Mr Preston: I dont think Amnesty International gives a fig what we say or think. They have been completely taken over by the evils of political correctness and marxists without borders (the Soviet Union is no longer their controller, but its philosophy remains one of their more moderate guideposts). They hate freedom, democratic countries, and the West about as much as the radical Muslims do. Proven cases of torture and death by anti-democratic radicals have never drawn their interest. Their agenda is anti-Western civilization not human treatment and human freedom.

Amen Lolma. Their bleeding heart cries for world peace is just a clean pretty mask to hide their seething hatred of the right. They don’t want people who are mistaken for terrorists freed, they want people who they deem ‘ignorant’ in their place instead.

I think we would be well served to mount a major offensive to have AI and the ACLU go to Iraq and meet with the insurgents. They could draft both effective position papers and lawsuits for them. The lawsuits could be heard by the ICC now that they don’t have Slobo to kick around anymore.

And the video footage of insurgents killing lawyers would make fun footage for the evening news.

Becker:

I doubt that AlQ, et al, would kill the lawyers.

Professional courtesy, don’t you know.

;-)

“And he was on the terrorists’ side in the war.”

You stoop to the level of Cindy Sheehan protrating herself over her son’s grave to make a political point when you make such claims. If you REALLY believed what you wrote above, you would be celebrating his death as a victory in the War on Terror against terrorists and their supporters, not pretending to think of this as a sad tragedy and the murder of an innocent. Your sympathy for Mr. Fox, if it even exists, rings hollow and false in light of such statements.

The fact is that Tom Fox was not on the “side” of terrorists anymore than you or I are. He was on the side of Christian charity to fellow suffering humans. And it cost him his life. If you want to equate that with pro-terrorism, go right ahead; but you stomp on the value of Mr. Fox’s life and his work when you do so.

And, frankly, if you really do think of Mr. Fox as a nothing more than, at root, a terrorist sympathizer, then you are no better than the terrorists who killed him, who also thought of him in such narrow terms as nothing more than, at root, a disposable American.

Yo Jimmy, chill. Nobody said he deserved to die. And he was on the terrorists’ side in the war. Not that it mattered

Ya wanna try to read the whole sentence before the steam starts pouring out of your ears? And yes, terrorist sypathizers ARE on the side of the terrorists. When you campaign against the mission of the US soldiers, guess what? You’re aiding and abetting the enemy.

Hey, Vent - First, show me where Fox claimed to be on the side of the terrorists or to support their behavior or their cause. Second, if he were on the side of the terrorists, wouldn’t his death represent a victory for the forces standing against the terrorists? Wouldn’t this be something to cheer about, and not to lament?

The use of Fox’s tragic death as an example with which to berate the real fifth-column terrorist sympathizers is, in my mind, no different than what Cindy Sheehan did with the death of her son. The only thing Fox can be charged with is professing and living out the Christian message to love one’s enemy and to care for the least of his brethren. To my knowledge, he wasn’t doing anything more than trying to be a loving Christian. And he was brutally tortured and killed for that.

And it does matter, because he was NOT a terrorist sympathizer. He was simply a Christian doing the work of God among those who would hurt him. In my faith, we would call him a martyr, who sacrificed his life by living the Christian example. We don’t demean his sacrifice by claiming that it doesn’t matter that the people he tried to love did him harm. Even if it doesn’t matter to his killers, it should matter to us enough not to vilify his memory by saying he was a terrorist sympathizer and all that saying so implies. The Pharisees and Sadducees said as much about Jesus, who had the habit of hanging out with and loving some very bad, unsavory people, even those that would betray and kill Him. My point still stands.

The only thing Fox can be charged with is professing and living out the Christian message to love one’s enemy and to care for the least of his brethren. To my knowledge, he wasn’t doing anything more than trying to be a loving Christian. And he was brutally tortured and killed for that.

Wrong. He wasn’t picked up from his house and airdropped into the middle of Iraq. You can be a loving Christian from the safety of your own home. He put his life into the hands of people whom he obviously did not understand the moment he decided to be more than a conciencious objector. He could lead a mission (the other kind of mission) into Iraq once the horrid people who still remain there are eliminated, but until then, he should have stayed home and prayed.

Fox, who had been in Iraq to campaign against the U.S. occupation and to work for the release of Iraqis held by U.S. forces

Those words, if they havn’t been editorialised or taken out of context, explain it all. He wasn’t living the good christian example of loving others, he was purposely and activly standing in the way of the people who know exactly first hand the kind of people Mr. Fox knew nothing about. The point of the article still stands: The people who our brave men and women are fighting against don’t care about your opinions. They don’t care how many Micheal Moore movies you’ve watched or how irritating you can be by turning every single personal thing in life into an Anti-Bush punchline. They want to kill you.

If I am not to fight or flee in the face of armed aggression, be it the overt aggression of the army or the subversive aggression of the terrorist, then what am I to do? “Stand firm against evil” (Matthew 5:39, translated by Walter Wink) seems to be the guidance of Jesus and Gandhi in order to stay connected with God. Here in Iraq I struggle with that second form of aggression. I have visual references and written models of CPTers standing firm against the overt aggression of an army, be it regular or paramilitary. But how do you stand firm against a car-bomber or a kidnapper? Clearly the soldier disconnected from God needs to have me fight. Just as clearly the terrorist disconnected from God needs to have me flee. Both are willing to kill me using different means to achieve he same end—that end being to increase the parasitic power of Satan within God’s good creation.

Jimmy, Fox’s intentions sound wonderful. But nowhere in my Bible does it say having good intentions makes it okay to be wrong.

