graeme said: It seems to me that the laws and teachings of Judaim and Christianity (and to a considerable degree of all major religions) are there not only because some old guy with a long beard in the clouds said so, but because they work. And the opposites do not work.

So... injunctions against being gay work?

Injunctions against worshipping other gods work?

Death is a reasonable, commonsense penalty for cheeking one's parents?

graeme, I thought you were a leftist.

Anyhoo, there's a difference between going so far as to put the Taliban back in power and getting out of the war, or at least not approaching it as a war.  The Taliban was an awful regime; if the Americans are bad guys for their attitude towards war and government, the Taliban cannot possibly be good.  They were cruel, authoritarian and sexist; the kind of government we are all, or should all be, grateful we no longer have or need even consider.  Afghanistan does have a democratic government now.  The Taliban is no longer an entity with real political power, or at least the power to actually take back leadership of the country with any ease.  By staying and fighting them everywhere, we are only increasing anti-Western sentiments and helping them get recruits.  We should change our approach, not our objective of a democratic Afghanistan.  Jack Layton was more reasonable with his suggestion of Taliban peace talks.  Peace talks doesn't mean letting them do whatever they want; it means ending the vicious circle and creating a stable, beneficial situation in which eventually Western interference - military or otherwise - will be entirely unnecessary and the people can choose their own path, but as part of a proper democratic system.  

yes. Some (all) religious writings have objectionable features. Some (many) people take the objectionable ones and make them supreme for their own purposes. But that has nothing to do with it.

There is NOT going to be a democratic Afghanistan. It is not going to happen, not under any circumstances - and that was never an objective of the war in the first place. If the US were so keen on establishing democracy, it had a hundred years to do so in latin america - and it used those hundred years to support dictators, often toppling democracies to do so.

Nor did the US go to war because the taliban were mean to women. puh-lease.   Nobody spends billions of dollars for that.

And to say t he taliban cannot reestablish power in Afghanistan is hopelessly naive. It has massive support. The current "democracy" has none. In other words, we will return to what was there in the first place. That means we have thrown away a hundred Canadian lives for no good reason. It also means we have killed for no good reason.

Can you, as a christian or a humanist, give me one reason for this war which is in keeping with your beliefs?

graeme

Hi Graeme,

It probably was obvious to those who were paying attention.  I think that in the wake of the 9/11 attacks the emotions driving the response were blinded by something more obvious, namely, the need to avenge.

Very similar to Connery's line in The Untouchables, "They put one of yours in the hospital, put one of theirs in the morge."

It is a human response and when you have someone declaring war against an ally and that someone provides you with something outrageous that the voting public is up in arms over then while you should think about it you have permission not to think overly much about it.  Of course that grace wears out after a while if things bog down.

Why everyone thought that a war in Afghanistan would be easy when the Afghanis don't appear to cave in all that easily and have a long history of making life miserable for nations thinking that they can walk all over them is beyond me.

I don't know about that.  I think that the plan to strike back was more reaction than proaction and after so many years sober second thought is starting to win out.  Sober second thought is not something that comes easily politically as admitting to mistakes that cost people their lives eats away at your support.

Nothing happened the way it was hoped.  I think that it was presumed that it would be a cakewalk militarily and perhaps a little bit of "greeted as liberators" greased the skids.  Certainly Canadians wouldn't be averse to that kind of response.  The Dutch are still favourably disposed to see us in that way.  Of course, the Afghanis aren't under occupation by some external force.

We also think, I believe, that the whole "Canadians are nice" thing lets us stick our noses into other peoples business and they appreciate it when we do.

As true as that might be I think that public outrage opened the door to allow our troops to freely enter.  The discussion was framed as going to the aid of an ally and not as who is weaker that we can beat up without worrying too much about them hitting back.

Getting enraged isn't going to help.  It was public outrage that made this possible in the first place.  Sober second judgment would have helped if it was undertaken before this undertaking.  Now it just resembles so much hindsight.

Those in the know now are simply telling us we can expect the same results with the same actions or, we can change our actions and maybe get different results.

That bit of advice might not fit with our idealisms.  Which should lead those who are in charge to ask of themselves how many more must die because they cannot admit they have made mistakes.

Even if it had been provided there would have been a whole furor about the separation of Church and state (most of it fostered by an erroneous understanding of how that separation is supposed to work).  A defence could be proof-texted.  It wouldn't change the fact that it failed to do the requisite discernment.  Even Jesus suggests that Kings going to war without being able to win are fools.  Those responsible did not take the time to do that apparently.  That isn't about loving the neighbour or being a shepherd it is a simple act of stewarding resources.

Agreed.  Except nobody was listening to what would work they were resting on what should work.  Our Consumerist, newer is better, society couldn't comprehend that peasants would use axes against the most up to date (or reasonably facsimile of what is most up to date) ballistic armour.

It isn't that muscle is more realistic.  It is that muscle is often more immediate.  Nobody wanted to sit down and think about how we could get Osama they just wanted him gotten.

