Thinking about Iraq

A sermon by Rev. Fred Small
First Church Unitarian, Littleton
September 29, 2002

When he was a young man, the American painter James Whistler attended West Point. Assigned to draw a study of a bridge, he submitted an exquisite rendering of a picturesque stone arch with two children on it fishing from the river.

The lieutenant wasn't happy. "This is a military exercise," he said. "Get those children off the bridge."

Whistler returned to his desk and submitted a revised drawing with the children now fishing from the riverbank.

The lieutenant rejected it: "I said, get rid of those children."

Whistler's third and final drawing depicted the bridge, the river, and two small tombstones on the bank.

I think of this story as I listen to what passes for debate over war with Iraq. What's missing from the picture?

Our news media are filled with speculation on the effects of war on the economy, national security, and international diplomacy. Occasionally I read estimates of

American military casualties. But the children are missing, and so are their tombstones.

I titled this sermon "Thinking about Iraq" for two reasons.

First, since September 11, 2001, all of us have had difficulty thinking clearly. I know I have.

The terrorist attacks threw us back into our reptile brain, the "old brain" in which reside our instinct to survive, to fight or flee, to defend territory, and to reproduce. Wounded, frightened, and angry, Americans this last year have done much of our collective thinking in the grip of primal, reactive, reptilian instinct.

It has served us well for self-protection in the short term.

But the reptile brain-so strong, so swift, so certain-is incapable of contemplating the future. It fails in the face of complexity or ambiguity. It's a warrior, not a sage. Successful, it becomes its own worst enemy.

Thinking about Iraq, we need more than our reptile brain.

Second, the word "thinking" implies a continuing process, not a terminal conclusion; a dialogue, not a diatribe. The world we face is complex, and ambiguous, and constantly changing. In Unitarian Universalism, however lofty the placement of the pulpit, the minister does not speak from on high. I am guaranteed freedom of the pulpit and you are guaranteed freedom of conscience and of speech. You have both the right and the obligation to form your own conclusions. And whether you agree or disagree, you are a respected and cherished member of this community.

As I think about Iraq, the question I keep asking myself is, will attacking Iraq make our world more or less dangerous?

If we attack Iraq, will we be more or less likely to suffer another catastrophe like the mass murders of September 11? If American and British troops occupy a Muslim country, will violent Islamist movements be strengthened or weakened? Will the Middle East be more or less stable and peaceful? Will it be more or less likely that chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons will be deployed? Will violence, threats, and preemptive attacks be encouraged or discouraged in international disputes? Will the United Nations be strengthened or weakened? Will the United States be strengthened or weakened? What lessons will our children learn? What lessons will be learned by the children of Baghdad, Kabul, Karachi, Tel Aviv, Lagos, Bogota, Moscow, and Beijing? Will they be more likely to pursue the path of peace or war?

I think the world will be more dangerous for us and for our children if we attack Iraq without exhausting every sane alternative. These alternatives include stricter inspections, a schedule for lifting sanctions in exchange for authentic compliance with UN resolutions, isolation, international blockade, even patient coexistence-the strategy that kept US and Soviet weapons of mass destruction unused for half a century. If Stalin can be contained, Saddam can be contained.
More dangerous even than this war itself are its policy and precedent.

The president's National Security Strategy released this month asserts the right of the United States preemptively to attack anyone we suspect threatens us or our interests. The Strategy prescribes world domination by the United States. It declares that our military might "will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from . . . surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States." Newsweek paraphrases the Strategy as "We're No. 1 and we won't let anyone catch up."

This is the policy of a bully. It demeans and discredits our leadership in the world.

Unilateral and preemptive war is available only to the powerful. It is a doctrine of might makes right. It is a formula for international anarchy. What if it is practiced by India and Pakistan, Russia and China, Israel and Syria, Greece and Turkey? On what moral ground could the United States stand to urge restraint, patience, and peace between nations in conflict?

Given the dangers of this course, why do our leaders pursue it? Why are we threatening Iraq now?

Saddam is a brutal dictator, but no more brutal now than a dozen years ago, when the first President Bush left him in power. The evidence trumpeted last week by Tony Blair indicates that Saddam has fewer chemical weapons now than then, and is years away from acquiring nuclear weapons. When we favored Iraq against Iran, we had no quarrel with Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. And while Iraq has ignored numerous UN resolutions, so have many other nations we are not poised to invade.

The president declares "the United States cannot remain idle while dangers gather." I wish that were true. If it were, the administration would not have walked away from the Kyoto treaty, and it would be confronting the threat of global climate change to our national security and our children's lives. As it stands, our government is apparently more willing to bomb civilians in Baghdad than to speak sharply to executives in Houston and Detroit.

These issues are not unrelated. To say this war is all about oil is plainly inaccurate. To say it has nothing to do with oil is unrealistic.

