find no public admission of mistakes or errors and no apologies. Abraham Lincoln, a man I see as our greatest president, “owed” the nation more apologies than perhaps any leader in history – Ambrose Burnside and Fredericksburg, Rosecrans and Chickamauga, and the loss of thousands of men to other incompetent generals, often men he had personally put in charge of their commands. And that is to leave out General George C. McClellen who he maintained in command when it was clear he could not bring victory and who single-handedly prolonged the war because of his choices in the Seven Days Battles and at Antietam. Still there were no public admissions or apologies. And then there is F.D.R., our greatest war-time president, whose list of mistakes and errors still provide fertile ground for PhD theses to this day. Again, no admissions and no apologies.
As a man who voted for President Bush in 2004 (though not in 2000) I can point to many mistakes he has made – too few troops to start the war, the disbanding of the Iraqi army, the use of the Provisional Authority instead of an Iraqi governing council similar to what was convened in Afghanistan, the “end of major operations” flight and speech, and many more. Clearly “mistakes have been made.” What do we gain from an admission from him or from any of our past leaders in their times of war? What does an apology gain us?
What we should be far more concerned about is whether a leader learns from his or her mistakes. L.B.J. never learned from his mistakes, and in the process Vietnam became a fiasco and a blackmark on our nation and our military. Washington learned from his mistakes and won our independence. Lincoln learned and the result was Grant, Sherman and restoration of the Union. F.D.R. learned and saved our world from tyranny. Has President Bush learned? Today Iraq is ruled by Iraqis, as it has been since mid-2004. Today there are more troops on the ground. Today the Iraqis have tasted the thrill of voting (or not voting, as the with Sunni’s, which was a choice they had rather than a government dictate). There is still much work to be done, but it would be hard to argue, even with the step-up in violence, that lessons have not been learned, and that is an important measure of a war-time leader.
Why We Fight
I hope today that there are few Americans who like war. It is a hideous thing that brings with it the most de-humanizing aspects of imagination. I have marched before in Peace and Justice rallies, because I believe in both. What I think is missing from the current anti-Iraq war peace movement is the second side. We seem to labour under the misconception that the opposite of war is peace. It is must be more than that…it must also be justice and not tyranny. Does anyone really believe that were the American forces to leave today that the result would be justice in Iraq for the common person? One need only read of the conditions in Afghanistan under the Taliban to see what their idea of justice looked like – public execution of petty criminals and adulterers, women denied the right to work or be educated (or be seen) and the disallowance of television, music and kite flying. The reality is that before the American war in Afghanistan people did not have peace, they had another type of war - war on the human spirit that yearns to make its own decisions and to execute freedom as the individual sees fit. In a basic sense that is what we are fighting for in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
But these goals are deeper than the freedom of those who reside in those two nations. I for one do not believe the domino theory that pushed American involvement in Vietnam was an accurate description of the possible outcomes. We shall never know, but even after the collapse of the government in South Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia were able to maintain their governments (though the governments there were not what we would find acceptable). To many in the anti-Iraq war this past history in the Vietnam outcome leads them to see no reason for us to be involved in Iraq. If Iraq does fall to the Islamicists and become a second Taliban-style government, that doesn’t really impact us they argue. In fact, they add, that may be what the Iraqis people desire.
The people of Iraq may indeed desire a nation formed on Sharia law. If they choose such, and vote that in, that is their right. But clearly today if America pulls out, the choice of Sharia law will not come from the ballot box but from the end of a gun held in the hands of what, according to even the most “optimistic” estimate is no more than 10,000 Iraqi terrorists. We owe the people of Iraq the chance to make that choice themselves at the ballot box and in community discussions.
But, you might say, then why not invade Zimbabwe or any of the other nations where the will of the people is crushed by despots? Herein lies the break between Vietnam and the current situation. We are now at war with terrorism, and in particular terrorism that sees as its goal not a purified Middle East or Islamic world, but of a worldwide conquest of a form of Islamic control that makes no allowance for the kind of human rights and democratic foundations upon which the United States and the United Nations were founded upon. This war on terrorism is against an ideology that is every bit as dehumanizing as that of Nazi Germany and the Tojo party in Japan during WWII. And they see their cause as not stopping at any existing geopolitical boundaries, but to encompassing the entire world.
