Godwin's law

Old Meany is unhappy:

If the election predictions hold true and the FBI doesn't arrest Barry Obama between now and the time I wake up, congratulations President-Elect Obama. A more corrupt political machine I have never seen in my short lifetime. Your campaign of intimidation and utter racism has been successful and I hope that you jettison your racist ways before you completely rip this country apart. I have never seen any past actions that would give me that hope, however I always hope. Even when odds, your past performance, and all historical accounts show you to be a shit heel of a person, I still hope.

There exists no man, no woman, no group of humans on this earth that shall ever crush my spirit nor my desire for personal success. I assure you, I will not produce a single thing to help you oppress the individualist. Not one thing sir, shall you or your thugs ever take from me. You can only keep the spirit of this country down for eight years. I pray that you do not try to pry the founding principles away from those that you intend to govern. We shall not stand for it.

Your philosophical brethren came for the Jews. If you try the same, my philosophical brethren shall not stand for it this time. We will not allow you to do to this country what is in your heart and what little mind you possess. Those of your ilk do not have the foundation that my peers possess. And you never shall because of your philosophy.

All of that said, I am sorry for what your kind has done to this country, the drive and initiative that your moochers have taken from our children. We shall be back at the top some day, and your kind will be driven back into your caves.

So it is written, so it shall be done. Let's get through this next four years as quickly as possible.

We applaud Vice President-Elect Biden and his blithering insanity, too. I hang my head.

Gribbit is disgusted:

The 2008 Presidential Election is going to go down in history as the election that was decided by the Main Stream Media and you lemmings fell for it. Republicans as a Party allowed the New York Times to select our Nominee. McCain was dead before the Times endorsed him in the Primary. CNN threw softballs to McCain before he became the apparent nominee. In the end, his friends in the press played pit bull on McCain and attacked him. Shortly after securing the necessary delegates to win the Nomination, the same New York Times attacked the very candidate they endorsed.

Barry Obama’s path to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was paved with the dead bodies of aborted babies and heralded by the Main Stream Media which did nothing but cover-up and make excuses for Barry and his ultra liberal (and even terrorist) buddies.

The electorate of this nation has shown with this election that they haven’t the capacity to learn from our own history. There was another young man who ran for the Presidency and won without defining himself. He too was elected on the heels of an unpopular Republican President. That President went on to be THE most ineffective chief executive in our nation’s history. Under Jimmy Carter’s watch the unemployment rate skyrocketed to double digits, interest rates were in excess of 20%, and inflation was also in double digits. Jimmy too got himself elected without definition. A ‘Change’ candidate from the ‘corruption’ of an unpopular President Nixon.

When you fail to define your candidate before electing him to a position of power, you are playing with some dangerous elements. In Germany there once was a very charismatic character who ran for Chancellor based on ‘Change’. Germany too was in dire economic straights due to its loss in the first world war. Adolf Hitler led Germany out of its economic woes but at what cost? Over 100 million dead.

Instead of Jews Barry Obama blames unborn babies and they are his target for extermination. Barry will be in a position to appoint 2 replacements for the very liberal Ruthy Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens - who has one foot in the grave and another on a banana peel).

So America, during the next 4 years as jobs are eliminated due to Barry’s aggressive tax plan and interest rates begin to climb to combat inflation, and the cost of living rises as a result of the rise in taxes Barry is seeking to pay for his massive social experiment, as health care in this country goes the way of the British and Canadian systems where you have to wait 6 - 12 months to have a medical procedure, remember one important thing. YOU ALLOWED THIS TO HAPPEN.

You people disgust me. Because you could have prevented the screwing that we are all about to receive. But instead you allowed yourself to be influenced by Chrissy Matthews and his tingly feeling up his legs. You spineless lemmings allowed your guilt for America’s past influence your vote and voted for a man’s skin color in spite of his lack of character. America, you truly deserve what we are about to receive.

