Conference lgp30::christian-perspective

    Bob (.51),
    
    Your words touched my heart.  My feelings are very much similar to
    yours.
    
    Ro
    

 Re.51
    
     
 Bob:
    
      What you wrote reminded me of an interview I saw on PBS
some time ago with a US pilot who had been a POW in Vietnam.
      When he bailed out he came down right in the middle of
a paddy full of people planting rice. He said that an old woman
came running at him and started beating him with a hoe. He knew
enough of the language to understand that she was screaming that
he had killed her husband. Actually he hadn't but she was venting
her rage on him for the death of husband in a bombing raid.
      He said it was the first time he realized that the bombs
he dropped landed on people and not just buildings and equipment.
He said that it took some time for him to understand why the North
Vietnamese civilians almost killed him before he was taken into
custody by the military. He figured he was a pilot on a mission
and couldn't understand why they were holding him personally accountable
for the deaths of family and friends who were killed by US bombing raids.
       One of the first rules of propaganda is to dehumanize the other
side. We don't have innocent civilians killed they are "collateral damage".
We "neutralize opposing ground forces" rather than carpet bomb people.
Military-speak makes it nice and technical and sanitary.  
       There is a dreadful term that the US forces use to refer to Iraqi
solders that I will not repeat. Let's just say it follows the tradition
of nasty names for those who are on the "other side". It is easier to
kill people one you have mentally removed them from the human race.
        That so many people are positively enthusiastic about large scale
killing is depressing at best. 


                                                               Mike
         

We terminate pregnancies, not kill living beathing homo sapiens.

Re:  .51 and .53

There certainly is a conflict between wanting (and perhaps needing??) to
stop the sinful activities that Iraq (read Saddam Hussein) engages in and 
dehumanizing the people so that this can be seen as more "acceptable".  The
question becomes, can you use violence to protect against even more
violence?  Some say no, others yes.


I pray for Saddam Hussein.  Not that he receive the fruit of his works;
but rather that he would turn to God.  I think it is hopeless but with
God all things are possible.

Collis

    Bob .51,
    
    I was deeply touched by what you wrote as well and identify very
    closely with your experience.
    
    One of the primary benefits of the "curse" you describe is that as 
    more people develop the level of affinity with each other that you 
    experience and describe, the potential for peace and unity increases. 
    
    As much as you're able and in all the ways you can Bob, keep sharing your 
    truth.  And fwiw, know there are many more who share your experience and 
    like you are doing the best they can to deal with the myriad ramifications 
    and implications of this increased awareness. 
    
    Thanks also Mike for your thoughts in .53.
    
    Karen 

    	This is an interesting conversation, and thought provoking. I
    wonder if we could continue it under a seperate topic ?

    Bob,
    
    I, too, share the agony and sorrow you expressed so well in .0.
    Part of the danger of loving your enemy, it seems, is in the potential
    for actually empathizing with your enemy.  How subversive!
    
    Peace,
    Richard

Re: .0  Bob F.

>        This is a terrible curse -- to be able to see a situation
>        from your adversary's eyes.  You find yourself in a minority
>        in your own land, and a minority that is despised in your own
>        land.  You cannot enjoy the cheer others feel when they joke
>        about bombing Iraq back to the stone age.  You cannot share
>        the outrage that others feel when such an overwhelmingly
>        out-numbered and out-gunned country strikes out in whatever
>        way might have some beneficial effect to their cause.

I have the opposite curse -- to find myself disagreeing with people because
they are too liberal.  I'm starting to become angry at the line of reasoning
that goes something like "the United States is a horribly wicked country,
and therefore it has no right to prevent Iraq from doing horribly wicked
things".

In fact I feel isolated from both sides.  I'm isolated from those who are
wholeheartedly in favor of the war, and I'm isolated from those who are
wholeheartedly against it. I identify with the Congressional Democrats who
voted for sanctions, and it looks like those Democrats are going to be big
political losers unless the war takes a decided turn for the worse.

				-- Bob

    Just because a woman is prostitute does not mean she deserves to be
    raped.
    
    Just because Kuwait may have been a [insert bad adjective] monarchy does
    not mean it deserved to be overthrown by Saddam.

    re .8
    
    Bob,
    	sounds like you should read Mardy Seavey's stuff over in UU. A lot
    of heavy concern/questioning going on over there. How to support the
    troops but not the government that seems at least partly responsible
    for the situation. How to abhor what has become the only available
    solution to an avoidable situation.

    Gee Dave that's exactly what my 12 year old daughter asked me the other
    day.  She decided to wear her 'no war' pin in in the middle of her yellow
    ribbon...supporting the troops but not the war.
    
    Ro
    

    Re.8

    Bob:

         Horribly wicked nation ? Nope, more a case of a screwball
       combination of the the very best and the very worst that 
       people are capable of.
         The "problem" as I sometimes see it is attention is only
       paid to the "very best" part leading to the false conclusion
       that we occupy the "moral high ground" and that whatever this
       country does is justified.
         To me the actions of the military and civilian leadership
       of this country are frequently suspect and the more they wrap
       themselves in the flag and make speeches about God and country
       the more suspect they seem.
         I believe the this war has nothing to do the "official" reasons.
       I believe it is taking place to destroy Iraq as a military and
       political power in the region and to a create a state of instability 
       that will enable the US to become a permanent military presence in
       the gulf to further our economic and political interests.

                                                               Mike

re Note 153.12 by SA1794::SEABURYM:

>          Horribly wicked nation ? Nope, more a case of a screwball
>        combination of the the very best and the very worst that 
>        people are capable of.
  
