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How to create an Insurgent

Thursday, March 10th, 2011

Anyone remember these scenes from The Patriot? (A warning for the faint of stomach, such as myself: this is pretty graphic.)

I remember watching this movie for the first time, and it was pretty disturbing.

One might say that I simply have a weak stomach or that I’m unable to deal with reality. To the contrary, I believe there’s an extent to which the reality of war should disturb us. Something is fundamentally wrong when one human is responsible for the death of another. If I am in a car accident in which another driver is killed — even if I’m not responsible — I don’t shrug it off as bad luck; it’s a life-changing event. If someone is sentenced to death, it is usually because they have caused the death of another. Killing (voluntary or involuntary) is an action that we have no power to reverse. We take it seriously.

This reality does not disappear in war. Combatants do not enter into lethal engagements lightly. If they do, it is viewed as particularly heinous, even among soldiers.

So what does any of this have to do with insurgency?

Motivations

Mel Gibson’s character, Benjamin Martin, is hesitant to become involved in any conflict with the British at the beginning of the film. He has seen his share of violence in the French and Indian War. He knows how brutal things can be, and has himself committed atrocities. He does not want to expose his seven children to that kind of existence. Nothing the British have done in terms of disrespect, oppression, or even violence elsewhere in the Colonies is enough to rouse him. Neither freedom nor liberty are sufficient to inspire him. One single issue drives his hatred and willingness to die fighting, and that is the indiscriminate killing of his civilian son. From that point on, he becomes a member of the armed resistance. In modern terms, he would certainly be categorized as an insurgent.

Of course, we know that The Patriot is a fictional story loosely very loosely situated in historical context. What is not fictional, however, is the psychology behind Martin’s reaction. We humans will endure significant abuse and oppression before involving ourselves in armed resistance against a government force. No one wants to become a target, and we’ll usually try to evoke change via means that don’t get us shot.

All of that changes if you start killing our children. If that line is crossed, all bets are off.

Nearly a decade has passed since the September 11 attacks of 2001, during which time much has been made of an existential threat posed to our nation by Islamic extremists. According to Bush 43, our resultant war on terror will not stop until “every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated.” Furthermore, he claims terrorists “hate us” because we have a “democratically-elected government”, and because we have “freedom of speech.” Assuming it were possible to defeat every terrorist cell around the world, the argument is that we could commence with being free and secure once again.

This understanding of terrorist motivations has been accepted and repeated by our mainstream media outlets. It has been the party (both parties?) line ever since. Nearly a decade later, we remain in Afghanistan (to say nothing of our other entanglements) with no apparent intent to leave. It would appear that we have been incapable of achieving our stated goals thus far, and do not expect to achieve them in the near or foreseeable future.

Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA’s Osama bin Laden unit, has an alternate understanding of why terrorists are willing to attack the United States. He argues that the reason we’re attacked is not because we’re free or because of cultural issues, but rather due to our policies in the middle east. He bases that belief on Al Qaeda’s explicit claims: “Vote for whoever you want: Bush or Kerry or the devil himself. This does not concern us. Our concern is to purify our countries from aggressors and to stand up to whoever attacks us.”

Perspectives

Of course, there will always be anomalies like bin Laden or Zawahiri who are willing to fight for regime change. They are displeased with the oppressive leadership of Saudi Arabia, and with Israel’s policies in Palestine. These governments (and others) would lose significant influence without the United States, and he’s willing to fight to degrade that influence. However, your average Afghan resident has no direct interest in these issues. Many of these people have never even heard of the 9/11 attacks. They are doing well to feed themselves.

So why would they get involved with a group like Al Quaeda? — for the same exact reason as our fictional Benjamin Martin: because their loved ones are dying.

A few days ago, 9 Afghan children were killed in an operation when they were misidentified as insurgents. As disillusioned as I am, I have a hard time believing that NATO troops would intentionally kill children in reprisal to an attack. Regardless, this is by no means an isolated incident. In fact, Gen. Stanley McChrystal made the following comments about our early involvement in Afghanistan:

We’ve shot an amazing number of people and killed a number and, to my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat to the force… [none of the cases in which] we have engaged in an escalation of force incident and hurt someone has it turned out that the vehicle had a suicide bomb or weapons in it.

