Posted on 09/16/2001 2:09:38 PM PDT by The_Reader_David
In the two days following the attacks on the WTC and Pentagon and the Phyrric victory of the heroic passengers of Flt. 93, I made posts to several threads (principally ones with folk advocating turing Afghanistan into "a glass parking lot") posts suggesting that the nuclear destruction of the capitals of nations supporting with the terror attack would probably suffice.
One of my fellow Orthodox Christian Freepers rebuked me privately (as well he should) and asked me to retract my call. Moved by this, and by two sermons by my bishop, I do so now. However, I do so with a heavy heart, and have delayed doing so until this afternoon because I have not changed the underlying reason for those posts.
It was not a desire for vengance, a desire to see "their innocents" die as ours did, which moved me to write as I did, but a dreadful, gnawing certainty that victory against this foe cannot be achieved without horrific bloodshed. A dreadful feeling that, in the long run, to strike hard in the beginning would be more humane and more merciful still haunts me.
We face a foe armed with modern weapons, and cunning enough to beat the plowshares of modern commerce into weapons in the space of a morning. We face a foe whose mind is decidedly pre-modern and alien to what is normal to Christendom either historically, or now in its secular decay. We face a foe who believes that divine help is at their back, and that death in the cause, particularly if one kills the enemy (even non-combattants defined to be enemies) is a great good. We face a foe willing to attack without defiance sent.
The last time we faced such a foe, it was Imperial Japan. The pre-modernin Shintoist ideology motivated the kamikaze, the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the rape of Nanking, even as the literalist reading of the Koran motivates suicide bombers who kill non-combattants in sneak attacks today.
We know how that war was ended. On this board, I trust we are all familiar with the ratio between the dead at Nagasaki and Hiroshima and the expected casualties in an invasion of the Japanese homeland. In case not I will remind you: we expected to loose 10 times as many as we killed, and to kill a similar number each Japanese soldiers and civilians to our own losses. Some believe this, together with the fact that these were "defended cities" containing military targets, suffice to justify Truman's action. Others believe Truman was a war-criminal, who went untried because only the loosers are put on trial.
I would invite all Christians coming from non-pacifist Christian traditions, particularly those which venerate some warrior saints (Holy Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism*, Anglicanism) or are strong in nations with a martial tradition (Presbyterians--Scotland, Lutherans--German,...) to discuss appropriate measures for opposing this foe.
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*Those familiar with my posts on religious discussions will note that I have dropped my preference for refering to the adherents of the Papal Throne of Rome as "Latins". I will still not go so far as to give them their prefered title of "Catholics", since I profess the catholicity of the Holy Orthodox Church. I will, however, in the interest of the unity of Christendom in the face of the Islamic foe, use the generally used term applied to them by Christians of other confessions.
The icon was painted centuries after Russia's geopolitical battles were done, yet the nationalistic interpretation lives today. I doubt that the nominally correct interpretation that you see, the battle with the Devil, was ever predominant.
Cordially, .
One of the most perceptive comments I've seen about the state of war in which we find ourselves.
Destroying some of their shrines (as they have done to others) would be speaking to them in their own language. Some of them might even think the unthinkable; i.e, What kind of god is allah who cannot even defend his own shrines?
Cordially,
The attitude of a soldier, mounted on a rampant horse and thrusting a lance, derives from classical models. There's a 5th C carving of Bellerophon (mounted on Pegasus), and a roughly contemporary ivory (the "Barberini diptych") of the Christian emperor Anastasius, to cite two secular examples. The earliest depictions of St. George are usually standing, not mounted, in which he's paired with another soldier-saint (Demetrios or Theodore). In a quick search of reproductions in my library, I'm not able to find a pre-Islamic icon of George on horseback; the earliest such icon I've found so far is from St. Catherine's in the Sinai, thought ot be of Georgian derivation, and shows the saint with his lance poised over a man, perhaps the emperor Diocletian, who touches the lance-tip in submission. Remember that virtually all soldier-saints are martyrs, and that all martyrs are crowned (representing victory, especially of the sort proper to a spiritual struggle). IMO the intent of the iconographer in depictions of soldier-saints in combat is to make visual reference to such struggles.
St. George
Martyr, patron of England, suffered at or near Lydda, also known as Diospolis, in Palestine, probably before the time of Constantine. According to the very careful investigation of the whole question recently instituted by Father Delehaye, the Bollandist, in the light of modern sources of information, the above statement sums up all that can safely be affirmed about St. George, despite his early cultus and pre-eminent renown both in East and West (see Delehaye, "Saints Militaires", 1909, pp.45-76).[...]
