Iraq: WSWD? What Should have George W. Done?

[seventil]

As I typed the description of the topic, I realized how crazy it sounded even saying it. To compare the decisions of Bush to Jesus is comical to most, serious to some and not a laughing matter to a few.

Over a bottle of wine (or three) recently I discussed this topic with a fellow Christian friend of mine. It was our conclusion that:

In regards to the Iraq War:

After the 9/11 attack, if George W. would have practiced real Christianity (turning the other cheek, loving your enemy as yourself) he would have made more of an impression on the world.

Think of it: a heartfelt telecast where George says: "Obama, please stop killing Americans. We're angry right now- but we're hating the sin, not you. We aren't going to try and kill you. We are praying for you, and we ask that you stop trying to terrorize us."

The response in America probably would have been terrible. He might have got shot, even. Emotion was so high in American then that people wanted VENGEANCE. (This is a flaw in our society character, but is to be expected). Yeah, people would be mad. Maybe rioting. However, 5 years in the future (like now) people would probably be much, much happier with the war and everything that's been done.

So, questions for debate:

What would have been the world or US reaction to a pacifist solution to the current Iraq War?

Could this ever happen? Would America allow a pacifist solution to a scenario like this?

Is it Biblically justified to do what we're doing in Iraq currently?

[MagusYanam]

What would have been the world or US reaction to a pacifist solution to the current Iraq War?

Could this ever happen? Would America allow a pacifist solution to a scenario like this?

Is it Biblically justified to do what we're doing in Iraq currently?

I'm not sure what you mean by question 1, seventil. Do you mean public opinion worldwide and in the United States? If so, then I believe that a nonviolent solution to the war, one predicated on aggressive generosity and nation-building along the lines of the Marshall Plan, would garner a lot of approval worldwide, though there would be some heavy bitching and moaning from the new right in the United States. As to question 2, since Bush has generally refused to consider any non-military solution to Iraq's problems, I'd say any kind of aggressive, generous Marshall Plan for Iraq will have to wait until the 21st of January, 2009 at the very earliest.

As to question 3, you can find Biblical justification (or at least rationalisation) for anything, no matter how immoral or un-Christian. As it is, very few people would argue now that the Bible is the sole source of authority in matters of Christian belief and action. Tradition plays a big role. In matters of war and peace, there are generally two camps in the Christian tradition, the kerygmatic (or pacifist), and the Augustinian (or just-war).

Of course, going into Iraq the way Bush did would be unthinkable to a pacifist, but even from an Augustianian just-war standpoint the Iraq war is reprehensible. Basic just-war theory claims that an armed conflict must follow five criteria before it is considered 'just'. It must:

a.) Have a just cause. According to Wikipedia, '[t]he reason for going to war needs to be just and can therefore be recapturing things taken or punishing people who have done wrong'. The cause for the Iraq War has always been unclear: it evolved from disarming the Iraqi regime of WMD's which posed an imminent threat to our security, to removing Saddam Hussein, to establishing a viable democracy in Iraq. This point can be debated, however. But it is worth bearing in mind that 'just cause' doesn't equate to 'just war'; other criteria must be met.

b.) Be declared by a legitimate authority, one which expresses and carries out the will of the public in waging war to correct some wrong. The actions of this administration seem to indicate that they would carry on the war regardless of the public interest, either in the United States or in Iraq.

c.) Be carried out in the service of the cause which the military action seeks to correct, not for ulterior purposes or for purposes of gain. The neoconservatives behind the helm of this war have seen it as opportunity to enrich themselves and their buddies, as opportunity to demonstrate American military might and as opportunity to further the goal of an American sociopolitical hegemony in the Middle East and in the world.

d.) Be carried out with a decent probability of success, with a measure of force appropriate to that probability. This war's objectives have shifted, again and again, and it is increasingly clear that the Bush Administration has not employed a measure of force appropriate to the probability of success, at least in any sane definition of the word.

e.) Be undertaken only when ALL other peaceful alternatives have been tried and exhausted. This means that a war must be responsive, not pre-emptive. And it should be clear to anyone with half a brain and an ounce of diplomatic creativity that there were international, responsive alternatives that the Bush Administration didn't even consider before going to war in Iraq.