With that kind of admission from a General, it’s not hard to see why the likes of bin Laden would find recruiting much easier. Consider this reaction by Mohammed Bismil, adult brother of two of the young boys who were killed last week: “The only option I have is to pick up a Kalashnikov, RPG or a suicide vest to fight.” Another quote comes from a relative of injured civilians in a May 2010 attack: “If the military keeps doing this, the people will go into the mountains to fight them. When I saw my daughter injured, all I could think about was putting on a suicide jacket.” (see video below at the 36:50 mark for the interview)



Conclusions

I recall my sense of queasiness being mingled with some level of satisfaction as I watched Mel Gibson unleash his holy wrath on a platoon of British soldiers with the expertise and stealth of a ninja. (It was like seeing the Punisher and Batman rolled into one.) His son had just been killed needlessly. He had a right to revenge. He had a mission to save his oldest son. He was achieving an honorable goal and making aggressors pay.

Of course that is an easy position for me to take. I’m an American white man; I can identify with this guy on a cultural level. I would be devastated if a child or a brother were murdered by an outside military force. I could almost see myself taking that kind of retribution, given the chance. It should be easy to understand the motivations of someone who has seen their loved ones killed by foreign forces, someone who has not been inundated with messages about the evils of the Taliban and Al Quaeda. We may see the man with an RPG or suicide jacket as an insurgent — a terrorist — but he sees himself protecting the family he has left and pursuing a righteous vengeance. Perhaps it would behoove us to consider how impossible it would be to see things any differently in those shoes, and to direct our policies accordingly.

One thing is clear: if we continue to kill civilians, we also deliver fiercely-dedicated recruits to Al Quaeda and its allies. Our long list of failures in this regard leaves no doubt that our declared enemy has grown stronger and that we have become less secure as a direct result of our presence in Afghanistan.

on being unstuck

Sunday, December 26th, 2010

My family moved around pretty often when I was growing up, due to my father’s career as a Marine. People ask whether it’s hard to be uprooted every three years or so, but it really wasn’t difficult for me. For all the comforts you stand to lose in leaving, you also stand to be loosed from some discomforts.

For instance, as a middle-schooler, I had a pretty sour disposition and very few friends. When I moved to a new city as a freshman, I decided I would be a totally different person. I remember clearly the conversation I had with myself before the doors opened my first day: “Lloyd, it doesn’t have to be like it was at your old school. No one knows you, and as far as they’re concerned, you might be the coolest guy here. Take down those walls you’ve built up and make some friends.” I didn’t turn out to be the coolest guy in school, but my social station improved greatly. Whatever people thought of you before, whether good or bad, you can change it all in a new place.

I bring this up because yesterday in my Bible reading, I felt led to look at Ezekiel 33. Ezekiel is told to relay a message for God. I’d like to quote it here because no summary I have composed does justice to the import of this passage:

Therefore, son of man, say to your people:

“If someone who is righteous disobeys, that person’s former righteousness will count for nothing. And if someone who is wicked repents, that person’s former wickedness will not bring condemnation. The righteous person who sins will not be allowed to live even though they were formerly righteous.

If I tell a righteous person that they will surely live, but then they trust in their righteousness and do evil, none of the righteous things that person has done will be remembered; they will die for the evil they have done.

And if I say to a wicked person, ‘You will surely die,’ but they then turn away from their sin and do what is just and right — if they give back what they took in pledge for a loan, return what they have stolen, follow the decrees that give life, and do no evil — that person will surely live; they will not die. None of the sins that person has committed will be remembered against them. They have done what is just and right; they will surely live.

Yet your people say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ But it is their way that is not just. If a righteous person turns from their righteousness and does evil, they will die for it. And if a wicked person turns away from their wickedness and does what is just and right, they will live by doing so. Yet you Israelites say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ But I will judge each of you according to your own ways.”

It’s shocking to me how accommodating God is here. What I mean by that is, God gives us the freedom to change our mind about what kind of person we want to be.

We humans have a tendency to assign one another (and ourselves) permanent labels based on our past. Inertia is a physical concept, but we import it frequently into the spiritual realm. If I lied to someone yesterday, they might assume I am that much more likely to lie again today. Conversely, if I’ve been making good choices for the last ten years, people may assume I’m nigh insusceptible to do anything different.

It’s funny how often a godly life is seen as a set of chains to restrict us from doing what we like, and yet God’s very choice to allow us free will also pegs Him as unfair. How can He immediately accept someone’s choice to change for the better when they’ve been making bad decisions for years? Do all those things count for nothing? Conversely, how can He condemn someone who begins to make bad decisions when they’ve been doing well all their lives? Do not all those years count for anything?

