On Again, On Again:
Bush's Additional 20,000 Troops for Iraq

This sermon is not about politics or political parties. It is not about assigning blame or questioning the patriotism of our leaders. It IS about the moral responsibility that leaders have when they hold the power of life and death over their citizens – especially those who pledge to march "into the jaws of Death, into the mouth of Hell."

9-11 felt like what Alfred Lord Tennyson described as, "the jaws of Death...the mouth of Hell." 9-11 was a horrific event that will remain with most of us for our lifetimes. In reaction, we have grieved together, prayed together, and, for a time, come together as a nation.

9-11 has given our country a case of the jitters.

Case in point: the Oceanport Video, a smallish video rental storefront near the Oceanport Post Office. Something happened there recently that exemplifies our selective, jittery state of mind. Patrons can rent the latest movies and video games. Last Fall, the store's owner started carrying ice cream. About six weeks ago, there was a late-night fire that destroyed most of the videos. The following morning, a professional clean-up crew began their work by hosing down the floor to clear the place of several hundred gallons of melted ice cream.

I talked to the owner last Friday and she told me that at about 10:00am she left on an errand. An hour later she returned to find the entire block cordoned off by the police. Fort Monmouth Hazardous Materials vehicles jammed the streets. And there were a dozen men dressed in those white-hooded protective anti-chemical weapon-type outfits that most of us only see in the movies.

The owner pulled over and got out of her car. She immediately found herself the center of attention. It seems that someone had noticed that Oceanport's little tributary of the Shrewsbury River was covered with what looked like a noxious pinkish-orange frothy substance. This alert individual called the fort and told the military that there might be a chemical warfare terrorism event happening. The Haz-mat people were scrambled. The area was sealed off. And it was at this moment that the store owner drove up.

"We've traced it back to you," the police officer told her.

"Me? I'm no terrorist," she said.

"What is this?" he asked pointing to a sticky pinkish-orange residue that went from her store to the near-by storm drain.

"Cherry-vanilla swirl ice cream, sir"

"What?"

"And that scary green goo over there would be mint-chocolate chip. Oh, and that would be a marichino cherry next to your boot."

The cleaners had sprayed down the woman's floor and worked the ice cream sludge into a frothy mess that then went down the storm drains. The tide was coming in at the time. So the tide carried the melted ice cream to the fort.

Some of us have let our post-9-11 fears get the better of us. Fear can cloud our judgement. Fear can make us see dangers that are not there. Fear of terrorism can make us afraid to criticize our leaders. Fear can make us want to believe our leaders even when the facts show our leaders to be wrong.

Some say that we should never criticize our leaders. "Submit to worldly authority," we are told and we are told that those words come from the Bible, Romans 13.

But if we read both Romans 13 and Revelations 13, we are reminded that the Bible does NOT give carte blanche to national leadership. Romans 13 tells us to submit to worldly authorities. But Revelations 13 describes some worldly authorities as being under the influence of great evil. For both Romans and Revelations to be true, neither can be true all the time. Sometimes worldly authorities get it right. And sometimes worldly authorities become morally lost, or worse, corrupt and evil. Most of the time, worldly authorities are like its citizens: a combination of good and evil, wanderers in a world of mixed choices.

We Americans chose to follow our leaders into Iraq when the smell of the dust and smoke of 9-11 was still in the air. We are now confused by the mess that we've created. We don't know how to leave Iraq. We don't even understand our enemies. Most Americans are not aware that one of the keys to understanding the Iraq war is to be found in the Bible.

The Bible, especially those extended parts of the Bible called the Apocryphtha as well as highly regarded spiritual works such as the Talmud, give us guidance about our current mess in Iraq. To begin, I start with the Scriptural basis of the Jewish celebration of Hanukkah, a series of holidays largely familiar to Christians because of its proximity on the calendar to Christmas.

Hanukkah celebrates heroic events that took place when Palestine was occupied by the Seleucid Greeks. Let me pause for a moment and note that these events, largely unknown to us Westerners, are local history in the Middle East and studied in classrooms from Israel to Iran. Many of those who are fighting with our soldiers learned this story and pattern their methods of resistance after the Jewish freedom fighters known as the Maccabees.

Hanukkah is the celebration of the Maccabean resistance and a miracle that took place when there wasn't enough oil to keep the sacral lamps lit. God provided the oil and that's why the celebration is commemorated by lighting a new candle for each day.

More important to our situation in Iraq is this selection from the Biblical book of 1 Maccabees. [I Mac. 2:27]

Dr. James Fleming, when he lectured here a few years ago, made it clear that Matthias and his supporters then went to the hills and conducted a war of insurgency. Every time the occupiers made a sweep through one of the towns below, the result was that Matthias's insurgency got stronger. In time, the Maccabeeans bled the Greeks to a standstill.

Does this sound familiar?

Dr. Fleming tells us that every school child in the Middle East, including Iraqui school children know this story. They are largely Muslim, but the Bible is revered by Muslims as second only to the Koran. School children know that you can remove an occupier by an insurgency that taunts the enemy to make martyrs.

Iraq is not another Vietnam. Iraq is a Biblical war. And people in the Middle East see us as occupiers. Every Iraqi we kill, even Sadam Hussein, creates a martyr whose death stimulates the recruitment of more insurgents. We cannot win a war where the other side gets stronger every time we fight them. And despite what our president said a few years ago, we cannot win a war of attrition with the enemy. Wars of attrition are only winnable when the other side gets weaker every time you fight them – like Grant fighting Lee towards the end of the Civil War. Iraq has become more like the trenches of WWI – neither side able to disengage without inviting disaster – and the individual soldier being tempted to become more committed to staying alive than to an unachieveable victory.

Abraham Lincoln faced a decision towards the end of the Civil War that required him to put aside fear and put aside the demands of his political party. In 1865 the war was winding down and many in the North called for Robert E. Lee and the Southern leaders to be tried and hanged as traitors. And that would have been a popular political decision. But doing so would have strengthened the enemy.

Lincoln knew that the defeat of Lee in Virginia would not necessarily be the end of the war. There were still tens of thousands of trained, organized and armed Confederate soldiers throughout the South and West who could have started an insurgency and kept the Civil War going for decades. Also the roads to the south were filled many ex-Confederate soldiers who were walking home, having given up the cause of Southern independence. The martyrdom of Robert E. Lee would have brought all those deserters back with a vengeance.

Our Commander in Chief back then knew that a surrender that recognized the honor, courage and valor of the enemy might prevent the insurgency. He issued orders to his commanders in the field that the surrender was to be handled with dignity.

This was smart leadership. This was compassionate leadership. And this was moral leadership.

Today there is a hidden enemy in Iraq: American blood-lust. Our thirst for avenging 9-11 is what blinded us into allowing the Iraq war to take place. Blood-lust in Iraq makes the martyrs which in turn fuels the insurgency. We must find a way to control our rage.

Here is an example from a letter to the editor in the Christian Century. [insert letter to editor, Christian Century, November 14, 2006, p. 53.]

The chaplain was not talking about all Iraqis when he told his soldiers not to become the enemy. He saw the spirit of blood-lust possess the villagers. This, he said, as he lowered the M-16, was what they must not become.

Let us call upon our leaders to be smarter than they've been. Let us call upon them to have a conscience. We cannot kill our way out of Iraq. And 20,000 more soldiers won't accomplish anything except to make the insurgency stronger.

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