The Christian Case for War in Iraq

06/22/2005: Imagine you are a preacher. A woman seeks your counsel. She has been in a physically abusive relationship for years: her husband is beating her. He is also starting to show a sexual interest in his oldest daughter, who is now in her teens.

What will your response be?
(a) Tell her to go home and submit to her husband. Instruct her to pray for her husband more.
(b) Provide her the number of the local battered womens’ shelter.
(c) Instruct her to seek a shelter and press charges.

In the evangelical world, far too many pastors opt for (a). I find that notion revolting. I’ve always felt that abusive husbands should be held accountable, both in the Church and to the Law of the land. Women–and children–should not have to live under such abuse. The last thing a good minister should do is enable an abuser to continue this practice (or enable such a victim to teach her kids that it is okay for husbands to beat their wives and/or children.)

My answer would be a combination of (a), (b), and (c). Prayer is important. Everyone needs to pray more. However, you can’t afford to just stop there: such situations demand action. (However, instead of a shelter, I’d first see if some families in the church would be willing to take her and her children in.)

Bottom line: prayer alone is not sufficient. In the face of such abuses, action is proper. After all, as James said, “Faith without works is dead.”

Now…let’s assume we are not dealing with a woman who visits your office. Let’s say we have millions of people who are under living under severe atrocities. A genocidal dictator has used nerve gas to slaughter hundreds of thousands of people, because of their ethnicity. That same genocidal dictator–and his army of thugs–enjoy helping themselves to the women of the land. They rape them at will. Just to keep the people under control, they publicly torture and execute suspected dissidents.

This genocidal bastard keeps a third of the country on his payroll of informants. He rules the country the way an abusive husband dominates his wife: brutal repression.

Attempts to send aid to the victims are fruitless: this dictator steals every ounce of aid provided by otherwise well-meaning relief organizations. Other aid efforts are riddled with corruption: this dictator steals that money and uses it to pay the “helpers” to turn and look the other way.

Now what is your suggested response?
(1) Have more prayer meetings.
(2) Have more dialog about why we need more peace.
(3) Have the United Nations pass another resolution expressing outrage at this situation.
(4) Take a decisive stand–that involves military force–to put an end to the abuse.

Better yet. If you were one of the victims, what would you want?

I just described Iraq under Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi people–in particular the Kurds and Shi’ites–were living under conditions that could rightly be compared to Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot. (Dick Durbin: are you reading this?)

Saddam used VX nerve gas to slaughter hundreds of thousands of Kurds in the 1980s. After the Gulf War in 1991, he brutally attacked the Kurds, driving them toward the Turkish border. Only a splendid effort by American Special Forces troops prevented a mass humanitarian disaster. (Read Shadow Warriors, a profile of Special Forces missions, by Tom Clancy and Gen. Carl Stiner.)

If you wouldn’t tell a battered wife–whose husband is taking a sexual interest in his own daughter–to simply “go home, submit, and pray”, then why the heck would you take this approach with an entire people?

Confronted with these realities, many otherwise fine people would suggest that, “Saddam isn’t the only bad guy out there. We can’t be the world’s policeman.” There is some truth to that, but one should do what one can. Turning and looking the other way is exactly what brought us the Holocaust.

Others might suggest that such action is unconstitutional, as Iraq was not a threat to our interests.

Baloney! If the US turned and looked the other way with Iraq, we would only earn more contempt and cynicism from the very Middle Eastern people who accuse us of being nothing but a shill for Israel (just as a pastor who offered “submit and pray” instructions to a battered wife would rightfully earn contempt from believers and nonbelievers alike).

No. Instead, we took the right action–at great risk to our own lives–on behalf of the Iraqi people. Our soldiers have bled and died for their freedom (and ours). Those men and women are heroes.

Today, the Iraqi people have bought into democracy. (Even the Sunnis are coming around.) Most of our problems have to do with Saudi, Syrian, and Jordanian terrorists. It’s a hard slog, but we are winning, and–as long as we maintain our resolve–we will prevail.