America's Idols: Empire and Security

Dan Onorato

Because we live in a country with an administration so unabashedly imperial, I thought of other empires in history. My mind went to Rome and one of my favorite pieces of literature, Vergil's Aeneid, about the founding of Rome by Aeneas. Aeneas escaped from Troy amid the flames of the defeated city, and then, like Odysseus in Homer's Odyssey, he was destined to many adventures before he would fulfill his destiny. My favorite story in the Aeneid is the love affair between Dido, Queen of Carthage in North Africa, and Aeneas. Their love is deep and passionate, a union of soul mates, until Aeneas is reminded that his destiny is to create a new Troy in the West. The tension is heart rending. Will Aeneas give in to the pleasure and personal joy of this wonderful love, or will he sacrifice his personal solace and needs to do what he knows is right? Aeneas embodies "pietas," a devotion to duty that rips him away from personal gain and summons him to fulfill his responsibility in the larger scheme of history. Heart heavy, he leaves Dido to serve the future. In short, however reluctantly, Aeneas reconnects with what counts most and reorders his priorities.

In a country darkened by the abuses of empire and the blinders of our obsession with security, it is urgent that we reconnect with what counts most and reorder our priorities. It's a fitting theme for a Sunday fellowship gathering since the word "religion" comes from the Latin word "religare," to reconnect, to bring human affairs back into a correct order with the divine. In the Greek world view, the greatest sin was hubris, not knowing your proper place in the universe. The opposite of hubris was the well-known adage printed above the entrance to Apollo's shrine at Delphi: "Know Yourself." Know where you sit in the universe. Know your rightful place. For a long time perhaps, but especially so for the last three years under the Bush administration, America has lost sight of where it sits in the universe. It fails to see itself as one nation among many, it prides itself as number one over all, and it chooses to use its power to impose its will rather than serve the common good. It has broken the first and most important commandment of the Hebrew tradition: I the Lord am your God; do not have other gods besides me.

America has many false gods, but its principal idolatry lies in its pursuit of absolute power (empire) and its obsession over security. The threat to our and others' security is real. But our response to that threat has been blinding. Instead of addressing the central question about who hates us and why, and collaborating with the rest of the world to apprehend real and would be perpetrators, our government has pulled out its pistols and unleashed the full might of its military power in two wars, neither of which has achieved its objectives. Power in itself is not evil; it can be used for great good, as America has sometimes used it in the past. But it becomes evil when a government spurns international opinion and sees its policies as divinely illumined and ordained, as though American rule were the manifestation of God's will for all of humanity. Power becomes evil when it foregoes the path of reason and is exercised predominantly through armed force. The twin idols become evil when they absorb such an exorbitant amount of attention and funding that we either ignore or are unable to address so many other pressing needs, both here and abroad.

Imperial pretensions are obvious in the war against Iraq, a war to assert American hegemony in the Middle East, a war America pursued against the will of the most of the world. This war is illegal and immoral, and much of the damage is probably irreversible. In world opinion we have lost our right to claim the moral high-ground, because we have assumed the behavior of a rogue state. According to the Charter of the UN, which the US helped start, a nation can wage war only in its self-defense and only under the authority of the UN Security Council. As I read the facts, the President and leading members of his Cabinet knowingly and repeatedly distorted the truth in their zeal to carry out the war. The weapons of mass destruction they claimed posed an imminent threat to the U.S. and the world turned out to be non-existent, yet the administration used its so-called doctrine of pre-emptive war to justify its invasion. Church leaders worldwide as well as millions of people in the streets around the globe denounced the war as immoral, but the almost universal pleas and chants could not penetrate an administration whose messianic world view divided the world into good guys and bad guys: if countries were not for us, they were against us. A zealous and over-confident administration regarded all who disagreed with it as inimical to America's righteous war against terrorism. In my view, the administration's lies that led to war and the loss of so many lives, both American and Iraqi, constitute an impeachable crime.

The administration's pattern of deception and evasion of truth is transparent in the current scandal over U.S. war crimes in Abu Graib and other prisons in Iraq. The recent Newsweek expose of the Department of Justice memo justifying methods of torture, long condemned by the Geneva Conventions, reveals the hubris and the contradictory stance of the administration: in the name of building freedom and democracy and fighting terror, the Pentagon justifies disregard for the principles of international law. The American prison guards directly responsible for the inhumane treatment of their Iraqi captives should not be the only ones held accountable. The claim of not knowing about the reports of three reputable human rights organizations is a case either of lying or culpable negligence. Secretary Rumsfeld ought to resign and a full and impartial investigation about the administration's treatment of prisoners in the war on terror, wherever they are held, should take place.

