At this point, I'm not completely sure what MacArthur intended to communicate but I do know that he stirred my thinking and I appreciate that.
On this issue, I side with Theodore Roosevelt who wrote (can I say "prophetically"?) in 1916:
The civilization of Europe, America, and Australia exists today at all only because of the victories of civilized man over the enemies of civilization... [including] those of Charles Martel in the 8th century [over Arab jihadists] and those of John Sobieski in the 17th century [over Ottoman Turkish jihadists]. During the thousand years that included the careers of the Frankish soldier [Martel] and the Polish king [Sobieski], the Christians of Asia and Africa proved unable to wage successful war with the Moslem conquerors; and in consequence Christianity practically vanished from the two continents; and today nobody can find in them any 'social values' whatever, in the sense in which we use the words, so far as the sphere of Mohammedan influence [is]... concerned.
I'm not pro-war but I also don't think I am anti-war. In the end good men need to make sound decisions based coming from right hearts and informed minds. For me, the US did the right thing (I suspect in the wrong way but the right thing nonetheless). I appreciate those who think otherwise. I do not appreciate those who think otherwise because of foolishness like, "you're in it for the oil", "you just want to take over the world", "the UN will handle it", and the many other bumper-sticker, insufficient reasons I heard while living in Europe at the time.
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2 comments:
I don't know why Christians get into these arguments in a public forum. It's a no-win situation. Let's just focus on the Kingdom that is ours. (Oh, no! I used that word.)
Overall it seems like everyone made good comments... I think these public debates are good as long as the debators, above all else, are able to demonstrate Christian brotherhood. If they can do that and hash out a secondary topic, good for them. But if the secondary topic leads to division, don't mess with it.
BTW my opinion is that the "Christian position" is just war theory... it's the position historically developed by Christians, and it also accounts for the qualification of the priest on the show who said it must be "the last possible resort."
However, I'm not sure why he thought it wasn't the last possible resort or why he thought we didn't go through the UN. How many UN resolutions were there? How many times did we warn Saddam?
But again, this is all secondary, we mustn't let it take the place of Kingdom building.
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