Every diplomatic avenue taken and failed, then, China concluded that invasion was the last resort for eliminating the threat America posed to the world– after all, it proliferated nuclear weapons, had supported nasty dictators, and had a nasty track record of invading sovereign states without U.N. permission.

No matter, the Chinese leadership said. America had a formidable military, yes, but President Sherman had for several years been quite unpopular, including among military brass. “We will be greeted as liberators,” Chinese leaders crowed. “The people, realizing they could be free of such corrupt leadership, will be glad to see us!”

Were they ever wrong. Americans, as it turned out, had a thing against foreign invaders, no matter what their opinion of their President. The military put up a heroic but ultimately futile stand agains the Chinese invaders, but hundreds of thousands of individual gun owners rushed to the streets to form makeshift militias. These proved devastating to the occupiers. Furthermore, the Chinese made the mistake of laying off several million workers from a number of corporations deemed corrupt. Their intention was noble: they would set up new companies based on Chinese ideology. Because of the violence and the fact that Americans were loath to accept the occupiers’ concepts, though, these companies never got off the ground, leaving millions of workers permanently unemployed.

This, of course, had dire effects on the violence. Out of work, many normally-law-abiding citizens turned to militias as their only source of identity and money. These militia leaders, after all, paid handsomely to plant bombs and shoot Chinese soldiers, and many men and boys jumped at these opportunities.

Although there are competing stories of what happened next, it seems that the nation spiraled into civil war from that point on. Warlords ruled the streets, paying their soldiers to kill others, and men willingly did it, as they had no other hope for money. Traditional social bonds broke down, and soon major battles were breaking out between left and right, caucasian and Mexican-American. People who would not normally have killed each other now believed in the doctrine of war after seeing so many of their loved ones killed.

The war in America was long unpopular among a certain portion of the Chinese populace. But now that the war was getting bogged down, a fierce debate broke out. Some spoke thus: “What is wrong with these people? Do they not have the capacity to enjoy freedom? It just doesn’t make sense why they would turn to violence rather than helping to create a better society.” Those same people rushed to question the patriotism of their political opponents. “We need to win this thing,” they said. “There are terrorists in America who oppose the freedom we have brought, and they must be defeated.” Nevertheless, the Chinese government strangely did not address the economic problems that stood behind so much of the American violence.

Sadly, Chinese politicians on both sides paid little attention to American wishes. Pull out, stay the course, good Americans versus terrorists– those were common words in the political debate. But few were listening to those Americans, some of whom were even involved in the violence, who wished for jobs that could help to curb the strife.

—————-

Truly– it does not make sense. Or does it?

At the outset, I should note that as a Christian pacifist, I believe heeding Christ’s call and caring for the world’s citizenry should be a higher concern than supporting American troops. Still, this seems to be an important issue these days, so here are my thoughts on the issue:

The Troops as Individuals

We need to start, for the time being, by dividing the issue of “supporting the troops” from that of “supporting the mission.” See, the troops are individuals, and as such they deserve our love and support. I have a number of military friends, some of whom have been to Iraq. In fact, I just talked to one yesterday. I give love and friendship to these people, as they are children of God who are loved by Him. I do not agree with their occupation, but agreement is not a prerequisite for friendship.

Also, while on the subject of soldiers as individuals, I should say that I do not hold contempt for the troops for what they do. I know that, with an all-volunteer military, the people in the military are fully responsible for the fact that they’re in the military– none of them were drafted– but still, I believe it is wrong to hate (or abuse) soldiers because of what they do. Not only is that against the Christian peacemaking witness, but I also would argue that the main responsibility for unjust wars rests with politicians and military brass. Individual soldiers should be held responsible for war crimes they commit, of course. However, we should also have sympathy for the soldiers who are being used, in a sense, as pawns in a game of economic domination.

That said, though, I believe that defending soldiers by saying “they’re just doing their job” is somewhat of a cop-out. Heck, Hitler’s SS troops were “doing their job” when they gassed Jews. That was the excuse they gave when on trial. People who work in porn shops and strip clubs are also “doing their jobs”. Clearly, while reasonable people may disagree about the morailty of soldiering, we should be able to agree that the excuse “they’re just doing their job” is not good enough.

