{"id":1980,"date":"2014-09-25T19:33:23","date_gmt":"2014-09-26T01:33:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/?p=1980"},"modified":"2014-09-26T05:47:07","modified_gmt":"2014-09-26T11:47:07","slug":"am-i-smarter-than-president-obama-i-dont-think-so","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/2014\/09\/am-i-smarter-than-president-obama-i-dont-think-so\/","title":{"rendered":"Am I smarter than President Obama? I don’t think so…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"obama_3049887b\"<\/a>In his\u00a0his Sept. 24 speech to the UN general assembly, President Obama said,<\/p>\n

As an international community, we must meet this challenge [of religiously motivated fanatics] with a focus on four areas. First, the terrorist group known as ISIL must be degraded, and ultimately destroyed.<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A couple of minutes later, he followed this up with:<\/p>\n

the future belongs to those who build \u2013 not those who destroy.<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Apparently, according to his own words, Obama doesn\u2019t think the future belongs to America. And perhaps he\u2019s right. As Jesus said, \u201call who draw the sword will die by the sword,\u201d because the final thing the destroyers destroy is themselves.<\/p>\n

\"1408572680233_wps_7_JAMES_FOLEY_beheaded_by_I\"<\/a>Let\u2019s get something straight: ISIS didn\u2019t behead civilians\u00a0and then post videos of the killings online because they thought it would deter America and other coalition members from going to war against them. They did it because they knew it was precisely the type of behavior that would bait the world into war\u2013and that such a war would lead\u00a0inevitably to a flood of new recruits, offended by the excessive force that the western coalition\u00a0will no doubt use against them. As the collateral damages pile up, retaliation will be only too easy to justify. Launching airstrikes against ISIS\u00a0may make us feel like we are assuming control of the situation, but we are merely playing out a\u00a0role that ISIS has written for us. The harder we strike back, the more justified their\u00a0original acts of violence will appear.<\/p>\n

Those who have joined ISIL should leave the battlefield while they can.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Don\u2019t worry, Obama, they\u2019re already on their way out, ready to scatter to the four corners of the earth so that in the future, there\u2019s no way you\u2019ll be able to bomb them without also bombing yourself.<\/p>\n

There can be no reasoning \u2013 no negotiation \u2013 with this brand of evil. The only language understood by killers like this is the language of force.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Funny, based on our response to ISIS, I can imagine them saying exactly the same thing about us, hence the beheading videos. However, rather than attempt to teach them a new language\u2013a language that builds rather than destroys\u2013Obama and co. have merely decided to respond in their native tongue. After all, if both sides can agree on one thing, it\u2019s that killing is a perfectly legitimate means by which to achieve your goals. The only disagreements concern the methods used (beheading is so 12th century), the victims chosen, and the objectives to be obtained. This whiff of moral equivalency brings to mind the words of Miroslav Volf in Exclusion and Embrace:<\/a><\/p>\n

Forgiveness flounders because I exclude the enemy from the community of\u00a0<\/span>humans even as I exclude myself from the community of sinners.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is exactly what Nobel Peace Prize laureate Barack Obama\u2019s comments at the US were designed to do\u2013remove ISIS from the community of humans. It\u2019s easy to behead or bomb someone whom you no longer count among your kind, but it\u2019s much more difficult\u00a0to bomb or behead the enemy if we assume the posture of \u201cThere but for the grace of God go I.\u201d To my way of thinking, this is the only way to counter the language of violence\u2013with the language of love and forgiveness. As Volf concludes,<\/p>\n

No one\u00a0<\/span>can be in the presence of the God of the crucified Messiah for long without\u00a0<\/span>overcoming this double exclusion \u2014 without transposing the enemy from the\u00a0<\/span>sphere of the monstrous\u2026 into the sphere of shared humanity and herself from\u00a0<\/span>the sphere of proud innocence into the sphere of common sinfulness. When\u00a0<\/span>one knows [as the cross demonstrates] that the torturer will not eternally\u00a0<\/span>triumph over the victim, one is free to rediscover that person\u2019s humanity and\u00a0<\/span>imitate God\u2019s love for him. And when one knows [as the cross demonstrates]\u00a0<\/span>that God\u2019s love is greater than all sin, one is free to see oneself in the light of\u00a0<\/span>God\u2019s justice and so rediscover one\u2019s own sinfulness.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

President Obama is not a stupid man. Neither are the people who serve in his administration. So I can only assume they know the war they have embarked upon is unwinnable. Anyone with even a cursory understanding of history realizes\u00a0that even if they manage to squelch this particular manifestation of religiously fuelled hatred, another, more powerful version will arise in its place, just as ISIS has replaced Al Qaeda as public enemy number one.<\/p>\n

Therefore, the only way I can rationalize their\u00a0behavior in the face of this obvious trap is to assume a much bigger, more complex game is being played. Perhaps the coalition has no intention of \u201cwinning\u201d against ISIS at all. Maybe they\u2019re playing ISIS\u2019s game because they actually do share the same ultimate goal\u2013perpetuating\u00a0instability in Iraq, Syria and throughout the Middle East, because such instability is a steady cash cow for those who profit\u00a0from such things.<\/p>\n

I hate to adopt such a cynical, conspiratorial approach, but the only other option is to assume that somehow I am able to see something in this conflict that President Obama and his people have missed, and I have a much more difficult time believing that.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his\u00a0his Sept. 24 speech to the UN general assembly, President Obama said, As an international community, we must meet this challenge [of religiously motivated fanatics] with a focus on four areas. First, the terrorist group known as ISIL must be degraded, and ultimately destroyed. A couple of minutes later, he followed this up with: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1177,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,33],"tags":[376,105,406,407],"class_list":["post-1980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-philosophy","category-theology","tag-isis","tag-miroslav-volf","tag-president-obama","tag-un-speech"],"yoast_head":"\nAm I smarter than President Obama? 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