Some of us in the church have begun to feel like captives on an Alfred Hitchcock movie set — so many fellow believers are putting stock in every word the Bush Administration is saying!
The following can be useful in proving that the reasons given for the Iraq war are lies. There are those who believe that the election of ’04 was a “moral victory.” Here’s my question for them: Is it moral to lust to rule the entire world, and develop the most costly, deadly arsenal in history to do it?
Unfortunately, that question is not overstated, because Dick Cheney satisfies this description and can tell you all about it in his own words. He and other top members of Bush’s administration (Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz) have publicly posted their ambitions on the internet since 1997 at NewAmericanCentury.org. The purpose of the material on that website is to explain a massive build-up of armaments by the U.S.
The “Statement of Principles” page is the one which bears Cheney’s signature and others. They pull no punches – the goal is that the U.S. should actively seek to rule the world. Interestingly, since it was written in 1997 (long before 9/11), the amount of attention dedicated to defense or terrorism is much less than concerns about economic dominance. This is one very telling article, on account of its date, because what the administration would now have us believe is that all the military build-up is about terrorism. This article confirms that military build-up was the plan long ago.
Further giving the lie to arguments about going to war because of Saddam Hussein is some text in the “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” document, dated June 3, 2000. Note that this was also published before 9/11. There we read the following concerning Saddam Hussein (emphasis mine):
“… Though the immediate mission of those forces is to enforce the no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq, they represent the long-term commitment of the United States and its major allies to a region of vital importance. Indeed, the United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.” (page 26 of Acrobat download (right column), which is page 14 in the text of the document)
Why take another’s word for it? Let the architects of the Iraq slaughter tattle on themselves.
This is a sorrowful time, to see so many in the church being duped by lies. As one friend put it, “it’s like they’re all under a spell.” Let’s all pray that some information like this might open a few eyes.
Sorry, severy error in translating my thoughts from German – use of false friends:
Instead of “… the Bassa Selim, who has caught in this shadow of sense over the dull course of natural life …” please substitute “meaning” for “sense”.
I have got to paste an afterthought. From the moment I was struck by the idea that those neocom guides to a new morality are virtually crucifying Christ again, I tattled on and quite forgot about my original design.
All along digesting the rantings of Coulter, Dobson and congenials (you have to ruminate about such things, it’s like a piece of hardcore sex and crime, at least as bad), some comparison ever kept afloat in my mind, fit to throw a light on why neocon partisanship in „Christian warfare“ is really a violation of our calling to show mercy. I thought of the finale setting in W.A. Mozart’s „Singspiel“ (small opera, „chanticle“, don’t know the correct term) „Abduction from Seraglio“. The re-abduction of his confiscated bride thwarted, the hero finds himself at the mercy of the Turkish Bassa, a muslim renegade, who just tells our hero he would lust after revenge for some insidious dealings he had suffered from the hero’s father long ago. But in the end, he dismisses all the captives with the words: „I despised your father too much ever to follow in his footsteps. Take your freedom, take Constanze, sail back home and tell yor father that you were in my power and I let you go, so that you could tell him it is a far greater satisfaction to repay injustice with benefactions than to match evil with evil.“
More than only Christians may find such a musical setting shallow or sentimental, and it is in fact a thing rather cheap to sing. Yet on which grounds do conservatives simply dismiss this echo from a forsaken age of humane dreams as „humanism“? I can see only two reasons: First, they may suppose that the adoration of love as love, instead of God’s proper nature (1. John 4:8) may not really give us the power to practice love. Secondly they may (rightly) point out that being enamoured by love is not the same thing as being seized by love. He who loves loving is still turning around himself. He may recoil from magnanimity as from an overstretched front line at any time the charm of goodness ceases. Yet there are two radically diverging ways to deal with this danger. You may get critical, teaching others they need salvation in order to behave like saints, or you can follow the calling, evincing the spirit by using its power. The first is the way of ideological stringency, the latter is that of the contrite servant (Matth. 21:28-32). Unfortunately, hosts of „Christian Soldiers“ like to prefer the first way.
