Dang Americans and your filthy “elections.” Bring back the rape rooms! Bring back the mass murder of political opponents! Bring back the good old days of the Baathists! Bring back the Taliban and beheadings of adulturous women in soccer stadiums!

Yeah, that would be MUCH more Christian of us. After all, nothing was wrong with THOSE societies that a little more repression couldn’t have solved over the next few decades.

/sarcasm

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Or alternately, since that would’ve been so STUPID, we could’ve attacked just one of them… you know, the one that had the most reason to hate us, and that had actually agreed _under treaty_ to get rid of its WMDs, and then flouted that treaty every step of the way.

You know, like we did.

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Notice how quickly this argument (again, I take some responsibility) devolved from necessary discussions over the role of scripture to the defense of specific policies and events. This is why it has been impossible to have these arguments in our churches. I’ve heard some very good arguments against the war from Christians, mostly because they refused to participate in the political side of the discussion. We can have the theological debate in a civilized manner, where everyone does their homework and appeals to the same authority (in that case, scripture). Politics has no similar authority. It’s unfortunate.

And I promise not to get into any more of these war brawls in the future

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We didn’t just set up one UN resolution, Brad. There were SEVENTEEN UN resolutions Iraq was in open violation of. One resolution he didn’t honor? Again, Brad, you don’t seem to know what you’re talking about.

“practically hearsay that they had a weapons program”. Hearsay from every intelligence organization who had investigated the issue. No one disagreed prior to the war that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. We’ve since found precursors to chemical weapons and items like centerfuges necessary for nuclear weapons production. Some still claim that chemical weapons were moved to Syria in the long run-up to the war, but that has not been investigated adequately.

You say evidence was shaky, but there have been dozens of mass graves found in Iraq, all of which verify the horrific human rights record of the regime. Iraq had weapons delivery mechanisms which were in clear violation of UN resolutions and the ceasefire. Unlike other nations with similar human rights violations, Iraq was inviolation of its ceasefire agreement and specific UN resolutions. Twelve years of diplomacy with Iraq after the ‘91 war had failed to stop Iraq from its path of destruction. If you can name any other nation with this combination of violations, please do. There aren’t any.

But you’ve been paying attention, Brad, so you already know all this, right? Apparently not. If you really had been listening to what people have been saying, you wouldn’t have mischaracterized nearly every point. All the more reason why it is hard to take you seriously when its so obvious you *haven’t* been listening.

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I actually had listened quite intently to the reasons for the war and didn’t agree that they were robust enough from well before the wars onset.

It was clearly inevitable for quite some time that we’d be going mostly alone (with the exception of a few hundred soldiers from a handful of countries). We basically set up a UN resolution as cover that we knew Hussein wouldn’t honor. I felt it was a bit dishonest to use that then say “well, too bad, we tried!” and run off to war the way we did.

We did have something like 12 reasons, as you say (quantity over quality, I suppose), but they were generally either shaky (it was practically hearsay that they had a weapons program and, hey, who doesn’t have a weapons program?) or they applied to lots of countries (I refer again to countries in South America, Africa, etc…or the other 2, far more dangerous, axes…why does Iraq require a military response and they don’t? Why not take Pat Robertson up on his offer and hit Chavez while we’re at it?).

We have a veritable smorgasbord of options when it comes to undemocratic countries led by dictators. Even Russia is heading that way!

So, basically, I don’t agree that the case we had against Iraq specifically was strong enough to justify the weight, the horror, the infliction of another war.

All that without even getting into other areas like the fact we’ve proven really good at breaking things there but not putting them back together, etc.

Brad

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And if you had really been listening to those who supported this war, you would know that we had a “very, very good, well-thought out and documented cause” for supporting the war. And we did and do believe the war was necessary. The arguments have been made. Have you been listening?

I wasn’t saying that your argument was against the military. But your comment implied that the principles that some of us used to come to the conclusion that war was necessary did not come from Jesus or Scripture (that is, that we should listen to scripture and not Luther or Augustine). I was simply pointing out that that was precisely what we did (and what Augustine and Luther) were doing.

The argument for war did not change over time. There were about twelve reasons offered by the Bush administration for war with Iraq. Let’s note that the New York Times actually complained in an editorial about there being too many reasons (this was prior to the invasion). Among those reasons were to bring democracy to Iraq (which Bush made clear in his 2003 State of the Union address) as well as deposing an evil dictator (2002 and 2003 State of the Union address) and the threat of terrorism/WMD. Those who think the argument was changing seem to either have short memories, or simply weren’t listening.

