| God's Will in War | |
|---|---|
|
Anonymous 12/14/09 |
This letter to the editor references the December 9th edition of the Campus Chronicle.
I thought that I might respond to the article concerning "God's will" and our military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. I must first pay tribute to the some 5000+ American lives that have since been lost in these conflicts. Were Mr. Vanderpool to sit down with Grant and Lee, per his wishes, they might now dispell any myths of divine benevolence towards a respective faction in war. There has not been any religious community that I can remember in the past whose military involvements were not, at least in part, justified by that excuse of war being the will of God. If we're going to justify the invasion of another country, and the subsequent loss of life of civilians and citizens, let's be clear about what constitutes the "will of God" at the very least. The last time that I read the Bible, I do not remember one phrase in one passage that could clearly be labeled as justifying the invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan. Maybe I missed that part. The truth about the current involvement with Iraq and Afghanistan is that US intelligence completely broke down in concluding that Saddam had WMDs, though it was not that far a jump to think he did, considering our involvement with him as our ally in the Iran-Iraq war, wherein we sold to Iraq, among other things, strains of anthrax, a biological weapon (i.e. a WMD). Afghanistan was fought in the wake of 9/11, wherein the mood of the country was such that revenge against a country only vaguely responsible for it seemed reasonable. Like Vietnam and other military conflicts, we start wars for one reason, like WMDs, and then we justify them for another, like Iraqi freedom, or the falling dominos theories that kept us in Vietnam for so long, needlessly costing so many lives. That's where we're at with these two wars now, we're falling back on the centuries old standby of war being the will of divine dictates. Bringing the point back squarely to the topic of God's will, let's not forget that the 9/11 hijackers thought the same thing, as do the Taliban, themselves deeply religious, as did the DC sniper, who now rots in the ground. And God could have stopped 9/11, right? Why didn't he? And who's to assume that "God's will" is with us any more than they think that "God's will" is for them? In closing, I have to clarify that I am not in any way equivocating American soldiers with the likes of the Taliban. Rather, I'm illustrating the depravity of justifying a war based on a person opinion of an ambivolent holy book. We're going on six years here with this war; justifying it under the guise of the aforementioned excuses is simply disgusting at this point. |
| Post a reply to this message | |