The Democrat-Controlled Congress, War on Terror, and effect on the Troops . . . that’s the subject of the Big B Files.
There are currently a number of Non-Binding Resolutions, or NBRs for short, winding through the Democratically-Controlled Congress that are saying it is not in the National Interest and Security to fight the War on Terror in Iraq. These are the same people wanted and demanded a troop surge going three years back and now that these people got their own wish . . . they’re opposed to it all of a sudden! Hillary Clinton recently stated that ” . . . if we had known then what we know now, there never would have been a vote and I never would have voted to give this president that authority.”. Nonetheless, Hillary said that “There are no do-overs in life. I wish there were. You know, I acted on the best judgment that I had at the time, and at the time I said this was not a vote for preemptive war (in Iraq), and the president took my vote and other votes and basically misused the authority we gave him.”
Should not wage a pre-emptive war? What!?! Got News for you Hillary Clinton, Dick Durbin (Comrade Durbin), Chuck Schumer and others on the left who oppose the Iraq portion of the global war on terror . . . the entire War on Terror IS a preemptive war! Besides, Mohammed Atta and the 18 other hijackers from Al-Qaida started the War on Terror back on September 11, 2001 when they flew two planes into the World Trade Center and one plane each into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Would you rather be proactive or wait until we are hit again which if Pat Robertson’s prediction for 2007 comes true (along with that of a premonition someone I met recently received from the Virgin Mary), you may very well get your wish. By the way . . . Bill ÒReilly has stated a number of times that if we are hit again, the United states will turn sharply right. In this instance, I agree with Bill ÒReilly. What is the effect on the troops?
I believe Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman put it best what he said the following in a February 5, 2007 speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate:
Cynics may say this kind of thing happens all of the time in Congress. In this case, however, they are wrong. If it passed, this resolution would be unique in American legislative history. I contacted the Library of Congress on this question last week and was told that, never before, when American soldiers have been in harm’s way, fighting and dying in a conflict that Congress had voted to authorize, has Congress turned around and passed a resolution like this, disapproving of a particular battlefield strategy.
This resolution also sends a terrible message to our allies. I agree that we must hold the Iraqi government to account. That is exactly what the resolution Senator McCain and I have offered would do. But I ask you: Imagine for a moment that you are a Sunni or Shia politician in Baghdad who wants the violence to end—and ask yourself how the Warner-Levin resolution will affect your thinking, your calculations of risk, your willingness to stand against the forces of extremism. Every day, you are threatened by enemies who want nothing but to inflict the most brutal imaginable horrors on you and your loved ones. Will this resolution empower you, or will it undermine you? Will it make you feel safer, or will it make you feel you should hedge your bets, or go over to the extremists, or leave the country?
And finally, what is the message this resolution sends to our soldiers? I know that everyone here supports our troops—but actions have consequences, often unintended. When we send a message of irresolution, it does not support our troops. When we renounce their mission, it does not support our troops.
Now I dislike war as much as the next person, but I also realize that at times it becomes absolutely necessary to fight a war as it is now. Even Osama bin Laden, the founder and leader of Al-Qaida, has said (through Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the Al-Qaeda deputy leader) more than once that Iraq is the central front in the War on Terror a.k.a. the War against Radical Islam.
As for the legal and moral issues that are being raised about the War on Terror, let me address these two issues. In reference to the legal issues, try Saddam violating a grand total of 17 U.N. Security Council Resolutions along with the 1991 Cease-Fire Agreement Saddam signed with the United States and numerous other countries that comprised of the “Coalition of the Willing”. . . including most of Iraq’s neighbors! Therefore, the U.N. Security Council Resolutions and the 1991 Cease-Fire Agreement gave us the legal right to remove Saddam from Power in 2003.
On the Weapons of Mass Destruction . . . Hillary’s own husband, President Bill Clinton and many in his administration and a number her fellow members of Congress all said the exact same thing in the 1990s.
As far as the morality, or “Just War” is concerned, there are two moral justifications for the War on Terror. One, we are fighting for the very survival of our nation and our very way of life. We are proud to be a nation where you could worship God and Jesus Christ in whatever way you choose . . . and anywhere you want to do so free of government restriction and/or oppression. If the Radical Muslim terrorists have their way, we would be arrested for just being a Christian or Jew or even killed for not converting to Islam. Those on the left all say that we should negotiate with terrorists like Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah (a.k.a. Hizbollah, Hizbu’llah), and other terrorist groups whose starting point in any negotiation would be, oh shall I say . . . our deaths!
Second, the majority of the religious leaders during the time of World War II did believe that WW II was a just war because they believed that the WW II generation was fighting to preserve religious freedom for the whole world and keep freedom from being denied by tyrants like Adolph Hitler.
Now, a number of religious leaders are saying that the War on Terror is not a just and moral war, even though the stakes are much higher now than ever before…including the World War II era. Finally here is quote from the column Conditions of a Just War by the late Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen in relation for a just war:
Two practical considerations follow from this Catholic theology of war: First, we Christians should never talk of war, as the world does, in terms of freedom, but always in terms of justice. One of the greatest disasters that happened to modern civilization was for democracy to inscribe “liberty” on its banners instead of “justice.” Because “liberty” was considered the ideal it was not long until some men interpreted it as meaning “freedom from justice”; then when religion and decent government attempted to bring them back to justice, organizing into “freedom groups” they protested that their constitutional and natural rights were being violated. The industrial and social injustice of our era is the tragic aftermath of democracy’s overemphasis on freedom as the “right to do whatever you please.” No, freedom means the right to do what you <ought>, and <ought> implies law, and law implies justice, and justice implies God. So, too, in war, a nation that fights for freedom divorced from justice has no right to war, because it does not know why it wants to be free, or why it wants anyone else to be free.
-CONDITIONS OF A JUST WAR by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Courtesy of Trinity Communications Copyright © 1994
I would also have you look at Zenit Daily Dispatch’s “George Weigel on Pre-emption, Just War and the Defense of World Order” and the Address of the Pope John Paul II to President George W. Bush Dated June 9, 2004 for more on just wars, which as an additional benefit, helps defend and preserve religious freedom not only for the United States of America, but for the whole world.
That’s the Big B File. Click on “Comment” link below and tell me what you think…I’m Bryan Hewing.