Hi John Paul Jones: Yes, he did kill a lot of people. If the reason for the war was humanitarian, which I can’t see how it was, **we simply killed a lot of people to stop him from killing a lot of people. **
Hi benedict: I can assure you that I would defend you too if you were staring down the barrel of a gun. I might even kill to stop it. In such a situation, there is little time to pull together much of a plan otherwise. As I said before, we had time and resources to do better than that in the case of Saddam. Ahisma (non-violence or non-killing) is a rather complicated aspect of my faith. In other words, one who follows the principles of Ahisma is required to do their duty without hesitation. This means that if you have to kill a lion to stop him from eating a child, then you have to kill the lion. The preferred action would have been to keep the child out of the lions cage in the first place, but having failed at that, your duty is now to kill the lion and you must never fall back from your duty. In the case of Saddam, our duty would have been to be smart and use the resources God gave us properly in the first place. You mentioned the Kurds. Selling him the chemical weapons that he used on the Kurds was the first sin we committed. From there, things unfolded over the next few decades to become a human tragedy on a titanic scale. One that we aided, abetted and set the stage for. In the end, we became the main act. It’s a classic tragedy. From evil, more evil comes.high ideals until your staring down the barrel of a weapon. and again, if i came across you in this situation, im sorry, i wouldnt let you become a martyr. that is MY responsibility before my Creator. and i will defend to the death, your right to hold your views.oh. and just for the record. i am at this time sitting next to an iraqi Catholic who has suffered persecution over here. he has come back to his country to help build it back up. he is glad we are here. as are many many Muslims. i work with them too.
Sufjon: I’m fairly new so I probably missed your earlier explanations. Thanks for explaining. Cheers, JHowHi JHOW: Absolutely, I have explained it many time before:
I am agnostic when it comes to Christianity and Abrahamic religions in general. I am told by the great saints from my faith that all paths to God are equally acceptable to God and that they are to be respected and revered as such. So, I do honor Christianity, but I find it very confusing, especially when I see the dialogs between various Christian groups. There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of agreement beyond some basics. Because of this, I frequent this forum in the hopes that asking questions and occasional engagement of opinion sharing will help me to have a fuller understanding and appreciation of your faith, as well as put me more at ease with it. I fully accept that Jesus was God in human flesh, but beyond that, I find the faith traditions of His followers diverse and somewhat confusing. That may well be attributable to my lack of understanding, but I am certainly trying.
Your friend
Sufjon
It doesn’t take a tremendously vivid imagination to realize what persecution Muslems have faced since 9/11. I have a friend whose heritage derives from Pakistan, but he was born and raised in the U.S.A. Since 9/11, he has not only been detained at every airport security gate through which he’s passed, but also, on four separate occasions, he’s been led to a separate room and put through a full-body search. Re: he’s been stripped naked, and even searched rectally. He has no ties to terrorism, which goes somewhat without saying. Moreover, he isn’t even Muslem–not that one could tell this by his appearance. Now, he’s just one man. But I do think you understand my point. Others like him experience the same treatment, and it is difficult to go through things like this – most men would feel humiliated by such treatment. Not to mention, on occasion he’s missed his flight, as his detainment was long. He had to pay for the new flight, as the airline didn’t honor the reason for his tardiness.i love it when people use the phrase, " its not Christ like to do this or that." really? lets see. he had some harsh things to say about the pharisees. he had some harsh things to say about the sadducees. he called a samaritan woman a dog. he got angry, cursed a fig tree, then proceeded to beat the tar out of the money changers in the temple. the Jesus i follow, is not the watered down weak character those on the left, would have us believe in. the Jesus of the bible is completely different. also he was the one who appeared to Moses in the burning bush. sure did a number on the egyptian king. not to mention all the blood he directed be shed in the promised land, when the israelites entered it.Jesus is not just loving and kind, he also is just. what persecution have the Muslims faced in the U.S. since 9-11? i havent seen any mass murders or torture used against these people. what there is, is people questioning them, and disagreeing with them. is that persecution? what terrible persecution have they faced?
The main thing stopping Iran from being a leader of the Arab world was Iraq. Iran has become much more dangerous to U.S. interests and the free world since Saddam was removed.
It would be nice if we could chalk up terrorist behavior to aberrant pyschology, but the fact is that islamic terrorists are motivated by their understanding of islam. The may hold a minority viewpoint, but they are clearly idealogically driven to do what they do. Also, I might add, very few people, no matter how supportive of the cause, are going to sign up for suicide missions. There are likely many more people sympathetic to the cause than actually particpate (unlike the priest scandals you referenced - where it is hard to imagine anyone supporting what they did).
There are multiple factors at work.
Saddam could not have been removed without military intervention.
Iranians are not Arabs, they are Persian.
Yes, I cannot think of many instances where it wasn’t avoidable. It requires being watchful, doing a lot of work and also diplomacy when possible, Even the 2nd world war was avoidable if we had lifted a finger during the 1930’s to stop the militarization and mobilization of Germany when we could’ve. It wasn’t hard to spot. People were too busy laughing at them because Hitler looked like Charlie Chaplain. We pay our leaders to do better than that.
I am a bit puzzled when you say that Saddam bought WMD’s from us when Bush 1 was in office. Bush was president from Jan 89- Jan 93. The problems with Iraq took place from about the summer of 90 until the end of the Gulf War in early 1991, after which time we imposed sanctions on Iraq, including visits from UN weapons inspectors. So when did Bush decide to sell him some WMD’s? I’d like a source on that one.
Hi jfmarm81:
The purpose to examining their psychology is to understand how they can so misconstrue the Koran. I have attended scholarly lectures on this subject, one of which was presented at the University of Chicago, so rather a reputable (and non-denominational) institution. Scholars have discussed the points in the Koran that the terrorists are identifying as their sources, and their interpretations are quite extremist. Virtually no scholarship has supported the notion that they have a valid interpretation in mind. It is a religion of peace, as are the other two Abrahamic faith traditions.
You are forgetting the other major source of instability in 20-century Europe that no one was willing to deal with: Poland was attacked not just by Hitler, but also the USSR. That Hitler and Stalin had a falling out later was in no way influenced by Western diplomacy - which was ineffective at dealing with either. Comically, the American left was anti-war until the moment Hitler invaded the “other half of Poland” in 1941 (before he hit Soviet territory), at which time it did a rapid 180-degree turn.
Chaplain’s film The Great Dictator wasn’t released until 1940. The shooting (of the movie and the war) began in 1939.
Answer this question: What choice did Poland have but to fight (however briefly- as it turned out)? What right does Germany have to Warsaw? What right does Russia have to Warsaw? What course was left to Britain, but to honor a treaty? Did you really get through grammar school without ever encountering a school-yard bully? Self-defense is not a principle you recognize?
Who am I to say which Islam is more “valid”, the University of Chicago lecture-series-version or the version available here:
Yes, Reagan sounds right…I was thinking you meant when Bush was actually President…The US has had a history of doing what they think is best, and then having to clean up the mess later…Saddam and Noreiga come to mind. That said, I think that at the time, assisting Iraq was the right thing to do during their war with Iran. Iran was (and still is) a more unstable, scary country. Unfortunately, what we did in the early 80’s came back to haunt us a decade earlier.
Hi jfmarm81: Sorry - that was my error in that I wasn’t clear enough on what position Bush was in at the time. Sometimes I get ahead of myself.
