Don’t Dispatch Diplomacy In a Place With No Diplomats

I am sick with the sugary taste of the  sycophants’ words sweeping over the airwaves today  about President Obama’s speech to Muslims in Egypt. In typical non-relevant journalism style their stories mainly repeat what Obama said, point out meaningless phrases that somehow they believe signals something else and pontificate on what it will mean to the Muslim world.

While I’m no xenophobe,  I could care less what the Muslim world thinks of me in my home in Oklahoma. It’s the terrorists who seek to kill me, my way of life and my allegiance to whatever God I choose that I’m worried about. The fact is that the Arab world has hated the Christian world since basically the Crusades. But it wasn’t always this way.

Before Muhammad began expanding Islam with the tip of his sword, Christianity’s birth place was in the Arab-Judeo world. One of the first true churches of Christ was in Iran – then called Persia – for Christ’s sake.

And yes Christians – especially evangelical Christians – took a stance that spreading God’s word and asking people to come to Christ was its purpose and this evanglizing led many Arabs to Christ. But like with anything Christianity had a human element and some very bad things happened. I’m oversimplifying to get to the point but you get my drift.

Since the 11th and 13th centuries when the violent rift between Christianity and Islam hit its stride with the Crusades the two faiths have been battling constantly. As it probably always did, faith began to inform political, economical and historical context. Nation states were born and some separated their policies from their gods while others didn’t.

So you have today where a battle that started in 1095 is played out in Internet cafes and building tenements in Gaza and the West Bank. So with that backdrop Obama rides on his brown horse to the Middle East to “rectify,” the bloodlust of the eight years before him with a speech to placate those whose hatred of us is literally embedded in their DNA.

As he admitted “no one speech,” could erase the historical hatred that spews from the Middle East or heal the wounds of the frustrated masses who live there. So why try, I ask.

Then people inevitably yell out the D-word. Diplomacy. You can’t achieve peace by the gun. Heads of state must talk. They must negotiate. They must trade in treaties and parse speeches and shake hands. Yes this is all well and good if the disagreement is over tea or coffee. But when the very vein of humanity is at stake – the ideals of freedom, democracy and free expression are under attack, I’m sorry diplomacy is not the way to go.

Though I’m a state’s right advocate Lincoln was right to do what he did. Diplomacy was not an option. Not when the South convened a convention to succeed from the union. Not when they elected their own president and formed their own army. No, to settle that disagreement it took a man who believed in absolutes. And Lincoln absolutely believed that if he did not act the union of the United Staes would be no more.

But in America we do not believe in absolutes any more. Crusades for diversity, tolerance and acceptance have eroded the strong lines that historically we have drawn in our moral sandlots. So instead of condemning terrorism we applaud it simply as the only legitimate expression of the oppressed. Instead of calling out the extremism embedded and demonstrated in the name of Islam we give way to faith reconciliation committees and inter-faith tolerance.

As a Christian I want every one to hear about Jesus Christ. But I don’t want to do that with the barrel of a gun. Jesus doesn’t need an armed army. So why does Allah?

Obama and all his minions miss the point. We are not fighting against a religion, a people or an ethnic group. We are murderously opposed to the dilution of the free will of human beings under regimes who are fueled by their own sense of power or allegiance to an unmovable god. This respect for individual rights and free will is so beautifully espoused in our country’s constitution but are basic tenets of any construct that seeks to honor the dignity of all human beings. Any attempt to erode this is ground for fighting words. We cannot placate those who would seek to erode the freedom of humanity be them outsiders or people within our own family. America believes that. In fact we killed more of our than any enemy to preserve such freedom. Why do we need to abate that fervor now?

In response to Obama’s speech, David Dell commented on the New York Times online article, ” Is it possible for an informed person to rejoice in this speech without cynicism?”

To Mr. Dell, I point you to this photograph recently unearthed by  Life.com. It shows a relatively sane looking German honor guard saluting British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain walking regally along with SS guards on his way to meet Hitler in 1938. After the meeting the Prime Minister was convinced he had brokered a “peace during our time.” A year later the word peace was removed from the world’s lexicon as the world battled a totalitarian hell-bent on world domination and destruction. There are those who would argue that this “peace agreement,” put a halt on Hitler’s plans and was the reason he lost the war. But to those I say when a duck quacks it shows you its a duck. Why in the world would you wait for it to show you it’s an alligator?

Totalitarians do not engage in diplomacy. They want everything and do not want to give up anything. To deal with them you have to be total in your demands. But it’s tough to be total when you have no moral center or abhor absolutes as Obama clearly does.

The only thing he’s absolutely certain of is that he wants everyone to like America again. Excuse me Mr. Prez., I’d rather people like freedom more.

To Live War

Around the globe the world is settling in for a good night’s sleep. Moms are sneaking by barely closed doors listening intently for giggling or snores. Dads are turning out lamp lights and kissing good night. Teens are huddled under their comforters the pale blue glow of a cell phone face illuminating their expressions as they text each other about American Idol. Everywhere people are buckling down for a good night’s sleep.

Not this little girl.  This little girl, we’ll call her Jenna, has a lullaby that includes the whir of bombs. Mortar shells that cruise through the air and whiz by the bamboo shack she calls homes into the center of her town. Her bedtime story is spent ducking and running as bullets spray through the air like metal confetti, penetrating the tarp roofs and wooden doors of her neighbors. No time to grab shoes, a coat or a blanket. Time to run before the real war starts. Living in what the news media euphuistically calls a “conflict zone,”makes for a different type of bedtime ritual.

What is it like to live war? What is it like to be constantly en guard, ready at a moment’s notice to abandoned all that you have come to possess, to build, to love because this group has decided that group is in the wrong. Jenna lives in Mindanao, Philippines. For more than two generations Islamic terrorists have been waging war against the Philippine government for control of Jenna’s neighborhood. The daughter of a poor Christian farmer, Jenna knows nothing of negotiations and settlements. She can’t pronounce land dispute or understand autonomous region. She just wants to go to school without gunfire. She wants to play outside without fear. She wants to sleep without nightmares.

To sleep, to sleep, per chance to dream. It is a simple wish that most of us never have to list. Yet for Jenna  and millions of others it remains elusive. Instead of dreaming they plan. They develop strategies and alert systems to weave in between breakfast and lunch. They create warning codes and secret pathways to safe havens outside of their communities. Normal takes on a new meaning.

Their normal includes a new language.

Bus bombings are described as, “Oh, that thing.” Bullets are used as marbles. Gun shots become Morse code: depending upon the caliber it could mean trouble is coming or get out now. Hospitals become second home. Evacuee becomes a name instead of a status. And war is just normal.

To live war is to know death, murder and mayhem. Worse though it is to forget hope. Hope is too costly in war. It can lead to dreams. To dream you must sleep. To sleep means to surrender.