[Peace-discuss] RE:Supporting the troops? Who's responsible?

[C. G. Estabrook]

Phil--

I think the question is less what Bush believes than what his
administration thinks it can get Americans to believe. 

Obviously some Christian fundamentalists do support what they
see as a religious crusade.  Others don't.  You have to admit
that some people who fit your definition of a Christian
fundamentalist (viz., "someone who believes that the Bible 
is the inspired word of God and who shares core beliefs about
man's nature, sin, salvation, repentance, etc.") nevertheless 
do construe their theological position as "supporting a
so-called holy war."  Lt. Gen. William Boykin, the
Undersecretary for Defense Intelligence, is only one of the
best-known.  ("The enemy is a guy called Satan ...
[international terrorists] ... are after us because we're a
Christian nation...," etc.)    

But I'm not a bit surprised that, among "the five Christians
who are closest to [you] and whose opinions matter deeply to
[you], not one of them supports what Bush is doing or believes
that he is doing God's will."  I've argued for a while that
the most principled opposition to this war has come from the
beginning from the Right -- the so-called paleo-conservatives,
many of them religious -- rather than from liberals.

And obviously Christian fundamentalists who think the war is
wrong shouldn't refrain from saying so just because some 
"progressive groups ... pigeonhole [them] and tell [them]
what [they] believe."  That's an occasion for saying what they
really believe (as you do), not for withholding support from
the anti-war movement because liberals misunderstand them,
misrepresent them, or disrespect them.  That would be granting
far too much to the opinions of liberals.

And of course you're right to say "it's possible [indeed, it's
a fundamental necessity] to make a distinction and love the
individual (the troops) but express hate for what he or she is
doing (killing innocent people)."  We're told to forgive
seventy time seven.  But forgiveness implies that there's
something to forgive -- in this case, a serious evil, and we
don't forgive by ignoring it and calling it good.  If we try
to love those around us, we need to try to remove what
corrupts them -- which at the moment is the vast evil our
country does in our name and with our acquiescence.

Regards, Carl


On Sat Mar 4 Phil Stinard pstinard at hotmail.com wrote--

Hi Carl,

Thank you for your insightful comments.  I did hear Bush's
comments about 
combatting Islamic extremists and was wondering how he defines
"Islamic 
extremists."  I don't know whether he believes what he's
saying, or whether 
he thinks he can garner support from whoever's support is
needed to continue 
the war.  If you have any more insights on those questions,
feel free to 
expound.

My disagreement with Soderstrom's article is that he was
painting Christian 
fundamentalists as supporting a religious crusade.  Here's an
example from 
the article:  "In order to justify such behavior, Americans
(especially 
fundamentalist Christians) have found it increasingly necessary to
con themselves into believing that our children are, for
whatever reason, 
more precious than that of our enemy’s children...."  Thinking
over the five 
Christians who are closest to me and whose opinions matter
deeply to me, not 
one of them supports what Bush is doing or believes that he is
doing God's 
will, nor do they believe that one human life is more precious
than another. 
  I'm really tired of people pigeonholing me and telling me
what I believe.  
Such carelessness is probably one reason why progressive
groups don't 
receive more support than they do from Christian
fundamentalists.  (I'm 
defining a Christian fundamentalist as someone who believes
that the Bible 
is the inspired word of God and who shares core beliefs about
man's nature, 
sin, salvation, repentance, etc.  In NO WAY can that be
construed as 
supporting a so-called holy war.)

Moving along, we have your comparison of US troops to Hitler's
army:

>And it raises the difficult question of how we are to respond
>to those who carried out the mass murder, coerced and misled
>as they may have been.  We asked that question about the
>Germans after WWII, but the Germans surely had less freedom
>than we and our contemporaries do to find out what the
>situation is and to act upon it -- and therefore perhaps
>correspondingly less guilt.
>
>What would we say about a German in 1944 who said, "I support
>our troops"?  We must say at least as much about an American
>who says that today.  --CGE

That's certainly food for thought, but what would you suggest
we do?  Is it 
possible to make a distinction and love the individual (the
troops) but 
express hate for what he or she is doing (killing innocent
people)?  Would 
you make that distinction, and if so, how would you go about
doing it?

