House Church Talk - Why Americans Still Fight

[jim sutton]

My youngest son is expected to return home from Bahrain in about 9 days.  And 
that's good because the area is now under a serious threat of terrorist 
attack, and all U.S. citizens have been ordered out.  Bahrain has a U.S. base 
serving the action in Iraq.

He and I have been talking, back and forth, about the troubles that the Iraqi 
people have been faced with all these years, and about why the United States 
is always getting involved in the struggles of other nations.

I'd like to share some of those thoughts here, if I may.

Why is the United States always getting involved in conflicts all over the 
world?  Why are we so willing to sacrifice our national wealth and our own 
lives in places like Afghanistan and Iraq?

Obviously, we cannot make any people or nation free who do not really hunger 
for it themselves.  All we can do is try to get rid of oppression in some 
cases.  Our democratic system does not fit every people in every culture.  

And so many people wonder why the United States must always be involved, all 
over the world.  

There are two reasons.

1.  We were once a tiny group of people hoping and struggling to become free. 
 And in our hour of need, we did receive help from friends.  Since that time, 
we've become free and very powerful as a people.  So now we as a free people 
feel a debt -- the obligation to help others who are now being oppressed.

2.  We also see that freedom is not possible, especially for smaller nations, 
as long as aggressors are allowed to grow stronger and stronger.  And so we 
keep a close eye (or try to) on the political developments in many nations. 
And we try to learn from history.  We waited so long to enter WW2 that many 
free nations were almost lost forever to Hitler's machine.  Since then, we've 
understood that peace and freedom are easier to keep than to win back.

Not that the price is ever small.   

Whether a nation is free, as we are, or being crushed under the foot of 
others, many lives are always lost.  The ruined cities and mass graves in 
oppressed lands all over the world testify to that fact of life.  In oppressed 
lands, men and women and children have little or no hope of having a real life 
at all, even if they manage to live.  But the U.S. has chosen to make our 
sacrifices count for something good -- and for the common good of all people.

Ours is not a perfect system.  Our leaders are not perfect men.  Our soldiers 
and the families they leave behind are not perfect, either.  But we're not 
struggling for perfection in any war or military conflict.  We just want the 
chance for our people, our children, our way of life -- and for the peoples 
and children and lives of other nations -- to develop as best we can.  We want 
to be able to grow up, to sing our own songs, to laugh at our own stupid 
jokes, to marry who and when we want to, to live where we want, eat what we 
want, and to make a family, a home, a heritage of our very own.  

Those are desires and needs I believe -- and many Americans believe -- that 
God Himself has placed deep inside the hearts of all people.  And so we 
struggle against any man and any power that would try to rob us, or rob 
others, of the chance to see what we can become as individuals, as families, 
and as a free people.

Jim