“There are very few, if any of Jesus’ teachings that can be used to justify the pro-war position.” -trierr

Again, an assertion without argument. Those of us who believe wars can be just in certain circumstances take Jesus seriously in John 15 and Paul seriously in Romans 13. For a Christian, war must be motivated by neighbor love. For those I know who supported invading Iraq, our concern was for the Iraqi people, and remains so. Our concern is also for the people of the Middle East. You may disagree that Christ’s call for neighbor love demands such action, but we can argue that. Perhaps a comment list on a blog is not the ideal forum for such a discussion, but I’m willing to answer questions you have.

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The CPT site is fine but I want to see someone report on what they do. Though if it doesn’t consist of more than complaining about the U.S. military there’s no need to bother.

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Brad

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If it was unjust to start, I would argue that it’s become all about justice - for a people to freely choose rulers of their own and not live in fear of a police state. Some on the left argue that now, the Iraqis are less safe, because of car bombs. If they keep doing that, I’m going to stop calling them “liberals” or even “humanists” and I’ll adopt the labels myself.

My friend Avram wrote: “So, Stephen, do you believe that political agitation can never be God’s work?”
Truthfully, as much as I love politics, politics is not religion, and vice versa. Both the political left and right are guilty of losing sight of that.

As for the “just war” comments being thrown around, no war is just on a human level, and if we were truly a theocracy - we’re not - we would either never wage war because it’s always wrong, or we would likely wage war all the time in God’s name.

Since we’re not a theocracy, we don’t make decisions based solely on one Leader’s views of the Bible, even though, obviously (or maybe not,) Godly men and women in government make decisions based on their own views of right, and that often includes their views of God’s will.

I don’t know why that simple fact seems so odd to some people, and why it’s become political fodder, but it is, and it does.

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Brad

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Oh, that’s right… a Jew’s. Or yours.

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That’s quite an important distinction, as your response implies I am against the very existence of our military. I realize we do need a good defense and, therefore, people to carry it out.

We have had wars that we clearly had to fight, though I would argue the most recent before Afghanistan was probably WWII (though I admit my history on the Korean war is a bit shaky, so that one *could* qualify, too).

I think, as Christians, we have to be exceptionally skeptical and questioning of supporting the slaughter of otehrs without very, very good, well-thought out and documented cause. I have followed international affairs for over 10 years now and I could tell well before we went that, though the desire on the part of the administration to go to war was certainly there early, the evidence wasn’t (and certainly there never has been evidence that they posed the greatest threat).

Brad

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It is true that Saddam Hussein is a monster, but as others have noted, there are, unfortunately, many other monsters out there. The fact that Jesus noted that there would be wars is by no means justification to instigate or even participate in wars. Pacifism only makes sense of in the context of a God who will judge. The NT makes several statements about giving God time to act out his judgment and the OT notes that this judgment make take generations(!).

The war in Iraq was sold as a just war, and some of you have bought it hook, line and sinker. But the truth is that the war fails to live up to just war standards. It is questionable whether it is win-able.

It is now clear that the war was started under false pretenses: Al Qaeda was not in Iraq until after the war started. Face it, Hussein had an entirely secular dictatorship and if it weren’t for the war, everything he stood for was opposed by Al Qaeda. And those WMD that some like to imagine are still there have NEVER been found. Absolutely nothing, not even a trailer nor hardly a bag of fertilizer. As for proportional response, even our own statistics show over 10 times the number of civilians killed compared to our own military. There is no way this can still be considered a just war.

But what should be truly news-worthy is the lack of response to the hostage situation by the prominent evangelical groups. There hasn’t been a word in Baptist press, not a single word on FOTF’s website nor on FRC’s website and CBN’s has ONE article. Why is this? Why aren’t evangelicals speaking out about this?

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So please understand that your suggestion that people get “our ideas for how to live and what to support more from Jesus himself” and the writers of scripture, comes across as a bit arrogant. We are getting our ideas from scripture and biblical writers. Yes, even those of us who supported war in Iraq because we gave great thought to it and decided that it was indeed a just war.

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We can’t quote those 2 as if they are sacred Scripture.

I would propose, by the way, a good reading of Ron Sider’s new book, “Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience.” It certainly comes from a conservative evangelical perspective, but also really delivers a blow to our preferred, less talked about sins, such as materialism and racism (some of the stats on the extent to which Evangelicals partake in these and sexual sins are quite disturbing).

Brad

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