In today’s politically charged environment it’s easy to find plenty of people, whether they’re conservative or liberal, who hate the war in Iraq. If you recall, the early opinion polls favored the war after it started in 2003, now approval is around 30% of the U.S. population.  What happened?  I earlier argued on this blog for the “just-war theory.”  In discussing this issue with anyone, it is easy for the real issues to get clouded with emotion and anger.

In the April 2007 issue of the monthly magazine “First Things,” there is an article titled “Just War And Iraq Wars” by George Weigel.  The article quotes two just- war theorists, James Turner Johnson and Michael Walzer.  Johnson argues that the just-war theory, in this age of terrorism, is not simply about the right, but even the obligation to use armed force to protect ourselves, our societies and the values we cherish.  Johnson states that the fight is about the peace we seek to establish in contrast to the war that the terrorists have set in motion.  We are, as St. Augustine put it, to be peaceful in warring, that is, to keep the aim of peace first and foremost, not only to vanquish those whom you war against but also to bring them to the prosperity of peace.  The ideal expressed in the just-war tradition is an ideal in which the use of force serves to create peace.

Michael Walzer, a secular just-war theorist, proposes another goal of a just-war: a moral criteria for defining the peace to be sought – right intentions, rightly understood.  Right intention is a specification of a legitimate public authority’s duty to do what is good, which in the case of war does not end with repelling evil but includes the duty to build the peace.  The proportionate and discriminate use of armed force must aim at the construction of the peace.

I want to propose a dispassionate look at this very perplexing and serious matter. As you may be aware if you read this blog, my aim and theme is to be clear and logical, so let’s look at this issue the same way.  Whether or not you believe that there was a reason to go to war in Iraq, let’s keep this aside for the sake of this argument.  We are there now and we must make decisions based on what is best for our country.  Those who are against the war would argue that we would be better off if we leave Iraq now and bring all our soldiers home.  Others will argue, that we should talk to our enemies such as Iran, Syria and the Iraqi insurgents.  The Iraqi Study Group, which completed their report in the fall of 2006 and was headed by seasoned diplomat James Baker and former Congressman Lee Hamilton, suggested that we should talk to Iran and Syria.  In an ideal world, perhaps, this would be a good idea, but we need to look at the reality of this world.  History shows, however, that we’ve tried these tactics before without success. 

First, we did not look for this war, it was brought to us.  Remember, before September 11, we were neither in Iraq nor Afghanistan; we had no quarrel with al-Qaeda, yet they brutally attacked us without provocation and slaughtered 3,000 innocent people.  Can anyone forget the two commercial passenger planes slamming into the World Trade Towers and those people leaping to their death?

Second, let’s review the brief history of Islamic terrorism against America.  We were attacked in 1993 with the first World Trade Center bombing and we did not respond.  Our embassies in Africa were attacked with large number of casualties and we did nothing.  The USS Cole was bombed with 17 US Navy sailors killed and we did nothing.  We were attacked in Saudi Arabia with 15 US Air Force personnel killed and we did nothing.  Then, on September 11, 2001 we were attacked in our homeland.  First four US airliners were hijacked with the crew brutally murdered and two of the airplanes, full of passengers, flown into the World Trade Towers, the third flown into the Pentagon and the fourth heroically flown into the ground by the brave American passengers, as portrayed in the movie “United 93.”

Neville Chamberlain, the Prime Minister of Great Britain in the 1930s tried the diplomatic approach with Hitler in 1939.  I’m sure that Chamberlain’s motives were honorable and good – he did not want a war, only 20 years after the Great War, World War I.  After his conference with Hitler, he proclaimed “peace in our time.”  We all know how long that lasted.  Hitler invaded Poland and Czechoslovakia in the fall of 1939 – the ink had not even dried on the document Chamberlain famously waived in front of the cameras. I don’t need to enumerate the carnage that followed, nor the Jewish holocaust that saw six million innocent people murdered in the gas chambers or shot to death, execution style by the Nazis.

Chamberlain’s approach is referred to as appeasement.  History has shown that appeasement has never worked.  I challenge anyone to name one instance when appeasement has worked. There is an old adage by the philosopher George Santayana that states:   “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  No more true words were ever spoken; unfortunately, many still fail to learn this important lesson and pay the heavy price that it brings.

In Vietnam, a war I personally participated in as a soldier, we also spoke to the enemy.  We spoke to them for eight years before the war was over.  Nothing became of it other than what the enemy wanted – complete victory.  We got nothing in return and they got all they wanted.

Why would Iran and Syria want to help the United States get out of Iraq gracefully? Let’s look at recent history for a clue.  Iran, unlike any other nation in diplomatic history, unlawfully seized U.S. diplomats in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and held them hostage for 444 days.   As I’m writing this Iran has just captured 15 British Marines in International waters off the coast of Iraq.  Iran has been a terrorist nation and one of three nations in the axis of evil.  Does this country fit the definition of a rational enemy we could trust and make a deal with?  Syria has been a supporter of many terrorist organizations like Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda and others for many years.  Additionally, chaos in Iraq would serve their interests.  They are salivating over the possibility of getting to be a “player” in Iraq.  Iran, which is Shiite, would like to dominate Iraq much like Syria dominated Lebanon for 30 years after the civil war there.  Syria, on the other hand, a Sunni country, would like to use its influence to oppose the Iraqi Shiites.  Given the history of appeasement, where can we look for a reason to think that talking to Iran and Syria would yield anything?  They like what they see in Iraq now, chaos and civil strife, because this serves their individual interest.

