Iraq's new direction

Over the weekend, an estimated 50,000 anti-war protesters gathered in Washington in order to express their opposition to the war in Iraq and demand immediate withdrawal of US troops from the region. Headlining the event was none other than Jane Fonda, referred to by the nickname “Hanoi Jane” by millions of resentful Americans because of her sympathy to the North Vietnamese communists during the last unpopular American conflict. Signs were carried by the self-proclaimed “peace activists” with demands to “Get out of Iraq now” and “I voted for peace.”

Behavioral psychology informs us that if you want something repeated, then reinforce it. Parents learn to reward their children with privileges or cash if they successfully accomplish something. Teachers learn to “catch students being good” and praise them or provide other tangible rewards in order to hopefully produce more of the good behavior. Unfortunately, the same is true for bad or undesirable behavior. What do you think will happen if, in order to pacify a screaming toddler in a store, a frustrated mother caves in and buys the toy or the candy bar? The child’s misbehavior has been rewarded and reinforced, and he will repeat the tantrum to a worse degree the next time. If you want more whining, just give the whiner what they want.

The Jane Fondas of this world learned something about their Vietnam experience. Organize anti-war rallies, praise the virtues of the enemy, criticize the brutality of US troops, use the media to create the image that the war is unwinnable, even when victory is at hand. Execute this strategy using beautiful stars as spokespeople. Slander American presidents as evil liars and murderers. Guess what? The United States lost in Vietnam not because Gerald Ford evacuated the troops from Saigon in 1975, but because Congress refused to provide any additional funding for the war effort.

If you want behavior repeated, simply reinforce it. The previous paragraph could be applied equally to the “peace” crowd in both 1971 and 2007. All we have to do is sit down and come to an understanding of our enemy, adherents of the “religion of peace.” Assert that the US military is not peopled by sacrificing servicemen and women who are trying to rebuild a democratic nation, but by torturers and abusers at places like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. Introduce legislation in Congress to cut off funding for the war effort. Above all, lay all the blame upon President Bush. And when he’s out of office, take no responsibility for what happens for the decision to abandon the fight, just say “It wasn’t our decision—I voted for peace.’

Things looked pretty bleak for the American soldiers in the winter of 1777-78. Certainly the Loyalists/Tories advocated for “peace.” George Washington had generals who were actively and openly questioning his ability to command and to win, and making their case to the Continental Congress. What if they had only given “peace a chance?” Things also looked bleak in the fall of 1862. No Union general seemed willing to prosecute the war to win. Even with the fortunate discovery of Lee’s battle plans at Antietam, McClellan refused to take advantage of his victory in the single bloodiest day in the Civil War and pursue the enemy into Virginia. Lincoln’s management of the war was publicly criticized and he received personal attacks that were worse, incredibly, than those President Bush receives. What if they would only have given “peace a chance?”

Nobody in the modern world is pro-war. The days of the battlefield being a place of glory are a thing of the past. But when an enemy who is hell-bent on making you submit to their religion or die declares war on you, what is the cost of “peace?” You either fight the war you did not wish for and defend your citizens, or you refuse to fight (“peace”) and surrender your freedom. In Iraq, if the enemy perceives that American citizens cannot stomach the fight, then their aggression will be reinforced. They will assume that America cannot tolerate 3,000 deaths, and will do anything to live—including surrender and run away.

In the State of the Union address this past week, President Bush indicated that he has directed an increase in troop deployment (the “surge”) to secure Baghdad and the Anwar province. If this fails, it will in all likelihood mean that our troops will be brought home and Iraq will be abandoned to civil war or to being overrun by Iran. Instability in the region will drive up energy prices, causing a cataclysm on the world’s economy. Israel’s security will be threatened. But who cares? At least no more American blood will be shed for one of Bush’s lies. At least we in America will have peace.

UPDATE: A recent poster questioned whether the enemy actually declared war on America. This is a bit of semantic dissembling that implies that "Al-Qaeda attacked us on 9-11, not Iraq" and that the war is justified against them alone. Remember how John Kerry used to say "He (Bush) took his eye off the ball" by not going after bin Laden and instead going after Saddam Hussein? The "enemy" is not just one terrorist group in caves somewhere along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. The enemy is far broader than that. Follow this link and see when "jihad" was declared against America and by whom. Are we going to take their declaration of war seriously or not?

The Star-Spangled Banner: Hillary Style

Since during the past week, we learned about the circumstances of the writing of the National Anthem and also discussed on our blog the possibility of Bill Clinton becoming Vice-President to his wife, I thought it only fitting to direct you to this clip of Mrs. Clinton singing (in the most generous sense of the word) the Star-Spangled banner. Enjoy!

The Vice-Presidency

President Gerald Ford passed away on December 26 at the age of 93. He was the longest-lived president in history. His passing brought forth a flurry of tributes and reflections on his presidency, and, in general, praised him for bringing peace to a nation caught in the upheaval of Vietnam and Watergate. Of course, what he did to allow the nation to move on was to pardon President Nixon for any crimes committed during the Watergate coverup. This move was widely and vocally criticized at the time, and probably cost Ford the presidency in his own right in the 1976 campaign against eventual president Jimmy Carter. Now, after three decades of hindsight, most observers have declared Ford’s decision to be wise, if at the time it was unpopular.

