A Brutal War

Ron Dart

Radio personality, friend and teacher extraordinaire, Ron Dart has an excellent piece on the War on terrorism and whether or not we can or will win it. This was written several months ago, but is not dated in any way. It's an excellent essay and here's a bit of it:

The insurrectionists, (William F) Buckley concludes, "can’t be defeated by any means we would consent to use." In other words, we are not brutal enough to pacify Iraq. And that is true.

So far.

It is clear as crystal that most Americans simply do not have the stomach to do what may have to be done to end this. So far. And that is the fearsome thing about all of this. In 1940, if the United States had already developed the atomic Bomb, there was no way we would have consented to its use. But after Pearl Harbor, After the bloody war in Europe and the bloodier war in the Pacific, after Japanese war crimes, which seemed rational to the Japanese and monstrous to the United States, Harry Truman was able to make the decision to use the atomic Bomb without a moment’s hesitation.

And the Chilling thought that came to me as I read Buckley’s words was that our enemies do not have rational thought available to them. They may fully expect the United States to respond massively, and they just don’t care. And so, if they are able to pull it off, we will have massive, brutal loss of life in this country to such a degree, that for us to use a nuclear weapon would, not only be a just act of war, but a blessed relief.

And I am greatly afraid that it will come to that before we are finished. No, it will not be because we invaded Iraq. Remember that we had not invaded Iraq before 9/11 and we got it anyhow. No, it will be because we are who we are and we will refuse to be anything else. It will be because Jihad has been declared against us and we have no choice but to fight. It will be fight, or become slaves to Islam.

Now you may reasonably ask me what the Bible has to do with any of this. How can this shed light on the Bible, or the Bible shed light on this war? The answer is not going to please anyone, but we might as well face up to it. The answer is that you fight a war with whatever brute force is necessary to ensure that you don’t have to do worse later. You brutally pacify a city like Fallujah in Iraq, and you do it the first time you threaten it. You don’t back down or negotiate with criminals and terrorists. You kill them.

It doesn’t sound very Christian does it? Well, so what? Isn’t the United States supposed to be a secular nation? Why should our military be guided by Christian principles? Our foes are fighting a religious war based on perceived Islamic principles? Shouldn’t we be allowed to fight the war by their rules if that is the way they want it? [And don’t tell me these fellows don’t represent true Islam. If that is true, why don’t the billion or so good Moslems rise up against them?]

I will not apologize for sounding harsh. These are harsh times, and these are harsh truths.They should not be sugar coated.

Now by coincidence, the same day I read Bill Buckley’s editorial, I got a letter from a fellow genuinely puzzled by what he perceived as a difference between the God of the Old Testament and the Jesus Christ of the New. It is one of the oldest arguments against Bible, but this fellow came to it on his own.

I replied to the gentleman that the difference was not a difference in the character of God. It was a difference in the role of God in time.

When we encounter the God of the Old Testament, we run into him at a very bad time. For the most part, God had been content to let man alone. He only intervened when things got so bad that he could no longer remain silent and be true to himself. Evil men had perverted justice, carried out violence to such and extent that the blood from one crime ran into the blood from another. God decided it was time to bring their own works back on their own heads.

God never sent a prophet to Israel to tell them what good boys they all were. He sent the prophets to tell them how rotten they were and that they had better repent before it was forever too late.

The prophets, however were salted with references to God at a very different time, far into the future, who would relent, who would forgive and restore them.

We will talk further about this God of the Old Testament, but before I do, I want to introduce you to the Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. But I want to introduce him at a very different time.

Be sure to read the entire piece. It's good!