AFTER SHOCK AND AWE

NO EASY WAY OUT...

One of my favorite cartoons is Walt Kelly’s drawing of Pogo looking at himself in a mirror. The caption is “We have met the enemy and it is us.”

The United States attacked and invaded the nation of Iraq on February 15, 2003, approximately a year and a half after the destruction of The World Trade Center in New York by Al-Qaeda Terrorists. President George W. Bush’s stated reasons for the Iraq war were that President Saddam Hussein was a known supporter of terrorism, i.e. Al-Qaeda, and that he had developed weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, chemical, and biological) which he was likely to put into the hands of terrorists for use against the United States and its allies. The apparent intention of the American President and his close advisors was to take out Saddam Hussein and liberate the Iraqi people from his reign of terror, find and destroy Iraq’s stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and the industrial system that presumably had developed them, and to immobilize the Iraqi terrorist organizations that were presumed to be part of Al-Queda’s world-wide network. Revenge was also clearly one of the President’s motives for his “shock and awe” attacks on Iraqi. In a CNN interview in 2002 he said, “Oh, yes, I hate Saddam Hussein. I don’t hate a lot of people. I don’t hate easily.” Six days later at a fundraiser in Texas, Bush said, “There’s no doubt he (Saddam) can’t stand us. After all, this is the guy that tried to kill my Dad at one time.” (http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/09/27/bush.war.talk/) He was referring to an “alleged" plot by Iraqi intelligence to assassinate Bush’s father. Whatever Bush's compelling personal motives were, his spokespersons went before Congress and persuaded the majority of both Republicans and Democrats to give assent to his war; and the United States, the most powerful nation in the world, with a population of 300,000,000, unleashed it’s war machine on a small nation of 27,000,000 souls that had already endured two decades under the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein.
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Revenge killing is not a new phenomenon. A shocking and awful mass murder that took place nearly 4000 years ago is described in detail in the Book of Genesis. Two brothers, sons of the Patriarch Jacob, went on a killing spree that left every adult male dead in a small city not far from the 21st Century killing fields of Iraq.

Considering Jacob’s importance to three of the world’s great religions, I have been struggling to make sense of the Biblical story about the murder by his sons Simeon and Levi of all the men in the city of Shechem about 4000 years ago. Of particular interest is Jacob’s reaction to his sons’ great crime. The murders were committed after Jacob returned to his homeland from a two-decade, self-imposed exile. The story is found in Genesis, Chapter 34 through Chapter 35, verse 6.

Jacob had recently traveled back from a place called Paddan Aram, which four millennia ago was in what is now Syria. Primarily to get away from his brother Esau, who was understandably angry at having had the family birthright and his father’s blessing stolen from him by trickery and deception, Jacob had gone at the suggestion of his mother to Paddan Aram to try to find her brother, who, she said would help him. Most people know the story of how Jacob found his Uncle Laban and fell in love with his cousin Rachel. He agreed to work for his uncle for seven years so he could get her for a wife but was tricked by Uncle Laban into sleeping with Rachel’s elder sister Leah, so he had to take her instead of Rachel. He was still very much in love with Rachel; so he made a deal to work for another seven years so he could also have her for a wife. The story tells how he also took two slave girls as wives (some records say they were half-sisters to Leah and Rachel). After twenty years or so in exile he had become a prosperous man in his own right. He decided to go back home to his father’s land with his four wives, his sons and daughter, his herds of cattle and sheep, his slaves and all his other possessions. It was a big move. It was a long way back to the area that is now Palestine, Israel, and Jordan; and after resolving some of the issues with his brother Esau, who turned out not to be somebody who held a grudge, Jacob headed up to Shechem, a small city north of Jerusalem.

Near Shechem, soon after Jacob’s group had pitched their tents and led their livestock out to graze, Dinah, his daughter by Leah, decided to go “out to see the daughters of the land” (King James Version of Genesis 34:1) The New English Bible says, “ Dinah, the daughter whom Leah had borne to Jacob, went out to visit the women of the country.” It isn’t likely that she went along, for to wander alone into a strange city would have been inconsistent with the customs of the time. However it was, we are told that in her walkabout she came to the attention of the son of the ruler of the place. Some interpretations of the Hebrew text say this handsome prince raped Dinah. The text isn’t clear. He is said to have dishonored her, which could mean that he slept with her by force or by seduction. She would have been dishonored even if he had only touched her tenderly or kissed her. What is clear is that being a woman she was someone else’s property, not legitimately available to the young man Shechem or to anyone of his tribe. We are told that whatever were the circumstances of their first liaison, “He remained true to Jacob’s daughter Dinah; he loved the girl and comforted her. So Shechem said to his father Hamor, “Get me this girl for a wife.”

Hamor and Shechem went to Jacob and told him that Dinah was staying at Shechem's house and that Shechem wanted her for a wife. Hamor said he was willing to pay whatever price was asked. After some expressions of displeasure and some wrangling on the part of Dinah’s father and her brothers, they finally agreed to the deal on the condition that Shechem and Hamor and all the other adult males in their city must consent to be circumcised. Shechem and Hamor agreed, and all the men of the city were circumcised in one day.

Jacob apparently thought the deal was fair. Dinah’s brothers, Simeon and Levi, had another thought. While the men of the city were still in pain from their circumcision operations, the two brothers went into the city and slaughtered Shechem and Hamor and every other adult male. Talk about SHOCK and AWE! All of the other tribes in the region were terrified.

Not satisfied with wholesale slaughter of the men, the sons of Jacob went and pillaged the city. The text says, “ Then two days later, while they were still in great pain, Jacob’s two sons Simeon and Levi, full brothers to Dinah, armed themselves with swords, boldly entered the city and killed every male. They cut down Hamor and his son Shechem and took Dinah from Shechem’s house and went off with her. Then Jacob’s other sons came in over the dead bodies and plundered the city, to avenge their sister’s dishonour. They seized flocks, cattle, asses, and everything, both inside the city and outside in the open country; they also carried off all their possessions, their dependants, and their women, and plundered everything in the houses.”

Jacob’s reaction seems to have been more concern for himself than for the actual atrocity his sons had committed. He said to them, “You have brought trouble on me, you have made my name stink among the people of the country, the Canaanites and the Perizzites. My numbers are few; if they muster against me and attack me, I shall be destroyed, I and my household with me.”

So Jacob packed up his tents and headed out of the region. He went south, first to Bethel, which was northeast of Jerusalem, and then finally on down south of Jerusalem to Ephrathan, which has been known as Bethlehem for more than two thousand years.
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Why do I tell this story alongside the story of the Iraq War? I tell it because in my travels I have found that the war has made my country's name stink in the world. Where do we go now? When do we go from Iraq? What do we do after we go? How do we restore our good name in the world?

By May 1, 2003, with the “shock and awe” phase of the war over in Iraq, but with war still raging out of control, President Bush announced that the mission had been accomplished. More than five years have passed since that time, and the two presumptive candidates for the office of president of the United States are not at all sure how the country should go about extricating itself from the conflict that is almost certain to go on for years. In 2003 When George Bush announced that his mission had been accomplished, 139 American military personnel had been killed. Today, more than five years later, with the conflict in Iraq barely abated if at all, more than 4000 Americans have been killed and more than 30,000 have been wounded. No one knows for sure how many Iraqis have been killed and how many have been wounded, but the number is frighteningly high.
In the history of mankind violence seems always to lead to violence which leads to more violence. Implying that God is on one side or the other in any war is a repulsive idea. When will we ever learn?
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