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Ken Sehested
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Circle of Mercy, 2 April 2006

        Friday’s Asheville Citizen-Times featured front-page story was about the first day of our new lottery. The story, titled “Let the Dreams Begin,” was dominated by a photo of the woman who won the area’s first prize. She shelled out $20 at the Hot Spot convenience store and gas station south of where Nancy and I live on Brevard Road. The fact that she only won $3 didn’t seem to dampen her enthusiasm. “This is the only way I’m ever going to be a millionaire,” she said. “I can work all my life, and it isn’t going to happen.” [Hold up paper with headline: “Let the Dreams Begin”]

        Meanwhile, the state of North Carolina raked in $10 million on the first day. Last year the voters were promised the money would supplement spending on education, that it would be added to the profits from thousands of bake sales and raffles and school-sponsored carnivals—and, of course, property taxes that support public education. It wasn’t until all the lottery machinery was in place that the governor announced: Oh, by the way, a full 35% of the profits would go to education. And . . . well . . . the richest school districts would be getting more than their proportionate amount because . . . well . . . those poor owners of expensive homes pay an awful lot of taxes.

        To my knowledge, no one is asking why public education is being held hostage to the lottery. Why not ask the Department of Transportation to rely on bake sales and lottery proceeds to cover the cost of widening I-240? Better yet, why not tie Ft. Bragg and Camp Lejeune’s budgets to lottery proceeds? Or the fund that subsidizes tax breaks for corporate relocation offers?

        It’s funny what goes through the mind when you’re doing pick and shovel work, which I’ve been doing a lot recently. I started a new job, digging a French drain and installing natural stone stairsteps up the slope in Mary Anne and Chris’s back yard. Then came the tricky part: trying to wrestle a rototiller up and down that steep slope to bust up the hardened clay and get it ready for planting a ground cover. After tipping over for the third time, and slicing my thumb, I finally decided it was more dangerous than daring. So I’ve gone to the old-fashioned method, back to the shovel: Spade touching earth, driven deep by force of the boot, driving the blade past the inch or so of fertile ground down through another 3-4 inches of clay and the occasional tree root. When the incision is sufficiently deep, bear down on the shovel handle to separate the sod from the slope; then lay it down, moving to the side another six inches and repeat the process, readying that compacted earth to receive fertilizer and seeds, so that those scrubby weeds and sparse grass will give way to more robust vegetation.

        By my rough calculation, there’s 880 square feet of slope to be tilled, which will require about 2,400 shovels-full of dirt. It’s a big job. How do you keep the mind occupied through such a task? For inspiration, I remember that one of our new folk, John Templeton, walked the entire Appalachian Trail, more than 2,100 miles and an estimated 5 million steps, between Springer Mountain in North Georgia to Katahdin in Maine. John describes the experience as a walking meditation. So I’ll think of this work as a shoveling meditation. And I’ll ponder our state’s new lottery, and what it is that makes people imagine becoming millionaires with the scratch of a coin, where the odds of winning are two-and-a-half million to one.

        Blade touching earth, driven deep by force of boot; then lift, move over 6 inches, and repeat.

        While I’m doing my tilling I’ll ponder other mysterious phenomenon. Like the doctrine of “full-spectrum dominance.” Have you heard that phrase? It was outlined in the Department of Defense’s blueprint for future military operations, issued in May 2000 under the title “Joint Vision 2020.”

        “The ultimate goal of our military force . . . will be achieved through full spectrum dominance—the ability of U.S. forces, operating unilaterally or in combination with multinational and interagency partners, to defeat any adversary and control any situation. . . . Given the global nature of our interests and obligations, the U.S. must maintain its overseas presence forces and the ability to rapidly project power worldwide in order to achieve full spectrum dominance.” (By the way, in case you lost count, the U.S. currently maintains 712 military bases outside our own borders. And our military spending now exceeds the combined military budgets of every nation on earth.)

        Blade touching earth, driven deep by force of boot; then lift, move over 6 inches, and repeat.

        Among my shoveling meditations is the statement made by George Kennan, one of our most respected foreign ambassadors of the 20th century who is credited with articulating the U.S. theory of “containment” of the Soviet Union. In 1948 he wrote this assessment:

        “We have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3% of its population.  This disparity is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia.  In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment.  Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security.  To do so we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. . . . We should cease to talk about vague and unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.”

