The war in Iraq: what's next?
Political Pulpit
Object:
Because we have to submit this column months ahead of the actual publication date, we
can't be certain that the War in Iraq will be the front-burner issue for the presidential
primaries and caucuses that it is now. But even if the Surge works better come January
than General Petraeus thought it would during his September testimony before Congress,
and even if the withdrawal of troops is underway, the war and its aftermath will be very
much on the agenda of the next president's administration. Getting your parishioners to
begin thinking about these issues can make no little contribution to the upcoming election
cycle this year, not to mention, if we could build coalitions among Christians, the
possibility of making a contribution to American society and the rest of the world.
At first glance, the assigned texts for the first months of the New Year do not appear to address the war very clearly. The first lesson for January 1 (Ecclesiastes 3:1-13) sings the famed lines of there being a time for all things, including for war and peace. If you hold a New Year's service, this text provides you with fodder for a sermon on political realism about the war. (More on that later.) The second lessons of January 13 and February 24 (Acts 10:34-43; Romans 5:1-11) do allude briefly to peace associated with faith in Christ. But most of the Sunday texts relevant to contemporary politics during these months do not address issues of war and peace directly, but are more directed toward our responsibility to the poor (see the first lessons for January 6 and January 27 [Isaiah 60:1- 6; Isaiah 9:1-4]) as well as the second lesson for January 6 (Ephesians 3:1-12). However, as Wes and I will show you, the war has a lot to do with the poor, and when you begin to take that reality seriously, it is likely to give you a new perspective on what we ought to do next with this terrible, very stupid war we are fighting.
With all the talk about American interests in the so-called War on Terror and our self- congratulations about ridding the world of Saddam Hussein, consider what we have done to the Iraqi people. With the war, their standard of living has tragically declined. At last report, 54% of the nation was in poverty and at least 20% were unemployed. Two million Iraqis are in refugee camps in neighboring countries and close to two million other refugees live in urban slums. The lectionary texts on poverty previously noted afford excellent opportunities to help your parishioners appreciate our responsibility to the nation we have allegedly come to help. The World Bank estimates it will cost more than $100 billion over the next ten years in order to rebuild Iraq. Maybe it's time we started talking about a Marshall Plan for Iraq, to pump money into this nation in order to build its economy in a manner akin to the way we helped rebuild Western Europe after World War II. In fact, as we will see after studying a key benchmark for Iraqi political progress set by the Bush administration, our government has very different plans for the nation we say we came to liberate.
Concern about the poor is also an agenda to consider when we attend to who has fought this war for us and what "sacrifices" most Americans are making. In previous columns about the war, I've drawn attention to how, unless we are serving congregations in impoverished areas or hail from those regions, few of us regularly encounter GIs serving in Iraq. The statistics bear out this impression. In 2004, nearly two-thirds of Army recruits come from counties in which the median household income is below the US median. Many American cultural elites complain about the immigrants, but about 5% of our troops are foreign-born, and half of those are not yet citizens. America's poor and disenfranchised are giving our nation a lot more than we are in this war. Is it not our task and joy as Christians to start caring for them more than we have? To date, most of us, including our parishioners have been more consumed with our jobs, the decline of property values, and maybe health insurance than we have been concerned about the men and women fighting the war and the impact of that war on the ordinary people of Iraq.
No two ways about it: This war is a mess! We need to nurture a movement among American Christians to get our present and future presidents to attend to that insight. To date, though, too much of the anti-war peace movement has been conducted with the rhetoric of middle-class American self-interest or with idealistic rhetoric about the evils of war. The naiveté of these approaches in part accounts for their lack of success to date. Let's consider organizing a movement for ending this war for the sake of the Iraqis who are suffering and commit ourselves to helping them build their nation economically while building an army for the future which is not so much comprised of the children of poverty and of immigrants. To address these tasks successfully, we may need to stay in Iraq longer.
It is obvious here that I am not convinced that Bush's Democratic critics have it right. Arbitrarily to set withdrawal dates as several of the party's most prominent presidential candidates have is a strategy for pandering to immediate American self-interests, which neither addresses biblical injunctions pertinent to the plight of impoverished Iraqis nor the disparities of military service in our nation, and also overlooks the real threats to American well-being on the horizon. Obviously, if we cut and run, the Iraqis remain in poverty, condemned for the immediate future to ethnic tensions or civil war. And the status quo of our all-volunteer military drawing on families different from most of us college-educated types and our friends will remain in place. Withdrawal also overlooks the consequences of an Iraq likely to become dominated by an increasingly militant Iran, which has been developing a nuclear program and perhaps nuclear arms. Indeed, we need a new presidential administration that will not be so hung up on peace as to fail to institute policies that address the confirmed or suspected development of nuclear arms programs in India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Syria. The previously noted first lesson for January 1 reminds us that we can never have peace without at least the scepter of war.
