Category Archives: Past as Prologue to Future

Iran Is Persian, not Arab

For many Americans, Iran is barely on the radar screen. They confuse Iran with its neighbor, Iraq, and they tend to think of Iran as an Arab country.

In fact, Iran is not an Arab nation. Iran is the descendant of ancient Persia. The official language of Iran is not Arabic but modern Persian, also known as Farsi.

Though Iran is a Muslim majority nation, most Iranian Muslims are Shia Muslims, a minority in Islam. It differs from nations like Saudi Arabia, where the majority are Sunni Muslims. The division goes back centuries to disagreement over the successor to Mohammad .

American feelings about Iran are mixed with the horror of 9/11 and other terrorist activities. While Iran is certainly implicated in upheavals and bloodshed in the Middle East, none of the 9/ll terrorists were Iranians. Fifteen were Saudi Arabians and the others came from the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Lebanon.

Columbia University professor Gary Sick served under President Jimmy Carter while American diplomats were hostages in Iran (1979-1981). In writing my novel If Winter Comes, set during that period, I read his book, All Fall Down: America’s Tragic Encounter with Iran, during my research.

In a recent article in The Foreign Service Journal, Sick highlights Iran’s unique culture, going back 2,500 years. Also unique among most Middle Eastern nations, “Iran has experienced at least five major political upheavals in just 100 years” and has “a remarkable record of political activism.” (“Iran Inside and Out,” October 2017)

Religious leaders exert outsize influence over who competes in Iranian elections. Nevertheless, Iran has a more active record of political engagement than many of its neighbors. All Iranian citizens can vote. Regular elections are held for presidential, parliamentary, and municipal offices.

Reform minded candidates do manage to make it through the process. The current president, Hassan Rouhani, is a reformist, though he does not hesitate to stand up for his country in verbal battles with President Donald Trump.

Americans would profit by a deeper understanding of this fascinating country and the complex negotiations that led to the Iranian nuclear deal. Iran, more than many Middle Eastern nations, holds promise of change. We should not lightly dismiss our agreement with them.

“A Republic, if You Can Keep It.”

So spoke Benjamin Franklin in 1787 at the end of the convention to write the U.S. Constitution. He spoke in answer to a questioner who wondered what kind of nation this gathering of politicians had created. A monarchy like most European nations?

Answer: a republic, but only if you can keep it.

Ancient Rome also began as a republic but descended into tyranny. Why? For centuries, historians have studied possible reasons.

Some cite moral decline. Roman citizens became more interested in “bread and circuses” than in serving their republic, as they had in the beginning.

Or perhaps they yielded to the temptation to cede power to a dictator when times are hard. Citizens find it easy to believe a Caesar or a Hitler who promises easy solutions to economic problems or threats from enemies.

A democracy outlasts such threats if enough citizens look beyond the immediate present and choose long term goals, even sacrifice.

When Britain stood on the brink of extinction from the highly efficient German war machine at the beginning of World War II, their leader, Winston Churchill, didn’t promise a quick solution to the danger.

As the Nazis rolled over much of Europe, Churchill called for his people to stand firm while promising them “blood, sweat, toil, and tears.” Citizens rallied and sacrificed for the long term goal of defeating Germany.

John F. Kennedy inspired a generation of young people by calling on them not “to ask what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.”

The vision of shared sacrifice is a powerful weapon. Not bread and circuses, but a sacrifice that includes all. Even the wealthy.

Five Hundred Years of History, Repeating? Our Choice.

In October of this year 2017, we mark the 500th anniversary of the day an obscure Christian monk named Martin Luther posted a scholarly document in Wittenberg, Germany. The document questioned certain practices of his church.

It was an unsettling time. Armies from the Middle East threatened Europe. Less than a century before, the city of Constantinople, the ancient bastion of eastern Christianity, had fallen to Muslim Turks. In a few years time, Turkish armies would lay siege to Vienna, Austria, and do so again late in the next century.

