The Gulf War; A Just War Or The Church's Shame?

On the Sunday morning of February 17, 1991, then President George Bush went to his usual church, the First Congregational Church in Kennebunkport to worship during a regular Sunday service. It was not, however, a regular Sunday. It was exactly one month into Operation Desert Storm, the massive U.S. led air offensive against Iraq and a week before what would be known as Operation Desert Saber, the Allied ground offensive. The country was embroiled in a conflict the size of which it had not seen since Vietnam. About 10 minutes into the service, the Reverend Patricia Adam invited members of the congregation to speak or share a prayer. John Schuchardt, an anti-war protester, took the opportunity to denounce the war. “We must think of what it means to be bombed by more than 2,000 planes every day,” Mr. Shcuchardt said. ¹ As Mr. Bush looked on, members of the congregation tried to drown out the protest with a chorus of “God Bless America.” “We are called to be peacemakers,” Mr. Schuchardt continued, “This is a vicious attack.” Members of the congregation then tried to drown him out with shouts of “This is not a political forum!” and “This is a church of God!” As the protester was eventually dragged out of the church by the Secret Service, he continued to cry out, “I am the voice for the voiceless.”

While he may or may not have been the voice for the voiceless, Mr. Schuchardt’s defiant protest of the Gulf War was certainly the voice of the minority. I believe that one of the most broadly encompassing mistakes of the church at the end of the 20th century was the failure of the church as a whole to actively and vocally protest the Persian Gulf War. Although there were some confined protests against the war, the overall lack of objection and even marginal support for the war stands as a horrible misjudgment by the corporate body of Christ because the war was fought against many of the moral and spiritual values that Christians should defend. In my paper I will discuss some of reasons why I believe the war was an unjust war and why the church did not make an effort to seek out and support a nonviolent resolution of this conflict. But first, I believe it would be necessary to define some of the terms I will be using throughout this paper.

When I talk about the Christian church or just the church, I will be using this as a very widely encompassing term. For the most part, this would include both Protestants and Catholics unless otherwise specified. I will also be broadly inclusive about any hierarchy when I talk about the church; I will generally be including both the laity as well as religious leaders unless otherwise specified.

A trickier issue is the definition of the word “protest”. Webster’s Dictionary defines protest as “the act of objecting or a gesture of disapproval; a complaint, objection, or display of unwillingness usually to an idea or a course of action.” ² So, by definition, did churches “protest” the Gulf War? Certainly they did but, as I said in my thesis statement, what troubles me is the overall lack of a unified and forceful outcry against the U.S. government’s brutal wielding of its power over the Middle East; a wielding that was vaguely hidden under the cover of opposing aggression. As Charles Scriven, a senior pastor for a Seventh-Day Adventist Church, “Before the Gulf War began, 7,000 people filled the National Cathedral in Washington for an antiwar prayer service. After the shooting started, [when] 800,000 people gathered in Washington to celebrate victory, the Washington Post counted only 200 protesters. Even if all the protesters were Christians, which is doubtful, it was a small showing.”³ In fact, not only was there an overall lack of objection, when the war did start there developed a guarded, but visible, support for the war. It is an stand that I find as troubling as I do loathsome. It might help, however, if I discuss a little of why this is important to me at all.

In January of 1986, I made a deal with the devil thinking that he would never come to collect on his side of the bargain. I enlisted for 6 years of active service in the U.S. Naval Reserve. After 3 months of Navy boot camp, I would serve one weekend a month and two weeks out of the year, just like the television commercials said. What I would get from the deal would be a slim monthly paycheck and a fat G.I. Bill to help pay for college. What the Navy got was the use of my body for any purpose they deemed fit. A handy resource, especially in times of war. However, in 1986, any kind of conflict that was extensive enough to involve the Naval Reserves but confined enough not to involve total nuclear annihilation seemed very unlikely.

Upon entering the services, one of the questions they ask is, “What religion are you?” Basically they need to know what to put on your dog tags so that, when you get killed, they can locate the most appropriate representation of your faith (priest, rabbi, etc.) for your burial if they need to. In 1986, I chose no religious preference; that translated into “NORELPREF” for my dog tags. By the summer of 1990, while I still would have not called myself a Christian, I knew I was more drawn into developing a personal relationship with Jesus Christ than I was interested in any non-Christian religions. However, after 3 years of majoring in art and studying world religions on the side, I had also become a flaming liberal. I was having a difficult time reconciling those two paths of my faith journey when, on August 2, 1990, Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait. Soon after reservists from every branch of the armed forces were being called into active duty. I had a little over a year left on my enlistment. I committed my life to Jesus Christ and soon learned how to pray very, very hard.

