God's Politics, or Jim Wallis's Politics? Part II
Chapter 8: “Not A Just War: The Mistake of Iraq”
In this chapter Wallis lays out his reasons for opposing the Iraq war. His reasons stem primarily from his pacifism and his belief that war is never morally justifiable, especially for Christians. He states early on that Christians have a tradition of pacifism and nonviolence which “rules out war as a way to resolve conflicts.”[1] He apparently subscribes to the belief that Christians must be pacifists and oppose war in all circumstances. He considers the idea of just war doctrine, and eventually discards it. He does not elaborate as to how he came to the conclusion that Christians are morally required to accept pacifism, but one can only assume that it stems from Jesus’s commands to turn the other cheek.[2] It is a common misinterpretation to take this passage as a general admonition against violence of any kind. However, each example given in this passage, cheek slapping, cloak-giving, and mile-walking each refer to specific circumstances that commonly arose in first-century Palestine, and are not general at all.
Besides his belief in pacifism, Wallis recycles many old and commonly used anti-war arguments. He calls the war “unilateral” many times. This is a common claim of the anti-war crowd, though they seem to be oblivious to the rather large number of nations that signed on to the coalition to remove Saddam Hussein—Australia, the UK, Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, and others.[3] This is anything but “unilateral,” though in the anti-war mindset the only countries that matter appear to be France and Germany.
Wallis then refers back to a “Six-Point Plan”[4] that he describes as having a good chance of success for dealing with Saddam Hussein and freeing the Iraqi people. First, he suggests “Indict[ing] Saddam Hussein for his crimes against humanity and send a clear signal that he has no future in Iraq, setting into motion the internal and external forces that could remove him from power and bring him to trial at the International Court in The Hague.”[5] He is not clear on what these “internal and external forces” are. If by “internal forces” he means the Iraqi people themselves, they tried to rise up in 1991 shortly after the Gulf War and were slaughtered. If by “external forces” he means the international community, it is difficult to see what else could have been done to remove him from power. Sanctions had been in effect for over a decade, and the two No-Fly Zones were harshly enforced and patrolled. Short of the invasion that was eventually carried out, there was little else to be done.
Point two: “Pursue coercive disarmament with greatly intensified inspections backed by a UN mandated multinational force”.[6] How does one pursue “coercive disarmament” without threatening violence, which Wallis does not support? In order to coerce, one has to issue a threat. With sanctions and No-Fly Zones already in place, there was nothing else to threaten but invasion. Then, there are substantial problems with assembling a “UN mandated multinational force”. Much of the world was not interested in disarming Saddam Hussein, or at least not interested in expending the effort necessary to do so. The UN could not agree to enforce its own resolutions regarding Iraq, and it is therefore difficult to see how it could have agreed to assemble a “multinational force”.
Point three: “Foster a democratic Iraq through a temporary post-Hussein UN administration, rather than a US military occupation.”[7] This point assumes that Hussein is gone, which as has already been stated was unlikely without military intervention. The problems with the UN have already been touched on, and will be examined in more detail shortly.
Point four: “Organize a massive humanitarian effort through the UN and nongovernmental relief agencies for the people of Iraq now, rather than only after a war.”[8] It is notoriously difficult to get any kind of humanitarian aid to countries controlled by dictators—the dictators simply steal the money and resources. This is precisely what happened with humanitarian aid programs in pre-war Iraq. Not only did Saddam steal the money, but so did the UN. Again, this will be addressed shortly.
Point five: “Commit to the ‘roadmap’ to peace in the Middle East, with a clear timetable toward a two-state solution that guarantees a Palestinian state and a secure Israel by 2005.”[9] There is no problem with this, though it is difficult to see how it pertains to the Iraq question.
Point six: “Re-invigorate and sustain international cooperation in the campaign against terrorism, rather than having it disrupted by a divisive war against Iraq that intelligence officials believe will likely lead to further attacks.”[10] International cooperation against terrorism is good, though it is impossible to gauge how much such ties have been “disrupted” by the Iraq war, and whether or not they have been disrupted at all.
Wallis continues to make incorrect statements concerning the war. He claims that pre-war intelligence was either “manipulated and selectively reported to justify a worst-case scenario that had previously been arrived at on political grounds…[or] the case was fabricated.”[11] It is an article of faith among the anti-war crowd that the intelligence was intentionally doctored to make the case for war stronger than it actually was. Unfortunately, it has no grounding in reality. A Senate investigation into the matter “did not find any evidence that Administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction capabilities.”[12] The conclusions reached by this investigation were signed off on by prominent Democrats such as Diane Feinstein and John Edwards, and was not simply an exercise in partisanship.
Some of Wallis’s arguments suffer from the curse of bad timing. He states that the war has failed to “produce the promises of democracy in Iraq or the beginning of a Middle East peace agreement.”[13] Since the composition of his book, both of these statements have been proven false. Astoundingly successful elections were held in Iraq on January 30th 2005, and the new Palestinian leader has indicated his willingness to accept a two-state solution, which his predecessor would not.
Wallis also makes the absurd and unsourced statement that “Already, one-third of Afghanistan is back under Taliban control.”[14] He makes a similar statement later on in the book, claiming that “outside of Kabul, the country is reverting back to control of warlords and even Taliban resurgence.”[15] Again, no source. This is likely because it is patently false. Afghanistan has made astonishing progress since the fall of the Taliban—the first of which has been free and fair nationwide elections which brought a secular, pro-Western president to power. There has been little media attention on Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban, likely because there are no American casualties and no spectacular failures to report. The construction of a new state in Afghanistan is going quite well.