Even more disturbing were new ideas spreading through a recent invention, the printing press. Pamphlets and books, including Luther’s ideas, were now produced more cheaply and with lightning speed compared to the old way of copying manuscripts by hand.

The explosion of ideas created challenges to established ways of doing and thinking. The gatekeepers no longer functioned.

Tragically, war and conquest too often became the answer to these new thoughts. Rulers, anxious for political power, usurped religious ideas as a pretext for their own ambitions, unleashing great suffering.

Today’s internet age shows remarkable parallels to Luther’s time, but we don’t have to choose the ways so often chosen then. It’s not a zero sum game. We can reason together, gleaning the good from our old culture, while allowing new growth. We don’t have to agree on everything.

Changes have come, and they won’t go away, any more than they did in Luther’s time. How we use them is our choice.

Bet on Endurance Rather Than Brilliance

“Washington had finally hit upon a way to win this seemingly unwinnable war—not through military brilliance but by slowly and relentlessly wearing the enemy down.”

–From Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution; by Nathan Philbrick

For me, Philbrick’s study of our founding father and eventual first president portrays a practical leader. He won the American Revolution because of his honor and his tenacity, not because of any military genius.

First, having taken over the command of his country’s military forces, Washington would not go back on his word to lead them, through bad times and good.

Second, after several losing battles, he appears to have concluded that he could not defeat the mighty British army through brilliant campaigning against them. Instead, he took advantage of his native environment.

He withdrew into the countryside when British superior forces threatened to overwhelm his army. At his own choosing, he would return and attack, then leave the field again, then return.

Time was on his side. The British were fighting the French all over the world. They needed their forces elsewhere, not bogged down by a few colonies.

During another conflict, the Cold War with the Soviet Union, the United States also made use of tenacity. The U. S. won, not by military victory (Vietnam was a failure) but by growing a middle class with a stake in an open economy.

Except in a time of obvious attack, military campaigns cost lives and money that are better spent at home. Staying power and a system that allows ordinary citizens a fair share of the economic pie count for more.

Religion: Wrestling with its Role in a Democracy

Over the centuries, nations and empires that tolerated different religions generally have fared better than ones who didn’t. The Roman and Mongol empires, two of the most powerful empires in history, were generally tolerant.

Some Roman governments persecuted Christians, but only when they were convinced the Christians were a danger to Roman authority. So long as a religion didn’t threaten the government, both Roman and Mongol rulers generally exercised benign neglect. They avoided expending effort on costly maneuvers to force alien beliefs on their subjects.

Adherents of a particular religion, often dealing with matters of eternity and salvation, may believe they must gain control of their government for the good of all.

Such a view ignores the more powerful option: living lives of such compassion and kindness that fellow citizens are voluntarily drawn to their faith. Christians in the Roman empire followed this model, with much success.

Christianity fared less well when Christians formed alliances with political rulers, leading to brutal crusades and inquisitions.

European nations, emerging from such sullied religious histories, shook their heads in disbelief at the upstart new United States, allowing freedom for all religions. Surely, having no alliance with a particular religion, the country would fall prey to godlessness.

The opposite happened. Religion flourished. The Christian religion especially grew and influenced the culture of the country.

American Christians, now challenged by other emerging faiths, including atheism and secularism, wrestle with the temptation to use political power to advance their beliefs. Or will they follow the more successful option of living out their faith?

Donald Trump, a New Andrew Jackson?

The Hermitage, home of Andrew Jackson, seventh president of the United States, was a short drive from my elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee. Every year or so, our teacher would lead the class on a field trip to the Hermitage.

We toured the mansion’s rooms, my grade school colleagues and I, reveling in our release from school routine. Guides led us past rooms furnished in the upper class style of the early nineteenth century. Only later did I realize the slave labor required for Jackson’s comfort.

Jackson is known as a populist, the first president who was not one of the Massachusetts/Virginia founding fathers of the country. He represented the westward movement of the country by those who hadn’t inherited wealth.