        Blade touching earth, driven deep by force of boot; then lift, move over 6 inches, and repeat.

        The Kennan doctrine, and the “full-spectrum dominance” theory, is what led in September 2002 for the Bush Administration’s “National Security Strategy.” That document, just recently updated, provides for the first time in our nation’s history a justification for preemptive war. In other words, no longer does just war theory apply on when it is legally defensible to go to war. We now have in place, as national policy, the authorization to go to war at any time, against any nation, for reasons not open to discussion or debate.

        Blade touching earth, driven deep by force of boot; then lift, move over 6 inches, and repeat.

        Which reminds me of the comment made during a 2003 news conference, when an aide to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld responded to a reporters’ question about the sagging morale of U.S. troops in Iraq: "This is the future for the world we're in at the moment. We'll get better as we do it more often."

        Blade touching earth, driven deep by force of boot; then lift, move over 6 inches, and repeat.

        In my shovel-tilling meditation I’ll also be pondering texts like the one we focus on today, where Jeremiah relays the Divine promise that one day the law of love and life will not involve obedience to some exterior command but will in fact be inscribed on the heart of every individual.

        My whole life has been one long pondering of the space between text and context: looking to see what is happening in the world, then looking to see what is written in Scripture; and asking, What does one have to do with the other?

        Blade touching earth, driven deep by force of boot; then lift, move over 6 inches, and repeat.

        As a young adult, however, I began to sense that the text had little meaning in face of the context. What does the heart have to do with the array of power relations in the world? What does giving your heart to Jesus have to do with realities of war, of continuing racial disparity and economic injustice? Back when the airlines still had them, I used to intentionally book a seat back there in the smoking section, thinking there would be less chance that I would sit down next to someone who might ask me if I had been born again, if I had given my heart to Jesus!

        Why do we, right here in this Circle, spend so much time with this ancient, outdated, often hard-to-understand text? Who do we continue to gather around this Book when we could be out there cleaning up polluted rivers and tutoring disadvantaged children and  caring for homeless people; and resisting the School of the Americas or spending a lot of money making friends in Cuba or sending cards to people in prison?

        Why all this talk about spiritual formation, about “getting saved,” when the world is falling apart? Shouldn’t we dispense with all this sentimental talk about the heart and focus on straight power concepts?

        One of my favorite lines from contemporary music comes from the Greg Brown song sung by Dar Williams, Richard Shindell and Lucy Kaplansky: “Oh Lord, I’ve made you a place in my heart, and I hope now you leave it alone.” In most of what passes for spirituality in our time—whether it’s the old-fashioned type of piety or the newer-age variety—there is a radical disconnect between religion of the heart and life in the flesh. A lot of people—when they talk about “giving your heart to Jesus” —what they mean is having a religious experience tinged with certain kinds of emotion. Is that true? Let’s examine some key biblical images.

      The Bible has two different pivotal images or metaphors for material reality—what Kennan called “straight power concepts”: horses and houses.

      For ancient Israel, "horses" represented military might and prowess. One could even say that horses were as strategically important in ancient times as tanks were in World War II. Time after time Israel was seduced away from trust in Yahweh God to a national policy of "peace through strength." Listen to a few of the relevant texts:

      •Isaiah warns: "Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel" (31:1).

      •The Psalmist cautions: "Some boast of chariots, and some of horses; but we boast of the name of the Lord our God" (20:7).

      •And again: "A King is not saved by his great army; a warrior is not delivered by his great strength. The war horse is a vain hope for victory, and by its great might it cannot save" (33:16-17).

      •Hosea gives this word from the Lord: "But I will have pity on the house of Judah, and I will deliver them by the Lord their God; I will not deliver them by bow, nor by sword, not by war, not by horses, not by horsemen" (1:7).

      It might be appropriate for us to paraphrase the text using terms more intelligible to modern ears: "I will not deliver them by Trident submarines, nor by Cruise or Pershing missiles, not by strategic defense initiatives or covert operations, not even by doctrines of full-spectrum dominance."

      Where "horses" for Israel represented military readiness, "houses" on the other hand was the metaphor for economic strength, for an expanding foreign market and international competitiveness, for increased productivity and consumer purchasing, and a larger Gross National Product. A few examples:

      •Isaiah pronounces this verdict: " the Lord looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold a cry! Woe to those who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is no more room, and you are made to dwell alone in the midst of the land" (5:7-8).

