While President Obama dithers about whether to “destroy” ISIS or
“manage” them, the Christian left is urging him to engage the butchers in
nonviolent, “community-level
peace and reconciliation processes.”
The Catholic, Washington-based Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns
recently posted a letter
addressed to President Obama and other White House officials at the end of
August. Signed by 53 national religious groups (including Maryknoll),
academics, and ministers, the letter urged the White House to avoid warfare in
Iraq by resorting to “a broader set of smart, effective nonviolent practices to
engage hostile conflicts.” The strategies are part of “a fresh way to view and
analyze conflicts” offered by an emerging ecumenical paradigm called
“justpeace” (a cutesy combination of justice and peace). This approach was initiated
by the Faith Forum for
Middle East Policy, a “network of Christian denominations and organizations working for a
just peace in the Middle East.”
The signers expressed
their “deep concern” not so much over “the dire plight of Iraqi civilians”
being slaughtered by ISIS as “the recent escalation of U.S. military action” in
response. “U.S. military action is not the answer,” they claim, sounding a
pacifist note common among left-leaning Christians. “We believe that the way to
address the crisis is through long-term investments in supporting inclusive
governance and diplomacy, nonviolent resistance, sustainable development, and
community-level peace and reconciliation processes.”
Good luck with that.
It doesn’t take a diplomatic genius to know that ISIS’ response to such flaccid
tactics would be the same as the one they delivered recently in a video warning
to the U.S.: “We will drown all of you in blood.”
But the left deals
in wishful thinking, not reality. Thus the signers affirm, with Pope Francis,
that “peacemaking is more courageous than warfare” – a statement that makes a
great bumper sticker for Priuses but has no basis in fact. “It is licit to stop
the unjust aggressor,” concedes Pope Francis, but “stop” does not mean wage
war, which he calls the “suicide of humanity.”
Typical of the blame-America-first
left, the letter’s signers faulted “decades of U.S. political and military
intervention, coupled with inadequate social reconciliation programs,” for “the
current crisis in Iraq.” More violence, they believe, will simply lead to “a
continual cycle of violent intervention” that does not address “the root causes
of the conflict.” You know that when the left speaks of “root causes,” they
mean poverty, social injustice, imperialism – all of the familiar grievances
whereby the left legitimizes “freedom fighters” such as ISIS. The left is also
fond of the notion of the “cycle of violence” – as if both sides are equally to
blame, and if one side takes the bold step to end that cycle, the other side
will stop as well.
“We… deeply share the desire to protect people, especially civilians,”
the letter continues, but “there
are better, more effective, more healthy and more humanizing ways” to do that. Those
steps include the following recommendations:
- Stop U.S. bombing in Iraq “to
prevent bloodshed, instability and the accumulation of grievances.”
- Provide “robust humanitarian assistance”
to refugees fleeing the violence, “in coordination with the United
Nations.”
- Engage with the UN, all Iraqi political
and religious leaders, and others in the international community on
diplomatic efforts.
- Support community-based nonviolent
resistance strategies to transform the conflict and meet the deeper
need and grievances of all parties.
- Strengthen financial sanctions against
armed actors in the region by working through the UN Security Council.
- Bring in professionally trained unarmed
civilian protection organizations.
- An arms embargo on all parties to the
conflict.
- Support Iraqi civil society efforts to
build peace, reconciliation, and accountability at the community level.
I don’t see how any
of these are more effective than annihilating ISIS militarily, particularly
since the UN is worthless and hardcore jihadists would simply consider the
above methods to be indications of weakness from our side. The signers close
the letter by asking Obama to “move beyond the ways of war and into the
frontier of just peace responses to violent conflict.”
Priests like those
at Maryknoll naturally seek peaceful solutions – that’s understandable, and
peaceful solutions are certainly preferable if they are available or possible.
But working toward peace requires the willing participation of all parties. If
one side is hell-bent on genocide, and views conciliatory overtures from their
enemy as pathetic weakness, then all the “community-based nonviolent
resistance” in the known universe isn’t going to persuade them to compromise
for the sake of peace; on the contrary, it will only encourage and embolden
them to keep slaughtering. This ugly reality may not sit well with the utopians
of the Christian left, who believe that harmonizing “Kumbiyah” will soften
savages who think nothing of burying children alive, selling women into
slavery, and sawing people’s heads off.
ISIS is not an
isolated group of “extremists,” as Obama likes to call them (“extreme” what?).
They are part of a surging worldwide jihad against a Western civilization that
the jihadists view as weak, decadent, and dying. A falling camel attracts many
knives, as the Arabic saying goes, and the jihadists smell blood. They are not impressed
or moved by promises of “inclusive governance” or “reconciliation processes.”
They don’t respect interfaith dialogue or hashtag diplomacy. They don’t desire
peace – at least, not as we define it. Peace for them means not coexistence, as
our bumper stickers urge, but worldwide submission to Allah. They respect only strength.
When we work up the cultural and military will to show them that we, and not
the jihadists, are the strong horse of which bin Laden spoke, we will be on our
way to peace.
(This article originally appeared here on FrontPage Mag, 9/8/14)