Many of that day looked to improve their lot in life by settling west of the Appalachians on new land. No doubt they cheered Jackson’s forced removal of most of the native Americans from land their people had called home for generations.

In a time of rapid population growth and new inventions, the cotton gin led to the planting of more cotton. Plantation owners fought any attempt to abolish slavery, fearing loss of the unpaid laborers who supported their lifestyle.

The inconsistency of the American ideal of freedom with the subjection of an entire class of people was already leading to political battles.

According to reports, U.S. President Donald Trump has placed a picture of President Andrew Jackson on the wall of his office in the White House. Trump also is often called a populist, touted as breaking the power of government elites, an outsider.

Today also is a time of rapid transformation around the globe, caused by the computer age, globalization, massive immigration for economic and security reasons, and the entry of more women and minorities into the work force.

Economic inequality has increased, leading to prosperity for some and the loss of jobs and adequate wages for others. Those left behind feel alienated and abandoned by their politicians.

In the recent election, Trump took advantage of these trends by encouraging divisiveness and anger rather than offering a vision of cooperation for change.

We are not bound to follow the direction he has set. We can talk and respect each other and work out differences to real problems. Or we can hammer down the other “side” in anger and truly see our American dream vanish.

Short Term Thinking; Long Term Problems

Terrorism is an evil we can see and fear, unlike more insidious evils. After a terrorist attack, the media instantly portrays dead bodies and grieving families. We are angered, as we should be. We pass legislation for a strong military and sometimes send our armies to foreign countries to fight terrorists.

Other evils are harder to grasp because the results may not show up until years later: inferior schools or inadequate mental health facilities or lack of drug rehabilitation services.

Though most of us would say we believe in “good” schools, we don’t instantly see the damage to our country of a poorly educated work force.

Unless we have a mentally ill family member, we may think of mental illness only when we quickly pass by a troubled street person.

Throwing young drug offenders in prison is less costly than providing rehabilitation and job training for them—in the beginning.

What if we had not decided to invade Iraq after we were already involved in a war in Afghanistan? What if we had invested the money we spent for that war in schools and job training?

What if we had invested more in mass transit and less on securing oil fields in the unstable Middle East?

Going further back into our history, what if early settlers in Virginia had not decided to use slaves to work their tobacco fields? Suppose they had kept to small farms instead of large plantations?

We pay later for those easy choices, sometimes generations later.

Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood: Where Are You When We Need You?

Remember Mister Rogers? Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood on public television? Sometimes we laughed a bit at this gentle character who so quietly entered our homes and talked about feelings and helped children deal with fear and anger.

“Look for the helpers. Look for the people who are helping” is a quote of his repeated often in recent times after murderous attacks on innocent people.

In 1969, Fred Rogers appeared before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Communications when President Nixon wanted to decrease funding for public television. Listen to his defense of continued funding so children might have access to quality programming.

How we need his calming, sure presence in these days of anger and incivility. Even the adults need help with proper expression of emotions.

Waiting for the Good Guys to Win

The biography Clementine: The Life of Mrs. Winston Churchill, by Sonia Purnell, reminds us of Britain’s dark times in early World War II, when the country stood alone against Hitler’s might.

The book lists the number of European countries fallen under Nazi control at that time. France, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, and Holland had been swept into the Nazi vortex. Now Britain was to be the next victim.

The author recounts a day in September, 1940, when Clementine and Winston visited the operations center for the British air force. They watched as the command sent up squadrons to counter wave after wave of the German Luftwaffe.

At one point, Winston asked, “How many more planes have you?”

The commander replied, “I am putting in my last.”

Yet, this small force somehow—God only know how—repelled the much stronger enemy.

England was never invaded, and the entry of the United States into the war following the bombing of Pearl Harbor slowly changed the tide.

This reminder of a time when the forces of evil should have won and didn’t offers comfort in this time of moral turmoil. Sometimes the good guys do win.

