“I Want More than You Want”, by Casey Ferguson

This past weekend I went to see the movie Green Zone with a couple of friends. Heading to the film, I was halfway expecting another Bourne flick: espionage, gun fights, assets and marks. What I got though was a war movie focused on the alleged weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the subjects of much controversy during the Bush administration. The story takes place entirely in Iraq and derives its energy from the tension between various people groups in the country, each of them hoping for differing results from the fighting. The goals vary widely, from hopes for an established democracy, to simply returning the nation to its people; from a soldiers commitment to his duty, to a citizen’s loyalty to his homeland.

Matt Damon plays Chief Miller, an American soldier charged with uncovering the infamous WMDs (weapons of mass destruction). An Iraqi citizen comes to him, looking for help, and they begin working together, each doing his best to cross the cultural divide between them. At the outset it appears they both want the same thing for Iraq: freedom. But soon it becomes clear that this word means two very different things, based on their perspectives. In a heated moment between the two Freddy, the Iraqi citizen, calls Chief Miller out on the carpet, exclaiming, “Whatever you want, I want more than you want!”

I was blown away by this one sentence. To think of an American soldier, dedicated to his work and with good intentions and solid moral convictions, fighting with his very life to make a foreign nation into a better place, and to realize this incredible sense of duty in a good man held nothing in it to rival the love one citizen had for his home.

In his book Orthodoxy,  G.K. Chesterton wrote, “The man who is most likely to ruin the place he loves, is exactly the man who loves it with a reason. The man who will improve the place is the man who loves it without a reason. If a man loves some feature of [America, Iraq], he may find himself defending [America] itself. But if he simply loves [America] itself, he may lay it waste and turn it into the new Jerusalem.”

The question we should be asking ourselves here, I think, is do we love our nation enough to change it? If we do love it, do we have a reason for doing so, due to its liberties and its conveniences, or perhaps because of its culture and its landscape? Or do we love it because it is ours?

There’s no doubting the fact that our nation is undergoing some difficult changes right now, and there are no promises as to how she will fare coming through it all. We’re a land with a history full of blessings and wonderful liberties, and now is the time to question ourselves about the motives behind our patriotism, just when those liberties are looking to be threatened. Do we love our nation because it has been good to us? Or is it good because we have loved it? Do we love it for its beauty, or does its beauty stem from our love for it?