3rd Annual fall peace forum: Ray Mcgovern, "Prospects for a Moral U.S. policy in the Middle East" with respondents William Ayres & Peter schmiechen

Sunday, October 22, 2006
3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Lancaster Church of the Brethren • 1601 Sunset Ave • Lancaster PA

When Ray McGovern spoke at the LIPW Fall Conference on October 22, 2006, he spoke from the pulpit of the Lancaster Church of the Brethren with as much moral authority as he did when he was a 27-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency. As expected, he talked about how the American fiasco in Iraq was based on lies and what the Bush Administration did. He also spoke hopefully about what American citizens could do if we would only think more like Christ, the Social Activist.

Mr. McGovern said Walter Wink, the Christian philosopher, “revealed the hidden secret that Christ was a social activist.” Turning to Mark, Chapter I, verse 16, McGovern introduced us to Christ as an activist, having just returned from the Wilderness where he refused to accept Satan’s offer for unlimited power. He gathered his disciples, Simon and Andrew and then James and John. They went to the synagogue in Capernaum where Jesus began to teach. While Jesus was teaching, a man “with an unclean spirit” began to denounce Jesus and accused Jesus of trying to destroy them. Jesus confronted the man and commanded the unclean spirit to “come out of him.” The unclean spirit did come out, much to the amazement of his disciples. They cried out that even unclean spirits obeyed Jesus.

Like Jesus, the a social activist today has to confront evil on the spot. “…If you are gonna be faithful,” McGovern charged, “you gotta confront evil.”

McGovern said that his speech, “Proposals for a Moral Policy in the Middle East” had two parts:  the telling of his background as a CIA intelligence officer and searching for a moral way to leave Iraq.

In January 2003, McGovern organized the “Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.” Their mission was "…to speak out on the use of intelligence to justify the war.” McGovern's background overlaps with other well-known government officials, including W. Patrick Lang, a defense intelligence officer for the Middle East; Joseph C. Wilson IV, former US Ambassador to Gabon; Richard Clarke, former anti-terror advisor to President Bush; Graham E. Fuller, a former vice-Chairman at the CIA; and David Albright, a former UN weapons inspector, just to name a few.

McGovern explained that President Harry S. Truman set up the Central Intelligence Agency after World War II. Mr. McGovern was assigned to gather information on Soviet relations with China and South East Asia. His task was to review the reports from 5 to 10 different government agencies, edit them and then write National Intelligence Estimates. He said when President Truman faced a crisis, he wanted to be able to look one person in the eye and “get the straight stuff.” Thus was born Truman’s motto: “The buck stops here.”

McGovern said it was a great place to work.

On the other hand, he described the ethical standard governing Intelligence professionals today as “a faith based approach.” He told a story about two Sisters running out of gasoline while they were on an automobile road trip in a desolate part of the country. They looked for a gas can, but the only suitable container available was a bedpan. So, the Sisters carried the bedpan to a gasoline station a few miles away, filled it, and carefully carried it back to their automobile. While they were pouring gasoline out of the bedpan into the gas tank a man walked by and he said, “Ye have more faith than me, if you think that will get you far.”

McGovern paused and commented, “The information our President gets today is what that passerby thought was in the bedpan."  Raising his voice, he said:

“The war in Iraq was not necessary
“There were no WMD’s.
“On July 29, 2001, Condoleezza Rice said Saddam Hussein was not considered to be a threat.
“After September 11, Saddam Hussein had WMD’s.
“Dick and Don amplified this message.”

The more McGovern and his intelligence associates saw, the more they felt the government needed a sanity check. He called the neoconservatives “the crazies.” 

One outstanding document that supported this claim was a memo from 10 Downing Street dated July 23, 2002, that reported there were no WMD in Iraq and no link to Al Qaida. Nevertheless, the Bush Administration was committed to attack Iraq against all reason.

McGovern called the claim that there was a tie between Al Qaida and Iraq “an unconscionable preying upon the victims of 9/11. There was no evidence to show that such a link existed.”

He called George J. Tenet a traitor. He excoriated Tenet for sitting behind Colin Powell at the UN “like a prop” when Powell spoke to the Security Council in February 2003. Powell testified that Iraq had WMD’s, even though Tenet, sitting behind him like a “potted plant,” knew that the evidence was tailored to fit the policy. 

Despite the facts, McGovern said, the Bush propaganda took hold.

“69% of the American population believed that Iraq was responsible for 9/11 and 85% of American military troops believe it today.”

This, he said, “…is the consequence of lies.” 

The Bush Administration awarded Tenet the Presidential Medal of Freedom in December 2004.

Turning to the possibilities for a moral posture toward Iraq and the Iraqi people, McGovern asked, “How should a Judeo-Christian look at this?”

His academic background led him to the conclusion that “justice comes before peace.”  A group of US Catholic Bishops took a stand on poverty saying,  “No one is entitled to more when there are those who have less.”