The peace dividend following the fall of the Soviet Union and the millennial hope for a more peaceful and just world have not materialized. Instead we have a unipolar world with the US asserting its dominance and power because it has no rival. The Bush administration has defied the rest of the world. It withdrew the US signature of agreement with the World Court's authority because nobody, it held, not even an international court, has the right to hold U.S. officials or soldiers accountable. Such arrogance epitomizes Lord Acton's dictum: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

The major justification for this assertion of American power is that we and the world are threatened by terrorists who must be defeated. But the War on Terror threatens to bring us George Orwell's world of 1984, characterized by perpetual warfare in which all is sacrificed - truth, history, civil rights, and the enlivening bonds of human community and solidarity - all is sacrificed in the endless and ever-elusive campaign to end terror. America has initiated two wars in three years. If the Iraq war had not turned so disastrous, the Bush administration might be pursuing a further war against Iran or North Korea. This country now spends more on the military than the next 17 nations combined. It is squandering billions on a Missile Defense Program whose viability has yet to be demonstrated, and whose real goal is U.S. dominance in space. The administration is pursuing a new line of ever-more-destructive nuclear weapons that it threatens to use offensively if necessary. Domestically, civil rights and free speech are threatened, and policies of secrecy are making access to information more difficult and accountability for wrongdoing more rare. Because we overvalue security, an environment of fear has made us easily manipulated and compliant. Our preoccupation with security has made us less secure. This new Cold War greatly benefits the military-industrial complex but robs our society of the funds and the will to reinvigorate our educational system, to provide job training for the unemployed, to offer affordable housing and health care for all, and to preserve and restore our endangered environment.

It is clear we need a period of national introspection to rethink and reorder our priorities. Each of us could suggest changes that should be part of this redirection. Here are a few of my suggestions:

1. We as a nation must face the question we have avoided up to now about why people around the world resent or hate America. This means looking squarely at the patterns of self-interest in our foreign policy over the last at least 60 years. It means recognizing our ethnocentrism and dispelling the myths we wrap our national self-image in. It means committing ourselves to work more effectively with other wealthy countries to help meet the dire needs of poor countries, so that desperation, hatred, and revenge are diminished and opportunity for a better life becomes more widespread.
   
   
2. As individuals and as a society, we need to restore our sense of the common good and our responsibility as citizens and human beings to serve and sometimes to sacrifice for the larger good of all. A Me-First society or person is spiritually impoverished and psychologically sad and lonely. In Einstein's terms, we need to widen our circle of compassion in concerted, intelligent action.
   
   
3. We must redirect this country away from arrogant unilateralism back to generous cooperation with the UN and the international community. We should renounce the "doctrine" of pre-emptive war, and while we start withdrawing our troops from Iraq, we need to work with the UN to restore Iraq's civil society, rebuild infrastructure, and assure the civil and human rights of all. For a just and lasting peace in the Middle East, we need to work more honestly toward that end between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples.
   
   
4. We need to take seriously the reality that our democracy is in trouble and that we, as citizens, have to be far more vigilant and involved. Big money is clogging the heart of America and major surgery is needed. Major media reform is also needed. TV news journalists and the press have become the lapdog to power; we must pressure them to embrace their true role as watchdogs. A bold and persistent exposure of power, both in government and business, is vital to restoring our endangered democracy.
   

I end with a simple plea: that we consider thoughtfully the world our children face, and in light of all the needs, we fire up our capacity for outrage and channel our anger into a renewed and tenacious commitment to work for a better world.

[Delivered 13 June 2004. Prof. Onorato is an English and Spanish language instructor at Modesto Junior College. He approaches teaching with "the quiet, focused attention of a monk and the energetic passion and measured optimism of a social activist." He earned his Masters degree in Comparative Literature (English & Spanish) at UC Berkeley in 1969. He has worked since 1970 with the Modesto Peace/Life Center. In 2001, he received the MJC Purdy Award for Excellence in Education, given to one instructor each year. In his mind there is no one spiritual way that is valid; there are diverse paths in the world's major religions, and each offers insight, guidance, and valuable support to its followers.]

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