Circuit Writer

My column for the March 27 – April 02, 2011 edition of The Tahlequah Christian.

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Ok, I’ve been flirting with this idea and trying to ignore it for a couple of weeks now, but after I followed a “this day in history” link, I realized that it must be a sign that I could no longer avoid the topic. This day in history (Tuesday, March 29), 38 years ago, the final U.S. troops withdrew from South Vietnam, effectively ending the Vietnam War for us as a nation. This long, bloody, and incredibly unpopular war continue reading…

This is my most recent post for the Xenia Institute, now featured at Dialogic Magazine.  I encourage you to take your comments to the original article at the Dialogic website.

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War is brutal and impersonal … If we really saw war, what war does to young minds and bodies, it would be harder to embrace the myth of war.

- Chris Hedges, columnist at TruthDig

Frame grabs from a video posted on WikiLeaks.org, showing a U.S. Army Apache helicopter firing on a group of people in Baghdad on July 12, 2007. UPI/WikiLeaks.org Photo via Newscom Content © 2010 Newscom

The fog of war has cleared to reveal a storm of controversy raging around the publication of a classified video footage of an attack by U.S. Army Apache helicopters against Iraqis in 2007. The air strike resulted in the wounding of two children and the death of at least a dozen people, including two Reuters employees, Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh. In Dialogic’s News and Analysis section, we took a look at the discussion from around the blogosphere. However, the narrative begs further discussion as to what it says about our society and culture.

While the responses to the attack range from moral outrage to unqualified support, I want to highlight a middle voice. Anthony Martinez, writing at his personal blog, A Look Inside, gives us his response to continue reading…

While Obama used his Nobel Peace Prize speech to legitimize Afghanistan using just war principles, soldiers are currently unable to invoke these principles in refusing to serve. When we punish soldiers who heed their moral compasses, we deny them religious freedom, and our democracy is threatened. It’s time to allow those who oppose the war on ethical grounds the option of ‘Selective Conscientious Objection.’

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“The 11^th hour of the 11^th day of the 11^th month…”

Ninety-one years ago today the echoes of the guns of August finally faded into silence.  The parties of what at the time was known as “the war to end all wars” laid down their arms and began negotiating the peace.  World War I had come to a close. (Of course, this didn’t mark an end to fighting – the Ottoman Empire disintegrated into civil war and wouldn’t reemerge as the Republic of Turkey for almost five years.)

Today we observe this date as Veteran’s Day, a national holiday to honor all of those who have lived and died in the service of the U.S. military.  Given our current crisis, this observance is perhaps more important than ever.  I think we may have exceeded Winston’s Churchill’s imagination of military sacrifice when he famously said, “Never has so much been owed by so many to so few.”  The burden of our military engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan teeters dangerously on the less-than-Atlas-sized shoulders of our all-volunteer military.  While this disproportionately small segment of U.S. society* fights our wars, the majority of us continue to rally around the cause of conflict with virtually no ownership.  How many of us have family members in the military?  In combat zones?  What is our personal investment in these conflicts?

I fear that our disregard for the face of this holiday has allowed the deeper meaning of Veterans Day to remain obscured.  Prior to becoming Veterans Day in 1954, this date was celebrated as Armistice Day, marking the cease fire that ended World War I.  Buried within the deep of the Veterans Day tradition, there is not only an honoring of  those who have served, but a remembrance of the terrible cost of war.  A concurrent resolution passed by Congress in on June 4, 1926 reminds us of this price and encourages us to observe this date in the totality of its meaning (with thanks to the Veterans Administration, emphasis is mine):

Whereas the 11th of November 1918, marked the cessation of the most destructive, sanguinary, and far reaching war in human annals and the resumption by the people of the United States of peaceful relations with other nations, which we hope may never again be severed, and

Whereas it is fitting that the recurring anniversary of this date should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations; and

Whereas the legislatures of twenty-seven of our States have already declared November 11 to be a legal holiday: Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), that the President of the United States is requested to issue a proclamation calling upon the officials to display the flag of the United States on all Government buildings on November 11 and inviting the people of the United States to observe the day in schools and churches, or other suitable places, with appropriate ceremonies of friendly relations with all other peoples.

To put it simply, Armistice Day was originally conceived as a day to celebrate the end of the fighting and to honor the cause of peace.

