Why We Fight

So, I watched another amazing documentary last night, probably the BEST documentary I have ever seen, entitled Why We Fight. It takes place during the Iraq War (Oh wait, that war is still going on) and it traces the history of the past fifty years involving military conflicts in foreign nations and why we have been involved. It shows also a dramatic "conversion" of a man, a former NYPD Sgt. and also a Vietnam Veteran, who lost his son in the 9/11 attacks. Throughout the documentary it showed how he supported the Iraq War, even to the point of having the Marine Corp place his son's name on a bomb which was dropped in Iraq on April 1, 2003. This man supported the troops, until one day he was watching the news and they showed President Bush at a Cabinet Meeting, where he stated, "The 9/11 attacks and the Iraq War do not have anything to do with one another." The problem with that statement was the fact that Vice President Cheney had drawn a definitive link approximately one year before between 9/11, Al-Qaeda, and Iraq's "Weapons of Mass Destruction." The man who lost his son said that he was so enraged about his son's death that he simply wanted vengeance, he wanted as many dead bodies as possible, and if Iraq was the culprit, we needed to "kill them!" His attitude and heart were turned by the end of the documentary to feelings of sorrow over his "blind" support for the war. He said that he is from the "old school", which in my opinion means unquestioning allegiance to the state, which promises to secure safety, as violently as necessary. Don't worry, Rome did the same thing. (Oh, wait, they don't exist anymore.) In theological terms we might call those who seem so different from us "the other". Today it may be Iraqi's and how does God interact with "the other", i.e. those who do not claim allegiance to our God? I believe God calls out to them and desires that our's and their vengeance, anger, and acts of violence be expressed in a language to him. He is continually seeking those who will cry out to him in times of fear and anger, those are "the other".

These feelings are normal for an act of aggression, such as the 9/11 attacks. People are confused, scared, and unsure why anyone would hate us, and they wanted answers. The problem is they were not spoken to with compassion, but were told, "This is why people hate us, because we are free and you are not." I had to research the history myself in order to understand the violence in this country.
This documentary (biased, as all documentaries are) traces the history of our interaction with Iraq and it's massive oil reserves from the 1950's onward. It showed how we used Saddam Hussein and showed Donald Rumsfeld meeting with Saddam in the 80's, shaking his hand when he was our friend, over against our enemy; "Iran". This documentary even showed a clip from Osama Bin Laden who said that he did not like Saudi Arabia "using" the U.S. to maintain power against Iraq, during the time period when Iraq attacked Kuwait in Operation Desert Storm. Osama either felt as if the U.S. was being inevitably drawn into a conflict in the Middle East, or he thought that Saudi Arabia as a Muslim Nation should not be making deals with the U.S. (It was not explained either way in the documentary)

Saddam became enemy #1 when he attacked Kuwait, because he was one step closer to possibly taking over Saudi Arabia and therefore controlling the Middle East's two largest Oil Reserves.
How does any of this have to do with "freedom". Well, it actually does. We as Americans define freedom as security, i.e. security as defined over the last forty-five years as the U.S.'s "Industrial Military Complex", which was a phrase coined by Eisenhower at the end of his term in office. In order to continue to secure our own freedom, we must establish our imperial agenda in countries where we know we can dominate. The "no standing armies" from our Constitution was also mentioned, which having "standing armies" in foreign nations would violate our own Constitution.
We never "attacked" the Soviet Union or East Germany during the Cold War years, because it would not benefit us to attack a nation which has the power to fight back. Cheney was quoted as saying in this movie that at the end of the Cold War era, the U.S. is now has the foremost power in the world and we must preserve that power.
There is a theme which dominates the discussion, even today, and that is of "power". If we have all this power, will it ever affect another nation? If it does affect another nation, are we concerned about their freedom? We as a nation have accepted the bloody revolutions fought over how this country would be governed as perfectly normal. If we have so easily accepted this premise, then it becomes very easy for us to #1, make sure we as a nation never again experience those revolutions, and #2 believe that other nations must experience blood before they can be "free."