They breed them
Posted by Joshua Claybourn on 23 January 2005 | 6 responses
Radley Balko has a provocative post up on the nature of war and Iraq in particular. The title and thesis is striking: “Dead bodies don’t just attract flies. They breed them.” It’s my recommended reading for the day.
6 Responses to “They breed them”
It seems common sense that occupying a country and killing its people, rightfully in some cases, wrongfully in others, will make you enemies and promote resistance. Common sense isn’t so common though, especially in this administration.
Breeding flies
How many new enemies does each picture like this win us?
Hey, I’ve got an idea… Why don’t we invade their country–to make friends with them.
One of these days I imagine that we will all scratch our heads at what a bad idea this was.
Even when war is justified, it invariably brings the stain of evil into all of our hearts. So, those of us who aren’t pacifists and support a particular war must know that we will have much to repent for even if our overall cause is just. There is such a thing as “just war” in my view, but no such thing as a righteous war. All war is waged at least partially apart from God’s will, regardless of whether we consider ourselves the aggressor or not, regardless of whether we are defending freedom or not, regardless of whether we view ourselves as peacekeepers or not.
If I support a war, then I must accept my part of responsibility for the killing, particularly of the innocents. And even if I oppose a war, my hand is in it because I am part of the American body.
Thus some time back, when it appeared that some of our American fighters might have wrongly killed injured Iraqi soldiers, perhaps out of fear, I felt the need to repent of the evil and horror of war. I don’t think God will allow me to watch from my recliner and pretend that I’m not apart of this.
That should have been “injured Iraqi terrorists” or “injured Iraqi resistance fighters” depending on one’s view.
Are the orphans of the September 11th attacks in New York – and there are thousands of them, too, you know – going to become terrorists, too, do you think?
It’s very true that war is evil. But not so true that Hussein’s despicable government was, I guess? How about the kids orphaned by the Ba’athists? Or slowly starved by sanctions? How about those orphaned by the Iran/Iraq war?
I didn’t vote for Bush, and even I think that that’s a terrifically simplistic analysis.