Christmas in August.

US Ambassador Khalilzad on Georgia...
(No mention of Georgia's attacks on civilians August 8th.)

"[W]e must condemn the Russian military assault in the sovereign state of Georgia, the violation of the countries sovereignty and territorial integrity including the targeting of civilians and the campaign of terror against the Georgian population. Similarly, we need to condemn the destruction of Georgian infrastructure and violations of the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity."

Ambassador Khalilzad further asked, "Was Russia's objective regime change in Georgia, the overthrow of the democratically elected government of that country?"
After all, he contended, the bad old days of tossing out governments of other nations were over.

Hmmm...Lets see...

CIA-supported coup against Iran's (elected) government in 1953 that brought the shah to power.
In 1963 Washington greenlighted the coup against South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, which resulted in his execution.
For nearly a half century Washington has been attempting to overthrow Fidel Castro.

In the 1980s the Reagan administration funded and armed a guerrilla force in an attempt to oust the Nicaraguan government.
In 1983 the U.S. invaded Grenada to remove a government viewed as inimical to American interests.
Six years later the U.S. invaded Panama to arrest its head of state. In Somalia in 1993 Washington decided to arrest local warlords – the de facto government – whom it disliked.

In 1994 the U.S. not only ousted the existing Haitian government, but put a new regime in its place.
A decade later the U.S. intervened to oust the same (elected) leader.
In 1999 the U.S. and NATO launched a war against Serbia to give autonomy, and ultimately independence, to the territory of Kosovo, supporting a violent secessionist movement which then ethnically cleansed hundreds of thousands of Serbs. The U.S. backed an unsuccessful coup in 2002 against Venezuela's (elected) President Hugo Chavez.

That same year President George W. Bush simultaneously targeted Iraq, Iran, and North Korea for regime change, terming them members of the "Axis of Evil."
A year later he invaded Iraq and ousted Saddam Hussein.

I'm reminded of a Christmas sermon by William H. Willimon.

So when you think about it, in our context, it is odd in a way that so many of us should flock to church on a Christmas Eve. It is a bit strange that we should think that, in Christmas, we hear such unadulteratedly good news, that we should feel such warm feelings, and think that we are closer to God now than at any other time of the year.

I guess we ought to be of the same frame of mind as our cousin, King Herod. When he heard the word about the first Christmas, the Gospels say that he was filled with fear. Give Herod credit. He knew bad news when he heard it. He knew that the songs that the angels sang meant an attack upon his world, God taking sides with those on the margins, the people in the night out in the fields, the oppressed and the lowly.

But for the people up at the palace, the well fixed, the people on top, the masters of the Empire, Christmas was bad news. And many of them were perceptive enough to know it.

So maybe that is why we cover up Christmas with cheap sentimentally, turn it into a saccharine celebration. Maybe, in our heart of hearts, we know that Christmas means that God may not be with the Empire, but rather the Empire may be on a shaky foundation, and that, if we told the story straight, as the Bible tells it, we might have reason, like Herod (when he heard about the first Christmas) to fear.