I fear we live in an age where much of the power of the original Armistice Day holiday has been lost; a power of which we are in dire need.  We are politically dominated by the symbol of 9/11, a rallying cry to war uninhibited by any understanding of the deeper causes of resentment and hatred for our neo-imperial foreign policy.  For those of us seeking to make a difference in our national life, it’s time to claim the symbol of 11/11: a call for peace grounded in the hope for a more cooperative community of nations, yet tempered in the sober reality of the destructive war whose end it commemorates.

Until we recognize that the cost of our callousness is truly greater than we can afford to bear, we will continue to live in fear instead of hope.  Defining our orientation in terms of the devastating attack of September 11^th only reinforces our national paranoia.  Redefining our direction in terms of an admittedly uneasy armistice and peace could allow us to begin the process of international reconciliation that will truly be required to ensure not only our national security but international security as well.  The time has come for those of who support the cause of peace to reject the fear of 9/11 and claim anew the hope of 11/11.

*Which also happens to be disproportionately overrepresented by African Americans and is rapidly rising in Latino/a representation – See Government Accounting Office Report GAO-05-952)

Cross posted at the Xenia Institute.

This article is a re-imagination of the article I originally published in my congregational newsletter, The Tahlequah Christian.  You can read the original article here.

Related articles:

• Section 60 | Xenia Institute

This week will mark the passing of 11/11: the day we commemorate in our nation as Veterans Day. As you mayalready know, this day only came to be known as Veterans Day following the end of World War II. Prior to that war, it was known as Armistice Day, commemorating the end of the World War I. On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, the guns fell silent throughout Europe and the Middle East bringing to end what had been one of the most destructive conflicts known to humanity. Today this date is still observed throughout the world; Remembrance Day in the Commonwealth of Nations, Armistice Day for others, and even Independence Day for some.

On November 11, 1918, the warring nations of the world laid down their arms and exhaled their first relieved sighs of peace in over four years. Finally freed from conflict, the world was able to take stock of all that had transpired during this time: the destruction of Western Europe, Turkey, the Balkans, Palestine, modern-day Poland and Iraq, Russia, and many other territories and lands. The pall of war crimes hung like a cloud over the landscape of peace: ethnic cleansing and genocide, mass deployment of chemical weapons, and unrestricted submarine warfare. And all of this seemed to diminish behind the crimson stain of an estimated 20 million or more dead. (Sadly, we can never know the exact cost in human life – war often steals away life under the tragic circumstances of anonymity.)

So when did 9/11 become more powerful than 11/11?

This is more a question of rhetoric than of research, but it tugs at my thoughts this week as I reflect on the upcoming Veterans Day holiday – an observance to remember all of those who have fought for our nation, and I hope, an opportunity to remember the heartbreaking cost of our seemingly human predisposition to violence and war. It stands in contrast to the symbolism of 9/11, a date which has become our new Pearl Harbor or Alamo: a rallying cry for war.

As Christians, we have much to think about as we approach the season of Advent and the celebration of the one whom we call “Prince of Peace.” Will we remember the tragedy of conflict and reflect soberly on 11/11 before engaging in warfare, or will we embrace the rally cry of 9/11 and rush toward war without pausing to regard the cost? Sometimes the Gospel forces us to confront the most difficult of choices.

Praying for peace in a war-torn world,

Clint

Dear Mr. President:

By the time this is published, I may be one of the last people remaining on the planet who has yet to commend or eviscerate you for your selection to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.  In spite of that, I hope you will accept my heartfelt congratulations on your receipt of this great honor.  While others choose to question or even denigrate your selection on the grounds that you have yet to demonstrate your commitment to peace through sweeping accomplishments or an extensive span of intentionality and engagement, I consider your multilateral and dialogical approach to statesmanship worthy of both accolade and emulation.  Your enlightened leadership in this respect confers great benefit not only to our national self-interest, but also to the global common good.

I am further appreciative of the manner in which you received this honor.  While the temptation to bask in the glow of international recognition presented itself, you shunned self-aggrandizement in favor of furthering the cause of dialogue, mutuality, and respect.  The announcement on behalf of the Norwegian Nobel Committee clearly disclosed their hope that this award would strengthen your vision of international solidarity, and you have chosen to accept it as a means to further that goal, instead of as an end in itself.  For all of these things, Mr. President, I commend you.