Jenn is frightened:

Well, enjoy the last few months as a Republic. We are now entering the state of socialism and Big Brother. I think some people should read George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm during the next four years. Say goodbye to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Obama's policies will bankrupt us, it will cripple us, and we asked him to do it. I know many of you voted for this man. Obviously, this was your choice. I don't want to hear a peep of complaint about our nation in the next four years from any of you. You voted for him and you can suffer the consequences of his policies. He will only make you poorer because he will make this nation poorer. Your freedom of speech is at risk, your pocketbooks are at risk, and babies in the process of being born will be murdered. Do not complain to me when the price of bread skyrockets and we encounter another international crisis. Don't express fear when Obama reduces our military strength while Iran announces they have a nuclear bomb ready. Don't believe Obama that he can talk his way into making friends with Iran. They think we are the devil and continually announce they will destroy us. But perhaps, they won't have to. I think we are destroying ourselves quite well. Yes, I am angry and disillusioned. I am frustrated.

Over and over again tonight, God kept telling me I needed to trust him, no matter the outcome of this election. He promised me he would never leave me or forsake me. I am being called to stand firm in my faith, because soon, it will be all I have left and too sacred to forsake. I also know that judgement has been coming for this nation for some time. We have forsaken him for idols that cannot bring happiness. We kill our children, embrace promiscuity and sexual perversion, bow down to materialism, spit in his face, distort knowledge, and we live in a pool of lies. Actually, we aren't that different from ancient Israel. God did not let her continue unpunished in her sin and his judgment was severe. He gave her over to all her idols and perversions. He allowed that which she lusted for to overtake her and consume her. He is going to let us see just how futile these idols are in the next four years. He has allowed a man, whom we picked, to be in a place of power where he will allow our tax dollars to pay for partial birth abortion (these are babies who are viable but they kill it anyway), he will put limits on speech that allows you to have an opinion that is different from what he sees as right. He won't allow intolerance expect for those who disagree with him (only he and Congress can be intolerant). He will make the government such a powerful force that it will tell you how to eat, sleep, and work. He will shut down the best medical care provided in the world through his universal health care. He will put us further in debt if he pushes forward his trillion dollar spending. He will make our energy costs skyrocket by making our main source of energy production go bankrupt (his words yesterday). He will back out of promises, he will make you more dependent on government, and he will numb your souls by telling you that hard work has no incentive and this is freedom. If any of these things come true, do not come and complain to me. He made all of these things clear if you did your homework versus listen to your feelings and the mainstream media. Wisdom was reaching out to you, but you rejected her. God is going to humble us. I have hope though, that like the Israelites, God will bring us back into being the nation we were at the beginning of it's birth. It could be a while though. I also know that our faith may be under fire in this next administration (if you listen to Obama's pastor, you'll know he doesn't preach the good news of Christ, just hatred of white people) because Obama doesn't believe churches have the right to disagree with certain points of view. We will have to be a people of prayer. His church cannot be sucked in by the world anymore, but needs to be brought down on it's knees in prayer. Many of us will be sifted out like the wheat and chaff. Many will forsake the church for the approval of the world. We will be tested, but never forsaken. If we are persecuted, we have to remember Christ and the early church. We cannot lose hope, for when we do that, we have lost God. Obama is not hope, but he is change. Change for a better America? NO. But we must now lie in the bed we made and pray that God will have mercy on us once again.

Stan is not happy either:

America supports dismembering babies and redistribution of wealth; Hitler would be so proud.

America has decided to go the way of Marxism and that's not all.

What is shocking to me is that so-called "Christians" voted to support the dismemberment of babies in the womb. They scoff at what the Bible says about murder. Of course their scoffing sounds all pretty and well thought out. They couch it in pleasant arguments. But these smooth words fail to hide the fact that they voted to expand the war against the unborn.

God will not be mocked. These "Christians" will reap what they have sown.

Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things (such as murder) deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. (Romans 1:32)

You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you. (James 5:6)

But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars--they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death." (Revelation 21:8)

Emphasis mine.

Slightly ridiculous reporting

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As much as I dislike the GOP and will cheer at any electoral downfall they experience over the next few years, this piece by America's ABC news is anything but informative.

So. GOP activists were partying with Lobbyists with the tab paid by big corporations. And this while Hurricane Gustav was heading towards Louisiana.

Well, unless you want to declare every single bar and nightclub in America banned during a hurricane, what's the problem with going out on the town when something goes wrong? Bush didn't close down bars and nightclubs after 9/11 and people still went there, muted as their enjoyment would have been. If GOP activists and operatives were schmoozing with lobbyists paid for by big corporations, what's the issue? I'm sure the Democrats did it in Denver and if a hurricane was hitting Louisiana during that convention I wouldn't have had any problem either.