While many of my fellow reservists were making their own contingency plans (they called it “Operation Canada Storm”) I started going to organized protests and began denouncing the U.S. Government’s seemingly preordained decision to go to war against Iraq. Who I saw at most of these rallies were radical liberal peaceniks who looked like they either missed the 60’s or just missed out on them. Who I barely saw at all were other Christians. When I did, they were often on the other side of the street, park or square where they would be shouting anti-antiwar slogans at us; those who were protesting the war. This was very disturbing to me because, as I was reading my new Bible, I was reading the words of Jesus who said, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” I was reading about how we should love our enemies, and that God said “Thou shalt not kill”. I understood that I was young and unsophisticated in my faith, yet I could not help but feel that there should have been a stronger effort by more Christians to hold firm to Christ’s words and resist the machinery of war. Another thing that was disturbing to me was the whole religious tenor of the conflict. Part of that came early on with the introduction of the debate over just war theory, which I will discuss later. Another part of that tenor was Saddam Hussein’s hyperbole anticipating the conflict to be “the mother of all wars.” This then led to numerous misguided people, many of them Christians, putting forth the idea that this conflict might bring on Armageddon itself. So for some, this conflict seemed like God was giving America a righteous victory against the evil forces of darkness. To others, it was God announcing the end of the world itself. To me, it was all very confusing.

I never did get called up for active duty, but I found out later it was only by a hair’s breath. Whether that was God’s hand or just random luck is, for me, yet another piece of the Gulf War puzzle that lays unplaced in my consciousness. By February 28, 1991, however, President Bush had called a cease fire to what was by then Operation Desert Saber, the massive Allied ground offensive against Iraq. Soon the troops came swarming back home to monumental victory parades. The yellow ribbons came down, the bad taste of Vietnam had been cleansed from our collective mouths and America was free roll on through a decade of greed and licentiousness and made the 1980’s look like the 1950’s. And while an entire decade has passed since the Persian Gulf War, there still lies, for me at least, some very serious questions regarding the motivation and execution of the war, as well as the motivation for the church’s seemingly accommodating response to it.

Why do I think the church should have found more objection to the Gulf War and been more active its protest? We need to look first at the motivation for the war itself. In his insightful essay, “The Churches & War in the Gulf,” George Weigel argues that the Gulf War actually started not on January 16, 1991 with the massive U.S. –led air offensive against Iraq, but actually began on August 2, 1990 with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. ⁴ In that essay, he summarizes the events of August 2 the way many people interpreted them, “A brutal dictator, armed to the teeth with offensive military capabilities and busily developing weapons of mass destruction…invades, occupies, and dismantles a neighboring country.” ⁵ The argument from many people is that the war was obviously a direct and just response to Sadaam Hussein’s aggression which, if left unchecked, would have spread through much of the Middle East. While I accept this premise to a point, to hear Mr. Weigel’s synopsis of the invasion, I tend to think that he, as well as many others, have a dangerously oversimplified view of the actual events. While certainly Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait was a dire turn of events, many people fail to factor in several other important issues; the intrinsic instability of the region, the complicated history between Iraq and Kuwait and, most importantly, the enormously valuable resources of the Middle East and how utterly dependent the industrialized world is upon those resources. However, just for a second, let us take Mr. Weigel’s thesis at face value; that an armed and brutal dictator suddenly appeared somewhere in the world and invaded another country in 1990. It would be foolish to think that such aggression should go unpunished, or such an offensive should go unchecked. But we must ask ourselves why was America’s response to this specific aggression so aggressive itself, eventually involving much of the (first) world’s fighting forces? And, beyond that, why was it made to appear that our aggression took on a divine ordination about it?