The US Defense Department lists twelve nations with nuclear weapons programs, thirteen with biological weapons, sixteen with chemical weapons, and twenty-eight with ballistic missiles as existing and emerging threats to the United States. But only one of these countries has the second largest oil reserves in the world: Iraq. The only nation with more oil is Saudi Arabia, a dictatorship that smiles upon the United States but perches precariously atop seething anti-Americanism. If the US can transform Iraq from a rogue nation to a client state, our oil supply is secured and American oil companies get first dibs.

If this sounds too cynical, listen to former CIA director James Woolsey, who favors attacking Iraq. He argues that French and Russian oil companies already invested in Iraq should be a given a piece of the post-Saddam pie only if their governments support the US military campaign. Incidentally, Woolsey also urges higher fuel economy standards for US automobiles to show our good faith and thereby deter terrorism.

To say this war is all about politics is plainly inaccurate. To say it has nothing to do with politics is unrealistic.

Midterm elections are five weeks from Tuesday. The stock market is tanking and the war on terror is a bust. Osama bin Laden remains at large, likewise Mullah Omar, likewise the anthrax killer. Afghanistan's new government, a patchwork of democratic idealists, brutal warlords, and former Taliban, would collapse instantly without the US military. Threatening war on Iraq drives these inconveniences from the headlines and wraps the administration in the flag.
Oil and politics converge to make Iraq a tempting target. But I suspect that anger and frustration-the president's and our own-are the deeper causes.

After the atrocities of September 11, many of us wanted to strike back and to punish. The hijackers were dead, so we went after al Qaeda. But al Qaeda is everywhere and nowhere, elusive, invisible, difficult to prosecute, impossible to destroy. So we went after the Taliban and drove them quickly from power. But many of their leaders escaped, and their movement and mission live on in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and elsewhere.

We never got satisfaction, payback, closure. We wait for the other shoe to drop-maybe another hijacking, more likely some new horror yet undreamed. In our woundedness and anxiety we seek a drug to take our minds off our pain and fear.

War is that drug.

In war we let our reptile mind take charge and run the show. It's easier to make war than to make love, easier to kill than to feel, when our killing is done for us by professional soldiers disproportionately poor and working class. We can scream our heads off rooting for Team USA, a sure winner over a farm team like Iraq.

For President Bush, it's more personal. Saddam Hussein embarrassed his father even in victory, arguably denying him a second term, then attempted to assassinate him after leaving office. Some called George Herbert Walker Bush a wimp. George W. Bush will never let that happen to him.

We are told this war is inevitable: not if, but when. Even as he lambasted the president's plan, Senator Kennedy conceded, "They've got the votes. They don't have to negotiate."

He may be right. But despite the constant drumbeat for war and the timidity of Congress, despite September 11, the American people are not convinced that attacking Iraq makes sense. Two weeks ago, before any significant opposition had been voiced, 64% of Americans polled favored military action to topple Saddam Hussein. But if the US acts without allies, support plummeted to 33%. The day before yesterday, ABC News reported 61% support for war, down seven percent in two weeks. If that trend were to continue, support for war would drop below fifty percent by the end of October.

Maybe it's too late to stop this war. Maybe we are caught in currents too powerful to resist.

Thomas Jefferson wrote, "[W]hen wrongs are pressed because it is believed they will be borne, resistance becomes morality." So I will resist, even if only to bear witness to the dream and possibility of peace.

There is much to be done, phone calls to make, emails and faxes to send, petitions to sign and circulate, vigils to stand, candles to light. I invite you to join me, if you wish, if you can. I've prepared a list of action steps modestly titled "11 Ways to Stop a War" which includes Congress's toll-free phone number, a website that will send faxes free of charge, local peace organizations, and other resources. Tomorrow at 5:30 pm in Arlington Center there will be vigil to stop the war.

And I've drafted "A Unitarian Universalist Call for Peace," which I invite you to sign.

We won't be alone. UUA President Bill Sinkford has added his name to a letter urging peace signed by fifty national religious leaders. Unitarian Universalist congregations in Portland, Maine, Bloomington, Indiana, and Madison, Wisconsin, have already formed Peace and Justice Task Forces to respond to this crisis. Religious communities and peace groups around the world are taking action-2,000 antiwar demonstrators in Denver last Friday, 150,000 in London yesterday.

"Whatever you do may seem insignificant," said Mahatma Gandhi, "but it is most important that you do it."

We have a choice.

Besides the reptile brain, we have two others: the mammalian brain and the neocortex. The mammalian brain empowers us to love, to nurture, to join with others in community. The neocortex endows us with reason, memory, the ability to learn and to forgive. Only when we use all three are we fully human.

On September 11, 2002, Sandy Dahl, widow of the pilot of United Flight 93, spoke at the hallowed ground of Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where her husband's aircraft had crashed, killing all aboard. "Life is short," she said, "and there is no time for hate."

Amen.

Benediction:

Perish the sword
Perish the way of terror
Open our hearts to wonder
Let us be instruments of peace.

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