Iraq War – Should we have gone? Part III
In the last two parts I looked at the WMDs and humanitarian reasons for going to War. While, when put into context, I believe these justified going to war, I do not believe that these were the most important reasons. The most important reason for the removal of Saddam was not only a valid strategic goal in the war on terrorism, it was a necessary step. I do not believe that the war on terrorism could ever be won as long as Saddam was in power. Iraq’s strategic importance is also one of the main reasons the securing of the peace following the downfall of Saddam has been so difficult.
While there is little evidence to say that Saddam was involved in 9/11, and I never believe he was, there is no question that Saddam supported terrorists, including paying $25,000 to the families of suicide bombers. In addition Saddam was a destabilizing force in the Middle East.
To really deal with the threat of Terrorism, we must not only take on the terrorists, but we must also deal with the situation that is creating them. For decades US policy towards the Middle East has basically been that we did not care what the dictators did in their own countries, as long as the oil continued to flow. The result has been the creation of circumstances were these despotic rules along with radical clerics have explained away the problems in their own countries by blaming the US and Israel. In fact in a recent Zogby poll of opinion in six Middle Eastern countries, 80% had an unfavorable view of the United States, (57% very unfavorable), 72% said the US was one of the biggest threats to them (80% included Israel), and 69% said the true goal of US policy was “weakening the Muslim world.” Critics will probably say this is all because of Bush, but this is not new. One only has to go back to the year 2000, before Bush was even elected, to see hundreds of thousands marching in Morocco burning US and Israeli flags. And of course terrorism has been a growing problem for decades.
On 9/11 the state supporters of terrorism were: Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Syria, and Sudan. To really solve the problem all would need to stop their support. Unless we were to take them on all at once (a policy no one I know of supports) they would have to be dealt with in sequence. While not on the list Afghanistan was a logical first place to start, as it was the home of Al Qaida, and few except those who are opposed to all wars agreed. For those who see the terrorism as a law enforcement issue Afghanistan should have been the end of it, at least until the next attack. And with the other countries still supporting terrorism, there would have been another attack.
For those who see this as a war, the main question is where to go next. I would argue that Iraq was the next logical step. It had been a very visible antagonist for nearly a decade, it was in violation of the peace treaty, it was firing on US aircraft virtually on a daily basis, it was a major abuser of human rights, and was in violation of 16 UN resolution, in addition to supporting terrorism. More importantly a successful transformation of Iraq, would put pressure on others with the hope that military action would not be necessary. For example, it has long been reported that the Iranian people are unhappy with their government, and Iran is ripe for revolution.
For awhile it looked like this policy was working. Following the invasion of Iraq, Libya did renounce terrorism, give up its WMD programs and took steps to rejoin the world community, though this had been in the works for some time. There were even some positive signs in Syria as it was forced out of Lebanon. Iran and Syria, could see what was happening and have actively responded by supporting opposition to the US. The terrorists also see key importance of a US victory in Iraq, and describe the conflict as “the greatest battle of Islam in this era” and “the decisive battle.” How can Iraq be unimportant to the war on terror, if the terrorist see it in these terms?
Yet critics claim invading Iraq was unnecessary, it was an optional war, a war of choice. Because of their law enforcement viewpoint, they wrongly see this as a choice between war and peace. But we are at war. The terrorists are not fighting us because we invaded Iraq, they declared war on us long before Iraq, and have been fighting us for decades, and they will continue to do so. There are only two ways wars can end. Either both side mutually agree to stop, or one side defeats the other. The terrorist show no signs of stopping, they see themselves as on a mission from, and to stop would be to disobey God. So, unless we are willing to give up Western civilization and live under Islamic Law, it is not a question of whether or not we will fight, but a question of where and when. As long as there are state supporters of militant Islam, the threat posed by militant Islam will grow stronger. It is not a matter of if they will get WMDs, it is a matter of when. And make no mistake, when they get them, they will use them. Unfortunately many find the idea of fanatics who believe they are on a mission from God to kill or convert unbelievers getting nuclear weapons so unthinkable they do not want to face up to the real danger we face.
So it is not a choice between war and peace, but between war now, or an even larger bloodier war later; of stopping militant Islam before it gets WMDs (assuming it is not already too late to do this) or waiting until they have them and have used them. This was not only a good reason for going into to Iraq, it is just as valid now, if not more so. If we should not have fought them in Iraq then just where should we fight them? Or should we let them choose the battleground that is best for them?
Irrational Nobility
June 8, 2007, Wausau, Wi— It has often been pointed out that adversity reveals a person’s true character better than anything except possibly the acquisition of power. Whether it is the result of great tragedy such as the sinking of the Titanic, or the destruction of Greenburg Kansas, or great evil such as the attacks on 911 or the recent shooting at Virginia Tech, or more personal situations, when tested by great adversity minor flaws can crack wide open revealing great weaknesses, or we can find inner strengths we never knew existed.