Probably there are differences.  Likely the ones making the decisions were not absolutely Christian or Humanist but some sort of half-way compromise.

Again, I think that the results are what can be expected from emotionally driven reaction rather than rational, critical thought.

Because it is so much easier than investing time and energy in the big ticket items.  Christians and Humanists alike are not immune to sloth.

Grace and peace to you.

John

There was no reaction demanding revenge in Canada. There was not popular demand to send troops - except in the peacekeeping role - which is what we originally did.

At no time was there a popular demand here for war. That came almost entirely from the CEOs of corporations like Bombardier.

Nor did Afghanistan declare war on an ally. It did not declare war on the US at all. It did not attack the US. Indeed, all of the attackers were Saudis. Even the FBI admits it has no reason to connect Afghanistan with 9/11. Afghanistan did tolerate the presence of Osama and Al Quaeda. (So did other states, for that matter.) And it refused to deport Osama to the US for trial. (Just as the US has routinely refused to allow the extradition of its terrorist as, for example, the Cuban who blew up a Cuban airliner and now lives as a hero in Miami,)

In any case, the retalian out of revenge was the bombing of Afghanistan. The invastion was quite separate and later. It was the sober second thought. And it had nothing to do with democracy. Nobody goes to war to bring democracy or to help little girls go to school. The war, like the one in Iraq, had to do with control of energy supply, in this case supply communicatons.

As for leading generals, they made it clear long ago they regarded peacekeeping as sissy stuff. I can remember hearing this from them at military history conferences almost from the start. They want expensive equipment, close association with real men who kick butt. And the defence industry hated peacekeeping because it wasn't really big budget.

From a christian point of view, t hat war is surely and without question wrong. Nor can I see any branch of humanist thought that could rationally support it.

I quite agree wih you on the separation  of church and state. That refers to the separation of institutions. But any person is free to be guided by religious principles as, for that matter, by humanist ones or any others.

graeme

Hi Graeme,

Very true.  I suspect a great many Canadians get a lot of their news from American stations and as such were influenced, or at least sympathetic to the understandable need to get revenge.

No doubt.  Even so, the door was open for that to happen.  Yes, initially we went thinking about keeping the peace and that fits our Canadian sentimentalities.  Things change, whether we want them to or not, and once troops are on the ground and they are armed well keeping the peace is an agenda that can be changed rather quickly.

Send back a report that Canadian troops managed to win a fire-fight with Al-Quaeda who is going to question that?  Good for our boys eh?  But even there the shift is on from peace-making to war-making except it is a slippery slope and by the time everyone wakes up you've slid quite a bit.

I think that could happen quite honestly.  Even if it wasn't done honestly in this case.  I was all for packing up and heading home when the Americans pulled troops out to go into Iraq.  I mean it is their fight, if they don't think that it is a top priority we probably don't need to be there either.

Sure, now it is admitted.  The truth will out eventually.  As soon as the heat on the emotion is turned off.  It had to run out of gas sooner or later.  And yet, while things were boiling it is to uncomfortable to stick your hand in the pot and fish around to see if there is anything actually worth boiling in the first place.

Wouldn't be the first time that the packaging on the box had a little asterisk and the warning, "contents may not appear as depicted."  Who has time for small print?

I agree with you.  I wish I could find the archived pages right off hand but that is not proving to be something easily done.

Panentheism, RichardBott, GUC, Pinga, myself and others have participated in another discussion board called "United Online" we have made appeals to Just War theory and tried to see how the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan fit and we were pretty certain that they didn't.

Apparently nobody with any clout cares what we think.

I agree with you.  Self-interest is in there somewhere.

Grace and peace to you.

John

hey. get tougher. none of this sissy agreeing.  you one of them there   peacekeeper weirdos?

of course, what runs through both of our notes - though we don't quite say so - is that there is a price to being Christian. We often have to decide to take the less travelled route. And that is not popular.

graeme

Hi Graeme,

Probably.

There is that.  Politically popularity is a must if one wants to hold onto one's office.  I think that there is also expediency and immediacy issues.

Getting it right requires more time and more effort than does running off half-cocked.

Saying God wants us to act appears to be more attractive than saying God wants us to sit and think a spell.  Of course the price tag for not thinking but pandering can run up into the trillions of dollars which is okay if you can get some other slobs to foot the bill for it.

Grace and peace to you.

John

HI Graeme

As usual I agree with many of your assertions. I agree that Humanists (the secular variety that is) have much in common with moderate Christians.

As of know however I don't have a lot of answers. It seems that there is not end the stupidity of humans; I am much more pessimistic about most things right now than I have been in a very long time. I truly feel like we are the edge of a very dark time.

Holden

I must admist the pessiimism gets to me.

Now, if we were only fundamentalists, we would be dancing and singing at this as the approach of the rapture.

graeme

lol,

I do like the new Wondercafe format however, it is much nicer and more functional. There you go I said something postive.

Holden