Many years ago Pogo, a comic strip character drawn by Walt Kelly, observed (in good humor) that: “We have met the Enemy, and He is Us”. Pogo thought we'd become inimical to our own best interests by means of profligate consumption and our tendency to trash our environment - and thus be our own enemy. Pogo’s words seem prescient today when we realize how deeply we’ve been drawn into the culture of war and a world of enemies.
The world of enemies, not only those who vilify and target us, or those who may otherwise deserve our enmity, merits the attention of conscientious people everywhere. If ever the world is to free itself of hatred, strife, genocide and war - it needs to look into the sources of enmity, to pacify enemy populations - it needs to bring the adversaries into peaceable understanding of enemy within themselves in order to ease the hostilities they have for one another. Following is an abbreviated history of certain enemies who impact the well-being of our world today - starting with Al Qaeda.
Al Qaeda is an international terrorist cell group (mostly Saudi Arabians) dedicated to the elimination of what they perceive to be the enemies of Islam and the United States in particular. On 9/11/2001 Al Qaeda, then encamped somewhere in the mountains of northwestern Afghanistan, used skyjacked commercial airplanes to destroy the World Trade Towers in New York and bomb the Pentagon in Washington DC. The destruction was horrendous – three thousand Americans were killed. In October 2002, with "9/11" as his call to arms, President George Bush declared retaliatory war on the Talaban government of Afghanistan. Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda’s Leader, was designated “Terrorist Enemy No.1”.
By the end of March, 2003, the American Armed Forces had killed several thousand Afghans, and a significant number of Al Qaedas. The Taliban had been dispersed, and Al Qaeda had relocated its base of operations underground somewhere near the southeastern border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Hamid Karsai was installed as Interim Prime Minister of Afghanistan, and Afghans had to accept the ongoing presence of American Occupation Forces in their country.
The war continued rather aimlessly because no one knew where Bin Laden was - no one had the slightest idea how this war could be brought to an end. President Bush tried (not very convincingly) to tell the Muslim World that Islam was not our enemy - but the United States set about profiling and imprisoning Muslims who were seen as having even slight association with Al Qaeda. Bush made the undiplomatic mistake of calling the war a "crusade" - and more Muslims were convinced that the United States was their enemy - Al Qaeda acquired new adherents.
The Bush Administration spent the first part of 2003 preparing for its next war, this time against another Muslim country of Iraq with Saddam Hussein targeted as“Terrorist Enemy No.2". By means of phony intelligence and scare tactics they tried to make the world believe that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and was preparing to use them. U.N. Weapons Inspectors on the scene in Iraq, reported that they had found no WMDs. Millions of people from every corner of the world, took to the streets to protest the coming war - half a million Americans converged on Washington - but with bull-headed determination, soft money and bribes, President Bush convened a "coalition of the willing” to fight the war regardless.
On May 19th 2003. the U.S. cut short the peace keeping efforts of the U.N., and attacked Iraq. The destruction of Iraq was immediate and massive. Thousands of Iraqis were killed, and Iraq was left without electricity and water. Cultural institutions, schools and governmental facilities were destroyed. Iraqis were supposed to welcome the Americans with open arms - but waves of insurgents and suicide bombers rose from the rubble to fight Bush's plans to "free" Iraq. By mid-December 2003, Saddam Hussein was captured (no WMDs). The War had become an economic disaster we could ill-afford, and now America had the moral responsibility to pay billions more to clean up the mess.
2004 was Election Year for Americans. The war on Iraq was the most divisive campaign issue. Millions of Americans were opposed to Bush's Wars. Rifts in the public discourse had opened along racial lines with Black Americans against Republicans, Muslims against Christians, Red Necks against Blue Bloods. Issues were framed by how many American Flags could be draped on the speakers platforms and which candidate could say "God Bless America" with the greatest conviction. Americans were urged to vote for Bush, and to "stay the course" of Bush's Wars.
On Election Day 2004 America voted to give President Bush four more years. 56 million people voted against him, but 59 million voted for him - and thus to “stay the course” of his wars, both of which were bogged down with no clear cut “course” to “stay”, and no peaceable end in sight. We can't afford these wars (not emotionally and not economically), and, to make things worse, we have the moral responsibility to pay billions of dollars more to repair the mess we’d made. We can't afford the Presidency we voted for. Our external enemies are painful enough - but the enmity between Republicans and Democrats was even more problematic.
A couple of days after Election Day (they were still counting votes) the whole world witnessed live on TV the “shock-n-awe” night-time attack of the American Armed Forces against Fallujah - explosions, fire, bombs and rockets, death and destruction, chaos, Fallujah (mosques and all) on fire. Viewers were reminded of those WWII pictures of the bombing of Dresden and the dropping of the A-Bomb on Hiroshima – and, once more that "war ain’t pretty". In a sick way, we gave and got what we voted for - and a new wave of Muslims hated us.
