Amalekites, Saddam Hussien, and King Saul
Reader comment on item: Saddam's Damn Dam [i.e., The Mosul Dam]
in response to reader comment: what's in a name?

Submitted by jennifer solis (United States), Nov 9, 2007 at 15:25

King Saul was commanded by God to completely wipe out the Amalekites; and, while Saul killed a large number of them, he disobeyed God's instruction and left many alive, including a leader of theirs. When God asked Saul why he had disobeyed Him, Saul went on and on about bringing back the "spoils" of the battle so he could sacrifice them to God. God replied, "Be doers of the Word, not hearers of the Word."

Disobeying God brought divine discipline onto King Saul, and consequently Saul died a horrible, painful death.

King David, some fifteen years later, completely wiped out the Amalekites, and was phenominally blessed by God for it.

Trying to find applicable Biblical solution for the Iraq situation is difficult. The Bible does portray freedom through military victory, and the neccessity of war in defense of freedom, numerous times. When there is a clear victor, only then does peace result, depending on who the victor is.

The Bible also teaches, with freedom comes responsibility. Daniel Pipes is so far the closest to this doctrine, when he writes about removing our troops to the borders of Iraq, providing only strategical military strikes when warrented. This would force the Iraqis to step up to the plate and determine their fate.

Saddam was a threat to OUR security, and Israel's, and therefore it was justifiable, Biblically speaking, to take him out.

What to do afterwards is the dilema. Imagine, for a moment, the U.S. was THE VICTOR in all this. That Iraq was OURS to do with what we pleased. Leave out the "mubo-jumbo" about "freedom is the Almighty's gift to every human being", etc., sorry, President Bush, it's not, and there is no Biblical doctine supporting that. Man was created with "volition", and some use it for good, some for bad.

Say, for example, it was established and clear that Iraq lost the war, under Saddam, and the U.S. won, under President Bush, and we had the sovereignty to do with Iraq as we wished. That would be the U.S. comming from a position of strength. The U.S. should have written the Iraq Constitution, same as General Douglas MacCarthur did for the Japanese after WWII. This would include separation of "Mosque" and state.

In my opinion, the initial military operation in Iraq stopped way too soon. The looting should have been delt with severely, militarily.

Every time, whenever our soldiers were shot at, be it from a school, hospital, or Mosque, the bulding should have been obliterated.

It should have been established who were and what was the new rule of law. Back when Saddam's statue was pulled down, and Iraqis were jumping up and down, applauding the U.S., it was not because the Iraqi people were happy to have a new democracy. They didn't, and still don't quite comprehend what democracy is.

It was because they were glad Saddam was gone.

It was because they assumed, feared and respected, that the new "leader" was the U.S.

The U.S. has turned out not to be the leader in Iraq, to the detriment of the Iraqis.

Daniel Pipes is exactly right when he states that democracy was introduced way too soon, and gone about the wrong way, from the top down, instead of the bottom up.

The current "surge", which is working, involves various tribal militias maintaining order as well as more "lee-way" and aggressive military action on behalf of our soldiers.

There wasn't a clear victor after taking Saddam out. This is the crux of the problem. If the U.S. was the victor, we should have implimented a Constitution ourselves, enforced it militarily, established a rule of law, enforced it militarily, and if worst came to worst and the masses in Iraq tried to rise up against our troops, we should have pulled our troops and bombed them again.

Syria, Iran, and Turkey would be watching all this and no-way would they want to get involved.

Again, once a CLEAR victor was established, namely the U.S., and Iraq was ours, then and only then handing over power to Iraqis, little by little, say for instance to small provinces to start with, would have made sense.

How to pay for all this? Take the $700 million + used for that huge U.S. embassy being built in Iraq and instead secure the oil production in Iraq.

And build a new damn dam.

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