Life, and the American Death Machine
by Jesse Steven Wheeler, M.Div.
This week, I celebrate my son’s eighth birthday. This week also marks the 33rd anniversary of the horrific US bombing of the Amiriyah shelter in Iraq. Eight years ago, as a result of a long day spent in the basement of a Lebanese hospital nestled in the Beirut River valley, these two events became forever linked.
At 4:30 AM, my wife went into labor. In joyful anticipation, we scrambled out of bed, got dressed, grabbed our bags and rushed to the hospital. Then… we waited. And waited. And… waited some more. The baby came two weeks early, but this was no problem. After a month of preterm labor, we had spent every moment up to this point as if strapped to a time-bomb with a broken timer, each passing second an eternity.
Now, with only two weeks out, we were on cloud nine and more than happy to wait a little longer ‘in eager expectation for the child’ to come.” I may be taking exegetical license, but nowhere is Heaven closer to Earth than in the face of a newborn child. For whoever welcomes a child, Christ tells us, welcomes the Author of Life himself.
So, I spent many passing hours in the hospital browsing social media, reading articles, and sharing status updates. And, as all my thoughts and emotions were focused on this beautiful new life about to be welcomed into the world, I scrolled upon a profoundly disorienting post forcing me, in the midst of this most holy of moments, to confront the gruesome underbelly of human existence and American imperial presence in the region.
Accompanied by the picture above, Christian writer/activist Shane Claiborne wrote the following in memory the horrific Amiriyah shelter bombing of the first Gulf War:
The stark juxtaposition between such contradictory feelings within the same emotional and psychological space has stayed with me now for years. So, when Shane posted again this week a memorial to the victims of the Amiriya shelter attack in 1991 and of the horrifying brutality and needless death involved, I couldn’t help but think of Gaza, with its 60,000 pregnant women and numerous infants. I had to stop, sit with my emotions, and grieve.
The ease with which we in the West smugly condemn “Arab violence” and yet continually overlook the unimaginable reign of suffering and death unleashed upon the Arab world by our own governments, as well as by our client states and settler-colonies is beyond the pale. It’s high time we remove the logs from our eyes and learn to love each and every one of God’s beloved children.
So, in this Lenten season I grieve:
I grieve the relentless and seemingly insatiable appetite of the imperial war machine;
I grieve the unimaginable death and violence my country has unleashed upon the region, decade upon decade;
I grieve the wanton destruction of innocent life taking place now in Gaza facilitated by the very same war machine;
I grieve for terrified family and friends in the West Bank, Gaza, and in Lebanon;
I grieve the ideological and theological extremism within my own American society and faith tradition enabling it;
I grieve the bigotry which denies Arab humanity and dismisses Arab pain; and
I especially grieve the denial of what should be a universal right to childhood and child friendly spaces, in Gaza and throughout the region.
Thinking about a recent video of an Israeli missile in Gaza that struck within yards of a performance for displaced children and about 6-year-old Hind Rajab in her car crying for help, words fail me. I am struck, too, by a recent story from an American doctor in Gaza describing how "a handful of children, all about ages 5 to 8, were carried to the emergency room by their parents. All had single sniper shots to the head . . . Israeli tanks had withdrawn. But the snipers apparently stayed behind. None of these children survived."
Truthfully, I don’t know what more I can add to what Shane has already written, other than to simply reflect upon the cheapness and meaninglessness with which the American war machine renders human life. 33 years ago, 408 women and children, each the protagonist of their own unique story, each beloved creations of God crafted with purpose and intention and placed within loving families, were massacred in the most disgusting fashion. In Gaza, well over 12,000 children, bearers of the divine image, have been slaughtered--sacrificed upon the altars of profit, power, bigotry, and bloodlust. Meanwhile, hunger and illness have already gripped the population. The devastation surpasses the imaginable.
I recognize that I am swimming in privilege, safely ensconced in my coastal suburban environs, complicit in more ways than I have yet to discover. Yet, I am overwhelmed with grief. Even amidst the joy of my son’s birthday, whom I hope never has to experience the trauma which has become the birthright of his Palestinian heritage, I mourn. It can be so difficult to celebrate life amidst so much death.
Yet, this is a reminder that despite everything we must remain people of life, for the sake of those surrounded by death. The early disciples spoke of two ways: a way of life and a way of death.
There are two ways, one of life and one of death, but a great difference between the two ways. The way of life, then, is this: First, you shall love God who made you; second, love your neighbor as yourself, and do not do to another what you would not want done to you (Didache 1:1-2).
Lord, in all things and at all times, may we stand firm against the powers of death and pursue life abundant for every child of God. May the death machine come to a grinding halt once and for all.
Lord, have mercy; comfort all who mourn.