Dear Jesus...Please Protect Me While I Slaughter Innocents..

Touche! BPB.............

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Craven de Kere wrote:

Bi-Polar Bear wrote:
that would be like me going out to commit adultery and asking Jesus to make sure I found a hot piece of ass......some things Jesus doesn't particularly want to put his stamp of approval on....

Interesting, as a child when I believed in religion I prayed to the Devil for the stuff I wanted that I didn't think Jesus would approve of.

That's hilarious - and yet extremely logical...

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Why is it you people think that the soldiers are going in to kill hundreds of innocent people? The soldiers are going into this city to get rid of the insurgents that have been keeping Iraq from moving forward. I don't know about you but when you are in battle and you are being shot at you can pretty much guess that the person shooting at you is not on your side. It's not as if they are going in to kill everything that moves.

You claim to support the troops in one sentence and then talk about them killing innocent people in the next sentence. You are giving them a backhanded complement. You might not believe in the war but at least give the soldiers on the ground the benefit of the doubt that they are only going to kill the insurgents and not innocent people. If you are firing a gun at a US soldier then you are not innocent by any means.

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It's the people giving the orders, Baldimo ...

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Baldimo wrote:

It's not as if they are going in to kill everything that moves.

It's funny you should write that, Baldimo. A friend of mine has a nephew who's been in Irag for quite some time. He was home on leave several weeks ago and was telling my buddy some of the horror stories. He said that when they patrol, initially they were very selective at what they shot at, but as time went on and they realized the dangers all around them, the got to the point where they'd go on patrol and kill everything that moved.

Those were his words, Baldimo, not mine. So quit trying to paint such a rosy picture. You've apparently watched too many John Wayne movies.

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When the first bombs on Iraq occured, the people - the ordinary go about your business, innocent citizens were in a state of utter disbelief. Their homes, businesses, schools ect were blown to smithereens over the last months and the insurgents rose only after they had been grieviously attacked. They were under attack from a foreign army and now they are an angry horde.
You get what you reap.

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It astounds me how often a person like fedral will make a statement like this:
It's wonderful to see the hypocracy of the left who claimed so many times during the election of "We support the troops, just not the war."
A blanket statement meant to lump every dissenter together, this time based on a thread started on a forum by a lone individual who consulted no one else but himself.

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Baldimo wrote:

Why is it you people think that the soldiers are going in to kill hundreds of innocent people? The soldiers are going into this city to get rid of the insurgents that have been keeping Iraq from moving forward. I don't know about you but when you are in battle and you are being shot at you can pretty much guess that the person shooting at you is not on your side. It's not as if they are going in to kill everything that moves.

You claim to support the troops in one sentence and then talk about them killing innocent people in the next sentence. You are giving them a backhanded complement. You might not believe in the war but at least give the soldiers on the ground the benefit of the doubt that they are only going to kill the insurgents and not innocent people. If you are firing a gun at a US soldier then you are not innocent by any means.

Baldime, it is gonna be a fight in a city. Bound to kill lots of folk who haven't made it out. I think it is, at best, very naive, to think otherwise. Casualties within Iraqi cities have been nasty throughout this war, as the most cursory glance at any reputable news source will tell you.

With the best will in the world it will not be possible for American and Iraqi troops shelling a city - which I gather thay have been doing very heavily, not to kill non-combatants.

I agree that the title to this thread is sensationalist - but only a very wilfully blind person would believe that a lot of innocent people will not be killed.

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gustavratzenhofer wrote:

Baldimo wrote:
It's not as if they are going in to kill everything that moves.

It's funny you should write that, Baldimo. A friend of mine has a nephew who's been in Irag for quite some time. He was home on leave several weeks ago and was telling my buddy some of the horror stories. He said that when they patrol, initially they were very selective at what they shot at, but as time went on and they realized the dangers all around them, the got to the point where they'd go on patrol and kill everything that moved.

Those were his words, Baldimo, not mine. So quit trying to paint such a rosy picture. You've apparently watched too many John Wayne movies.

It is starting to sound very much like Vietnam in that respect. Sadly, I think this happens easily where there is a war of terror going on, and soldiers do not know if someone is going to be a suicide bomber, for instance, or not.

I have also seen interviews with US troops who talked - often with intense horror - about having shot at anything that moved, and then finding that they had killed innocent civilians. One very young guy obviously thought, though, that he had been involved in a video game, because he was crowing with glee about how like one it was, and making video sound effect noises, and humming the music from his favourite shoot 'em up game. I wondered if he gone into total dissociation, and was very worried for him.