Two recent news events have highlighted both extremes. In May we saw the story of Andrew Speaker. Speaker had been diagnosed with a strained of tuberculosis that was drug resistant. But he was planning to honeymoon in Europe, and while he was told it was better that he not fly, he was not ordered to stay away from planes. So he went to Europe as planned.
While Speaker was in Italy, doctors learned that not only was his TB resistant to drugs, the particular strain he had was both very dangerous, and “extensively drug resistant.” Dr. Marin Cetron, director of the Center for Disease Control’s division of global migration and quarantine, said “He was told in no uncertain terms not to take a flight back.”
But Speaker didn’t want to wait. Disregarding what the doctors said and the potential risk he posed to others he would come near, he took a commercial aircraft From Rome to Prague, and then from Prague to Montreal. From there he drove to into the United States. By doing so he put at risk all he came in contact with, especially the passengers in the seats around him.
Selfish? Clinical Psychologist Andrea Macari, PH.D came to Speaker defense on the O’Reilly Factor (06/01/07) claiming that “I think all acts are selfish… selflessness is just an illusion.” While such views are increasingly common in the Me-First worldview so clearly demonstrated by Speaker, they stand in stark contrast to another recent new story, the story of Liviu Lebrescu, a story I hope you remember.
Born in Romania, Librescu survived the Holocaust later immigrating to Israel. Twenty years ago Librescu came to United States where he was a researcher and lecturer in engineering. He was teaching a class on mechanics on the day of the Virginia Tech murders, when he heard the shooter coming close to his classroom. Librescu told his students to run to the window and climb out. He, however, ran to the door and blocked it with his body, to give time for the students to reach safety. He gave his life so that his student could live. If we are to believe Macari, Librescu gave his life in a selfish not a selfless act.
Later in the interview on the O’Reilly Factor concerning the TB patient Andrew Speaker, Macari couldn’t believe O’Reilly when he said that if he has been in Speaker’s situation, he would have stayed put, so as not to put other people in danger. If you live in the moment with a Me-first attitude, such moral certitude probably does seem unbelievable, even foolish. But as Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 2:14 “A person who isn’t spiritual doesn’t accept the things of God’s Spirit, for they are nonsense to him. He can’t understand them because they are spiritually evaluated.” (ISV)
However, if instead of a Me-First view of the world, you have a set of core values upon which you base your moral decisions, and you have thought about right and wrong and how your actions impact others, as God’s word teaches us, one reaches a different conclusion.
This is one of the problems with secular attacks on Christianity. They claim to want to replace what they see as the mythology of Christianity with reason and science. But if we are not created in the image of God, but merely the result of chance combined with time, there is no purpose in life, other than to live it. If all there is, is simply the here and now, the selfish actions of Speaker would be the rational action, after all survival of the fittest would argue that you should do whatever it takes to survive. On the other hand noble acts like Librescu would be the irrational one. What possible reason could there be to give up your life, if there is nothing beyond this life.
This is the problem with secular moralities. There is no firm core, no bedrock upon which to base a moral system. They are not, as they claim, based on reason, for reason is process not a foundation. Ultimately they end up being based on the self and what is in the best interest of the self. This is why secular moral views have such great difficulty not only condemning evil but also praising the noble, without having to appeal to values that have been embedded in the culture by the religion. But as secularist continue to chip away at religious values, ultimately they end up like Israel during the time of the Judges, where “,each person did whatever seemed right in his own opinion” (Judges 21:25 ISV) which is then combined with the increasingly popular line “who are you to judge.” Unfortunately I fear that the upcoming generations will contain more Speakers than Librescus.
Did Prop 187 Destroy the Republican Party?
Jeb Bush and Ken Mehlman in the Wall Street Journal argue that Prop 187 destroyed the Republican party in California. As someone who was active in California politics at the time, I think their analysis ignores several key factors, the most important being the internal struggle that existed in the party at the time, and the influence of the previous two Republican governors, George Deukmejian (1993 – 1991), and Pete Wilson (1991-1999). Their example should serve as a warning to other Republicans.
In brief Deukmejian kept very close control over the party and its resources, which while it allowed him to be reelected, also limited the ability of others to win statewide office, and thus the development of potential successors. Thus when he left office there really was nobody to take his place but Pete Wilson who had left the Senate to do so. Still, we had Pete Wilson, so it was not that much of a problem.
However Pete Wilson brought what he called “compassionate conservatism.” What this really amounted to was a proposed $15 Billion increase in state spending, while trying to run conservatives out of the party. Eventually he made a deal that “cut spending” by $7.5 billon so he only needed a $7.5 billion dollar tax increase, which included the infamous “Snack Tax” which was quickly repealed angry voters.
