Why Are We In Iraq?

Mens News Daily.com ^ | January 29, 2005 | Raymond S. Kraft

[EQAndyBuzz]

Forget the errors for a second because you have to take into account this is coming from a Liberal lawyer.

His point to all of this is as follows:

Jihadists are Conservatives who are trying to take over the world and unless they are stopped, liberalism will die.

Now to put it in a different perspective. America is hated not because of financial jealousy or giving off the perspective of arrogance. America is hated because of liberalism. Secular beliefs and decadent lifestyles which most of the world, outside of Communist nations abhors. Even the Communists abhor liberalism. For them it is a tool to destroy free societies before they come in, instil their ideology and kill all the liberals.

[EQAndyBuzz]

"Even the Communists abhor liberalism. For them it is a tool to destroy free societies before they come in, instil their ideology and kill all the liberals."

"instil = instill"

Forgot to mention one thing. Elitists on the left don't care because they believe that money will get them to places where they will be immune from the slaughter.

With term limits, this all goes away because the money dries up.

[JasonC]

The detailed, necessary corrective to this common bit of "whig history" is Lord Acton's paper "the Protestant Theory of Persecution", which establishes in no uncertain terms that there wasn't a trace of later liberal ideas in reformation-era protestantism. All thought the purpose of government included, or even consisted in, persecuting all those who did not match each thinker's doctrinal positions.

[usmcobra]

I do know that besides The ballon bombs The Japanese also had several submarine aircraft carriers built for the very purpose of attacking the continental US and Panama.

But wait that's not an invasion is it?

Let's see the Germans had plans to attack the east coast with submarine lauched V2s and the Japanese had plans to attack the west coast by submarine aircraft (and some believe those aircraft were to use a Japanese nuke that may have been tested in North Korea) and in each case their plans were not well known or even mentioned in the majority of history books.

You're right, no records of any invasion plans have ever been released.

[Sam Cree]

*

[tonycavanagh]

In fact many committed Nazis went on to being very committed Communists in East Germany.

Many early Stasi officers were former officers of the Nazi SS with East German Communist leaders actively seeking former Gestapo Many early Stasi officers were former officers of the Nazi SS with East German Communist leaders actively seeking former Gestapo and SD to lead the Stasi in its formative years.

[ImpBill]

In my opinion the author has built his entire proposition on a false ides.

"If the Reformation movement wins, that is, the moderate Muslims who believe that Islam can respect and tolerate other religions, and live in peace with the rest of the world, and move out of the 10th century into the 21st, then the troubles in the Middle East will eventually fade away, and a moderate and prosperous Middle East will emerge."

The Quran really doesn't teach tolerance. Convert or die, is the basic and reoccurring message I find in "their book".

[patriciaruth]

I would appreciate your expanding on your comments. What are we doing out there? What tactics are we using and why?

[JasonC]

Here are Acton's relevant details on Luther. There are two distinct periods. Acton applies his historical "power corrupts" principle and his method "let a man incriminate himself".

While still in opposition and without support of civil princes, and before the Zwinglian schism, Luther put religious purity in his literalist sense above obediance, but did not invoke civil authority to persecute in religious matters. This was in conformity with his immediate interests, since he would have been the target of that principle, at the time, not his opponents. He was most nearly "liberal" at this time. Once he had power that changed - more on the later, mature doctrine below. First, here are the relevant statements from his early period.

"Princes are not to be obeyed when they command submission to superstitious errors, but their aid is not to be invoked in support of the Word of God."

"If they prohibit true doctrine, and punish their subjects for receiving the entire sacrament, as Christ ordained it, compel the people to idolatrous practices, with masses for the dead, indulgences, invocation of saints, and the like, in these things they exceed their office, and seek to deprive God of the obediance due Him. For God requires from us this above all, that we hear his Word, and follow it; but where the government desires to prevent this, the subjects must know that they are not bound to obey it." Works XIII, 2244.

"I will compel and urge by force no man; for the faith must be voluntary and not compulsory, and must be adopted without violence." Works XX, 24, 1522.

Those principles justified revolt of Protestant subjects against Catholic authorities, including his own revolt, and tried to forbid authorities from attacking his disobediance, by claiming they were disobeying the higher authority of God.

But once there were Protestant princes he could find shelter and political protection from, and especially after the unlimited principle of secession the previous sets up was used against his own movement by Zwinglians, Anabaptists, and other Protestant groups, he changed his doctrine to the characteristic obediance to the civil power he is later known for.

This happened as soon as there were other literalists in the field against him. (He recognized his own role in that, incidentally). Before that, scripture was the ultimate standard and ran even against the civil power. After it, it was the duty of the civil power to persecute anyone who departed from his system, as the following statements, from later on, show.

"I beg first of all that you will not help mollify Count Albert in these matters, but let him go on as he has begun... Encourage him to go on briskly, to leave things in the hand of God, and obey His divine command (sic) to wield the sword as long as he can."

