Dancing at a Hanging

There is a buzz of debate among students at The King’s College where I teach. I don’t think anyone regrets that our Navy SEALs caught up with Osama bin Laden and plugged him. But not everyone is comfortable celebrating the fact.

It’s good, but are high fives in order? Should we party at Ground Zero? A man is dead. An evil man, to be sure. But a life that God made in his image has come to its earthly end, and a soul has been sent to judgment. Isn’t this an occasion for awful silence?

I think that such reserve is unwarranted because it fails to give proper weight to the central fact of the killing in question, namely, justice. Osama bin Laden ordered the murder of what turned out to be almost 3,000 people on September 11, 2001, and of 17 sailors on the U.S.S. Cole the previous year. He’s a mass murderer.

Regardless of what you think the role of government should be, it is indisputably to protect those under its care from murderous assault. And where someone has unjustly taken a life, it is government’s proper role to punish that injustice.

Osama bin Laden’s offense was even more serious in that it was an assault not only on private individuals, but upon the nation as a whole. It was an act of war by a foreign, sub-national organization. New York City and Washington DC were paralyzed. The nation was terrorized. And this was precisely what the al Qaeda leader hoped to accomplish.

When our special forces—arms of the American government—finally caught up with bin Laden in his Pakistani bunker-estate and popped him between the eyes, they not only secured the nation. They did justice. More specifically, the American civil government that God instituted by the will of the American people executed justice on a monstrous evil doer. Scripture tells us that civil government is God’s instrument, “an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil” (Romans 13:4). “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord” (Romans 12:19), and he executes his dread vengeance in part through the civil authorities he has appointed for that purpose.

A Christian can and should rejoice in all good things, among which is the execution of justice in the world. I work in Midtown Manhattan. I’m sorry I missed the party at Ground Zero.

Consider, however, qualifications and disagreements from John Piper, Albert Mohler, and Warren Cole Smith.

Revenge of the Left

The left is the left. I mean the baby-boomer, University of Woodstock left. They can't help it. They are creatures of their emotions--their Western, Christian civilization hating emotions. As such, they are all to predictable to those who know them.

Western Christian civilization culminates in American civilization which, for that reason, they hate. Accordingly, they hate American world power and every arm of it. Think of the discomfort the Clinton people felt at having uniformed military officers in the White House when they moved in back in 1993. Now in 2009, the Obama people go one better: they're making open war on the CIA.

In "Punishing Patriots," Ralph Peters is blunt: "in this administration's hard-left cosmos, the CIA is evil. For that matter, America is evil. Americans need to be punished and forced to face the evil our country has done." Hence, our President travels in foreign lands apologizing for his country the way German Chancellor Angela Merkel apologized for her country's behavior in Poland. This attitude is perfectly consistent with his twenty year discipleship under the pastoral care of Jeremiah Wright.

Fouad Ajami has compared Barack Obama's political style to that of a Third World dictator ("Obama and the Politics of Crowds" and "Obama's Summer of Discontent"). Peters draws his own parallels.

This is the sort of politicized retribution that prevails in backwater countries when regimes change. Our wise tradition has been for new administrations to accept that their predecessors did their best, however disagreeably, and move on. Gerald Ford sacrificed himself to that end, and even Jimmy Carter understood that presidencies are not for domestic revenge.

As ObamaCare, cap and trade, and union "card check" voting will destroy the American economy, this hunt for public enemies in the CIA will throw the door open for al Qaeda to destroy whatever is left of us. "You can't do useful intelligence work on a choke-chain. Yes, the intel community needs oversight and guidance." An editorial in last week's Wall Street Journal sounded a similar alarm over this castration of the faithful dog who patrols our perimeter. "The message that Mr. Holder's criminal probe will send to thousands of men and women is that they had better not do anything remotely controversial on behalf of American safety, even with a lawyer's permission" ("Prosecuting the CIA," August 29, 2009)

The genius of our republic is that its design soberly recognizes the complexity of human nature, and makes prudent account for its moral highs and lows. A wise national security policy does the same, a acknowledges that, "For the rest of us to live in peace, patriots must stand at the edge of darkness where our enemies dwell." For President Obama and the flower child fogies with whose resentments his heart resonates, the darkness is largely within our borders and national security is largely a matter of domestic reform.

By the way, Obama's emotional union with old leftists like Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank helps to explain why he will not tack to the right, as David Brooks and Ed Gillespie have advised him, in response to public opposition and plummeting approval ratings. The other reason is that he wants to be a transformational President. So he will ram through whatever legislation it takes to change the American economy and way of thinking fundamentally, no matter what the political cost.

Obama's National Civilian Security Force

When I heard that Obama was proposing a national civilian security force that was to be "just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded" as our military, I couldn't believe my ears. It sounded like something between a Praetorian Guard and the groundwork for a civil war. But then I heard the man himself announcing it:



He says: "We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded." But if he is planning the overthrow of the constitution in this way, then...

