There is No "War on Terrorism"

Are our memories truly this short? Have we forgotten how much we laughed at George Bush for mixing his metaphors? A primitive laugh in agony, to be sure, for we recognized the danger in his falsehood. He sought to use the language of the War on Drugs (now largely forgotten), and apply it to terrorism. The problem was, everyone recognized that the War on Drugs was a metaphor. One could only use it in reference to terrorism in the same way. Terrorism is an idea. It is a noun, but not a proper one. It is neither person, nor country, nor organization. It is a concept. One can no more have a war on terrorism than one can have a war on an idea. That is to say, one can do so to the extent that one remembers it is a metaphor.

But the danger remains- if it is truly believed to be an actual war, then George Bush gains great power, for he is a war-time leader. And this is indeed what happened. Though we weren't at war, he was granted the liberty of movement as if we were at war. This liberty given up by the US congress lead directly to the carte blanche ability to invade Afghanistan, and then Iraq. Then we were truly at war- with Afghanistan, and with Iraq. And because of these wars, many 100s of 1000s are dead, and millions made refugees. All because we allowed our leader to mix his metaphors.

Imagine then, my deep and abiding chagrin, to hear my beloved candidate now using the same hated Bushian language, referring to the "War on Terrorism", as he states that Afghanistan is where the front is. No, Obama, and again I say "No!" There is no war on terrorism. There is a war in Iraq, there is a war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, but not on terrorism.

Just semantics? No. For witness what the appropriation of Bush-speak is leading Obama into. He is now speaking of the need to Surge in Afghanistan, in order to deal with the Taliban there. He will reduce troops significantly, withdraw completely in 16 months, give or take, in Iraq. But he will increase troops in Afghanistan- for this is the head-point of the War on Terror.

Have we forgotten so easily why we were against Bush's actions in Afghanistan originally? He too quickly was happy to engage in war, without regard to the consequences, in the heat and fury after 9/11. Because he saw 9/11 as an attack on America, rather than the world, as witnessed by the attack on the World Trade Center, Bush ignored the possible cost to human lives, in complete contravening of any semblance of Just War Theory.

We invaded Afghanistan because we were not willing to give negotiations a chance- as many pointed out at the time. (But of course, that's just Saturday Morning Quarterbacking.) We ignored the culture of the peoples because that was inconvenient. Yes, they had Osama bin Laden, and yes, they could have given him up. But in their culture, a person in the country is a guest, and one does not disown their guests. This is a deep and abiding belief in the Middle East- some thing that we should at the very least be familiar with, as it is central to the scriptures of the dominant religion that Western civilization is based upon.

Without this recognition, the story of Lot with his guests makes no sense. The men of Sodom and Gomorrah were exceedingly wicked, and demanded that Lot send out his guests so that the men could rape them. Lot comes out, and tells them this is evil. So far we understand. But then he makes the strangest statement- he offers his own daughters in the place of his guests!

Now we find such a response to Sophie's Choice exceedingly repugnant, and rightfully so. If one had to decide, God forbid, how can one choose against one's own daughters? But one must remember that not all cultures have the same ethics that we do. Indeed, most theologians agree that the sin which Sodom and Gomorrah were published for was not homosexuality, but rather a lack of hospitality, a cardinal sin in the ancient world.

While I wouldn't suggest that most Middle Eastern fathers would make the same choice today, the commitment to hospitality remains just as strong. Despite many statements from cultural experts at the time, Bush ignored their expertise, and pressed ahead. He went to bomb Afghanistan, rather than to have the slow negotiations which would have recognized and honored the Taliban and Afghani's commitment to ethics of hospitality, while moving forward to get them to finally give up Osama bin Laden. Instead of negotiations, Bush went for ultimatums, the only form of talk he appears to understand. He was too eager to grab Osama bin Laden, and so like the proverbial monkey grabbing too strongly, Osama slipped through his fingers.

One can not argue our military approach lead to success, for we still search for him. What it did lead to was countless deaths- American, Afghani, and Afghani civilians. Sure, the repressive regime of the Taliban was removed, but that was never our motivation- and now the Taliban has long returned to their own Surge, reaching levels of control close to what they had before we invaded Afghanistan. Do we want to find Osama, and stop the Taliban today? Or do we want to find a way to change the hearts of Arabs and Muslims, the Taliban and the Iraqi insurgent, so they realize that they should end the killing, that they should fight no more forever? The old failed policy focused on immediate results, and achieved them. It left the long term legacy of failure to us.

