Peacemaking in a Time of War

Talk by Lee Griffith at Friends Meetinghouse
Elmira, N.Y., May 22, 2002

First, reminders about the place in which we live and the time in which we live--the contexts for any efforts at peacemaking.

I am convinced that the place in which we live is Rome, is Babylon--which is to say, we live in the most highly militarized, imperial nation ever to appear in history to this point. During much of our lifetime, that fact has been less than clear due to the obfuscating polarities of the Cold War in which observers wondered who posed the greater threat to the survival of the planet. For over a decade now, the need for wondering is gone. The United States spends more on the military than the next fifteen nations combined. President Bush's $48 billion proposed increase in the military budget alone represents more than the total annual spending on the military of any other nation. The United States accounts for fully two-thirds of the world's arms trade and sales and gifts, which helps to explain the fact that each of the last six times that U.S. troops went into battle, they faced troops armed with U.S. weapons.

If one were to study only the constitutionally mandated declarations of war, one might think that the United States has been at peace for the last 57 years. In fact, in the last 57 years, no other nation has attacked, invaded or sent troops to other nations more frequently than has the U.S. I speak not only of sending troops to Korea and Vietnam and Iraq and Afghanistan, but also Lebanon and Guatemala and Panama and Somalia and Haiti and Laos and Grenada and Cambodia and El Salvador and Yugoslavia and the Dominican Republic and other nations known and unknown to us. In addition to the fact that such a record of military adventure is terrorism, it also contributes to environments which are generative of terrorism.

But we can be even more specific about the source of terrorism when we look at the phenomenon which has become known in foreign policy circles as "blowback." Blowback occurs when one nation's violent actions have unintended consequences which rebound against that nation. It is not a new phenomenon. In the parlance of the Hebrew prophets, "blowback" is called "sowing and reaping." When violence is sown, it is only violence which can be reaped. But as the prophets make their pronouncements, they do not gloat. The prophets mourn, not only for the sowers and reapers, but also because they recognize that the first to suffer in this senseless dynamic are often the innocent, the poor, the vulnerable.

With the American habit of military adventurism and with the U.S. accounting for two-thirds of the world's arms trade, it is an inevitability that the United States will be creating, conjuring, aiding, abetting and arming our own adversaries. Manuel Noriega was Hitler, said President Bush the elder. Well, if he was Hitler at the time of the U.S. invasion of Panama, then prior to that invasion, he was clearly a Hitler of our own making--armed by the U.S. and even on the payroll of the CIA. Saddam Hussein is Hitler said both Bushes and the Clinton between them. Well, if he was Hitler after he invaded Kuwait, then clearly prior to that point, as he was gassing Kurds and waging war on Iran, he was a Hitler aided and abetted by the U.S. But one of the more alarming examples of "blowback" in recent history was the U.S. role in gathering, organizing, funding and arming the Mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan. Beginning with Carter and continuing with Reagan and the first Bush, the United States sought to end the Soviet presence in Afghanistan by recruiting and organizing fighters from far and near--from Algeria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan, and from within Afghanistan itself. These freedom fighters were trained in special camps established by the CIA inside Afghanistan, and their tactics included planting bombs in airports and shooting down civilian airliners, bombing medical clinics and schools. They were successful in the effort to defeat the Soviets--and then they discovered that there were freedom fights to be waged elsewhere as well. In Algeria, returning Mujahideen fighters first targeted women's groups and subsequently have been instigators of a civil war which has left over a hundred thousand dead. In Egypt, returning fighters were implicated in a variety of assassinations, including that of Anwar Sadat. Inside Afghanistan, all of the weapons and training were inherited by a number of factions, including the Northern Alliance and Taliban and AI Qaeda. If the Soviet hegemony in the region could be ended, perhaps the U.S. hegemony could be ended as well. The attack on Kobar Towers and on the U.S.S. Cole, the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the attacks of September 11--all of these can be traced through a web of Saudi and Yemeni and Pakistani militants all the way back to Afghanistan. Terrorist training camps did not appear in Afghanistan because of something primitive in the character of the Afghan people nor because of some exotic version of so-called Muslim fundamentalism. They are there because that is where the CIA built them. Like Dr. Moreau, like Dr. Frankenstein, we have created our own monsters.