(1) why would he announce it in a campaign speech,

(2) why wouldn't the press pick up on it (sorry, that's a stupid question), and

(3) why would he not just use the courts as liberals have been doing for years?

The answer to all these questions is that he is not actually planning a para-military organization, and, if he is, he hasn't told us.

Here is the twenty-four minute context missing from the seemingly incriminating clip that you just viewed. He is talking about a specifically non-military civilian service. His idea is that our national security depends not only on military might but also on serving one another at home, international goodwill in response to kindnesses rendered abroad, and some nonsense about saving the planet.

Colorado Springs, CO; July 2, 2008: [As] president I will expand AmeriCorps to 250,000 slots [from 75,000] and make that increased service a vehicle to meet national goals, like providing health care and education, saving our planet and restoring our standing in the world, so that citizens see their effort connected to a common purpose.

People of all ages, stations and skills will be asked to serve. Because when it comes to the challenges we face, the American people are not the problem – they are the answer. So we are going to send more college graduates to teach and mentor our young people. We'll call on Americans to join an energy corps, to conduct renewable energy and environmental clean-up projects in their neighborhoods all across the country.

We will enlist our veterans to find jobs and support for other vets, and to be there for our military families. And we're going to grow our Foreign Service, open consulates that have been shuttered and double the size of the Peace Corps by 2011 to renew our diplomacy. We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set.

We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded. We need to use technology to connect people to service. We'll expand USA Freedom Corps to create online networks where American can browse opportunities to volunteer. You'll be able to search by category, time commitment and skill sets. You'll be able to rate service opportunities, build service networks, and create your own service pages to track your hours and activities.

This will empower more Americans to craft their own service agenda and make their own change from the bottom up. (FactCheck.org)

For those who have the time, here is the twenty-four minute clip of Obama's speech.



Having cleared that up, however, there are rumors that Obama plans to establish a mandatory national service program, something like a draft, or what in Britain they called National Service. Under the British program (do they still do this? is it just for men?), people had to complete a particular period of military training. I have pictures of my dad in Scotland, all skinny and precious in his uniform with a gun over his shoulder. They do the same thing in Israel and Switzerland, except much more seriously, for obvious reasons.

We're looking into it.

It's Always About National Security

It is easy to indulge in wishful thinking when making a major decision. Fred Kagan puts the facts squarely before us as far as national security is concerned ("Security Should be the Deciding Issue," Wall Street Journal, Oct. 31, 2008).

Making war and defending America's interests as Commander-in-Chief has been the occupation of every President since Herbert Hoover.

After FDR, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower led the war in Korea that ended up shaping East Asia and the global economy profoundly.

John F. Kennedy's ill-fated efforts in Cuba shape Central America and the Caribbean to this day. He also made key decisions regarding Vietnam, followed, of course, by Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. These decisions had major effects on American security and also helped launch a social revolution within the U.S.

Jimmy Carter's disastrous hostage rescue operation in Iran had profound implications for the U.S. there and throughout the region, as did his reaction to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Ronald Reagan's failed policies in Lebanon in the early 1980s, leading to the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut in 1983, shaped the nature of American involvement in that key region, and also the perception of the U.S., for two decades. His attack on Libya, on the other hand, effectively ended a significant terrorist threat to the U.S. It also laid the basis for the elimination of Libya's WMD program after 9/11.

George H.W. Bush fought in Panama and Iraq. Bill Clinton, who took office promising to focus "like a laser beam" on the economy, led U.S. forces to humiliation in Somalia, ineffective, pinprick responses to al Qaeda terrorism and to Saddam Hussein's provocations, and to large-scale conflict in the Balkans. The current administration inherited ongoing military operations in the Balkans and almost immediately confronted the consequences of President Clinton's policy failures in Afghanistan on 9/11.

The next president will not break this string of fighting presidents. He will inherit two ongoing wars involving more than 180,000 troops. He will face two global enemies -- al Qaeda and Iranian terror networks, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps/Quds Force and Hezbollah.

Kagan destinguishes "enemies" from "threats." It is not a speculation, but a certainty, that the next President will be confronted by not only enemies (al Qaeda and Iran, people who are presently killing our people), but also threats (Pakistani instability, Russian adventurism, North Korean nuclear proliferation, and so on).

He reminds us also that whereas the management economy is the business of the Congress, the President, the Federal Reserve and the courts, it is solely the responsibility of the President to safeguard American lives from foreign danger.

"When people feel relatively safe, they vote their pocketbooks. When they feel endangered, they vote for security. The world today offers no reason for Americans to feel safe. If we want safety, we have to be ready to fight for it."

McCain is the fighter. Obama is not. Cast your vote.