The only reason for this report was to depict Republicans as being partying elitists who don't care about ordinary people. Of course, the fact that Republicans ARE elitist and DON'T care about ordinary people is quite provable... but partying during a convention while a Hurricane blows and linking that to elitist, uncaring GOPers is ridiculous.

At the risk of going Godwin, the fact that Hitler was a non-smoker doesn't mean his non-smoking proves he was a tyrant. The same is true for the GOP (although, since Nazi analogies are fraught with danger, I need to point out that Hitler and the GOP are not analogous. Any evil the GOP has done is magnitudes smaller than the evils of Hitler. I just couldn't think of a better analogy.)

AAAAAAAAA

A blog post with every single category marked (I'm doing this for scribefire)

It's halfway through spring

And we have another scorcher. 33.5 Celcius (that's 92.3 Farenheit). So far this month we've had nine 30+ days here in Newcastle, which is a bit bigger than the average 2.8 we normally get.

Can't wait for summer, and I mean that most sincerely.

And, obviously, this is just some radical anomaly in climate and nothing to do with the pseudo-science of global warming and the conspiracy behind it to increase government spending and turn us all into serfs (Belief in Global Warming = adherence to Nazism). Thankyou Friedrich Hayak for making this link.

Al Mohler still wants us to have more babies

Here's the link, but I'm not going to quote anything.

Basically, Mohler makes the following assumptions:

1. Having less babies will inevitably lead to economic crisis.
2. Europe's birth rate is low while its Muslim population has high birth rates, leading to an Islamic Europe.
3. The choice to not have babies is essentially a selfish one.
4. That childlessness has at its basis a form of pseudo-science that originated with Hitler.
5. America's relatively high birthrate is because of altruistic efforts to make the world a better place.
6. Modern Europe will decline like the Roman Empire.
   

Let me point out some simple rebuttals, each numbered according to Mohler's assumptions above.

1. Countries with low birthrates (below 2.1 children/woman) will eventually begin to shrink. There are substantial savings to be made, especially in the area of infrastructure (roads, electricity, water, rail) and housing. With less people inhabiting the same space as a previous generation, there will be no need to build major infrastructure projects and housing will be relatively cheap.
2. First generation immigrants will often reflect the birth-rates of their land of birth. Thus women from a high birth-rate country will still have lots of babies in their new country (such as Europe). However, their children and their grandchildren will have babies at the same rate as the nation around them. Muslims in Europe now may be having lots of babies... but the next generation of European-born Muslims won't. (Iran, btw, has a low birthrate - below replacement level. Iranians are mainly Islamic and do not live in a rich country... yet their birthrate is low)
3. There is no passage in the bible which directly commands human beings to have a minimum of 3 children. Moreover, scientific studies into animal birthrates show that many animals choose to put off reproduction when times are "tough".
4. I won't even bother to argue this one. Mohler breaks Godwin so he loses.
5. *Choke*. America is wonderful and unselfish because the people have lots of babies? What sort of argument is that? Besides, US birthrates are on their way down... which, for Mohler, would probably indicate the growing godlessness of America. It's sad to see that the same guy who signed The Cambridge Declaration - which states that the inerrant Scripture to be the sole source of written divine revelation, which alone can bind the conscience - is binding the consciences of Christians with the unbiblical drivel he espouses here.
6. As I mentioned a few days ago, invoking the fall of the Roman Empire to bolster your argument is getting to be as bad as Godwin these days.
   

George Bush as antichrist?

An interesting argument:

Yet, conservative Christians are still so infatuated with President Bush that they actually believe that anyone who resists the President is resisting God. They further believe that if anyone votes for any candidate who is not a Republican (Bush's party), they are fighting against God. They gladly surrender their constitutional liberties and safeguards. They enthusiastically support an unconstitutional war in Iraq and would no doubt support expanding the war to wherever Bush decided. They happily cede Bush the power to tap their phones, read their emails, or open their mail (without warrant or court order, no less).

Regardless of one's politics or religion, the spirit of Big Brother, the spirit of military aggression, the spirit of occultism, the spirit of a police state mentality, the spirit of deception are all part of the spirit of antichrist.

Therefore, whether one identifies himself as a premillennialist or a postmillennialist or anything in between; whether we believe in a Rapture or not; no matter what our understanding of Eschatology might be, every Christian has a duty to "resist the devil" in any form in which he reveals himself. And that certainly means that any political leader, regardless of party, who embodies or exemplifies the spirit of antichrist, must be resisted. Anything less means to accept, in a way, the mark of the beast.