If this was not enough, rather than holding out an olive branch to conservatives and unifying the party by appointing someone like Bruce Hershenson to fill his empty senate seat, Wilson made an in-your-face appointment of John Seymour, further angering conservatives. Things were so bad that when Seymour ran for reelection in 1992, the Republican party had trouble meeting in fear that the party would condemn their own candidate. Not too surprisingly – he lost.
Frankly if 187 did anything, it helped revive the Republican party, and Pete Wilson saw his poll number increase with the proposition. In addition the proposition passed with strong support. But then the courts overturned it. This combined with several other propositions that were overturned caused many people to ask “What the point of voting?”
This was compounded by rampant voter fraud, such as when Bob Dornan lost his house seat as a result of illegal aliens voting, fraud which was never prosecuted. Then Republican office holders in the state decided that it was better for them to make deals with the Democrats so as to guarantee a safe seat in redistricting. As a result politicians in California now effectively pick their voters, rather than the other way around. Republican Presidential candidates also write off the state, making it a self-fulfilling prophecy.
As a result of the decline in the state, and the rise of liberal regulation, overcrowding, rampant illegal immigration (In San Bernardino, a old Sam’s Club location recently was turned into a large store catering to those who speak Spanish) many Republican voters began to write the state off and those who could started leaving. (It’s a prime reason I am no longer in California).
The problems of California are very similar to the problems of the Republican party nationally. While Bush has been ok on the war, he has been marginal at best, and often poor on domestic policy. Frankly it was my experience with Pete Wilson that caused me concern when Bush also ran on “compassionate conservatism.”
As a general rule, when Republicans run on a upbeat and positive conservative message that expresses hope for what this country could be if government would get out of the way, we win. When we run with apologies for being conservative and promise to be sort of Democrat-Lite we lose. Yet too many Republican politicians never seem to learn this simple lesson.
Iraq War – Should we have gone? Part II
While many reasons could be, and have been given for why we should have gone to war in Iraq, the three that were always the strongest for me were, WMD, humanitarian, and strategic. While the subsequent failure to find large stockpiles of WMDs has cast some doubt on the first reason (as was discussed last time), subsequent discoveries of mass graves, and the records of Saddam’s evil have more than confirmed the second reason. One of the problems when confronting evil as tremendous as Saddam’s is that it is so disturbing there is a tendency to avert our eyes and ignore it. Any student of history knows that there are few limits on man’s inhumanity to man. I still remember reading in Will and Arial Durant’s 11 volume The Story of Civilization the description of a particular means of killing prisoners that still unsettles me whenever it think of it. When it comes to inhumanity, Saddam and his sons are right there with history’s worst. Reading accounts of what Saddam and his son’s did only took what would have been best left as unthinkable into new areas.
Now I admit there is some room for legitimate disagreement on this point. Some think that however horrible the atrocity, US forces should only be used for US interests. I disagree. At some point the atrocities in a country become so horrific that the world can no longer sit by, but has an obligation to put a stop to it. Most see the holocaust and say “never again.” But sadly, it does happen, and ‘never again’ becomes empty rhetoric, as we saw with Cambodia, and more recently with Rwanda and now Darfur. Granted, we don’t want to be the world’s policemen for every grievance, and we do need to take into account a number of factors such as feasibility, but when we can do something, do we really want to stand by while hundreds of thousands of people are not just killed but brutally tortured and do nothing other than say “that’s terrible” or, if we are really outraged, pass some meaningless UN resolutions?
Yet what is so ironic about the current situation, is that many of the same people who are so critical of the Iraq war, were very supportive a war based solely on humanitarian reasons in Bosnia, and currently argue for sending troops into Darfur. Given their support for these actions, and the opposition to the Iraq war, it would seem that for many critics, humanitarian reasons are valid only if there is no national interest stake. If there is an national interest at sake, then humanitarian reasons are to be ignored, and the war opposed.
Before moving on to what I have always believed was and is the most important reason, there are the secondary costs to the world community for failing to act. Whether it was the result of Saddam’s bribing key countries with oil for food money, an attitude of appeasement, self-interest, pacifism, or whatever, the failure of the UN to doing anything other than pass resolution after resolution after resolution shows that it resolutions are meaningless and can be ignored. The last resolution was put forward as a last chance, and even then Iraq did not comply. As Hans Blix, hardly a supporter of the war, report to the security council when the deadline passed, “Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance – not even today – of the disarmament, which was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out to win the confidence of the world and to live in peace.”
As a result of this, and numerous previous examples of inaction, the UN had proven itself to be worst than inactive. With their flat out refusal to take any action combined with their willingness to condemn any who do, they have placed themselves into the role of defenders of dictators. Dictators know that UN resolutions are ultimately not worth the paper they are printed on. Thus the UN is far more effective at protecting those who commit atrocities than stopping atrocities. Is it any surprise then, that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad responded to the UN threat of passing resolutions condemning its nuclear program by saying “Iran does not give a damn about such resolutions.”
