Introduction
The following essay appeared in the Manhattan Mercury, the local newspaper of Manhattan, Kansas. It was published about two days after the United States had won the Gulf War. At that moment, public euphoria was at a maximum. Although not directly stated in the essay, that euphoria revealed that a principal god of the American people is the American nation itself. The essay does show, however, how the American republic became a god in the hearts and minds of the U.S. populace. Among other things, it happened as the universal church of the medieval West collapsed, and in that vacuum, nation states appeared, claiming the highest allegiance of their people.
The essay does reveal one bit of naivete, the claim that George Bush would be elected for a second term. After the Gulf War his popularity, as is normally the case in war, was at a fever pitch. The public was not as loyal as I expected. Clinton successfully made the economy the issue in the next election and managed to win it.
Manhattan is located quite close to a major military base, Fort Riley. About three years after this piece appeared, I ran into a military person at Fort Rile who confirmed for me my suspicions on the number of Iraqi dead. This information had not been emphasized in the media, for reasons the following essay makes clear. The essay also describes why, after Noriega was captured, the country of Panama disappeared from the American media. Panama is a poor country that could benefit from the positive involvement of the American people. It is tragic that the American public would find the capture of Noriega fascinating, but once done, show no interest whatsoever in the people of Panama. As the essay says, "The play's the thing."
Although this essay appeared as a major piece in the Manhattan Mercury, it engendered no response from the Mercury readership. That surprised me. Normally, articles of this type aroused heated debate which would appear in subsequent editions. Since one of the gods of the American people is the nation itself, any piece critical of that god would normally draw something of a hostile response. This one did not. There was no response at all.
On a personal note, I care first about Jesus Christ and then about his church. It offends me that so many Christians love their country as if that were part of loving God and his church. It must be remembered that Jesus has a kingdom, but it wasn't a political kingdom. Here are his words: "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place." (John 18:36) In my view, too many Christians think that the Kingdom of God can be advanced by politics backed up by force. I don't agree. Law, order, and the preservation of life against ruthless killers can be achieved by political force, and that force must at times be used. But the result is not the Kingdom founded by Jesus. It is a limited temporal kingdom with valid temporal claims and aims. But it isn't the Kingdom of God, although God seeks to use temporal kingdoms for a limited good.
After living abroad for several years, I returned to the United States with a renewed respect for the social, economic, and political achievements of this country. The United States is a remarkable country, and part of the reason for that is the Christian faith. But the greatness of this country will not be enhanced by blind love, but by a realistic assessment of both its strengths and weaknesses. Finally, this essay is given here exactly as published, except for one small change in a sentence for the sake of clarity, and another sentence that I felt was best left out since I didn't like it. The article follows.
A Perspective on the Gulf War
What light does our faith shed on our nation's response to the Gulf War? Or, has the Christian religion played a significant role in the American response to the Gulf crisis? This article will explore these and related questions.
For most of the last two thousand years Christianity has been a major force shaping the life and thought of Western civilization. Christianity not only proclaims private salvation, but public redemption, the establishment of a redeemed society. One of the most potent Christian ideas pertinent to public redemption is the cosmic battle between good and evil. Scripture, and especially the book of Revelation, gives a dramatic description of this cosmic conflict and the resulting social peace. This vision has permeated the western soul, and public events which reflect or conform to the drama of its battle grip the American imagination and command assent. For this reason, politics in North America can take the form of a public drama in which the beast from the abyss is identified, publicly revealed, defied, and finally slain. Television now makes this drama public to an unprecedented degree. The person and party that can best contain the beast, or kill it, will assure themselves of political victory.
Until recently the beast was international communism. Since its principal manifestation, the Russians, were well armed, the US contented itself with containing or killing its weaker manifestations in the Third World. With the collapse of communism, other monsters must now be discovered and defeated. I lived in Central American for four years and didn't see anything unusual in Manuel Noriega. He was no worse than many Central American dictators, and the US had supported a number of them. Like Saddam Hussein, he was our ally for a time. Nevertheless, he became a principal figure in a public drama in which he was vilified and then overthrown. Had he not been overthrown, George Bush would have been perceived as a wimp. That would not have reflected the desired outcome of the public drama, the defeat of the beast by the righteous power. Once defeated, neither Noriega nor his country is of further interest. Dramatically speaking, they no longer exist.
Similarly, with Saddam Hussein. For years he received US support while committing atrocities. His was not the only government committing atrocities. His atrocities were never publicly discussed until he invaded Kuwait. Then he became a public figure in the battle between good and evil. The administration publicly defined Saddam Hussein as a monster. He was repeatedly compared to Hitler. Then he was publicly defied and demeaned. The president said he has "had it" with "Sad'm" Hussein. Under U. S. leadership, the world was mobilized against him. The drama became universal and world- wide. No face saving escape was offered. The rules of the drama required that the monster either be slain in battle or publicly humiliated. No public account was taken of American complicity in the matter, the evidence that the US gave Hussein the nod to attack Kuwait, the blunting of measures condemning his invasion of Iran, or the precedent of the US invasions of Grenada and Panama. The monster can only be killed by the armies of the righteous. The battle was brief and brilliant, and Americans found it fascinating, horrible, and thrilling. The drama reached its intended conclusion and the country's honor was restored. The administration is now assured of a second term. All else, other domestic or foreign issues, are essentially irrelevant. The play's the thing.