      •Amos makes this judgment: "Therefore because you trample upon the poor and take from them exactions of wheat, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not dwell in them" (5:11).

      •Matthew's gospel notes: "Woe to you hypocrites! For you devour widows' houses and for a pretense you make long prayers; therefore you will receive the greater condemnation" (23:14).

      •The Acts of the Apostles tells this story: "There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them; and distribution was made to each as any had need" (4:34).

      And what about the heart? In modern times, the heart is a metaphor for human emotions, as in "I love you with all my heart," or "she has a broken heart," or "my heart was pounding when I heard the news." For us, the heart is the "romantic" organ and is the most fickle of human organs. It is thought of as the center of emotions, sentiments, feelings. It is often portrayed in shallow terms as if lacking substantial resolve or commitment, as when someone says, "Well, my heart's just not in it."

      In Hebrew thinking, however, the heart was the center of decision-making, the place where every individual factor—rationality, emotions, intuition, social tradition, etc.—flowed together. The heart was the Supreme Court, if you will, adjudicating the various claims of each of the separate factors and handing down a final, irrevocable decision. The heart represented the deepest level of a human personality, representing the true picture of the person. The Latin word credo, from which we get the word "creed," comes from two words which together mean "I give my heart to." Listen to these texts:

      •Ezekiel gives voice to God's word: "And I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them; I will take the stony heart out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my ordinances" (11:19-20).

      •The Psalmist sings: "It is well with those who deal generously and lend, who conduct their affairs with justice. They are not afraid of evil tidings; their hearts are firm, trusting in the Lord. Their hearts are steady, they will not be afraid" (112:5-9).

      •Jeremiah predicts: "Behold the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.…I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts" (31:31-34).

      •In Matthew, Jesus makes these striking claims: "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" (6:21).

      •From the Acts of the Apostles: "Now the company of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things which they possessed were their own, but they had everything in common" (4:32).

      The point of comparing these three biblical metaphors is to illustrate the fact that decisions about horses and houses are made in the human heart. The Reign of God is rightly said to be about human hearts, because it is in the human heart that choices are made about ultimate trust and security. Such decisions are not merely social or political decisions. They are, at bottom, spiritual decisions. In biblical terms, therefore, giving one's "heart" to Jesus is in fact the most subversive, world-threatening thing that can happen to a person.

      We do a lot of very important things in this community of faith. A few of them are ambitious, even controversial: like starting a partnership with a church in Cuba; like supporting Linda as she undertook her resistance that will land her in jail in a couple weeks; like working with other congregations in Asheville to overcome racial and economic disparity.

      Many of the important things we do are much more modest: like celebrating St. Nicholas Day to provide our children with a different image of Jesus’ birthday; or raising funds to support the work of Helpmate in their struggle against domestic violence; or volunteering with Room in the Inn to provide shelter for homeless women—just to name a few.

      But none is more important than the heart question. None is more important that the constant forming and reforming of our vision.

      Week in, week out, blade touching earth, driven deep by force of boot; then lift, move over 6 inches, and repeat.

      [Hold up newspaper with “Let the dreams begin” headline]

      Sisters and brothers, this is not a dream. This is a fantasy. The real dream—the dream that has the power to confront and transform all our broken places—begins here, in this Circle, around this table.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

by Ken Sehested

 

A few weeks ago, Senator Richard Burr [R-NC] took over as Chair of the US Senate Intelligence Committee, whose responsibility is to oversee the Central Intelligence Agency. But already we are troubled by his actions in that job.

Mr. Burr stepped into this role at a critical time: A little more than a month ago, the Committee released a 500-page summary of its “Torture Report,” publicly documenting the inefficacy and brutality of the CIA’s torture program. The full report, which totals some 6,900 pages, remains secret.

In this program, the CIA waterboarded detainees until they convulsed and vomited.  The agency conducted “rectal feedings” of prisoners. In one case, the CIA imprisoned a mentally challenged individual and taped his crying for the sole purpose of coercing a relative to provide information. Another detainee was left partly naked and chained to a concrete floor until he died of hypothermia. The CIA even threatened to sexually abuse detainees’ family members.