So this is the place in which we live: Rome, the most powerful empire in history which experiences the blowback from its own military adventurism.

And the other context for any efforts at peacemaking--the time in which we live, which is a time of war. Of course, it is fair to ask whether, in the lifetimes of those of us present here, there has ever been a time in America which has not been a time of war hot or cold. Indeed, to no small degree, America has fallen captive to a view of the world which posits war as the answer to all manner of problems and complexities. In response to the horrors of last September 11, there was nothing which foreordained that the necessary response or even that the most effective or sensible response was a bloody war on terrorism. According to independent investigation by economics professor Marc Herold of the University of New Hampshire, already by December of last year, the number of noncombatant children, women and men killed in Afghanistan exceeded the horrible death toll of September 11. And we must ask why. If the notion of rule by law has any coherence whatsoever, why should war be the response to criminal activity? After all, as noted by Noam Chomsky, when the Irish Republican Army claimed responsibility for car bombings in downtown London, Britain did not drop cluster bombs and launch cruise missiles against Dublin and Belfast. Britain did not send troops to Boston to root out sources of IRA funding. Likewise, when armed men from Pakistan launched a bloody attack against India's Parliament Building last December, India did not bomb Pakistan. But why not? Given the U.S. precedent in Afghanistan, when Pakistan asked India for evidence regarding the identity of the attackers, India could have responded, "We do not negotiate with terrorists." Given the U.S. precedent in Afghanistan, India should have attacked Pakistan, toppled the government and corralled all evildoers. Certainly the U.S. would be in no position to offer legal or moral objections, even if such an attack by India would have resulted in thermonuclear war on the Asian subcontinent.

So in this war, the U.S. has been setting a horrendous example for others regarding how we should deal with adversaries. And the U.S. also has been setting a horrible example regarding the meaning of freedom. If it could ever be said fairly that the United States was the freest nation on earth, such is no longer a given. With increased domestic surveillance and detention without trial and military tribunals, we are losing freedoms and protections which may never be regained. Some claim that in times of crisis, emergency procedures may be adopted which can later be jettisoned once the crisis has passed. But such so-called emergency procedures become institutionalized in two ways. Judicially, such procedures are enshrined by the concept of legal precedent. And politically, such procedures are enshrined by an electoral process in which politicos stumble over one another in the competition to avoid appearing soft on crime or soft on terrorism. And so a number of nations have begun refusing to extradite criminal suspects to the United States out of concern that the rights of the accused will not be respected or that the suspects will face execution. Such refusals have come even from a nation like Spain, which has faced its own decades-long struggle against Basque separatists who have been charged with terrorism. But for other nations, the U.S. is again providing a horrible model. After all, don't we all have our terrorists? Milosevic had the Kosovo Liberation Army and Russia has the Chechans and Turkey has the Kurds. All nations which are faced by real or imagined subversion--the Egyptians, the Chinese, our new authoritarian friends in Uzbekistan--they can all turn to the U.S. and say, "Now finally you understand, don't you? Now you can understand why we have our camps for detainees and our military tribunals and our executions. Now you can understand why it isn't always possible in a dangerous world to abide by the letter of the Geneva Conventions and other fine sentiments."

Wartime is a dangerous time for freedom, in part because of a phenomenon studied in classical social research by Irving Janis and others. The phenomenon is called "groupthink," and it has special pertinence to any efforts to witness for peace in a time of war. Already in his 19th century commentaries on "Democracy in America," Alexis de Tocqueville noted that public discourse on social issues in America tended to conform to a narrow range of acceptable opinion. Janis and others have noted how this preexisting tendency toward conformity is intensified to near unanimity in times of war. Prior to the start of hostilities, there may be actual debate regarding the merits of this or that proposed military action--for example, the debates and reservations with which the first President Bush was confronted prior to the Persian Gulf War. But once the bombing started, approval ratings for Bush and for the attack on Iraq shot up to 90%. Once blood is shed and the battle is joined, those who express reservations or a lack of enthusiasm are viewed as being callously indifferent to the lives of the young women and men who have been placed in harm's way, whereas the leaders who placed them there are held immune from criticism.

