I watched in horror the wild jubilation upon the president’s announcement that Osama Bin Laden had been killed. Certainly I am not defending the despicable acts perpetrated by Bin Laden and Al Qaeda….but it just seemed so wrong to me for people to celebrate with such unbridled joy catalyzed by anger the death of anyone, even if it is the death of one of our worst enemies. We are exhorted time and again in Hebrew scripture not to gloat over our fallen enemies….At a downtown restaurant I watched a muted television mounted on the wall with the camera panning baseball fans chanting U.S.A….U.S.A. as if the whole notion of warfare were a sport. This morning the Press Register’s headline was “Rejoice.” That made me cringe as well.
Let me hasten to say that I am proud of the bravery of our service men and women who have carried out their orders with integrity. We owe them a great debt….but when will we learn that violence will never end violence…it never has. And I can only imagine the economic cost to simply track down one combatant over a period of ten years…when we know and have known all along that there are hundreds ready to take his place….we have been stoking the coffers of the military industrial complex at an exponential rate….a calamity of which we were warned by president Eisenhower in his final speech as president sixty years ago….and then there’s the human cost….How many dead?…. not just military dead and wounded, but the thousands of innocent civilian victims caught in the crossfire in both Iraq and Afghanistan….we call that “collateral damage”…what an obscene coinage.
I’ve heard pundit after pundit call Bin Laden an evil man…as if he created evil itself…certainly he gave himself over to violent extremism and committed crimes against humanity….but let us remember that even he like we is a child of God who has joined so many other dead in two questionable and controversial wars….wars in which diplomacy never was given a chance….so I say let us lament….let us lament all the dead who were caught in the crossfire of political manipulation….half truths and outright lies.
There is indeed evil in the world, and there are those who choose to join forces with it, like Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda….and evil’s calling card is violence first and foremost…. So for God’s sake shall we learn that we can’t fight evil with evil….violence with violence? The human and economic cost is always too great. If it is freedom and good will we wish to bear to the world then let it be by the means of peacemaking….building hospitals and schools…providing aid for infrastructure….dignifying the shamed….I believe evil, even terrorism, is undone by such acts of compassion and mercy. We might as well try a different approach because we know one thing for sure… war has never ended war….it has only whetted our appetite for more.
Let us lament the violence of our world, and pray for the courage to end it with love.
2011-05-03
The targeted killing of Osama bin Laden was, in my opinion, the best choice given the circumstances. It brought further disruption and discredit to the Al Qaeda organization. It resulted in a trove of intelligence that, perhaps, may forestall terrorist operations in the works. It set the stage for the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan. And it showed that the United States will not be intimidated by terrorist gangs.
That said, I fully recognize that all of these are political and national security goods. None of them guarantee that the cycle of violence and terrorism will end. They do not set right the horror and injustice of the September 11 attacks. They raise, rather than settle, questions about the operation’s legality and whether terrorism should be treated as an act of war or as an act of criminality. I hope, by the way, that the framers of the “Washington consensus” do not attempt to censor debates about the operation’s legality with their usual self-congratulatory bloviating and buffoonery. These are important moral and legal questions and they shouldn’t be dismissed with the usual naïve jingoism and tawdry fist-pumping.
But all of this throws into sharp relief the Christian’s dilemma. On the one hand are the political and national security goods, which I affirm, and yet, at the same time, which I recognize as stemming from the moral worldview of the rebellious principalities and powers. These the same powers which “corrupt and destroy the creatures of God” that we renounce in our baptismal liturgy.
Thanatos is the death-loving power that fuels violence, vengeance, pride, and indifference. The Scriptures Old and New remind us time and again that sin and death are linked. Is there any among us who would claim to be without sin and, therefore, to be beyond the reach and sting of death?
Eros is the life-force that fuels compassion, selflessness, sacrifice, and awareness. The church’s celebration of Eros is Easter. We recognize the power of Eros every Sunday in the Eucharist, a little Easter. We see Eros in baptism, water the outward and visible sign. All religions, and also secular humanism, celebrate Eros.
On the one hand, I believe that bin Laden’s killing was the best choice and, though I won’t fist-pump or pop open any champagne, I agree with the President’s decision to order that operation. On the other hand, I recognize that this choice was made within the moral realm of the rebellious powers and principalities. Therefore, it can’t be reconciled with the church’s sacramental theology, a theology to which I give full assent and witness.
Can the church’s sacramental theology ever be the basis of national security policy?
Are people of Eros forever condemned to live as aliens in a strange land?
Can we rise above Thanatos and its endorsement of primitivism?
I am reminded of the Collect for the Second Sunday after Christmas Day. It also appears in the Easter Vigil liturgy after the story of Creation. For me it is an Eros text.
“O God, who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature: Grant that we may share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share our humanity, your Son Jesus Christ: who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”
Amen to both of you gentlemen.
Thank you so much, Jim and Pete, for expressing a Christian perspective on the assassination of bin Laden. My gut reaction on hearing the news was dismay that it had come to the point that we approve, even applaud the taking of a life. Then Obama’s reasoning made me see that it was necessary. Even so, I switched back somewhat when Michael Moore came out — in very strident words—-deploring the action; even so, I was reconciled to what seems a necessary choice.
It has made me think a great deal about forgiveness, the importance of forgiveness in our daily lives, as well as how we might be able to forgive even the most horrendous of acts, the most evil of people, especially if we have been directly affected by the inhumanity of such people. I saw part of a TV program on the effect forgiveness had on people whose families had suffered in the holocaust, and how that ability to forgive, to truly forgive, had made them able to live their own lives more gracefully, more fully.