The New Crusade:

What the Middle East Needs is Jesus Christ not George Washington

This weekend hosts word of mouth endorsements for Ridley Scott's KINGDOM OF HEAVEN starring twenty something heartthrob Orlando Bloom. Incidentally, the opener came on the heels of news of a recent survey citing a majority of Iraqis - the newest member of the family of democracies desiring the Shariah as their primary legal canon and news of anti-American protests from Afghanistan to Indonesia amid reports of so-called “desecration of the Koran” in Guantanamo Bay. The timely film which anecdotally balances both perspectives will certainly sway the court of public opinion to reexamine our interests and motives in the Middle East tacit rejection of aggression and the open embrace of “an open dialogue” whatever that means. But whatever policy ideas that left has to offer in contrast to the regent neoconservatives, neither policy will confront “The Clash of Civilizations” that we face. Democracy alone cannot work in the Middle East or elsewhere. Taking a cue of the neoconservatives, putting a democratic face on Islam with all its bloody borders will only embolden Islamo-fascists like bin Laden. Following the Realist tradition of Nixon, governing the provinces through US backed headmen like the House of Saud, Mubarak, and Musharraf will at best serve as a temporary fix to Islamic aggression on the Western world. To permanently quell Islamic aggression means embarking on a crusade for the total annihilation of the Islamic civilization militarily, economically, culturally, and lastly politically.

Democracy alone cannot work. As Monarchy extols the value of loyalty to the sovereign as Aristocracy extols virtue, Democracy holds the triumph of reason. Without reason, the ability to choose virtue over vice, then democracy collapses under the yoke of demagoguery. For example, in short perusal of the twentieth century demonstrates how the citizens of Germany, Italy and Spain donned black shirts and brown shirts entering the fascist flanges in order to better bootlick their demagogue in chief. After the demise of another World War, the war weary citizens of Europe turned again to totalitarianism with this madman decked in red. But for the covert intervention of the United States, governments all across Western Europe to include France, Italy and even England would have gone over freely to the Communist.

Further, we must reorder the way we think about democracy. Democracy even in its modern form is at best a rather limited monarchy. When we look at one particular instance of democracy – the most influential democracy by which the rest of the family of democracies share characteristics with, the United States, we find a head of state – who much like a king creates and sets policy. He has a limited reign – at most eight years and has limitations imposed by our Constitution, the Congress and the Supreme Court – but by and large he is much the monarch as the Raja in his regal majesty.

Further, our own institutions though they extol the values of egalitarianism, our society is not the utopia of Enlightened philosophers, but indeed an aristocracy predicated on money and power – its just easier in our country to acquire money and power more quickly than in places with a more rigid class system.

I do not state what I believe about the United States to criticize it as mandate for political or social change. I rather like the United States the way it is and see no need for change. I say this to deflate the myths we have about ourselves so that if we are going impose our imprint of democracy onto the world, as we most certainly are in the Middle East, of which I again do not object, let us see ourselves more perfectly.

Simply put, we are a Christian nation from a Christian civilization and that Christianity distinguishes our civilization from the Confucian and the Muslim. Further, the labors of Christianity have produced a generous bounty by which we richly feed to the world’s envy.

Since men compose the state, we cannot separate church from state anymore than we can separate religion from man. The absence of, the disbelief in or ambivalence toward religion still constitutes a religion – a system of beliefs, attitudes and practices about man and the universe. This ascendant Jacobean view of the world, a view held by over 40 million Americans and most Europeans that God and religion does not matter conceal the contributions upon which we walk like Lilliputians on this giant named Christ.