"Do not allow yourselves to be much disturbed, for it will redound to the advantage of many souls that will be terrified by it, and preserved."

"If there are innocent persons among them, God will surely save and preserve them, as He did Lot and Jeremiah. If He does not, then they certainly are not innocent... We must pray for them that they obey, otherwise this is no time for compassion; just let the guns deal with them."

"...If they refuse to acknowledge and to obey the civil authority, then they forfeit all they have and are, for then sedition and murder are certainly in their hearts."

"Christian freedom consists in the belief that we require no works to attain piety and salvation."

Those persecuted by the civil power had no legitimate recourse, and no duty or pact or responsibility bound governors - "A Christian must suffer violence and wrong, especially from his superiors... As the emperor continues emperor, and princes princes, though they transgress all God's commandments, yea, even if they be heathen, so they do even when they do not observe their oath and duty... Sin does not suspend authority and allegiance". Of course this doctrine did not apply to the Pope or to Luther's own, by then consumated, revolt.

He explicitly justified crime by the civil power. "Princes, and all rulers and governments, however pious and God-fearing they may be, cannot be without sin in their office and temporal administration. They cannot always be so exactly just and successful as some wiseacres suppose; therefore they are above all in need of the forgiveness of sins."

He taught that past religious scruple has made governors too meek. "Thus they are persuaded by monks to be gracious, indulgent, and peaceable. But authorities, princes, and lords ought not to be merciful."

He urged Protestant princes not to tolerate Catholicism "for no secular prince can permit his subjects to be divided by the preaching of opposite doctrines".

Acton saves the most damning quote for the end of his brief.

"Heretics are not to be disputed with, but to be condemned unheard, and whilst they perish by fire, the faithful ought to pursue the evil to its source, and bathe their hands in the blood of the Catholic bishops, and of the Pope, who is a devil in disguise."

Riffel, Church History II, 9 and Table-Talk, III 175.

Not a tea party. The ideological leaders were urging whatever power they could gain the allegiance of to persecute and exterminate their opponents. The other Protestant reformers are not better than Luther was; most are worst. There are a few voices for tolerance, but not among the powerful leading it all.

We cannot teach Muslims anything about the principle of tolerance by whitewashing European history and pretending ferocious bigots were tolerant liberals. Tolerance came much later, first through exhaustion at the failure of wars to give a clear winner - which initially just drove it inside countries without ending it - and gradually through the spread of liberal, enlightenment principles.

This was not peculiar to Germany or to the 16th century, nor to the Protestant side. A French king ordered the extermination of all Protestants in his territory late in the 17th, a generation after the 30 years war ended. Pacifist quakers were being hanged for heresy on Boston common in the last decade of the 17th century. Catholics were persecuted in the most liberal and "whig" country of all, England, well into the 18th (whigs supported tolerance among Protestant denominations, but not toward "Papists") - and in its possession Ireland, well into the 19th.

[patriciaruth]

Hi, Allegra! Nice to see you're still in the chum.

[patriciaruth]

Interesting apologia for Chamberlain. We don't get much of that wider view of the situation here in the States.

Thanks for expounding more on the context of the times. People can have very good, sound reasons for not doing what history (Monday morning quarterbacking) eventually proves wrong.

[Allegra]

Hi, Allegra! Nice to see you're still in the chum.

Hi! I just got back to The Sandbox from vacation yesterday. It sure was nice being free out there and eating whatever I want. ;-)

[patriciaruth]

Excellent post on Civil War casualties, which proves brilliantly that Americans are better at killing Americans than anyone else in the world.

And also may explain the fratricide that goes on with increasing frequency here at Free Republic.

Biologically we explain this as the principle that the highest competition for survival goes on between individuals or groups occupying the same niche.

[tonycavanagh]

re : What are we doing out there?

Phase four stabilization and pacification.

In case you don't know there are four phases.

Phase 1 Movement into position.

Phase 2 The air war softening up targets comms logs defensive positions.

Phase 3 the land war.

Phase 4 occupation stabilization and pacification.

The reason for phase 4 is because with the removal of Saddam there was a major power vacuum, no government, no stability in fact anarchy started to take hold, in fact we could of ended up with another Afghanistan scenario with a Taliban type movement taking control as did happen with the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan.

re :What tactics are we using and why?

Tactics and Strategy a common compliant is we are fighting a war why aren't we fighting it like it is a war.

Well we are but there are different types of war High Intensity like the Second World War, liberation of Kuwait, the Arab Middle east wars, and low intensity such as North Ireland Algeria and a host of colonial wars.

Vietnam was both high and low intensity which led to a mismatch of tactics and strategy.

Over the years many tactics and stretefies have evolved in fighting low intensity wars thse are covered by the term COIN.

Counter Insurgency.

We are fighting a Counter Insurgency War in Iraq. Our role is to stabilise the region until such a time as we either defeat the terrorists military or we hand over to a stable Iraqi government with a unified and professional strong Iraqi Security force.