Some interesting points, however the writer goes a bit too "Godwin" in his argument here which takes away much of its impact. I'm no fan of George W. Bush, but to make Hitler/Nazi comparisons as he has done is not warranted. He also spends too much time mulling over "dark conspiracies" - although in a reasonably neutral and judicious manner. He really should have spent more time examining the evil acts of the Bush Administration and then using them as a springboard to critique Bush.

I've often said to myself in the past that if I were premillennial then, looking at the acts of Bush and then looking at the adulation American Christians give him, I would want to identify Bush as a potential Antichrist.

America as the New Roman Empire

I was talking to a friend the other day who remarked that the decline and fall of the Roman Empire had some unusual parallels with the current situation in the United States of America.

I'm not going to agree or disagree with this notion, however I must point out that the analogy of the Roman Empire being used to describe modern America is a common one, and one that is present in both sides of political discourse.

Fundamentalist Christians, for example, point to the moral decadence of Rome and then use that as a springboard to condemn homosexuality, abortion and atheism.

Left-wingers will point to an over-extended military, decaying public infrastructure and greater disparities between rich and poor.

But there are some important things we need to remember as we compare the US to Rome:

1. The United States has not been invaded by hordes of vandals and barbarians destroying outlying cities of the Empire.
2. The United States has not suffered massive and protracted deaths because of plagues.
3. The United States has not needed to split itself into two distinct sections in order to maintain governance.
4. The United States has not gone through periods of great famine that have resulted in the deaths of large swathes of the population.

Of course, the truth of the matter is that America is different to ancient Rome. Moreover, the broad message we get about all empires is that they eventually decline and America is no exception to this - in which case, arguments about poverty, infrastructure, the military and morals are important as general indications of decline without it needing a direct comparison. The British Empire, for example, has shrunk quite considerably from what it was hundreds of years ago but you can't really make the case that further decline is inevitable.

Sadly, I think that, just like Godwin's Law, we need to be judicious in our use of the Roman Empire in our discussions about America and its (so called) decline.

O'Reilly declares war on Dailykos

Bill O'Reilly - the Fox News person, not the Australian cricketer - has all but declared war on the lefty blog Dailykos.

Unfortunately, O'Reilly seems to have forgotten the power of the internet, which allows previous court documents to be dug up easily. Let's just say that O'Reilly's private life is quite sordid, and has resulted in him being called "loofah" and "felafel" by his critics.

O'Reilly is, of course, as guilty as anyone in depicting people he disagrees with as Nazis. This is going to be an interesting time - lefty blogs like Dailykos and Americablog are getting their readers to write letters to advertisers to try to get O'Reilly off the air while O'Reilly continues to depict these lefty blogs as terrorist-supporting Nazis.

This is, essentially, a battle between the "Old Media" (Fox network) and the "New Media" (blogs). It'll be interesting to see how this turns out. Murdoch (the owner of Fox) can never justify a business that does not make a profit, so aiming at advertisers is a good idea since it would eventually force Fox to shut O'Reilly down if the protests succeed in reducing revenue to the show.

Godwin's law and Global Warming

As many of you know, I am familiar with the concept of Godwin's Law. Put simply, Godwin's Law acts as a warning to anyone who, in the process of putting forth and argument or criticising someone or something, uses the analogy of Nazism and/or Adolf Hitler.

One of the most prominent areas that Godwin's Law is being ignored is in the "debate" over Global Warming. People like me, who accept the expertise of 99.9% of climatologists, believe that anyone who denies global warming is essentially denying reality. In response, global warming deniers are more than happy to smear reasonable people like myself by calling us "Nazis". How about this for an example:

[Y[ou know, Al Gore's not going to be rounding up Jews and exterminating them. It is the same tactic, however. The goal is different. The goal is globalization. The goal is global carbon tax. The goal is the United Nations running the world. That is the goal. Back in the 1930s, the goal was get rid of all of the Jews and have one global government.

You got to have an enemy to fight. And when you have an enemy to fight, then you can unite the entire world behind you, and you seize power. That was Hitler's plan. His enemy: the Jew. Al Gore's enemy, the U.N.'s enemy: global warming....

