JDG wrote: > Sent: Sunday, 10 April 2005 7:20 AM > To: Killer Bs Discussion > Subject: Democracy in Iraq Re: The Other Christianity (was Re: Babble > theory, and comments) > > At 04:17 PM 4/7/2005 -0700, Nick wrote: > >On Thu, 7 Apr 2005 15:01:52 -0700 (PDT), Gautam Mukunda wrote > >> It means that there wasn't a third option between > >> going to war to remove Hussein and leaving him in > >> power. It didn't exist. No one proposed one that was > >> even vaguely plausible. You could choose one or the > >> other. > > > >Really? No other options? Then what of all those that opposed the war, > >including almost every major religious organization across the globe? > Was > the > >Pope trying to stop democracy in Iraq? The World Council of Churches, > the > >Conference of European Churches, the National Council of Churches of > Christ in > >the USA, the Middle East Council of Churches, the churches of Norway, > Finland > >and Denmark, Greece, the United Methodist Church, my own Lutheran church > and > >on and on and on -- were they all trying to stop democracy in Iraq when > they > >opposed this war and proposed other options. > > I think that the answer to that is unequivocally yes, in effect. The > policies advocated by the above would have resulted in Iraq's most recent > democratic elections not happening. > > That is not to say that they all had the conscious intent of opposing > democracy in Iraq, but that is the logical consequence of their positions, > and so is one that should properly be defended by the holders of those > positions. > > JDG
Umm, I confess, this one I just had to comment on. Firstly, you/I/anyone, has no idea what may have transpired in Iraq if another course had been taken. They may well have had their own democratic elections, of their own making. And perhaps without all the deaths as well. It is plain silly to claim that the ONLY way to democracy in Iraq was the American invasion. And anyway, a single election, a democracy does not make. I hope it works out well, but you know as well as I do, that history is not an exact science, with some formula that says invasion = democracy, or no_invasion = no_democracy. What happened, happened, but many other things could have too. Some bad, some good. But that is by-the-by, we can agree to differ over that. What I had to comment on was the ludicrous thought that the Pope, The World Council of Churches etc etc need to stand up and defend their anti-democratic positions. They spoke out against war, not democracy. There is no "logical consequence of their positions". That's a ridiculous leap of well, of unfaith. So we can assume from this that Bush the Elder was an enemy of Democracy as well can we? Or that GWB is a secret lover of totalitarian communism because he has not invaded North Korea? I bet such plans have been presented to him, dreamt up deep in the Pentagon. And presumably they have not happened because he opposed them. Ohh my god, GWB is a Communist !! They are about as sensible a statement as yours was. This is the 'subsume your will entirely to ours, or be deemed a traitor' sort of thinking that really scares me about the US at the moment. What is the point of even having a democracy if the only acceptable way to act in it is fully agree, fully support, and fully parrot the line of the Government, no matter how much it may go against your deepest feelings?. Were you a traitor when Clinton was President? By your line of argument here, I think you probably were. I'm sorry, but that sort of thinking, that the church needs to be held accountable for its anti-democratic heresy, because it opposes war, makes me look over my shoulder for Senator McCarthy. "Are you, Or have you ever been, a member of the Roman Catholic Church?" Andrew (Who isn't, and wasn't and probably never will be) _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
