Mr. President, I respect you deeply. You are daily in my prayers. I humbly ask that, in this moment of world crisis, you lead our nation by putting your trust in God alone and not in our military superiority.
In Matthew 5:17 Jesus Christ said "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them" and it clearly states in Leviticus 24:17 "'If anyone takes the life of a human being, he must be put to death." Does Mr. Arnold believe that the Christian thing to do is to leave despots in power who murder hundreds of thousands of their people. God commanded that justice be served against murderers. With the leadership of President Bush, America has finally dealt with the evil of Sadam. America is now responsible for assuring freedom in Iraq and leaders of Christianity now have the opportunity to spread Christianity in Iraq.
There were huge tactical mistakes made by the people responsible for strategy in Iraq beginning with the day the Americans first entered Baghdad. I have written at that time that it was monstrous oversight on part of the Generals not to clamp a martial law that very day for the purpose of disarming the bad guys before they had chance to regroup. I also said that there should have been a zero arms policy imposed that day except for plastic knives. I was convinced then, and I am still now, that the majority of the Iraqis would have gladly tolerated this inconvenience, knowing well as they knew that the alternative was tens of thousands of their own children dead in sectarian violence! But because we the "letter writers" have no clout, my advice was totally ignored and wiped out from public view. Another issue was the troop surge, which clearly was necessary then, to enforce the proposed never-to-be martial law the day Anerica entered Baghdad ... before the sectarian animosities spiralled out of control. This was my second advice that was ignored and lost in the abyss of history. What we have now is an unspeakable quagmire of hate and brutality unparalleled, a quagmire that could have been avoided had the four-star Generals listened to the "unskilled in strategy" ordinary people like you and me!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1036571,00.html this is a link to a very interesting article by Michael Meacher MP published in the Guardian in 2004. It raises very serious questions that have not yet been dealt with by the Bush administration.
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." - Matthew 5:9
It should never be denied that the atrocities committed by Saddam were precisely that - atrocities. However, the American motivation in attacking him and his regime was neither to avenge nor to correct these acts of horror. Against the strong advice of the international community and the (literally) daily pleas of Pope John Paul II, we entered Iraq as a "preemptive strike" to prevent Saddam Hussein and his government from becoming a larger threat to the region and the western world. As you may recall, our attack was largely rationalized by a belief that Saddam was harboring "weapons of mass destruction" for use outside his own country. We did not attack Saddam to save innocent Iraqis, who have inadvertantly become the victims of the war. Now, nearly four years later, the number killed by this war (including many innocent civilians) has topped the number of lives taken by Sadam and his regime, with no end to the bloodshed in sight. To conclude with the words of the late John Paul II, "'The arrogance of power must be countered with reason, force with dialogue, pointed weapons with outstretched hands, evil with good." The time is long overdue for American Christians to echo his words to our president. Thank you, Mr. Arnold, for doing just that.
January 11, 2007 6:57 PM