Then you get the scientists -- eugenics. You get the scientists -- global warming. Then you have to discredit the scientists that say, 'That's not right.' And you must silence all dissenting voices. That's what Hitler did.

The problem with using Nazi analogies is that, according to Godwin's Law, the first person to do so has essentially lost the argument. Unable to argue effectively with facts, the person's only recourse is to smear and insult. The fact that so many global warming deniers are calling people like me "Nazis" is because they either don't have the brains to mount an effective counter argument or they don't have the testicular fortitude to admit they're wrong.

P.S. If you're reading this, and are a global warming doubter, then click here to read the evidence, which is presented in a factual, objective and scientific manner by a reputable American science magazine.

Keating links Howard to Hitler

The ABC reports.

Obviously the guy doesn't know anything about Godwin's Law.

Do Evangelicals have blood on their hands?

God does not take death lightly. The Bible is full of instances which show that human life is precious, and that when this life is deliberately taken, a great evil is being perpetrated.

American Evangelicals, strangely enough, do not understand this. They are willing to jump upon Abortion as a moral outrage - which they should - but are unwilling to apply the same piece of Biblical truth to other spheres of life.

The best example of this is the Iraq war. Evangelicals in America were the war's most ardent supporters. In 2002, an open letter written by a number of Evangelical leaders was published that gave their explicit support for the war. The signatories included Bill Bright, James Kennedy, Charles Colson and Richard Land. It is known as the "Land letter" since Richard Land was its original writer. The text of the Land letter can be found at Wikisource.

The Land letter was an attempt to justify a pre-emptive attack on Iraq. It outlined what it thought was the biblical basis for a "Just war", and attempted to justify an American attack on Iraq from a Christian point of view.

The Land letter was a watershed in American Evangelicalism, and it will go down in history as one of the movement's greatest and most damaging mistakes.

Obviously there will be many evangelicals out there who maintain that the 2003 invasion was justified, and that American forces must continue to occupy the country. I suppose that is fair enough if you have been convinced of that, but we must remember that the current reasons for "staying the course" are vastly different to the reasons that were initially touted - and the ones that form the basis of the Land letter.

The Land letter is breathtakingly naive in both its assumptions and in its statements. So much of the letter is based upon the rock-solid belief that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction - a belief that formed the basis of the letter's call to action. Now that it has been proved that Iraq posed no threat at all to America and to the rest of the world, the foundation for the letter's argument collapses.

A clear and present danger
The assumption that Saddam and Iraq posed a clear and present danger because of Weapons of Mass destruction can be found in the second paragraph:

We believe that your policies concerning the ongoing international terrorist campaign against America are both right and just. Specifically, we believe that your stated policies concerning Saddam Hussein and his headlong pursuit and development of biochemical and nuclear weapons of mass destruction are prudent and fall well within the time-honored criteria of just war theory as developed by Christian theologians in the late fourth and early fifth centuries A.D.

All this sounds fine if in fact Saddam was developing such weapons. But he wasn't. Even if he was planning to, all the evidence shows that nothing had been done. Saddam's WMDs had been destroyed during the first Gulf war, or due to the UN sanctions that followed.

At this point I would like to address the evangelical supporter of the war directly who may be reading this. Listen, my friend, THERE WERE NO WMDS. Saddam Hussein did not have anything that was dangerous to the world. No evidence whatsoever has emerged that contradicts this fact. If you believed before the invasion that Saddam had such weapons, you were wrong.

The letter goes on to discuss seven points that justify the invasion of Iraq.

A defensive war
The first thing that the Land letter addresses concerns whether the imminent war is considered "just". This is what the letter says:

First, your stated policy concerning using military force if necessary to disarm Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction is a just cause. In just war theory only defensive war is defensible; and if military force is used against Saddam Hussein it will be because he has attacked his neighbors, used weapons of mass destruction against his own people, and harbored terrorists from the Al Qaeda terrorist network that attacked our nation so viciously and violently on September 11, 2001. As you stated in your address to the U.N. September 12th:

“We can harbor no illusions. . . . Saddam Hussein attacked Iran in 1980 and Kuwait in 1990. He’s fired ballistic missiles at Iran and Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Israel. His regime once ordered the killing of every person between the ages of 15 and 70 in certain Kurdish villages in Northern Iraq. He has gassed many Iranians and forty Iraqi villages.”

Disarming and neutralizing Saddam Hussein is to defend freedom and freedom-loving people from state-sponsored terror and death.