Those Presidential Orders? Don’t Forget Executive Order 9066

Seventy-five years ago (February 19, 1942), President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. The order authorized the forced removal of 110,000 people of Japanese descent in the U.S. to incarceration camps away from their homes, places of work, and community activities.

In an anniversary issue, The Seattle Times published pictures and copies of old news stories, as well as reminiscences of those who were affected.

The issue included images of Japanese families, loaded with whatever possessions they could carry, young children dressed in Sunday best holding dolls and toys, and one man telling his pet dog goodbye.

Japanese-Americans were forced to sell businesses at cut rate prices. One Japanese woman, before the evacuation began, recalled being spit upon by a Caucasian woman and told that she had caused the death of the woman’s son.

Anger at the attack by the Japanese government on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor fueled attitudes of hatred against an entire group of people who had no part in the attack.

Anger against a particular act of war was justified. The place we allowed the anger to take us was not, an unreasonable prejudice against thousands of ordinary people, many of them U.S. citizens. Later, young Japanese-American men sent to the relocation centers would join U.S. military forces. Some would die for the country that had sent them and their families to the camps.

Current executive orders mirror that earlier time. Understandable anger at terror attacks has mushroomed into unreasonable prejudice even as it did then.

A footnote: Blaine Memorial United Methodist Church began as the Seattle Japanese Methodist Episcopal Church 113 years ago. When its congregation was forced into internment camps, a member of one of Seattle’s founding families, E. L. Blaine, saved the church by holding the deed for the church in trust for the members until their return.

The current pastor at the Blaine church said recently, “The pressure he faced was enormous. But he stood up for us. We are now in that same position: are we willing to stand up for others?”

How To Kill Your Religion

Speaking of the political maelstrom that elected Donald Trump to the presidency, Russell D. Moore, a leader in the Southern Baptist Convention, wrote: “. . . the crisis comes from the fact that the old-guard religious right political establishment normalized an awful candidate . . .” (Russell D. Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, “Can the Religious Right Be Saved?” First Things, January 2017.)

Moore called attention to views of the founder of First Things, Richard John Newhaus, when he mentions the temptation “to impose biblical standards on a society outside of covenant with God.”

The first amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits Congress from making laws respecting a religious establishment. Europeans, with their established churches, thought this amendment would surely lead to a lessening of religious influence in America.

The surprising result was the growth of Christian influence in the country, far more than it influenced those European countries. In a nation of many religious persuasions, Christianity grew in part because of the challenges. It couldn’t depend on government aid or favor. It was required to make the case for its existence in a pluralistic society.

Amazingly, because Christianity so influenced the country (whether you like the outcome or not), people began to speak of America as a “Christian” nation.

If the enemies of Christianity want to defeat it, perhaps they should favor it. Perhaps they should seek, by law or merely by suggestions, to give Christianity special privileges. If those measures don’t kill Christianity, they will surely weaken it.

What Are Those Judo-Christian Values?

According to “Talking Points” in The Week (February 10, 2017), Steve Bannon, formerly of Breitbart.com, is the power behind the throne of President Donald Trump’s administration.

Named as the President’s key advisor, he “has described Christian civilization as under mortal threat from unassimilated immigrants and radical Islam.”

Judo-Christian values are under threat, many fear. They go further: they must be defended by any means possible.

What are Judo(Jewish) Christian values?

Hebrew writings became the Christian Old Testament. They stressed care for the aliens and the poor. Landowners were told not to reap their fields to the very borders but to leave gleanings for the less well off. In other words, to care for the poor rather than squeeze every last bit of profit from their holdings.

As the Jewish religion developed, prophets became even more concerned with justice and right dealing with the poor. “But let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an everflowing stream.” (Amos 5:24, NRSV)

Another prophet distilled the teachings into three things God required of his people: “to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8 NRSV)

As for Christians, they were a powerless minority in their early centuries, but their lives and practices attracted others.

