Operation Iraqi Peace
About seven years ago, nineteen men from a clandestine organization called Al Qaeda hijacked three airplanes bound for American cities. Two of them reached their destinations: the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. Thousands died in the attack, a symbolic strike against American economic, military, and political power.About two thousand years prior, a man taught in Galilee. He was a political, religious, and even an economic revolutionary. He clashed with the religious and political authorities, pitting truth against power. He submitted to his death willingly when they could tolerate his rabble-rousing no longer. His weapon was not a sword, but love. He never intended to inspire a violent revolution, but he left guidelines for how to lead a nonviolent one.
This satyagraha, or soul force, is the only power that can bring lasting peace to the Middle East.Our response to the September 11 attacks was swift, beginning with an attack in Afghanistan, where we believed the Taliban government gave Osama bin Laden and his followers sanctuary. We overthrew the Taliban government, and although bin Laden escaped, few questioned this move. More were reserved about our invasion of Iraq as the fearsome WMDs were never found, and our reasoning for the war changed from international security to "Iraqi Freedom". According to the Department of Defense, as of October 20, 4,799 U.S. soldiers had been killed and as of October 4, 32,216 wounded all across the Middle East in Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. Iraqi casualty figures are unavailable. Doubtless hundreds of thousands have been killed or wounded.
The Bush Doctrine--preemptive attack and forceful ideology dissemination--has made some fragile progress in pacifying Iraq, but we have set ourselves up for another generation of conflict. Osama bin Laden did not attack because he “hat[es] our freedom”. He accuses the U.S. of myriad crimes against Muslims and Islam: in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Chechnya, and Palestine. He accuses the United States of unchecked support of Israel in their aggression against Muslims and their occupation of territory they do not rightfully own. He criticizes American culture as hedonistic and greedy, glorifying sex, wealth, and drugs while polluting the environment, objectify women, etc. But that which is worst to him is that we destroy. “[we attack] because you attacked us and continue to attack us,” bin Laden explains.
What have we done to prove him wrong?
Although bin Laden is obviously far from righteous himself, many of his criticisms have basis. Over the years, the West has tended to treat the Middle East as a place to advance our own interests without thinking of the consequences. Between the Crusades, European colonialism, the Shah of Iran, Israel and the exile of Palestinians, the Gulf War (twice), Afghanistan (twice), etc, the West’s presence in the Middle East has been violent and oppressive. When it’s not that, it’s about oil. We take what we want. Middle Easterners been seen as tools at best, enemies at worst. People remember this kind of treatment. They will remember what we are doing now in Iraq, too. The young boys and girls who see their family’s blood stain the streets will remember whose flag sought to exploit their people.This isn’t to say that the September 11 attacks were justified. But if we want to prevent more like it, we must address the cause. How do we take the gun out of bin Laden’s hand?
Reza Aslan, a religion scholar from Iran, was asked how we can make Middle Easterners stop hating our country. His answer was simple: stop bombing people (for starters). Western power has taken countless Middle Eastern lives. That bloodshed has fueled much of the hatred which drives bin Laden and other demagogues. Young Iraqis will grow up hearing bombs explode all around them, they will see their brothers, uncles, fathers--even mothers and sisters--cut down by American bullets. But if the United States started building instead of tearing down, healing instead of killing, feeding instead of terrifying, these young people would have a very different impression of the West and its values. We have all seen images of American flags burning in Middle Eastern streets amid jubilant throngs cursing our name. How would they see the flag if what bears its image is not bombs but vaccinations, crates of food, tanks of potable water for their war-torn villages?
But would this adequately protect our country?
There can be no guarantee that another attack would not occur while our new mission of mercy takes place, in spite of our best efforts to prevent it. Great Britain did not withdraw at the first sign of Indian nonviolence. Martin Luther King’s sit-ins and marches only intensified police brutality. When Jesus set soul force against oppression, it got him murdered. They reacted by loving their enemies, but refusing to submit to their injustice. King kept marching to expose racism until things started to change. Gandhi starved himself until Great Britain ended their exploitation. Jesus loved his enemies enough to die. If Iraqis continue to fight, or even if there is another terrorist attack on U.S. soil, the best response is to absorb the poison, allowing it to pass no farther. We continue to love and to bless those who persecute us, and we will win their hearts and minds. At the cost of lives, but can war claim to preserve life?
The aforementioned leaders did not just love their enemies—they called attention to the suffering of their people and in so doing brought political pressure against the authorities. They mocked the power of their oppressors, showing the world the true nature of it. By marching, demonstrating, willingly submitting to jail, performing sit-ins, King’s followers showed the inhumane depths to which the white government sunk to maintain their control. In his self-imposed starvation, Gandhi illustrated the graphic nature of the oppression of his people. He showed all the world what was happening to India. Jesus asked his followers to use the momentum of oppression against itself. By turning the other cheek, walking the second mile, giving both shirt and cloak to one’s debtor, the powerless seizes control from the powerful. Consent robs the oppressor of control.
The process of nonviolence resistance that King advocated requires admission of one’s own sins, asking forgiveness. This country must let go of the image of itself as a wounded innocent. They blow up three of our buildings; we blow up thirty of our own (empty, abandoned buildings). They bomb cars in Iraq; we blow up piles of them. They protested against our military and economic dominance, so we burn piles of money in the streets, and dismantle our tanks. We beat our swords into plowshares and turn our money into medicine. We send a message to the world that such attacks are beneath our strength as a people—either to retaliate in kind or submit to fear. Nonviolence will never work if we cling to lust for power. It sounds silly, but that is part of the effect. It is silly; it is unexpected and perhaps impractical, but in its ludicrousness lies its power. It is a mockery of terrorist tactics: car bombs, civilian attacks, and an admission that our military and economic dominance has hurt people. So we turn to a new foreign policy: love thy neighbor.