Supporting the Mission

Is “supporting the troops” one and the same as “supporting the mission”? Well, as I see it, most people hold one of two basic positions on this issue. On the one hand, there are those who would reason as follows:

(1) Our nation’s foreign policy is always just, and
(2) Our nation can always win, provided we equip our military properly
(3) Therefore, the only way to support the troops is to make sure they win

Then, there is another position, as follows:

(1) Our nation is imperfect, so it may or may not always be right, and
(2) Our nation may or may not always be able to win every battle through military might
(3) Therefore, to support the troops may, at times, mean admitting we were wrong.

Let me give some examples. Using the first line of reasoning, many people compare the Iraq War to World War II. It would have been wrong to pull out of World War II, they say, even when the going got tough, because we were fighting a just war and because we had the wherewithal to win. That, people say, would have been unsupportive of the troops. On the other hand, we use the second line of reasoning when speaking of Nazi Germany. They were fighting an unjust war and could not have won. Therefore, it was wrong of Hitler to keep fighting and waste the lives of so many soldiers.

I would argue that the first line of reasoning is unsupportable. While I understand that many people hold a certain emotional attachment to this nation, it is simply impossible to argue that we are always just. We defend ourselves by saying we are “a nation of laws, not of men”, but the fact is that our constitution, while it is a pretty good one, was written by men, and it is interpreted by them. Thus we are just as prone as any other nation to human error and evil. We may sometimes be less evil than our enemies, and other times we may be more so.

Where does that leave us? I suppose it means that, if we are to support the individuals in the military, we must do all we can to unbiasedly judge each situation on its own merits. The notion that America is always right, or can always prevail, is out.

However, today I am not going to focus on this issue. Rather, I wanted to piggy-back on a subject Carl began: the character of America. Specifically, I will talk about patriotic correctness.

This, in a nutshell, is political correctness that is used in the defense of our nation. Instead of prohibiting offensive language about (for instance) handicapped people or women, it prohibits talk that questions the preeminence of America. It forces us to talk euphemistically when talking about our nation’s faults or mistakes. There are numerous examples:

• President Bush, apparently learning the lessons of the Vietnam War, during which time the TV and print media showed the horrors of war firsthand, prohibited showing caskets of dead soldiers on TV. Likewise, most news networks, even those with a “liberal” reputation, tend not to show horrific images of war at all. In other words, they’re keeping us from seeing the blood and carnage, which (the cynic would say) is a big factor in keeping us on board with the war effort.

• When talking about civilian casualties during war, we use terms like “collateral damage” rather than “murdered civilians.”

• The term “terrorist” is loaded with political implications. If Islamic radicals kill innocent Americans or Israelis, that’s terrorism. But if America carpet-bombs civilians in a German city or Israel flattens an entire neighborhood because some suspected terrorists live there, that’s “just what happens during war.”

• You don’t question the traditional view of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; if you do, you’re an unpatriotic traitor. If you present evidence that we knew Japan wanted to talk about terms of surrender (here and here, for example), you are considered intelligent and persistent, but still a traitor.

• It’s best not to talk too much about bad things America has done, but if you must, be sure to refer to them only as “mistakes,” and not as evil actions that could call the country’s good character into question. Bill O’Reilly summed this attitude up best when, angry at a liberal caller on The Factor, he asked, “So, are you saying that America is flawed?” He said this as if saying “America is flawed” were akin to saying “the earth is flat”.

• During wartime, a certain amount of dissent is allowed, but only that which is given for the purpose of helping America win the war. Under no circumstances do you question America’s right to win; in other words, America is always on the right side, and if you question that, it’s because you’re on the enemy’s side.

• You cannot question whether America’s enemies have any legitimacy whatsoever. They are always wrong, and so is every person (think Jane Fonda) who is willing to talk to them.

• JFK was killed by a single deranged madman, and those who question it are probably just conspiracy nuts (despite the House Select Committee on Assassinations’ hearings on the subject). Conspiracy-type assassinations, according to patriotic correctness, only happen in other countries.