But, of course, Saddam did not have any WMDs. He used them against the Kurds so many years ago, but in 2003 he did not have any at all to play with.

The other thing, of course, is the statement that a link existed between Al Qaeda and Iraq. This link has proved to be spurious - no link has been proven or even discovered. In the lead up to the war, the President and his aides spoke about such clear links, but analysis proved otherwise.

I'll say it again for the Evangelical reading this: There was no link between Al Qaeda and Iraq. This means that 9/11 had no link whatsoever to Saddam Hussein. Attacking Iraq based on 9/11 was completely false.

Some Evangelical Christians maintain a belief that there was some spiritual link between Saddam and Osama - via the devil or something like that. Of course, Satan acts in every evil act, but to somehow think that there was some hidden conspiracy is ridiculous. These people need to stop reading their Left Behind books and start using their brains instead.

The intent of the war is just and noble
The second thing the land letter addresses is the intent of such a war:

Second, just war must have just intent. Our nation does not intend to destroy, conquer, or exploit Iraq. As you declared forthrightly in your speech to the U.N. General Assembly:

“The United States has no quarrel with the Iraqi people. . . . Liberty for the Iraqi people is a great moral cause, and a great strategic goal. The people of Iraq deserve it; the security of all nations requires it. Free societies do not intimidate through cruelty and conquest, and open societies do not threaten the world with mass murder. The United States supports political and economic liberty in a unified Iraq.”

This is clearly a just and noble intent.

The fact that President Bush said that his intentions were noble does not mean that the war was noble. The land letter says that the US does not intend to "destroy, conquer or exploit Iraq", yet it is obvious that Iraq has been destroyed, conquered and exploited.

Notice also a developing theme in the letter - an assertion of support followed by a quote from the President himself. This shows that the writers themselves are willingly submitting themselves to the directions of the President. They are, essentially, "evangelical yes-men".

A last resort
The third thing the letter points out is that such a war is only justifiable as a "last resort". It states:

Third, just war may only be commenced as a last resort. As you so clearly enumerated before the U.N., Saddam Hussein has for more than a decade ignored Security Council resolutions or defied them while breaking virtually every agreement Into which he has entered. He stands convicted by his own record as a brutal dictator who cannot be trusted to abide by any agreement he makes. And while he prevaricates and obfuscates, he continues to obtain and develop the weapons of mass destruction which he will use to terrorize the world community of nations.

The world has been waiting for more than a decade for the Iraqi regime to fulfill its agreement to destroy all of its weapons of mass destruction, to cease producing them or the long-range missiles to deliver them in the future, and to allow thorough and rigorous inspections to verify their compliance. They have not, and will not, do so and any further delay in forcing the regime’s compliance would be reckless irresponsibility in the face of grave and growing danger.

This argument, of course, completely falls over if there were no WMDs. There was no point in invading Iraq if there was no danger.

It's at this point that the blindness of the writers comes to the fore. The assumption that Iraq has WMDs is totally unquestioned. Despite all the work done by UN weapons inspectors - which proved beyond reasonable doubt that Iraq did not have WMDs - the writers continue to trust blindly in the president's assurances and pronouncements.

The war has legitimate authority
The writers then turn to the war being waged by a legitimate earthly authority. They state:

Fourth, just war requires authorization by legitimate authority. We believe it was wise and prudent for you to go before the U.N. General Assembly and ask the U.N. Security Council to enforce its own resolutions. However, as American citizens we believe that, however helpful a U.N. Security Council vote might be, the legitimate authority to authorize the use of U.S. military force is the government of the United States and that the authorizing vehicle is a declaration of war or a joint resolution of the Congress.

When the threat of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba presented a grave threat to America’s security, President Kennedy asked for the support of the U.N. and the Organization of American States, but made it clear, with or without their support, those missiles would either be removed by the Soviets, or we would neutralize them ourselves. The American people expected no less from their president and their government.

Notice the not-so-subtle distrust of the United Nations here? The UN had experienced and trustworthy weapons inspectors in place who were scouring the Iraqi countryside for Biological, Chemical and Nuclear weapons. They found none. Nevertheless this didn't convince these evangelical writers, who trusted in George Bush to be telling the truth - no matter how wrong it was.