Since the Torture Report was released, CIA Director John Brennan has admitted the CIA does not know whether torture produced useful intelligence. According to the chief of one of the CIA’s secret prisons, managers selected “problem, underperforming officers, new, totally inexperienced officers, or whoever seems to be willing and able to deploy at a given time” for the torture program. This casualness resulted in “the production of mediocre or, I dare say, useless intelligence. . . .”

These are clear signs of an agency gone astray. It has never been more obvious that the CIA needs real oversight to ensure that it complies with our laws and with basic moral decency. In his new role, Mr. Burr serves as the CIA’s chief overseer. He bears the moral responsibility for ensuring the CIA does not torture again.

Unfortunately, recent reports suggest Mr. Burr has abdicated his responsibility almost before it began. The Senator has already written to the Administration asking that it return all copies of the full Torture Report to him. He has not said whether this is because he opposes our government learning from its past mistakes or because he is afraid that the full report might some day be declassified—allowing the public to read the full story about the CIA’s use of torture. Either way, the effect of this request is to help the CIA whitewash history.

Worse, Mr. Burr has suggested he is likely to return the Committee’s copy of the “Panetta review” to the CIA. This document is the CIA’s own internal review of its torture program. Although it is classified, it reportedly confirms the findings of the Torture Report—namely, that torture didn’t work and was incredibly brutal, and that the CIA misled the rest of the government about the extent and efficacy of the torture program. Most importantly, the Panetta review is said to contradict the CIA’s public response to the Torture Report.

Given the critical importance of the Panetta review, it seems clear that it should be made public, rather than returned to the CIA (which has a history of destroying evidence related to torture, for example, violating a court order to destroy videotapes of torture sessions before they could be seen by the courts or by Congress). Instead, though, Mr. Burr wants to hand the Panetta review back to the Agency—likely so that it too can be destroyed.

Over the past 15 years the aphorism “freedom is not free” has become a popular patriotic refrain. But we forget that, in 1953, Army Chief of Staff General Matthew Ridgeway used the phrase to identify the difference between those who torture their captives and those who, like us, believe the disavowal of torture is among the “self-evident truths” dating from our Republic’s founding. The “cost” of freedom entails moral accountability.

If we aspire to be a truly exceptional nation, we must be willing to face up to unsavory episodes in our history—to repent of (turn from) wrongdoing and repair torn social fabric. As people of faith we join the National Religious Campaign Against Torture and others in calling for an end to secret prisons designed to mask the stench of torture and subsequent cover up.

Senator Burr is uniquely situated to influence a restoration of our national moral compass in this regard. Urge him to take the lead.

Originally published as an op-ed in the Asheville Citizen-Times

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

by Ken Sehested

 

     Context: On 8 February 2003 Rev. Ken Sehested traveled to Iraq for three weeks as a member of the Iraq Peace Team, a project of Voices in the Wilderness, calling for an end to the threat of war by the U.S.
     Prior to going, the Asheville (N.C.) Citizen-Times newspaper published his article, “Journey to Iraq,” as a guest editorial and asked Sehested to write three weekly columns for the newspaper while in Iraq. Printed below is the initial article followed by three columns posted from Baghdad. The latter are titled “Caitlin Letters,” written as open letters to Caitlin Wood, a member of Circle of Mercy Congregation in Asheville. Caitlin was among the more than 200 high school students in Asheville who participated in the 6 March 2003 “Books Not Bombs” nationwide school walk-out in opposition to war on Iraq.
     Sehested previously traveled to Iraq in March 2000 as part of an interfaith delegation of Jews, Christians and Muslims from the U.S.

 

Journey to Iraq: Of risk and reverence

I leave for Iraq February 8, on a three-week enlistment with the Iraq Peace Team. Seven of us will go in this weekend, to join a contingent of approximately 25 others currently in Baghdad, most from the U.S., some from Canada and the U.K. The majority stay for a month, sometimes more.

I go under the banner of Voices in the Wilderness, sponsors of the Peace Team. While there we will see and experience as much of reality on the ground as is possible in a short time. We’ll visit schools, hospitals, international humanitarian aid headquarters and cultural centers; have conversations with Islamic and Christian and government and neighborhood leaders. I hope to see again the traditional site of Abraham’s birthplace in the southern part of the country; view the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers; talk with Kurdish leaders in the north.

