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Letter from AmericaVietnam reloaded'This is our generation's Vietnam.' Such was the opinion of one person talking to me the other day about the war in Iraq. Is he right? We all surely hope not. But if George Bush's current request to Congress for US$87 billion for the war on terror is anything to go by odds are on for Vietnam Reloaded. It all started with three digits and two towers. The destruction of the twin towers of the World Trade Centre on September 11 2001 ('9/11') set in motion a chain of events whose destination remains uncertain. Wherever we are going it is somewhere unpredictable. No longer do we hear talk of the New World Order. More like the New World Chaos. The situation is now extremely delicate. After the fall of Communism, nuclear material gradually seeped through the porous membrane of the previously Iron Curtain borders of Soviet society. Experts say it may have found its way into the hands of the worst possible people. They are the barbarians at the gates of Western civilisation. They hate America with a passion. They are not represented by a traditional government with whom we can deal. They are bands of terrorists. But terrorists now, we're told, with bombs. Such is the situation. What is the solution? Old-fashioned liberal politics espoused the United Nations as the great cure-all. It has proven little more successful than the League of Nations. Neo-Conservative politics have developed a doctrine of 'pre-emptive strike.' Look where that's got us. The truth is that we live in this kind of world. We always have. We always will. We should fervently pray for peace and work for it with every means at our disposal. Moments of success and breathing room may sometimes appear. But just as the vain predictions of the eternal progression of the human race died in the gas chambers of Auschwitz so the New World Order has been speared on the horns of the Twin Towers. There will be no solution in the Middle East until there is a change of heart. And for that only one solution will suffice. He was a Jew, after all. Josh Moody, Connecticut© Evangelicals Now - October 2003 |