Iraq war

Should Congress be allowed to handicap the war effort by 1)holding needed funds in check, and 2)seeking to force the President to pull troops out?

"A nation divided against itself cannot stand."

"Should" is irrelevant. Congress CAN do both of those things. That's how our government was established, and that's how democracy functions. Its great strength is the representation of the people, and the unique ability to prevent factions from seizing control of the government (see Federalist 10), but its great weakness is that democratic rule tends to breed impatience and low tolerance for difficult or unpopular causes (regardless of whether or not they're necessary or "right"). Regardless of what should occur, this is the way our system was designed, and it's doing exactly what it was designed to do.
We can seek to change the system, or we can redouble our efforts to work according to the system to achieve our goals.

OK, I am a republican and I believe we should keep them over till the job is done... We have paid dear prices, we should not let it all come to waste. The court should let the president finish what he started.

When will our job be done? Is the hoped outcome a democracy? I fear a democracy will achieve little over there.

Wait till we get Hillary They will all be out of Iraq quick!

The war cannot have a positive outcome until the people of Iraq hold to a christian worldview and the hold of Islam is broken.

One positive outcome of the war so far is great strides in religious freedom and the huge growth of The Church, among the people of Iraq.

I hope they reject our shoving of democracy down their throats, it doesn't work here and it certainly won't work there!

YoungStonewall

yes, only through the spread of christianity can we have the victory we desire.

My prediction on Hillary and Iraq . . . she'll leave the troops there.

Now as far as the the job being done or not . . . is it our business to set up governments in foreign lands? Are they going to start paying taxes too?

The King of Cheese and our young Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson are right. Where we used to send missionaries, we now send armies. Countries are not reformed by force but by a change of heart which is only accomplished by the glorious Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Indeed one day the kingdoms of this earth will become the kingdom of our God. As the great hymn says, "Not with swords loud clashing nor roll of stirring drums. With deeds of love and mercy the heavenly kingdom comes."

Until the church once again understands, as our founding fathers did, the implications of Isaiah 33:22, we will continue our downward spiral as a country. There is but one judge, king, lawgiver and savior.

BrianEschen wrote:My prediction on Hillary and Iraq . . . she'll leave the troops there.

Now as far as the the job being done or not . . . is it our business to set up governments in foreign lands? Are they going to start paying taxes too?

The King of Cheese and our young Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson are right. Where we used to send missionaries, we now send armies. Countries are not reformed by force but by a change of heart which is only accomplished by the glorious Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Indeed one day the kingdoms of this earth will become the kingdom of our God. As the great hymn says, "Not with swords loud clashing nor roll of stirring drums. With deeds of love and mercy the heavenly kingdom comes."

Until the church once again understands, as our founding fathers did, the implications of Isaiah 33:22, we will continue our downward spiral as a country. There is but one judge, king, lawgiver and savior.

Keep in mind that our original intent was to battle terrorism. We have to keep the events of 9/11/01 in mind...WE were attacked and therefore went to war, first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq. Now, the Iraq campaign seems to have turned into an overall reform of the country, or an attempt to do so, which is out of the scope of our mission. So in that sense I agree with you, that reform cannot be accomplished with armies, but with God's Word. But have we perhaps forgotten what started this war?

We were attacked yes but not by the nations we invaded.

No, it was an organization that is not contained within a specific country. Destroying the terrorists necessitated invading certain countries.

So we have a moral right to trample the sovereign rights of any nation that contains a hostile oragnization?

How would you conduct a war on terror? What alternative is there? If we didn't invade, how would we deal with terrorism?

Well, that's a very good question. How does one wage war on an idea? I don't know what we should have done, but I think its time to go home and possibly use are marines to protect our own borders, seeing how thousands keep walzing in here and getting fake social security numbers in foul places like Las Angeles. For now we can deal with terrorism by reforming our country.

The only justified means of our invasion is if we told Afganistan to fix its terrorist problems. If it refused, we have a right to invade and fix the problem for them. If terrorists came from Britain and attacked us and Britain refused to solve its internal problem, we have a right to invade and solve the problem in that country. We have trained troops in Iraq and Afganistan. Are they still unable to defend themselves?

Show me a biblical mandate, to the civil magistrate, to make war on those who MIGHT be able to attack you.

Ergo:

Afghanistan = Just War

Iraq = Unjust War

The biblical duties of the civil magistrate are as follows:

To uphold just laws
To punish those who break those laws
To bear the sword against those who invade or those that harm its people

If you can find other duites required by God of the civil magistrate please give me a proof text and i'll add it to my list.

That a biblical civl government for you. The Church and family do the rest.

89whiteandnerdy wrote:How would you conduct a war on terror? What alternative is there? If we didn't invade, how would we deal with terrorism?

That was exactly my point. There is no room to declare war on an idea (terror). It is an endless war. We need to identify countries who pose an immediate threat to our citizens and declare war on a COUNTRY. What we find now is that it is being used as an excuse by the leaders of our country to prop up a foreign government. When does it end?

The constitution was set up the way it was for good reasons. We would be wise as a people to follow the rule of law over the rule of pragmatism. Rule by pragmatism = tyranny.

Show me a biblical mandate for the government to attack nations that pose a threat.

YoungStonewall wrote:Show me a biblical mandate for the government to attack nations that pose a threat.

Previously I had brought up Romans 13, which I believe limits the civil magistrate to two basic functions . . . be a terror to the wicked and protect the righteous. What I think you may be struggling with is the idea of an offensive war, and not necessarily the protection of the citizens of a nation by its civil magistrate. What I mean by attack a nation that poses a threat is a nation that has clear intentions and is an immediate threat to attack our citizens. I don't believe that we have to wait for countries to attack us in order to go to war. In that sense I woul see it as a defensive and not offensive war. We could debate wether or not Iraq fell into that category or not, but my main argument was one calling for the defense of ones own citizens based on Romans 13.

Some of the best biblical arguments I have heard for this position was from an interview on Iowa radio of a Christian pastor named Greg Bahnsen. Right after the first Iraq war he laid out what he believed to be the biblical view of a just war. Interestingly enough, he was calling the first Iraq War unbiblical. I highly recommend looking into his arguments as they are very helpful in sorting through a lot of the confusion that has necessarily come into the church because of her rejection of the law of God in the civil realm. I sure am glad I found these cool little smilie things.

So how do we deal with terrorism if not in the ways already discussed? We can't just ignore the fact that this is a real threat that has been going on worldwide.

Ditto what Josiah says. Should we be isolationalist and merely try to keep them from coming in our borders? Or should we try to "nip them in the bud" by going into foreign countries and trying to root out these terrorists?

To quote from a historical figure (I can't remember which one ): "The best defense is a good offense".

What I'm hearing is pragmatism not biblical evidence.

89whiteandnerdy wrote:So how do we deal with terrorism if not in the ways already discussed? We can't just ignore the fact that this is a real threat that has been going on worldwide.

Would it really be a threat if we focused on defense as opposed to occupying countless countries accross the globe? Our military is supposed to be protecting us, not other nation's citizens.