Perhaps I’m missing something.  I see no logical reason or hope one can have, given the history I just explained.  If I’m mistaken about this, I would like to hear from you.  Your comments are welcome.  You can comment by clicking on the “comment” button just below.

I became pro-life as an adult in mid-life - when I was finally intellectually honest with myself and could acknowledge that the overwhelming evidence was on the pro-life side.  Why did it take so long to see the light?  I had not acknowledged that the other side had a good argument.  I ignored the facts so I could feed my beliefs at the time.  Once I was able to look at the facts and challenge myself, I had to conclude that pro-life is the most logical and correct view. 

 Another reason that forced me to consider the pro-life argument was my inner voice asking me how I would explain my position to God at the final judgment.  The more I thought about it, the more my arguments were neither credible nor could they be supported by any evidence, whether scientific or theological.  Additionally, my church was strongly pro-life so how would I reconcile this?  If I disregarded the church on this issue, then it would follow that I could also disregard the Bible or any other theological argument that I disagreed with.  In other words, I am the final judge, not the Bible and not God.  Not a good argument.

 Now, what does “Pascal’s Wager” have to do with this? Some history first.  Early philosophers, and Church fathers, St. Anselm and St. Thomas Aquinas have argued powerfully for the existence of God.  Anselm lived in the eleventh century and Aquinas in the thirteenth.  Thomas Aquinas offered five proofs for the existence of God in his renowned masterpiece Summa Theologiae, such as the argument from motion, the nature of efficient cause, etc.  These arguments are used to this day to argue for the existence of God. Both of these two men are intellectual giants, both in philosophy and theology.

 Blaise Pascal was a French mathematician and philosopher who lived in the seventeenth century.   Pascal developed his “wager” as a response to the atheist who says that there is no God and that once we die that is the end; like a flower that dies.   Pascal’s complete text on this is difficult and beyond my task here.  To make it simple, here is what the wager states:

If you erroneously believe in God, you lose nothing (assuming that death is the absolute end), whereas if you correctly believe in God, you gain everything (eternal bliss). But if you correctly disbelieve in God, you gain nothing (death ends all), whereas if you erroneously disbelieve in God, you lose everything (eternal damnation).

Pascal argued that betting against God was a losing proposition. Regardless of any evidence for or against the existence of God, Pascal argued that failure to accept God's existence risks losing everything with no payoff on any count. The best bet, then, is to accept the existence of God.  Most philosophers have accepted Pascal’s Wager argument.

 As I related earlier here, I realized that my pro-choice position was tenuous at best - even before I had ever heard of Pascal.  The reason is very simple.  If you wrongly hold to your pro-choice view that abortion is acceptable and it is “a woman’s right to choose” whether to deliver a baby or to abort it (kill it) then, even if you don’t believe in God, you’ve gained nothing.  But, if you wrongly hold that the pro-choice position is correct, and there is a God, you risk facing the judgment of God at the final judgment.  Additionally, upon our death, this cannot be reversed.  Can you afford to take this gamble?

 A person who is pro-choice, in my opinion, is like a person facing a mountain such as Mount Everest – staring at it from the bottom of it and saying:  “I see this mountain, but it’s not really there.”  Are you comfortable with this position?  Let’s look as some of the evidence for the pro-life position:

• Science has confirmed that life begins at conception,
• The Catholic Church has taught, from the beginning, that life begins at conception and is precious in God’s eyes and no one has the right to take it,
• The Bible teaches that human life is made in God’s image and commands us not to kill,
• The Christian Church, Judaism, and Islam all are nearly unanimously pro-life.

 The pro-choice side makes a fatal logical error when they claim that abortion is a private matter and a “woman’s right to choose.”  The error is mistaking an objective claim for a subjective claim. [i]  The pro-life position deals with an objective moral claim - it claims that a human life is at stake.  It cannot be a subjective claim such as “a woman’s right to choose;” this is like saying I choose chocolate ice cream rather than vanilla. Moral claims are not subject to choice, despite the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision of 1973. This is the fundamental mistake that everybody accepts without question.   A woman (nor anyone else) cannot choose to kill a human life, not even her own.  Would you accept the proposition that a woman can choose to kill a month-old baby? What’s the difference?  The unborn is a human being in one location and the one-month-old baby is a human being in another location.  How can location make a difference?

 I’m amazed every time someone makes the statement “a woman’s right to choose” such as we hear from pro-choice politicians.  Mayor Rudy Giuliani just made such a statement recently when asked about his pro-choice position.  No one ever thinks to challenge this absurd assertion.  Again, look at Pascal’s Wager - it also applies to being pro-life.  It is the right bet.  You cannot afford to be on the wrong side of this issue. Eternity is at stake.