God's Politics - Chapter 8
Part III: Spiritual Values and International Relations
When Did Jesus Become Pro-War?
Chapter 8 - Not a Just War
The Mistake of Iraq
Wallis relates something that archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams said while they were on a panel together. Williams said (quoting psychologist Abraham Maslow), "When all you have is hammers, everything looks like a nail."
*ding!*
Ummm, did the light just go off for anyone else? Is it any wonder that the reaction of the US is most often violence, and seldom peace? It might have something to do with the 460+ BILLION dollars we give the Pentagon this year. It might have something to do with the "Defense Industry" (more properly known as the Mechanized Death & Destruction Industry) making more and more bombs.
Perhaps we suffer from being driven by our possessions. The US has built and spent untold billions on warfare, is it any wonder that we go to war so often? I think the tail is wagging the dog on this one. And the proportion of our spending on warfare compared to the next largest military budget (Russia $18 billion) is insane.
We live in an extremely wealthy society obsessed with security, so it's easy for some to justify spending this much. It's downright demonic, but easy to understand. So the paradigm our government operates within is one where defense contractors have lobbyists on Capitol Hill so that Republicans and Democrats alike buy into their world. Our government gives more money to the Pentagon than anything else. I can't imagine any illustration being more accurate than Williams', "When all you have is hammers, everything looks like a nail."
How can we as the church be a witness to the sin of militarism in our country? How do we rightly speak truth to power, that this is wrong and an offense to God? Wallis points out that with the exception of the American Southern Baptists, every world church body that spoke out in reference to the war in Iraq concluded that this was not a "just war." That kind of unity is unheard of in modern times. Other than "Jesus is Lord," I'm not sure all the churches could agree on any one thing. Even that would be tough with the Unitarians and all.
That all these churches stated that the war would be "unjust" really poses a challenge to the individual Christian who finds it in their own authority to deem the Iraqi war a just one. That the average "just war" Christian has never once picked up Augustine or Aquinas in the first place is also a huge issue. This is yet another case of the State co-opting Christian language. When Christians say "Just War" we are referring to a VERY SPECIFIC set of rules and limits, all of which must be met in order to engage in what we would call a "just war." But the state, and office holders use the language of Just War to evoke the religious "warm fuzzies" in the majority of the Christian population, who are all to eager to turn a blind eye to the pillaging of our language. So it seems (to many) that the invasion of Iraq was "just" in the Christian sense because George Bush said it was "just," and he must mean the same thing as Aquinas right?
Wallis brings up the fact that the war to invade Iraq was also illegal. Members of the UN may only go to war in self-defense following an armed attack. Preemptive war by one state against another is not permitted by either law or doctrine. For those really ready to embrace the so called "Bush doctrine" of preemptive war, take a moment and think. You would make your enemies blameless for your own murder. If ever there were countries threatened by a "possible attack" it is Syria, Iran and North Korea. And yet, I don't particularly feel like getting bombed today, just because my country may very well one day attack any of these countries. In the same way, the over 10,000 Iraqi non-combatants who were killed in Iraq should never have been killed because someone in Washington "had a gut feeling."
A little exercise if you will... who has retained their moral integrity in these two examples?
1. A pastor in a South-central Los Angeles neighborhood is shot and killed in the crossfire of bullets between gangs, while trying to drag a wounded child to safety.
2. Several police officers shoot an intoxicated homeless man multiple times from a safe distance, as he stumbles towards them with a branch.
If the US was trying to support democracy in Iraq and find nonviolent ways of ousting Saddam Hussein, but somehow we were attacked by his government, or perhaps he lashed out at one of our allies in the area we would retain the moral integrity in example no. 1. People might die, but not at our hands. Wallis says on page 123, "It is indeed a good thing that the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein is over. But that worthy goal should and could have been accomplished, over time, in much better ways than a preemptive and largely unilateral war that has proved to be both unnecessary and unjust. Iraq is now a huge mess with no clear U.S. exit strategy in sight and is likely to remain so for a very long time."
Instead because the Bush administration was planning to attack Iraq from day one, and because the American public was so scared by 9/11 that they would believe that the moon is made of cardboard if you told them it would keep them safe, our country chose option no. 2. In option no. 2, people are guaranteed to die, and on a national scale, we're talking about Tens of THOUSANDS. They're guaranteed to die, because they're dying at our hands. Our country has clearly made the choice that we prefer having the blood of the innocent on our hands to suffering ourselves.
There is no model for Martyrdom in America. It is a concept beyond us. If someone is killed when they shouldn't be, our only responses are to lie about who they were, because we can't bring ourselves to think that someone would be killed without a reason (Thus those killed on 9/11 become "heroes," rather than needlessly murdered). OR we exploit their memory to silence others and get our way; see GOP.
The Christian body knows what Martyrdom is. We call it the most honorable way to die. We are free to say such insane things because our Lord and Savior has defeated death and promises that his faithful will share in his resurrection.
Labels: Books
posted by Charlie at 2:26 PM
2 Comments:
the most maddening thing about these "just war" folks who apply this to Iraq, is how their whole case rests on mere "theory". If we didn't attack first, then far more WOULD have died (the theory), therefore we are justified in "preventing that THEORETICAL tragedy by preempting it with (presumably) a less destructive one. Problem is, the trade is not just. In fact, as you intimate, Christians are not in the trading business, but the business of giving up our own security in order to be obedient. Of course, those Christians who seem to have most of their life and brain and spirit "In the world" think this is crazy and naive. They simply seem to refuse to believe what God p[roved through the resurrection: that it is "obedience all the way".
Good summary.
I wish it were so easy to explain to conservatives. Unfortunately, even a few years after the start of the war, many of them, deeply embedded in their epistemological relativism, say completely inane things like, "Well, I just choose to see it a different way. Bush didn't lie; he made a mistake."
I would hope that of all things, the Downing Street Memo would prove that this is utter nonsense. Aside from the fact that the whole "just war" thing never actually was "just" by any stretch of the imagination, as each month passes, we're usually provided with more and more information that goes to show just how completely dishonest Bush and Co. has been. How else would one explain his waning approval rating?
Thanks for this summary. I love that Rowan Williams quotation!
peace,
eric
Post a Comment
<< Home