To consider the first question, we must look at events that were concurrently dominating the political landscape; the fall of Communism and the destabilization of the Soviet Union. President Bush was continually promising a “New World Order” that would arrive as the world thawed out from the Cold War. Here was a prime opportunity to establish that order. I believe that the Allied attack of Iraq had very little to do with actually resisting unchecked aggression and restoring peace to that region. David Jacobs, the Coordinator of the International War Crimes Tribunal, articulates my very thoughts about the real motivation for the war when he says that “the U.S. intentionally engaged in a genocidal and criminal attack on the Iraqi civilian population for the purposes of establishing U.S. control over the gulf and its resources, and punishing any people who would stand in the way of the United States’ new world order.” ⁶ Mr. Jacobs conclusion that the Allied attack was specifically against civilians is supported by a 1991 report by the U.N. Under-Secretary-General Martti Ahtisaari, who reported that the Persian Gulf War had wrought “near apocalyptic results on Iraq and that water treatment facilities, power plants, oil refineries,….agricultural seed warehouses, sewage treatment and pumping plants had been destroyed.”⁷ Targeting any one of the these facilities is specifically outlawed by the Geneva and Hague Conventions and is a war crime. According to the U.N., “many of these facilities were repeatedly hit, indicating a deliberate pattern”⁸ by the Allied forces.

And it is this view, that the U.S. was actually working to establish its control over the gulf and its resources, that best explains the sheer size of the operation. Iraq was a modest country in terms of size and influence who had just ceased a long and taxing war with its neighbor, Iran. Was an Allied coalition of over 700,000 troops really necessary to fight against Iraq, if not to send a message to the rest of the world? The United States alone deployed nearly 1,000 combat aircraft and unleashed nearly as many tons of bombs each day as were dropped on Germany and Japan daily during World War II. ⁹ Was this terror really necessary, if not to send a message?

However, it would be obviously ill-advised to say that message out loud. To come out and say that the U.S. would wage this war, attack civilians and endanger the lives of its own fighting men and women just to establish control for oil would be political suicide. I am not saying that President Bush and his administration cynically and overtly planned to work God into the Gulf War merely to cover up their own self-interest, but I do know that fighting a battle when God is on your side is far more palatable to the public that simply fighting for oil. And I think Mr. Bush and his administration knew that too. So, as it happened, the war came not as a fight for oil, which it was, but became a fight against evil, which it really was not.

But fighting against “evil” was exactly the kind of religious rhetoric that surrounded, and continues to surround, the Persian Gulf War. In January of 1992, one year after the war, President Bush appeared before the National Religious Broadcasters to talk about his victory in the Gulf. “I came before you a year ago [before the war] to talk of what was not a Christian or a Jewish war, not a Muslim war; it was a just war…We fought for good versus evil. It was that clear to me; right versus wrong, dignity against oppression.” ¹⁰ Again, while I am not saying that Mr. Bush was not earnest in his assessment of the conflict, it begs the question about why was there such a directed effort to fight for good versus evil there, and not elsewhere. As David Whitman point out in his essay, “God and man in times of war,” “When Chinese autocrats slaughtered the innocents of Tiananmen Square, Bush felt no divine obligation to stop them or even to rescind China’s favored trade status.” ¹¹ Although certainly a full-blown Allied attack against China would not have been expected, the almost complete failure to reprimand China in any way for their actions makes the Gulf War bravado of fighting for “dignity against oppression” ring all the more hollow. Not only there, but especially in light of the many other missed opportunities during Bush’s presidency to uphold good and fight against evil. However, since hardly any other situations were addressed with the same forceful undertaking, one must consider the conclusion that there was much more at stake here than only defending dignity in the Persian Gulf. I believe it was, again, a war fought for the purposes of establishing U.S. control over the gulf and its resources.

So how did Christians not see that? Or, if they did, why did they not be more vocal against sacrificing American fighting men and women merely to provide continued access to oil? I believe there are two reasons for this. One would be the Churches tendency, especially along many Protestant lines, to support the Republican Party in general and especially a Republican President in specific. The second reason why the Church did not openly oppose the Gulf War would be the introduction early on of what is called just war theory. Let us look at that second reason first.

Scott R. Appleby points out that “among the remarkable side effects of the conflict between the United States and Iraq has been the revival of the just war theory…Catholic moral theologians, accustomed to talking shop primarily to their students and to one another, enjoyed a short but intense heyday in the media spotlight during Operation Desert Storm...” ¹² Discussion of just war theory, and its application to the situation in the Persian Gulf became one of the dominant themes in terms of how the Bush Administration would respond to Iraqi aggression. “It is not too much to say,” wrote Russell Sizemore, “that for a brief moment just war rhetoric served as the lingua franca of American moral reflection….The sight of government and military officials, politicians, educators and pundits taking seriously a moral tradition rooted in Christianity was striking.” ¹³ But what exactly is just war theory and did the Persian Gulf War fulfill its criteria? The theory and criteria of a just war is generally attributed to St. Augustine, though many have elaborated upon it since then. Paraphrasing Augustine, here is how Scott Abblby summarized just war theory in his essay “How Christians Went To War,” “…the criteria for a just war [is] that war is the last resort, taken only after all other measures have been exhausted; that the cause is just (e.g., self-defense against an aggressor); that the war is waged with the right intention (not to exact vengeance or confiscate territory); and that the war is declared by the proper authority and with a reasonable hope of success in attaining its objectives.”¹⁴

