They say we have most to fear from true believers. We also have most to hope from true believers. Adolph Hitler was a true believer in a false kingdom of Aryan supremacy. Martin Luther King was a true believer in the equality of all men and women created equal by an inclusive God. The kamikaze suicide bombers of the Second World War were true believers in the glory of the Emperor and the ultimate reward for those who died for their empire. Mother Teresa was a true believer in the all-embracing love of God and the command of Jesus to love others as He had loved us.

However, it does matter what you believe. To understand the tragic events of September the eleventh one must understand the nature of all-consuming belief. When the terrorist knowingly self-sacrifices himself in dedication to a cause, the people he takes with him are not seen by him as the innocent victims of his madness but as the participants in a culture he has demonised. When Bin Laden promotes insane terrorism he sees it as an assault on Satan. If and when George W Bush kills Bin Laden he will not be murdering a father and a grandfather, he will be destroying evil.

Please understand I have no sympathy for the madness of terrorism, being a serious follower of Jesus. Nor do I lack tears of compassion for my American friends, with whom I have spent the last three weeks, observing the grief and utter fear that has swept the nation. But in the midst of the high rhetoric of war against terrorism I find myself disturbed that one nation's patriot is so often another nation's terrorist. It really does depend what you believe.

E-mail from an American friend recounted the admission by the U.S. Secretary of State that America's actions against Iraq had been devastating on the children of that nation. Check out Madeleine Albright's reply to Lesley Stahl on "60 Minutes" on May 12, 1996. Stahl: "We have heard that a half a million children have died [because of sanctions against Iraq]. I mean that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And -- you know -- is the price worth it?"

Albright: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price -- we think the price is worth it."

Edward S. Herman, seeking to contextualise Islamic terrorism in recent decades, remarks as follows: "In this case, however, although the numbers dead are mind-boggling, the ratio of dead Iraqi children to deaths in the WTC/Pentagon bombings was better than 80 to 1, using the now obsolete early 1996 number for Iraqi children -- the mainstream media and intellectuals have not found Albright's rationalisation of this mass killing of any interest whatsoever. The phrase has been only rarely cited in the mainstream, and there has been no indignation or suggestion that the mass killing of children in order to satisfy some policy end was immoral and outrageous. Try to imagine how the mainstream U.S. media and intellectuals would respond to the disclosure that at an early planning meeting of the terrorists responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon, the question had come up about whether the "collateral damage" of prospectively thousands of dead civilians wouldn't be excessive, but that the matter had been settled with the top leader's response: "we think the price is worth it"?

Suppose further that the terrorists' leaders then set out to make their case to their followers, arguing that it was extremely important to show the citizens of the Great Satan that they were not immune to attack on their own land; that they could not continue to bomb others freely and support the violent states of their choice without suffering some retaliation themselves. The terrorists argue that, as the Great Satan has been conducting low- (and often not so low) -intensity wars against the Third World and Arab states for decades, the planned attacks would be both just and legal under international law, justifiable under the UN Charter's grant of the right of self-defence, which He has relied on so often to excuse his own unilateral actions.

The leaders argue further that since the symbolic value of showing the Great Satan's vulnerability by attacking the WTC and Pentagon would be greatly enhanced by taking out several thousand civilians, this must be regarded as acceptable collateral damage. Finally, imagine the terrorists' leaders explaining to their followers that for the sake of global peace and security -- no less than the welfare of peoples the world over -- it is crucial to raise the costs of imperial violence, and help persuade the Great Satan's population to ask Him to terminate His wars. This, the terrorist leaders argue, would in the long run save far more lives than those lost in the bombing of the WTC and Pentagon...

Wouldn't the mainstream media and intellectuals be wild with indignation at the inhumanity of the terrorists' cold-blooded calculus? Wouldn't they respond in one voice that it is absolutely immoral, evil, and indefensible per se to kill civilians on a massive scale to make a political point? And as to the terrorists' underlying argument that the attacks were justified both as retaliation for the Great Satan's ongoing wars and as part of an effort to curb His imperial violence, wouldn't this be rejected as outlandish? Wouldn't establishment spokespersons rush to claim that despite occasional regrettable mistakes, this country has behaved well in international affairs; has intervened abroad only in just causes, and is the victim of terrorism, not a terrorist state or supporter of terrorism?