        Jesus, in the parable of the wheat and the tares, describes
        this as a universal situation which will persist until the
        "harvest":

        From Matthew 13:24-30,

        "He put another parable before them, 'The kingdom of heaven
        may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. 
        While everybody was asleep, his enemy came, sowed darnel
        among the wheat, and made off. When the new wheat sprouted
        and ripened, the darnel appeared as well. The owner's
        servants went to him and said, "Sir, was it not good seed you
        sowed in your field? If so, where does the darnel come from?"
        "Some enemy has done this, he answered.  And the servants
        said, "Do you want us to go and weed it out?" But he said,
        "No, because when you weed out the darnel you might pull up
        the wheat with it.  Let them both grow till the harvest; and
        at harvest time I shall say to the reapers:  First collect
        the darnel and tie it in bundles to be burnt, then gather the
        wheat into my barn."'"

        Notice that God himself is portrayed as unwilling or unable
        (because of His insistence on avoiding "collateral damage")
        in routing out the evil of the world until a certain end
        time.  And as everyone who has tilled a garden knows, and I'm
        sure Jesus knew as well, a weed is not simply some harmless
        but worthless plant, but tends to weaken the good plants
        through the weed's consumption of water, nutrients, and
        sunlight (shading).  Weeds also tend to grow more vigorously
        than "good" plants.  Nevertheless, God has infinite patience
        -- he has no "coalition" to hold together.

        Bob

A thoughtful reply Bob.  Thanks

Re: .12  Mike

>         The "problem" as I sometimes see it is attention is only
>       paid to the "very best" part leading to the false conclusion
>       that we occupy the "moral high ground" and that whatever this
>       country does is justified.

I certainly wouldn't say that whatever the U.S. does is justified.  For
example, our support of the Contras in Nicaragua was immoral because of
the atrocities that the Contras committed.  However, I think that we would
have occupied the moral high ground with respect to Iraq if we had continued
to apply sanctions instead of launching Desert Storm.

>         To me the actions of the military and civilian leadership
>       of this country are frequently suspect and the more they wrap
>       themselves in the flag and make speeches about God and country
>       the more suspect they seem.

I think most people in Congress on both sides of the sanctions/war vote
voted their consciences on this particular issue.  There is such a thing as
altruism in politics.  Of course the cynically inclined might say that the
Democrats who voted for sanctions were gambling that the war would go badly,
and that so far they have lost their bet.

I have less confidence in the administration.  CIA director William Webster,
for example, flip flopped shamelessly on the sanctions questions.  Up to
December he was testifying to Congress that sanctions were highly effective.
Once Bush decided to go to war, Webster suddenly did an about face and
testified that sanctions wouldn't work, contradicting himself in the process.
According to an article in The New Republic, saveral Democrats are saying that
Webster's conduct should be investigated once the war is over.  Senator
Moynihan is even saying that perhaps the CIA has outlived its usefulness and
should be abolished.

Remember the way the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq more or less gave Saddam the
green light to invade Kuwait, saying that the U.S. would let the Arabs resolve
their own disputes?  It's an interesting question whether this was a case
of incompetence or fiendish design.  What if the U.S. wanted to trick Saddam
into indulging in a disastrous adventure that would ultimately bring about
his downfall?  Of course if you believe this you also have to believe that
the months of sanctions were a scam and the U.S. government was planning an
invasion all along.  I tend to think it was merely incompetence.  Even then,
though, it wasn't necessarily just the ambassador's incompetence; she was
just following orders.

Another question is whether Bush ordered the attack because he thought it
was the right thing to do or because he calculated that it would be to his
political advantage.  Perhaps a little of both.

>         I believe the this war has nothing to do the "official" reasons.
>       I believe it is taking place to destroy Iraq as a military and
>       political power in the region and to a create a state of instability 
>       that will enable the US to become a permanent military presence in
>       the gulf to further our economic and political interests.

I think it can be both -- some people are motivated by the official reasons,
and others (perhaps people in the White House) are motivated by the
prospect of geopolitical advantage.  Even if some people are opposing Iraq
for the wrong reasons, though, that doesn't mean that it's wrong to oppose
Iraq for the right reasons.  If Iraq needs to be stopped then it needs to
be stopped.

				-- Bob

    Re.15

         Bob:

              I also tend believe that many of the events that lead
      up to this war were the result of incompetence rather than
      malfeasance.
              As for the congressional vote that was really meaningless.
     War was virtually a fait accompli when it was taken. The White House
     had already decided to to utilize the situation to it's maximum 
     advantage at that point. Which I feel is why the CIA director did
     such an about face.
             The time for debate and congressional approval was before,
     not after  hundreds of thousands of troops and billions of dollars
     have been committed to fight a war.
             What we have witnessed is a few people send the country into
    war and use congress as a rubber stamp for their actions. I credit them
    for political skill in placing congress in a situation where there
    could be no meaningful debate or vote, but by the same token they
    have also made it clear that they cannot be trusted to weld political
    or military power. 



                                                               Mike

Re: .16  Mike

I agree that the vote should have been taken earlier, but I don't think it
was meaningless.  Let's put it this way: if I'd somehow controlled a two thirds
vote in Congress, Congress had voted for sanctions and against war and Bush
had attacked Iraq anyway, I'd have had Congress impeach the president on the
grounds that he had failed to preserve and protect the Constitution.  The fact
that this didn't happen and couldn't have happened is due to the fact that
there simply aren't enough people in Congress who think the way I do.  Assuming
that I think Congress is democratically elected (which it is for the most part,
although it's also largely a question of money) I'd have to say that the
United States made a democratic decision to go to war.  This is confirmed by
the opinion polls showing widespread (but possibily paper thin) support for
the war.

If Congress had failed to vote it would have been surrendering an important
part of its power to the executive branch.

				-- Bob