“Today, we are all Georgians”

Allahpundit noted -

Also an interesting detail on CNN a moment ago: At a rally in Tbilisi today, Georgians ‘roared’ when their president, Mikhil Saakashvili, repeated John McCain’s statement, ‘We are all Georgians today.’”

Well, we’re not really, since we’re not being bombed and having Russian tanks roll through our sovereign territory. I’ll bet they did cheer, but I’m not sure what good it does them. People are actively trying to turn public opinion against them, and even if that doesn’t work, what can America do for them? I hate to see them get their hopes up that we can intercede somehow. I’m not sure what we are actually able to do, but I hope there is something. Am I a warmongering neocon? Not exactly. I genuinely do hate war, and having lived with violence and experienced it personally, I wish that it could be avoided altogether. But I am certainly not a pacifist. The reality is there is evil in the world, and whatever Bush may have seen in Putin’s soul, it’s his actions that concern me now. And those actions must not be permitted to stand. Asking nicely, begging, buying people off, moral suasion or Obama’s – what was it? “aggressive diplomacy”? – sometimes just don’t get the job done. War is not the worst thing that can happen to a country, any more than death is the worst thing that can happen to a person.

Theologian and WWI veteran C.S. Lewis had a similar attitude:

The doctrine that war is always a greater evil seems to imply a materialist ethic, a belief that death and pain are the greatest evils. But I do not think they are. I think the suppression of a higher religion by a lower, or even a higher secular culture by a lower, a much greater evil. Nor am I greatly moved by the fact that many of the individuals we strike down in war are innocent. […] The question is whether war is the greatest evil in the world, so that any state of affairs which might result from submission is certainly preferable. And I do not see any really cogent arguments for that view. (Why I Am Not A Pacifist – The Weight of Glory)

John Piper’s take on it – Did Jesus teach pacifism?

Terrorism, Justice, and Loving Our Enemies

God wills that human justice hold sway among governments, and between citizens and civil authority. He does not prescribe that governments always turn the other cheek. The government “does not bear the sword for nothing.” Police have the God-given right to use force to restrain evil and bring law-breakers to justice. And legitimate states have the God-given right to restrain life-threatening aggression and bring criminals to justice. If these truths are known, this God-ordained exercise of divine prerogative would glorify the justice of God who mercifully ordains that the flood of sin and misery be restrained in the earth.

Therefore, we will magnify the mercy of God by praying for our enemies to be saved and reconciled to God. At the personal level we will be willing to suffer for their everlasting good, and we will give them food and drink. We will put away malicious hatred and private vengeance. But at the public level we will also magnify the justice of God by praying and working for justice to be done on the earth, if necessary through wise and measured force from God-ordained authority.