If you doubt this, listen to the rhetoric coming out of the clerics that represent this steam of thought. These men are not in any way ashamed of this rhetoric. The cleric, Abu Hamza was quoted repeatedly in interviews before his arrest in the United Kingdom that the U.K and all the West must be under Sharia law, that is what the Koran calls for from him and “devout” Muslims.
Yes, you say, but these people do not represent the mainstream of Islam or of the vast majority of Muslims. You are right. Most Muslims want to live peaceably with their neighbours, making a better life for themselves and their families and to see their friends and co-workers convert to Islam. That is why we are not at war with Islam. In fact, should the whole world covert (without threat of violence) to Islam and replace the U.N. Charter with that of Sharia law by vote (not fiat), while as an evangelical Christian I would saddened, that is perfectly acceptable to me, just as the case if the whole world converts to pure secularism and establishes a Nirvana of humanism, that would be okay as well. The problem is when this is enacted not through persuasion and vote, but by bombs, guns and terrorism. While these preachers of Islamicism are not anywhere near the majority within Islam, they are serious about their aims and have millions of followers. These are not people who are willing to “leave you alone and let bygones-be-bygones.” They are committed to seeing worldwide Sharia law be the reality by whatever means accomplishes their goal. This means London, New York City, Denver, Paris and everywhere else. There is no accommodation with these people, just as there was no accommodation with Adolph Hitler or Tojo.
Of course every religion (including secularism) has its fanatics. The Christian faith has many similar preachers and followers, men like Eric Rudolph. They are not numerous, but even if they were I would oppose them as well. When they stick to the means of public persuasion and the ballot box, they are entitled to try and enact their version of the perfect world. When they commit violence and encourage others to do likewise, then they should be hunted down, as Rudolph was. But just as you cannot make accommodation with Timothy McVeigh or Eric Rudolph you cannot make accommodation with men who encourage other men to drive trucks packed with explosives into crowds of children or would-be policemen to kill as many of them as possible to see that their view of the world is made reality.
First They Came for the Jews
What is most remarkable is that so many on the Left are opposed to the war in Iraq. Do these people not realize that Osama bin Laden or Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s version of the world leaves no room for homosexual rights, sexual liberation, Hollywood, a free press or any of the other freedom for which they expend their energy? With all do respect, what would Tim Robbins think of seeing Susan Sarandon forced under a burqa and disallowed from pursuing her acting career and told that if he continues to speak his mind that the next public engagement will be at soccer stadium for his execution? This is not an idle threat, but rather the goal of this movement. Today this is an immediate threat to the people of Iraq.
And therein lies the real threat of a failure in Iraq. Today, whether or not you believe it was true in 2003, Iraq stands as the primary outpost of the war on terrorism. If Iraq falls to the Islamicists, it is not simply that the people of Iraq have seen their last ballot box and ink-stained fingers. Iraq will become the training ground and safehaven for terrorists that Afghanistan was allowed to become in the 1990s. Terrorist groups need safehavens even more at times than they need money and recruits. They need places where they can catch their breath from those who hunt them – be they military forces or courts of justice. They also need places where they can rearm and prepare for the next round in their global war. This is why I believe that the Korean War and the example of North Korea are so important for us as we analyze the war in Iraq. Today North Korea is becoming a supplier for the worst the world has to offer. North Korea is also a safehaven for those who agree with Kil Il Jung’s view of the world. Iran is likewise such a place. The more safehavens and suppliers there are for these groups, the more danger there is for the bus passenger in Los Angeles or the passport seeker in a London embassy.
The war in Iraq is therefore different than trying to get rid of Mugabe in Zimbabwe (though I pray often that this would happen as well). To date Mugabe has not seen fit to make his nation a playground for terrorist and fascists. Should he decide to do so, then the circumstances will change.
