Geopolitics: Scope and Limitations

Forerunner, "WorldWatch," July-August 2008

Politics among nations has been occurring since ancient times. Ever since one government needed to interact with another—whether because of a boundary dispute, rival claims to a resource, or fear of a powerful neighbor—some kind of intergovernmental relations have sought means to forge solutions for mutual benefit. These relations take various forms: exchanging diplomats, signing treaties, making alliances, voicing accusations and threats, or perhaps dispatching a hostile army or navy.

Philosophers have been studying such relations for many centuries. For instance, Plato's Republic is his vision of the perfect society and in part deals with how rulers should conduct the affairs of state. Scholars of every major empire and nation have weighed in on the subject, from Sun Tzu's Art of War to Machiavelli's The Prince and Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations. Today, a steady stream of books and papers on foreign policy flows from the minds of pundits, politicians, and academics the world over.

While there are many theories of international relations, perhaps the most pragmatic and even scientific is what is known as geopolitics. The central idea of geopolitics is that geography—along with demography and economics—is the determining factor of any nation's relations. In other words, where a nation is, along with the composition of its population and its natural resources, will indicate how it will act and react on the world stage. In some cases, a nation will have no choice but to behave in a certain way simply because of its location on the globe.

Japan is a prime example of geopolitical reality. It is a mountainous island nation with a relatively large, well-educated population and a high standard of living. However, it is resource-poor, especially in mineral resources that form the basis of its high-tech industries. To feed and supply its people, then, it must rely on other nations to provide a great deal of food and resources.

Japan thus has two alternatives: It must either use force to take what it needs or trade peacefully with its neighbors. Imperial Japan tried the former method early in the twentieth century and ultimately failed, seeing two of its large cities evaporated by atomic weapons. Democratic Japan since World War II has been far more successful in employing peaceful trade. While the pendulum could swing back to militarism, it is far more likely that Japan's foreign policy decisions will continue to favor peaceful trade as long as it remains a viable means of prosperity. This is especially true due to its security guarantees with the United States and its formidable navy.

Biblically, the land of Israel is another example of practical geopolitics. In essence, it stands at the center of the world. The great Western civilizations of the past—Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome—ranged about it, and in order to expand their territories, these empires had to cross the narrow land-bridge of the land of Canaan. There, they would encounter the descendants of Israel.

Israel's history is in many ways a record of the rise and fall of these empires and their impact on God's people. When the dominant empire of the time was weak, Israel could strengthen itself and expand, but when the empire was strong, Israel usually suffered humiliating defeat and subjugation. In their carnality, many Israelite kings were trapped by geopolitics to reveal their real loyalties. God used this ebb and flow of international power to great effect in leaving good and bad examples of faithfulness for us.

Geopolitics even constrains a global superpower like the current United States. Despite having an overwhelmingly powerful military by several orders of magnitude, it can only project its power along the lines of its geopolitical advantages. As alluded to earlier, the United States is primarily a sea power—even its vaunted air power is dependent on the reach of its naval strength. This means that long-term military actions far from American shores pose a significant problem for shapers of U.S. foreign policy.

The geopolitical limitations of this became apparent in the Iraq War in 2003. American firepower made quick work of the Iraqi army and air force, but the subsequent Iraqi insurgency revealed the Achilles' heel of U.S. power. It was terribly effective at invasion but embarrassingly unprepared as an occupying force. Ultimately, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld lost his job due to miscalculating the geopolitics of invading a turbulent Middle Eastern nation like Iraq from 6,200 miles away.

Such geopolitical constraints help to predict the foreign policies of different administrations. In effect, policy differences will be minor from one President to another because the nation's geography, demography, and economy are either fixed or vary only marginally. In reality, basic American foreign policy has changed little since the Truman administration, no matter which political party happened to control the Oval Office.

Every Chief Executive is forced by geopolitical reality and entrenched State Department policies to protect and expand American power throughout the world against the same rogues' gallery of nations. Hence, only so much leeway to act exists, and it is usually revealed, not in policy, but in a President's resolve, as can be seen in the stark disparity between Jimmy Carter's pacifism and Ronald Reagan's intransigence. As this example indicates, a President's personality can make a huge difference.

