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Out of Iraq
November
19, 2006
Rev.
Paul Beckel
First
Universalist Unitarian
Church
~ www.uuwausau.org
Be gentle and you can be
bold;
Be frugal and you can be
liberal (generous);
Be humble (avoid putting
yourself before others)
and you can become a leader. Lao Tzu
You have not converted a
man because you have silenced him. John Viscount Marley
Oddly, we seem to have
forgotten what Vietnam
should have taught us about the limitations of the military as an instrument
of ‘nation-building.’ Promoting democracy requires attention to specific
circumstances and to the limitations of U.S. leverage. Both because of
what the United States
is, and because of what is possible, we cannot engage either in promoting
democracy or in nation-building as an exercise of will. We must proceed by
interaction and indirection, not imposition.
Paul Wolfowitz, 2000 (pre–9/11)
Nobody benefits more than
we do from the observance of international ‘rules of the road.’ We can’t win
converts to those rules if we act as if they apply to everyone except us.
When the world’s sole superpower willingly restrains its power and abides by
internationally agreed upon standards of conduct, it sends a message that
these are rules worth following, and robs terrorist and dictators of the argument
that these rules are simply tools of American imperialism. Barack Obama
The
use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does
not remove the necessity of subduing again.
Edmund Burke
In March 2003, shortly before
the invasion of Iraq,
I spoke here about just war theory and why I believed this war did not fit
its criteria. Many of you, of course, find the just war theory unhelpful
because you believe that war cannot be justified under any circumstances. I’m
often tempted to join you in this point of view, but so far I have not.
Just war theories propose
a list of criteria which must be met in order to justify going to war. One of
these criteria is “a reasonable chance of success.” In 2003 I expressed my
opinion that “Operation Iraqi Freedom” did not fulfill this criterion because
I believed that we did not have the resources we would need to succeed. My
concern was not that the U.S.
military would be unable to take Baghdad, but
that a war would not succeed in bringing long-term benefits to the United States, to Iraq, or to the global community.
I took some small comfort at the time, congratulating myself in advance for
being right. But I was also pretty depressed. I felt powerless and doubtful
that anything I could say or do would make a difference. It was right around
this time that I found I could no longer stomach my daily dose of NPR, and
instead began taking Prozac.
So I was not optimistic,
and yet, I imagined, at least we would learn something from the experience --
perhaps we’d learn (the hard way) not to rush in, no to pre-empt, not to go
it alone.
At the same time I was
fearful. If this adventure was not successful I feared that as a nation we
would lose our will to act in other situations where bold, decisive action
would be appropriate. As much as I hoped that the hawks would be humbled, I
worried that when this bait-and-switch scam was exposed, it would erode not
only our international legitimacy, but also our relationships here at home,
making it much harder in the future to build a collective enthusiasm for
making peace, and for promoting the values of democracy, human rights, and
free and fair trade, where and when feasible.
I am not going to focus
today on when or how or why to get out of Iraq. There is no shortage of
material on that topic. Nor is this an “I told you so” sermon. I’m not
feeling smug and victorious. I’m more aware than ever of the importance of
improving relationships between those who supported the war and those who did
not. In fact that is one of the primary lessons I’ll be pointing out today:
our inevitable interdependence, our inescapable need for one another,
especially our need for political opponents -- for dissenting points of view
-- to help us see things more clearly.
I have no illusions that
what I have to say on this topic will shape international policies. But I do
believe that there are things to learn, and that our learning makes a
difference -- even for members of a small Midwestern city, voters in the
world’s only superpower, and citizens of the global community. My purpose
today, then, is to ask: WHEN we get out, what lessons will we take with us,
Out of Iraq?
Let us take a moment to
light this chalice as a symbol of our enduring hope.
GATHERING HYMN My Life Flows on in Endless
Song #108
MESSAGE, part I
In this segment I would
like to consider the lessons available to us from 3 sources: ancient
Mesopotamian mythology, 20th century French Indochina, and the
contemporary experience of the United Nations Peacekeeping Missions.
Mesopotamia was the cradle of human civilization, where agriculture, art, trade,
and writing first came together. Mythology flourished in ancient Mesopotamia and spread broadly. Those in the west
familiar with the stories of Moses can easily identify his mythical precursor
in the Sumerian king Sargon, who as a baby was found in a reed basket in a
river and as an adult went on to unify his people. Stories involving a great
flood were told long before Noah and the Ark, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh,
in which the hero, having repeatedly failed in his quest for immortality, and
having experienced the crushing pain of losing a friend, realizes that the
way to achieve immortality is through lasting works of civilization and
culture.
And “the most romantic
chapter of the Bible, the Song of Songs…can have its origins traced back to
the Bridal Songs and Courtly Love Poetry which marked … the Third Dynasty of
Ur.”