Although one might detect a hint of sarcasm in this post, I am deadly serious about this. All of us who worship Christ must stand up and protest this. Patriotic correctness is dangerous, and we must get beyond it if we are going to make a difference here. We need to admit that our nation is just as flawed as every other.

This shouldn’t be surprising to those of us who listen to right-wing talk radio. Nevertheless, Beck’s comments got me thinking: what is patriotism? Is it true that people who strongly disapprove of their country’s policies are unpatriotic traitors, or is patriotism a little more complicated than that?

Well, let’s unpack this a bit. According to Beck and many others like him, to be patriotic is, at very least, to support your nation in its foreign policy endeavors, even if major mistakes have been made. After all, according to this line of thinking, defeat and embarrassment are two of the worst evils a nation can suffer, so victory must be fought for at all costs. It would seem, then, that the true patriot should want power, prosperity, and prestige for his or her nation.

But I would argue that things are substantially more complicated than that. After all, at what point does the committed patriot call on his nation to cease and desist, or to change course, when it has made a dangerous mistake that is harmful not only to its own well-being but to that of other people we share this planet with? At what point does the patriot, while affirming the necessity of fighting evil, question whether his nation’s current actions are truly working for good—or whether “staying the course” is contributing to this world’s evil forces in one way or another? Could we not agree that men like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who fearlessly exposed the evil of Nazi Germany, were the true patriots—both in the interests of a free Germany and a free world? I am of course not comparing the United States or President Bush to Nazi Germany, as has sometimes been done; no, my point is simply to ask whether our nation cannot also make mistakes. Is it not arrogant to believe that our nation is always right, and therefore is it not patriotic to point out those times when America is hurting itself and its world neighbors?

Another question we should ask is this: in a nation that professes to be Christian, shouldn’t it be considered patriotic to hold tightly to Christian social values such as peacemaking, social justice, and the inherent value of all people? Therefore, if our nation (which claims to be Christian) is taking action that runs against such Christian teachings, do not all patriots have the duty to speak out?

In a country where we have freedom of speech, Beck and others certainly have the right to question the patriotism of liberals. But we have both the right and the duty to question his definitions.

But even though Jesus and the subsequent apostles put a stake through the heart of scapegoating, it has taken Christians far longer to catch on. We still do it. Whatever the problem, you can be sure that one Christian group or another (or one secular group or another, for that matter) will find someone else to blame. I do this sometimes, and so do all of us. But we need to begin looking past our scapegoating nature and look first at the “log” that is in our own eye.

Examples of scapegoating are numerous. Conservative Christians have their list: it is the “secularists” (e.g. postmodernists, relativists, feminists, evolutionists, gays, abortionists… the list goes on). It is easy for conservatives to pin blame on these people, because it absolves them. It is the gays out in The Village and San Fransisco; it is the secular postmodernists in the liberal universities. You can hear this from the pulpit in conservative evangelical churches, and most congregants will agree. Premarital sex? Yes, that’s ruining America. Our country is obsessed with it. The secularists? Sure. But then what happens when you question the extravagant wealth often present in these churches (both their buildings and their congregants)? What if you question the allegiance to the false nationalistic mythology, embodied by the American flag standing next to the Christian flag in many sanctuaries? Suddenly, you are hit with a wave of arguments, qualifications, and technicalities that any relativist would be proud of. You realize, suddenly, that you hit too close to home. You see, people know how to qualify their sins so that they don’t seem sinful.

More liberal churches, generally speaking, have a similar problem. Talk of social justice abounds, but too often such talk doesn’t call into question our lifestyles; it focuses on oppressive structures. The scapegoats are the consumerists, materialists, those who won’t take care of the environment, the government… but not us. You can talk about social justice as it relates to the Bible, but be careful, and prepare to hear a strong defense, if you want to talk about sexual morality.

What if the problem is all of us? That is what Jesus showed us. And that is what we need to realize once again.