Geopolitics, then, gives us a starting template to view the world and to attempt to predict the actions of nations. It is not perfect, and exceptional personalities can arise to shake the assumptions of even the most experienced observers. True Christians await the rise of just such a dominating and paradigm-shifting individual in the Beast (Revelation 13:1-10; 17:9-17). We can be certain that he will turn today's geopolitics on its head.

Jena Sixed

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The following USA Today article, published on September 6, 2007, is typical of the coverage on the now-infamous Jena 6 case:

For a year, Jena (pronounced JEEN-uh), a poor mining community of 3,000 people, has been embroiled in racial tensions pitting the black community against white school officials and a white prosecutor. It began last August when a black student asked at an assembly if black students could sit under a tree where white students usually sat. The next day, two nooses hung from the tree.

Black parents were outraged by the symbolism, recalling the mob lynchings of black men. They complained to school officials. District superintendent Roy Breithaupt and the school board gave three-day suspensions to the white students who hung the nooses, overruling the recommendation of then-principal Scott Windham that the students be expelled. . . .

In November, an unknown arsonist burned down part of the high school.

Over the next three days, fights erupted between black and white students on and off school grounds. Police arrested a white man for punching a black teen. He pleaded guilty to simple battery.

The skirmishes culminated with a fight in which the six black teens, star players on Jena's champion football team, were charged as adults with attempted murder. The white student they're accused of beating, Justin Barker, 17, was knocked unconscious and suffered cuts and bruises. He was treated at an emergency room but not hospitalized.

Mychal Bell, 17, was convicted in May of a reduced charge, aggravated second-degree battery, which carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.

Since then, charges against two youths have been reduced.

This seems like straightforward reporting of the facts. However, an October 24, 2007, Christian Science Monitor article by Craig Franklin, a longtime resident of Jena and assistant editor of The Jena Times, is throwing cold water on the media-induced racial firestorm spreading nationwide from the small Louisiana town. Franklin, who has covered the story since it broke in August, and his wife, who teaches at Jena High School, claim the mainstream media have distorted at least twelve vital facts surrounding the incident, fabricating and even inciting racial division where little or none existed. Franklin's twelve media myths range from the "whites only" tree (students of all races were free to sit under it) to the attack on the white students being linked to the nooses (none of the eyewitness testimony mentioned them).

How could professional journalists—if they can be called such—get so much wrong? Part of the answer follows Solomon's warning in Proverbs 18:17, "The first one to plead his cause seems right, until his neighbor comes and examines him." According to Franklin, "because local officials did not speak publicly early on about the true events of the past year, the media simply formed their stories based on one-side's statements—the Jena 6." Evidently, reporters took advocates for the assailants at their word and made little effort to fact-check their assertions. Franklin concludes, "[T]he media were downright lazy in their efforts to find the truth. Often, they simply reported what they'd read on blogs, which expressed only one side of the issue."

One might just relegate the media's mishandling of the facts to sloppy journalism except for a section of the USA Today article left out of the above quotation:

The events in Jena have caught the attention of national civil rights activists. Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and Martin Luther King III have marched on Jena in protest.

"The case plays to the fears of many blacks," Sharpton says. "You hear the stories from your parents and grandparents, but you never thought it would happen in 2007. I think what resonates in the black community is that this is so mindful of pre-1960 America."

When civil-rights activists like Sharpton and Jackson become involved in a matter, such as the equally infamous Duke Lacrosse case, the word "agenda" should come immediately to mind. These two men in particular exist to stir up racial animosity because the maintenance of their personal wealth and reputation demands that they exploit every incident of interracial friction, whether or not racism played any part in it. They have been aided and abetted by a willing media, which shares many of their views. Like the Duke Lacrosse case, the Jena 6 incident fit the liberal "template" of racist America—a pattern that has been used successfully many times in the past to score political victories for the Left.

Information has surpassed oil as the commodity of control in this nation and indeed around the world. Spin is in; truth is out. Whoever controls the bias on the news controls the populace. One can see this in any number of areas: the Iraq War, the climate change hysteria, the homosexual-rights movement, the immigration issue, etc. Polls consistently show that the American people implicitly believe what the media tells them, even when the facts prove otherwise. For instance, a recent poll showed that most Americans thought that the troop surge in Iraq was increasing casualties there, but since the infusion of additional soldiers, casualties have decreased significantly. The public's impression of increased violence is an effect of media incessantly reporting on so-called atrocities (many of which are later shown to have been greatly exaggerated). So, despite an improved situation on the ground, the public outcry is still, "Bring the troops home!"