The problem, I think, is with our skewed perspective. We only see these policies of God’s in light of how they affect us in the moment. If God allows me to have a second chance, to change and do better in the future, then He’s great. If He allows that same freedom to someone who wounded me deeply, He is unjust. Conversely, if God forces those who commit to Him never to change their mind, never to have the freedom to walk away, He has created soulless automatons. If He allows someone who has stayed on the path their entire life the freedom to turn off at the last minute and waste all those years, He is heartless.

In our twisted way of thinking, God cannot win.

Returning to our tendency to assign these permanent labels, let me confess that I’ve been completely guilty of that way of thinking, myself. I’ve assumed people who have wounded me in the past would continue to do so, and so put up my walls to refuse them the opportunity. The cruel end of that path, by the way, is even more pain. It often results in the loss of what might have been wonderful if we’d not made such stalwart assumptions.

Perhaps even more cruel is when I affix these permanent labels to myself. We all know the voice inside who whispers that we can never escape who we are or who we once have been. We choose to agree with this voice, and descend ever further into our own demise.

It’s comforting to know that the voice with whom we’ve so frequently agreed is lying. What we once were — even what we are — is not binding. Rather, we have the freedom (and every reason) to choose better.

It’s been a long time since middle school, and I’m thankful most of you never knew me then. Being stuck with that personality would be pretty unpleasant. Whatever laurels I may now possess, I want to resist the temptation to rest on them. The same voice that would bind me to pits in my past would just as soon blind me to those in my present.

Lord, teach me to walk right beside You, following where You lead. Only in submitting to You do I escape the chains behind and the pitfalls ahead.

29 Goals

Thursday, August 12th, 2010

It occurs to me that in five days, I will turn 29. I’ve been looking forward to 29 for awhile now; I have a weird obsession with prime numbers, and I always feel like it’s going to be a great year when my age is prime. In honor of that, (and also the fact that this will be the last year of my 20s), I’ve set 29 personal goals I’d like to achieve before the big 3-0.

These are just presented in the order I wrote them down:

  1. Read the Bible all the way through.
  2. Translate one of the shorter books of the New Testament from Greek.
  3. Get my weight down to 175lbs.
  4. Run a 7:30 mile.
  5. Bench my own weight.
  6. Have at least one immediate neighbor visit my apartment.
  7. Visit Japan.
  8. Take the GRE.
  9. Read twelve books.
  10. Host a single day LOTR movie marathon.
  11. Write a short story.
  12. Write a song.
  13. Take a road trip somewhere west of Texas.
  14. Play at an open mic night.
  15. Cook a legitimate three course meal for someone(s).
  16. Ride the city bus for at least an hour.
  17. Complete a two-day solo hike.
  18. Wake up to see the sun rise once a month.
  19. Take care of/keep from killing a plant for at least three months.
  20. See the Grand Canyon.
  21. Spend a night sleeping on my porch.
  22. Convince someone to walk around with me in the pouring rain.
  23. See a big college football or NFL game.
  24. Pay off my credit card (and thereby be debt-free).
  25. Perform fifty consecutive push-ups.
  26. Sing karaoke solo.
  27. Have lunch with a professor from my alma mater.
  28. Enter a ping pong tournament.
  29. Learn all the words to “Ice Ice Baby”.

So that’s it, folks. If you’ve got any better suggestions and think one of mine should be replaced, you’d better get it in before Tuesday. : )

food chains

Thursday, May 6th, 2010

Last year, I experimented with a vegetarian diet for six weeks, just to try it. I have no ethical problem with eating animals; my foray was inspired by a desire to eat more healthily as much as by a curiosity of how difficult it would be. I abstained from beef, poultry, pork, eggs, fish, and even foods containing animal broth — I wanted to make sure no animals died as a direct result of my diet. It was not nearly so difficult as I anticipated, since there are plenty of tasty substitutes for animal meat available these days.

An unexpected side effect was that I started paying attention (for awhile, anyway) to the fact that I was taking an animal’s life when I ate meat. This is not intuitive for Americans. Our food is highly processed, and we are psychologically removed from that fact by the very design of our advertising. Not all cultures suffer this indifference, though. For instance, before eating a meal in Japan, one usually says “Itadakimasu” (いただきます for Hiragana readers). Literally, it means “I will receive,” but it is understood that what will be received is two-fold: On the one hand, you are receiving a meal from a host who has prepared it. On the other, you are receiving nourishment from an animal that has given its life, or spirit.