Recently, though, I have been reading an interpretation of René Girard’s theories by Gil Bailie, and suddenly it made so much more sense. Bailie gives a Christian apologetic by presenting the gospel of Christ as the thing that came from Heaven to destroy religion, not simply another religion. Here is a rough summary of some of Bailie’s argument:

Religion is a complex animal that performs many societal tasks. In the area of conflict and violence, religion—especially primitive religion—plays a very specific role. Generally speaking, it takes the violence inherent in society, which is mostly cyclical and subject to mimesis, and makes a system out of it. It blesses certain kinds of violence, condemns others as profane, and creates rituals and myths that help tell the story of that society from the perspective of those who created the given religion. The “profane” violence is utterly despised, and “sacred” or simply “good” violence is used in attempts to straighten society out—again, though, from the perspective of those creating the religious system. The myths that are created come, in the minds of the religion’s adherents, to be believed as accurate “history,” even though they only tell one side of the story, obscuring every other.

In a religious society such as this, scapegoating becomes a problem as well, as religionists try to explain away their problems by blaming, and thus sacrificing, persecuting, or killing certain individuals, ethnicities, or societies.

This is pervasive in our world, and can be observed in almost any culture. Into such a system, the gospel message of Christ comes and confounds everything. It preaches grassroots action, taking the side of the poor and oppressed, vindicating the scapegoats, and befriending the prostitutes. It threatens, although fairly subtly, the existing hierarchies, both political and religious. And it clearly has no need for the myths that try to uphold the social system and proclaim the need for violence. It then culminates its message by having its leader die a criminal’s death by crucifixion, but then beats the system of death by coming back to life. Where other stories had presented the society as good and those who died as evil, or deserving of their fate, the gospel message presents God as taking that exact role of scapegoat, the one who took the violence of the system upon Himself. This is not simply another myth; no, this is the anti-myth, the anti-religion. Christ and His apostles did not simply seek to re-regulate society, control violence, and form new political and ethnic myths. They taught emphatically that that time is over, and the followers of this new faith are to reject the old system that is based on domination.

Other systems of belief, of course, have claimed to be the anti-religion, the answer to religious destruction. Various modern and postmodern philosophies fit this bill, hoping to be able to set right the world and enlighten it, free it from the bondage of religion. But these systems themselves have become enslaved to the most destructive tendencies of primitive religion, because they have not managed, as the gospel has, to turn upside-down the worldly assumptions of domination, scapegoating, and ethnocentricity. In a very real way, then, the Christian gospel is not simply the best and most reasonable religion to believe in; it is rather the only entity in this world that has true power to destroy religion once and for all. Such is the power of the gospel.

I should point out before I finish that I do not see this as replacing all other apologetic arguments, nor do I see this as capturing the totality of the Christian faith. I do, though, see the ideas of Girard and Bailie to be vindicating and stimulating as I have delved deeper into Christianity.

With regards to violence in our society, mimesis works most commonly by making violence contagious. The belief in violence and force is immitated from the halls of Congress to the street corner, from the abortion clinic to the execution chamber. It spreads like a disease up and down, infecting every echelon of society. The result is that people in our culture grow up socialized to believe in the effectiveness of violence, as well as having faith in individualism, greed, and upward mobility– even if it means stepping on others in the process.

For instance, we have politicians who advocate war against adversaries in so many circumstances. Force, for them, is a primary way of getting things done. But then those same politicians grope for answers when dealing with the murder rate or the prevalence of school shootings. The usual suspects are mentioned: Marilyn Manson, violent video games, the like. It seems to rarely, if ever, occur to these national leaders that maybe their own actions have something to do with it all.

That is a central reason why, I believe, our society has such a problem with violence on so many levels. We immitate it without even trying to. We believe in it wholeheartedly. So if we ever want to lower our murder or abortion rate, we must take a holistic look at our violence problem in this society; we cannot tackle one problem as if it were isolated.

Luckily for those of us who are Christians, there is something else that purports to be contagious: the Kingdom of God and its ethics. Jesus spoke of His Kingdom as yeast or as a mustard seed, which both start small but subtly permeate everything. So we need not fear the violence in our society, and realize that Jesus has something that is much more powerful. All we need is faith to believe it will work.

