video vets project
grim reaper
I heard a report today on NPR about the next generation Predator, a military drone called the MQ-9 Reaper. The Defense Update website says of the Reaper:
The availability of high performance sensors and large capacity of precision guided weapons enable the new Predator to operate as an efficient “Hunter-Killer” platform, seeking and engaging targets at high probability of success.
It is, in short, a highly effective killing machine … operable from a comfortable desk chair in Nevada. You go to work, kill a few terrorists by remote control, then go home for dinner with your wife.
A colonel interviewed by NPR extolled its usefulness in the war on terror. The first generation Predator was able to hunt and uncover al-Zarqawi, he said, but then they had to call in F-16’s to drop the bombs that took out his hiding place and killed him. But the Reaper can carry 300 pounds of weapons. It could have done the whole thing all by itself … from Nevada. Because it’s a drone, because it’s lighter than a standard fighter plane, it can simply hover and wait for its target to appear and then …
I find it profoundly disturbing. How easy it will be to hunt down and take out … whomever you want. Without breaking a sweat, from half a world away, at absolutely no risk. That’s the most disturbing part to me — you can take out whomever you want.
But, you protest, it is war. Maybe so. People are dying like it’s war. But it is not war in the classic sense. In war, you can readily identify the combatants, but in this “war” it is not at all easy to identify the combatants or restrict the exposure to “the combatants.” Terrorists intentionally target non-combatants, and counter-terrorists target the terrorists, and their aid-ers and abet-ers.
With this efficient “Hunter-Killer” we can eliminate whomever we want, whomever we decide is a terrorist, whomever we decide is a threat. But how can we be sure who is the enemy and who is a threat? Our track record of identifying terrorists and gathering reliable intelligence is rather suspect. And even if we can positively determine an individual we count as a threat, what gives us the right to take his life, preemptively, because he might do something to threaten Americans? As the NPR reporter suggested, if you can find him, why not arrest him, detain him, try him?
For what do we want our nation to be known? For our justice and fairness, for our defense of the human rights of any and all persons, for strict adherence to the rule of law? Or for having the best killing machines?
the voice of a prophet speaks to us still
who’s irresponsible?
In a time of war, it’s irresponsible for the Democrat leadership in — Democratic leadership in Congress to delay for months on end while our troops in combat are waiting for the funds.
– George Bush, speaking to the press this morning in the Rose Garden
Is it irresponsible to exercise congressional oversight over a war that the majority of the American people believe is being mishandled?
Is it irresponsible to refuse to allow the administration to do whatever it wants, however it wants, without input from the people’s representatives?
Is it irresponsible to ask for dialogue about a war that is costing this nation dearly — in money, in lives, and in reputation?
Or is the truly irresponsible thing to undermine the moral credibility of this nation, to expend billions of dollars and thousands of lives, to provoke an enormity of sufffering and death among the civilian population of a foreign nation, all for the sake of a war of choice, a war without need, a war without cause?
containment and the war on terrorism
In the run-up to the Iraq invasion, the Bush administration rejected containment as an obsolete Cold War hangover. Advocates of containment were accused of appeasement. But now we know that the containment regime worked: Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was in no position to threaten anyone, let alone the United States.
That’s the first paragraph of an article published in the Yale Alumni Magazine. The article, A Better Strategy Against Terror is adapted from Ian Shapiro’s new book, Containment: Rebuilding a Strategy against Global Terror (Princeton University Press). The article — and I would expect, the book! — are well worth reading.
a conversation that needs to happen, but won’t
From today’s New York Times: Bush Vows Not to Negotiate on Iraq Timetable
A defiant President Bush vowed today not to negotiate with Congress about setting a date for withdrawing American troops from Iraq, and he said the American people would blame lawmakers if there is any delay in approving money for the war effort.
“Now, some of them believe that by delaying funding for our troops, they can force me to accept restrictions on our commanders that I believe would make withdrawal and defeat more likely,” Mr. Bush said. “That’s not going to happen. If Congress fails to pass a bill to fund our troops on the front lines, the American people will know who to hold responsible.”