I was reminded of this on Saturday night, when I had the opportunity to see Disney’s new nature documentary, Oceans. Several scenes feature our oceans’ complex food chains. Gargantuan Blue Whales swallow tiny Krill by the thousands. Bigger fish eat smaller fish, and smaller fish eat plants or even smaller fish.

Watching a Dolphin chase down a Tuna was not particularly disturbing to me. I noticed something, though: witnessing a Great White Shark hunt a Sea Lion was uncomfortable… and eating popcorn as baby sea turtles were carried off and eaten by seagulls just felt wrong. What’s the reason for this disparity?

Maybe seeing lots of animals die at one time keeps me from viewing them as individuals and making a connection. Perhaps it’s more difficult to identify with a fish than with a mammal. Definitely, it seems unfair that baby Turtles don’t even make it to the water before they’re subjected to the maw of a hungry sky rat Seagull.

It seems that I pick favorites (unconsciously) among animals based solely on how I can identify with them, and that thought is disturbing. However, it is symptomatic of a much more serious problem if it also describes how I relate to my fellow humans.

A close friend of mine shared with me recently that she looks at how humans value one another in terms of fractions. For instance, I might look at the guy who sells me a burrito at Taco Bell as 1/4 of a person. He is only valuable to me insofar as he will hand me the food that I request. I might feel superior to him if I think I am paid more for my job or if I think it requires more expertise to perform. Maybe I wouldn’t take much effort in being polite to him or considering how his day has been. On the other hand, I might treat a good looking celebrity as 7/4 of a person if she needed something from me. Perhaps I would listen carefully to everything she said in hopes of making her happy.

If we don’t automatically identify with someone because they are like us or because they can fill some need of ours, we have a tendency to treat them as less of a person and to be less concerned with their needs.

As it is in the ocean, so it is in life. Everyone suffers and is subject to the merciless nature of this world. Young children, the old and sick, the good looking and the undesirable will experience pain, loss, and death. Some go before they ever have a chance to build up their defenses, and parents are not there to provide protection. Some are hunted down in the prime of their lives by a calculated and merciless enemy. Some find themselves dying alone and friendless when age has taken a toll on their bodies.

It’s easy for me to have more sympathy for children, or good-looking people, or those who it seems are making some sort of contribution to society. That thought worries me, and more so because I don’t feel like it’s one I have consciously developed. Perhaps if I notice this in myself, others may be in that situation, too.

For those of us who follow Jesus of Nazareth, we are called to a different Way:

As Jesus was approaching Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the road begging. Now hearing a crowd going by, he began to inquire what this was. They told him that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. And he called out, saying, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Those who led the way were sternly telling him to be quiet; but he kept crying out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” And Jesus stopped and commanded that he be brought to Him; and when he came near, He questioned him, “What do you want Me to do for you?” And he said, “Lord, I want to regain my sight!” And Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and began following Him, glorifying God; and when all the people saw it, they gave praise to God.

My friend who talked about fractions said she thought Jesus never viewed people that way. Everyone else tells the blind and the hurting and the forgotten to be quiet and to leave Jesus alone, but He looks at things differently. As His followers, should we not try and do the same?

In the end, we still live in a dog-eat-dog world. People are going to suffer and get knocked down by the world… but if every follower of Jesus tries a little more to love the unloved and to treat them like Jesus would, the ocean will become a little less scary.

Mara

Tuesday, April 20th, 2010

I’ve been working with a congregation in Mesquite, TX for the last few months. We’re studying through a series in Ruth, and this past Sunday, I talked about some of Naomi’s suffering.

The truth, though, is that I feel like teaching on suffering is pretty pointless for me. Pointless because it’s been taught and explored by people far more intelligent and studied than myself. Pointless because to teach about suffering, you have to know of suffering. No matter how much I might feel I’m hurting at some particular point in time, I know that mine is merely a speck of sand compared to the mountains others have faced.

But perhaps more significant than any of those reasons, it feels pointless because I don’t know why God doesn’t intervene to stop it. Why doesn’t He sit down and warn us Himself before we walk into worlds of pain? If His final plan is to wipe away every tear from our eyes, why is He letting us cry so many now? And I’ll give you a heads up, this isn’t one of those posts where I have some solution waiting in the wings. I’ve got nothing. I don’t understand it. I have no answers.

