God and Good Government
THE WESTERN FRONT
Are American soldiers doing the Lord's work in Iraq? You bet.
BY BRENDAN MINITER
Tuesday, December 21, 2004 12:01 a.m.
The most surprising thing an American military officer told me about his work in Iraq came in a statement he later asked to retract. And it strikes me as something worth thinking about in this Christmas season as we go through the annual ritual of pulling crèche scenes from courthouse lawns across America. In the debate over faith in the public square there is rarely an acknowledgement that there is a link between morality and government.
After describing the good works his men were doing by rebuilding schools and providing food and medicine to Iraqis, the officer summed up this list by saying "We're just doing the Lord's work." At the time the comment seemed perfectly appropriate. I do not know the officer's faith or even if he is a Christian. But his meaning was clear: His men were performing vital humanitarian work in addition to taking on insurgents. The surprise came a few minutes after the interview, when a public information officer asked to retract the comment. Apparently in the post-interview debriefing someone got scared that it could be misconstrued. The officer did not mean to imply that he was doing the Lord's work at all, I was assured.
But that is exactly what he meant and exactly what he is doing. After all there is a moral component to a policy that frees a people from a dictatorship, restores civil order and protects against a violent group of insurgents. The officer was right, however, to worry that a secular media might twist such a statement into "proof" that American soldiers were proselytizing in a Muslim country. After all, President Bush was hounded by the press for simply using the word "crusade" while talking about vigorously pursuing the war on terror.
However, nowhere is the moral component of public policy more apparent than Iraq. What U.S. troops found when they overturned Saddam Hussein's regime was a society governed by a thoroughly corrupt and manifestly immoral group of thugs. We've heard the tales of rape rooms, mass murder and other despicable and nearly unimaginable tortures. What has not made it into the public debate is the larger impact the rule of these monsters had on Iraqi society. Americans may be surprised by the extent of the insurgency, but we shouldn't be. Being ruled by an immoral elite destroys the fabric of a civil society.
After decades of Saddam's debauchery, it is civilization that has to struggle to reassert itself. While we may fear that a class of clerics will win January elections and write Islam into Iraq's civil law, we should be equally fearful of setting up a government that does not recognize a larger moral system than itself. That was the essence of Saddam's regime--that the ruling elite was above any accountability.
As Saddam and his henchmen stand trial for sins against their countrymen, they are finding they are in fact subject to the laws of decency that must govern human behavior. In Iraq, returning to moral principles is helping restore good government.
Secularists would like to convince us in America that religion is somehow incompatible with the principles of a free society. And that the display of faith in public is somehow equal to forcing religion on the general public. Yet until a real life Santa Clause steps forward to take the seat of power, the real fear is that governments will fail to recognize that they are not the final arbitrators of right and wrong and that morality matters. That's why democratic elections are so important--a leader who must face the electorate now and again comes to understand the limits to his power.
Are Americans soldiers doing the Lord's work in Iraq? To the extent that they are helping to set up a government that will be administered by a free people, the answer has to be yes.
Mr. Miniter is assistant editor of OpinionJournal.com. His column appears Tuesdays.
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