--Phil

>Original message:

>Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2006 23:48:05 -0600
>From: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu>
>Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] RE: Supporting the troops? Who's
>	responsible?
>To: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>
>You're surely right, Phil, about the sources of the war,
>altho' I might quibble about a "stable oil supply": the US has
>insisted for years that it control Middle east energy
>resources principally as a way to control its major economic
>rivals, Europe and northeast Asia.
>
>But that's not what's argued publicly.  In fact, the
>administration has recently made an interesting rhetorical
>shift from "the global war on terror" to the (somewhat less
>euphonious) war against the "global extremist Islamic empire"
>[sic] (which Rumsfeld specifically compared to the American
>Cold War propaganda idea of the international Communist
>conspiracy) or the war on "radical Islam," as Bush said in
>Pakistan today. That is, they're insisting ever more on the
>religious aspect of their propaganda.
>
>Compare that with UK PM Tony Blair's proclamation this weekend
>(http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article349125.ece)
>"that God will judge whether he was right to send British
>troops to Iraq, echoing statements from his ally George Bush,"
>as the Independent/UK put it.  (I think that it's going to be
>a difficult interview for Tony.)
>
>I think it's not the case that the article is "trying to
>drum up religious hatred (or more precisely, hatred of a
>particular religion) to attack anyone and everyone who serves
>our country."  In the contrary, the author's trying to point
>out how hateful it is to "cover sin with smooth names" and
>blasphemously invoke the name of God to justify mass murder.
>
>And it raises the difficult question of how we are to respond
>to those who carried out the mass murder, coerced and misled
>as they may have been.  We asked that question about the
>Germans after WWII, but the Germans surely had less freedom
>than we and our contemporaries do to find out what the
>situation is and to act upon it -- and therefore perhaps
>correspondingly less guilt.
>
>What would we say about a German in 1944 who said, "I support
>our troops"?  We must say at least as much about an American
>who says that today.  --CGE
>
>
>---- Original message ----
> >Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2006 18:19:33 -0600
> >From: "Phil Stinard" <pstinard at hotmail.com>
> >Subject: [Peace-discuss] RE: Supporting the troops? Who's
>responsible?
> >To: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> >
> >It's an interesting article, but its premise is flawed.  The
>war in Iraq is
> >not about whose "God" is right or wrong, it's about economics
>and ensuring a
> >stable oil supply.  To be sure, support for the war is being
>garnered by
> >marketing it as a holy war to people with certain religious
>views, but that
> >is a minority viewpoint.
> >
> >What's sad about the article is that the author is trying to
>drum up
> >religious hatred (or more precisely, hatred of a particular
>religion) to
> >attack anyone and everyone who serves our country.  Even
>Ricky, in another
> >post to Peace-Discuss that I'll comment on later, says that
>he has a veteran
> >friend who is troubled by this trend.
> >
> >--Phil
> >
> >
> >>Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2006 16:59:37 -0600
> >>From: "Morton K. Brussel" <brussel4 at insightbb.com>
> >>Subject: [Peace-discuss] Supporting the troops?Who's
>responsible?
> >>To: Peace Discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
> >>Message-ID: <ED3132A3-B280-46C0-914B-10C059559026 at
insightbb.com>
> >>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"
> >>
> >>
> >>   I agree with the thrust of the following article. The
>author poses
> >>some forceful questions: Are youth in Iraq responsible?
>Has the
> >>fact that they may have been swindled remove their guilt?
>Are we all
> >>just pawns of our environment and upbringing? Was Ward
>Churchill right?
> >>
> >>Of course, we all can't be put in the same basket, but are we
> >>Americans, as a people, any different from the Good Germans
>of WWII--mkb
> >>
> >>Published on Friday, March 3, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
> >>Why I Cannot Support The Troops In Iraq
> >>by Doug Soderstrom
> >>...