What I don’t look forward to is the omnipresent billboards with Saddam Hussein’s picture. For that matter, neither do I relish listening again to the stories of mothers whose babies are dying from something as simple as diarrhea or as menacing as leukemia. Both ailments, among a host of others, are epidemic in scale in Iraq. And Saddam Hussein, brutal as he is, did not cause these. Tens of thousands of tons of depleted uranium—cancer-causing radioactive material—remain scattered across the landscape, leftover fragments applied to harden the casings of shells and bombs missiles fired by the U.S.-led coalition in the 1991 Gulf War.

Many of those weapons were also trained on the civilian infrastructure: water supply and sewage treatment and electrical grids—a flagrant violation of international law done with the full awareness (as declassified documents prove) by U.S. war planners that doing so would lead to exaggerated levels of child mortality. The U.N. sanctions have severely hampered the reconstruction of these life-support systems. The water is Iraq is virtually poisonous, since importing chlorine is forbidden.

At least a million people—mostly the very young and the very old—have died since the end of the Gulf War for reasons directly related to the economic sanctions: a combination of impure water, poor nutrition and inadequate health care (in a country that before the Gulf War was the medical superpower of the Islamic world). These numbers come not from left-wing protestors or Iraqi propagandists but from the U.N.’s own agencies, backed up and supplemented by similar studies of other respected international aid agencies.

A million deaths seems like the result of a weapon of mass destruction. Writing in 1999, foreign affairs scholars John Mueller and Karl Mueller wrote that the sanctions may have contributed to the deaths of more people ‘than have been slain by all so-called weapons of mass destruction throughout history.”

Communicating this reality—that the sanctions themselves, by far the longer economic embargo in human history—is what Voices in the Wilderness has devoted itself to since 1996. Kathy Kelly, a former Catholic parochial school teacher, just accompanied her 48th delegation of visitors to Iraq. Last year the organization was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

I’m going back to Iraq this coming Saturday even though it is illegal for U.S. citizens to do so. The U.S. Treasury Department stipulates a maximum fine of $1,000,000 and 12 years in prison, plus a $250,000 administrative penalty.

My purpose is to cross, in a personal and public way, the wall of hostility between the citizens of Iraq and the U.S. And then, upon return, to report back what we have seen and heard, adding our voices to those calling for nonviolent alternatives to war and an end to the economic sanctions. I’ll add my voice to the others, including three ranking U.N. diplomats who have resigned their postings in Iraq in protest to the sheer inhumanity of the sanctions.

One of those three—Denis Halliday, former Assistant Secretary-General of the U.N. and humanitarian aid coordinator in Iraq—abandoned his lengthy diplomatic career to call attention to the fact that “we are destroying an entire society. It is as simple and terrifying as that.”

My decision to return to Iraq wasn’t made lightly. In the first place, I had to raise all my own travel expenses. Then there’s the threat of severe legal penalty. And also the chance the U.S. may implement its war plans while I’m there. A few folk have wondered aloud, in my presence, whether I’m crazy. Or suicidal. But my supporters are far more numerous. I’ve received the blessing of my wife, the commissioning of my local congregation (and of a local ecumenical prayer group), as well as the appointment as special envoy by the Alliance of Baptists. And I raised more money, quickly, than at any time in my life, including several donations from people I don’t even know who heard about my trip from others.

No doubt some will see this journey as treasonous, as “giving aid and comfort to the enemy.” I find it odd that a country as heavily churched as the U.S. can forget that among the imperatives of the New Testament is this one: “If your enemies are hungry, feed them” (Romans 12:20). Why is it that we are unfazed when well over a million U.S. military personnel are pledged to risk life and limb in service to their nation, yet think it outrageous when an occasional Christian does something similar for the Kingdom of God?

It is a risk, a calculated risk, to be sure. But the calculus of risk is always done in the context of reverence. All of us risk for the purposes and people we revere, we sacrifice for the values we hold dear. And I revere Jesus and his announced purpose. Indeed, I believe that loving enemies is the very heartbeat of the Gospel of Christ.

My journey is a statement of political dissent, even civil disobedience. But these are secondary matters. Before anything else, my journey is a spiritual discipline. Whenever I intentionally locate myself on the margins—in the places where life is battered, bruised and broken, in places far away or near at hand—I discover renewed clarity about the reality of God’s promise. And the invitation, inshallah, is extended again to be an accomplice in Heaven’s insurgency against the cycle of vengeance.

