I pledge allegiance to the flag....

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."


(This is an article that was written by a friend of mine, T, and I know it is long, but you should read it and think about it...)

Ok, so recently I have been thinking about the Iraq war, the economic situation of the world and the different social/political affairs that are moving and shaping the world, as we know it. I guess being over here in Europe for the last four months it has helped me to get an outside perspective of the Iraq War and other issues at hand. I am not constantly barraged with news on the economy and the war in Iraq. I pick and chose when I want to read up on the issues and I see things after they have already progressed as opposed to simple baby steps. We are so wrapped up in our own little world in America, it really is quite comical to stand back and watch. We have this ridiculously stupid economic situation on our hands because of our desire for "things." Good job Americans. Its about time we start blaming ourselves instead of pointing fingers. There are so many other rooted issues involving the economy but that isn't what has hit me the hardest. The Iraq war has. Ok, so the other day a couple students and I put out a super hypothetical question that went something like this, "If you were in a market and somebody went on a shooting rampage, and you had a gun in your hands and you had the power to shoot him down and stop him, what would you do?" Think about it for a minute than read on.

Ok so right away I thought to myself, ya I would shoot him, he's killing people. It would be the just thing to do to shoot him down. But would it? So then lets put Jesus in this situation. Now obviously Jesus could probably do some crazy thing to this guy, but for hypothetical reasons lets assume he has the decision to shoot the guy or pray for his soul? What would he do? I think you know what he would do. So……. Now lets assume for a second that Jesus was the commander and chief of the USA when 9/11 happened. And the US is freaking out and the media is pumping fear, fear and more fear into the hearts of Americans. And he comes on to give the United State a word of encouragement and an idea of how the government is going to handle this situation. I think he would probably say something like, "Well we need to turn the other cheek, forgive them and we are going to send people to Afghanistan to help build schools and houses and we are going to offer them food, water and we are going to show them love." I don't think he would send out an army to attack the nation. I feel the same can be applied to the Iraq war as well. Now would Saddam have allowed Americans to come in and help the citizens? Maybe, maybe not. Would we have been allowed to go into Afghanistan and do those things to help them? Maybe? I don't know. But what I do know is that we did it completely wrong. We are no different than the muslims who took down the twin towers in the name of Allah. Kill for kill. Blow for blow. The people in the Middle East don't see the "western world." They see the Christians. When we go into a country to liberate it, we are in a sense doing it not in the name of freedom, but in the name of Jesus. Sad but true, we are no different than the Catholic crusaders as well, which is sickening. Yes, we took a crazy ruler out of power, and now the people are feeling a sense of freedom. Yes, there is some sort of good coming out of the war. Yes I can't see the end of this and maybe it turns out in favor for the USA and the Iraqi people. But at what cost?

A chance to finally do something the right way and show the world what "Christians" are about. But we failed. In James 3:17 -18 it says, "But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness." And in Col. 3:12- 14 it says, "Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity." And then Jesus says in Matt. 5:39 But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. Rom. 12:14, "Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rom. 12:17-19,"Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord."

Ok, so now let me ask you a question to think about, which would have made a bigger impact: President Bush sending Al Qaeda a letter of an apology, telling them that we forgive them, that we will do whatever it takes to bring peace and that we will use all resources to help out their situation in their hometown countries or us sending troops into their countries taking our their leaders and killing thousands of lives? Ok so now imagine we did the first thing and Bin Laden puts up a video and says, "No, and in fact more attacks are coming, we want to destroy America in the name of Allah." Well what we should do in that situation? Sit back and continue to try to help them in any way possible or go out and attack because they turned down our hand of peace?

Oh but Taylor that sounds great and all, but those people are evil, they will kill us along with hundreds of the thousands of innocent lives in America. We can't do that with these people. Its impossible. They are animals. Going to war was our only option. We are protecting Americans and their lives. We had to do what we did.

Great. BUT how many times have you asked yourself, "why is this world so messed up? When will people understand? This world is getting worse and worse." Well we can thank the western world for creating the problems of the world today. Its not the Muslims fault. It's the selfish Christian Americans. Now in my opinion if we would have tried to reach out and help out Al Qaeda they probably would have sent more and more attacks on the USA. And I guarantee you, the people of America the "Christian America" would have had enough and would have demanded an attack on the Middle East. Life after life would have been innocently slain in the US. But oh man what a testament that would be to the rest of the world. No retaliation, still a hand of forgiveness? What is going on? Maybe the countries holding Al Qaeda would have stopped supporting them, and would have reached out a hand of aid to us and asked us why we are not retaliating? Why? Now that is a testimony. But we are selfish. We need to feel some sort of safety when it is merely just an illusion. We need to feel like we have the right to live to 80 and live the American dream. Sad. I feel like if we would have just stuck our necks out and surrendered ourselves we would have changed the world we live in.

I just read something the other day that said the US spent 1 Trillion dollars in 2007 on foreign affairs. 1 trillion. I also saw a video that said in order to solve the worlds clean water problem it would cost around 1.5 billion. Man to think that while America was getting attacked we were spending money on bringing the world clean water and building shelters to those who live in dirt, blows my mind. Who knows what we could have done with that money? Instead of soldiers we could have sent thousands of volunteers who would have loved to help out people in the Middle East and Africa. And eerily the US is scary similar to the kingdom of Solomon. In 2Chr. 9:13-15 it says: "The weight of the gold that Solomon received yearly was 666 talents, not including the revenues brought in by merchants and traders. Also all the kings of Arabia and the governors of the land brought gold and silver to Solomon. King Solomon made two hundred large shields of hammered gold; six hundred bekas of hammered gold went into each shield. He also made three hundred small shields of hammered gold, with three hundred bekas of gold in each shield." Then in 2Chr. 9:25 it says, "Solomon had four thousand stalls for horses and chariots, and twelve thousand horses, which he kept in the chariot cities and also with him in Jerusalem." Just like America the rich had a ridiculous amount of money and their leader wanted better weapons of war (chariots). They were building up a country of power and they had everything that could need. Solomon also built the temple of the Lord and a crazy palace that took years to build. And through Solomon's selfishness he put the people of Israel to slave labor and after his death, the Israelites ask his son Rehoboam to lighten their yoke because Solomon had put them into slave labor, the very labor God had liberated the Israelites from in Egypt. It's a funny circle. Rehoboam says, no and the people rebel against him and never again does Israel gain its authority. They never recovered. Now let me ask you, how many items do you think you have at home that was made overseas by somebody that makes maybe a dollar a day? Countless items. How many weapons of war does our government have? How rich is the USA?

Now why did I write this? Lets look at the issue of Iran. This is crazy, but lets let Iran build a nuke, lets downsize our military considerably, and in fact let us let Iran build as many nukes as they want. We should pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan now, and send thousands of people and supplies to help rebuild their countries. Lets send teachers, doctors, builders, cooks and simple volunteers to reach out in love. Crazy? Yup. Why? If we really want to bring an end to this cold world, either one of two things will happen in that scenario and putting up the white flag essentially. One we get destroyed and we all die. Good we are in heaven and the people left on earth are left with a testament of a nation that represented Christ. Two we trust God will protect us and we stop relying on the things built by man, and God does a miracle and something unexplainable happens. I think that is what He wants. He wants us to give up, reach out in love and trust in Him to protect us or do whatever is needed to save souls. I know this is simple and cliché but what would Jesus do as commander in chief? That is how you change the world and get people to love
Christ. And its time.

So anyways that is just some random thought I had, I could be wrong, I could be crazy.