Sunday August 27, 2006
“War on terror” proves an abject failure
Last week, the United Church of Canada\’s General Council – the highest court of the denomination, meeting every three years – adopted a policy urging members, congregations, and organizations to do business only with ethically responsible companies whose policies contribute to peace in the Middle East.
“Non-peaceful purposes” include “any government or organization” that “refuses to recognize the legitimate rights of the State of Israel, including its right to exist as a Jewish state,” or that provides “products, services, or technology that sustain, support, or maintain the occupation” of Palestinian territories.”
That doesn\’t leave many governments or organizations available.
Because the most lasting effect of the Bush administration in Washington may well have been to polarize the world into pro-Israel and anti-Israel camps.
Some will no doubt criticize the United Church for meddling in politics. Just as they denounced the Presbyterian Church (USA) when it adopted a similar investment strategy.
I argue that the church should be involved. Because the roots of Bush\’s policies are theological.
As an avowed evangelical, Bush cannot question the authority of the Bible. And the Bible is very clear – Israel is the primary locus of God\’s concern here on earth. Therefore Bush must support Israel, whatever it does. He has no choice.
Imperilling Israel
Seymour Hersh, the journalist who uncovered the massacre at My Lai during the Vietnam war and more recently revealed the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, writing in the New Yorker magazine, accused the U.S. of encouraging Israel\’s recent attack on Lebanon.
Quoting a U.S. government consultant, Hersh said: "Earlier this summer… several Israeli officials visited Washington, separately, \’to get a green light for the bombing operation…”
The Israeli attack, current and former government officials told Hersh, fitted nicely into the Bush administration\’s desire to reduce the threat of possible Hezbollah retaliation against Israel should the U.S. launch a military strike against Iran.
Author Alan Hart argues that Bush\’s policies actually imperil the survival of Israel.
“For the first time in its shortish history,” Hart told the International Institute of Strategic Studies, Israel “could face the possibility of defeat… Israel\’s latest military adventure has been totally counter-productive… It has caused Hezbollah to be admired by the angry and humiliated masses of the Arab and wider Moslem world… Arabs and Moslems everywhere begin to entertain the thought: \’If 3,000 Hezbollah guerrillas can stand up to mighty Israel for weeks and give it a seriously bloody nose, what would happen if we all joined the fight?\’”
Michael Scheuer, who served in the CIA for 22 years before resigning in 2004, agrees: “No matter how you spin it, this will be viewed as a victory for Hezbollah. The idea of Israel being militarily omnipotent is fading.”
The opposite effect
Increasingly, Bush\’s “war on terror” is being recognized as an abject failure. Fox News and CNN continue to proclaim jingoistic patriotism, but the alternative media are becoming increasingly strident about Bush\’s policies in general, and the Iraq war in particular.
Mark Morford, in the San Francisco Gate, is scathing: “Dubya… couldn\’t even point to Iraq on a map before Dick Cheney showed him which country we should destroy in the wake of Sept. 11.
“Bush\’s Vietnam 2.0 has made Osama happier \’n Ronald McDonald at a fat farm… [because] Bush\’s righteous warmongering has served as free publicity for recruiting fresh terrorists. Bush didn\’t cause Middle Eastern unrest. He just lobbed $300 billion worth of firecrackers into that seething hornet\’s nest.”
Robert Parry of Consortium News writes, “Faced with George W. Bush\’s disastrous policies in the Middle East… the question arises whether the President has become a \’clear and present danger\’ to the security of the United States and, indirectly, to Israel.”
So far, Bush\’s Middle Eastern adventures have cost over 3000 American deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. Plus 15,000 seriously wounded (25,000 wounded overall), plus at least 5,500 American military personnel who have deserted.
Despite this human and financial cost, do Americans feel safer today than they did in early 2001?
Hardly. There is now, in fact, no place on earth where Americans can feel secure. Not even London or Toronto.
“We\’re not safer,” Scheuer says, “because we\’re still operating on the assumption that we\’re hated because of our freedoms, when in fact we\’re hated because of our actions in the Islamic world — our military presence in Islamic countries, the perception that we control the Muslim world\’s oil production, our support for Israel and for countries that oppress Muslims such as China, Russia, and India, and our support for Arab tyrannies. The deal we made with Qadaffi in Libya looks like hypocrisy: we\’ll make peace with a brutal dictator if it gets us oil.”
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It\’s also worth pursuing Richard Fairchild\’s United Online site. Another site worth visiting is David Keating\’s \”SeemslikeGod\” page.
Even the notion of a “war on terror” reveals Bush\’s mental monorail. His perception is dictated by apocalyptic biblical verses that portray the world as a battleground between good and evil. If Bush represents “good” – as an evangelical Christian, he could not take any other viewpoint – the other side must be “evil.”
But although that view may be unquestioned in some quarters, it\’s by no means universal in Christian thought. It needs to be challenged by a less shallow theology.
A war on terror – like the war on drugs and war on poverty – is as unrealistic as a war on tornadoes or rainbows.
As retired US Army general William Odom noted: "Terrorism is not an enemy. It cannot be defeated. It\’s a tactic."
Therefore, Odom concluded, "We\’re not going to win a war on terrorism.”
Bluntly put, every one of Bush\’s interventions in the Middle East has produced exactly the opposite effect from what he intended. Each one has brought America and Americans further into disrepute.
We got into this mess because the more liberal Christian churches naively assumed that a politician could keep his religious beliefs separate from his legislative responsibilities.
Bush cannot. That\’s what makes him dangerous.
That\’s why it\’s high time that churches like the United Church get involved again.
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Copyright © 2006 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
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