Gerald Ford was serving capably as House Minority leader, representing Grand Rapids, MI, when Spiro Agnew resigned from the Vice Presidency. Under the terms of the 25th amendment, ratified in 1967, only a few years prior, the President (Richard Nixon) was empowered to nominate a new vice president, who would then assume the office upon approval of both houses of Congress. Congressman Ford was his uncontroversial selection. Of course, when Nixon resigned the presidency in August of 1974 under threat of impeachment during the Watergate affair, Gerald Ford became the first president of our country who had never been elected to the office of either president or vice-president.

The vice-presidency can be a very critical office, or it can be a meaningless one. The first vice-president, John Adams, tried to act in the constitutional capacity as president of the Senate, who had the responsibility of casting the deciding ballot in the event of a tie. His first act was to insist that the Senate decide with what title to address the president. This ensuing debate lasted an entire month, and gave Adams the reputation of having “monarchist leanings.” After Adams and the Federalists lost power, the vice-president never again carried out his duties as “president of the Senate” in such an active manner. President Franklin Roosevelt’s first vice president, John Nance Garner, is said to have compared the office to a bucket of “warm spit” (metaphor edited for Christian schools). However, 14 of our country’s presidents have been vice-president first, making it about a one in three chance of being much more than what it was, in Garner’s estimation.

Under the terms of the 12th amendment, the procedure for election of President and Vice-President was changed. Previously, the person who won the second-most electoral votes was awarded the vice-presidency. Because of the political maneuverings of folks like Alexander Hamilton, who considered John Adams a rival and who viewed Aaron Burr as dangerous and unstable, the constitution was changed to allow for separate ballots for the two offices. From then on, there would be no further situations where the President was of one party and his vice-president of the opposing political group.

Now that Hillary Clinton has declared that she is running for president in 2008, the question was posed the other day as to whether her husband could be elected as vice-president. Under the terms of the 12th amendment, no one who is ineligible for the office of president is eligible for the vice-presidency; and, because the 22nd amendment limited the presidency to two terms, Bill Clinton is ineligible for both the presidency and for the vice-presidency. Celebrate or mourn, depending on your point of view.

President Ford’s experience illustrates how important the office of vice-president—a heartbeat away from the presidency—can be. One wonders if the public’s skepticism over the qualifications of Dan Quayle contributed to the defeat of George H. W. Bush in 1992.

The first amendment's religious tension

The first amendment guarantees that congress shall pass no law regarding the establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof. When does a person forfeit their right to free exercise of their religion? When by doing so, they would become a party to congressional establishment of religion. The Supreme Court has ruled, for example, that when public school teachers lead their students in prayer or go beyond teaching about religion and start to proselytize (preach in order to win converts to their religion), that is prohibited under the first amendment’s establishment clause. It is not difficult to imagine how a Christian would feel if, for example, the Muslim teacher began to instruct the students to get down on their prayer rugs and face Mecca and pray to Allah, or the Mormon teacher began to instruct how to become exalted as gods of our own planets. We ought to be thankful for the protections of the establishment clause. Instead of demanding that the government institution known as a “public school” offer prayers “in Jesus’ name” and instructing in the truths of the Bible, Catholics, Lutherans, evangelical Christians of many denominations either cooperatively or as an extension of their congregation’s ministry found and support parochial or religious schools. In this way, they can guarantee that the teacher who leads in prayer and who teaches the faith does so from a shared Christian perspective.

Chaplain Gordon Klingenschmitt (US Navy) was recently notified that he would be ejected from the service, expelled from his military housing, and lose his retirement benefits—all because he prayed “in Jesus’ name” while in uniform and not in the narrowly prescribed confines of the base chapel. The navy views this as a case of insubordination, that is, he was given an order and refused to obey it, a definite no-no in the military. The chaplain believes that he is being forced to compromise his beliefs and offer prayers to a God other than the Triune God. He also reports that he was disciplined for preaching an “exclusive” view of religion in a funeral service for a slain sailor. His sermon was on Romans 8 and declared that only believers in Jesus Christ will be saved.

Chaplain Klingenschmitt knew what he was getting into when he joined the military chaplaincy. He knew that the plurality of religions in our country would be represented by the same diverse religious views among members of the military, and that he would have to remove references to Christ as he carried out his duties lest one religion be established over others. Is there any significant difference between his actions and that of a public school teacher, who, knowing full well that he could not pray or proselytize in his classroom, decided to do so anyway? Would such a teacher be surprised to be fired and protest on the grounds that he was simply expressing his freedom of religion? In a sense, I admire the chaplain’s unwillingness to offer “prayers” that are not in Jesus’ name; but those who are unwilling to compromise how they pray and preach ought to do so outside of the government’s payroll. In other words, he should have thought about the possibility that he would be ordered to compromise his faith before he became a chaplain.

Christians who enlist in the armed forces ought to consider ways in which they can worship the Lord in spirit and truth and not in a Christless “worship” service led by a chaplain. Webcasts of services are readily available online. Small groups for Bible study, prayer, and mutual encouragement can be organized. Invitations to non-believers can be extended and Christian servicemen and women can witness to them. The answer to the secularization of public schools has not been for Christian teachers to defy the constitution and proselytize anyway. If we can establish and maintain Christian schools as a place where a distinctively Christian faith and values system can be integrated with academic excellence, then why can’t distinctively Christian groups be established for the free exercise of religion outside of the government’s brand of religion in a military setting too?

Reflect and comment.