I believe that one of the reasons for the war in Iraq, was Saddam’s miscalculation that the UN and his allies such as France and Russia, would be able to keep the US from attacking, or force them to withdrawal quickly if they did. He falsely believed “time was on his side and that the Coalition would never be allowed to attack” and so could continue flaunting the UN resolution. Theodore Roosevelt taught that we should speak softly, but carry a big stick. The UN seems to be speak loudly, but do nothing to back it up. If the UN had clearly supported strong action in Iraq, there is at least a chance that the Iraq war would never have happened, and Iran would not now be threatening the world with its nuclear program. But they didn’t, and it was thus left to the US and its allies to act.
A Review of Sam Harris' The End of Faith Part VI
June 1, 2007, Wausau, Wi— I will conclude my review of Sam Harris’ The End Of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, by looking at the alternative that Harris presents. Harris fundamentally argues for a view of life that seeks happiness through the process of reason and evidence. In his attacks on religion, Harris is not arguing for secularism per se but for reason. This is how he attempts to avoid the charge that the greatest evils in human history ( the holocaust, the massacres in communist countries, of Russia, China, Cambodia, Vietnam, etc) have been the result of secular regimes not religious one. As we saw in part one Harris’ claim that religion is at the root of most conflicts in human history is false. Still religion has been responsible for evil. Yet secularism made up any gap and far surpassed religion in just one century.
Harris seeks to avoid this problem by claiming that the evils caused by secular governments were because of secular dogmas and thus similar to the religious dogmas he condemns. The problem is that while hindsight is always 20-20 and thus allows a small fig leaf to avoid such culpability, this is really no different than the Christian who tries to claim that those who did evil in the name of Christ are not really following the true teachings of Christ. Frankly, I think that Harris’ view is even worse off for at least the Christians can point to clear a foundation (the Bible) about which we can discuss. Harris has no foundation other than happiness, and no means to pursue clarifying what this means than science.
But the history of science is full of problem, wrong turns and downright errors. This is not really a criticism of science; this is just part of the nature of discovery. But it is hardly a firm basis for morality. For example Harris tries to lay the blame for the holocaust on religious anti-Semitism, ignoring the fact that many of Christianity’s strongest critics were extremely anti-Semitic showing that anti-Semitism is not simply an Christian or even religious phenomena. Still if the holocaust had been lead by Christians had been limited to the six million Jews, Harris might have had a point. But 12 million died in the holocaust. What about the other six million others who died along with the six million Jews, or the fact that Hitler was not religious? While religious anti-Semitism sadly did play a role, it pales in regards to the role played by science and “reason.”
Both Fascism and Communism saw themselves as scientific alternatives to religion. In particular for the Holocaust there was the science of eugenics and others theories that trace themselves back to Darwin and the theory of evolution and its survival of the fittest. While justly rejected now, in the early part of the 20th century this was the “scientific” view of the day. Hitler did not seek to exterminate the Jews because of the false religious view that they were Christ-killers, but because of the false scientific view that they were inferior people who were corrupting the purity of master race. Harris rejects this view now as just another false “dogma” but that is the nice thing about hindsight, it is always 20-20. Someday I hope that the current ban on DDT will also be seen as a false dogma, but it is still in effect and still defended, and is resulting in the deaths of between one and two million people each year for a total in excess of 40 million people since it went into effect.
The key problem with Harris’ view is that his choice of happiness both vague and subjective. For example, China argues that the group is more important than the individual, and thus individual rights can be superseded by the state as it seeks to better the whole. Someone else might see that acquisition of power as the key to their morality, or as Hitler, the building of a master race through selective breeding and the elimination of the mentally ill etc, to make the best people possible. Without an objective standard by which to measure, it would simple be a matter of personal preference which of these to choose. Nor would one be able to say, for example, that building of a master race was wrong and therefore not a valid option, as what is being chosen is the foundation for morality, that it, the basis by which we would decide was right and wrong. This is how those secular regimes in the 20th century were able to kill hundreds of millions of people, for as strange as it sounds they lived in a moral systems that said it was good.
While Christianity has nowhere near a perfect record, I believe that any objective review of the evidence would show thatven with its faults and missteps, Christianity has been and continues to be a very positive force in human history. In the last 150 years since science has attempted to separate itself from religion and replace it as a guide for society, the results have often been disastrous. In effect Harris is asking us to abandon what has a proven track record, what has for example provided the intellectual and moral back ground for countries like the United States, and instead embrace what had never worked and when tried as lead to the greatest evils in history. Now that is a real leap of faith.
This is Elgin Hushbeck, asking you to Consider Christianity: a Faith Based on Fact.
Part I Part II Part III Part IV Part V