Isaiah prophesies of just this kind of departure from the truth: "Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands afar off; for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter. So truth fails, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey" (Isaiah 59:14-15). The prophet speaks of a whole society so removed from what is true and right that they are groping, stumbling blindly forward, realizing instinctively that their doom is not far off. This is just what is happening in America as the truth is becoming more difficult to find amidst the flood of available information. How vital it is for us to seek the truth (Proverbs 23:23) and hold on to it in these evil days (Revelation 3:11)!

Climate Change and World Peace

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All hail Al Gore, the winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize!

This is the near-unanimous cry of the mainstream media news hawkers this morning. Gore—former U.S. Vice President and darling of liberals, Hollywood, and tree-huggers everywhere—received the Peace Prize for preaching the gospel of manmade climate change around the world and urging radical measures to counteract the "imminent" threat. Supporters here in the U.S. are hoping that this honor will convince Gore to reconsider running for President in 2008.

Gore shares the prestigious award with the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the infamous IPCC. Gore lauds the IPCC as the "world's pre-eminent scientific body devoted to improving our understanding of the climate crisis." The vast majority of news reports on this story will ignore the fact that the IPCC's reports on climate change have been repeatedly shown to be U.N. policy statements hiding behind a tissue of dubious scientific research. A quick comparison of the last several reports by the panel reveals the IPCC backtracking on its estimates on the severity of global warming—to the point that its projections now fit comfortably into historical warming and cooling trends. After removing the hysteria caused by activists like Al Gore, the global warming "threat" turns out to be little more than a normal temperature fluctuation.

Gore himself, along with his so-called documentary film, An Inconvenient Truth, has recently come under fire for false and misleading statements. London's Daily Mail reports that a British High Court judge ruled this week that the movie is "alarmist," "exaggerated," and "one-sided." Further, showing the film in schools disregards British education policies unless accompanied by guidance notes to balance its partisan stance. While opining that An Inconvenient Truth was "broadly accurate" on climate change, High Court Justice Burton listed nine scientific errors asserted as facts in the film. These included the estimated rise of sea levels (Gore claimed a catastrophic rise of twenty feet in the "near future"), the correlation between the increase in the CO₂ level and temperature, and his declarations that global warming has caused or will cause the shut down of the Gulf Stream, the drying of Lake Chad, the disappearance of snow on Mount Kilimanjaro, the evacuation of Pacific Ocean atolls, the destruction of Hurricane Katrina, the bleaching of coral reefs, and the drowning of polar bears. Although the film's supporters will never admit it, the judge's findings, which the Daily Mail dubs "inconvenient untruths," effectively gut the documentary of its most essential, emotional points.

In the months leading up to the bestowal of the prize on Gore and the IPCC, there was little doubt about who would win it. Several other candidates had been under consideration by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, but Gore was the frontrunner from the beginning of the process. According to its press release, the Committee's reason for awarding the Peace Prize to Gore and the IPCC is "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change." In justifying its choice, the Committee attempts to link the prospect of "extensive climate changes [that] may alter and threaten the living conditions of much of mankind" with the possibility that such change "may induce large-scale migration and lead to greater competition for the earth's resources. . . . There may be increased danger of violent conflicts and wars, with and between states" (emphasis ours).

So, the most prestigious award in all the world is given because the Nobel Committee, determining from backpedaling IPCC reports that manmade climate change is real, foresees that it might cause groups to migrate, compete, and engage in conflict over resources. As the Committee also wrote, "Indications of changes in the earth's future climate must be treated with the utmost seriousness, and with the precautionary principle uppermost in our minds." Such is the tenuous link between climate change and world peace. Rather than awarding the prize to someone or some group that is actually doing something now to foster peace between peoples, the Committee chose to laud Gore and the IPCC for perhaps reducing future conflicts by increasing awareness that climate change may disturb the present harmony among nations and ethnic groups over resources.