But rather than being discouraged by such findings regarding groupthink and conformity in times of war, I believe that advocates of peace and nonviolence should feel emboldened by them. It means that the need for dissent is all the more urgent, and that dissent in favor of peace ought to be very public so as to give en-courage-ment to others who might feel resigned when confronted by the latest Gallup survey.

Allow me to conclude with a few reflections on what I'll call the spirituality of peacemaking. Whatever the shape that the effort to witness for peace may take--be it leafleting, picketing, letter writing, speaking, civil disobedience--I believe that the effort itself must be infused with a spirit of love. There must be concern not only for the victims and potential victims of war, but also concern for the warriors and the powerbrokers. Even though the word "evil" has come into prominence of late, war is not produced by "evildoers"--not evildoers in Rome or in Kabul or in Washington, D.C. More than the product of evildoers, war is the product of captivity to the illusion that violence can be ended with violence. Regarding the groupthink that takes over in times of war, even the word "con-formity" suggests that the "form" which is natural to us is subverted by captivity to a different form.

In response to the perennial question, is human nature basically good or basically evil, Martin Luther King, Jr. responded that the answer is "neither." Drawing on insights from Jesus, Tolstoy and Gandhi, King observed that all of humanity is created in the image of God and that all of humanity is fallen--which is to say that we all have within us the potential for transcendent acts of love as well as the potential for brutal acts of hatred. For each of us, then, the task becomes one of seeking to appeal to the potential for good within ourselves and others. Violence appeals to the potential for good within no one. This understanding of the potential for good has kinship to the belief among Friends regarding the light within--the light which can never be entirely extinguished within any individual.

How do we shape our efforts at peacemaking in ways which seek to appeal to the potential for good within others? I don't think there's one answer. Sometimes we appeal to the potential for good through rational argument and sometimes not. October through December of last year, a ragtag group of us gathered each Friday evening at the corner of Church and Main calling for an end to the bombing of Afghanistan. We held signs, passed out leaflets and reaped the rage of more than a few passersby. In more than one instance, drivers pulled to the side of the street and got out to yell at us. One man I remember in particular. He approached each protester in turn, finger in face. My brother and sister protesters tried valiantly to discuss matters rationally. No, we didn't support the Trade Center attacks. The U.S. had helped to create the terrorists. The innocent suffer in war. When he approached me and yelled, "Why are you here? You're just supporting the terrorists," I responded, "I'm here because I believe that we must return good for evil, that we must do good to those who persecute us." It was immediately clear that, whether or not the yelling brother was a member of a church, he had enough familiarity with the biblical tradition to know when the Sermon on the Mount was being quoted. Now, I don't pretend for a moment that the man was converted or that I had shown any particular wisdom in quoting the Bible to him, but it was an interesting moment. While he was fully prepared to declare that our protest was a bunch of crap, he was not prepared to say the same about the words of Jesus. He fell silent, had this momentary look that was a cross between confusion and disgust, and then he got in his car and left. Whether or not the mind and spirit of the yelling brother was changed, each effort to speak for peace is also an effort to change me--to remind me of the Sermon on the Mount. The effort to appeal to the potential for good within others is also an effort to allow the light within ourselves to govern our own words and actions.

So there was this Buddhist monk seated by the side of the road with his feet propped up on a statue of the Buddha. Along comes a traveler who says to the monk, "Remove your feet from the holy Buddha." And the monk asks, "Where then shall I place my feet that is not holy?"

Warriors and powerbrokers need this reminder: There is no place to aim our weapons that is not holy.

But peacemakers need this reminder too: there is no place to practice peacemaking that is not holy. There is no possible word which I could offer to others which is not also a word of which I need to be reminded. As we seek to speak a word of peace and to appeal to the potential for good within others, whether we are met by kindness or scorn, we are in the very presence of God.