Nurtured as we are by the doctrine of sin, and its cynicism about human motives, American Christians are uniquely positioned to help form or at least contribute to a movement that will prod our leaders and the public to start addressing these threats that may lie down the road.
Don't get me wrong, though: The peace movement the American church needs to lead cannot be the Bush model of a Draw-Down now that the Surge has "succeeded." Beware of Republican candidates opting for that strategy, too. Bush's proposal masks that his plan for troop reduction is nothing more than restoring American troop levels in Iraq to what they were prior to the Surge.
If we opt for a peace movement that keeps troops in Iraq longer to help the Iraqis, beware of the Bush benchmarks for political goals in Iraq, which Congress had largely accepted at least at press time. Of these, the most egregious is the American expectation that the Iraq Parliament enact legislation to ensure equitable distribution of hydrocarbon resources, ensuring that these resources are shared equitably among all the different religio-ethnic groups. What American could be against that? Read the fine print. When you get past the spin, this goal refers to the Hydrocarbon Law, which the Parliament has to date resisted passing (legislation written by American contractors to the Iraqi government). Ultimately it has nothing to do with sharing resources among all the people of Iraq. It gives that appearance insofar as it aims to de-nationalize virtually all the Iraq oil reserves (just allowing for seventeen of the developed oil fields to be retained by national control), but in fact the purpose of de-nationalizing is to open every other oil field to competition among a variety of oil companies. However, insofar as it is the big American oil companies that have the funds to win such bidding wars, the legislation, if passed, would effectively turn the Iraqi fields into an American preserve, shutting out local companies and probably their workers.
Now we see why we engaged the War on Terror: It was never about ending tyranny, as some of my conservative friends suggest. No, if that were a Bush administration priority we would not be neglecting the human carnage in Darfur as we have. No, the benchmark for progress we've noted makes it apparent that this war has ultimately been about getting us unrestricted access to the world's second largest proven oil reserves. It's time Americans said a resounding "no" to using this war for American interests. We can't keep fighting under these circumstances, especially when most of those fighting for the oil barons are poor. Yet realism dictates, as we've seen, that we can't get out until we help the Iraqis and thwart nearby nuclear threats (which includes protecting Israel).
Use the pulpit or other teaching moments during these months of the opening rounds of the presidential primaries to put this largely neglected data before your parishioners. It might help nurture a movement among American Christians. In our present situation, it will not be enough merely to teach American Christians the value of peace. Our Christian witness and the times call for efforts to nurture a peace movement, which makes us, and our presidential contenders accountable to the concept of justice for the poor along with a realistic sense of the sinfulness of human nature, in order both to curtail efforts to use the war to further American national self-interest while still ensuring that we do not lose sight of the emerging nuclear threats in Near East and elsewhere in Asia. We'll need a lot of political pulpits, including yours, to make that happen.
At first glance, the assigned texts for the first months of the New Year do not appear to address the war very clearly. The first lesson for January 1 (Ecclesiastes 3:1-13) sings the famed lines of there being a time for all things, including for war and peace. If you hold a New Year's service, this text provides you with fodder for a sermon on political realism about the war. (More on that later.) The second lessons of January 13 and February 24 (Acts 10:34-43; Romans 5:1-11) do allude briefly to peace associated with faith in Christ. But most of the Sunday texts relevant to contemporary politics during these months do not address issues of war and peace directly, but are more directed toward our responsibility to the poor (see the first lessons for January 6 and January 27 [Isaiah 60:1- 6; Isaiah 9:1-4]) as well as the second lesson for January 6 (Ephesians 3:1-12). However, as Wes and I will show you, the war has a lot to do with the poor, and when you begin to take that reality seriously, it is likely to give you a new perspective on what we ought to do next with this terrible, very stupid war we are fighting.
With all the talk about American interests in the so-called War on Terror and our self- congratulations about ridding the world of Saddam Hussein, consider what we have done to the Iraqi people. With the war, their standard of living has tragically declined. At last report, 54% of the nation was in poverty and at least 20% were unemployed. Two million Iraqis are in refugee camps in neighboring countries and close to two million other refugees live in urban slums. The lectionary texts on poverty previously noted afford excellent opportunities to help your parishioners appreciate our responsibility to the nation we have allegedly come to help. The World Bank estimates it will cost more than $100 billion over the next ten years in order to rebuild Iraq. Maybe it's time we started talking about a Marshall Plan for Iraq, to pump money into this nation in order to build its economy in a manner akin to the way we helped rebuild Western Europe after World War II. In fact, as we will see after studying a key benchmark for Iraqi political progress set by the Bush administration, our government has very different plans for the nation we say we came to liberate.