George Keenan, the US Charge’ d'Affairs in Moscow after WWII, introduced an equation between the rich and the poor at the beginning of the Cold War.  Keenan was the architect of the strategy of nuclear deterrence.  “In 1948,” Keenan wrote, “the US comprised 10% of the world population and controlled 50% of the world’s wealth. The problem is that we need to figure out how to hold on to it.”

McGovern expressed his dismay when speaking with Americans who are comfortable with this way of thinking.  He was shocked recently to hear a young man say the attack on Iraq was justified: “…we needed the oil, right? If we lose five or six people it will be worth it.”

“What if it was your son?” McGovern asked.

The young man hadn’t thought of that and then firmly stated, “It wouldn’t be my son.”

This was not the Judeo Christian answer McGovern was looking for in the American way of thinking. Instead he referred his audience to the Christian Evangelist, Tony Campolo, who advised State Department officials to address the grievances of the terrorists.

“The claim that God directs American foreign policy is tantamount to taking God’s name in vain,”  McGovern exclaimed.  “The American way of thinking is subconsciously rooted in a penurious mind.”

“The Administration corrupted the truth and used it to co-opt the US Congress into eviscerating the power granted to them by the Constitution.”

Should Americans respond with anger or patience to such evidence as the 10 Downing Street memo?  McGovern turned to the Christian philosopher, Thomas Aquinas, who said there is no word to  denote a response between the extremes of virtue and anger. He said anger can be tempered by the virtue of justice and should not be delayed by unreasoning patience. In the presence of an evil, he warned, even good people risk the danger of sowing the seeds of injustice by committing sins of omission.

Turning to the Scripture once more, McGovern illustrated his point with the story of the Good Samaritan. Jesus was angry, he concluded, with those who did nothing for the fallen traveler.

He said Americans are onlookers. They don’t believe that what they see on TV can be real. They don’t realize that they “…carry a knapsack of power on their backs…if they did…then they would risk it.”

McGovern closed his address by comparing the behavior of the German people prior to WWII to USA today.

Referring to the recent passage of laws that undercut privacy and habeas corpus, McGovern noted the behavior of Germans during the rise to power by the Third Reich. McGovern lived in Germany for several years.  He asked Germans why they could stand by while people like Dietrich Bonhoefer, the Lutheran seminarian, who gave his life for  speaking publicly against Hitler.  He spoke of Albrecht Haushofer, a University geology professor, who left a sonnet behind for his SS executioners to find titled, “Guilt.”  “I reined in my judgment too long…and today I know what I was guilty of.”

“Live up to the faith commitment like your neighbors, the Amish,” McGovern pleaded, “there is another way.”  He warned, “However, sometimes we are too late. We have only a few weeks to make a change.”

Peter J. Schmiechen, President Emeritus of the Lancaster Theological Seminary, spoke next.  He  and Dr. William Ayers, Director of the Center for Global Citizenship at Elizabethtown College, were selected to respond to McGovern’s speech. President Schmiechen  presented a moral plan for the US withdrawal from Iraq.

1. We must be open and honest about US motives.
2. We must admit we are sinners—the US has made mistakes, which we do not admit.
3. We need to talk to our enemies. We don’t.
4. We need to build alliances.
5. We need to be aware of the warfare between Christians and Muslims.
6. We need to admit that both have killed thousands.
7. We need to confront our self-righteousness.
8. We need to realize that peace is something you do with your enemies. 
9. We need to come to the conclusion that enough blood has been shed.

Dr. Ayers quoted Lord Acton’s remark to Bishop Creighton, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” He went on to say that power has corrupted our minds. “We don’t know the difference between a claim and an opinion. A claim requires proof. Intellectual corruption," he said, “leads to moral corruption.”

McGovern responded to Schmiechen’s proposal. McGovern said there were two options on the table: staying the course or withdrawal. The first option won’t work: “look what happened in Vietnam.” The second option is more complicated. It was too late, for example, to respond to 9/11 in a more Christian way. So he addressed his audience on their own ground. He said that when their children were young, he and his wife could never go out at night. Their children didn’t want them to leave. The kids would throw up a ruckus and spoil everything for everybody. One night, he and his wife were determined to go out. So they sat the children down and told them that they were going out no matter what happened.  The children explained that once they were gone, one or the other would start a fight.  Ray looked at them and said, “If that’s what happens, just work it out.”  And they did.

About William Ayres

R. William Ayres is the Director of the Center for Global Citizenship and an Associate Professor of International Relations at Elizabethtown College.

Prior to coming to Elizabethtown, he was founder and Director of the International Relations Program at the University of Indianapolis; he has also taught previously on the faculties of St. Mary's College of Maryland and the University of Mississippi.

He has published numerous scholarly articles, book chapters, monographs, and newspaper articles on international conflict and conflict resolution, ethnic violence, and US foreign policy.

Dr. Ayres received a BA ( magna cum laude ) in political science from Williams College, where he was also elected into Phi Beta Kappa; and an MA and PhD in political science from The Ohio State University.

Dr. Peter J. Schmiechen is President Emeritus at Lancaster Theological Seminary.