Seeing Beyond 'An Eye For An Eye'
By Gregory J. Rummo (06/27/04)
IF YOU VIEWED the photos on the Internet of any of the victims beheaded by al-Qaeda or Tawhid wa al-Jihad (Unification and Holy War), you know how disturbing they are. And if you are like me, then your first thoughts after overcoming the revulsion are ones of payback.
Wouldn’t it be fitting, you think to yourself, to see several American GIs drag a kicking and screaming Abu Musab al-Zarqawi into a street in the middle of Fallujah and, with the cameras rolling, methodically cut off his head. Maybe play soccer with it for a few minutes after the blood stops spurting out on the dry, dusty ground. That would play well on Aljazeera. Maybe even make the “Top 10 Plays of the Day” on ESPN Sports Center.
Maybe then the terrorists would finally get the message: “They send one of yours to the morgue, you send two of theirs…” as Malone, the street-hardened cop played by Sean Connery in the movie “The Untouchables” explains to the naïve Elliott Ness, played by Kevin Costner.
But you would be wrong.
There is an unbridgeable, ideological chasm between justice and revenge. Although in this case the two may appear to be coincident, they are in fact not. Americans must maintain their composure in the face of this horrific evil and hold on to the moral high ground if we are to ultimately prevail in the war against terrorism.
The U.S. has waged a war in Iraq against defined military targets and those people who identify themselves as enemy combatants. Whether you agree that our involvement is justified is immaterial to this argument. The point is; our methods of warfare constitute a world of difference from hooded terrorists torturing and murdering innocent contractors, journalists or other non-combatants.
The reasons are clear.
Over 200 years ago, we fled from tyranny and began an experiment in self-government based on the concept of “liberty and justice for all.” Our system of laws, based on the intrinsic worth of every individual was originally expressed by these words: “All men are created equal.” In 1797, when America’s second president, John Adams, was inaugurated, we proved to the world that for the first time in human history, political power could be handed over from one bloodline to another without bloodshed.
But such noble principles did not simply materialize out of thin air. Our nation has, since its inception, been guided by an overarching, Divine Authority. The evolution of our laws and institutions can be traced all the way back to the Bible.
America is, in fact, a Christian nation. It doesn’t matter if you are an evangelical protestant or an avowed atheist. Every American, regardless of his faith (or a complete lack thereof) benefits from a society imbued with the divinely inspired qualities of mercy, tolerance, justice, equity and human dignity.
Samuel P. Huntington, who is currently the Albert J. Weatherhead III University Professor at Harvard, argued this point persuasively on the opinion pages of the June 16, Wall Street Journal in a column titled, “Under God.”
“Americans have always been extremely religious and overwhelmingly Christian,” Huntington explained. “The 17th-century settlers founded their communities in America in large part for religious reasons. Eighteenth-century Americans saw their Revolution in religious and largely biblical terms… [The] framers [of the Constitution] firmly believed that the republican government they were creating could last only if it was rooted in morality and religion. ‘A Republic can only be supported by pure religion or austere morals,’ John Adams said. Washington agreed: ‘Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles.’ Fifty years after the Constitution was adopted, Tocqueville reported that all Americans held religion ‘to be indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions.’”
To abandon these noble principles at a time when there is a growing clamor for revenge is wrong. Americans must resist the urge to give in to their baser instincts. It is impossible to embrace barbarism in the name of justice.
Let the words of the apostle Paul, written to the church in Rome during a time when unspeakable atrocities were being foisted upon Christians, serve as an appropriate reminder to us all: “Do not be overcome with evil. Overcome evil with good.”
(Printer friendly version) Email: Gregory J. Rummo
