THE LAST RIVER MILE

As with everything else, the current military action in the Middle East has fostered the usual polar opposite responses.

Some say the action is necessary to derail Iran’s nuclear weapon capability. This thwarts an obviously oppressive regime and cripples a base of terrorism. It gives hope and a chance to Iranian opposition to the Ayatollah’s rule. It is evidence of strong leadership in the White House, they insist.

And some say it is a complete overreach of presidential power. It is placing the lives of Americans and regional allies at risk, and doing more to destabilize the area than to help it. It is just another incident in the long line of American efforts to force regime change in other countries. And it is more about the president’s ego than anything else, they insist.

As always, truth is somewhere on the continuum between the extremes. Still, there are some things about this war that seem evident to me:

1. Always follow the money. Political power-plays and armed conflicts often (if not usually) have financial power or resource control at their base. Simply put, if it’s a conflict in the MIddle East, it’s about control of fossil fuel resources. It can be bathed in the political rhetoric of all the nations involved, but ultimately it’s about making sure that those who gain obscene levels of wealth from our global addiction to oil resources continue to protect their wealth. And war is always quick and easy money for those who profit from fueling the war machinery.
2. War is domestic distraction. Intended or not, the current conflict has taken the spotlight off of domestic unsettledness. We’ve forgotten about needed Department of Homeland Security investigation into I.C.E. killings in Minnesota. We’re no longer focused on the fact that the Department of Justice essentially is in contempt of Congress, refusing to release the entire Epstein file load as has been required of them. And we’re thinking even less about the Epstein victims than we did before.
3. The innocent always suffer. Above all, this is the truest truth of all in warfare. The old maxim is that the rich declare wars; the poor suffer and die in them. The decision makers will stay comfortable and protected, watching military action on a digital screen as they would monitor a video game. The foot soldiers will do the bleeding and dying. The civilians will have their lives blown apart by missiles and drones. The unsuspecting schoolgirls won’t make it home from class. And all of the latter will swept away from the conscience of those in power under the category of “acceptable collateral damage.”

Jesus-followers often refer to him as The Prince of Peace. In my view, invoking Jesus in any of this is a gross blasphemy. How do we think views all this, really? Followers of Jesus are at all points of the continuum noted above; I get that. I have no right to claim that my particular point is the right one. Regardless, every human being drawing breath is worth the live, death, resurrection, and promised return of the Son of the living God. To take any kind of joy in the death of of any of these or to dismiss that death as acceptable or irrelevant… well, that is a problem.

I’ll see you around the next bend in the river.

SUGGESTED RESOURCES:

-“The War Prayer” by Mark Twain

-“Wag the Dog” – 1997 film

–“The Green Fields of France” – song by Eric Bogle, performed by The Dropkick Murphys, The Fureys & Davey Arthur, and others