« 2003 April | Main

Monday, March 31, 2003

Saddam and Hitler
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the similarities between Saddam and Hitler, both in terms of their behavior, and in terms of the world response to them. The folks at Students for War have compiled an interesting poster showing a comparison between these two wonderful examples of humanity.

I have to admit, I wonder if the anti-war protesters think we should have stayed out of Europe in the 40's, and allowed Hitler to finish his mission to destry the Jews?

The Wisdom of Old Professors
My senior year in college (back in 1987), I was taking some graduate level classes in biochemistry. I recall that there was an exam on which the average score was 36%. The professor at the time, who was about a million years old (okay, I exaggerate a bit), anguished over the fact that college students were no longer capable of critical thinking. I recall being quite offended at the time, but the older I get, the more I appreciate how correct he was.

The recent war protests are evidence of how bad the situation has become. Its fine if there are people who don't agree that the invasion of Iraq was the right thing to do. After all, the presence of WMD is based on circumstantial evidence. That leaves the issue of human rights violations, of course, but that was not the main stated objective of this campaign.

Now, however, we are faced with protesters who cannot see that there are a variety of presuppositions underlying their position and their actions. These presuppositions are not axiomatic. Among these are, apparently, the following:


- All forms of government are equally valid.
- Any situation which leads to the death of civilians, is simply wrong. There are no mitigating circumstances.
- The right to protest supercedes virtually all other rights in this society.

There are doubtless others that will come to mind, but that is the great thing about blogs. I can simply add commentary on those.

With regard to the first item above, I might point out the following from our own declaration of independence:

WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness -- That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.

Now, the stated scope is that people can abolish the government under which they operate, but I think there is an underlying principle here that any government which becomes destructive of rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness become necessarily invalid. It then falls to those outside to determine if the capability actually exists for the governed to abolish the governed to abolish the government, or whether intervention is necessary. This is not, nor should it be, an easy decision. However, this seems to be a reasonable alternate view to the one that says that no country ever has the right to alter the government of another country. After all, when Kuwait was taken over by Iraq, arguably there was a new government in place. Should we have waited for Kuwait to rise up in revolution before doing anything? Before anyone argues that it was a different situation owing to the invasion, they should recall that the vast majority of governments in place in this world were imposed at some point in history by some group on the larger body. Rarely are new forms of government imposed by popular majority. How many people in a region need to consent to a new form of government in order for it to be valid?

Next, we come the issue regarding the loss of life. It is certainly a bad thing whenever any life is lost. I'll agree to that. Frankly, I think, as a religious conservative, that I hold more strongly to that position than many of the protesters. However, is there never a situation where the taking of life might be necessary in order to avoid even greater loss of life? Given the Iraqi government's history (you might want to check out Amnesty International's own report on the subject), isn't it reasonable that the loss of life in the current conflict, given that it's substantially smaller than the total of those killed directly by the current regime, is acceptable if it leads to the elimination of the current regime and the cessation of the torture and death of countless thousands of Iraqi civilians? I think that its perfectly reasonable.


Finally, the one very irritating presupposition underlying the actions of protesters this weekend is that somehow their right to protest supercedes all other rights. They don't mind blocking other people's abilities to move freely (with no knowledge of whether or not they might be threatening the safety of those involved). To be perfectly honest, I think they do these things because of pure egotism. They think they have been gifted with the charism of infallibility, and thus all of us must stop, listen, and believe. If I were to propose that they must, in turn, stop each week while I read the Bible to them (say, by lying in front of their car), I suspect they would be outraged.


So, to all of those opposed to the war, I say that its fine to be opposed. Perhaps you are unconvinced that Iraq has any WMD, or perhaps you are not that concerned that those weapons will ever be used. I think that's a perfectly viable viewpoint. State that. Vote for those who hold similar views. Perhaps you also don't think that human rights abuses are sufficient grounds for military action. Even if tens of thousands of innocent civilians have been gassed, tortured, you name it, there is no justification for us to invade. Okay, you can hold that position to. Just be honest enough to say that (go ahead, I dare you :-) ). Be clear enough, and critical enough in your thinking to acknowledge that there are presuppositions that you hold, which are not axiomatic, and may, in fact, be wrong. I'll then do the same, and perhaps reasoned discourse will be a possibility in this political landscape. Frankly, it seems to have been missing for quite a long time.

I Can't Resist
I ran across this collection of interesting quotes by Mark Twain on France.

Can Christians Go to War?
An interesting question, as there are those who imagine that Christians cannot advocate war. This is quite untrue. Here is a page that has a great discussion of Just War Theory. It describes the theological underpinnings of war from a Christian perspective.

I have to add that there has been opposition to this war from various religious sources. The Pope has been opposed, as has the presiding Bishop of the ECUSA (my particular branch of the Church). Neither of them have argued that war is ever not justified, they simply feel we moved too soon. I disagree with that assessment, but they are, in my estimation, reasonable positions to hold. Perhaps we could have brought about the disarmament of Iraq without military action. I agree with Condoleezza Rice that Iraq was certainly not acting like they were going to disarm, but certainly it was a possibility. For my part, a substantial concern is that if we had left a "disarmed" Saddam in power, would he stay disarmed, and would he have stopped torturing and killing his people? I'm not sure that he would have. In fact, I'm convinced that more death and suffering was in store for many people around the world.

©