catapult magazine

Cuba:

We already can’t buy good cigars here anymore. What more do you want? How much more must we sacrifice??

hmmmm. I always figured the republicans believe Santa only brings presents to the rich — the poor get coal in their stockings. Then again, maybe I am getting the republicans confused with the grinch.

Yeah, I think Republicans typically want a big government when it comes to military defense, but when it comes to money, they believe it ought to be left up to the free market.

If we’re talking about a Christian role in these issues of war and government, however, as Rob is attempting to do, I’m still awfully perplexed about the whole thing. Christians seemed to ignore the doings of Rome in the early church, and even preached against the Jewish focus on revolting against Rome. One might even say that Christianity saw the Roman empire as a good thing for Christianity (Paul used his Roman citizenship a few times to get out of tight spots). Though it is clear that Christianity does not strive for stability at all costs. I don’t think we can or should talk about peace in this way as Christians.

i’m not saying that we, as christians, should be seeking peace for the sake of stability. we should be seeking peaceful solutions to these issues for the sake of justice.

i mean, if we were to attack iraq today, we would inevitably kill hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent iraqi citizens who have nothing to do with the tyrannical iraqi government. seeing each one of these people as children of God, and in some cases brothers and sisters in Christ, makes me want to do everything in our power to avoid using violence as a solution. and i think that whole “what you have done to the least of these” thing applies in cases of war, too.

so my views on pacifism have little to do with striving for some false sense of stability. after the president’s speech last night, i completely agree that something drastic needs to be done. unfortunately, non-violent solutions usually take quite a long time. i think we probably could have done a lot over the past 10 years to work towards a peaceful solution, but we haven’t. as i mentioned earlier, the US is often too short-sighted with foriegn policy.

I don’t think war is noble but I am also not convinced there is anything so wrong about it in the current situation.

Saddam is a threat to us, mistreats his own people, de-stabilizes the region, has lots of oil.

All good reasons to attack. You may question some of those reason, such as whether or not he is a ?real? threat and I think it is very unclear. But the potential threat is worth preventing.

Now the downside is some innocent people will suffer. That is also true if there is no war (innocent people suffer in Iraq right now). Plus we will be hated by parts of the world community (also, this is currently true, although this is the biggest downside and is a whole area that need to be addressed in this crisis and in many other areas by the American leadership).

The upside seems greater than the downside. Saddam is out, some new form of government is in (this may be risky but again worth it), oil supplies are opened.

You may say in response to my comments that war would often be justified under my rationale. You could be correct. However, in many other situations there are more diplomatic options that just do not exist in this case ? years of dealing with this situation have proven otherwise. But generally, war may be justified in other situations as well.

What happened to all the realist (in the political science sense of the term)? Do citizens/Christians feel good about being anti-war? Is that enough justification?

I am serious, I think every person and nation deserves to be treated justly but maybe the best path to this is by some more realism insert on the world scene.

War is hell (apparently from what people say, although I think it most of us think war movies are cool so we really do not know what the hell we are talking about) but it may be a reality of this life.

We do not have to go to war, but then we have to live with the current situation and from my limited understanding I think that is not an option. We can try to avoid war but I suggest that keeping the use of force as an option is an important card in the deck toward avoiding war. I think we should play that card in this situation and be willing to bear the risks and learn from it.

People will likely die. That is evil, bad, sucks. But that is life (or at least the end of it). I say we need to stop being such politically correct wimps and be more realistic hawks.

What do you think? If you disagree and think realism is never a Christian option please explain why (with something more convincing than God loves peace because peace is the goal of everyone, including the hardcore realist).

I agree that anti-war advocates don’t often seem to be basing their arguments in cold, harsh, depraved reality.

I also don’t know if it’s a Christian’s responsibility to make sure people are never killed. Ever. Under any circumstances. There’s got to be a balance between being complete pushovers and playing God.

Rob- Sometimes justice doesn’t always have a peaceful solution. Taking out Saddam would give “the least of these” or Iraqi citizens in this case freedom to choose their own government. It is true, though, that not every nation chooses democracy.

It should be noted that the US never intentionally kills civilians for the sake of killing civilians. Iraq knows they are probably getting invaded, so if I was a smart Iraqi, I wouldn’t hang out at the weapons plants, etc.

Is there a danger of innocent lives being lost? Of course, but there is a much greater danger of innocent lives being lost when Saddam decides to pay back Israel and friends with a few nukes.

We also have a responsibility as Christians to defend God’s chosen people, Israel. I know salvation is for Jew and Greek now, but Israel is still special to God. I haven’t studied what the Scriptures say about Israel now, but maybe that’s something that we as Christians should be more informed about.

Anybody else feel really uncomfortable with the idea of protecting God’s chosen people Israel? That’s the zionist idea that makes the U.S. out to be the bully. Not that reputations are everything, but “protecting the chosen” seems to put the focus on everybody but those who need it most.
And again, I don’t think there has been any strong evidence that Iraq has intentions of nuking Israel or the U.S. If there is any possibility of threat by Iraq (I believe Dan mentioned this a while back, my apologies if I’m wrong) it may be in retaliation to what the U.S. or Israel does to them. Ultimately, I honestly believe Saddam thinks he’s right. And if he bides his time and lets somebody else make the first move, he would be justified in retaliating. But that’s a retaliation not an actively aggressive first move.
Bush apparently is sending Powell to the U.N. next week Wednesday to disclose the proof we have against Saddam. I hope for the Iraqi’s and the U.S. and everybody else, Bush can wait another week.

Nice to have some other people involved in the discussion! The events of the last two days, including the supportive statements from Vladimir Putin, Hans Blix’s criticism of Iraqi evasiveness, and the repeated refusal of Iraqi scientists to speak to the inspectors, are leading me to think that at least some nations will come around to supporting this effort.

I’m not against the war because it will kill civilians. I’m not even against the war if it’s sanctioned by the UN. I’m against the notion that one nation can ignore international law (signed by the US) by invading another country that hasn’t attacked it. The law doesn’t say you can send in the boys if if another country says something bad about you and you think it might someday attack you.

The next question is: Since the US is the most powerful country in the world, why should it bother observing these laws? Think of it this way. 60 years ago the USA was not the most powerful nation on earth. 60 years from today the USA might be eclipsed by someone else (China?). Put the USA in a position where it is no longer the most powerful country in the world and Americans might not be so excited about the notion that any country can willy nilly strike another country because it has said mean things or could potentially be a threat.

Think about Pakistan, China, and India all bordering each other and a huge threat to each other and saying mean things about each other. Doesn’t anyone else in this group see Bush’s pre-emptive strike doctrine as a dangerous precident?

In light of the events I mentioned at the beginning, I’m hoping it won’t come to that.

I think mrsanniep has hit it on the head when she talks about striking a balance between cold hard reality and idealism. I guess I would argue that if Christians can’t fight for a better world, I don’t know who can. To put it another way, if the cold hard reality approach means I accept the sinfulness of this world and give up until Jesus comes again — I’m not buying. I am trying to imagine how folks who believe that their sins were bought by a guy who died on the cross 2,000 years ago and that as a result, they need to learn to live differently — could be anything but idealists.

Also, iIn defense of the anti-war folks, in this particular circumstance, going to war and being a pushover are not our only two options.

I don’t think educated Christians should be total idealists, though. We all know God doesn’t work things in what we consider “ideal” and perfect ways, because we are constantly trying to understand God’s will in confusing situations. I think we should hope for an ideal result (as heaven is), but the means and methods of getting there aren’t always pretty, nice and easy.