The Union Project promotes art exhibitions as fundraisers and partners with the city of Pittsburgh in community redevelopment. They are also located one block away from MennoCorps’ Pittsburgh unit, which is called Pulse. And those of us who have participated in BikeMovement might be interested to know that a local bike shop in their neighborhood sponsors a bicycle team. And some of you may know Brad Yoder, a locally-based “singer-songmaker” who lives in their neighborhood and first came to Pittsburgh through Pulse.

I know of a Mennonite church that’s had a lot of problems in the past decade. They’ve split in ‘99, fired their pastor in ‘02, and now their next pastor is resigning because he feels he can’t contend with the warring factions in the church.

Now, clearly, they have some militant members who see “winning” as the ultimate goal. They seem to want the church to be modeled after them. That’s a problem that’s reared its head every time the church has split or lost its pastor.

But more concerning is the people who believe in peacemaking, yet have expressed their belief by turning a blind eye to the problems, hoping they’ll go away. That is not peace; it is denial. And it’s sad to see our peace witness lived out in such a way. Jesus taught a “third way” of overcoming hostility, not fight or flight but attacking the problem (not the person) head-on. He taught that we shouldn’t use violence, but we should work to expose evil, even when it resides inside of ourselves.

So I want to be part of a new vision for peace. Too often I’ve been one to stand by quietly, fearful of stirring the waters. So I want to change that. Our new vision needs to shun militancy and passivism. We don’t want to destroy our church to win, nor should we sweep problems under the rug. We need the “third way” of peacemaking within our Mennonite churches, so we can tell the world with confidence that peacemaking works.

Conservatives blame liberals for being “soft” on terrorism. Liberals blame the neocons. And everybody in America seems to ultimately blame the insurgents and “terrorists” who “hate freedom and the democratic process.”

But as usual, things are not that simple. Not nearly. There are several factors that most middle east scholars and experts foresaw. Let me enumerate some of them, since I believe it is imperative for us to understand world events so we can make a difference:

1) Religious: Sunnis and Shiites are different. They have major religious disagreements that go back to the generation after Mohammed. And they’ve been fighting pretty much ever since, off and on. Saddam Hussein, brutal as he was, held the country together. But now that there’s a power vacuum, the religous tensions have inevitably exploded.

2) Political: There are several issues here. First of all, Iraq and most of its Arab neighbors are artificial states, carved out by the British after the Ottoman Empire collapsed. Iraq’s Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds were never in a country together. It was stupid of the British to create the modern state of Iraq, and it was doubly stupid for America to think the country wouldn’t fall apart into its different traditional groups once the dictatorship was taken away.

Secondly, the Sunnis in Iraq are in a minority, yet Saddam came from their group, so the Shiites have been persecuted along with the Kurds. The Shiites, naturally, want revenge (or justice) and the Sunnis want power back.

Thirdly, the Kurds want their own state. They always have. But Turkey, as much as it wants to curb the violence in its neighbor, is against a separate Kurdish state, because many Kurds live in Turkey. That means they’d lose territory.

3) Economic: First off, the Shiites (and to a lesser extent the Kurds) are sitting on all of Iraq’s oil. The Sunnis mostly get barren desert. So that creates conflict whereby the Shiites and Kurds want independent states much more than the Sunnis do. This creates infighting among the Sunni groups.

Second, America caused a lot of the violence in Iraq by its economic policies before and during the war. First of all, the economic sanctions, while effective at stalling Saddam’s attempts at getting banned weapons (our intelligence knew this, by the way), demoralized the Iraqi people and caused more unemployment, poverty, sickness, and general dissatisfaction among the people. To add insult to injury, America under Paul Bremer disbanded Iraq’s nationalized industries and businesses, letting some 500,000 people go unemployed. Without the guarantee of money or the universal tie to government jobs, people started falling back on ethnic groups and militias, which provided comfort and improvement on the current system. Think about that last number: 500,000. If only one in ten of these people joined militias (or even supported them in some way), that would make 50,000 fighters, spread out between different groups. If we wondered where all the insurgents came from, this is a primary source.

So, as some might ask, what’s the upshot of this? Ummm… I’m not exactly sure. We’re all small individuals. But I believe education on world events is important, and I feel compelled to speak out, following a noble line of social critics.