Two columns today are well worth reading as they both provide perspectives on the War on Terror that need to be heard. First, Lorie Byrd contends that it’s time to set the record straight about the war and deals directly with some of the common criticisms about the war:
What is rarely, if ever, addressed by the opponents of President Bush and the current war is whether or not the decision he made was a correct one if everything we thought about the status of Saddam’s WMD capability had been correct. Dick Cheney made the argument for the decision in at least one speech around the time of the release of the Kay report. In that speech he argued that knowing what we knew then, and looking at it in the shadow of the 9/11 attacks, it would have been irresponsible NOT to have invaded Iraq. Republicans who fail to make that case, and instead weaken their stance on the war in reaction to declining public opinion polls, risk losing the advantage they have long held over Democrats on issues of national security and defense. Even many of those voters who have not supported the Iraq war and view President Bush as a trigger happy cowboy are likely to prefer a candidate that supports the war – even if there are some reservations about the way the war was executed – to one who originally supported it only to back down when the going got tough.
Even more striking is Dennis Prager’s column today in which he asks opponents of the war to answer one simple question:
All those who support the American war in Iraq should make a deal with anyone opposed to the war. Offer to answer any 20 questions the opponents wish to ask if they will answer just one:
Do you believe we are fighting evil people in Iraq?
That is how supporters of the war regard the Baathists and the Islamic suicide terrorists, the people we are fighting in Iraq.
Because if you cannot answer it, or avoid answering it, or answer “no,” we know enough about your moral compass to know that further dialogue is unnecessary. In fact, dialogue is impossible. Our understanding of good and evil is so different from yours, there is simply nothing to discuss. Someone who was asked a hundred years ago “Do you believe that whites who lynch blacks are evil?” and refused to answer in the affirmative was not someone one could dialogue with.
This war is not about a particular religion. It’s not a war against a nation or group of nations. It is a war against evil. We cannot afford to back down or withdraw. We must fight this war until the end.
DP, how can you (or Dennis Prager) say "I will answer twenty of your questions if you answer one of mine." and then follow it up by saying "If you answered with anything but 'yes' then we have nothing to talk about anymore." You're backing out of your own deal, and that hardly seems fair…
For the record, I answered "no" to your question, without hesitation, and similarly answered the question about lynching. It's not that I believe that someone who car-bombs a crowded market is acting ethically, or that a lynching is defensible — I don't. But labelling someone as "evil" is, even by Christian standards, a completely subjective action. The word "evil" doesn't further our understanding of a person or an action, it only tells us how stronly you feel about your disagreement with them.
Two actions with similar consequences may be differently regarded: You might, for example, not consider Winston Churchill to be an "evil" man. In fact, you might even agree with his decision to bomb Dresden and kill hundreds of thousands of German citizens. On the other hand, you clearly disagree with an Iraqi dissident's decision to blow himself up on a crowded sidewalk (and I do too), so you label him as "evil". From the perspective of a person being burned to death, having shrapnel rip through their body, both actions are equally awful.
Saying that only one of these is evil is a purely subjective statement, relating only to your own point of view. From the view of the bomber or Churchill, the action is one of considered choices, personal thoughts on necessity, and balanced outcomes. You probably don't believe that, because you've already decided that bombers are "evil", and so they can't possibly consider the consequences of what they do, but they are doubtlessly not the brain-dead bomb-throwers that you suppose they are. In any case, calling one of them evil only really means that you see the action as evil, beause certainly neither of them did.
Or, maybe in your case, you're actually saying that you believe God thinks their actions are evil, which is, again, just another reflection of what you think, and not necessarily what is absolutely true, though I'm sure you'd disagree.
I agree w/ Stewart – I answered "no" right away. Were the acts of some Iraqi's evil? Yes. Are the Iraqi's evil? Not any more than the rest of humanity.
Should we take military action against the Iraqi's who bomb and terrorize? Yes. But I don't like demonizing a whole people. The Iraqi's, rather, are victims of a godless ideology that makes them servants of evil.
We should take no joy in killing the terrorists, only sadness that such a thing must be done to preserve the rest of humanity from the evil that has overcome them.