So I've been thinking about all this a lot.  War is very present in our world today.  It really always has been.  It's part of our human nature... we're greedy.  We all like to be in control of the things around us and involved in our lives.  And that's not just an individual thing... it expands to entire nations.  And therefore... we have war.  There are lots of wars in the world right now, but there are two specific ones that we hear about a lot here in America... one of them is the war in Iraq (not surprisingly, since we're fighting it), and of course, the war in Israel.  Needless to say, the Middle East would not be the most fun place to be right now in my mind.

I've been fairly silent on the war in Iraq.  I haven't had much to say, and that's okay with me.  I will admit that when the war first began, I was in favor of it.  Of course, I was being guided by the same mistaken intelligence that our president, his advisors, and our military leaders were working from.  Had I known that the reports of the WMDs were wrong, I'm not sure what I would have thought.  I mean, look at it this way: We knew that Saddaam Hussein wanted to hurt us, and that gave us a good reason to be concerned about what he was doing over there.  What we didn't know was that Saddaam didn't actually have the capabilities to hurt us like we thought he did.  Honestly, I can't blame President Bush for taking us into Iraq, though without a doubt all involved in the decision to go to war should have checked their sources better, because in all honesty, those people were in no position to inflict harm on our nation.  Now that we're there... my opinions have changed.  I am no longer a supporter of the war.  I am not vocally opposed to it, as I did not vocally support it.  I choose, for the most part, to stay out of conversations about it, because in my mind, arguing about it at this point does no good.  One thing that I do think... we have to stay in there.  We can't leave now.  If we suddenly pull out of Iraq, we are essentially leaving the country worse than we found it, and that's not good.  Whether we should have started this thing or not, we did, and now we have a responsibility to finish it... because otherwise the government and military in that nation could simply self-destruct.

I have no problem with those that protest the war... I also have no problem with those that demonstrate in favor of it.  The truth is, those are the very freedoms we're fighting to give the Iraqis in practice.  So while I personally may not agree with Cindy Sheehan's approach of "get the troops out now," I absolutely respect her right to hold that opinion.  As for me... I say do what is necessary to get the job done as soon as absolutely possible and then get out.  We need to finish the job, but we need to do it in the quickest, most efficient way possible.  I don't know what that way is, but I know that's what I think.

The other war in the front of America's collective mind is the Israel-Palestinian war.  Recent posts from christianisrael have gotten me thinking more about this.  The truth is, I don't know why any of us are surprised that the fighting still hasn't stopped, despite the best efforts of the governments involved.  The truth is, this conflict has been going on for over 2000 years... and we honestly thing it's going to stop now?  The truth is, each group honestly believes that they are entitled to that land, and I don't really think that the decisions of a few men in power have the potential to change an entire nation's mind.  From a Christian perspective, it's not hard to see why each group is angry.  But it is interesting to think about what the final outcome will be.  According to the Bible, the israeli nation was promised that land, but as christianisrael has pointed out, the jewish people have never completely occupied it.  Most Christians also interpret the Bible as saying that they will occupy it by or during the end times.  It will be very interesting to see just how  that happens.  It makes me think about the mystery of God.  He says it will happen.  We, as little incompetant humans, have no idea how it could happen, but we do believe that there is a way that God will do it.  That's where the faith element comes in.  It will be fascinating to see what happens over the course of the rest of my lifetime.