It appears that the members of the Nobel Committee live in a sealed environment cut off from the real world. There are many real conflicts raging right now over earth's precious resources. In fact, one can argue that the world's spotlighted conflict, the Iraq War and its aftermath, is a struggle over Middle East oil, the fuel of the world's economy. In addition, the migrations of workers from poor to rich countries—for example, Hispanics into America and Muslims into Europe—are related to a lack of resources in their homelands and an abundance of them in the developed nations, and they are creating conflict. Yet, none of these present-day confrontations have been set off by manmade climate change, today's cause célèbre, so the supposed prevention of hypothetical future conflicts becomes the reason for Gore's selection. What a peacemaker he might be!

What a mockery of peacemaking! The Nobel Peace Prize has degenerated into a political farce to legitimatize select globalist ideas and movements. The climate change mantra is not being used to bring peace but to assert control over human activity, to urge the ratification and enforcement of treaties, laws, and regulations that limit rights and progress, especially in industrialized, developed nations in the West. Peace is liberating, but the politics of green are ultimately to gain power over large segments of humanity in the name of environmental sustainability. Such control and power in human hands will not bring peace but more war.

God says, "The way of peace they have not known, and there is no justice in their ways; they have made themselves crooked paths; whoever takes that way shall not know peace" (Isaiah 59:8). Human nature makes it impossible for mankind to make a lasting peace; men and women are always too willing to fight for their self-interests (see James 4:1-3). Peace will come to mankind only when Christ returns in power and, ironically, forces humanity to live His way of peace. As Zechariah 9:9-10 says of Him, "Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation. . . . [T]he battle bow shall be cut off. He shall speak peace to the nations; His dominion shall be 'from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.'" This is the real, glorious peace prize we seek.

Lost Perspective

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We are just days away from the sixth anniversary of the attacks on Manhattan's World Trade Center Towers by Muslim extremists. As everyone recalls, the dual 737 crashes into the buildings caused massive damage, and within just a few hours, both towers and a few of the surrounding buildings lay in rubble on the plaza below. Nearly 3,000 lives were lost that day, in the related disasters in New York City, Washington, and rural Pennsylvania. The finger of blame quickly pointed at Islamic terrorists, specifically Osama bin Laden and his organization, al Qaeda.

The U.S. response was swift. President George W. Bush and his administration concocted the War on Terror, and American Army and Marine troops, supported by the Air Force and Navy, made quick work of the Taliban in Afghanistan, forcing what has become known as al Qaeda Prime deep into the rugged mountain fastnesses of the northern border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Along with his chief lieutenants, bin Laden went to ground, and though al Qaeda has released several tapes of his pep talks to his jihadist followers, we have seen little more than a few digital images of him since.

In the spring of 2003, U.S. troops, along with those of its staunchest allies, invaded Iraq, and in a wink, Saddam Hussein, his sons, and the Baathist regime were on the run. Saddam's statue fell in Baghdad, and Saddam himself was soon pulled from a rat hole to stand trial and ultimately to die justly for his many atrocities. The Iraqis, when they were not killing each other, tried and only partially succeeded in forming a new government.

And there coalition forces have remained, mostly Americans but complemented by small contingents from other nations. It soon became known as an occupying force, accused of imperialism, torture, sexual assault, murder, and a host of other crimes and misdemeanors. The press began to use such ridiculous terms as "bogged down" and "quagmire" (can an army be bogged down or mired in a desert?), "insurgency" (can international terrorists be called "insurgents"?), and "exit strategy" (like the exit strategies from the Philippines, Cuba, Korea, Germany, and Japan, where American troops are still stationed after similar invasions?). In the eyes of many Americans—and frankly, many around the world, too—"mission accomplished" morphed into "more Middle East mess."

Almost before the dust had settled in Manhattan, the ugly head of political self-interest took over the country's perception of the War on Terror. Hawks debated doves. Patriots battled with globalists. Pragmatists fought idealists. Spenders disputed budgeters. The religious sparred with the secular. Of course, Republicans wrangled with Democrats, conservatives with liberals, and strict constructionists with revisionists. Everyone took sides for or against the government's actions. By the time the 2006 mid-term elections rolled around, the War on Terror and the Iraq War in particular had become the determining issue in many contested races.