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dlowan you may call the title of my thread sensationalistic and believe me I'm not offended or hot buttoned about it but answer me this...will this be a difficult and bloody mess? Did CNN just today publish a picture of a four year old girl in Fallujah with shrapnel in her head? (YES)

Will innocents (plenty of them) be slaughtered or would another word be better, or is slaughter what it is?

Why would any person of faith ask their God for assistance in this endeavor? If you choose to break your God's commandments...or if you follow the orders of a person who has chosen to ignore God's commandments and take part in such undertakings as will lead to wholesale death by the sword, something I think pretty well fits the description of slaughter, why oh why would you ask a God, a loving God, to rubber stamp it for you?

That's the point of my post....this is mans work not Gods...leave Him out of it.

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I'm new to this forum, and thought I'd comment on a couple of things that have been discussed.

I teach Just War Theory at the university level. In one text, the author recounted a story about a parent asking the author (an authority in JWT) to write a letter recommending that his son be accepted at a military academy. The author asked the father, "Does your son want to be a professional killer?" This, indeed, is what a soldier is.

As for as supporting our troops but opposing the war, I had a scholar/soldier from West Point come to meet with my class and give a public talk back in mid-October. My students asked him "isn't protest really bad from the military point of view? Doesn't it give aid and comfort to the enemy? Doesn't it make our soldiers feel abandoned?" His answer? "I agree 100% with a friend of mine who is a British soldier: When my rear end [more explicit description edited out!] is sent to war, I sincerely hope that the people back home are asking a LOT of questions about the war. Whether they're right or wrong in a particular case isn't as important as the fact that they play a role in helping us to distinguish between wars that are justified and wars that are not. And although I am more than willing to die in a just war, by damn I don't want to lose my life in an unjust war!"

The speaker, who last saw active duty in Afghanistan emphasized that protest is indeed patriotic.

Re noncombatant immunity: We (the US) do pretty well at discriminating noncombatants from combatants and do not directly target the former. The tougher the war, though, the more "collateral damage" there is. Just War Theory holds that if a point is reached that the war simply cannot be fought justly, then the morally correct thing is to lose the war rather than fight unjustly. Military commanders, however, tend to think that the increase in civilian deaths in tough situations, while unfortunate, can't be helped.

Noncombatant immunity is also important for purely prudential reasons. For every enemy civilian that is killed, one entire circle of family and friends become our enemies.

Enough for now--

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It's not surprising that someone would reach out to a higher power before before facing a life threatening situation. God brings people comfort; you can't fault them for that.

edit: This was in response to the first couple of posts, not the last post. In regards to the last post, I think you've made some very sound points. Protests are part of freedom, even (and perhaps especially) during war.

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Thanks for the post JanW - and welcome to A2K!

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Bi-Polar Bear wrote:

dlowan you may call the title of my thread sensationalistic and believe me I'm not offended or hot buttoned about it but answer me this...will this be a difficult and bloody mess? Did CNN just today publish a picture of a four year old girl in Fallujah with shrapnel in her head? (YES)

Will innocents (plenty of them) be slaughtered or would another word be better, or is slaughter what it is?

Why would any person of faith ask their God for assistance in this endeavor? If you choose to break your God's commandments...or if you follow the orders of a person who has chosen to ignore God's commandments and take part in such undertakings as will lead to wholesale death by the sword, something I think pretty well fits the description of slaughter, why oh why would you ask a God, a loving God, to rubber stamp it for you?

That's the point of my post....this is mans work not Gods...leave Him out of it.

Yeah - I had been going to add that the point of the name's hyperbole was to heighten the absurdity of the juxtaposition of all the jesus stuff with the nature of the mission - ie that it was a rhetorical device - but sometimes, to be honest with you Bi-P, I get tired of filling in small spaces for folk who ought to be able to do it for themselves....(I don't mean you, BP)

I do "get" your title and the aim here - but despite this, to be honest, I thought that many wouldn't, and would just react fairly blindly as Baldimo, and, I gather, McGentrix, pretty much have. I therefore think it was unnecessarily inflammatory, and not actually conducive to people who do not already see things your way taking any time to think. And, a number of folk who do, have just kind of got on a military bashing thing, which I think was also encouraged by the thread's title. Just a matter of tactics, Bear! For whatever my thoughts are worth.....