There are widely differing opinions on whether or not the Persian Gulf War passed these traditional criteria. George Weigel and James Turner Johnson contend in their book “Just War and the Gulf War” that the Gulf War fulfilled those criteria with flying colors. Others like Alan Geyer and Barbara G. Green, in their book “Lines in the Sand: Justice and the Gulf War,” contend that the war did not. I would strongly concur with those who say that the Persian Gulf War did not fulfill the criteria to be considered a just war. First, the massive Allied attack against Iraq was in no way, shape or form an action of last resort. In fact, I would point to the seemingly immediate military build up of Operation Desert Shield as a clear sign that war was a preordained decision. There was very little opportunity for diplomacy or non-violent action, such as sanctions, to be effective. While I know some would argue that sanctions themselves could be viewed also as an attack on a countries civilian population, I would in turn argue that this is true only over an extended period of time; certainly much longer than the five months between Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and the beginning of Operation Desert Storm. Second, was the cause just? If the cause was simply to thwart the aggression of Saddam Hussein, then there might be a way to see the Gulf War as having a just cause. However, as was pointed out often during the crisis, if Kuwait had only produced broccoli then President Bush would have almost certainly not considered the Iraqi aggression of any dire importance. So, it is vague if the cause was just or not, but it sheds light on the third point. I believe the Gulf War could never be determined to be a just war when considering its intentions. The war was not about combating oppression but rather about establishing U.S. control over the gulf and its resources. The motivation for the Persian Gulf War was about greed, domination and protecting the self-interest of first world countries regardless of the cost. These are things that should be abhorrent to Christians and the church and could never be justified, much less supported, in light of any of Christ’s teachings. Lastly, while I am still unclear about what determines a “proper authority,” I would assume that the U.S. Government would qualify, and could also see that there was, at the outset, a reasonable hope of success for the war. In final review, however, I believe that U.S. Governments actions against Iraq fail in meeting the criteria for a just war.

Actually, despite the failure of the Gulf War to meet just war criteria, I am more troubled as to the nature of the theory itself. In his book “On War and Morality,” Robert Holmes notes that “it is difficult to read the New Testament with its emphasis upon loving one’s enemies and turning the other cheek without suspecting that Jesus was opposed to war.” ¹⁵ He notes that the early church was a persecuted nonviolent minority in a militarized state who interpreted Christ’s message as counseling a way of life that was antithetical to war and violence. However, by the time of Augustine, Christianity had become the official religion of the Roman Empire. In that ackward transition, Augustine tried to reconcile an individual’s responsibilities between Christianity and the state; an important part of this involved showing the justifiability of Christian participation in war. The problem for me is that any theory regarding participation in war, though it may reconcile an individual’s responsibilities between Christianity and the state, would fail to reconcile the responsibilities of a believer to his commitment to Jesus Christ. As Robert Holmes notes, “Christ’s teachings marked a radical departure from the formalism of the Old Testament and the legalism of the Romans…But under Augustine these teachings, so far as they pertain to violence and the taking of human life, reduce in practice to little more than what is conventionally accepted.”¹⁶ I believe that by getting involved in a discussion of just war theory, the Church got involved in a dialogue that was flawed from the very beginning. And subsequently, by focusing so much attention to this theory, it allowed the spotlight to be turned away from the governments real political agenda for the war; establishing U.S. control over the gulf and its resources.

