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April 19,
2003
The
Last Days of Born-Again History
Shop,
Go to Church, Support Bush's War and Wait for Armageddon
by
SAUL LANDAU
In my neighborhood of trimmed lawns and two or
more car garages, with one or two more vehicles parked outside
the garage, I counted fifteen American flags in less than five
minutes of my slow trot, most of them new since the US invaded
Iraq. One house had a sign with a US flag waving over a map of
Iraq. Americans learn geography through war, experience the traumas
of battle-well, virtually-and root for the good guys. We know
we're good because God blesses America and f..s our enemies-with
the help of the missiles, bombs, tanks and other war technology
with which He has blessed us. Our God loves peace and keeps us,
as Gore Vidal quipped, in "perpetual war." Our God
does not like opposition, from within, or from our former friends
abroad. He has told our leaders, all of whom remain in close
contact with Him, to punish such heretic behavior.
Our God is one of love and compassion,
although he seems to act out of rage and retribution. But some
of the media, particularly Fox and CNN, seem to have found hidden
in FCC regulations some clause that dictates that their major
news reporting task is to follow the orders of our God-chosen
political leaders-since the majority did not choose them. Former
officers, like Lt. Col. Oliver North who, in violation of the
law, conspired to sell missiles to Iran in the 1980s in order
to fund the Nicaraguan Contras-another violation of the law-now
appear as honored war experts and cheerleaders for our troops
.
On April 6, before I jogged through my
neighborhood, I watched TV images of bombs and artillery shells
decimating Iraq, Iraqi women and children pleading for water.
One scene even showed a full hospital without running water,
so the doctor could not mix plaster with which to make a cast
for a small boy's broken arm.
On line I saw more horrific images from
non-US sources, including Agence France Presse. Mutilated bodies
of children and weeping adults holding their dead kids! Liberating
Iraq! Yes, death is the ultimate liberation!
Bush has set forth "a worldview
that is intrinsically paranoid," writes philosopher Francois
Bernard in the March 31 Ha'aretz, "imbued with visions of
the most regressive Crusades, drenched in a frightening symbolism
that sees any external opposition as evidence of crime and in
which every decision and every action bear the seal of a vengeful
divinity." Since 9/11/01-was this the work of the Devil?-God
has emerged as the dominant force in US politics. This God preaches
democracy, although its meaning has yet to become clear. It has
something to do with good, the United States, the United Kingdom
and other members of the coalition of the willing, versus the
axes of evil and their tacit partners in malice.
Our God teaches us that shopping and
going to Disneyland constitute the highest spiritual values-outside
of attending church once a week. Our God has singled us out among
all peoples, even though we came from all peoples, as His chosen
elite to reside in His promised land. After all, the Puritans
of Massachusetts Bay believed in that very ethos as did the first
slave owners in the South. Since God had sent them to this land
without first providing them with knowledge of farming, He must
have meant for them to acquire slaves to do their work. How else
could they remain free to think noble thoughts, engage in carefree
sexual adventures with their more comely servants and copse patriotic
songs, like Dixie? Yes, tradition vibrates strongly in this land
of ever newly arriving immigrants.
Well-dressed people pour out of churches,
get in their SUVs and drive to their $400,000 plus homes. Some
will watch sports on TV, others will tune in to the presstitutes,
as Uri Avnery calls them, who report on the war in Iraq. "Their
original sin," he says, "was their agreement to be
'embedded' in army units. This American term sounds like being
put to bed, and that is what it amounts to in practice. A journalist
who lies down in the bed of an army unit becomes a voluntary
slave. He is attached to the commander's staff, led to the places
the commander is interested in, sees what the commander wants
him or her to see, is turned away from the places the commanders
does not want him to see, hears what the my wants him to hear
and does not hear what the army does not want him to hear. He
is worse than an official army spokesman, because he pretends
to be an independent reporter. The problem is not that he only
sees a small piece of the grand mosaic of the war, but that he
transmits a mendacious view of that piece."
The rosy reports on the "news"
of the virtuous coalition troops' steady triumph over the unfair-fighting
forces of evil give several residents of my suburban neighborhood
reason to feel righteous, if not downright pious in their support
of the Bush Administration's policy. Those Bush supporters I
have spoken to see no relationship between their comfortable
life styles and the devastation the US military has inflicted
in Iraq. "Now we're even for what they did to us,"
said a sales manager at a local hotel chain. He referred to 9/11,
as if Saddam Hussein and the Iraqis had actually done those foul
deeds. "They're not going to try that one again," he
said smugly. Almost half of Americans polled blame Saddam for
9/11-thanks to President Bush's constant references to "his
links" to terrorists, reported without critical comment
by the media.