Is a "War on Terror" such that "Geneva Conventions" can't be observed? Long before the torture scandals broke, the President’s men said that certain Muslims were "animals” who “didn't deserve humane treatment”. Thousands of Muslims have been racially profiled – wrongly imprisoned - and sent to places like Abu Ghraib and Quantanimo Bay, where they can be tortured and subjected to questionable interrogation techniques beyond the scrutiny of a free press, civil rights groups, and established legal systems. America can (and should) do better.
The President’s men confuse things by casual use of words like: "killers" and "murderers" - not to say that "our brave war-fighters” are "killers" - but to say instead that "their cowardly war-fighters” are "killers" and "murderers". When they say that "we don't do body counts" they tell the world that human life is not sacred - even cheap - and we deserve the prejudice heaped on us by the families of those we kill. What is the “moral value” of killing thousands of Afghans? or thousands of Iraqis? or thousands of anybody ???
Political rhetoric and spin is a huge part of our problem. By twisting truth and spreading lies we reinforce the credentials of our enemies, and lessen our own credentials as a force for good. When we are disingenuous with others (be they allies and adversaries) we hurt ourselves in ways that make us enemies of ourselves. We should “get real” - to save ourselves from ourselves, we must face the truth, and tell it like it is.
Our President insists that "we will prevail" - but how, when, and even if we could prevail is not at all certain. No one prevails if Iraq is left in ruins. We're expected to clean up the mess and leave Iraq with some sense of self sufficiency and control of its future. But, as things stand now, Iraq is getting more chaotic daily, requiring thousands of additional troops to fight the growing insurgency, and billions of dollars to repair its war-torn infrastructure. The hope that democracy and freedom will prevail is unlikely to succeed as long as American armed forces are embedded in Iraq.
On the day after “9/11”, we had the sympathy of the world on our side. Today, not four years later, we’ve all but drowned ourselves in fog of war. Erstwhile friends now see us as aggressors - as free-range warriers looking for trouble - killing civilians, women and children who had nothing to do with "9/11". The President is bound up in flag-waving patriotics, staying the unsteady course of a sick war - who sees the U.S. as the last great Super Power, unbound by rules effecting lesser powers - who thinks he can impose "freedom” on adversaries by “eliminating” dictators and force-feeding the natives “democracy” at gun point.
The civilized world and more than 56 million Americans want these wars to end. They're concerned that Iran and North Korea will be next – that new problems are brewing in the Philippines and Indonesia - that we’ll become involved in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict – and that the “War on Terror” will expand beyond our ability to contain it and achieve peaceable results. And we’ll have brought it on ourselves - by reelecting a President who needs ongoing warfare to maintain his Commander-in-Chiefdom - who needs no "permission slips" to do unto other countries things we would never allow them to do unto us.
Time marches on - each day more people are killed. We should be asking ourselves if there’s a decent way to end these wars ? that saves lives ? a way that wins back the hearts and minds of our adversaries ? We should ask how can we impose “democracy and freedom" on a war-ravaged country (ravaged by us), which needs respite from us, a period of “love and order”, and sufficient time for its people to muster the strength and courage to control their own destiny and live in freedom as they choose? The obvious answer is that we should bring our troops home.
But that won't happen - not as long as war buys the groceries and pays the electricity bills at the White House– not as long as the President and his military-industrial associates are disinclined to stand down from war. Peace has little traction as long as America is lost in the fog of war and driven by an insatiable need for oil - not as long as duty bound soldiers man battle stations in far away places with guns at the ready and triggers so easy to squeeze.
Who's gonna ask a one of them to be the last man to die in the quagmires of Iraq? It won’t be the President who put them there, who's stuck with his own promise to "stay the course" and keep the war booming. Will there come a day when he/we realize that neither Enemies No.1 or No.2, bad as they always were, never were our “worst” enemy ???
Pogo said it well when he told Porkypine: “We have met the enemy, and He is Us". We should know today, that we are indeed enemies unto ourselves – that we must step aside from the killing fields of war – that we must pull ourselves up and out of the “Culture of War”, and reinvest ourselves in our original decency and the “Testimony of Peace”.
Thousands of people are wounded and dying - Iraqis and Americans. We must redirect our hearts to be supportive of all those who are still alive - Iraqis and Americans, We need to love one another, to love our differences, to love God - even to love a President whose misguided instructions brought about the deaths of thousands of Iraqis and Americans. He knew not what he was doing. We pray that each of us, in his or her own way, will find it possible to love our enemies as we love ourselves. Our survival depends on it. We must look forward to that better day when kindness and the “Testimony of Love” prevails. Till then = we gotta love our way through it - throough all the hostilities laid upon us by our enemies - inhouse, at home and overseas!
