When is War Justified?
It makes me sick that 4,266 Americans (as of April 2009 so even more now), 31,102 wounded American (as of April 2009) and a countless number of Iraqi and Afghanistan Citizens have died because we believed the Vichy Government and Vichy Media that the Iraqis had weapons of mass destruction or WMD's and Afghanistan somehow supported the terrorists. And now we are on the verge of getting entangled in Iraq again, when will it end?
None of these countries declared war on the United States or attacked us. In fact, if you believe the the governments explanation for 9/11 (which I don't, for the record) all of the attackers were from Saudi Arabia, a country considered an ally. A country that we have never sanctioned, nor attacked for their supposed attack against us. We've been there for 10 long years now, when will it end?
Now, we have the same Vichy Government and the same Vichy Media hyping up the supposed nuclear weapons capability of Iran and now we are in Libya. Are you going to fall for the same lies that the same liars fed us only a few years ago? Has Libya attacked us, has Libya declared war on us? NO.
It used to be that the Congress had to give permission for any war that was started, now it seems that they can go to war for any reason at all. All they have to do is spread out some BS message that the other side is just thinking of attacking us or that we are helping in some supposed humanitarian relief.
I believe that there are reasons to go to war. If a country threatens us, attacks us or attacks one of our allies then war may be justified. But, if a war is declared I think the acid test is whether that conflict warrants your son or your daughter's life. It's always easy to send someone else' son or daughter to a foreign land to be killed, when it is your own flesh and blood it is a whole other story! In addition, any congressman or congresswoman who votes for war, their children should be put on the front lines. I'm tired of seeing innocent men and women killed based on lies. I'm tired of seeing the poor who have fewer options than the rich paying the price of our apathy and ignorance. Oh, I am sure some of you will argue that we have a voluntary draft so no one is being forced to sign up for the military but when we have a high unemployment rate and even higher unemployment rate for minorities, little or no money for advanced education and few other options then the military starts looking pretty good.
In the end, we have to ask ourselves; is it the moral thing, is it the right thing to participate either through sending our sons and daughters to die overseas for lies, or by supporting the war machine, is that what God would have us do? Whatever happened to THOU SHALT NOT MURDER? For some strange reason a lot of people think that war is exempt. That to support an illegal, immoral war is OK with God...NO, it's still MURDER when it is not in self defense. I know of so many Christians who support these wars without much thought to what it is they are supporting, they are willfully ignorant. Will God just look the other way? Are you exempt from his laws?
If we lived in Nazi Germany would it be honorable to sign up to serve the Nazi regime? How about the Roman Empire? If not, why not? Even if your children are not fighting in these wars, your money is supporting them. How long will we be used by the military industrial complex for their own agenda?
It's time that we as Christians stop allowing the powers that be to manipulate us into supporting every conflict they present to us. It's time that we stop sending our sons and daughters into these unethical, immoral wars. It's time to say enough is enough.