Now that the monster has been brought to heal, the first order of business is to solve the ancient problems of the Middle East. There has been renewed optimism, a flurry of diplomatic activity, a new world order is now dawning. The United States is at the helm, and this can only be for the best. What is the source of this optimism? Certainly not the hard lessons of recent history. The wars of this century have led to further wars, to the cold war, to revolutions, migrations and slaughters, police actions, subversion, massive arms expenditures, and the wasting of millions of human lives. Whence the optimism? The script proclaims it. After the beast has been slain, the righteous power will inaugurate a reign of peace.
What should we have done? First, the US should not have occupied center stage, that role belonged to the Arabs or the UN. Ostensibly, the UN has acted, but the US has conspicuously and successfully pushed its agenda through the UN. Secondly, and very importantly, the US should not have defined Saddam Hussein as a monster. Once the president had publicly defined him as a Hitler, military conflict became the only viable political alternative. As it was, either president Bush or Hussein must give in to the other.
Instead, the US. should have worked quietly with the UN to offer Hussein a way out that saved face. Further, we should not have shifted from a defensive to offensive capacity in the Middle East. If he were a Hitler, he would have revealed it sooner or later. He would have rejected quiet diplomacy, indefinitely stoned walled the embargo, and devised superweapons to hold the world hostage. Then, under UN leadership, stronger measures could have been employed.
What is the crux of this matter? America rushed to war because the drama required that the monster be defeated or humiliated. In other words, Saddam Hussein was never allowed to save face he was forced to withdraw without conditions. If Iraq were WWII Germany, and from the beginning it obviously wasn't, and if the administration had not defined Hussein as a monster, and if it were clear that we had inhibited rather than encouraged Hussein's bellicose behavior, then the demand for unconditional withdrawal may have been justified. As it was, war became one of the first options, rather than the last.
Why must the US occupy center stage? and why do aspects of our public life correspond to a religious drama? In part, the reasons are historical. The break up of the medieval synthesis, the Reformation and subsequent religious wars, the Enlightenment, and the founding of this country by people seeking religious freedom, led to a new relation between church and state in the United States. Essentially, the medieval church as a universal undivided redemptive society gave way in North America to a proliferation of distinct churches, the denominations, while the universal redemptive aspect was transferred to the nation of the United States as a new society in a new land. The early settlers believed that the United States was established by God to be a light to the nations, the city set upon a hill.
These themes still resonate in the public soul. As a consequence, many North Americans practice a private religion, that of their denomination, but their public faith is the religion of the republic. This religion involves the universal social aspect of the Christian faith, the struggle against public evil and the establishment of a new order for the nations of the world.
From a biblical point of view, what are we to make of this public religion? In my view it is dangerous. Some US citizens proclaim their love for their country. Others, a minority and usually on the left, view the US as the beast. But anger is often not far removed from love, and both treat their country as an ultimate. From a biblical point of view, Scripture never commands people to love their country. The Old Testament revelation began with the escape from Egypt and the rejection of the Egyptian ideology of a divine state. In the New Testament, two poles are presented, Romans 13 and Revelation 13. Romans 13 presents the more positive view, the state is to be respected and obeyed for it wields the sword for the common good. Under ordinary conditions, Christians need to respect the state and work for its welfare, but not to love the state. In Revelation, the ungodly state is seen as a monster that commands the love and admiration of its citizens. This is the truly dangerous state.
Respect for authority is the most Scripture can commend, but when respect becomes love, killing is close at hand. By my reckoning, Iraqi losses were enormous. The coalition forces destroyed 42 Iraqi divisions, representing some 420,000 men. Only three possibilities existed for each Iraqi soldier: to become a prisoner of war, to escape, or to die. The latest figure I have heard on prisoners of war is 100,000. The campaign was organized to encircle and prevent the escape of the Iraqi forces. Their entrapment was a brilliant success. That leaves around 300,000 for possibility three. The goal of the air campaign was to kill so many Iraqi troops that the land war could be prosecuted with minimal coalition losses. It was successful. The public has been given statistics of all kinds, the number of Iraqi and coalition tanks, airplanes, and artillery destroyed, the number of POW's and coalition troop losses, but do not expect an honest, thorough, and public accounting of the number of Iraqi dead. The average Iraqi conscript is not perceived by the American public to be the monster, and therefore, as far as the drama is concerned, they were never killed by the righteous power. By contrast, communism was perceived as a disease affecting the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people, and therefore, body counts, the number of enemy dead, were frequently published.
The foregoing does not deny the fact that there are real enemies. There are dangerous people and countries and warfare may at times be necessary. Perhaps, in the end, the Gulf War would have been necessary. I don't know. Though I may disagree, I am unable to condemn our country's leaders since I don't walk in their moccasins.
But I cannot accept the spirit in which the war was conducted. I can understand war as a last resort, warfare accepted with regret, with sorrow, and when completed, with mourning for one's own losses and for the horrible necessity of killing the enemy. That is true warfare. But war as war drama is something different. It begins with vilification, and when successfully completed, it is publicly celebrated as the expression of a nation's prowess and virtue. When that happens, and I think it has, a nation loses the ability to distinguish between necessary and unnecessary wars.
I am convinced that politics should not become a public drama based on an appeal to our love. When politics becomes an ultimate, appealing to our deepest passions, hopes, and energies, people become blind to what they and their nation are doing. Slaughter and suffering are the consequence. At present, the killing occurs in foreign countries. But war as TV drama will harden the populace, and once hardened, they will demand violence as the solution to domestic problems. Then the killing will come home. It is a serious matter.
The Rev. Robert J. Sanders, Ph.D.
