Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!mit-eddie!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: optilink!cramer@uunet.uu.net (Clayton Cramer) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Modern Idolotry and Oil (Re: Archbishop's letter to Sec. State Baker) Message-ID: Date: 14 Dec 90 09:35:41 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA Lines: 52 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article , David.Anderson@cs.cmu.edu writes: > The rabbi present was especially concerned about the pacifist movement. > He said that among the Jewish community here (Pittsburgh, 2nd only to > NYC), sentiment is very strongly supportive of the administration's > policy (and one should note that Pgh. is a *democratic* town by an 8:1 > ratio). It wasn't just a pro-Israel thing, he insisted (and he's on the > committee for Palestinian justice here, BTW), but there are simply > *many* Jews who see unnerving parallels between this situation and the > situation which existed in Czechoslovakia in 1938. The Jewish community > is totally opposed to *any* kind of appeasement, even if it means war. The question becomes this: Does appeasement of a dangerous lunatic (or worse, a dangerous evil person) create more suffering, or less? If there were any question about whether someone represents a serious threat to others, the answer would clearly be that peace is an appropriate policy to pursue, as long as possible. But the actions taken by Saddam Hussein against domestic opponents, against Iranians, and and against Kuwaitis, definitely put him in the dangerous evil person. In 1936, German troops were sent into the Ruhr, which had been demilitarized by the Treaty of Versailles. I've seen a statement from a member of the German General Staff, interrogated after the war. He asserted that if the German Army had met any resistance, they would have been forced to withdraw, and in the opinion of this general, Hitler might have fallen from power. My history professor confirms that two sets of orders were given for the remilitarization of the Ruhr -- one set for withdrawal if there was resistance. If a few hundred German, French, and British troops had died in 1936, would the 40 million killed in the war have been spared? > I am skeptical of our "US interests" as anyone, but I would suggest that > there may indeed be larger issues at stake even if some of the more > obvious ones smack of hypocrisy and economic expediency. 100,000 body > bags (currently in a warehouse in Saudi Arabia) is very sobering. I hope > and fervently pray that war can be avoided. I'm afraid that our policy in the Gulf can be best described as "Wrong reasons, right results." I wish that the principal motivation was human rights, and long-range defense of our national security. Unfortunately, cheap oil is the principal motivation -- as Secretary Baker's "protecting jobs" speech makes clear. -- Clayton E. Cramer {pyramid,pixar,tekbspa}!optilink!cramer Self-defense is the most basic of human rights. Lacking the right to defend yourself today can make it very hard to exercise any other rights tomorrow. You must be kidding! No company would hold opinions like mine! [This is getting very near the borderline of becoming more appropriate for the politics groups. I'm likely not to allow responses. --clh]