A Christian approach to war

Al Qaeda didn't have any planes of their own... they borrowed ours.

Saddam Hussein had two things that made him dangerous. Wealth and will. Virtually everyone thought he had already combined these to build a WMD inventory.

We know that Saddam rewarded the families of suicide terrorists and that he was seeking terrorist alliances to strike at the US. (per Putin no less)

The primary difference between Iraq and other threats was that Saddam had already used Chem/Bio weapons- against his own countrymen and other Muslims. The sanctions were already being subverted by our supposed allies. Once they were lifted, there is little doubt that the US and US interests would have been a prime target for him.

No. I am suggesting that something better get done and soon.

I would like to think that Europe would actually do some of the heavy lifting at some point. However that seem pretty far-fetched... they may even assess with some merit that they will not be a target- just the US and Israel.

If we don't do something militarily, which at this point could be as little as knocking down their nuke facilities, we had better start pouring money into a missile defense system.

 

Yep. And the scumbags who flew them were mostly from Saudi Arabia. Al Quaeda hated Saddam Hussein, as he kept them suppressed in his country. Now they have a good recruitment ground there.

 

You are entitled to your opinion.

Tell that to Jehovah and the Israelites.

Oh, well, they were right to try and defeat the spread of Islam. Unfortunately, they were unsuccessful and killed Jews, too.

No, the cause of the East and West problems are still the spread of Islam by the sword and the root cause of all evil which is sin. This is the third jihad.

True. But sometimes weapons of this world are used under the permission or guidance of God Almighty in order to stand against evil. Look at David and Goliath. And also take a look at the Book of Revelation when Jesus Christ Himself comes back to destroy the wicked and nations.

That is the cost of war. On the other hand, our times for life and death are in God's Hands. He holds the keys. For the Christian, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. If some nation or some terrorist decides to nuke America one day and I happen to be vaporized, I will be absent from here but present with the Lord.

Salt and light mean taking a stand against evil. Look at the purposes from layman's terms of salt and light. Let's take salt:

Salt is used to save lives (normal saline intravenously).

Salt is used to heal (salt water rinses after a tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy and tooth extractions).

Salt is used to season and flavor.

Salt is used to preserve. (meats and pickling)

Too much salt can be toxic, though. An example of that would be if we tried to FORCE the Gospel of Jesus Christ onto people. Which is not what we are trying to do in Iraq. We ARE taking a stand against evil and we will win. Good will always win over evil in the end.

 

So, the righteous purpose of the US government is to find evil anywhere in the world and send our kids to die fighting it?

 

We are going to be busy.

 

The Righteous purpose of the US government is to protect the best interests of the US and its allies. Sometimes, we send our kids to dies fighting for our best interests.

 

Johnv,

Your statement does not carry much meaning in the discussion, IMO, because the definition of "best interests of the US and its allies" is wide open.

And, allies aren't much good if all they do is get you sucked into war.

 

A point worth noting is that there is a difference between Iraq and al-Qaeda. I have yet to see anyone give anything but speculation that there was a direct link between the two.

Yet, nobody listened to Scott Ritter.

All of this have been repeated over and over, yet the simple fact remains that there is no evidence of the WMD that were the basis for this war. If he had them, he would not have hesitated using them on an invading army. After all, by your own admission, he used them "against his own countrymen and other Muslims."

Do you think that this will stop them? Before you answer that, remember what happened to Iraq back in the early '80's. Knocking down a nuke facility will only give them greater resolve, as it will be spun to reinforce their belief in America as "the great Satan." How will that help Israel? [As someone who supports Israel politically and financially, this is an area of concern for me.]

BTW, read what is being said concerning the data supporting the recent statements by the SoS.

Thanks for the reply. I enjoyed your post.

 

Thank you, PA Jim, that is not what I said nor did I imply that.

Frankly, I wish the world wasn't the way it is. But it is. There was a picture of two of our marines laying on a bed in their battle gear, catching a snooze in one of the bedrooms of a house in Fallujah.

I was thinking how these are our kids and the people they are fighting are probably for the most part just about the same age. If it wasn't for the "evil," if it wasn't for the "brainwashing and blindness," if it wasn't for the ideology of allah, they would probably be eating snacks, laughing, joking, and playing video games together instead of trying to kill each other. It is all so sad.

I didn't want us to go to Iraq. Those of you who have been on the board for a long time, can remember that. You newer members don't know that. I have always had mixed feelings about it - can see both sides to it. But the fact remains that we are there. Only history will judge whether or not it was the right thing to do, because we can't "know" for sure. But ultimately, one day we will see history from God's point of view, He who knows the beginning from the end.

It may be such a thing that there were no WMDs (I think there were, but we aren't meant to find them), or maybe they were there and were shipped out to Syria. But the fact remains, we took down an evil regime. Clinton took down Milsovec, but there was not the outcry from the left about that, as there is now. The left was silent. And in doing that, we did help the Muslims there in that part of the world - even though, as Milosevic testifed at his trial, he had documents he showed from the CIA that the people he was killing were al Qaeda. But that was long before 09/11, before ordinary people had heard of al Qaeda. The fact remains, there were multiple mass graves throughout that country, just as there are in Iraq.