Naomi lived in Israel with her husband and two sons. There was a famine, though, and so they moved to a different country to try and make ends meet. But Naomi’s husband died; so she was left with two children and no husband. She could have moved back, but what good would that do with no food to eat? So she took care of her sons, and they married women in the foreign land. After living ten years in this new place, some of which she spent alone and sad because of her husband’s death, her sons died too. That was the last straw. She was now an older widow taking care of two younger widows, neither of them even from her own country.

When she heard there was food back home, she found no more reason to stay. She told her daughters-in-law that they’d be better off staying where they were, to find new husbands, and to move on with their lives. One stayed, and the other refused; her name was Ruth.

When Naomi made it back to her home in Israel, it had been over ten years. When her people greeted her, she had some interesting things to say:

“Don’t call me Naomi,” she told them. “Call me Mara, because El Shaddai has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the LORD has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The LORD has afflicted me; El Shaddai has brought misfortune upon me.”

Naomi is a Hebrew word that means ‘pleasant’. Coming home minus two sons and a husband, Naomi didn’t feel very pleasant. Mara means ‘bitter’ — and that is how she felt. That seems fair. She had been on a very hard road. What strikes me as odd, though, is that she attributed her hurt to God. Both El Shaddai and LORD refer to the God of Israel. So, “God has made my life very bitter. God has brought me back empty. God has afflicted me. God has brought misfortune upon me.” She never says God did anything wrong here, but she believes He is responsible. By far, the most interesting thing to me is that never once, in the entire remainder of the book, does God or the author reject that claim.

I’m usually pretty reticent to lay any of my suffering on God’s shoulders, because it could be Satan, right? Or maybe someone else made choices that were wrong and it’s affecting me? Or maybe I made choices and I’m facing the consequences. Sometimes things happen for which no instigating party can be given credit. But when I hear Naomi’s assertion, I can’t help but think of Job:

Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away.

I remember that nowhere in the text of Job does God deny responsibility for taking away Job’s wealth and family. Here, we have more details than we do for Naomi; God actually allowed Satan to hurt Job and those he loved. In the end, it was Satan who instigated the pain, but God clearly let it happen. In fact, Satan had to ask God’s permission, so in this case, is God not ultimately responsible? Apparently, Job did not sin in thinking so.

For a moment, let me just assume that Naomi and Job were right… that God is responsible for your suffering and for mine. What God gives only departs when He takes it away, and when those we love are hurt, it is not without God’s permission. I’ve thought about whether that assumption makes God no longer good, or whether it makes Him too unpredictable or scary to serve. In the end, I think it really just means my assumptions about Him were wrong. The idea that a good and just and loving God could simultaneously be responsible for bad and unjust and hate-inspired suffering — that is a hard pill to swallow. Of course, it’s easier to leave that pill in its academic bottle when you, or those you truly love, are not suffering.

When it really hits home, though, when you are hurting, or when it’s someone you love (and you’ll know you love them when you truly wish you could take their place), then that hard pill grows jagged edges and lodges itself right in your throat. And how do you breathe like that, much less function? How do you keep putting one foot in front of the other without falling over?

I don’t know the answers to any of those questions. I do know this, though: whether or not I love God, whether I do good deeds or evil, I will suffer in this life. If I had to choose one entity to be responsible for that suffering, it would be the God who gave his Son.

King David, the sinner, the adulterer, the murderer, the man after God’s own heart, once found his people in trouble with God.

By the text’s own admission, God influenced David to do something that would cause Israel to suffer. David commanded his armies and fighting men to be counted, which was forbidden in the law. This count resulted in a punishment for Israel, and David was offered three possible options for that punishment: Either there would be seven years of famine, or three months of military defeat, or three days of pestilence in the land.

David did not try to get out of the punishment, but rather reasoned that if the suffering was to come from any source, He would rather it come from God and not from man, “for His mercies are great.”

In the end, that is what I choose. If I must suffer, I’d rather it be at the command of a loving God, rather than at the remorseless hands of man or Satan. If God gives, I will praise Him, and be glad. If God takes away, I will praise Him, and not be afraid to cry out in pain. God’s mercies are great, and I will trust Him to do what is best.