[DocRock]

"Invading Iraq, when Iraq did not attack us, would seem to be initiating violence."

Then it seems you are mistaken. Saddam initiated the violence in the invasion of Kuwait in the first Gulf War and Saddam and fired numerous times at our planes in the No Fly Zones which violated the terms of the cessation of hostilities and numerous UN resolutions.

Your premise is wrong, therefore the rest of your abstract is also wrong.

" I wish that religious people obsessed with abortion would have focused at least as much thought and energy on our initiation of violence half way around the world."

Just to be clear... I am not obsessed with abortion and will gladly continue try to answer your questions.

[Semper]

Then it seems you are mistaken. Saddam initiated the violence in the invasion of Kuwait in the first Gulf War and Saddam and fired numerous times at our planes in the No Fly Zones which violated the terms of the cessation of hostilities and numerous UN resolutions.

Yes, Saddam initiated violence. His reason was that Kuwait was really a province of Iraq. We did not agree and initiated violence in response. When we invaded Iraq, it was against the will of the UN and with almost no support from allies. We can parse details but the fact remains that we invaded Iraq - officially justified because of what Saddam might have done with what he might have had. North Korea shot down one of our civilian airliners with a U.S. Congressman aboard but we did not respond with violence for that. Cuba shot down a U.S. civilian plane doing no harm over the ocean and we did not respond with violence for that. Our justification for the use of violence seems to be quite arbitrary.

Jesus told us to love our enemies and do good to those who would harm us; that sounds like the application of violence under any circumstance is not Christian.