These myths,
celebrating wisdom, honoring the powers of the earth, and celebrating love --
could they be the ancient ancestors of all human mythology? Or do similar myths and values arise
spontaneously and universally wherever human beings gather to search for
meaning? In either case these elemental bits of wisdom lie in the very soil
of Mesopotamia, now Iraq.
And they will endure regardless of the governments and empires which for eons
have come and gone, come and gone.
==
Let’s give the globe another
quarter-turn, and look to Southeast Asia.
This land was known to Westerners as Indo-China about 50 years ago when The Ugly American was published. The Ugly American, like other
compilations of mythical narrative, is a storehouse of deep wisdom -- in this
case insights gained from the French in their failed attempt to dominate a
pre-industrial society with modern weaponry.
The stories in this
collection center around American embassies in the region and both the
constructive and harmful qualities exhibited by Foreign Service personnel,
military, and private citizens acting in various industrial, agricultural,
and religious roles.
The authors, speaking
presciently on the eve of the Vietnam
conflict, point out some of the qualities of the American character, which
could benefit us, or do us harm. Confidence, for example, was seen as a
quality that helped Americans to persevere and to get things done. Confidence
was also recognized as the seed of stubbornness and rigidity. The lesson,
then, was not that we should exchange our excessive confidence for excessive
caution. No, the antidote is not to be more or less confident, or to be more
or less cautious, but to stop relying solely upon our own judgment without
considering input and criticism from others.
Other American
characteristics were similarly criticized: entitlement, taking advantage of
high status, lack of self-awareness, a sense of superiority, impatience, and
looking for easy answers.
Why did the authors
hate America?
I’m sure they didn’t. The French and the communists were criticized more
severely. But the record was already clear by this time: the French had lost.
Despite their superior equipment, despite their courage and skill, the French
had been driven out of SE Asia, at least in
part because they were unwilling to recognize that their enemy also had
courage and genius.
The Ugly American concludes with the
dawning enlightenment of the American ambassador who discovers, through some
painful mistakes, what we would have to do to succeed in the region. He
writes to his superiors in Washington
the following list of suggestions, and is promptly fired. He suggests that
·
Every American sent to the region speak the local language
·
American staff must not expect to live in conditions better than
those of the local community
·
All Americans must read the works of Mao and other communist leaders
·
People should not be recruited with propaganda suggesting that the
work would be easy or that they could easily acquire the products they were
familiar with back home.
The overarching concern
expressed in The Ugly American was
that Americans like to imagine that we can buy our way out of our problems.
“If the only price we are willing to pay is the dollar price, then we might
as well pull out before we’re thrown out. If we are not prepared to pay the
human price, we had better retreat to our shores, build Fortress America,
learn to live with mediocrity, the low standard of living, and the loom of
world Communism that would accompany such a move.”
That was 1958. Today we
have a new bogeyman (Terrorism in place of Communism), but not much else
seems to have changed. Despite our rhetoric about providing “Iraqi Freedom,”
the dollar costs have once again assumed a larger role than the human costs.
It was reported this month that the giant engineering company Bechtel (no
relation) that has received $2.3 billion in reconstruction contracts, and
lost 52 employees, is pulling out of Iraq. The money for electrical,
water, and sewer service has been spent, largely on security, and the
contractors are leaving, with little of the mission accomplished.
Still, I don’t think our
situation is hopeless. I believe that we have what we will need to succeed as
a nation. I just don’t think we have it yet. As of today, we are still not
willing to pay the human cost. And I don’t mean the human cost in deaths. I
mean the human cost in lives -- lives transformed to global citizenship and
committed to universal kinship. I don’t think we have the wherewithal to
transform ourselves quickly enough to succeed in Iraq. But give us another
generation, and a new definition of success.
==
As of this spring, the
United Nations was directing 18 peace operations across the world, comprising
about 89,000 troops, police and civilian personnel. Other than the United States,
the UN has the largest number of military forces deployed in the world.
According to the United
Nations [the following is adapted from their website]: Certain factors are
critical for the success of any UN peacekeeping operation. The international
community must diagnose the problem correctly before prescribing peacekeeping
as the treatment; there must be a peace to keep; and all key parties to the
conflict must consent to stop fighting, and to accept the UN role in helping
them resolve their dispute. Members of the Security Council must agree on a
clear and achievable mandate. Resources must be adequate both to implement
the mandate and to deter potential spoilers.
The international community has to be prepared to stay the course. When the
UN Security Council authorizes a mission, it also summons the Member States
to support the United Nations politically, financially and operationally in
addressing that specific situation. Real peace takes time; building national
capacities takes time; rebuilding trust takes time.
The costs of UN
peacekeeping are paid primarily by large industrial nations. The troops
however, come mostly from 10 developing countries. Bangladesh,
Pakistan, India, Jordan,
Nepal, Ethiopia, Ghana,
Nigeria, Uruguay and South Africa provide 67 per cent
of all UN military and police personnel. About 5 per cent come from the
25-member European Union and ½ of 1% from the United States.