The early Christian missionary, Paul, sent a letter by a slave to one of Paul’s friends to remind the friend that the slave was, in fact, a brother. Eventually, slavery died out in European lands, unable to exist among brothers and sisters.

Christ himself told his followers, “. . . the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves.” (Luke 22:25-26, NRSV)

As Christianity grew and attracted even those in power, the story is told of one European tribal chief who was baptized into the Christian faith. However, he held his sword out of the water, signifying that it was not under Christ’s lordship.

Such an outlook has warred with the servanthood taught by Jesus through the centuries. The Crusades of the Middle Ages, whose atrocities reverberate to this day, were an outgrowth.

One of the greatest values Christians have given the world is servanthood. When Christians ally with power to favor their religion, they risk losing their souls.

America First

The original America First was a movement appearing shortly before the entry of the United States into World War II in 1941. It was the ending act of the American withdrawal from foreign commitments after World War I.

Americans had rejected President Woodrow Wilson’s idea for a League of Nations to prevent future wars. World War I had seen an awful slaughter of young men, and Wilson wished to avoid such conflicts in the future.

Most Americans, however, wanted to rid themselves of the world beyond their borders and concentrate on life in the golden twenties and eventually the miseries of the Great Depression.

As Europe slid toward yet another war, the suffering of Europeans touched some Americans. But the America First movement said the war wasn’t ours. Instead, we should put America first and stay out. A few, like the aviator, Charles A. Lindbergh, even found much about Hitler to admire.

Regardless, sentiment against involvement ended with the Japanese attack on the U.S. navy installation at Pearl Harbor.

Some paint the current America First movement as the proper reaction against the cost of money and lives the United States has paid in championing, first, the free world against Communism and lately the democratic world against terrorism.

In fact, our foreign policy has always put “America first.”

The money spent by the United States on defense and foreign policy for the safe navigation of oceans and skies benefited us more than any other nation. It gave American businesses access to other countries. It assured plentiful oil for our country. What we spent was, first and foremost, for us.

We can withdraw again, of course, and pretend we don’t need to concern ourselves with the needs of anyone but ourselves. It will only be so long, however, before reality calls with a Pearl Harbor or a September 11th.

The Russian Bear and the American Eagle

In the early 1990’s in Saudi Arabia, during my assignment at the U.S. consulate in Jeddah, the Saudis and the Russians opened diplomatic relations. The U.S. and its allies, officially including Russia, had just won the first Gulf war to liberate Kuwait from the Iraqi occupation. The days were full of optimism and enthusiasm. Russia had emerged on the world stage shorn of the Soviets, and we believed democracy had won the Cold War.

For a while, it looked as if a glorious new age was born, when the countries of the former Soviet Union would be overtaken by democracy and capitalism. A Russian official visited our U.S. consulate in Jeddah, and we all basked in cooperative civility.

Alas, it was not to be. Today, Russia and western nations, including the United States, back client conflicts in Syria and Ukraine, like the old days of the Cold War.

U.S. intelligence about Russian hacks interfering with the American election have opened a frontier of grave concern.

Raymond Smith, a U.S. diplomat in Moscow during that early time, writes in a recent issue of The Foreign Service Journal (December 2016), “The Russian people, giddy from the collapse of the corrupt, oppressive regime under which they had labored for generations, hungered for a normal relationship with the rest of the world and believed that the result would be quick and dramatic improvement in their lives. . . . I wrote that these expectations could not be met, and that a period of disillusionment would inevitably follow.”

It did, indeed. For one thing, the golden age desired by the Russians did not materialize. Instead, “Russians saw criminality, disorder, poverty and the emergence of a new, corrupt and astronomically wealthy class of oligarchs.”

Former European nations of the Soviet Union desired the expansion of NATO as a guard against the reestablishment of any future Russian dominance over them. Russia saw the expansion of NATO as a humiliating attempt to force on them an international system managed by the United States, with Russia no longer allowed a role on the world stage.

