“Reflections on War”
By Reverend James Kubal-Komoto
Saltwater Unitarian Universalist Church
Des Moines, Washington
November 12, 2006
Yesterday was Veterans Day, a holiday to honor those among us who have served in our country’s military.
I have to admit I always have mixed feelings about Veterans Day.
I truly believe that those who have served in our country’s armed services deserve our honor and respect. I believe that many of the men and women who have served in our armed services have done so not only out of a desire to serve their country but also out of a desire to do some good in the world, and for this they do deserve our respect.
However, by focusing only on those among us who have served in our country’s military, I also believe our understanding of war becomes distorted.
As most of you probably know, Veterans Day has not always been called Veterans Day. It used to be called Armistice Day. It still is in some countries. Instead of only being a day to honor all of those who have served in our armed forces, it used to be is a day to remember all of those who were casualties of war. War World I, the so-called war to end all wars, ended on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, and acknowledging that anniversary was originally meant to remind us of the terrible price we pay for war so that we might think carefully before participating in another one.
I prefer the idea of Armistice Day. After all, in the 20th century, 109 million people died in wars. Most of those who died were not soldiers, but civilians, as is also true of the war dead in Iraq.
So on this Sunday closest to Veterans Day, I believe it is appropriate to acknowledge and remember all of our veterans, especially the nearly 3,000 U.S. soldiers who have died in the Iraq war as well as the nearly 45,000 who have been physically injured. (I worry too about those with no physical injuries, but with wounds to the spirit which are equally crippling.)
However, I also believe it’s appropriate to remember the Iraqi men, women, and children have suffered and died from the result of the war in Iraq.
Their names are not as well known to us. Their faces don’t appear in flashes on our nightly newscasts. However, they too had hopes and dreams that are now gone forever. They too had family and friends who loved them and who mourn their loss. In this interdependent and interconnected world in which we live, they too were a part of our shared humanity, and we are diminished by their deaths.
According to one estimate, up to 600,000 Iraqi men, women, and children have died as a result of the war. To me that number is staggering. That’s about one-tenth the number of European Jews who died in the Holocaust.
I am not a pacifist. I do not reject the use of violence in any circumstance. However, I am deeply troubled by the war in Iraq, and all the suffering and death it has caused. I believe the war in Iraq was a mistake. I did so before it started, and like many of you, I contacted my elected representatives and I participated in marches and I stood on street corners as part of a candlelight vigils. However, most of my fellow Americans disagreed with me at the time, and this country went to war with tragic results.
(By the way, if you disagreed with me then or disagree with me now, that’s okay. In a Unitarian Universalist church, one is not required to agree with everything or anything the minister says. However, one of my responsibilities as minister is to speak the truth as I understand it, and that’s what I try to do every Sunday, including today.)
Four years later, things have changed. Most Americans no longer believe the war in Iraq was justified. Most Americans now believe that the war in Iraq was a mistake. It seems that after our initial enthusiasm for war, we have once again lost our taste for war and its consequences, at least for a while, but what price have we paid?
As somebody who’s always trying to look on the bright side of things, I have told myself that maybe the fiasco of the war in Iraq has prevented us from entering an even bloodier, more destructive conflict with Iran or North Korea.
However, I also can’t help but thinking that history has once again repeated itself. You see, in 1966, about two-thirds of the American people supported the Vietnam war. By 1969 - - three years later - - about two-thirds opposed the war. Of course, it wasn’t until 1973 that the last American troops left that country.
This leads me wonder whether history won’t repeat itself again, a few years from now or a few decades from now. Does every generation of Americans have to learn the lessons of war over again? Every 30 years or so, do we have to have another terrible war just to remember how bad they are?
I think about the young children who are part of this religious community. I was about their age when the Viet Nam War was ending. Will their generation have to learn the lessons of war all over again? What would have to change, what would have to be different, for them not to have to go through again what we are going through now?
Or to ask this question another way, what would have had to happen differently for us as a country not to make the mistake of going to war in Iraq? If going to war against Iraq was a mistake, what led us as a country to making that mistake, and what can we learn from it?
I know that the easiest thing to do would be to point the finger at President George W. Bush. Without a doubt, if any single individual is to blame for this war, it is President Bush. This week the American people offered a judgment against him, and history, I believe, may offer a far harsher judgment.
