Patriotism: Must It Blind Us?

(Remarks prepared for a homily delivered by Ken Germanson at a service April 2, 2023 before the Community of the Living Spirit, an ecumenical worship group in Waukesha WI)

A few days ago we marked the 20^th Anniversary of the invasion of Iraq by American troops.  What a disaster that turned out to be! 

According to official Defense Dept. statistics, there have been 4,431 deaths of U.S. service personnel just in Iraq, with another nearly 32,000 listed as injured, many now beginning to populate our VA hospitals across the nation.

But sadly, the numbers of Iraqi citizens killed – nearly all noncombatants – number anywhere from 280,000 to 315,000 and even those numbers leave many others to be counted.  Do the math:  for every American killed, there were about 75 Iraqis who died.

I ask you: how in good conscience can we ignore the deaths of so many human beings?  Is the life of a Muslin or any other Iraqi worth any less than that of an American boy or girl who is killed when caught in the web of a military action?

And I ask you also: was that Iraq venture even necessary?  History by and large has concluded it was a mistake.  But the nation was riled up by a wave of resentment fueled by the 911 attack, some of us to a level hate against all Muslims? 

How could we have let this happen?  We were called upon to be “patriotic;” if you didn’t heed President George W Bush’s call to exact revenge upon the perpetrators of the attacks against the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and the crash in the Pennsylvania countryside you were being unpatriotic.  So we blindly went along with Bush and his call that weapons of mass destruction were being readied to attack us.  So we attacked the wrong nation, didn’t we?  Most of the perpetrators of 911 were from Saudi Arabia – a nation we felt we couldn’t alienate because of oil.  And, as we learned too late, there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq . . . their existence was a myth.

The unexpected damage done by IEDs made fighting in Iraq most difficult for U.S. Troops.

In perspective, we must acknowledge that we rid that nation of Saddam Hussein and his dictatorial regime.  But the freedoms today in Iraq are still limited, and the nation economically is still reeling from the ravages of the war that we, the United States, started.  Life is not easy there.

In a way, the Iraqi war’s results were not much different than the results of any of the wars our nation has engaged in since World War II. 

When we ended World War II in 1945, most of us were feeling triumphant that the awful fighting was ended.  Some of us even had hope that this was the war to end all wars!  It turned out to be a vain hope, just as World War I was supposed to be the war that ended all wars.

Many Americans looked forward to a future of lasting peace; peace conferences began even before the final Japanese surrender and the United Nations was founded.

I was in high school during much of World War II, knowing full well that upon graduation I would likely be asked to serve.  As a junior in 1945, I became fascinated by a book, The Anatomy of Peace, by Emery Reves.  In an appeal to Americans and the world, the front flap of the book’s first edition in 1945 had an “Open Letter to the American People,” signed by Owen J. Roberts, and Senators J.W. Fulbright, Claude Pepper, Elbert D. Thomas, and other dignitaries.  The letter began:

The first atomic bomb destroyed more than the city of Hiroshima. It also exploded our inherited, outdated political ideas.

A few days before the force of Nature was tried out for the first time in history, the San Francisco Charter was ratified in Washington. The dream of a League of Nations, after 26 years, was accepted by the Senate.

How long will the United Nations Charter endure? With luck, a generation? A century? There is no one who does not hope for at least that much luck- for the Charter, for himself, for his work, and for his children’s children. But is it enough to have Peace by Luck? Peace by Law is what the peoples of the world, beginning with our selves, can have if they want it. And now is the time to get it.^[3]

In a few words, Reves’ message was that the existence of nation states – sovereign unto themselves – was at the core of the unending series of wars.  What we needed, in essence, was a world federal government – that is a United States of the World.  I was put onto this book by two buddies and one of our teachers at Wauwatosa High.  What a revelation!  Finally, I saw that our notion that the USA was the center of the world was wrong.  I had been led to believe that the magnificent United States was the font of all wisdom . . . that we were the BEST and FINEST nation in the world.  Now, to learn that the USA was NOT the center of the world.  That was a shock.

Surprisingly, this idea of a world federal government grew popular and by 1948 was found to be the 4^th best funded lobby group in Washington.  Reves’ book sold 800,000 copies and was translated into 31 languages.

Yet, for many in the United States, this world federalist idea was heresy.  How could one be a patriot and support the idea of ‘one world government?’

And, indeed the idea of a world government soon fizzled, killed by the Cold War.  People who championed such ideas were soon to be labelled “unpatriotic,” “kooks” or “commies.”  The Cold War called upon all of us to march in lockstep, never to challenge the status quo, never to question that values of a Capitalistic economy or the Judeo-Christian cultures.