Now we are in the midst of the Iraq "surge," an infusion of thousands of extra troops to quell hot spots and to give the fledgling Iraqi government a chance to get its footing. A successful surge would also set the stage for a draw-down of troops to more acceptable levels. Every pundit's breath is bated, it seems, awaiting the report on the surge by Commanding General David Patraeus on Monday, September 10, 2007. Will he give the surge a "thumbs up" and recommend troop withdrawals? More people are asking, "Will his report help the Commander-in-Chief or his detractors?"

In many ways, however, we have lost our perspective since those moments of clarity in the weeks following September 11, 2001. America, whether it wants it or not, is at war. Its enemies are clearly radical Muslims who have chosen to use terrorism against Western interests in the United States and around the world. These jihadists, most of whom claim some sort of connection to al Qaeda, are willing to sacrifice their lives in the cause of their religious fanaticism, to conquer the world for Islam. They will take any means necessary—including using nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, should they get their hands on some and figure out how to deliver them—to crush the Crusaders, as they call Westerners, and enforce the worship of Allah upon all humanity.

Under these terms, the squabbling over the War on Terror and the Iraq War seem trite and childish. In addition, these arguments often ignore what has been accomplished. Al Qaeda Prime, trapped like a mouse in a corner, can only screech out feeble threats and warnings from its wilderness cave. Mainland America has not suffered another terrorist incident since the World Trade Center disaster, while several plots have been foiled. Citizens may scream about lax border security, lax port security, and pointless, politically correct airport screening, but the fact remains that Americans have not suffered terrorism at home since September 2001. Finally, in terms of the Axis of Evil, Saddam Hussein and his bloodthirsty regime no longer exist; Iran, despite all its bluster, has turned down the wick on its nuclear program and is "negotiating" with the U.S.; and North Korea, though still ruled by the certifiable Kim Jong Il, is for now meekly knuckling under the demands made of it in the Six-Party Talks.

Sure, not all is peaches and cream in America. This nation has its problems, problems that it desperately needs to face and fix. Nevertheless, these concerns should not make us so jaundiced that we cannot appreciate the few glimpses of silver lining that appear every now and again. These little bits of hope for ultimate success should encourage and motivate Americans to press on with the fight in the can-do spirit our forefathers showed as they carved out a nation for themselves on this continent.

And for Christians, let it be a lesson that we can apply in our own spiritual battles. Though things seem to be spiraling downward around us, we can use our little victories as motivation to put more effort into overcoming and growing, turning seeming defeat into victory (I Corinthians 15:57-58).

What's Best for America?

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Not long ago, President George W. Bush made one of the most elitist, most egotistical statements in modern American political history. On Tuesday, May 19, 2007, speaking at the nation's largest law-enforcement training center in Glynco, Georgia, he said, "Those determined to find fault with this [immigration] bill will always be able to look at a narrow slice of it and find something they don't like. If you want to kill the bill, if you don't want to do what's right for America, you can pick one little aspect out of it." Essentially, he equated opposition to his and Ted Kennedy's immigration bill to wanting to destroy America.

Observers of the recent American political scene have been witnesses to many examples of such "I [or we] know better" rhetoric coming from politicians lately. If House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is not informing us about the need for ethics reform in government, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is giving us a good scolding about what is best for the United States in Iraq. Senator Trent Lott recently opined, "Talk radio is running the country, and we have to do something about that problem." And not too long thereafter, a gaggle of politicians—most of whom are admittedly left-of-center—decided that what this country needs in order to do what is best for America is to bring back the Fairness Doctrine, the law that supposedly grants "equal time" to opposing political beliefs.

Beyond the particulars of any political opinion is the underlying philosophy of the politician or citizen. Usually, with a little bit of rumination on a person's stance on an issue, one can deduce at least the outline of his or her philosophy. The philosophy itself, rather than a person's various positions on issues, is more determinative of his ideas about what is best for America. Figure out a politician's philosophy, and his aims become plain.