Another aspect that hindered the church from vocally protesting the Gulf War would be the church’s tendency, especially along many Protestant lines, to support the Republican Party in general but especially a Republican President. While there are many smaller examples I could use to illustrate this point, nothing makes this statement more profoundly than listening to Retired Army Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf. On Sunday October 5 1992, Gen. Schwarzkopf spoke to the congregation of the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove. Unlike John Schuchardt who was drowned out by church-goers in Kennebunkport over a year earlier, Gen. Schwarzkopf received repeated standing ovations from the more than 10,000 cathedral members and visitors who attended one of the three morning services at which Schwarzkopf spoke. ¹⁷ He praised President Bush on his “ethics, integrity and honesty” and applauded Mr. Bush’s outstanding execution of the Persian Gulf War. When the Rev. Robert Schuller asked the Gulf War leader about his faith, Schwarzkopf told him he prayed every day and never went to sleep without reading a few Scriptures from the Bible during the war. “He recalled the prayer he repeated night after night while kneeling by his bed. ‘Lord make me an instrument of peace…Not my will be done, but thine,’ he said. That gave me the strength to take on whatever I had to take on.”¹⁸ One churchgoer said that Gen. Schwarzkopf was very inspiring, “It was really good to know that when he was out there during the war, he ultimately turned to the Lord in prayer.” Another said, “He’s a wonderful leader with honesty and integrity – makes you proud to be an American.” Ten years after the war, Saddam Hussein remains in power and most Kuwaiti people lack basic human rights, denied them by their own “government” and not some outside oppressor. Even though the Allied forces lost fewer than 300 soldiers, estimates of Iraqui military deaths range from 8,000 to 100,000.¹⁹ U.S. lead bombings ravaged the Iraqi infrastructure, leaving the public health at a terrible risk, including the masses of children who are still dying from the war’s delayed effects. While the Persian Gulf War might make some proud to be an American, it certainly does not make me proud to be a Christian.

Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” ²⁰ He also said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you." ²¹ I agree wholeheartedly with Robert Holmes when he says it is difficult to read the New Testament with its emphasis upon loving one’s enemies and turning the other cheek without suspecting that Jesus was opposed to war. One of the reasons I was attracted to my denomination, the Brethren in Christ, was that they seemed to be one of the few Christian Churches who were actively and vocally denouncing and protesting the Persian Gulf War.

Recently, a coalition of various Brethren in Christ representatives from throughout North America met to try to identify and articulate the “core values” of the Brethren in Christ Church as we move into the 21st century. From the ten core values that emerged from that gathering came this statement regarding peace and non-violence, “We value all human life and promote forgiveness, understanding, reconciliation, and nonviolent resolution of conflict.” ²² This hopefully transcends merely opposing war, but encompasses an active pursuit of peace and reconciliation through Jesus Christ. As believers, we are the instruments of that peace and, I believe, are called to be peacekeepers, but also peacemakers.

But I sympathize with the struggle between trying to live out Christ’s words of peace in our own lives while living in a world where violence and war are acceptable solutions to aggression. I appreciate that I have personally chosen to take a radical view of adherence to Jesus’ teachings. I not only believe Christians should refuse to participate in war, I often argue that it is unethical for a Christian to even own a gun, which is a hugely unpopular stance since most Christians seem to align themselves with both the Republican Party and the N.R.A. I do not support the death penalty, which I know many of my brothers and sisters in Christ support. But these views aside, I believe that the U.S. led aggression against Iraq was not about resisting unchecked aggression and restoring peace to the Persian Gulf, it was about establishing U.S. control over the gulf and its resources, and punishing any people who would stand in the way of the United States’ new world order. In that sense, it was an action that was sinister in its motivation, as well as its execution. And that the church shied away from this reality and failed to actively and vocally protest the Persian Gulf War will stand, I believe, as one of the church’s most deplorable mistakes at the end of the 20th century.

_{1. Andrew Rosenthal, “Bush worships amid discord of dissent,” The New York Times, 18 February 1991, sec. A, p. 8.
2. Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, 9th ed., s.v. “Protest.”
3. Charles Scriven, “Second thoughts about the war,” Christianity Today, 13 January 1992, 11.
4. George Weigel, “The Churches & War in the Gulf,” First Things, no. 11 (March 1991): 39.
5. Ibid.
6. David P. Jacobs, “U.S. attack on Iraq was criminal,” The Toronto Star, 23 August 1992, sec. B, p. 2.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Tim Weiner, “Smart weapons were overrated,” The New York Times, 9 July 1996, sec. A, p. 1.
10 Peter Steinfels, “One year later, the debate goes on.” The New York Times, 1 February 1992, sec. B, p. 10.
11. David Whitman, “God and man in times of war,” U.S. News and World Report, vol. 110, no. 7 (Feb. 25 1991): 10.
12. Scott R. Appleby, “How Christians went to war,” U.S. Catholic, vol. 64, no. 5 (May 1999): 40-1.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. Robert L. Holmes, On War and Morality (Princeton, N.J: Princeton Press, 1989): 116.
16. Ibid., 145.
17. Mimi Ko, “Schwarzdopf lauds Bush at cathedral,” The Los Angeles Times, Orange County Edition, 26 October 1992, sec. B, p. 2.
18. Ibid.
19. Scriven, “Second thoughts about the war,” 11.
20. Matthew 5:9 (all Scripture is quoted from the New American Standard Bible).
21. Matthew 5:43, 44.
22. Terry L. Brensinger, ed., Focusing Our Faith: Brethren in Christ Core Values (Nappanee, IN: Evangel Publishing, 2000): 11.}