The writers then bring up the Cuban Missile Crisis to back up their argument. But time has shown that Iraq's threat to the US was negligible compared to the 1962 crisis. Was Cuba in1962 a crisis? It sure was. Can the same be said about Iraq in 2003? Absolutely not.

Limited Goals
The next point the writers raise is that of limited goals:

Fifth, just war requires limited goals and the resort to armed force must have a reasonable expectation of success. In other words, “total war” is unacceptable and the war’s goals must be achievable. We believe your stated policies for disarming the murderous Iraqi dictator and destroying his weapons of mass destruction, while liberating the Iraqi people for his cruel and barbarous grip, more than meet those criteria.

How limited is a limited war? At this present moment in time, Iraq is in the grip of anarchy, and has been since the 2003 invasion. Civil society has broken down. Saddam's brutal regime has not been replaced by anything resembling a civil society in the two years since America invaded.

The fact is that many Americans are now convinced that the Iraqi invasion was a massive mistake. Recent polls show that supporters of the war are now significantly outnumbered by those who oppose it. America has changed its mind on the war. Why? Because Iraq is in anarchy and the presence of US troops has not changed that fact.

The fact that "total war" was not declared or waged is immaterial. The fact is that America's invasion of Iraq has completely devastated the country and brought its people to suffering and ruin. I'd hate to see what "total war" would have done to the nation.

The immunity of non combatants
The writers also point out that the suffering of innocents must be minimised:

Sixth, just war theory requires noncombatant immunity. We are confident that our government, unlike Hussein, will not target civilians and will do all that it can to minimize noncombatant casualties.

Confident that the government will do all it can to avoid the deaths of civilians? Such a statement is naive in the extreme, especially considering everything that has gone on since the 2003 invasion.

The fact is that tens of thousands of Iraqis have died since America invaded. The bulk of these have been non-combatants, such as women, children and families. Plenty of news reports since the invasion have proved that American forces did target civilians.

Proportionality
The writers state:

Seventh, just war theory requires the question of proportionality be addressed. Will the human cost of the armed conflict to both sides be proportionate to the stated objectives and goals? Does the good gained by resort to armed conflict justify the cost of lives lost and bodies maimed? We believe that the cost of not dealing with this threat now will only succeed in greatly increasing the cost in human lives and suffering when an even more heavily armed and dangerous Saddam Hussein must be confronted at some date in the not too distant future. We believe that every day of delay significantly increases the risk of far greater human suffering in the future than acting now would entail.

How different and how much safer would the history of the twentieth century have been had the allies confronted Hitler when he illegally reoccupied the Rhineland in 1936 in clear violation of Germany’s treaty agreements? It is at least possible that tens of millions of the lives lost in World War II might not have been lost if the Allies had enforced treaty compliance then instead of appeasing a murderous dictator.

In hindsight, the argument of proportionality is obscene. There was no security at all to be gained by the 2003 invasion, which means that the tens of thousands who have subsequently died have died for no reason whatsoever.

Notice that irrational fear is what is driving these writers. They assume, despite the sterling efforts of the UN weapons inspectors to prove otherwise, that another disastrous terrorist attack involving WMDs from Iraq was a distinct possibility.

Also notice that they make the cardinal error of Godwin's Law by invoking Adolf Hitler. Saddam Hussein was no doubt a brutal dictator, but to compare him to Hitler is an insult to everyone who suffered and died under the Fuehrer's rule. Hitler engineering the deaths of millions. Saddam was simply a brutal idiot.

Learning from the Bible.
What is noticeable in the land letter is the total absence of any biblical references. In fact, for a letter from America's most religious people, God is not mentioned anywhere at all. This oversight was obviously not deliberate, but it does speak volumes about the terrible error that these evangelical leaders have fallen into. Had they chosen to read the Bible, the writers may have discovered the following verses:

Deuteronomy 17:6
On the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses the one who is to die shall be put to death; a person shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness.

There are no real passages that deal with the issue of "Just war", but a verse like this should help us to understand God's mind. In its context, this verse is all about making sure that people who are to suffer the death penalty get a fair trial. This involves the corroboration of evidence to make sure that malicious accusations can be minimised.

What this verse teaches us is that the God who wishes justice is not one who ignores evidence. God will judge justly because, as God, he has all the information available to him as judge. For us as Evangelical Christians, we should fight for a society that promotes dispassionate justice, based upon evidence, not heresay.