Most Americans don't have access through
TV news or the daily print press of critical reporting coming
out of Iraq. On April 8, Robert Fisk of the Independent filed
this report:
"It looks very neat on television,
the American marines on the banks of the Tigris, the all-so-funny
visit to the presidential palace, the videotape of Saddam Hussein's
golden loo. But the innocent are bleeding and screaming with
pain to bring us our exciting television pictures and to provide
Messrs Bush and Blair with their boastful talk of victory. I
watched two-and-a-half-year-old Ali Najour lying in agony on
the bed, his clothes soaked with blood, a tube through his nose."
Ignorant of and therefore oblivious to
Iraqi pain, one would think the suburbanites would at least respond
to their state's fiscal crisis. How much will they have to pay
if Bush actually tries to realize his post-war reconstruction
plans for Iraq? Californians, already faced with a $35 billion
state deficit, look forward to paying heavier state and local
taxes to make up for the shortfall from the federal government's
yearly allocation to the states. They do not seem to worry about
additional costs for rebuilding Iraq. When I mention the tax-cut
for the very wealthy, their eyes glaze over.
I have also met the programmed "born-agains,"
those who believe robot-like that what they view on TV as current
history is the working out of biblical prophecy. One woman mentioned
the battles of Gog and Magog that must precede the final reckoning.
She identifies "100% with our President." He, unlike
the lascivious Bill Clinton, "is a true Christian."
Most of the neighbors with whom I spoke said that the bloodshed
had upset them, but "that's the price we have to pay for
security," one man said as he pruned his roses.
In Iraq, the born-again Christians work
with the US military. Meg Laughlin in the April 5 Miami Herald
quoted Evangelical Christian Army chaplain Josh Llano. "They
want water. I have it, as long as they agree to get baptized,"
he said. "In so many ways," write Laughlin, "this
represents the true mindset of the individuals who have pushed
this war. It is right down the line with the actions of this
administration over the past three years; recall that, when our
airmen were being held in China back in 2001, Mr. Bush was only
concerned with whether or not they had Bibles."
Nothing in the fundamentalist theology
seems to inhibit consumption, however. These God-fearing people
buy gas-guzzling vehicles, pay Mexicans to mow their lawns and
drop chemicals into their swimming pools and take periodic vacations
in Las Vegas-where God does not always bless them. In church,
they listen to the pious sermons about what being a Christian
means in daily life. But their interpretation of the Bible does
not sensitize them to the pain of the Iraqis. I notice a satisfied,
almost smug smile on the faces of the men as they announce their
support for the president and his war like policies. They repeat
Bush's lines about the need to get rid of Saddam's "weapons
of mass destruction" and "we had to act because the
UN is worthless" arguments.
My neighbors have problems, like all
people. Their suburban-reared kids often drink and then drive,
use drugs and get caught or fail to make college-level grades.
But many of the parents themselves also tend to use addictive
substances and then go into religious programs to recover-or
get divorced, go bankrupt and even commit suicide. Those I spoke
with consider themselves good people, kind, charitable. Like
many suburban families, my neighbors spend parts of their weekends
on shopping expeditions for lawn, garden, patio and pool supplies,
home furniture, kitchen needs and of course clothing. Most of
them cannot quite understand why some people would protest a
war against a brute like Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
"Those hedonistic terrorists are
getting what they deserve," opined one older neighbor with
a prominently displayed flag on her lawn. She had just returned
from her Baptist church service where she prayed for President
Bush to prevail. Later she will take advantage of a sale to buy
her grandchildren some new back packs for their school backs.
"Lord knows, they sure get plenty of use." I nod. She
says: "God bless you!"
In Iraq, Saddam invokes God as well.
Alive or dead, his words continue to call on his people to resist
in the name of the Muslim homeland and Allah. That God has lost
this war. Or maybe just this battle for Iraq in the last days
of born-again history?
Saul Landau's
film IRAQ: VOICES FROM THE STREETS is distributed by Cinema Guild,
800-723-5522. Find him on the web at www.rprogreso.com He teaches
at Cal Poly Pomona University and is a fellow of the Institute
for Policy Studies. He can be reached at:
landau@counterpunch.org
Today's
Features
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Robert
Jensen
Self-Determination in Iraq? Then the
US Must Leave
Dr.
Susan Block
The Rape of Iraq
Ron Jacobs
Aiming at Syria: Stop Them Before They Kill Again
Robert
Fisk
The Final Sacking of Baghdad
Col. Dan
Smith
Post-War Iraq: Asking the Right Questions
Ali
Abunimah and Hussein Ibish
A Cycle of Chaos and Confrontation: Misadventures of the NeoCons
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/15
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