For instance, how about George Bush and his immigration policies? What do we know about him? What drives him? We can tick off a few points that help us to understand his position:

• He is a political blue blood, that is, his family is among America's political elite and has been since at least the Hoover Administration.
• His family is wealthy, having made its money in West Texas oil and other subsequent ventures. He and his Vice President Dick Cheney have many close ties to Big Business, to the point that they have been accused numerous times of allowing business interests to shape their policies exclusively.
• His father's politics were centrist rather than conservative, and though George W. Bush ran his political campaigns as a "compassionate conservative," he has governed very much like his centrist father. His foreign policy, overshadowed by the Iraq War and the War on Terror, has been resolutely pro-American, but his domestic policies have earned the praise of liberal Democrats.
• His career has been guided by Karl Rove, a political genius whose main idea has been to expand the Republican Party into a "big tent," that is, able to include many ideas and diverse types of people and thus expand the voter base. "Compassionate conservatism" was an idea designed to change the perception of the Republican Party from hard-line conservative, in the Ronald Reagan mode, to welcoming and sympathetic, which, frankly, is the façade of none other than former President Bill Clinton, who made such an "I feel your pain" image work twice.
• As a former governor of Texas, and having grown up in a state with a large Hispanic population, he seems to have a soft spot in his heart for their "plight."

From these few points, we can begin to understand his pro-amnesty stance. First, he thinks he knows better what is best for America because he and his family have been part of the machinery of government for nearly a hundred years. As average Americans, we do not have either the perspective or the experience to make an informed decision on such a momentous issue.

Second, developed nations everywhere are crying out for laborers, and we have a ready pool of cheap labor aching to come here and work. What businessman would not leap at such a gift?

Third, his domestic policies tell us that he believes the socialist lie that America is a tossed salad, a diverse, multicultural nation that can only be enhanced by the addition of millions of immigrants. Is that not how America became great—by the influx of millions of immigrants? So he argues that America should open its arms wide to admit this new wave from the south to enrich its culture with its vigor and dreams.

Fourth, he hopes that, in gratitude for his compassionate stand on this issue, many of these new citizens will register to vote as Republicans, giving the next generation of Bush protégés a leg up in their future elections.

Finally, he can return to Texas as a hero of Anglo-Hispanic relations after his second term, build his presidential library at the University of Texas, and become the kingmaker of the Republican Party for the next few decades. Perhaps my analysis is a bit cynical on this point, but it cannot be too far off the mark in terms of his aspirations. As for reality, the bill's defeat this week makes such a fantasy coming true less likely.

What is best for America? In terms of Constitutional government, exactly what happened this week. The Congressional switchboard had to be shut down because it was receiving too many calls from concerned citizens. Talk radio was wall-to-wall talk on the immigration issue. Pundits and bloggers all gave their opinions. The will of the people became clear, despite the machinations of politicians to ram their destructive bill through. As Abraham Lincoln said, the American government is supposed to be "of the people, by the people, for the people"—not of, by, and for politicians and their elitist cabals.

Of course, what is best for America would be for all Americans to turn to the God of the Bible and begin to follow His ways (Ezekiel 33:10-11). If only they would!

The Haditha Non-Story

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A year and a half ago, the bloodbath at Haditha, a city in the western Iraqi province of Al Anbar, was big news. The major media outlets in the United States and worldwide reported that on November 19, 2005, Marines from the Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment slaughtered 24 Iraqi civilians in retaliation for the killing of a comrade, Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas, by an improvised explosive device (IED). When the military's account of the fighting did not match media reports, which accused the Marines of wantonly massacring unarmed civilians—and even killing some execution-style—the Marine Corps opened an investigation, ultimately charging eight Marines with crimes, four of them with unpremeditated murder.

From media reporting, it sounded an awful lot like a My Lai-style atrocity. A company of soldiers, angered by the death of a respected brother-in-arms, goes rogue, taking its revenge on innocent villagers, killing until its bullets are spent and no one remains to be killed.

But not so fast.

Now that sober investigations have been done and pre-trial hearings have taken place, it seems that the media was once again horribly wrong. In fact, in the media's rush to judgment on these Marines, the reporters got the story backwards. The Marines were doing their jobs in accordance with the rules of war, while Iraqi insurgents used civilians as human shields, letting them suffer for the insurgents' terrorism. The situation is reminiscent of a wise proverb of Solomon: "The first one to plead his cause seems right, until his neighbor comes and examines him" (Proverbs 18:17).

A more accurate account runs as follows: Intelligence gathered before the day in question pointed to an insurgent ambush of the Marines in Haditha. Two facts were certain: About twenty insurgents would participate in the ambush, and a white car was to play a major part in the attack. As the company rolled into the area, an IED exploded near a Humvee, killing Terrazas and seriously wounding at least one other Marine, Lance Corporal James Crossan. Due to the intelligence, the Marines were ready for such an occurrence and quickly went on the offensive.