But this was ignored by the writers of the Land letter. Their assumption was that Saddam had WMDs. Despite all the evidence to the contrary they supported a pre-emptive war. Even at the time there were grave doubts expressed by others in the international community. Rather than use their positions in Christian leadership to counsel restraint and objectivity, they became cheer-leaders for a war effort that was not justified based on the evidence.

Psalm 146:3
Put not your trust in princes,
in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.

One of the most thoroughly embarrassing features of the Land letter is the enthusiastic and uncritical support the writers give to George W. Bush. Their attitude is almost worshipful. They quote sections of his speeches as though they were inspired by The Holy Spirit himself.

The Bible is clear when it comes to human sinfulness - all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Our trust should not be in man - and certainly not in princes or presidents. The bible is full of examples of leadership gone very wrong, and also full of rebuke for such leadership. George W. Bush was treated in an overly reverential way by the writers of the Land letter - at no point did they say anything to warn the president of making the wrong decision. The assumption was that the president was right and just and should not be questioned. This is not a biblical attitude.

Proverbs 30:5-6
Every word of God proves true;
he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.
Do not add to his words,
lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar.

Evangelicals are supposedly people of the book - the word of God found in the Bible. Yet the complete absence of biblical backup for the Land letter, not to mention the lack of reference to God, shows that many evangelical leaders view their own pronouncements as being almost on par with the bible.

The events in Iraq have shown these Evangelical leaders to be men who trust in their own words, rather than in the word of God. They chose to ignore the ample evidence that had been given to them, and instead gave into the thinking and beliefs of the time. Their pronouncements seemed so wise, so sure - but they had spoken from their own authority. As a result, God has rebuked them and proven that they speak falsehood.

Public Repentance
There is only one option open to the authors of the Land letter and to all who took it as their own - they must publically repent of their sin.

I need to remind the evangelical reader that tens of thousands of Iraqis, including women and children, have died as a result of this war. Millions more are suffering from the anarchy that exists in Iraq because of America's invasion. The Land letter explicitly supported George Bush's war on Iraq based upon the understanding that the threat of Weapons of Mass Destruction was imminent. It was not. There was no threat whatsoever. Moreover, the American effort in keeping the peace in Iraq is totally inadequate. These people, who according to Jesus are our neighbours and who should be the recipients of our love, are undergoing terrible suffering because of the current situation.

It is for this reason that I submit that many American evangelicals - especially those who signed the Land letter - are complicit in the deaths of thousands of people. I am not aiming this at the person in the street who supported the war, but rather those evangelical leaders who stood up and publically supported the invasion.

Charles Colson, one of the Land letter signatories, wrote an article in the December 9 issue of Christianity today that defended his position on "Just war." He defends the position based on the idea that we should love our neighbour, and that sometimes war may be the best way to help them. Despite the wisdom that this appears to have, Colson then makes the most breath-taking of statements:

Of course, all of this presupposes solid intelligence and the goodwill of U.S. and Western leaders. I find it hard to believe that any President, aware of the awesome consequences of his decision and of the swiftness of second-guessing in a liberal democracy, would act recklessly.

This is one of Richard Nixon's former advisors speaking here. Of all people who could know the utter stupidity that a president can fall into, Colson should know. But it seems he has not learned anything from Watergate. The fact is that Bush acted recklessly and without any thought to the consequences of his actions when he ordered the invasion of Iraq. Like other evangelical leaders, including those who wrote the Land letter, Colson has shot himself in the foot by presuming to trust in the judgement of a sinful man.

Consequences
Along with many other evangelicals, I believe that the modern evangelical movement is in complete disarray. The gospel of Christ crucified is not the message that is being preached in the pulpits of American Evangelical churches. The word of God - the Bible - is being either ignored or butchered by preachers who aim to please men, not God, in their preaching.

As I stated earlier, the Land letter will go down in history as one of the greatest mistakes made by American Evangelicals. There is no knowing how much damage to the Gospel of Christ has been done by this present generation of evangelical leaders and teachers. As the years pass and the invasion of Iraq is seen in a more objective light, many will lose their trust in the evangelical movement. Future evangelicals will have to fight hard to distance themselves from the actions of present-day believers in order to present the gospel in a world that has turned against God.


From the One Salient Overlord Department

© 2005 Neil McKenzie Cameron, http://one-salient-oversight.blogspot.com/




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