Invasion of Iran ???

Here's our recent discussion.

My Question:

What do you think the odds of this admin bombing or invading Iran are?
Are you for it?
What do you think the likely consequences would be?

Just wondering..

Love, Michael

Terry's Response:

Hi Bro;

Prepare yourself for another lengthy answer.
It all depends on how the rest of the world responds to the threat of
aggression from a country that spews hatred for Israel and the USA. If the
Russians (and the Chinese & North Koreans) do not boycott support for the
buildup of weapons by the Iranians, it could be a "no brainer" to have to do
some type of intervention (yes even military action) to curtail the
possibility of Iran having and using (as they have promised) weapons of mass
destruction.
What are the odds? 50/50, maybe greater! From what I hear and know of the
"wacko" president of Iran, he is "hell bent" on the destruction of Israel,
and the take over of the US, and then the world. The "so called" 12th Imam
is to be the savior and the ruler of the world, with the Muslim religion in
full control (and that is a scary thing). If we don't stop him (Iran) where
they are, we will have to fight him here. It is pretty obvious that he
intends to use terrorism and weapons of mass destruction to attack us
whenever he gets the opportunity. It's time that we (the US people) wake up
and "get real" about what is going on in the world with this struggle. It
will not end if we "pull out" - It will only embolden them to continue and
bring the fight over here - it will hasten their plans and ambitions.

Am I for it? Of course not - war is never desirable or wished for, but
sometimes it is required for self preservation. We waited to fight Hitler
for too long, because we didn't want war. War is a horrible thing, but the
alternative is worse, and we will eventually have to fight for our
preservation anyway! Should we wait until there are tens' of thousands of
innocent people that have been killed first? Have we forgotten the attack
on New York already? Haven't we learned anything from history? I'm for
defending the USA and the freedom that we enjoy, and if that means we have
to fight for it, again, then I'm for it!

I see the consequences played out on two fronts. The first one is the world
stage, and the second is the religious or Biblical stage. Eventually, the
two will intersect as foretold and predicted by the prophets of old.
Actually, now that I think about it, the two are taking place concurrently
as we witness current events. Whether we are defeated, or just simply give
up and go along with the rest of the world, Israel will be left to stand
alone, and will only be saved from destruction by a miracle, and the Lord
will deliver them. I do believe that we are living in the "end times" (like
it or not - the Bible has predicted what is going on today and what will
happen) and the story has already been told. So, the consequences of an
attack on Iran might just start WWIII - but from a Biblical viewpoint - that
is the beginning of the end of the world and the start of the new
millennium, and that is a good thing. It's a real "catch 22'...I love life
in the USA and life as a mortal being, but I believe that there is a new and
better world coming, and these things must and will take place to usher it
in. Do I continue to fight it, or let it happen? I think that the reason
that we Christians continue to fight on is due to the fact that we believe
that the longer we can hold back the evil powers, the more time we will have
to share the good news of the Gospel with people before they are lost
forever. Based on current events, I think that the time left is short.

Good questions - I'm glad you asked!

Love Ya - Terry

My Response to Terry:

I wrote this early on but have been letting it percolate (and letting PC read it, too).
And deciding if I want to create any distance between us this may cause (or exacerbate).

But, I am at the point in life that it makes more sense to be honest about what I think and feel (provided it does not unnecessarily hurt someone).

So here's what I think about the possibility of bombing or invading Iran and your response to my question.

First of all, let me address this dangerous idea that world events are playing out according to predictions in the Bible. As you probably know, I do not believe the Bible is the word of God, the final truth, or is anything other than a collection of stories and philosophies, some of which may be good and help you lead a good life. How can a series of books written by men 1000s of years ago, voted on as to which ones are the word of God in 381 AD, and full of inconsistencies and historical, factual and scientific inaccuracies, be considered the infallible word of God? Every reader comes away with their own interpretation – would God be so vague if he wants his followers to obey his word? (Same problems with the Koran, Book of Mormon, and other religious books apparently.) So, I hope politicians are not listening to those pointing to the Bible as to how the world is supposed to be governed and when the end of the world is about to come. It is lunacy to be cavalierly talking about WWIII being a good thing because it starts the path to the end of the world. If civilization is going to be destroyed, it will probably slowly over time by overpopulation and environmental degradation (and war) until the population is reduced to a sustainable level and the world (and mankind) can recover.

