Friday, April 11, 2003

By DAVID EPPS
Pastor

It was bound to happen sooner or later.

A few days ago, CNN featured a story about a young Iraqi boy who had been terribly wounded, presumably by coalition bombing. The boy, who appeared to be between seven and ten years old, was horribly burned from the chest down and was missing his right arm at the elbow. According to CNN, the boy's pregnant mother and a sibling were killed. The child, in obvious agony, said that if he couldn't have an artificial arm, he wanted to die.

I watched as long as I could with a lump in my throat and a growing moistness in my eyes. War is a terrible thing. Finally, I could tolerate it no longer. I switched off the television and went to look for a book.

Walking into the dining room, I picked up a book that I bought a few weeks after September 11, 2001. I thumbed through the pages, absorbing the images of exploding airplanes, falling towers, doomed firefighters and police officers, twisted steel, a burning Pentagon building, the debris of Flight 93 in a Pennsylvania field, screaming survivors, exhausted rescue workers, weeping children, and rejoicing terrorists, some dancing in the streets of Middle Eastern nations.

I reminded myself of the "shock and awe" endured by this nation's citizens in the gruesome aftermath of the day that over 3,000 innocent lives were snuffed out by evil and malevolent men. I recalled the eyes of the orphaned children pictured on the news as they attended their parent's funerals and struggled to understand why Mommy or Daddy would never come home again.

I remembered the tears I shed that day, the horror I felt, and the burning anger that would come weeks later and remain for months. I recalled the grim determination I felt as I placed the American flag on my front porch and vowed that it would fly every day until the people responsible were captured or killed. The flag flies still, although I replaced it with a new one on September 11, 2002. The war in Iraq has never been about oil, or power, or even about the liberation of the Iraqi people, regardless of what the news reporters, the nay Sayers, or the politicians say.

On April 12, 1861, the American War Between the States began. According to one author,

"Historians have long debated the causes of the Civil War. Many of them maintain that slavery was the root cause. In his second inaugural address in 1865, Lincoln said of slavery: 'All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war.' But most historians agree that the war had a number of causes. They note especially the sectional division between North and South-that is, the differences in economies, ideals, and ways of life. They also point to the disputes between the federal government and the states over what rights and powers the states possessed. Historians further mention the blunderings of politicians and the disorder in the American political party system during the 1850's."

In any event, it was well over a year later, not at the beginning of the war, when the conflict was losing the support of many of the Northern people, that Lincoln issued his "Emancipation Proclamation." It is a myth that the proclamation freed the slaves. The document freed the slaves only in those states that were in rebellion against the United States. The slaves who were in the Northern states remained slaves until 1865. Even when Lincoln issued the proclamation on September 22, 1862, it did not take effect until January 1, 1863, and, as a war measure, could have been reversed.

What Lincoln did do, and very successfully, was to turn the war into a "noble cause." The war, from the Northern point of view, was a war to "preserve the union." It became, with the stroke of Lincoln's pen, a war to "free the oppressed slaves." The North did use blacks in the Union army, but restricted most to noncombatant roles (those who were allowed to fight performed heroically) and only paid them half of what white soldiers received. The bottom line is that the Union was preserved (the goal of the war) and the scourge of slavery was (as a byproduct of the war) eliminated.

The war in Iraq is about self-defense. The war in Afghanistan, against the Taliban and the forces of Osama bin Laden, was and is about self-defense. It makes us feel good and noble to proclaim that we are "freeing the Iraqi citizenry from the 'Butcher of Baghdad,'" but it is a byproduct of, and not the reason for, the war. The war in Iraq is about never, ever allowing another September 11. It is about taking the fight to the turf of the terrorists, and those who support them, and eliminating the threat before they kill another 3,000, or 30,000, or 3 million, should they obtain weapons of mass destruction. It is about putting the world on notice, including the rogue nations who breathe threats in our direction, that they attack the American people at their grave and serious peril.

I am saddened by the images of innocent civilians, particularly children, who have suffered because of the war. War is a terrible thing. But I am reminded that this war, the war in Afghanistan, and any future war against those who would endanger America, was not of our making and not of our choice.

Americans are, by and large, a peaceful people, as demonstrated by our reluctance to enter the World Wars and our tendency to be isolationists. But, as history proves, those who attack and assault our nation will be the recipients of a terrible retribution. May the would-be murderers and tyrants of the world learn from the missteps and the fate of others. And, God willing, may we live in peace.

[David Epps is rector of Christ the King Charismatic Episcopal Church on Ga. Highway 34 between Peachtree City and Newnan. He may be contacted at FatherDavidEpps@aol.com or at www.CTKCEC.org.]

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