How to avoid these adversarial roles? Smith suggests coming together on common causes, such the defeat of ISIS. If we have reasons for defeating the terrorist group, Russia has even more: they wish to defeat the groups before they begin attacking the Russian homeland.

The trick is to find those areas of common interest while we stand firm on issues important to us. Foreign interference in our elections is not open for negotiation. We will fight it. Other issues. like the brutal bloodletting of the Assad regime, must be recognized as evil.

Nevertheless, Smith ends on a positive note: “Unlike during the Soviet era, the two countries are not ideological opponents. There will be areas where our interests conflict. Resolving those conflicts constructively will require both countries to understand the limits of their interests.”

On the Way to War, Peace Broke Out

I grew up in the shadow of nuclear war. During my lifetime, the Soviet Union and the United States fought each other in proxy wars all over the globe from South America to Vietnam.

If the past history of nations and weapons were any guide, the two powers would, at some time, have used their ultimate weapons, and the world would have known nuclear catastrophe.

But it didn’t happen.

Somewhere along the way, a few diplomats and politicians decided to take the first steps away from the chasm and begin tentatively to trust each other.

Some of those people are widely known and some known only by those who closely followed the process. U.S. president Ronald Reagan, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, and diplomats George Schultz and Eduard Shevardnadze were among them.

In an interview published in The Foreign Service Journal (December 2016), George Schultz cited a small, early breakthrough involving successful negotiations between the U.S. and the Soviets for a Christian religious group in Russia. The group had fled to the U.S. embassy in search of freedom to worship as they pleased. The negotiations were successful, and though they did not involve a lot of publicity, they led to the beginning of trust between the Soviets and Americans.

The trust grew until bigger negotiations involving nuclear weapons resulted in a rollback of those weapons.

In the decades since, we have seen a return to suspicion. Armed conflicts have broken out in Ukraine, not to mention the awful slaughter in the Middle East. Hope has too often changed to despair.

Nevertheless, that earlier time remains an example of what can happen when a few leaders are courageous enough to risk small steps toward trusting each other.

War and Peace, Rome and Jerusalem, Hope in Bethlehem

“Jews as much as Romans viewed war as a natural condition but, unlike Romans, they sometimes expressed a hope that this might change. . . . the biblical prophets Isaiah, Micah and Joel all looked forward with longing to a time when there would be no more war at all.”
–Martin Goodman, as quoted in “King David,” Meir Y. Soloveichik, First Things, (January 2017)

“He shall judge between many peoples, and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more; but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.” (Micah 4:3-4, NRSV)

“By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” (Luke 1:78-79, NRSV)

On this Christmas, when multitudes are refugees, when innocent men, women, and children are murdered and maimed, may we, more than ever, be renewed to work and pray for peace.

Ten Reasons Why the United States Has Traditionally Shunned Torture

David P. Gushee, a professor at Mercer University, listed ten reasons in a Sojourners magazine article why the United States has not legitimized the torture of enemies. Gushee is professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University, founded by Georgia Baptists in the nineteenth century.

His list of reasons:

1) Our Constitution, in the 8th Amendment, bans cruel and unusual punishment.

2) Military traditions banned torture from our very beginning.

3) Our nation began with a founding narrative of having come out of British despotism and not wanting to develop such despotism in our own nation.

4) The U.S. was deeply involved in the development of international law and the Geneva Conventions, as in the United Nations, which meets on our soil. [The Geneva Conventions established standards of humane treatment in times of war, beginning in 1864 and continuing after World War II.]

5) We are a nation that began with “a due regard to the opinions of [hu]mankind.”

6) Checks and balances were built into the Constitution and all structures of government.

7) We began with realism about human nature and its tendencies toward domination, tyranny, and abuse.

8) We have for two centuries enjoyed a free press.

9) We are blessed with longstanding medical traditions in the Judeo-Christian-Hippocratic line.