Second, I think even Christians would prefer to persuade people with a bit of honey rather than a big stick. Most polls, many diplomats, and many deep thinkers believe that the Iranian people are much more in support of the US people – not necessarily the US government – then our politicians make it sound like they believe. Throughout the Mideast, we could get much further with a bit of positive economic help, a clear indication we’re not only interested in them for their oil, and containment of the bad apples – the Islamic fundamentalists. Clearly, fundamentalists are bad guys and they do exist and they do want to hurt us – and they have some legitimate complaints about their leaders. However, clearly they are a minority, and there are many, many Muslim adherents, who would love to live in peace, do not seek to dominate the world, and do not believe that their book advocates violence or the killing of Christians, any more than you believe your book does of Muslims.

Therefore, a war has to be the last, last, LAST resort – only after diplomacy, containment, kindness, foreign aid, and everything else has clearly failed. The Muslim extremists are not Hitler, do not control armies capable of overrunning a neighboring country (yet). At this time, they do not control nuclear weapons – and that is something we should seek to prevent.

Unfortunately, when looked at from their perspective, it is pretty easy to understand why they think we are the terrorists. We have invaded their countries, killed many of their civilians, tried to control their economies, their elections, propped up their monarchies, many people in the US are beating the drums about wiping out their religion, we appear to be interested in them only for their oil, do not pay attention to their democratically elected leaders, etc. No wonder they can point to us as Satan and as we continue down this path of destruction, it looks more and more like their radicals are correct! We look like the Hitlers!

So, we have to find a way to do this with kindness and peace and attract the bulk of the population who are friendly toward America and probably do want to develop some sort of democracy and better economic conditions. We cannot bomb the hell out of people in order to get a few that are the problems. The civilians aren’t happy about being harassed by the fundamentalists, either. I wouldn’t say don’t go to war no matter what, as we all know that it can be necessary at times, but our cowboy president has been awfully cavalier about risking US lives and destroying property and killing civilians, not to mention spending billions, sometimes wastefully (deficit for our grandchildren!), in the last six years.

Afghanistan probably made sense, and it would have made sense to continue to pursue bin Laden and his ilk more rigorously immediately after dumping the Taliban. The world was on our side! Iraq was contained and economically weak – no need to invade. But, we broke it, now we own it, and we have to fix it. And, thank you GW, we will be paying for it for a loooooong time.

Amedinejad does not have any real power, just a big mouth, so we should ignore him. Iran apparently made a lot of overtures to the US over the last few years to work out some way to cooperate and co-exist and all overtures have been spurned by Bush. That makes no sense.

So this has been a lot broader discussion of religion and politics I usually engage in, but I just couldn’t let this Armageddon type talk pass by unchallenged. Once again, it probably won’t change anything you think, but we probably both live in an echo chamber hearing our own views reinforced so it’s good to get the other side’s opinion once in a while. I do love you and respect your opinions, even if I don't agree w/ all of them.

I am willing to cc this to the rest of the family and broaden the discussion if OK w/ you.
Let me know. I won't fwd it outside of my family w/o your OK.

Much Love, Michael

Terry's new response: (now you are all up to date - from here on it will be new stuff).

Hi Bro;

First of all, let me make something very clear. We are both very opinionated, and we hold firm to our beliefs. At times I have felt that you have become weary of my correspondence with you, and I have even “backed off” a bit sometimes because I have no intention of offending you (and if I have – I’m sorry). I enjoy an exchange of ideas, and hope that any dialogue between us would not get so heated that it would affect our relationship. Even though it is fairly obvious that we don’t seem to be together on politics or religion, I can and will accept your opinions as just that – opinions. The last time I checked, our constitution does allow free speech. I may not agree with you, but you do have the right to say it. Trust me, nothing that you say will “create distance” between us. You are my brother, I love you, and the main reason that I reply to some of the issues that we have discussed with so much passion is because I do, and I care. Also, the things that we have been talking about, and the e-mails that we send back & forth, have for the most part been between you and me only. If you would like to include other family members, I have no problem with that.

Now, on to the issues at hand – let the games begin!

The Bible: There have been many a scholar (and other professionals) who have started out on a quest to once and for all prove that the Bible is what you believe it to be, stories, myths, and a collection of man made philosophical hog wash. Many of those people were not only unable to tear it down, but became believers in the process. I am no Bible scholar by any stretch, but I don’t know of any inconsistencies, historical inaccuracies, fictitious claims, or scientific evidence that proves that what the Bible tells us happened didn’t. I would be interested in the evidence that you have or the sources that you know about that would prove the contrary. Would you be able to give me examples of what you are talking about here?