To be clear about it: I do not take any oath, as to whether Mozart’s free-mason humanity actually was compatible with the calling of Jesus. I confess to a notion that any true liberal will feel bound to denounce as „fundamentalist“ severely: Mozart may indeed be lost in the face of eternity. For everybody is unique and it is entirely wrong to judge the motives of men by their confessions to wisdom. Wisdom is the live comment of truth; and the human soul can lay hold of every issue of truth either to reflect in words what it feels driven by in heart, or to profess verbosely what it contemplates as a fit criterion of holiness for himself, or – even more so – of others. I don’t know which type Mozart really fitted, in fact, I don’t know it exactly for myself. But I am quite certain that none of the outspoken confessors of Christ is righfully entitled to pass a judgment over others, or even to confound expression of notions adverse to christianity, which are due to a lack of enlightenment according to their own beliefs (2. Corinth. 4:3-4), with wickedness of intention or lack of civil decency.
Mozart depicts a tangent of wisdom and points to a person, the Bassa Selim, who has caught in this shadow of sense over the dull course of natural life a glimpse of eternal hope. For Selim was driven by only such small a twinkling of the gloss of Truth, which for Christians is the secret nature of Christ himself (Joh. 14:6).
The conservative dogmatists are all quite wrong in interpreting the pronouncements of Jesus as a simple piece of knowledge which calls on them to cram it into everybody’s mind, friends and foes alike. Jesus has never been so blunt as that. He always said: „He who has an ear to listen, may hear what I say.“ (see for ex. Mark 4:21-25) He was aware that you cannot and shall not teach anyone straight to the face what Truth is, for this inevitably raises questions about the truthfulness of teaching as well as understanding. Faith must be conceived via the love of the truth, just as profound love of truth is possible only to him who has faith.
By way of anticipating a fuller answer yet outstanding to your question in the thread „Party of Big, Intrusive Government“, let me just tell you, Mr. Harper, what I would do about people expressing sentiments as those gathered on the above mentioned site.
I would ask them, at least in case I would pluck up my courage, if they did already consider they too will have to bend their knees to our Lord Jesus Christ (Philippians 2:10). Who was no „hippy-do-gooder“ (Jerry Falwell), yet chose to prefer meekness to both power and stringency of ideological claim, even though it meant suffering people to jeer at him with very much the same sentiment Mr. Falwell gives vent to!
Let’s take, for example, Ann Coulter – who managed to give me the creeps in election night at having to witness to such brash words, such a single-minded bravado combining with the nicest personal appearance. She holds to a view (see http://www.reandev.com/taliban/)which, if translated into civilized parlance, appears to be the obverservation that the in-depthness and consequence of the love commandment in the Gospel is matchless among religions.
She is quite right in saying so, yet she herself has to follow this calling, not to relay it on to others – while thus subtly converting it into a would-be-commandment, never still intended to be kept at all. For everybody who hears the message, already knows he can back out of doing what it says by saying what it does, by telling the world how good things would be if only all those Muslims (or those Communists, those Japanese, Liberals, just as it fits best) surrendered to Christianity.
That exactly was what the Jews looked for when the days arrived, their prophets had (vaguely) indicated as due for the arrival of their Messiah. But, instead of an indisputable leader, who would simply set out the guidelines along which every single person could make a decision and join in to acclaim their Redeemer, he gave them an entirely different set of directives, calling upon them (and us) to reform their lives, with the world persistently amiss. And all this, while even not telling anyone exactly what it implies to love.
Hosts of theories have been advanced of why, or whether at all Jewish leaders and later on the people finally cheered to crucifixion. Yet I daresay, everything is quite clear – and foreboding: After Scriptural heights of expectation, Jesus was just such a sorry stark bathos of history. He said, we shall be holy as our Heavenly Father is holy, and we shall be merciful, just as He is merciful. So still in our days, there is a rude awakening in store for anyone who calls himself a Christian or a Philanthropist likewise, while being unprepared to expect the holy in the guise of the humble.
This is my firm belief, though I admit that any proof for it must be picked and cherished, from amidst a world that only occasionally grants us the chance of seeing a tangent of justice or wisdom adorn a naturalistic course of life with eternal hope. Although I must even agree, Mr. Harper, that it may well be the largest portion of evil coming from that notion which covets a firmer, a more exclusive, grip on christian grace and hope.
Warning. You may need a barf bag if you visit the link in the prior comment (#21).
What do you christians think should be done about these christians?
http://www.reandev.com/taliban/
Note: copy and pasted the address to your browser.