10) Our nation from its beginning has been shaped by religious traditions.

Gushee believes the United States acted against these traditions after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. His opinions were stated in the April 2014 issue of Sojourners.

Was the Fourth of July Necessary?

The founding of the United States gave substance to the ideal of representative government. It remains a work in progress. The U.S. Constitution wasn’t written until several years after George Washington and his colleagues won the American war for independence. It did not even abolish slavery until almost a century after delegates met to write the Declaration of Independence that hot summer of 1776.

Yet the country born in 1776 (or in 1790, if you believe the U.S. Constitution was really the beginning) put flesh and blood on the skeleton sketched out by eighteenth century thinkers.
During those times, Thomas Paine wrote:

“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered . . . “

It struck me that Paine’s words are very eighteenth century. Few kings are left today, and those who remain in Europe, including the ones Paine railed against, are constitutional monarchs. Britain’s parliament (its legislative body) passes the laws. The monarchy is more a symbol of the ties that bind the British together than the possessor of power.

The Declaration of Independence and Thomas Paine’s writings are woven through with the unjust actions of Britain’s soldiers and government of the time. Canada stayed on in the British sphere of influence and today is one of the most respected free nations of the world.

The crown erred, and the colonists, who had some good ideas, reacted with anger. Too bad the two sides weren’t able to reconcile.

Why Did We Fight a War in Vietnam?

Watching reports of President Obama’s recent visit to Vietnam, I wondered why we fought a war there, beginning in the 1960’s. Many Americans and Vietnamese lost their lives. Others suffered injuries and emotional trauma.

Why? We are now forging economic and cultural ties with Vietnam, though it remains a country ruled by one party. It is not a democracy.

Other countries are not democratic. Yet we do not go to war with them. We have relations with most of them.

In the Cold War era, Soviet Russia was an undemocratic, communist nation. The danger from the Soviets was not imagined, especially in Europe. Yet, we found other ways to protect ourselves that did not include fighting a war with them.

We went to war in Vietnam because we chose to believe that losing Vietnam to communism was a danger to us. Other nations in the region, so we believed, would become communist, and, by popular definitions of the time, become our enemies also.

After losing Vietnam, we discovered how tragically wrong we were in our assessment.

Our involvement in Vietnam sprang, not from a threat to us, but from a blanket fear of communism. We failed to see the Vietnamese insurgency as a desire to be free of colonialism, as practiced by the French, whose place we took in entering the conflict. In the eyes of many Vietnamese, we also were imperialists.

We failed to differentiate between true threats and other movements, repugnant to us but not directly threatening us.

Francis Marion, South Carolina’s Swamp Fox: Lessons for Today

Francis Marion was a South Carolina guerrilla leader who fought Britain during the American Revolution. The British forces were one of the most powerful armies in the world at the time, but they were never able to capture Marion. He knew the South Carolina swamps and back paths, because the region was his home. The British saw the colonies as their possession, not their home.

Francis Marion and other American leaders didn’t destroy the British empire. They freed their country from foreign rule and gave it the opportunity to create a better society. Marion himself was a slave owner. Almost a century passed before slavery was abolished.

Interestingly enough, after defeat in the war against the American colonials, Britain went on to become an even greater power. The British were successful militarily, but they also began social reforms to lift the working classes and the desperately poor of Britain out of poverty. More Britons had a stake in a prosperous country.

New military tactics constantly evolve against a militarily superior foe, as the Vietcong knew when they wore down American forces, as they had the French before them. They saw Americans as merely followers of the French imperialists.

In contrast, Americans succeeded in World War II. Their foe was obvious. European allies cherished similar ideals. True values were at stake.

Americans did more than militarily defeat the enemy. After World II they raised education levels and increased job opportunities. The country prospered, becoming a world leader, as much because of its vibrant opportunities as for its military prowess.

Defeating an enemy militarily only buys time. Then begins the hard job of building a society for all citizens.