It’s theatrics, to make a display out of their aggression--to mock it, and thereby expose its impotence and magnify its cruelty. This does not cheapen the reality that people died on 9/11. It does not mean that we cannot take their losses seriously. While we mourn for the dead, we can weaken those who facilitated the attacks. We can make sure that we do not compound the sin, that even more thousands of people will not die.
Nonviolent resistance must have a sustainable vision—in order to be effective, it must not be be reduced to mockery and sentimental words. Saul Alinsky, an American community organizer, created guidelines for a sustainable campaign of nonviolent resistance. Most were intended for a group fighting against an oppressive society. Perhaps some could be adapted to fit a problem of international relations.
Power is not only what you have but what your enemy thinks you have.
Anyone who plans on attacking the United States must be aware of the massive power of our military. But this is not true power.
Walter Wink’s interpretation of this principle draws on Jesus’ examples. Seizing the initiative from one’s oppressors in such a way as to confuse or startle him or her with one’s own power presents the oppressed in a new, human light. Military power will not rule the day here. True power is in resisting one’s enemies while recognizing their right to live, their right to act freely, but not their right to oppress. Bombing and killing can very easily work to a terrorist group’s advantage. The indiscriminate nature of bombs, along with the inability to distinguish combatants from civilians in this type of setting leads to civilian casualties. It does not take a clever political mind to turn the death of innocents into fervor against the invading force.
Alinsky and Wink (along with Jesus) are talking about willpower. Satyagraha, soul force, truth force are also acceptable alternative terms. In not returning the bombs, we would recognize the full humanity of our enemies, realizing that they are people with lives and families just like Americans. In so doing, we welcome them to accept us as brothers and sisters as we accept them. The invitation would certainly be rebuffed at first. A sustained effort can convince the bulk of our enemies of a new direction in dealing with the Middle East and the Muslim world, a new foreign policy which does not treat their land as a playground and their people as subhuman.
Wherever possible, go outside the experience of the enemy.
Demagogues whip people into a frenzy, playing on their emotions for power. Bin Laden and others have drawn on their people’s experiences in brutal dictatorships propped up by the United States (the Shah), seeing their religious brothers killed en masse by American bombs (Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan), and appeal to their religious ideals to show American immorality. We must go outside the experience of our avowed enemies, force them to see us with different eyes. Even if many will not be swayed by an admission of guilt and irrational grace, their children will grow up with a very different image of this country. At the very least, we sow the seeds of a friendly future.
Make your enemies live up to their own book of rules.
Osama bin Laden and his followers fight as Muslims in the name of God; theirs is a religious war. Therefore, they must adhere to the rules of Islam. A greater knowledge of Islam (should Americans work to attain it) will reveal that they break their own rules in murdering civilians. The Ummah is permitted to fight in self-defense. Although many would argue that such acts are in self-defense, a good-hearted and better-reasoned approach reveals that in whatever case, blowing up civilian centers, car bombs, even gunfire in the streets, are all beyond the pale. To point out to the world that bin Laden and his followers are poor Muslims would weaken their standing within their own community, among the very people they depend upon for support. However, to do this would require a more intimate knowledge of Islamic history and theology than most Americans have.
Ridicule is your most potent weapon.
The ideas mentioned before—blowing up our own buildings and cars, dramatizing and emphasizing the horror of the tactics used by the 9/11 terrorists and Iraqi insurgents is a way to ridicule them. It is to show them and the world that their efforts to force us to sink to their level—to bomb and to kill—have failed. They use death and fear as weapons, but to refuse to respond in kind but with brotherly love instead will freeze them in their tracks. In acting unexpectedly, responding to hate with love, while refusing to allow injustice to go without resistance forces our enemies to see us as fully human.
The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure on the opposition.
Patience is key. Results will come slowly. Our enemies have shown an elephant-like memory; the Crusades are still fresh enough in their minds so as to make a point of comparison to the current invasion. Persistence in applying these tactics (deliver food and medicine to the suffering, cease combat operations, ridicule terrorist tactics) will bear fruit in time. The heart of this resistance is unyielding grace; impatience or a selfish sense of entitlement will ruin the slow, but irresistible tide of brotherly love. The political reality may be that to purify our nation’s collective heart to this extent is practically impossible. Americans do not know the ways of satyagraha well enough yet to accept this path. In time, the nation can learn and accept them. In either case, this is still the best way to ensure lasting peace between the nations of the world.
Gandhi’s take on nonviolence is that it works best when violence is a viable but rejected option. The genuineness of their commitment to nonviolence is especially pronounced. The United States has certainly been in that position; no country on earth has the means to use violence as we do. It has ruled the day so far. To some, ceasing combat operations in lieu of nonviolence would seem like weakness, a concession that our military power, and therefore our resolve, is fragile. Our resolve must not be fragile, now more than ever. It is our means that must change.
The hearts and minds of the people are the battlefields, their loyalty the prize. We have used examples such as Germany and Japan as cases in which violence did succeed; both countries have since enjoyed fairly close relations with the U.S. But in this case, we deal with a large group of people who have a much different culture, a far different view of the United States derived from a far bloodier history. Their hearts will not be so easy to win. If any lesson should be clear from nearly the last century of Western-Middle Eastern relations, it’s that warfare hardens hearts and closes minds.
--Gord
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