Such is the stuff of spiritual formation.

 

11 February 2003
Dear Caitlin

Monday morning. I made it to Jordan, just west of Iraq, and am about half-way to Baghdad. Not in distance, but in travel time. I spent about 12 hours in planes to this point. Tomorrow will take at least that much time to drive from Amman to Baghdad, 500 miles, much of it through some of the most barren desert anywhere.

We arrived last night to the Al Monzer Hotel, Amman, Jordan, and this morning I’ve got the jet-lagged jitters. The sun is just about to rise, and the rays of new light are in a fierce argument with the back of my eyelids on what time it really is. I’m hoping a cup of coffee will bring a truce.

As the water boiled in the help-yourself kitchen just off the hotel lobby, I happened to notice a week-old copy of the English-language Jordan Times, turned to the page with the horoscope column. I got a chuckle when reading mine: “Can you find a way to get out for a change of scenery? It would do you a world of good. Make it someplace really special.” My change of scenery, from Brevard Road to Baghdad, probably wasn’t what the planetary diviner had in mind. But as far as the earth goes, few locations are as dependent on life and death choices to be made in the coming weeks. So, yes, I think it’s special.

Wednesday morning. We made it Baghdad, safe and sound, though things got a little tense at the Iraqi border. For a while I thought I’d have to hitch-hike back to Amman, alone. In the rush to get ready, I completely forgot until it was too late that I have an Israeli visa stamped in my passport, from my spring trip to the Occupied West Bank of Palestine. And the Iraqis won’t let you in if you have that. (Remind me to tell you that story when I get home!)

I’ve already told you about Voices in the Wilderness, which sponsors the Iraq Peace Team. But there’s also a delegation from Christian Peacemaker Teams, an ecumenical group founded by Mennonites, Brethen and Quakers who train Christians and locate them in various war-torn regions of the world as advocates of nonviolent alternatives to conflict. (It’s probably the most organized and effective response I know to fulfill Jesus’ demand to love enemies.)

The two groups work hand-in-hand here. Last night, right after arriving, the entire group met in one big circle. I counted 43, most from the U.S. but with a strong Canadian contingency as well as others from The Netherlands, Ireland, Scotland and Australia. Nearly half this group is committed to staying indefinitely—“until peace breaks out,” as one said last night, or at least until the war is called off. The rest of us are here anywhere between 10 days to a month.

The group is loosely but effectively organized into various task-units, everything from media work to action strategies (in and around Baghdad and beyond) to visits for conversation with Iraqi citizens in places like hospitals, cultural centers, mosques and churches. (Most in the U.S. don’t realize there are nearly one million Christians here in Iraq, including some of the oldest congregations. In the sixth century Christian missionaries from this land were traveling to India and China.)

But then, most of us know almost nothing about Iraq. And that’s partly on purpose, I believe, since it’s always harder to kill someone you know, someone who doesn’t have a name or a history or even a face but is just a target, is expendable, however remorsefully and regretfully, in the cause of “justice” and for the sake of “peace.” You remember the name of Timothy McVeigh, the homegrown terrorist who was executed for bombing the federal building in Oklahoma City and who confessed that he almost didn’t go through with it when he learned there was a daycare center in the building. But he decided that was unavoidable “collateral damage.” McVeigh was a veteran of the earlier war on Iraq, the Gulf War in 1991, and afterwards wrote in a letter to his aunt: “Killing Iraqis was hard at first, but after a while it got easier.” Or like current U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said when asked, in 1991, about the number of Iraqi casualties of that previous war: “That’s a number in which I have very little interest.”

I certainly didn’t know much until my first trip here three years ago. This region nestled between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers (my hotel room looks out on the former) is thought to be the site of the first human civilization some 6,000 years ago. The wheel was probably invented here, as well as human writing. The earliest legal code explicitly based in what we would call “justice”—protecting the weak against the strong—was discovered here. The use of zero in mathematics, time measurement, hospitals and the formal study of architecture started here.

Abraham, spiritual heir to three-fourths of the world’s people (Jews, Christians and Muslims), was born here. The Magi, first visitors at Jesus’ birth, came from here, as did other biblical figures like Noah, Jonah, Ezekiel, Nehemiah and Daniel—not to mention ol’ King Nebuchadnezzar.