In the Nicenan Creed, we believe in a “Loving God” who rules the universe mercifully and justly. Contrast that view to the Muslim who believes that his God, Allah, the forceful master ambivalent to right and wrong who rules to promote his favorites among his slaves. The word Christianity comes from the Greek word for Messiah or Savior – in that we derive our beliefs in the self sacrifice from our God who leads us and conversely serves us. The Muslim is essentially the slave of Allah. Islam means submission, surrender or slavery – a common name in the Arab world is Abdullah – Abd means slave Allah of course means God. This is not the time or place to embark on a comparative analysis between the two great religions, but suffice it to say that in the small comparisons lay great chasms between us in the way that we order the world especially when it comes to forgiveness, tolerance, justice and self-sacrifice when it comes to leadership and governance.

In short, democracy coupled with a vibrant Christian faith has largely been responsible for course of human progress since the fall of Roman Empire.

Democracy alone will not work. Neoconservatives point to Islamic democracies like Turkey and Indonesia. Turkey, the stronger of the two examples, is at best a mixed success due in large part due to the recognition of the superiority of Western civilization over that of Islamic one. Turkey, a NATO ally, uniquely situated near Europe has enjoyed relative peace with the West including diplomatic recognition and cordial relations with Israel. Multiple parties have governed Turkey since the 1940’s. These various governments ensure basic human freedoms chief among them limited freedom of speech, assembly and religion. Modern Turkey exists today due to the visionary and dynamic leadership of one man - Kemal Ataturk, a military man who spent most of his life in the Balkans, knew that he could not change the Islamic character of Turkey but that the best he could do was co-opt its influence in favor of Western institutions. If Iraq, Afghanistan and other Muslim emerging nations are to enjoy the “success” that Turkey has enjoyed, a similar prescription to include a similar generous donation of materials and interest from the West would be in order.

That said, just because Turkey adopted Western style reform does not mean it fully understood them in their proper context i.e. without Christian tutelage. Turkey has experienced three military coups, one as recent as 1997. Turkey’s close position to the West does not immunize it from the sway of Islamo-fascism. Persecution of Turkish Christians persists and Al Queda sleeper cells are operating in Turkey. Recently, operatives ignited a bomb at the British Consulate and at a bank. In that respect, Turkey though standing mostly firmly against its peers still teeters toward the chaos of seventh century world view.

Indonesia, the most populous Muslim nation, like Turkey, is not Arab nation. Nonetheless, the Malay servants of Allah have only been a democracy since 1998 with the demise of General Suaharto. As the bombing in Bali demonstrates, Indonesia is an Al Queda stronghold and thus cannot be trusted.

We have no assurance that the men we ally ourselves with today will not be our enemies tomorrow. One need not scroll over the annuals of history to be convinced of Arab duplicity, the biographies of men like Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussien testify to the broken marriages of convenience with the Great Satan – bin Laden in the Soviet-Afghan War and Saddam, the great admirer of Stalin, in the Iran-Iraq War.

In the James Jones novel The Thin Red Line, an American soldier – an agent in yet another clash of civilizations locked in race war over turf proclaims roughly that he is fighting this war so that thirty years from now, his children and grandchildren do not have to fight this war. Let us not be foolish and press for terms of peace that will only lead us back to war’s chariot’s in twelve years on less favorable terms as in the first Persian Gulf War or twenty one years later as in the Second World War. Let us be wise in choosing those terms.

If by peace, we mean to re-draw maps and reorder the faces of governments; then let us elevate men who will allow for unrestricted freedom of religion and will prosecute vigorously further attempts to persecute Christians in the Holy Land. Let us encourage the active conversions to Arab Christianity. So that finally martyred blood will no longer flow freely like turgid waters of the Euphrates. Let us ensure that Christendom’s sway not just extend to Ptolemy Europe and the Americas but across North Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and the Far Pacific. Lastly, let us live our faith. We must confront the godless and instruct those who do not know God. For wars at there very heart are spiritual struggles. If we want a lasting peace, we have to have a vibrant faith. As Christ embraced His Cross, as the knights embraced their sword in their Holy Crusade, let us begin a new a Crusade for Christ.

I am James A. Bretney and I invite you to look toward the Undiscovered Country.