And yet if we lay all the blame on the Bush Administration for this war, I believe we are dangerously fooling ourselves.
Why do I say this?
Let’s remember that the framers of the U.S. Constitution did not give the president the ability to declare war. Knowing too well the history of war in Europe, they knew that heads of state often went to war for poor reasons, so our founding fathers instead gave to Congress the ability to declare war.
Let’s also remember that in October 2002, Congress passed legislation titled “The Authorization for the Use of Military Force against Iraq.” The House passed this legislation by a vote of 296-133, and the Senate passed it by a vote of 77-23. These were not party line votes. Representative Adam Smith, who represents many of us in Congress, voted for it. Senator Maria Cantwell did too. Both are Democrats.
So Congress, and both parties of Congress, also deserve some of the blame for this war. However, I also believe it’s a mistake to lay all the remaining blame for this war on Congress.
Why do I say this?
Let’s remember that we live in a democracy, and in a democracy, ultimate responsibility doesn’t like with the President, the Congress, or even the Supreme Court, but with the people.
Let’s also remember that in October 2002, the majority of American people supported a military attack on Iraq. I have no doubt that if enough of the American public had been opposed to military action in Iraq, it wouldn’t have happened.
So in deciding where to lay blame for the mistake of going to war in Iraq, I believe a good deal of the blame lays with the American people. In a democracy, it’s ultimately the people who deserve either the credit or the blame for any action the nation takes.
Now some of you may say, “That’s unfair! The
President lied to, or at least misled, the Congress and the American people
about the situation in Iraq, so it’s not fair to blame either Congress or the
American people. If either Congress or the American people had known then what
they know now, things would have been different.”
But in my opinion, that’s revisionist history.
You see, I preached against the U.S. using military force against Iraq in September 2002. I recently looked back on what I said. On that Sunday morning, I expressed skepticism that there was any link between the Iraqi government and al-Qaida. I expressed skepticism that Iraqi government had weapons of mass destruction. I expressed skepticism that the Bush Administration was telling the truth about Iraq. I expressed skepticism whether a war against Iraq would work or would make the U.S. safer against terrorism.
I don’t bring this up to show how insightfully brilliant I was. (Well, maybe just a little.) Many others - - many of you - - were skeptical too. I do bring this up to suggest that if I had reasons for such skepticism and doubt, others should have too. After all, unlike some ministers in this country, I don’t have a weekly Monday morning call with the White House. I only know what I read in the papers, hear on the radio, and watch on TV.
So I think it’s a lousy excuse for anybody, elected official or otherwise, to claim - - as I hear more and more these days - - “If we knew then what we knew now, things would have been different,” and I don’t believe it’s unfair to lay some of the blame for the mess in Iraq with the American people.
Having said that, I do want to ask - - because this is the question that has haunted me - - what would have had to be different for us not to make this mistake of going to war in the first place?
I know that the American public would have had to be more skeptical about what our president told us.
This is just about the “truthiness” of President Bush. Presidents have always lied to the American people to encourage support for war. For example, President Johnson lied to the American people about the Gulf of Tonkin in order to encourage support for the war in Viet Nam. Some future president will probably lie again to the American people in order to generate support for another war.
The famous journalist I.F. Stone once said the two most important words to remember about politics are these: “Governments lie.”
But how could we have convinced a country to be more skeptical of its leaders? I don’t know.
I also know that the American public would have had to be more skeptical about the news it gets from the media.
Without a doubt, the media played an important role in this war. A study out of the University of Maryland in 2003, titled “Misperceptions, the Media, and the War,” showed that most Americans held factual misperceptions about the situation in Iraq, for example, believing that there was evidence of close ties between Iraq and al-Qaida, believing that weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq, and believing that world public opinion favored going to war in Iraq. The study also showed that the more misperceptions one held, the more likely one supported the war. The study also showed that those who watched FOX News had the most factual misperceptions and those who got their news from PBS or NPR had fewer misperceptions by far. Those who got their news only from printed news media had the least misperceptions.
But how could we have convinced a country to be more skeptical of its media? I don’t know.
What else would have had to be different?
The Greek historian Thucydides wrote the history of the Peloponnesian wars, and Thucydides tells us that there are three causes of war, “interest, fear, and honor.” I have wondered about the role that each of these played in this country’s initial support of the war.