I heard one U.S. soldier comment that the war came into focus for him after helping out at the scene of a truck bomb that killed only Iraqis, civilians all. He realized that if this was something that the terrorist were willing to do to their own people, to fellow Muslims and Iraqis, that they would have no problem with doing the same in his hometown. The terrorists are fighting hard for Iraq because they need the safehaven, and because the last thing they want is for fellow Muslims to see that democracy, human rights and freedom work, that they create an environment for people to express their full human potential and a faithful living out of the Islamic faith. Our soldiers and the Iraq people are dying to ensure that the world turns out as a world of freedom and opportunity, not a world of extremist Sharia law where only the dictates of the few and the most radical have any sway. Our soldiers and the average Iraqi are living, fighting and dying, to use the words of Jeff Daniel’s character in the movie Gettysburg, “to set (and I would add, to keep) other men free.”
A War for Human Freedom
When the war in Iraq began there was talk of “a war for oil” or “American Empire.” Well, based on the $2.39 I paid for a gallon of gas today, I think we can agree that the war for oil argument is a sham. The oil belongs to the Iraqis (not Halliburton, the French, or Sadaam), and so far American oil companies have not seen (and likely never will see) any gain from the war. The current oil prices are about speculation and the world economy. As for the American Empire argument, as we have seen in Afghanistan and now in Iraq, these governments are not our choice, but the peoples’. There are men serving in both governments that the current administration is not fond of, but, that is the choice of the people of these nations. For this we should all say a hearty “Yes!”
This is a war for human freedom, theirs and ours. There are those on the Left that see this. The first and most vocal was Christopher Hitchens, with whom I sometimes agree and sometimes disagree. He is not a Christian, nor a Republican, and in fact, not even an American. But he is an advocate for human freedom. Others have begun to see this as well. They know that if the U.S., the U.K. and Australia pull back from this war in Iraq and the war on terrorism, that we may be safe for a while, but not for long. The loss of human freedom in Iraq will not be the last stop on the terrorist’s agenda, but rather the victory that will inspire them on to their next targets and the West will not be spared because we have great environmental laws and allow for freedom of religion.
The U.N. was founded in 1945 with a fantastic charter and general agreement on the rights of all peoples to enjoy freedom. Those who are encouraging violence in the name of Islam (or whatever faith) and those who act on those calls have no desire to see the U.N. charter become a reality in this world. All of us who see the basic human freedoms as something all people, not just those fortunate enough to be born in the West, have a God-given right to should stand with the Iraqi people and all those who are being targeted by these extremists and fight for their right to both peace and justice.
In many ways I wish that a Democrat was in the White House. I fear that for many their opposition to George W. Bush has bled over into the battle for human freedom. For them, I ask them to imagine how they would support F.D.R. in this war (or Bill Clinton or any Democrat). F.D.R. was seen by many in the opposition party during World War II as an anathema to their political views, but they knew the war against tyranny with worldwide aspirations was a war for human freedom and one they must join.
But wars are costly things, especially in human lives – military and civilian. I feel for the Cindy Sheehan’s of our country. But George W. Bush didn’t murder her son. Terrorist and those who wish to see her way of life come to an end are the murderers. Wars mean some die so that others may live free. Washington knew this, Lincoln knew it, F.D.R. knew it. None of these men attended all the funerals of men they sent to die so that the vision of freedom we hold dear could be lived out. Whether or not you hate or like George W. Bush is irrelevant. The question is how we preserve the right for all humans, regardless of race, country, gender or religion, to experience their full potential as human beings. There are those who are committed, even unto death, to see that this not a reality – in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and yes, in London, Brussels, New York and Denver. And no, these are not simply poor and uneducated millions who see no other hope but to kill for some vague notion of the perfect world. These are often educated, sometime wealthy, and otherwise very normal people who want to see the Western idea of full freedom come to an end. They don’t care about economic handouts and the celebration of Islamic holidays alongside of Christian, Jewish and national holidays. They could have that and more through political persuasion. They are striving after the end of a human-rights centred view of the world and the replacing of it with a narrow and strict construction that will bind and not free the billions of our planet.
If after reading this you are still opposed to the war, I respect your opinion. But I do ask you a simple question: What is your plan to stop those who seek to destroy that which is best expressed in the founding documents of the United Nations? Before you say that war is not the answer, please provide a better one. Believe me when I say that if you have a nonviolent solution that disarms tyranny and upholds justice and human rights for all, I will be an eager proponent of it.
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