War Is Always a Defeat for Humanity

Originally posted God's Politics as part of their "The Cost of War Series."

Five years after bombs first exploded over Baghdad with a "shock and awe" display of staggering military might, the Iraq war continues with tragic costs and still-unseen consequences.

First, we mourn and honor the American and Iraqi dead whose lost lives are the ultimate reminder of war's cruelty. These many thousands gone are not statistics. Fathers, mothers, husbands, and sisters will never come home again. Children will grow up without parents. Grief etched on the human heart does not fade like today's headlines.

The late Pope John Paul II warned before the invasion of Iraq that "war is always a defeat for humanity." It's impossible to calculate the damage done by war to the human spirit. As faithful citizens, we continue to seek justice that is the foundation of all peace. Speaking in a triumphalist tone that divided the world into good and evil, President Bush described the "war on terror" as a "crusade." We have learned again during this dark era of fear and militarism that religion used in the service of power – the uniting of cross and sword – is a betrayal of faith's prophetic spirit and call to humility.

Author James Carroll, whose Constantine's Sword documents how Christianity's rise as a religion of empire stoked the historical flames of anti-Semitism, spoke movingly last week at Washington National Cathedral and reminded us that "No war is holy." The religious imagination should help temper the fervor of American exceptionalism. More than ever we need to reclaim spiritual humility and pray, as Abraham Lincoln once did, that we are on God's side rather than claiming endorsement from the divine.

In his 1961 farewell address, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Republican and former general of the Army, warned that a growing "military-industrial complex" has grave implications for democracy if vigilance is not paid to how freedom can be trampled in the name of strength and security. Six years later, Martin Luther King Jr. preached against the war in Vietnam and said that a "nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death." We need to heed these powerful words more than ever.

Along with the profound human and spiritual costs of war, we have squandered billions of dollars that could have been spent providing Americans with health care, living wages, better public schools, and services to help the most vulnerable. Just as the ambitious anti-poverty programs of President Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" campaign fizzled in the distant jungles of Vietnam, the Iraq war has drained limited resources from programs essential to building a culture for the common good. The gap between rich and poor has reached Depression-era standards. Our economy teeters on the brink of recession. American jobs are sent abroad as corporations seek cheap labor and minimal regulation. Meanwhile, companies like Bechtel, DynCorp, and Lockheed Martin earn record profits providing weapons and services for the war.

We have also lost a proper respect for patriotic dissent. After the Sept. 11 attacks, Americans who spoke out against preemptive war were told by a former Bush press secretary "to watch what they say and do." The millions who marched against the war were viewed with suspicion. Speaking for peace was subversive. The best minds of our generations were told to salute the flag and keep quiet. The late Rev. William Sloan Coffin Jr., a Christian unbowed in his will to speak truth to power, once described true patriotism as "a lover's quarrel" with your country. We must reclaim this reverence for engaged dissent.

It's easy to feel demoralized when we look back on these past five years. But the Christian faith teaches us to be undaunted bearers of a hope that refuses to yield to darkness. We look to the future strengthened by the abundant spirit of a God who comforts us in our sorrow and calls us to create the world anew.