Are you paying attention?
Good.
I’ve been mulling over this for a couple of days, deciding on whether or not I should post about it, or just go out on the street corner and shout it out. After discussing with Phil Wilson and Scott Freeman, I decided that writing it on a blog probably would give me a least a little time for the message to get out before I’m killed by angry mobs.
America can’t win the War on Terrorism.
That’s right, America CAN’T win the War on Terrorism.
Now, before you dismiss me as a Liberal schmuck, I offer you this disclaimer. There was a time in the not too distant past, when I would have gone of the handle just reading those words. I was super Republican and I let everyone know it. I was knocking down commies and hippies at every corner of the web.
Then something changed. I realized that when Christ says that we are to love our enemies, he’s not just talking about the guy that is trying to take your job at work, or the teacher who has a beef with you for no reason. He’s talking about people who want to harm you, steal from you, murder you. He’s talking about Islamofascists, Nazis, Gangbangers, and Communists. And there is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY to love a person if you want them to be killed. None. So I gave up war.
I haven’t set out to protest any of the conflicts we’re in around the world, though. I know that Governments are going to do what they will do, and I will disagree with that, but my job is not to make the government “Christian” (because it can’t be), but to show Christ to everyone that I meet.
Which leads me to my original point. America can’t win the war on terror.
We are generally a nice group of people. In most cases, we don’t bomb people indiscriminantly (though some feel Iraq was unjust, and I can sympathize with that position) and we send aid to others, and we let people worship freely. We allow many things that many other countries don’t. Freedom of speech, press, right to bear arms, etc. We are a free nation.
And because we are good, we fight wars differently than others do. We attempt to fight fair. We will do our absolute best to keep civilian deaths as low as possible, even if that means losing some of our own men.
And that is why we can’t win the war on terror.
There is no way to defeat a guerilla army, one that hides among commoners, straps bombs to their chests, and blow themselves up, without complete and total annihilation. It just won’t happen. Just as fast as we can kill these people, more are joining their ranks (or cult, if you will) because they become angry (understandably) that we are killing their countrymen. It’s happened before in history if you recall. There was a King named George and a group of colonies who didn’t like being treated as second class citizens. They rose up, but they didn’t fight conventionally. They hid in bushes, they set traps, they didn’t line up in rows in a pasture and shoot at each other. Cause they couldn’t win that way. And eventually, the American forces defeated the British and won their independence.
Those same tactics are at work here, except, the stakes are much higher. No longer do people fight wtih muskets and cannons but with nuclear bombs and biological weapons. Guerilla Warfare has changed and it will defeat us. Maybe not in the conventional way. They won’t come in and take the White House and cut off our President’s head… but as soon as someone gets a nuclear or biological weapon to detonate in this country, its gonna be 1984 for all of us, and that will be the end.
This country that started off with high hopes of Liberty and Justice for All will become just another tyranical state, dictating all sorts of decisions that you take for granted at this time. And its going to be bad.
And my message for everyone is simply this. Do NOT put your trust in a country, a creed, or even in an ideology that is not Christ. America cannot save you from the principalities and powers that work against us. Only Christ can. And he will, eventually, save us all. But if you put your hope in this country, your faith in this country… when it falls, its gonna be a hard fall for you.
I pray that people relinquish their faith in the system to solve all our ills, and put their faith in Christ and his lifestyle that leads to a cross, but also to salvation.