I wrote this essay in 1990 during my time at Seminary working towards my MDiv Degree. I am posting it here for several reasons. First, I would like to see more people post from their own thoughts, opinions and research than merely just cut and paste other people's articles. However, I would never dream of openly suggesting to others that they post their work if I had not stuck my neck out and posted something of my own writing first. So, here we are.

Second, with the machinery of war slowing awakening and amassing (again) to do battle with Iraq (again) I thought it would be interesting to revisit the last Gulf War brought to us by the first George Bush. And, with that, bring up some religious issues that were discussed in that war (like Just War Theory) and see how they may or may not be applicable to this next attack on Iraq.

Third, I think this makes a change from the usual Cal/Arm debates and all the recent end-times posts for those who might be wearing down on those issues.

But, lastly, I just would like to see where people stand on war, violence, justice and defence and see how these issues relate to Christianity. I know I'm coming from kind of a different point of view that many here on FR, and please let me know if you disagree with me, and explain to me the error or my ways. Hey, I just might change my thoughts on some issues...it could happen.

My only concern is that I will not be able to keep a moment by moment monitering on this thread. If you ask me a direct question, please do not get mad if I take a day to respond. But, rest assured, I will respond.

pony

The issue that you raise is the one we are dealing with in the discussion on the Millennium.

The passages you cite are real passages and mean what they say.

They are not however, for this period of time, they are for when the Lord returns and sets up His Millennial kingdom.

The Lord also said to sell your coat and buy a sword(Lk.22:36)

The need to defend one's life and the life of others is not one that can be ignored in this dispensation.

In the Millennial kingdom, the Lord will judge at once all wrongdoing and keep peace.

Until then, we have that responsiblity.

This is a subject dear to my heart. As you may know, I am a retired Army Chaplain. While I was on a 1 year unaccompanied assignment in Korea at the time of Desert Storm/Shield, I had other occasions to see the face of death in the middle east. Prior to Korea I was chaplain for an army special ops unit that engaged the Iranians in the clandestine tanker war from about 87-89. Our men took the lives of a number of Iranians during that time. We also were among the 1st into Panama during that operation to replace Noriega. I saw a fair number of dead, dying, wounded during that time as well. This unit has been in all of our recent wars and has been a major part of the war on terror. It was featured in "Blackhawk Down." It is a tremendous group of men. I met wonderful Christians there, and I treasure my ministry in that unit. I buried some of the most courageous, most decent Americans who have ever stood up for their country. They were and still are America's best. Nightstalkers Don't Quit.

I have a single attitude toward those who conscientiously oppose war or who shirk their duty to their country: they live in freedom due to the blood of men better than they are.

That is my opening position.

I would no more fault a soldier, a representative of a nation, for taking the life of a criminal state, than I would fault a policeman, a representative of a community, for taking the life of a criminal individual.

That is my fall back position.

If I personally had an open shot at Saddam Hussein, I would pull the trigger. And I would pray that God guide the bullet.

Interesting. I'll be honest and admit that I'm a bit perturbed by this, seeing how I am a Gulf War vet. What we did over there was remarkable. The faces of those liberated Kuwait citizens were something I'll never forget. Also, those Iraqi soldiers who were actually elated to see us, each with their hands up, graciously accepting MREs we had because they were hungry.

I strongly believe in peace. But I'm not a fool. No where in God's Word will you find that He said we are not to defend ourselves. If we are persecuted for His Name's sake, then happy are we.

But what if a carjacker wants to kill my wife. What do I do? I kill him. Without remorse.

I love reading about David. He was after God's own heart. And David was a soldier's soldier and a warrior's warrior. There is a time and place for everything. There is a time for war, and a time for peace.

Since this has become literally them or us, who do you choose?

Decide the left hand or the right. There is absolutely no middle ground.

Eighty-Deuce Airborne. HOOAH!