And it also is [rightly] stressed that it is immoral and outrageous to even SPEAK of a "just cause" or give any kind of legitimisation for a terrorist action such as occurred in New York and Washington? That the only question in such a case of violence is "who," not "why"? (These last two sentences are a paraphrase of the indignant argument of a U.S. liberal historian.) And in fact, across the board the U.S. mainstreamers have refused to talk about "why" except for superficial denunciations of an irrational enemy that hates democracy.

Since the morning hours of Tuesday, September 11, the civilian dead in the WTC/Pentagon terrorist bombings have been the subject of the most intense, detailed and humanising attention, making the horrendous suffering clear and dramatic and feeding in to the sense of outrage. In contrast, the hundreds of thousands of children dead in Iraq are very close to invisible, their suffering and dying are out of sight; and whereas the ratio of Iraqi children killed by sanctions to WTC/Pentagon deaths was better than 80 to 1, the ratio of media space devoted to the Iraqi children and WTC/Pentagon deaths has surely been better than 500 to one in favour of the smaller WTC/Pentagon casualties. Pictures of sufferers and expressions of pain and indignation have been in a similar ratio. The UN workers in Iraq like Dennis Halliday who have resigned in disgust at the effects of the "sanctions of mass destruction" have been given minimal space in the media to inform the public and express their outrage.

The "who" in the case of the Iraqi mass deaths is clear -- overwhelmingly the U.S. and British leadership -- but the "who" here is irrelevant because of how the "why" is answered. This is done implicitly. Madeleine Albright said that the deaths are worth it because U.S. policy finds this to be so -- and with Albright saying this is "why," that settles the matter for the media. Their indignation at the immorality of killing civilians as collateral damage to make a political point ends, because the Iraqi children die by U.S. policy choice -- and in this case the media will not even allow the matter to be discussed. The per se unreasonableness of killing civilians as collateral damage is quietly set aside (reminding one of how the Soviet's shooting down of KAL 007 in 1983 was per se barbarian, but the U.S. shooting down of Iranian airliner 655 in 1988 was a "tragic error"). The media focuses on whether Saddam Hussein will allow UN inspections to prevent him getting "weapons of mass destruction," rather than on the mass death of children. (And of course the media regularly fail to note that the United States and Britain had helped Saddam Hussein obtain such weapons in the 1980s, and didn't object to his using them, until he stopped following orders in August 1990.)

Because the media make the suffering and death of 500,000 children invisible, similar outrage to that produced by the intense coverage of the WTC/Pentagon bombing victims does not surface on their behalf. The liberal historian who was so indignant at even asking "why" for the WTC/Pentagon bombings and argued that only "who" was pertinent has said nothing about the immorality of killing Iraqis; he is not interested in "who" in this case, partly because he does not have to see dying Iraqi children every day, and partly because his government has answered the "why" to his satisfaction -- justifying mass death. Is it not morally chilling, even a bit frightening, that he, and the great mass of his citizen compatriots, can focus with such anguish and indignation on their own 6,000 dead, while ignorant of, or not caring about, or approving his (their) own government's ongoing killing of scores of times as many innocents abroad?"

Truly the kingdoms on all sides of this world bear little resemblance to the Kingdom of our Jesus, who gave his life not to take others' lives but to be a ransom for a world which stubbornly resists his call to all sides to love your enemy and heap goodness on those who do bad to us. One wonders what the result of dropping a few billion dollars worth of food, medical supplies, building materials and other goodies all over Afghanistan in the name of Jesus, and with love from America, would do to undermine the brutal insanity of the Taliban. In the meantime I find myself gently weeping and repeating, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

Yours soberly & painfully,
John Smith

John Smith is an author, lecturer, counsellor, family man, business and convention speaker, church planter and pastor. Best known as International President of GodŐs Squad Christian Motorcycle Club and presenter of Values For Life Schools seminars for over 33 years, he is Superintendent Minister of St Martin's Community Church, and Executive Director of Care & Communication Concern, a non-profit Christian mission outreach and counselling organisation based in Melbourne, Australia. He is committed to research, writing and intelligent presentation of the Christian faith in the public arena. Specialising in advocacy and ministry to the marginalised both rich and poor, educated and uneducated. Music performing and visual arts and other aspects of culture have been a major focus. John has fought to rebuild a bridge between theology, philosophy, social sciences and Biblical studies.