Thus, I think that American involvement in Iraq was, from the very start, an endeavour that placed itself well outside the scope of the Christian tradition. Unfortunately, many American Christians are not educated well enough in their own traditions to have affected public discourse in terms that would have told Bush (and Congress!) that what they were undertaking was immoral, unjust and outside the scope of Christian tradition.

As to what is being done in Iraq now, I believe that the surge is at best a marginally effective gesture. What needs to be done now that we have eliminated our best chance for a unified Iraq (regardless of whatever else Saddam Hussein did, he did manage to keep Iraq relatively united, kinda the way Tito did in Yugoslavia), is to partition Iraq into separate countries and start making some serious efforts at relief projects and nation-building (the Marshall Plan has worked before; something like it could work here), and consigning our military mostly to guard duty in the hopes that these different socioethnic groups can make some steps toward nationhood on their own power.

[spiritletter]

The war in the Iraq has nothing whatsoever to do with the Bible. Let's get that out of the way right way.

The war in Iraq was intended to make Bush's big oil cronies richer. There is no evidence that any Iraqi had anything to do with 9/11 or weapons of mass destruction. In fact, most of the hijackers came from Saudi Arabia, our ally. Others came from Iran and Yemen.

Bush is a grand narcissist who, in his fantasy world, believed that the Iraq War would be a "cakewalk." This shows appalling ignorance on the part of him and his administration. His administration, similarly deluded, saw the war as a means of shifting the nation's capital into the hands of a few under the pretext of supporting the war. This has resulted in the destruction of much needed programs at home, and in vast amounts of corruption amongst key Iraqis, and U.S. corporations that benefited from war contracts awarded without competitive bids.

What has happened is that the Iraq War has crippled efforts to go after Bin Laden in Afghanistan, and further, has further destabilized the Middle East and strengthened Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

Finally, Bush lied at every point along the way to justify his actions.

There are no good options left. George Bush belongs in jail along with key members of his administration.

[Flail]

Terrorism and the Iraq war are totally about Religious lunacy on all sides. It has nothing to do with oil. If the US needed oil that badly, we would just take over some poor country that had no military and appropriate the oil....we could have all the oil we ever wanted in three days without using more than 6 fighter jets and a few stealth bombers....you can't seriously believe we would go to all the trouble of Iraq for the oil...and then leave the oil for them....the war is about bibles and Korans and relics and beads and superstitions of fearful, ignorant people who all think they are somehow specially annointed by God and that God has chosen sides and joined one lunatic side against the other.....nonsense....get rid of Religion and the fighting will stop.

[spiritletter]

Terrorism and the Iraq war are totally about Religious lunacy on all sides. It has nothing to do with oil.

Flail: I agree with you about the religious lunacy. However, the motive for going into Iraq was oil. The consequences of the invasion included a breakdown of public order which allowed for an increase in religious lunacy. Like him or not, Hussein kept order and secular freedoms in Iraq. I don't believe for a minute he was a nice guy, but he did keep fundamentalist Islam in check.

The oil driven invasion of Iraq destroyed the shaky "peace."

Bush manipulated the religious right in this country to achieve his cynical ends and gather support for the war. But greed, as always with the neo-cons, was the motive.

[Goat]

Terrorism and the Iraq war are totally about Religious lunacy on all sides. It has nothing to do with oil.

Flail: I agree with you about the religious lunacy. However, the motive for going into Iraq was oil. The consequences of the invasion included a breakdown of public order which allowed for an increase in religious lunacy. Like him or not, Hussein kept order and secular freedoms in Iraq. I don't believe for a minute he was a nice guy, but he did keep fundamentalist Islam in check.

The oil driven invasion of Iraq destroyed the shaky "peace."

Bush manipulated the religious right in this country to achieve his cynical ends and gather support for the war. But greed, as always with the neo-cons, was the motive.

I disagree. There were many reasons for going to war (none valid in my opinion). Control over the oil supply is just one of them, that the neo-cons had.

The one Bush had an obsession with was 'finishing the job his father started', and
"saddam tried to kill his daddy".

They were personal reasons, not political.

[Flail]

SpiritLetter

Saddam did have the people under control...just as Hitler had the Jews under control...so if you support genocide, I guess the war was just about oil after all....

