Christmas break reading

For a spring semester class, a new text to prepare: Ellwood and McGraw, eds., Many People, Many Faiths: Women and Men in the World Religions, Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2005.

For background: Roggema, Poorthuis and Valkenberg, eds., The Three Rings: Textual studies in the historical trialogue of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Thomas Institut Utrecht/Peeters Leuven, 2005.

Christopher Dawson--1937

From the eminent historian's "Essay on War"--

But any peace propaganda which shuts the eyes to realities is worthless and may even increase the danger which it sets out to combat. It has been the fault of both pacifism and liberalism in the past that they have ignored the immense burden of inherited evil under which society and civilization labor and have planned an imaginary world for an impossible humanity. We must recognize that we are living in an imperfect world in which human and superhuman forces of evil are at work and so long as those forces affect the political behavior of mankind, there can be no hope of abiding peace.

ISG #2

Of course, WE, the Americans and the "coalition of the willing" must decide that we will stand fast to the convictions with which we entered (a) the war on terror and (b) Iraq. Parties have so muddled the reasons for this intervention in Iraq that many are quite confused at this point. At times it seems the current Administration itself is confused--at least its spokespersons (plural!) aren't very clear in articulating their and our purposes. I think this is an important part of the problem.

Secondly, WE have to decide what, or whom, we care about. Do we care about a vision of peace for the Middle East? Further, do we care about the survival of the state of Israel? Make no mistake: the radical Islamists have the massacre of Israel's Jews and the elimination of "the Israeli entity" as their first priority.

• How do we know this? They say so repeatedly.
• Do they mean what they say? We can't afford to take the chance they don't--can we?

I know it's probably not fair to use the Holocaust as an equivalent example here, but it's a dreadful fact of history that Hitler meant what he said. If we had understood in the 1920s what we knew in May of 1945, would we, the Germans, the Europeans, have behaved differently? If we had understood in the early '60s what we understood about Southeast Asia after the last helicopter left "Saigon" and after the Pol Pot came to power in Cambodia, would we have chosen differently?

The ISG Follies

The President is not obligated to adopt the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group. He has the opportunity to do so, and thereby absolve himself partially from recriminations that will follow from the resulting chaos. It seems that, based on press reports, what the committee is suggesting will have the effect of "kicking the can down the road"--of delaying an eventual confrontation with the ideologues of the Middle East, now entering their ascendancy. It may be possible to delay the fragmentation of Iraq and its radicalization by Iran and Syria by maintaining some kind of presence on the borders, the no-fly zone, strict surveillance, economic sanctions, etc. There will at some point come a showdown with these power-hungry parties. It may be that the no-war coalition in the U.S. will be the ones in power when it happens. Then, they will be forced to do as FDR did, as JFK did, and become the party of war. If the current "hawks" were to act in the most cynical manner possible in order to assure their eventual return to power, they would implement the ISG's recommendations in short order and enthusiastically. I'm not sure that this is acceptable as a moral option, but it surely is politically alluring.