The Troop Increase in Iraq has not worked. Sure, American deaths are reduced- as we would expect, when we send more people with guns over there. And Iraqi civilian deaths are up- as we would expect when we send more people with guns over there. So why is Obama proposing that we send more troops to Afghanistan, when such a policy has so abysmally failed in Iraq? This is a candidate who has campaigned as something new, and spoke of talking with world leaders, even our enemies.

So I challenge you, Senator Obama: Do as you said you would. Do something new. Do what we should have done originally in Afghanistan. Go to the Taliban, and begin to talk with them. Negotiate with them. Recognize where they are coming from, and what their needs are. Be bold on our utter rejection of their human rights violations. Be bold on our demand for their help to capture Osama. But do this in negotiation. Sure, it's slower. Sure, it's not sexy Shock and Awe. But it is far more just. It is far more kind. And it is far more likely to achieve our goals.

Praise God for Obama's Pastor

Obama's pastor has gotten in the news recently. If you haven't heard, some sermons the Reverend Jeremiah Wright gave in 2001 and 2003 are causing some problems for Obama. Relevant passages include:

We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the
thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye. We have
supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and
now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now bought right
back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost.

That was the Sunday after 9/11, the day I was searching for a non-patriotic church to attend and came upon Friends Memorial Quaker Church. A couple years later The Reverend Wright said:

The government gave [the blacks] the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a
three-strikes law, and then wants us to sing "God Bless America". No, no, no.
God damn America. That's in the Bible, for killing innocent people. God damn
America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as
long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.

Finally, someone willing to speak truth about America's actions- and what the rest of the world has long known. As horrific and evil as the 9/11 attacks were, they didn't take place in a vacuum. There were things we did that encouraged them. But I don't want to talk about that.

I find it interesting that people who (rightly) decry the invasion of religion into politics by the Religious Right now want to force the Rev. Wright to not speak from the pulpit certain ideas, for they are politically appropriate. But I don't want to talk about that.

And I want to say that, as much as I admire the Reverend for what he said, in some places he went overboard. He should not have said "God damn America", but rather the past tense, that God has damned America, for we are called to bless, and not curse. And rather then say damn, he should have said "God judged America", for no man can know the soul of another, and certainly not that of a nation. I think Reverend Wright was looking for the rhetorical flourish, but some words should be very carefully used. Had he said, "God has judged America and found us wanting," he would have been on very solid Biblical ground.

That's what I want to talk about. The Reverend Wright was simply fulfilling the role of the prophet- a role we find throughout the Bible. If there is one most repeated theme in the Old Testament, it is God and his prophets calling the people back to justice and kind treatment of the outcast- and retribution if they do not return to righteousness.

Lest we think though that this is only an Old Testament deal, Jesus stated his mission as

to preach good news to the poor...
to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight to the blind
to proclaim an acceptable Year of the Lord.

This is very clearly a reference to the Jubilee Year, a year commanded by God every 70 years (but probably never actually practiced by Israel), a very socialist event where all property is redistributed, loans canceled, and slaves freed. Its so clear that this is an Old Testament reference, that Jesus is actually quoting III Isaiah 61.1,2- that's why its in verse form.

Of course, there's another theme to the prophets. They are all rejected, and many of them killed, which ended up happening to Jesus too. Prophets by their very nature are not acceptable to the establishment. Prophets and kings rarely got along in the Old Testament. Come to think of it, Herod and Jesus didn't get along too well either.

Now, Obama has come out and said that he supports a lot of what the reverend Wright says about justice and hope (and even wrote a book based on one of Wright's sermons), but he utterly rejects and denounces what the Reverend said in these two sermons, for which Obama wasn't present.

I wish Obama hadn't done that. I want a candidate who will stand up and reject the evil that America has done. Who will be so adamant in the pursuit of justice that they will even admit when America has not been just to others, as we have not been so many times in our history. I want a prophet. But Obama is running to be our equivalent of king.

This is why it is impossible to fully follow Christ and be Caesar. The kind of power a political leader has was antithetical to the way of Jesus. Christianity is inherently a minority suffering community, and has no truck with the ways of power and oppression.

But I also know that, had Obama supported his pastor, he wouldn't get elected. You have to rally around the flag to be elected President. Even if the people are called to hard work, as Kennedy did and Obama is doing, they don't want to be told that what they have done is evil, no matter how true. Americans don't want prophets. They want to be told that all is well, or will be well, and profit will return.

I want someone to be President who will call us to justice, no matter what. I want someone elected who is inherently unelectable.