My roommate’s just returned from an action in front of the United Nations compound here in Baghdad, and he wants to go get some lunch. But he said that, for the first time, a staff member in that building came and told our vigiling members that our presence there was a boost for their morale! What a delightful way to begin what could be an eventful stay.

More later. Tell your folks I say “hey.”

 

17 February 2003
Dear Caitlin

This trip is a little riskier than others I’ve taken to conflicted regions. And, yes, I’ve had moments of wondering if I fully knew what I’m getting into.

The Iraq Peace Team is split between three hotels in Baghdad—beautiful hotels, once upon a time, but a bit sad now. When I first got into my room, I noticed the windows each bore strips of clear plastic tape. At first I thought they were newly-installed and someone forgot to take off the tape. Then I realized (and later had it confirmed) that the tape was put there to retard glass shattering in case of bombing.

Then, yesterday, we got an official list of emergencies supplies to keep assembled in my small backpack in case we have to evacuate on short notice. It’s a sobering exercise, even more so for about half the group who are committed to staying indefinitely, war or no war. (The rest of us, including me, will attempt to leave if we get clear advance warning of an attack.)

So, why am I here? Is this crazy, or what?

I just stepped to my 5th floor window to watch a caravan of honking cars go by. Up front, in an old convertible, was a bride and groom sitting on the back of the back seat. A wedding party! Which is to say, life goes on here. You see soldiers occasionally, especially outside of hotels like ours during the evening hours, to make sure nothing happens to us.

This evening I took a walk to find some fresh fruit and found some at a street vendor about a mile away. Unfortunately, I didn’t have quite enough Iraqi dinari to pay him. He understood just enough English to realize what I was saying, and he asked, “Tomorrow?,” meaning, could I pay him the rest then? Given our schedule, I wasn’t sure I could get back tomorrow, so I tried to indicate that I would put back some of what I had selected.

As I tried to undo the knot in the plastic bag, he put his hand on mine, shaking his head, “No, no, no, is O.K.” Then he extended his hand, his left hand, to shake mine. His right hand was inconspicuously tucked in his coat pocket. Probably a war wound. Iraq was in a ten-year war with Iran in the ‘80s. They were a U.S. ally then. In fact, public records show that the U.S. government approved the sale to Iraq of all the components for the chemical weapons they used during that war.

And we offered no complaint after they did.

That’s the crazy thing about who’s a terrorist and who’s not. We usually refer to the latter as “freedom fighters.” Back when Afghanistan was aligned with the former Soviet Union—and when Moscow was declared by former President Reagan to be the center of a “global terror network”—our government poured tons of money into supporting Afghan “freedom fighters” at war with the Soviet army. Since then links have been made between those same people (including people like Osama bin Laden) and terrorist attacks in Algeria, Egypt, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the more recent suicide attack against the USS Cole.

Now a freedom fighter. Now a terrorist. It reminds me of the story about Alexander the Great, when he confronted a captured pirate ship captain. Alexander asked the man, “What is your idea, in infesting the sea?” To which the pirate asked back, “The same as yours, in infesting the earth! But because I do it with a tiny craft, I’m called a pirate. Because you do it with a mighty navy, you’re called an emperor.”

Back to my earlier question, about why I’m here. I’m here because (as one of my friends recently wrote) I believe that if Iraq’s economy, and that of its neighbors, were based on soy beans—instead of oil—we would not be threatening war.

I believe greed is the real reason for this conflict—a conflict between the leaders of two greedy nations, one large and powerful, one small and weak. I believe the Bible is exactly right when it says: Where do these conflicts come from? You want something and cannot have it, so you wage war (James 4:1-2).

I also believe that peace, like war, is waged. And that if you believe in something, really believe, you will be willing to take risks on its behalf.

Being here is risky. But it gives me a vantage point to see things more clearly. And what I see I’m able to communicate to people like you who have the hard job of convincing people there that war is not the answer to this conflict—in fact, that war will make things much, much worse.

Tomorrow I’m going to find that street vendor and pay him the rest of the money I owe.