Perhaps some of Wallis’s most dramatic claims come near the end of the chapter under the header “Stop the Occupation, Start the Rebuilding,” where he states:
The Americans and British cannot and should not run Iraq. The American-led occupation is leading to more suffering on all sides, and it will just get worse. The unilateral American occupation must be stopped and the rebuilding of Iraq begun, but under international authority and control. The United Nations was never given the full political authority to appoint a transitional Iraqi government and lead the process to clear elections and real Iraqi sovereignty. Security is, indeed, the immediate question, but a unilateral American military presence will never be able to provide it. We are the targets now and the biggest cause of the security problem. The international community must not simply be brought in to help the US agenda succeed; it must be given the authority to repair Iraq. American occupation is not the solution; it is the problem. And it must end.[16]
He reiterates this theme again shortly thereafter, saying that:
The Bush Administration should finally move to genuinely internationalize the peacemaking and decision-making strategy in Iraq and allow the United Nations to oversee the process of writing constitutions and having elections—they are simply better at it than we are.[17]
There are several claims here, some of which are contradictory. Namely, his first sentence is that the Americans and British should not run Iraq, which he then follows with a statement decrying the “unilateral American occupation.” If there are more than just Americans participating, then it is not unilateral. His main points boil down to this: The American occupation is making things worse, and the only institution which can effectively rebuild and lead Iraq in its transition to democracy is the UN. Let’s take a look at these in turn.
First, the US is not responsible for the current violence in Iraq, the terrorists are. To blame the Americans because they are the “targets” of the suicide attacks is blaming the victim in the worst manner possible. Besides, it is rarely true anymore. Terrorists are increasingly targeting Iraqis and Iraqis only, because they rightly recognize that the native security forces are fast becoming their primary opponents. The largest bombing to date was against only Iraqis, who were lining up to apply for jobs in the police and Iraqi National Guard. It was this bombing that sparked massive protests not against the Americans, but against the terrorists, and the following day the line at the bombing site was twice as long. The security situation and overall conditions are constantly improving[18], and ordinary Iraqis are becoming increasingly fed up with terrorist disruptions of their daily lives. Some are even taking matters into their own hands.[19]
Perhaps Wallis’s worst arguments are those concerning the UN. He seems to have a near-perfect faith that the UN can instantly solve all the security, economic, and social problems of Iraq and confer legitimacy upon a new government. Unfortunately, the UN is capable of none of these things. The UN is hopelessly inept and corrupt, especially with regards to Iraq. The UN cannot handle peacekeeping operations, and demonstrated by its experiences in the Balkans, Rwanda, and Somalia, where in each case it stood by and did nothing while genocide took place. In the Balkans and Somalia, it took US military intervention to get humanitarian aid through and to end the slaughter. Concerning Iraq specifically, the UN has been shown to be thoroughly corrupt. The Oil-for-Food Program was designed as a way for Iraq to sell a limited amount of its oil legally in exchange for humanitarian aid. In reality, Saddam, his sons, and UN officials embezzled the money and not a cent found its way to the Iraqi people. The UN is currently under investigation by the US Congress for corruption in these matters. Recent news reports claim that Kofi Annan is near resignation over the scandal, as it appears his son may have been directly involved in the corruption.[20]
The UN has no legitimacy whatsoever in these matters, especially in Iraq where it actively sabotaged efforts at humanitarian aid. Besides, the UN does not seem to want a role in rebuilding Iraq. There have been attempts to introduce new resolutions in the Security Council concerning Iraq, calling on member nations to aid in rebuilding, all of which have failed.
As for the rest of the international community outside the UN, neither do they seem to have much interest in helping Iraq’s reconstruction. To do so would require the expense of manpower and money, and none outside the coalition members already participating have offered to help. Wallis seems to contradict himself once more, when he laments the lack of participation of other Arab countries in the rebuilding of Iraq. This is interesting, considering that in the very same chapter a few pages before, he laments US support for “feudal Arab regimes protected by oil,”[21] the very same regimes he now wants the US to appeal to in order to aid in reconstructing Iraq. In reality, these countries have no interest in seeing Iraq stabilize or become a functioning democracy. If that were to happen, these countries’ tyrannical, dictatorial regimes would be threatened by the example set by a free Iraq.
Despite his claims that he is laying out a political vision grounded in theology and Christian principles, Wallis’s arguments are in reality simple restatements of unsupported and incorrect talking points of the anti-war movement. They are not supported by any kind of theology, and are simply reflections of his own views.[1] Wallis, Jim. God’s Politics: A New Vision for Faith and Politics in America. San Francisco: Harper Collins, 2005. pg. 109
[2] Matthew 5:39-41 NIV
[3] For a complete list and troops numbers, see http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iraq_orbat_coalition.htm.
[4] God’s Politics, pg 118.
[5] Ibid, pg. 54
[6] Ibid, pg. 54
[7] Ibid, pg. 54
[8] Ibid, pg. 54
[9] Ibid, pg. 54
[10] Ibid, pg. 54
[11] Ibid, pg. 122
[12] Select Committee on Intelligence, United States Senate, Report on the US Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq, Conclusions, # 83
[13] God’s Politics, pg. 123
[14] Ibid, pg. 123
[15] Ibid, pg. 170
[16] Ibid, pg. 129
[17] Ibid, pg. 131
[19] http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/22/international/middleeast/22cnd-iraq.html?ex=1269147600&en=4fab5dc83f59b0ae&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland
[21] God’s Politics, pg. 121
posted by maestro876 at
2:13 AM
1 Comments:
When did Latvia and Estonia count as countries?
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