"Why We Fight"
Normally, I don't really think of myself as a terribly political person. I've been eligible to vote in Canada for a few years now and still haven't registered to do so (although I think that may have happened in filling out the most recent tax forms). In conversations where politics or social issues are the subject I'm usually left on the sidelines, watching the players beat the tar out of one another for the smallest of the small things. I feel uneducated about "the System", not opinionated enough, and generally just plain stupid. Often I find myself working out an opinion in my head when I'm alone, but it never seems to come up when talking to others, thus never giving me the chance to feel like I at least contributed something, if not necessarily a pithy remark.
The other night I was with some friends watching the 2005 documentary Why We Fight. The subject is not just the current state of affairs in Iraq, but also the past 50 years of American political history, as they've built up what Dwight D. Eisenhower once famously prophesied and warned against: a military-industrial complex. And it stirred something in me that's been building for a while, but I've never been able to put into words.
At one point in the film, there is an interview with one of the two fighter pilots who dropped the first bombs on Baghdad in March 2003. He says (paraphrasing from memory) that he finds all the debate about policy and ethics "kinda dumb", since his only concern is doing his job: follow the orders your commander gives you and let others worry about whether or not you're doing the right thing. As I listened to him speak, I really became crystallized to the fact that I am what many hardline conservatives would call a coward.
I'm sorry, but I cannot wear a military uniform. It doesn't matter if it's as a cook or a clerk, an infantryman or a pilot. I simply cannot subject myself to that kind of life, the kind where I must accept that someone else has the moral and legal authority to tell me what to do--and even who to kill. Ultimately, of course, the ones who decide such things are rich men in nice suits who sit in plush offices and make endless grabs for the spotlight at the expense of the person sitting beside them. The politicians. The guys that no one really likes, but votes for them anyways because it is, after all, our right to do so. I can't relate to such people; I'll never be on their level socially, and I hope I'm never on their level morally (Disclaimer: I know not all politicians are worthy of contempt, and some do a good job, but no one ever remembers them because it seems as if the vast majority are such as I describe). So when it comes to such a dicey issue as figuring out "why we fight"...I know that if Canada were to enter a major war tomorrow, I wouldn't be a decision-maker. I'd be a draftee. Being the kind of guy who'd prefer to think about it from where I stand, I've been considering what it would mean.
Basically, there are three things the propaganda machine tells us are the reasons for joining up: Your Country, Democracy, Freedom. As I ponder all those things, I realize that I couldn't bring myself to fight for, and absolutely refuse to die for, any of them at all. Not for my Country, which is only a space on a map seperated from other spaces on a map by a thin black line (and wouldn't even exist if we hadn't forced out the people who were already living here). Not for Democracy, which on its better days is a deeply flawed and worldly political system (and yet still seems to be only the best we can do). And certainly not for Freedom, which has already had the price paid for it in blood by Jesus Christ, who gives the only true freedom to be found; why should I dishonour Him by saying He didn't do enough? As I come down to it, I find that there are really only two things that are worth any of the fuss the recruitment ads make:
God, who calls us to put on His armour and fight for him in spiritual warfare (and to die for Him if that is how He chooses to bring us home);
The Life of Another, about which Jesus said "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13)
Those are the only things for which I can find within myself the willingness (if not always the courage) to fight and die for. And neither requires a government-issued uniform.
Hmm. Maybe I have more opinions than I realize.
Be seeing you,
Steven
The other night I was with some friends watching the 2005 documentary Why We Fight. The subject is not just the current state of affairs in Iraq, but also the past 50 years of American political history, as they've built up what Dwight D. Eisenhower once famously prophesied and warned against: a military-industrial complex. And it stirred something in me that's been building for a while, but I've never been able to put into words.
At one point in the film, there is an interview with one of the two fighter pilots who dropped the first bombs on Baghdad in March 2003. He says (paraphrasing from memory) that he finds all the debate about policy and ethics "kinda dumb", since his only concern is doing his job: follow the orders your commander gives you and let others worry about whether or not you're doing the right thing. As I listened to him speak, I really became crystallized to the fact that I am what many hardline conservatives would call a coward.
I'm sorry, but I cannot wear a military uniform. It doesn't matter if it's as a cook or a clerk, an infantryman or a pilot. I simply cannot subject myself to that kind of life, the kind where I must accept that someone else has the moral and legal authority to tell me what to do--and even who to kill. Ultimately, of course, the ones who decide such things are rich men in nice suits who sit in plush offices and make endless grabs for the spotlight at the expense of the person sitting beside them. The politicians. The guys that no one really likes, but votes for them anyways because it is, after all, our right to do so. I can't relate to such people; I'll never be on their level socially, and I hope I'm never on their level morally (Disclaimer: I know not all politicians are worthy of contempt, and some do a good job, but no one ever remembers them because it seems as if the vast majority are such as I describe). So when it comes to such a dicey issue as figuring out "why we fight"...I know that if Canada were to enter a major war tomorrow, I wouldn't be a decision-maker. I'd be a draftee. Being the kind of guy who'd prefer to think about it from where I stand, I've been considering what it would mean.
Basically, there are three things the propaganda machine tells us are the reasons for joining up: Your Country, Democracy, Freedom. As I ponder all those things, I realize that I couldn't bring myself to fight for, and absolutely refuse to die for, any of them at all. Not for my Country, which is only a space on a map seperated from other spaces on a map by a thin black line (and wouldn't even exist if we hadn't forced out the people who were already living here). Not for Democracy, which on its better days is a deeply flawed and worldly political system (and yet still seems to be only the best we can do). And certainly not for Freedom, which has already had the price paid for it in blood by Jesus Christ, who gives the only true freedom to be found; why should I dishonour Him by saying He didn't do enough? As I come down to it, I find that there are really only two things that are worth any of the fuss the recruitment ads make:
God, who calls us to put on His armour and fight for him in spiritual warfare (and to die for Him if that is how He chooses to bring us home);
The Life of Another, about which Jesus said "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13)
Those are the only things for which I can find within myself the willingness (if not always the courage) to fight and die for. And neither requires a government-issued uniform.
Hmm. Maybe I have more opinions than I realize.
Be seeing you,
Steven
posted by Steven | 10:16 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home