The Unforeseen Consequences of War

History demonstrates that virtually every major military conflict has had lasting repercussions that were either unforeseen or completely ignored. Let's look at just a few examples.

When Abraham Lincoln launched his unconstitutional war against the South in 1861, he did so with the idealistic goal of preserving the Union. 620,000 American lives later, he finally accomplished his mission. He also succeeded in destroying states' rights and establishing the kind of strong, centralized national government that our Founding Fathers warned us about. Today, that government continues to grow more powerful and more intrusive.

U.S. involvement in the War to End All Wars may have saved England and France from military defeat, but all of Europe was plunged into ruin. This helped fuel the rampant fires of fascism, setting the stage for another global conflict.

During World War II, we sided with Stalin against Hitler and ended up winning the war in Europe. We also defeated Imperial Japan by becoming the first and only nation to ever use nuclear weapons in combat. But even our victories had consequences. The Soviet Union grew to be a much bigger threat than Nazi Germany ever posed, and our use of the atomic bomb marked the beginning of a furious international arms race that brought us to the edge of nuclear war less than 20 years later.

10, 15 or 20 years from now, what new danger will we have to confront as a result of our "war on terror"? In our rush to protect the present, is it possible that we are jeopardizing our future?

What Is the Justification for War?

Suppose the government of particular country...

• ...enacts laws designed to protect those in power from political opposition.
  
• ...uses the threat of military force to influence policy in other nations.
  
• ...has funded the regimes of murderous tyrants.
  
• ...engages in covert (and not-so-covert) operations to overthrow foreign governments.
  
• ...has been known to attack non-military targets for the sole purpose of terrorizing civilians.
  
• ...continues to stockpile weapons of mass destruction and has even used them to kill hundreds of thousands of people.
  
• ...has turned a blind eye to the butchering of over 40 million of its own citizens.
  

Assuming Country "A" meets all of the preceding criteria, would Country "B" have the moral justification to use military force to bring about regime change in Country "A"?

If your answer is "Yes," then you just called for regime change here in the United States.

Inaugural Observations

Certain portions of President Bush's Second Inaugural Address jumped out at me as I listened. Here are just a few of those remarks. (Translations provided at no extra charge):

• "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world."
  
  TRANSLATION: "The survival of the welfare/warfare state depends on an interventionist foreign policy. The best hope for peace is the expansion of the American Empire throughout the world."
  
  
• "Freedom, by its nature, must be chosen ... America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling."
  
  TRANSLATION: "Freedom, by its nature, must be forced ... America will impose our own style of government on other nations whether they like it or not."
  
  
• "We will encourage reform in other governments by making clear that success in our relations will require the decent treatment of their own people."
  
  TRANSLATION: "We will encourage reform in other governments by making it clear that they may be facing the business end of a 'bunker-buster' if they don't do as we say."
  
  
• "To give every American a stake in the promise and future of our country, we will bring the highest standards to our schools, and build an ownership society. We will widen the ownership of homes and businesses, retirement savings and health insurance—preparing our people for the challenges of life in a free society. By making every citizen an agent of his or her own destiny, we will give our fellow Americans greater freedom from want and fear, and make our society more prosperous and just and equal."
  
  TRANSLATION: "To give every American the impression that their government cares, we will throw away more money on schools, further regulate the ownership of homes and businesses, encourage reliance on government for retirement savings and health insurance—preparing our people for life in a nanny state. By making every citizen a subject of the state, we will give our fellow Americans greater freedom from personal responsibility, and make our society more of a collective paradise."
  

Yes, Interracial Marriage Is Ordained by God

Believe it or not, there are quite a few professing Christians who think that interracial marriage is a sin. Exactly why is anyone's guess since no condemnation of it can be found in scripture. To the contrary, the only biblical position is that interracial marriage is ordained by God.

John Piper, pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minn., recently preached a sermon entitled Racial Harmony and Interracial Marriage. He summarizes his position with four main points:

1. All races have one ancestor in the image of God and all humans are in God's image.
   
2. The Bible forbids intermarriage between unbeliever and believer, but not between races.
   
3. In Christ our oneness is profound and transforms racial and social differences from barriers to blessings.
   
4. Criticizing one interracial marriage was severely disciplined by God.
   

I encourage you to read the entire sermon. Understanding what the Bible has to say regarding this issue can only help in the edification of the church. Conversely, denouncing interracial marriage as a sin only serves to divide the body of Christ.

Living with a National ID Card

Click here. 'Nuff said.

Lies, Damned Lies

It's sad, but true. Our war in Iraq was based on lies. Here is an excerpt from Harry Browne's latest commentary:

Can You Imagine?: Hussein Was Right and Bush Was Wrong

You may remember that in 2002, the year before the Iraq War began, the United Nations Security Council ordered Iraq to produce a report detailing all of its biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons—past and present. Iraqi officials complied and produced an 11,800-page report on Iraq's weapons programs. The report described all the chemical and biological weapons the country once had—where they came from and what was done with them—as well as what had happened to Iraq's nuclear weapons program.

Although the report was prepared for the United Nations, U.S. officials intercepted the report, edited out 8,000 pages (over two thirds) of it, and delivered its Reader's Digest version of the report to the UN.

A German reporter managed to obtain a copy of the original report from Iraq, and then compared it with the truncated copy the U.S. gave to the UN. He found that the missing parts covered the Iraqis' acquisition of chemical and biological weapons from the U.S., the delivery of non-fissionable materials for a nuclear bomb by the U.S. to the Iraqis, and the training of Iraqi nuclear scientists at U.S. nuclear facilities in Los Alamos, Sandia, and Berkeley. ...

Take time to read the full article. There's more to this story than meets the eye.

Doctors Issued a License to Kill

Just another example of the devaluation of human life:

Dutch Euthanasia Doctors May Now Kill Perfectly Healthy Adults

UTRECHT, January 11, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Royal Dutch Medical Association has concluded, after a three-year investigation, that Dutch doctors ought to be able to kill patients who are not ill but who are judged to be "suffering through living."

The decision contradicts the Dutch Supreme Court that ruled in 2002 that patients may only request euthanasia if they have a "classifiable physical or mental condition," and not if they are merely "tired of life." The law however, does not require a medical condition, but only that a patient must be "suffering hopelessly and unbearably." Pro-life activists have warned that such ambiguous language is an open door for new interpretations that would make the law a license to kill. ...

A society that embraces death and destruction this enthusiastically is not long for this earth.

All Good Things Must Come to an End

The long, costly WMD wild goose chase in Iraq is finally over:

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said there no longer is an active search for weapons. "There may be a couple, a few people, that are focused on that" but that it has largely concluded, he said.

"If they have any reports of (weapons of mass destruction) obviously they'll continue to follow up on those reports," McClellan said. "A lot of their mission is focused elsewhere now."

But the warmongers need not despair. As Bush's evangelical supporters might point out, God never closes a door without opening a window. And that window just happens to be facing Syria.