The fear of communism ran rampant in the country by 1948, spurred on by the House Un-American Activities Committee, the Hollywood blacklist, the Hearst newspapers, Walter Winchell and finally our own Joe McCarthy.  The more militant trade unions were tagged with being communist; in each case, they lost the protection of the Nation’s labor law and they were targeted and lost membership and income, including the United Electrical Workers, the Mine, Mill and Smelters Union and certain factions of the UAW.  Remember the 1947-48 Allis-Chalmers strike, which involved an effort the UAW national leadership, including Walter Reuther, to rid UAW Local 248 of its supposed “communist” leaders.  Managements could easily blunt the influence of the more militant trade unionists by labeling them as unpatriotic and even ‘commies.”

FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover kept a file on Martin Luther King, Jr., in a challenge to King’s outspoken advocacy.

Fighters for civil rights, including notably Martin Luther King, were also targeted; J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI kept close look on the reverend.  I heard many accuse Father James Groppi of being communist. 

Thus, those that opposed any progressive change in our nation – any efforts to challenge the status quo – turned to using the “unpatriotic” or “commie” label to weaken their opposition.

Now, let’s see how the concept of “patriotism” may have clouded our nation’s decisions to go to war in the last 75 years.

Take Korea, for instance.  In the years leading up to our entry into Korea in June 1950, the growing fear of communism had taken over the nation.  The Truman Administration had been accused of “losing China” when the corrupt Chang Kai Shek fled in favor of Mao and the Communists.  With elections in the offing, Democrats could hardly resist entering Korea for the “purpose of stopping the rise of communism.” 

Now Vietnam!  It had been deserted by the French in 1956, and the popular Ho Chi Minh took over north Vietnam.  Ho, you’ll remember was no friend of the Chinese communists; he was, indeed, more of a Vietnam nationalist.  But he was also a sympathizer of communism, making it easier to tag him as spreading the red threat … he had to be stopped.

By the early 1960s, the US had troops in Vietnam, small numbers to be sure but sent by President John F. Kennedy in order to stop the spread of communism.  Gradually more and more were sent in as Lyndon Johnson became president.  The public generally supported this.  We were easily conned to support the escalation . . . largely because most of wanted to be conned.  After all, it was our patriotic duty.

In the middle 1960s, all of us who dared to challenge our Vietnam adventure were called unpatriotic.

It was a sad irony that the Vietnam war was fought largely by young men and women from lower income families; if you recall, young men (and it was only men who were subject to the draft) who attended college were exempt from active duty until they graduated or quit school.  So the ugly battle in the jungles was largely carried on by the sons of working class families.  It is further irony that many of our political leaders never served in the Vietnam War; Bill Clinton had successfully requested 5 or 6 deferments as did the ‘chicken hawks’ who took us into the Iraq War, people like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld while George W. Bush himself was able to have his father wangle enrollment in the Alabama Air National Guard to avoid going overseas.

By the time of Desert Storm in 1990 and the Iraq invasion 13 years later, we were relying on our armed forces to be totally volunteer, also filled largely by young people from lower income families.  Less than one percent of U.S. families has a member serving today, making such war adventures remote and largely ignored by most Americans.  If you have a loved one in Iraq or Afghanistan, you definitely care about the decisions being made in such wars.  The rest of us may be more worried about our taxes or whether the potholes in our streets will ever get filled.

Now, we’re facing decisions about the Ukraine.  More than a year after Putin invaded that country, it’s seems there’s no end in sight for the fighting, bringing more devastation and death to that nation.  The Biden Administration has poured hundreds of billions of dollars and military resources into the battle, which has become by and large a stalemate at this point. 

What should our nation do?  The choices are:  One, to continue as we are, supporting Ukraine with weapons and other resources; two, send our own troops in to support Ukraine forces and face nuclear reaction from Putin; or three, force Zelenskyy to compromise and seek a settlement that would include ceding much of its eastern territory to Russia.  None of these answers are satisfactory.

Also, we’re seeing China assert its own aggressiveness, not only with threats to occupy Taiwan but in its very open efforts to seize control of the South China Sea.  What should we do? Send an aircraft carrier force into South China Sea to challenge the Chinese effort? Should we station troops in Taiwan?  Any of these actions may end up creating a war, with possible use of nuclear weapons.

I don’t know the answer to any of these questions.  Certainly, I’m not preaching isolationism.  Our nation, I believe, stands for protecting the dignity of all persons, and we do care about citizens in other nations.

My only point is that as we not let phony patriotism blind us to making the wisest decisions.  But it is hard to challenge the popular view of the day.

Dr. King said it best:

“Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government’s policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one’s own bosom and in the surrounding world.”

All of us must be engaged and knowledgeable about the decisions our nation must make.  We must not be content with waving the flag and going along with the popular view if we believe such a view is misguided.  It will require courage, but it’s our obligation as good citizens to face the challenge of telling truth to power.

_____

Significant readings: 

Isaiah 2:4 – And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

*****

“Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government’s policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one’s own bosom and in the surrounding world” – Martin Luther King

*****

“I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality… I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.”

Martin Luther King

*****

Our work for peace must begin within the private world of each of us. To build for man a world without fear, we must be without fear. To build a world of justice, we must be just.

Dag Hammarskjold