But these views aside, I believe that the U.S. led aggression against Iraq was not about resisting unchecked aggression and restoring peace to the Persian Gulf, it was about establishing U.S. control over the gulf and its resources, and punishing any people who would stand in the way of the United States’ new world order.

You are a very seriously misguided and deluded young man.

I not only believe Christians should refuse to participate in war

You would have us sit back and be murdered? How can you say you love your fellow Americans if you would stand by while they are killed by Muslim fanatics?

You'll grow out of your liberal views.

The passages you cite are real passages and mean what they say.

They are not however, for this period of time, they are for when the Lord returns and sets up His Millennial kingdom.

Isn't there a real danger in taking Scripture piecemeal and deciding that one verse is for us but this other verse is not for us (or, for this period of time). While I am not arguing that there isn't a "now/not yet" aspect of Scripture, I think that most of those instances are to do with prophecy, and upcoming events. To apply that same judgement to what the Bible says about morality and lifestyle seems dangerous ground, and an open door to simply dismiss Scriptures that we are uncomfortable with with "they are not for our time."

Please let me know how you come to the conclusion that Jesus' words about peace are not for our time.

I have a single attitude toward those who conscientiously oppose war or who shirk their duty to their country: they live in freedom due to the blood of men better than they are.

But what is freedom? If freedom is merely something that only governments and armies are capable of dispensing and controlling? Wouldn't you agree that someone like Bonhoffer lived in greater freedom, through Christ, in Hitler's Germany than most non-Christians in the U.S. who live as slaves to sin, flesh and vice?

And I would vehemently disagree that those who conscientiously oppose war are in some way lesser men than those who pick up a gun and fight. Carrying a gun may make you a peacekeeper, but Jesus calls his Church to be peacemakers. You cannot actually make peace by looking down the barrel of a gun; you cannot make peace through intimidation, fear and threat of violence.

I would no more fault a soldier, a representative of a nation, for taking the life of a criminal state, than I would fault a policeman, a representative of a community, for taking the life of a criminal individual.

Please understand that I am not faulting the men and women who served in the front lines for bravely doing the duty that was assigned to them. When soldiers came to John the Baptist and asked "what shall we do?" John did not say, "Stop being soldiers". He simply said that they should do their job honestly. My problem is with the people who are giving the orders, and with the specific orders they are giving, and Christians (who, it should be said, by accepting Christ have accepted a far greater moral responsibility that those Roman soldiers who questioned John) who are just blindly following these orders without question.

When a person decides to follow Christ, he becomes a representative of the Kingdom, and that should, in EVERY instance of their lives, supercede their commitment as a representative of any particular nation-state. And when Christians kill, or support killing, simply in order to ensure the excessive material needs of a particular nation-state, then they have failed to live up to their committment to the Kingdom.

No where in God's Word will you find that He said we are not to defend ourselves. If we are persecuted for His Name's sake, then happy are we.

Well, just to give you one example, look at the Apostle's prayer in Acts 4:23-31. They prayed "And now, Lord, take not of their treats, and grant that Thy bond-servants may speak Thy word with all confidence." (Acts 4:29) Here is an instance where direct theats are being made against the apostles, and as you probably know, they were not just idle threats; there was a very good chance that when the Apsotles went out to preach, there would be terrible violence against them. But they do not pray to counter violence with violence, or threat with theat, or force with force. They seek something higher, a trust in God through ALL situaitons, which is what we, as Christians, should be doing.

For another point, isn't there a huge difference between being persecuted for His Name's sake and what happened during the Gulf War?

But what if a carjacker wants to kill my wife. What do I do? I kill him. Without remorse.

Without remorse? I would plead with you to reconsider that statement. There is one argument to justify killing in self-defence, however I would point out that it is a telling statement about your heart that you would be able to do so "without remorse."

There is a time for war, and a time for peace.

I agree. However, these times are God's times, not ours. I fear that recently our times of war are, in no way, shape for form, God's time.

You would have us sit back and be murdered? How can you say you love your fellow Americans if you would stand by while they are killed by Muslim fanatics?

A better question is why, exactly, do Muslim fanatics (as well as, let's be honest, many moderate Muslims) want to wreak such havoc upon the U.S.? I would suggest that the roots do not go back ages and ages, as some would suggest, but back only 30-40 years. That, plus the motiviation for the Gulf War (read the above article), and you have a receipe for a disasterous foriegn policy that has now come home to roost.

