Friday, March 24, 2006

Real Simple

This is real simple. There is no need to complicate morality when a simple principle is all that is needed.

The obligation of a Christian is to always offer peace. This offer of peace must always be on the table for an enemy to accept when the enemy is ready to lay down their arms. If the enemy of the Christian refuses to accept the peace offer, it then becomes the obligation of the Christian to protect the innocent. Protecting the innocent sometimes involves killing the enemy.

The war in Iraq was not only a just war, it was one of the few real moral accomplishments by my country in my lifetime. The after-war in Iraq has had problems because some of the enemy still does not want peace. The enemy has chosen death over peace. We should oblige.

1 comment:

David M. Smith said...

Hi Derek,

I really get tired of hearing about how the American actions in Iraq are turning Arab sentiments against the United States because I don’t believe this is a true statement. The American actions in Iraq are drawing a line of demarcation that is understandable to all who care to understand. This line of demarcation makes it clear which side is interested in peace and which side is not. Being a terrorist or supporting a terrorist is a crime deserving the punishment of death regardless of the intellect of the terrorist.

In the long run, if every Arab citizen in every Arab country supports terrorism, then every Arab citizen deserves death. This will not be the outcome though. In the long run, Arabs who want terrorism will be separated from Arabs who want peace, and everyone in the world who wants peace will need to fight to the death every terrorist who does not want peace. I wish I could change human nature and I wish I could change the world, but I can’t. Some people deserve death. In the long run, world sentiment will be with those who stood up to terrorism, not those who claimed moral equivalence between the actions of America and the action of terrorists.