Yet in spite of my admiration for your globally oriented approach to diplomacy and governance, I feel compelled to speak on behalf of those who today cannot share in Alfred Nobel’s vision of “fraternity between nations.”  The absence of any specific reference to the peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan in your acceptance announcement casts a conspicuous and disappointing shadow across an otherwise inspiring response.  Further clouding this moment, the one presidential responsibility you chose to lift up by title was your position as commander of U.S. military forces.  While the irony of this was palpable, to do so in the same breath that you offer only an oblique and implied reference to the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq was truly in poor form.

Constrained by their status as occupied nations, neither Iraq nor Afghanistan may truly benefit from your vision of multilateralism.  They are at best patron states reliant upon U.S. military presence and subject to U.S. guidance, or at worst occupied territories only one step removed from the status of puppet-states.  In either case, or by any other scenario in between, these nations can never truly be partners in a conversation of equals.  Until they are released from the custody of military occupation, the peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq remain excluded from the possibility and hope for a just peace.

Given your own acknowledgement of the momentum this award offers to the cause of international peace and diplomacy, I urge you to avert any impending inertia by expediently withdrawing our military forces from Iraq and Afghanistan.  If we as a nation are to uphold the values and virtues you have extolled throughout your presidential tenure and during your preceding election campaign, we must act to end this injustice and reinstate these nations to their rightful place as equals at the global table.

I write this with my full support for your timely and necessary global vision, and with my continued prayers that your leadership may be just, moral, and equitable.

Respectfully yours,

Clint Collins

Cross posted at the Xenia Institute.

Chris Hedges, longtime journalist and writer of War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning, a National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction finalist, presents a critical look at the United States under the Obama administration.  His harsh and uncompromising commentary may be difficult to read, but it is certainly worth considering in light of the ongoing U.S. military actions abroad.

Did they play  Barack Obama’s speech to the Muslim world in the prison corridors of Abu Ghraib, Bagram air base, Guantanamo or the dozens of secret sites where we hold thousands of Muslims around the world? Did it echo off the walls of the crowded morgues filled with the mutilated bodies of the Muslim dead in Baghdad or Kabul? Was it broadcast from the tops of minarets in the villages and towns decimated by U.S. iron fragmentation bombs? Was it heard in the squalid refugee camps of Gaza, where 1.5 million Palestinians live in the world’s largest ghetto?

What do words of peace and cooperation mean from us when we torture—yes, we still torture—only Muslims? What do these words mean when we sanction Israel’s brutal air assaults on Lebanon and Gaza, assaults that demolished thousands of homes and left hundreds dead and injured? How does it look for Obama to call for democracy and human rights from Egypt, where we lavishly fund and support the despotic regime of Hosni Mubarak, one of the longest-reigning dictators in the Middle East?

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Catching my personal site up with my work at the Xenia Institute, this is my most recent post at xeniainstitute.org.  Here I take a tangent from the debate on closing Guantánamo Bay to raise questions about our national priorities and ethical choices.

News that the first Guantánamo detainee has arrived in the U.S. will undoubtedly restart a debate that has been simmering on the back burner for a few weeks now.  The arrival of Ahmed Ghailani to stand trial in Manhattan for the 1998 bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Tanzania and Kenya marks the first test of public resolve to keep terror suspects out of the United States.  That resolve is apparent in polling data concerning national opinions on the proposal to close the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay.

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This post that I made at the Xenia Institute takes up the call of the “Silence is the Enemy” campaign taking place in the blogosphere this month.

Writing for “The Intersection,” a blog at Discover Magazine’s website, Sheril Kirshenbaum shared her own story of sexual assault to kick off the “Silence Is the Enemy” campaign.  The goal of this campaign is to overwhelm the silence on this issue with a chorus of voices lifting up the plight of women and children who continue to suffer humiliation, injury, and abuse.  Throughout the month of June we at Xenia along with others in the blogosphere will be doing our part to offer a voice to those who are not being heard.

A good place to start is to simply take a closer look at the world around us…

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My second blog entry at the Xenia Institute, where I reflect on Memorial Day and the current war we are fighting in Iraq.

Memorial Day has always been a time of remembrance for me, and those memories run deep.  As a child, I would help members of the local Veterans of Foreign Wars post place flags on the headstones of all the veterans buried in the two cemeteries in my little hometown of Centralia, Missouri.  Both my father and grandfather were members of the post, having served in Vietnam and in Europe during World War II.  Today, memory fails me as to whether I began helping with the flags because of a conscious decision on my part or because I provided a young set of legs to assist an aging group of war vets, but after many years of walking the rows of headstones I’ve found it has had a profound impact on my thoughts…

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