 

25 February 2003
Dear Caitlin

I returned this evening from the infamous border between Iraq and Kuwait, marked by a 25-foot high wall of sand stretching as far as the eye could see. Our Iraq Peace Team set up an encampment in the demilitarized zone which separates the two countries, about 50 yards from the U.N.-monitored checkpoint. Bangladesh currently supplies the soldiers serving under the U.N. flag at this flashpoint. They waived at us several times during the day, and officers from France and Russia came out to chat at different times.

Somewhere beyond that horizon half of the 180,000 U.S. troops now ringing Iraq will come pouring in. They will cross the very place where we prayed and sang, displayed banners and enlarged photos of ordinary Iraqi citizens who will bear the blood payment for this showdown between a dictatorial regime and an empire addicted to oil.

If it comes, it will not be a battle. It will be a slaughter. As one ancient historian, documenting the earlier, Roman empire, wrote: “They create desolation and call it peace.”

Our group began a four-day, water-only fast following our Sunday evening news conference at the press center in Baghdad, where we released a statement to a gaggle of journalists and camera crews explaining this border initiative. The statement notes that “decisions [made by the U.S.] in the next few weeks will forever change the lives of millions of people.” It calls on people everywhere, but especially in the U.S., to conduct a massive, preemptive sit-down for peace, saying “Peace can still be preserved. Devastation can still be avoided. But you must go beyond what you think you can do. You must up the ante. With cataclysm hanging over our heads you must refuse to conduct business as usual.”

The writer of Proverbs said: “Where there is no vision, the people perish” (29:17). Sometimes, to see the center clearly, you have to go to the boundary; because what you see depends on where you stand.

The southern-most area of Iraq, to where we traveled Monday morning, is a most unusual bioregion. I don’t know if there is such a thing as a “desert marshland,” but this is what my untrained eye sees: minimal vegetation yet high humidity and an even higher water table, with frequent plots of standing water. Eons ago the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers (among other smaller rivers) created a massive marshland emptying into the Persian Gulf. The area birthed a distinctive culture, now virtually extinct, sometimes referred to as “the Venice of the Middle East.”

This area where we encamped, about an hour’s drive southwest of Basra, is now toxic. Cancer rates are five times higher than before the ’91 Gulf War. No doubt there are multiple causes. But the leading suspect is the 300 tons of depleted uranium deposited here during “Operation Desert Storm,” in the form of armor-piercing coatings on munitions fired by the U.S.-led coalition forces expelling the Iraqi military from Kuwait. Tuck away this story in your mind, Caitlin. I am convinced that by the time you reach adulthood the documented story of this form of biological warfare will finally be exposed.

During my brief borderline vigil several questions formed in my mind, in response to the Bush Administration’s fervent insistence—always coated in references to moral virtue—that justice in Iraq can only be bargained with the barrel of a gun.

     •If war is justified, why have most Christian denominations in the U.S., and many in other nations, spoken publicly against such a war? (This includes President Bush’s own pastor.)

     •If war is justified, why do all of Iraq’s neighbors oppose war at least without explicit U.N. approval. (Turkey, a traditional ally in the region, asked for twice the $18,000,000,000 U.S. offer for troop deployment along their border with Iraq. How is this different from bribery?)

     •If war is justified, why do most U.S. allies, the vast majority of the family of nations and a simple majority of U.S. citizens also object to unilateral action? And if war is launched anyway, will our democratic political tradition also be a casualty?

     •In World War I, it is estimated that 80% of the casualties were soldiers; in World War II, that number had dropped to 50 percent. Given the technology of modern warfare, the percentage of civilian casualties is up to 90%, and for every combatant fatality seven children die. Can any war be just? (Or is it JUST war?)

I, for one, believe such moral appeals (like depleted uranium-tipped shells) are designed to pierce the consciences of people here and everywhere who share an elementary commitment to justice, fairness and truth-telling.

I, for one, believe that such a war will merely scatter the germinating seeds of future wars.

I, for one, believe that we as a people are caught in a history we do not understand and could very well suffer the consequence of all who forfeit vision, who barter justice for security.

Think about these questions, and make your own list. We’ll talk when I get home in a few days. For now, the muezzin is just now issuing the call to prayer from the nearby mosque. Jews, Christians and Muslims agree that the call to prayer is a call to spiritual vision; but also that such spirituality transforms political vision as well: “Thy kingdom come, on earth. . . .” (Matthew 6:10).

Hope to see you soon!

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