A white Opal taxi skidded to a stop on the Marines' left, which was exposed to attack, and five men jumped out, and seeing that the Marines already deployed, turned to flee. The ambush had failed to surprise its targets. Sergeant Frank Wuterich and Sergeant Sanick P. Dela Cruz ordered the fleeing men to stop, and when they did not, the Marines opened fire, killing them. It was later discovered that four of these five men were known insurgents.

Shortly afterward, Lieutenant William T. Kallop arrived on the scene, and the Marines began receiving small arms fire from a nearby house, into which a known insurgent was seen to run. Kallop ordered the company to take the house. The remaining nineteen victims were killed when soldiers used grenades and automatic rifles on the house and the two houses adjacent to it. To a civilian, this may seem excessive, but Marines are trained to "clear a house" in this manner. Four of the dead in the houses were later identified to be known insurgents. Other insurgents fled from the rear of the houses.

It is true that the initial military report on the incident was misleading, as it said that fifteen Iraqis had been killed by the IED. As details began to be amassed, this report was soon proved to be wrong. For instance, a gruesome video soon turned up, supposedly showing the atrocity in all its gore. It was shot, wrote Tim McGirk of Time magazine in March 2006, by a "budding journalism student," later learned to be 43-year-old Taher Thabet al-Hadithi, the head of the Hammurabi Organization for Human Rights and Democracy Monitoring. This group has members across Iraq, two of which, al-Hadithi and Ali Omar Abrahem al-Mashhadani, had been held for five months in the infamous Abu Ghraib Prison as insurgents or insurgent-sympathizers. Al-Hadithi was shooting film that day and in that place because Iraqi insurgents routinely film their ambushes and terrorist acts for propaganda purposes. It was later learned that the initial intelligence on the ambush had been intercepted from cell phone calls between al-Hadithi and al-Mashhadani.

Reporters also took the word of local Iraqis at face value. A nine-year-old boy told a story of the cold-blooded murder of his grandfather and grandmother, but his claims of Marines entering the house and killing his grandparents at close range do not accord with what is now known. In addition, a local doctor said that the 24 bodies brought to his hospital that evening did not contain shrapnel wounds, as the Marines claimed, but many of them had been shot in the head and chest at close range. However, the walls and ceilings of the houses were filled with shrapnel from the Marines' grenades, so his testimony is untrustworthy. No official reports on the state of the victims' bodies has yet been made public.

We must also recall the political environment surrounding the Haditha "Massacre." By November 2005, it was clear that the U.S. military would be in Iraq for an extended period, and support for the war at home was eroding. The President's political opponents were gearing up for an all-out assault on his Iraq policy in order to win the 2006 congressional elections. They had many willing accomplices in the media—in fact, it has just been reported that journalists support Democrat and liberal causes over Republican or conservative causes by a 9-to-1 margin. Thus, a "massacre" by Bush's Marines was just what the doctor ordered.

What can we learn from this? Simply, and unfortunately, we cannot trust what we are being told by the media. Or, at best, as Ronald Reagan said so famously regarding the Cold War's weapon's treaties with the Soviet Union, we should "trust but verify" what they report. This is especially true in "breaking news" stories. Not all the facts are known as an event occurs, and sometimes, as in this case, not for months or years later. In The Merchant of Venice, one of William Shakespeare's characters says, ". . . at the length truth will out." In other words, we should not be too hasty in judgment, which often cause a person subsequently to make serious errors, but we need to let the truth speak for itself as it becomes known over time.

The Price of Arrogance

A consistent criticism of the Bush administration has been that it is arrogant in its dealings with the media, the Democrat opposition, and even with its own allies in Congress. This accusation has again arisen in the midst of the most recent controversies over Vice President Dick Cheney's pelting of a quail hunting partner and the Dubai Ports World's contract to manage six of America's port facilities. Its arrogance, critics say, is demonstrated in its take-it-or-leave-it approach on both its statements to the press and its demands regarding legislation.