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JanW wrote:

I'm new to this forum, and thought I'd comment on a couple of things that have been discussed.

I teach Just War Theory at the university level.

That's interesting. What are your thoughts on our last two major conflicts, i.e. Kosovo and Iraq? Just or unjust, and why?

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Welcome jan W - interesting post.

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janw great post and welcome...

dlowan being careful with the semantics of my title, and believe me I see your point and it is a valid one....would be lost on the usual reactionaries on this thread, so why bother? If reasonable title or not, the reaction will be the same i.e. God Bless America screw you BPB you piece of ****...then hell? Why not vent? :wink: Laughing

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dlowan wrote:

Bi-Polar Bear wrote:
dlowan you may call the title of my thread sensationalistic and believe me I'm not offended or hot buttoned about it but answer me this...will this be a difficult and bloody mess? Did CNN just today publish a picture of a four year old girl in Fallujah with shrapnel in her head? (YES)

Will innocents (plenty of them) be slaughtered or would another word be better, or is slaughter what it is?

Why would any person of faith ask their God for assistance in this endeavor? If you choose to break your God's commandments...or if you follow the orders of a person who has chosen to ignore God's commandments and take part in such undertakings as will lead to wholesale death by the sword, something I think pretty well fits the description of slaughter, why oh why would you ask a God, a loving God, to rubber stamp it for you?

That's the point of my post....this is mans work not Gods...leave Him out of it.

Yeah - I had been going to add that the point of the name's hyperbole was to heighten the absurdity of the juxtaposition of all the jesus stuff with the nature of the mission - ie that it was a rhetorical device - but sometimes, to be honest with you Bi-P, I get tired of filling in small spaces for folk who ought to be able to do it for themselves....(I don't mean you, BP)

I do "get" your title and the aim here - but despite this, to be honest, I thought that many wouldn't, and would just react fairly blindly as Baldimo, and, I gather, McGentrix, pretty much have. I therefore think it was unnecessarily inflammatory, and not actually conducive to people who do not already see things your way taking any time to think. And, a number of folk who do, have just kind of got on a military bashing thing, which I think was also encouraged by the thread's title. Just a matter of tactics, Bear! For whatever my thoughts are worth.....

Excuse me?

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That's interesting. What are your thoughts on our last two major conflicts, i.e. Kosovo and Iraq? Just or unjust, and why?[/quote wrote:

Hmmm. Don't know if I did the quote correctly. Oh, well--

Kosovo: meets the requirements for justice in going to war (jus ad bellum), but not, I don't think, the requirements for justice in the means of fighting the war (jus in bello). Almost all contemporary just war theorists (including those who are themselves military) believe that the principle of discrimination (between combatants and noncombatants) requires that our soldiers take increased risks in order to protect civilians. When we conduct an air war, our soldiers are about as safe as they can be, but the civilians on the ground pay for that (even with smart bombs). In short, we considered our soldiers' lives to be more valuable than the lives of the civilians (that we were fighting to protect). Various ethicists will disagree, of course, but my view is the majority view.

Iraq: Absolutely unjust, and the military ethicists that I know personally think so, too. Pre-emptive war is justified according to just war theory (JWT) if the threat is OBVIOUS and IMMINENT. In retrospect, the threat clearly wasn't obvious; it couldn't have been! There were no WMD. Imminent? If the danger had been truly imminent, we could not have waited as long as we did to begin the fight. Preventive war is the best shot this war has of being justified, and a preventive war (fight now to avoid future war) has a much higher standard of proof than pre-emptive war (which is considered emergency self-defense). Preventive war in Iraq would probably not be at all justified without the support of the Security Council of the UN. Humanitarian Intervention? Not justified according to JWT if the human rights violations (in this case mass murder) is over (and it was over in Iraq according to the Human Rights people).

As for the justice in means of fighting, I personally find that hard to judge where Iraq is concerned. I am not military myself, so it's hard to say exactly what the balance should be--when a battle or siege should stop because of civilian deaths. Historically, however, warning civilians to leave a city such as Fallujah, doesn't really do any good. Most civilians won't leave (it's their home, and the territory beyond home is often not much safer).

The real problem in Iraq now is justice after the war (jus post bellum). We're failing miserably in that regard.

Thanks for the welcome, everybody--

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toally unrelated question here....about janw's tag line....if you go to eternity..in other words you're never going to run out of time....then how valuable can time be?

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Dear Jesus...Please Protect Me While I Slaughter Innocents..

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