UN peacekeeping is highly
cost-effective. The UN spends less per year on peacekeeping worldwide than
the City of New York
spends on the annual budget of its police department.
SHARING OUR GIFTS
MESSAGE, Part II
The United Nations
describes the task of peacekeeping as multidimensional. Their work is not
just military, but restoring utilities, rebuilding a judicial system,
providing basic police and government services, supporting the development of
a constitution, monitoring elections, and facilitating cooperative
relationships with the rest of the world. In so many ways, American efforts
in Iraq
have been in synch with these broadly accepted peacemaking objectives.
But -- our work has been based
in secrecy, not open debate; it was neither welcomed nor well-managed. We
have not responded and adjusted to changing realities, and above all, we
thought that the whole thing would be quick, cheap, and easy.
I
predicted that we would fail in Iraq because we didn’t have the
resources to win. The list of what we lacked, I feared, was long. First of
all we lacked honesty. Deception, of course is a vital and potent weapon in
wartime, but we sat by helplessly while it was turned on our own people.
And
we lacked international cooperation; we had neither a unifying goal, nor or a
long-term plan. We lacked the language skills and other soft skills of
relationship building, which would be needed by every American carrying a
weapon, a wrench, or a law book.
We
didn’t have a clear picture of the situation into which we were dropping
bombs and bodies, and we didn’t have a clue about the costs and likely
outcomes.
We
didn’t have the will to win unless it was going to be quick, cheap, and easy.
The American people went along only because we believed that the war would
pay for itself, and that a fighting force of about one-quarter the number of
deer hunters in Wisconsin could do the job in 6 days, maybe 6 weeks, almost
certainly not 6 months.
We
lacked the nerve to see coffins draped with American flags; we didn’t have
the stomach for 20,000 injured soldiers and hundreds of thousands of dead
Iraqis who we lacked the ability to categorize into good guys and bad guys.
We
lacked interest in the well-being of Iraqis. We didn’t know or care about
their past and their passions.
We
didn’t have enough historical awareness to see that we were repeating the
mistakes made by the British in Iraq in the 1920s. The British
too claimed to be bringing democracy to the Iraqi people. But the primary
effect was to create new divisions and hatred between the rulers and the
ruled. “Democracy” to the Iraqis came to mean corruption, exploitation, and
unfair privilege. So the British built remote military bases from which they
could control the Iraqi government via threat. Today we have the green zone,
with its own separate electric, water, and sewer systems, implying anything
but interdependence.
We
lack appreciation even for our more recent history. We lack the ability to
draw insight from our experience of the first Gulf War, during which we built
huge military bases in Saudi
Arabia, infuriating Muslim fundamentalists
including Osama Bin Laden.
==
Victor
Frankl, who survived the Nazi genocide, suggested that those who survive
terrible losses are those who are able to make meaning out of their
experiences. Can we make meaning from our losses?
The
losses for those who opposed the war but found themselves powerless to stop
it.
The
losses for those who favored the war but now feel regret.
The
losses of lives and money; losses of worldwide influence, moral prestige, and
potential for international cooperation and trust.
The
losses of opportunity to do good elsewhere.
The
lost sense of collective ability to effect positive social change – locally,
nationally, or globally.
Today
we find ourselves in a position of weakness, vulnerability, and self-doubt.
How then, in the midst of our incredible power and very evident weakness, can
we be most free, and most responsible?
“To
be [human] is… to be responsible. It is to feel shame at the sight of what
seems to be unmerited misery. It is to take pride in a victory won by one’s
comrades. It is to feel, when setting one’s stone, that one is contributing
to the building of the world.” [Antoine de Saint-Exupery] If this is what it
is to be human, then may our losses not allow us to lose sight of our human
being.
My
temptation post-election and post Rumsfeld is to sit back and wait for things
to get better. But our responsibility as citizens is as great as it ever has
been. Our human potential to overreact to fear will always be with us.
Military escalation remains a very real possibility, especially given
President Bush’s comments this week that the lesson to be learned from Vietnam was
“Don’t quit.”
==
In
order to press on from loss, we need to make for ourselves a clear-eyed
damage assessment. We could call it, in these days before Thanksgiving, an
“Appreciation.” This is a word the C.I.A uses for an assessment of a
situation, Appreciation.
It
can be tough to appreciate when we’re in an ugly situation, but this is where
we begin to make it better.
BENEDICTION
May I have the Courage to change the things
I can,
The Serenity to accept the things I cannot
change,
And the Wisdom to know the difference.
May I have patience with things that take
time,
Appreciation for all that I have,
Tolerance for those with different
struggles,
And the Strength to get up and try again,
one day at a time.
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