When George W. Bush was inaugurated in 2001, the talk around Washington centered on the "new tone" the President wanted to bring to the nation's capital. He and the American people, it was said, were tired of the partisan bickering between Republicans and Democrats. It was time for mutually respectful dialogue, a pleasant change from attack ads and demagoguery. So, said the administration, the President would not engage in partisan politics but would welcome the views of both allies and enemies with equanimity. Instead of being divided, we can forge consensus solutions to America's pressing problems.

As it evolved into its current, overconfident form, the "new tone" clashed with equal arrogance in the media and among politicians. Feeling snubbed, the big media outlets like CBS, exposed regularly in its liberal bias, haughtily reported severely slanted "news"—in reality, thinly guised editorials—to make the Bush administration look as out of touch and out of bounds as possible. Democrat and Republican politicians, for differing reasons, sniffed and moaned that Bush and his cadre merely expected them to fall into line on every issue instead of persuading them with sound reason and traditional inducements (read, quid pro quo). Thus, the new tone's arrogance meets the media's and politicians' hauteur, and everyone loses, especially the American people.

As an example, at the risk of tedium, let us revisit the reason for invading Iraq. Most observers would say the Coalition of the Willing inflicted "shock and awe" on Saddam Hussein's regime because of his accumulation of weapons of mass destruction. He was a threat to his neighbors, he had used them on his own people, and he was defying the international community in failing to divulge and destroy his stockpiles. The Bush administration, including Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, Dick Cheney, and George Bush himself, made such statements hundreds of times in public speeches and interviews. This was all we heard for months as the armed forces geared up for the assault.

However, if this was a reason, it was in actuality far down the list. There were multiple reasons: the free flow of oil, the Oil-for-Food fiasco, freeing the Iraqi's to govern themselves, Saddam's human rights violations, and yes, even his support of international terrorism, particularly against Israel. But the main reason was strategic, and it was, to my knowledge, never mentioned by the Bush administration. The real reason for conquering Iraq was to drive a wedge into the heart of the Middle East. Administration analysts figured that a long-term U.S. presence in Iraq would pacify regimes in the region and bring a measure of stability through fear and uncertainty about what the Americans would do if any one of them began to misbehave. Libya, Syria, Saudi Arabia, the Palestinian National Authority, Egypt, and other Middle Eastern nations have already moderated to varying degrees out of alarm over Bush's "cowboy" foreign policy.

Evidently, the Bush administration has never admitted to its strategic plan, and even what geopolitical observers think they know of it has been deduced through actual events. The White House continued to harp on weapons of mass destruction until very little was turned up, then it began beating the "bringing democracy to the oppressed Iraqi people" drum until it, too, began to wear thin. Now it is singing the praises of the fledgling Iraqi constitution, government, and armed forces, promising to reduce troop levels as soon as the Iraqi's are ready for the GIs to leave. No matter whether it is good policy or not, this close-to-the-vest style of governance infuriates friend and foe alike because it comes across as arrogant.

What has it produced? Internal conflict, distrust, accusation, division, and endless conspiracy theories. "What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate," said the captain to Cool Hand Luke, and similarly, a President, whom many see as cocky, is in deep trouble. His cockiness has eroded his support down toward one-third of the electorate, portending bad news for his party at the polls this November.

We can take a lesson from what has happened in this instance. Clear communication is vital to walking in harmony with others. Many husbands believe that they fill their roles best as the strong, silent types, but doing so is more likely to cause a rift in the relationship because wives are left to guess their husband's reasons, motives, and desires. But they cannot read minds! And if they act on something they were forced to assume due to their husband's lack of communication, they are likely to bear the brunt of his often hurtful, divisive reaction.

Arrogance is a form of pride, which forms the basis of many sins. An arrogant person assumes that he is superior to others, and therefore, since he has the final say in matters, others just have to deal with it. Before long, such an attitude will drive all but the most devoted or sycophantic away. In the end, arrogance is a destroyer of relationships, and it almost always ends in divorce. Satan's arrogance, for instance, caused him to attack God, destroying that once-close association (see Isaiah 14:12-15; Ezekiel 28:17).

The price of arrogance is separation, whether separation from God, from mate, from brethren, from friends, from coworkers, etc. God counsels humility, its polar opposite, for by it one encourages unity and true fellowship. Paul writes, "Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself" (Philippians 2:3).