Before the war started, many people, especially those on the political left, opined that this was simply a war about oil. “No blood for oil,” people shouted at protest demonstrations I attended. I truly have no idea of whether the Bush’s family close connections to the oil industry played any role in his motivation for this war, but whatever that case may be I don’t think it explains at all why the American people were so eager for this war.
But what about fear? Was our fear of terrorism so overblown that we as a nation were willing to irrationally attack another country, even if that country posed no credible threat to us? If so, what could we have done to help people deal with their fears more rationally?
I don’t know.
And what about honor? Were the terrorist attacks such a blow to our sense of national pride that we had to go to war to prove to the world that nobody was going to mess with us a get away with it? If so, what could have done to convince our country that restraint is the highest expression of power, the most visible mark of the strong.
I don’t know.
I have wondered if something about our national identity, the way we think about ourselves as Americans, would have had to be different.
The writer Barbara Kingsolver says “Our nation was established with a fight for independence so our iconography grew out of war. Our national anthem celebrates it; our language of patriotism is inseparable from a battle cry.”
“Our every military campaign,” she says, “is still launched with phrases about men dying for the freedoms we hold dear, even when this is impossible to square with reality.”
But how do we change the way a whole country thinks about itself? I don’t know.
I have wondered whether something about the religious beliefs that some Americans hold would have had to be different.
A few months ago, Baylor University released a study titled American Piety in the 21st century. The study was one of the most comprehensive ever done that looked at the relationship between people’s faith and public attitudes. For me, one of the more interesting findings of the study was this: “The belief that God favors the United States [above other nations in worldly affairs] is the single, strongest predictor of whether an individual…approves of the Iraq War.”
The good news regarding this is that only about one in five Americans does believe that God favors the United States in worldly affairs. Or in other words, four out of five Americans reject the idea that God loves the U.S. more than any other country.
Nevertheless, one out of five Americans is not an insignificant portion of the population. Yet how do you change the religious beliefs of those who believe that God loves America most? I don’t know.
I have also wondered whether war fills some spiritual need even among those who reject the idea that God loves America most.
Christopher Hedges, a former war correspondent for the New York Times, writes in his book War Is a Force That Gives Our Lives Meaning, that “war fills our spiritual void."
War, Hedges suggests, both for those who participate in it and those who watch it from the sidelines, lifts us above the quotidian rhythms of ordinary life, above the mundane tasks that fill our days. It trivializes the trivial in our lives. "Only when we are the in the midst of conflict," Hedges says, "does the shallowness and vapidness of much of our lives become apparent." War, he says, allows us to believe that our own lives are intricately connected with the great drama of history. War, we are told, not only allows us to be the good guys but to change the world.
"Lurking beneath the surface of every society, including ours," Hedges says, "is the passionate yearning for a nationalist cause that exalts us, the kind that war alone is able to deliver. It reduces, at times, erases the anxiety of the individual consciousness. We abandon individual responsibility for a shared, unquestioned communal enterprise, however morally dubious."
Yet how do we convince our country that the temporary high of war is not worth the consequences that last for decades and centuries?
I don’t know.
I have wondered rather cynically if it would have made a difference if this country hadn’t fought this war on the credit plan.
According to the latest reliable estimate that I’ve been able to find, the cost per household for the war in Iraq is $3,375. I have wondered if the U.S. Congress had been required to pass a tax bill raising taxes by $3,375 on the typical household, if the country would have been so approving of going to war. Would this have made a difference?
I don’t know.
I realize I’ve been saying, “I don’t know” a lot this morning, and this hasn’t been for rhetorical effect. Most times when I stand before you on a Sunday morning and share my thoughts with you, I like to share questions with you but also offer answers, but this morning I don’t have a lot of answers, I just have questions, and I’m not even sure they’re the right questions. However, one question that I’m very sure is the right one is: “How can we not make this mistake again?” and I believe it is by answering this question that we will give the most honor and meaning to all those who have suffered and died as a result of war.
The nearly 3,000 American men and women who have died in the war in Iraq deserve no less. The hundreds of thousands of Iraqi men, women, and children who have also died deserve no less.
My hope is that we will find a good answer to this question and find it soon.
So may it be. Amen.