No, we are not to be the world's policeman, but one thing I do know - there are people getting saved in Iraq right now. Some of the Iraqi people are hearing the Gospel and giving their hearts to Jesus Christ. For the first time in history, a Baptist Church has been established in Baghdad. There are some Muslim people who are hungry for the truth, for finding Jesus Christ. And some of our sons and daughters in the military are finding Jesus Christ. So, if even ONE person is born again and finds new life in Jesus Christ through all of this, even only ONE person, it was worth going into Iraq for, isn't it? Oh, yes, perhaps there was some other way that could have happened, but the fact is, this is the way it happened. With the war.

It is right to be patriotic and to look at our nation in the light of world events, responsibilities, cost of our soldiers being maimed and dying, the cost to taxpayers, the cost of doing business, who profits and who loses, and all else that is concerning the cares of this world. It is not only right, it is prudent, if we are not to be careless. Our sons and daughters and their life blood is so precious to us. As a nation, we have a tradition of placing value on the lives of our soldiers, as well we should. We should not use our military strength and might carelessly. We should not throw our young sons and daughters into harm's way carelessly.

But as believers, shouldn't we look at the whole situation from eternity's point of view? Think of it! If there was only ONE soul who would be saved from eternal damnation and hell through the death of Jesus Christ on the Cross of Calvary, He would have still gone there for that ONE soul. If only ONE soul comes to know Jesus Christ because we are in Iraq, and there have been far more than one, from eternity's view point, it was worth it.

True, we have set up an Islamic government in Iraq. But right now, there is a window of opportunity for people to hear the Gospel and get saved. Right now. Only the Gospel of Jesus Christ can win the hearts and minds of people on this earth - no matter where they live or where they come from or where they have been.

 

LadyEagle??? When did you "surrender" to preach????

Your post is two up!!

 

With God anything is possible. But, I wonder how many will accept Jesus as preached to them by the people that they probably view as Christian invaders. Christians have gotten quite the "crusader" image over the last 500 years. Most of the world view us as very warlike.

Does this give the gospel of Jesus Christ or God glory?

I don't think Jesus would approve of His gospel being delivered from the end of a barrel or dropped from 20,000 feet in the dead of night.

Other than that I agree with Pa Jim. We as a nation have to lead by example, so what example are we setting today?

If the world views us as a Christian nation and I think maybe they do have we done right by the gospel to fabricate "reasons" to change any regime we feel doesn't live up to our "standards". I hear people say that muslims are evil for spreading Islam by the sword but aren't we doing the same thing here? Isn't that the statement were making by trying to spread democracy the same way the soviets tried to spread communism?

I'm not saying we fabricated the terrorists all together but we didn't try very hard to put them out of business before 911. When it would have been easier to set a standard. We should have come down on them long, hard and conitunously from the time we first heard of them.

Instead our elected public servants used the fear of terrorism to get their long awaited crime bills and constitution shredding laws enacted. All while dancing a jig and singing a song to manipulate our emotions to get us ready to take over the control of the middle east with all of it's glorious riches just waiting to be taken.

 

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=9013294


An interesting read here:

http://earlyamerica.com/review/2002_winter_spring/terrorism.htm

Terrorism is not new to America and we did not fabricate them.

 

No we didn't fabricate them as I said "all together" but we sure didn't make it hard for the Taliban to come to power or the Mujahideen to train their children in Jihad. We supplied the textbooks to them. Yes your tax dollars helped to educate them in the ways of Jihad. With a "liberal" amount of drug money of course.

Another Good Read

 

Poncho

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

Really?

How about unsaved soldiers who have been sent to an eternity in Hell, instead of having sixty more years to hear the gospel?

And, even if that weren't the sad truth, the ends does not justify the means. Killing thousands of people isn't a very good evangelistic tool IMO.

 

Oh, I agree with you, poncho. But if you bring up the textbooks supplied by our tax dollars in Afghanistan, you (generic) will be accused of being a Bush basher by some here. And if you bring up the fact that madrassas in the United States like in Virginia and New Jersey are teaching young Muslims in the US to do a jihad against the US and Israel, you are accused of not allowing them free speech under our US Constitution.

At any rate, it looks like we've veered off the course of what this thread was to be discussing, (me included), which is the "Christian Approach to War."

As far as the conspiracy theories, I agree with some of them. Not all.

Did you see the video where the first official Muslim entourage from Baghdad went to Vatican City and kissed the hand of the pope on Monday, November 15th? It's on the web. (Reuters, I believe)

All headed for the One World Religion and One World Government, as prophesied.

Til Jesus Comes,
LE

 

I guess your complaint will have to be to God - for HE is the one who holds the keys to life and death, PA Jim. The circumstances of when we die or how we die are ultimately up to Him. That's what is called a straw man argument.

I never said it was.

 

But you are the one who presumed to judge that the war was "worth it" if one person came to Christ. My point is that you have no way to determine that...God does, as you point out.

Killing thousands of people to bring about a convert seems more along the lines of Sunni Muslims than Christians.