As far as world leaders, any Christian, governments, etc., talking cavalierly about WWIII being a good thing, please go back and read what I said. Maybe I can make myself a little more clear in this letter. War is never a good thing, but it is sometimes necessary. (I’ll get more into that later, I think) Christians understand that their main mission on this earth is to lead others into relationship with God. The one true God, the almighty master of the universe, maker of all things, always was and always will be, the pure and holy and righteous one, cannot stand to be in the presence of sin & evil. When Lucifer (the most beautiful and powerful angel created by God) decided that he was going to be God, he was banished from God’s presence. He (Lucifer – Satan) has been trying to get back at God ever since. He got his chance by introducing sin into this world through Adam & Eve. Obviously, I know that you know the story. The struggle between good and evil has been going on ever since. Christians would never promote war for wars’ sake, or to try to hurry it along to get Christ back here sooner. The church is doing everything that it can to fight back the evil forces in an effort to have the time to get the salvation message out to as many people as they can before Christ decides to return. The conflict here is that we (Christians) know that this day will be a glorious time (we pray come Lord Jesus), and there is going to be a war (good –vs- evil) to usher it in whether we like it or not. When it finally does come, the “war to end all wars” will be a good thing.

Honey –vs- Big Stick: Christians do try to deal with a multitude of issues through diplomacy, encouragement, persuasion, education, and aid. You might say that I am trying to do that right now as I write this letter. As long as someone isn’t knocking on my door with guns and other weapons, swearing to kill me, my family, and take my house away, I’ll keep talking. When they start shooting, you can bet that I will fight back to secure my freedom and my life. Should we be so naïve as to think that after the attack on the world trade towers we could have sat down with the terrorists and had a meaningful discussion about how they felt about us, and “can’t we just all get along”? Do we really think that the attacks would have ended there? Please!

Let us not forget, that during the discussion, they started shooting. The only ones that are accusing us of being the invaders are the terrorist extremists who are getting their butts kicked out of a place that they took over by force in the first place. The vast majority of the real Iraqi people are happy that we are there, and they are going to have a peaceful future when we get done helping them clean the house. (of course you will never hear that in the media – they wanted us to loose this war) Actually reporting the success that is occurring over there would be contrary and detrimental to their agenda. Funny, you don’t hear a lot about the Iraq war on the 6:00 any more – Must be too many good things happening - That doesn’t make “good news” for the networks. I am just amazed at how many Americans are buying into this junk, and want to keep all of the myths and the lies alive.

I don’t understand how you can talk about the US being seen as the bad guys here. Oh – the war is about oil, or world domination, and we want to wipe out their religion, and we kill innocent women and children to accomplish this. Give me a break! Hello! If we were going to take the oil, we would have taken it long ago instead of paying them full price, while we refuse to let our own recourses be tapped to help ease the pain. If we were all about world domination, we could own all of Europe and most of the pacific islands, including Japan. If we wanted to wipe out their religion, I wonder why Muslims are allowed to take time during the day to pray, while Christians are banned from having a Bible on their desk in some places. And the last time I checked, the only ones kidnapping, murdering, and beheading the people of Iraq, were the terrorist insurgents. Again, it is sad but funny – the only ones who keep bringing up this crap are Americans…the Iraqi people know that we don’t work it that way!

On Iran: Yes he does have a big mouth, but he also appears to be putting his money there, and we can’t just ignore him! Apparent overtures? Do we know of any details? Just what were we supposed to give up to obtain peace with this lunatic – Let him wipe out Israel? I would certainly hope that our president would soundly refuse to accept terms like that. I’ve said this before, but I will ask the question again…If we know he has “the bomb”, and we know he has said that he would use it, how long do we wait to see if he is just a big mouth, or another legitimate Hitler? If we wait too long because we would like to give kindness and understanding one last chance, either one of us could be meeting our maker sooner than planned. You are correct, and I agree, that war should be the last, last resort. Tell me, how many lasts are there again? Is it when Los Angeles is gone?

As you have also correctly noted, my ramblings here will not likely convince you that I’m on the right side of this discussion, but I also feel the need to stand firm for my beliefs and convictions. Here’s just one last thought that I just had – I have nothing to lose, and everything to gain. If I am wrong about my belief in the life after death, and you are right that the Bible is a bunch of bunk, I will have lived a good life anyway (trying my best to treat everyone fairly) and will end up in the dirt with you. But, if I am right, I will be in heaven enjoying the glorious love of our Lord. It’s a “win – win” for me.

I do love you – you are often in my prayers!

Terry