SAINT GEORGE AND THE DRAGON
The best known form of the legend of St. George and the Dragon is that made popular by the "Legenda Aurea", and translated into English by Caxton. According to this, a terrible dragon had ravaged all the country round a city of Libya, called Selena, making its lair in a marshy swamp. Its breath caused pestilence whenever it approached the town, so the people gave the monster two sheep every day to satisfy its hunger, but, when the sheep failed, a human victim was necessary and lots were drawn to determine the victim. On one occasion the lot fell to the king's little daughter. The king offered all his wealth to purchase a substitute, but the people had pledged themselves that no substitutes should be allowed, and so the maiden, dressed as a bride, was led to the marsh. There St. George chanced to ride by, and asked the maiden what she did, but she bade him leave her lest he also might perish. The good knight stayed, however, and, when the dragon appeared, St. George, making the sign of the cross, bravely attacked it and transfixed it with his lance. Then asking the maiden for her girdle (an incident in the story which may possibly have something to do with St. George's selection as patron of the Order of the Garter), he bound it round the neck of the monster, and thereupon the princess was able to lead it like a lamb. They then returned to the city, where St. George bade the people have no fear but only be baptized, after which he cut off the dragon's head and the townsfolk were all converted. The king would have given George half his kingdom, but the saint replied that he must ride on, bidding the king meanwhile take good care of God's churches, honour the clergy, and have pity on the poor. The earliest reference to any such episode in art is probably to be found in an old Roman tombstone at Conisborough in Yorkshire, considered to belong to the first half of the twelfth century. Here the princess is depicted as already in the dragon's clutches, while an abbot stands by and blesses the rescuer.
On the one hand, the Gospel is a message of peace. On the other, it is not peace as the world gives it. "I came not to bring peace, but to bring a sword," Christ told his disciples, who also gave them His peace. The defense of innocents is the only Christian cause for war, but this is our cause now. Not vengance.
I still desire our initial stroke in this war to be impressive, to inspire terror in the terrorists and those who might support them, but I do not wish for the death of innocents at our hands.
I would flesh out my suggestion of demanding surrender and if surrender is refused, the sending out of non-combattants (by multiple media: radio, leaflet, loudspeaker on drone aircraft) before devastating an objective (fuel-air weapons would suffice, but nuclear weapons have more terror effect). Those who surrender should be well-fed, have their medical problems attended to, and be treated with great kindness.
Kill as many as we can and feed the survivors. It does have a certain flair. Ok, but they get MREs.
Yes. Someone else around FR said soemthing along the lines of "they don't despise oppression, they despise weakness. Oppression is the only thing they understand." That rang very true, too.
Mentioned previously on this thread has been the suggestion of destroying their idol shrines. I have an idea. How about just irradiating TM</font size> the hell out of a couple of their shrines with some nuclear material, for example that black meteorite thing that they are supposed to kiss. In the first place, what kind of god is allah that he cannot protect his 'holy' places. Second, only those would be killed who obeyed the idolatrous command to worship the stone, thus presumably minimizing the loss of innocent life. What would your bishop think of that?
Cordially,
Thus Islam is antichrist, in the sense the word is used in St. John the Theologian's epistles, it represents a deliberate rejection of Christ. However, the poor wretch who grew up surrounded by this demonic doctrine never having heard the Gospel (the corrupted edited version the Muslims accept doesn't count) is still an innocent when he goes on the Haj. Killing him is to no point, evangelizing him would be to the point.
Cordially,
Spot on! The Friday prayer service in the National Cathedral was a slap in the face to Christian who even have a small clue. I am sorry to say. Some poor and misguided clergyman invoked the blessong of "the God Of Abrahan, Isaac, Jacob and Mohammed."
However, the poor wretch who grew up surrounded by this demonic doctrine never having heard the Gospel (the corrupted edited version the Muslims accept doesn't count) is still an innocent when he goes on the Haj. Killing him is to no point, evangelizing him would be to the point.
Right you are. But, the idea of demolishing their idols is very intriguing.
Problem is your Muslim dry cleaner or convenience store operator will be bombing every post office in America next day.
I have no doubt that Islam is demonic to the core. But its power will not be destroyed by bombs.
Gotta hearken back to an old VietNam chestnut - Win hearts and minds.
When the military ops commence, can we simultaneoulsy begin a massive humanitarian invasion to the populace of Afghanistan?
While we are hunting down bin Laden, can we be airdropping food, clothing and medicine on Kabul and other cities. All of which are stamped with the American flag?
Yes destroy their shrines when they are full to capacity!
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