I think the latter is what we are aiming for. An important component in dealing with an insurgency/terrorist movement is denying the support of the local population to the insurgents/terrorists. (ps : military term is insurgent, Civilian term is terrorist). There are two schools of fault here, use of terrors and reprisals, or winning the support of the local population. If we take the Second World War as an example, The Germans occupied most of Europe and practised differing methods of occupation policy. What was found was the more brutal the repression the more organised was the resistance and more supported by the local population.

Poland, which experienced the most brutal repressive measures of all the occupied nations, had the most organised resistant group.

In Czech Hedrich who favoured Terror with terror ran such a liberal regime that Czech became a very important part of the German Armnements Industry, he was assassinated, the Germans switched to an oppressive regime, which resulted in more sabotage in the factories and more organised resistance, this was the same in the other occupied countries.

I can give you other examples , the Soviets in Afghanistan, Stalin’s repression, France in the Algerian War, third world examples such as Rwanda. My own country when we decided to teach the Irish nationalists a lesson resulting in Bloody Sunday, best recruiting tool the IRA ever had. The same in India in the 30s when General Dhafor decided to teach the Indians a lesson they will never forget.

There are so many examples of where meeting terror with terror failed.

Today we look at winning the support of the local population, and denying that support to the terrorists. Hearts and Minds as it is called.

There have been notable successes where local intelligence has led to a number of captures of leading terrorists who will supply us with a wealth of intelligence leading to more captures.

It may not be sexy, it may not be visual with pictures of fast moving jets, aircraft carriers, MI tanks spurting over a battlefield job, but it does get the job done. Which is what counts.

[CougarGA7]

No, it began on September 1939 with the invasion of Poland. Most of the figures and dates in this thing are wrong.

I've always viewed the begining of WWII as 1931 myself when Japan invaded Manchuria. But I dont know where this 1928 date comes from.

[FARS]

totally agree with you. Again - did not want to edit the author. It was not my article to amend.

[patriciaruth]

I never claimed that any of the first Protestant sects were "liberal" as to freedom of thought and religion as we understand it today.

I stated that to my knowledge Martin Luther did not call for the "extermination" of those who did not agree with his positions on interpretation of Scriptural, whereas the Catholic church did try to take him to Rome for execution. Local politicians (=local aristocratic rulers) and local people from the peasant revolt prevented that order from the Pope, for their own reasons of nationalism, etc. by threatening to abandon their support of the Germany-Austrian Emperor of that time if the Emperor obeyed the order to hand over Luther.

Luther was the hingepin on which these groups made their successful revolt from Rome for reasons which had little to do with religious doctrine. A number of people, however, did believe in the humbler version of Christianity based on Scripture which Dr. Luther expounded and codified later in his own Catechism and in other voluminous writings, and some were killed for exposing that set of beliefs.

When we talk of Inquisition, we talk of people who were forced to recant on pain of death, too often with what modern liberals would consider torture, and of burning at the stake those hardy and stubborn few who didn't recant their beliefs.

I don't believe any of his writings Dr. Luther called for "exterminating" those who didn't agree with him, but if you have some quotations from some particular works that run counter to my current belief, I would be interested. He did want to exterminate certain practices, like selling "indulgences" and ungodly behavior by princes of the church that he witnessed in Rome, but not to kill the offending people.

[patriciaruth]

I was hoping for something more intriguing than what I already knew was going on, at least this is what we've all been told is going on there.

Maybe some of the finer points from T.E.Lawrence's private writings and how they apply to today's situation, like how eliminating leaders of an insurgency causes a loss of expertise and confusion in the rank and file, would have been fun to discuss.

Or something about counterinsurgency efforts directed toward Iran, who supplied by far the majority of the foreign fighter captured in Iraq this past year.

At any rate, from the terrorist round up reports that Straight Vermonter posts, it looks like the strategy is to go after the leaders, and to deny them safe haven to get reorganized. They on the other hand have done a fair amount of going after needed infrastructure, but wasted a great deal of time and resources and natural good will in the populace by attacking civilians.

I am definitely very worried by Iran's insane leaders and the militancy of the widespread fundamental Islamic beliefs taught the populace there by the Imans. And even more worried by the fact that certain other countries, especially Russia, have decided to feed that tiger, thinking they will be able to ride it and cut back on U.S. influence in the region.

[tonycavanagh]

re :like how eliminating leaders of an insurgency causes a loss of expertise and confusion in the rank and file, would have been fun to discuss.

LOL you are not trying to imply that we have a shoot to kill policy and are engaging in deliberate assassination now are you.

Or something about counterinsurgency efforts directed toward Iran, who supplied by far the majority of the foreign fighter captured in Iraq this past year.

That would be more insurgency efforts as they are directed at a foreign nation.

LOL are you saying that we would be underhand enough to deliver arms and other support to the Northern and Southern insurgents in Iran.

Those topics are not polite enough for the dinner table or open forums

[patriciaruth]

Well, your teaser did suggest you were going to divulge something juicy.

And all I got was polite dinner conversation about the contents of the Encyclopedia Britannica.