I believe, I want to believe, that Mr. Bush believes he is doing what is best for our country by “staying the course” in Iraq, but sincerity and good intentions are not enough. By refusing to bend at all and by summarily dismissing legislation setting a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq passed by both the House and the Senate, Mr. Bush is not merely defying the Democratically-controlled Congress, he is defying the intent of the Constitution. The Constitution intends a trilateral sharing of power, a system of checks and balances, so that one person, one office, even one branch of government will not act alone, unilaterally establishing national policy.
But this administration wants to pursue its war as it sees fit, without counsel, without oversight, without negotiation, without compromise. The bills passed by Congress and the bill which may eventually reach the president’s desk should provide, not an ultimatum, but a starting point for conversation, a conversation that could lead to a policy more closely reflecting the will of the people. But this administration has already decided by itself what is best for the people.
“If we cannot muster the resolve to defeat this evil in Iraq, America will have lost its moral purpose in the world. And we will endanger our citizens, because if we leave Iraq before the job is done, the enemy will follow us here.”
We have already lost our moral purpose in the world. The invasion of Iraq four years ago was a preemptive strike; an act of war in response to a perceived threat, not to any provocation; quite simply an act of aggression, illegal and immoral. The United States and its allies invaded a sovereign nation without just cause, and the immorality of that act has only been compounded by the immense suffering of the Iraqi population.
We cannot unring that bell and the situation on the ground in Iraq today is complex and unpredictable. The daily violence despite — or because of — the presence of American troops is horrendous, and it is almost certain that the violence without the presence of American troops would be even worse. But as a moral issue, the war does not become any more moral by its elongation. The immoral war is still immoral, and the only way to redress that failing and to reclaim any moral redemption is to cease and desist … to leave Iraq.
on the subject of the war in iraq
I reprint for you here an excerpt of the remarks Jim Wallis will make at a Christian peace rally to be held this evening in Washingon, D.C. His words are powerful and passionate and perceptive and faithful to the gospel of Jesus. As Christians, we must discern and root out the fear in our own hearts and minds, let it be rooted out as the love of God fills us more and more. As Christians, we take no sides, nor enlist God to defend “our side,” but do our best to put ourselves on God’s side …
For all of us here tonight, the war in Iraq has become a matter of faith.
By our deepest convictions about Christian standards and teaching, the war in Iraq was not just a well-intended mistake or only mismanaged. THIS WAR, FROM A CHRISTIAN POINT OF VIEW, IS MORALLY WRONG – AND WAS FROM THE VERY START. It cannot be justified with either the teachings of Jesus Christ OR the criteria of St. Augustine’s just war. It simply doesn’t pass either test and did not from its beginning. This war is not just an offense against the young Americans who have made the ultimate sacrifice or to the Iraqis who have paid such a horrible price. This war is not only an offense to the poor at home and around the world who have paid the price of misdirected resources and priorities. This war is also an offense against God.
And so we are here tonight, very simply and resolutely, to begin to end the war in Iraq. But not by anger, though we are angry, and not just by politics, though it will take political courage. But by faith, because we are people of faith.
This service and procession are not just another political protest but an act of faith, an act of prayer, an act of nonviolent witness. Politics led us into this war, and politics is unlikely to save us by itself. The American people have voted against the war in Iraq but political proposals keep failing, one after the other.
I believe it will take faith to end this war. It will take prayer to end it. It will take a mobilization of the faith community to end it – to change the political climate, to change the wind. It will take a revolution of love to end it. Because this endless war in Iraq is based ultimately on fear, and Jesus says that only perfect love will cast out fear.
So tonight we say, as people of faith, as followers of Jesus, that the deep fear that has paralyzed the conscience of this nation, that has caused us to become the kind of people that we are not called to be, that has allowed us to tolerate violations of our most basic values, and that has perpetuated an endless cycle of violence and counter-violence must be exorcised as the demon it is – THIS FEAR MUST BE CAST OUT!
And to cast out that fear, we must act in faith, in prayer, in love, and in hope – so we might help to heal the fears that keep this war going. Tonight we march not in belligerence, or to attack individuals – even those leaders directly responsible for the war – or to use human suffering for partisan political purposes. Rather, we process to the White House tonight as an act of faith, believing that only faith can save us now.