Concern about the poor is also an agenda to consider when we attend to who has fought this war for us and what "sacrifices" most Americans are making. In previous columns about the war, I've drawn attention to how, unless we are serving congregations in impoverished areas or hail from those regions, few of us regularly encounter GIs serving in Iraq. The statistics bear out this impression. In 2004, nearly two-thirds of Army recruits come from counties in which the median household income is below the US median. Many American cultural elites complain about the immigrants, but about 5% of our troops are foreign-born, and half of those are not yet citizens. America's poor and disenfranchised are giving our nation a lot more than we are in this war. Is it not our task and joy as Christians to start caring for them more than we have? To date, most of us, including our parishioners have been more consumed with our jobs, the decline of property values, and maybe health insurance than we have been concerned about the men and women fighting the war and the impact of that war on the ordinary people of Iraq.
No two ways about it: This war is a mess! We need to nurture a movement among American Christians to get our present and future presidents to attend to that insight. To date, though, too much of the anti-war peace movement has been conducted with the rhetoric of middle-class American self-interest or with idealistic rhetoric about the evils of war. The naiveté of these approaches in part accounts for their lack of success to date. Let's consider organizing a movement for ending this war for the sake of the Iraqis who are suffering and commit ourselves to helping them build their nation economically while building an army for the future which is not so much comprised of the children of poverty and of immigrants. To address these tasks successfully, we may need to stay in Iraq longer.
It is obvious here that I am not convinced that Bush's Democratic critics have it right. Arbitrarily to set withdrawal dates as several of the party's most prominent presidential candidates have is a strategy for pandering to immediate American self-interests, which neither addresses biblical injunctions pertinent to the plight of impoverished Iraqis nor the disparities of military service in our nation, and also overlooks the real threats to American well-being on the horizon. Obviously, if we cut and run, the Iraqis remain in poverty, condemned for the immediate future to ethnic tensions or civil war. And the status quo of our all-volunteer military drawing on families different from most of us college-educated types and our friends will remain in place. Withdrawal also overlooks the consequences of an Iraq likely to become dominated by an increasingly militant Iran, which has been developing a nuclear program and perhaps nuclear arms. Indeed, we need a new presidential administration that will not be so hung up on peace as to fail to institute policies that address the confirmed or suspected development of nuclear arms programs in India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Syria. The previously noted first lesson for January 1 reminds us that we can never have peace without at least the scepter of war.
Nurtured as we are by the doctrine of sin, and its cynicism about human motives, American Christians are uniquely positioned to help form or at least contribute to a movement that will prod our leaders and the public to start addressing these threats that may lie down the road.
Don't get me wrong, though: The peace movement the American church needs to lead cannot be the Bush model of a Draw-Down now that the Surge has "succeeded." Beware of Republican candidates opting for that strategy, too. Bush's proposal masks that his plan for troop reduction is nothing more than restoring American troop levels in Iraq to what they were prior to the Surge.
If we opt for a peace movement that keeps troops in Iraq longer to help the Iraqis, beware of the Bush benchmarks for political goals in Iraq, which Congress had largely accepted at least at press time. Of these, the most egregious is the American expectation that the Iraq Parliament enact legislation to ensure equitable distribution of hydrocarbon resources, ensuring that these resources are shared equitably among all the different religio-ethnic groups. What American could be against that? Read the fine print. When you get past the spin, this goal refers to the Hydrocarbon Law, which the Parliament has to date resisted passing (legislation written by American contractors to the Iraqi government). Ultimately it has nothing to do with sharing resources among all the people of Iraq. It gives that appearance insofar as it aims to de-nationalize virtually all the Iraq oil reserves (just allowing for seventeen of the developed oil fields to be retained by national control), but in fact the purpose of de-nationalizing is to open every other oil field to competition among a variety of oil companies. However, insofar as it is the big American oil companies that have the funds to win such bidding wars, the legislation, if passed, would effectively turn the Iraqi fields into an American preserve, shutting out local companies and probably their workers.
Now we see why we engaged the War on Terror: It was never about ending tyranny, as some of my conservative friends suggest. No, if that were a Bush administration priority we would not be neglecting the human carnage in Darfur as we have. No, the benchmark for progress we've noted makes it apparent that this war has ultimately been about getting us unrestricted access to the world's second largest proven oil reserves. It's time Americans said a resounding "no" to using this war for American interests. We can't keep fighting under these circumstances, especially when most of those fighting for the oil barons are poor. Yet realism dictates, as we've seen, that we can't get out until we help the Iraqis and thwart nearby nuclear threats (which includes protecting Israel).
Use the pulpit or other teaching moments during these months of the opening rounds of the presidential primaries to put this largely neglected data before your parishioners. It might help nurture a movement among American Christians. In our present situation, it will not be enough merely to teach American Christians the value of peace. Our Christian witness and the times call for efforts to nurture a peace movement, which makes us, and our presidential contenders accountable to the concept of justice for the poor along with a realistic sense of the sinfulness of human nature, in order both to curtail efforts to use the war to further American national self-interest while still ensuring that we do not lose sight of the emerging nuclear threats in Near East and elsewhere in Asia. We'll need a lot of political pulpits, including yours, to make that happen.