If the U.S. had taken a more Godly rather than greedy approach to the Middle East, then we would be living in a wholly different world today.

So, that being said, are the only two possiblities now for us to kill or be killed? Absolutely not. But it is going to take a far more Christ-centered approach, along with some real old-fashioned hard work, to transcend that kind of simplistic, myopic thinking that brought terror to the shores of the U.S. in the first place (by Muslims as much as Americans). There is a way out. And that way is through Christ only.

Wait a minute. You used my words in your response. If we are persecuted for His Name's sake, then happy are we. The Apostles here were threatened and being persecuted for Christ's sake. That's the point.

For another point, isn't there a huge difference between being persecuted for His Name's sake and what happened during the Gulf War?

Duh! Isn't that what I just said? Your argument falls flat here.

Without remorse?

None.

I would plead with you to reconsider that statement.

No.

There is one argument to justify killing in self-defence, however I would point out that it is a telling statement about your heart that you would be able to do so "without remorse."

Oh? Telling about my heart? That's not for you to judge, so get out of Christ's seat. You may have a point if, and only if, I sought out to do someone harm. I'm not. I'm talking purely about self-defense.

I agree. However, these times are God's times, not ours. I fear that recently our times of war are, in no way, shape for form, God's time.

That's your opinion, and you have no way of validating your belief here. You are entitled to that opinion, but it dosn't make it automatically correct.

Don't be so heavenly minded that you're no earthly good. We are to turn the other cheek, but that means forgiveness. Again, there is no place in the Word of God where He told us not to defend ourselves.

David, who was after God's own heart, whose House Christ fulfilled, was a mighty warrior. The people of Israel looked at King David and sang his praises about the thousands he killed. Where did God condemn David for this when it was war related?

But you skipped over that example for some reason.

I will tell you honestly that I don't agree with your position. Striving for peace is an individual duty of a Christian within his individual sphere of influence. I believe the Christian duty in the days of the Gulf War wasn't to denounce the government and sue for total cessation of conflict. I personally pray for the innocents that inevitably will be killed as a result of military conflict. I pray for the families of the soldiers on both sides who give their lives.

The Iraqi government was totally wrong in invading Kuwait. Kuwait asked for help from the world, and they got it. The United States was not the only country that showed up. Did we have additional motives outside of containing an expansionist regime? Yes. All the more motivation to do it.

There will never be total peace on Earth in this age. As long as evil exists, so will conflict. If all Christians adopted this utopian peacenik ideal, we'd be rather quickly slaughtered. Ignoring evil does not make it go away. There comes a time when battles must be waged, both spiritually and physically, and 1991 was one of those times. As was 2001. As is 2002. What fool thinks that if we just sit idly by and allow evil to grow beyond our borders that it will not strike at us again? How much did we hear from Ghadaffi after we bombed Libya? Should diplomatic solutions be sought? Always. But once it becomes obvious that a solution will not be reached in that manner, other action may be necessary.

Just my opinions. Please understand that though we may disagree, we are still brothers in Christ and I will not let our discussions/debates/disagreements remove that from being foremost in my mind.

Even so, Lord Jesus, quickly come!

The passages you cite are real passages and mean what they say. They are not however, for this period of time, they are for when the Lord returns and sets up His Millennial kingdom. Isn't there a real danger in taking Scripture piecemeal and deciding that one verse is for us but this other verse is not for us (or, for this period of time). While I am not arguing that there isn't a "now/not yet" aspect of Scripture, I think that most of those instances are to do with prophecy, and upcoming events. To apply that same judgement to what the Bible says about morality and lifestyle seems dangerous ground, and an open door to simply dismiss Scriptures that we are uncomfortable with with "they are not for our time."

Well, the issue is always 'rightly dividing' the truth.

For example, the moral requirments of the Old Testament are still in force, since they are repeated in the New (Romans 13)

They operate, however, not from under the Law but from the Law of love (Rom.13:10)

Please let me know how you come to the conclusion that Jesus' words about peace are not for our time.

There is not going to be any peace on our time.

The Bible predicts the worst is yet to come, not the best!

Judgements are going to be poured out on this world for rejecting God.

Christ said it will be a time of Tribulation that the world had never seen (Matt.24)

Now, I do not believe that Christians will go through this Tribulation.

It is however, coming, and all the predications regarding the Anti-Christ, taking the Mark of the Beast, wars, chaos, judgements are going to happpen before the Lord returns and saves the Earth from its destroyers (Rev.19)

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