I also don't think it is a bad thing that we can someday perhaps have some control over the religious lunatics in Iraq and Iran and prevent more unrest by having some control over some oil fields...what is wrong with that?

and if we were just after the oil, there are alot easier places we could dominate and control it with just a couple of f-16's rather than deal with Iraq and it's civil religious wars...if we just needed oil, we could obtain it by force rather easily from many places on the globe that would have no defense to our military.

[MagusYanam]

Saddam did have the people under control...just as Hitler had the Jews under control...so if you support genocide, I guess the war was just about oil after all....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_Law

As it is, the debate is not about whether or not Saddam was a bad man, it's about what the American response should have been to Saddam.

And by the standards of just war, Bush's pre-emptive, unilateral, devil-may-care military action simply wasn't up to snuff. Another thing: 'Saddam was a vewy, vewy bad man' was not given as the rationale for the war when we went in. Finding WMDs was, and there weren't any. Closer analysis reveals that the neoconservative agenda of establishing an American sociopolitical hegemony in the Middle East was the ulterior motive.

I also don't think it is a bad thing that we can someday perhaps have some control over the religious lunatics in Iraq and Iran and prevent more unrest by having some control over some oil fields...what is wrong with that?

The ends don't justify the means, especially when this war did not prevent any unrest in the region. If anything, it emboldened the religious lunatics in Iran to take action against Israel through Hizbollah and weakened our influence both in the Middle East and in the broader international community.

Oh well. At least our oil prices stayed low. Oh, wait, they didn't? Dang...

[youngborean]

I don't understand why Bush is always blamed for the war. He cannot declare war, congress does, and most Congressional members voted for it. Convienently they can say they were dupped now, but they had access to their own intelligence. Clearly this super intelligent mastermind Bush didn't fool Obama. The whole thing is silly and typical politics where the majority of politicans are really the last to stand up for anything because they are afraid of getting ousted. As for Bush and Jesus, it is as unfair as comparing Jesus and any world leader, especially when dealing with a superpower.

[Vladd44]

However, the motive for going into Iraq was oil.

Only indirectly. Our motive is to protect the value of the US dollar. Saddam was the first (Now add Iran and Venezuela) to sell oil for the euro instead of the dollar.

The reality that oil has been exchanged in dollars for the past few decades has helped increase the value of our money driven by demand for dollars. When this starts to shift away from our currency we should expect further devaluation of our money.

As the march to war in Iraq began, I must confess I opposed this war rabidly. I still oppose way it was operated, it still boggles my mind we disbanded the iraqi military and civil police. We did not have enough troops on the ground in the first place, to eliminate (and make hostile) the infrastructure already there is incredible.

But I must admit that I agree it was in US interest to not allow Saddam to sell oil for euros. Unfortunately our actions have been so poor the effect has been quite the opposite.

Our Military is stretched beyond capacity and we have shown ourselves to be more of a paper dragon than a superpower. Iran and Venezuela both will eventually fully convert to a euro for oil program now that they know we are inadequate to stop them.

[MagusYanam]

I don't understand why Bush is always blamed for the war. He cannot declare war, congress does, and most Congressional members voted for it. Convienently they can say they were dupped now, but they had access to their own intelligence. Clearly this super intelligent mastermind Bush didn't fool Obama. The whole thing is silly and typical politics where the majority of politicans are really the last to stand up for anything because they are afraid of getting ousted. As for Bush and Jesus, it is as unfair as comparing Jesus and any world leader, especially when dealing with a superpower.

Well then, that would put Congress in the wrong, wouldn't it? That's something I don't deny, especially since the Congress had a Republican majority then. But it doesn't excuse Bush - Bush asked for a congressional carte blanche, he got it and he used it. That doesn't make him a mastermind, it simply makes him wrong.

And when it comes to war, the teachings of Jesus are clear - we are not to strike back at anyone who strikes us, and we are definitely forbidden from striking first. The action that he asked for and the action that in the end he will be held responsible for, is completely without precedent, theologically or morally, in the Christian tradition. I cannot see how his actions can be excused from a Christian standpoint, let alone supported.

Also, being a superpower should not exempt us from having integrity.