The parasitic power of Satan is served when good men refuse to resist evil men. They can rationalize their wrong decision all they want, but they are not serving the good.

I see that the line about Fox being on the terrorists’ side has caused some heartache. It’s pretty simple. He was in Iraq to get terrorists released from jail. He didn’t take up arms to support them—as a peacenik, he wouldn’t do that—but he was there to get them freed, so they could resume attacks on Iraqi civilians and US troops. He was using his American citizenship to lobby on behalf of enemy combatants.

And they killed him anyway.

You liberals have got to get your heads around a basic fact. This is a zero-sum war. If Fox succeeds in freeing terrorists, innocent people die. If the ACLU succeeds in closing Gitmo and getting terrorists held there freed, innocent people die. If you liberals get your way and the US returns to its pre-9-11 non-stance on terrorism, innocent people die. It really is that simple.

This is a war against a terrible enemy. We’re four years in. Choose your side already. We don’t have forever to wait on you to make up your minds.

Jimmy;

As you quote Fox, he said that he should “Stand firm against evil”. I think it not unreasonable to presume that he therefore considered his efforts against the USA and its military to be such an act, i.e. that it was the USA and it military who are the evil in Iraq, not the terrorists. I don’t see how you can label that anything other than sympathetic to the terrorists.

Fox may have written of good intentions, but remember what are used as paving stones on the road to Hell…

What would a good Christian do in Iraq? I would presume help the innocents caught in the crossfire, not side with one set of belligerents (particularly the ones perpatrating evil acts). Build schools, provide education, transport supplies. Not engage in strongly political acts against the only force preventing mass chaos and murder.

You can’t really believe that peace activists as so naive to think that if we wave our amnesty international card we get a get out of jail free pass. The entire point of Amnesty International (among other organizations) is to ensure that every human being, no matter what their beliefs, has the same rights to life, health, and dignity.

AI is also a non-partisan group. We don’t care who is doing the torturing, we aim to stop it. All this finger-pointing is really doing no good.

AI is also a non-partisan group. We don’t care who is doing the torturing, we aim to stop it. All this finger-pointing is really doing no good.

AHAHAH. HAHAHA. HAHAHAH. Oh no wait, you’re serious. Ummmm…yea. There’s about a bazillion countries who openly and admittidly torture and kill innocent civilians, yet Amnesty International can’t get their heads out of their asses and blame anyone else but America. Give me a break.

Annoying Old Guy - I don’t think Fox considers the US or the US Military as evil. I do think he probably considers killing of all kinds as evil, and that would include the killing perpetrated by US armed forces as well as of terrorists. Perhaps you might find this as naive and even have a different moral conviction about the killing that comes with war; but to label one’s opposition to the “evil” of killing as an implicit support for the barbarism of terrorists is to tar Fox disingenuously as somehow supporting what terrorists do. All Fox was doing was trying to prevent killing and to advocate peace. It is true that this would put him at odds with the killing done by soldiers as well as by terrorists. But that makes him anti-killing and pro-peace, not anti-US and pro-terrorist. It is patently unfair to, if not a smear of, this man’s life, and his sacrifice, to suggest otherwise. And, frankly, though you might disagree with this, it does seem to be consistent with a very reasonable interpretation of the Christian call to love, even our enemies, and not to kill. Would it be fair of me to say that, because you are pro-war, you must necessarily be anti-peace? Or that if you support the necessary killing of people that comes with war, you are de-facto “anti-life”? If you have your nuances regarding that, why can’t you at least be nuanced enough to understand that Tom Fox was not a terrorist sympathizer and that he detested what terrorists do, too?

Fox wasn’t trying to prevent killing. He was trying to free terrorists, who would then presumably resume killing. That’s why I said he was on the other side. He was. He didn’t see himself as trying to free terrorists, but that would have been the effect of his actions had he succeeded.

That doesn’t mean his death is some kind of triump for people like me. The only triumph to be had here would have been if he would have seen the error of his ways and worked to stop the terrorists. That didn’t happen. He died a fool, tortured and murdered by the very people whose allies he was trying to free. It’s a sad, pathetic death, and no triumph for anyone involved except the terrorists, who remain free to kill again.

“He didn’t see himself as trying to free terrorists, but that would have been the effect of his actions had he succeeded.”

We reject the use of violent force to save our lives should we be kidnapped, held hostage, or caught in the middle of a violent conflict situation. We also reject violence to punish anyone who harms us. We ask for equal justice in the arrest and trial of anyone, soldier or civilian, who commits an act of violence, and we ask that there be no retaliation on their relatives or property. We forgive those who consider us their enemies. Therefore, any penalty should be in the spirit of restorative justice, rather than in the form of violent retribution.

If I had to guess, I would imagine that Tom Fox was working for the release of prisoners who were innocent. Heck, even the US government has released people it has captured and incarcerated on suspicion of terrorism after interrogation revealed that they had nothing to do with terrorism. I’m sure Tom Fox was working on the same. Wouldn’t you want people who are innocent of the charges of terrorism to be freed from detention? The problem as I see it is that you believe that all people being held in detention are de-facto terrorists simply because they have been detained. And therefore, Tom Fox, or any other person, for that matter, who publicly questions their continued detention and argues on behalf of their freedom, is considered by you to be someone who wants to free terrorists.

Your serious claim that Fox wanted to free terrorists needs to be verified. Who were these terrorists, specifically, that Fox wanted to free? The fact is that Tom Fox wanted freedom for innocents, not terrorists; but in your mind, anyone held in detention on suspicion of terrorism simply cannot be innocent, they must be guilty as charged. That position is suspect on its face, especially since even the US government recognizes the innocence of people wrongly detained on the suspicion of terrorism, and subsequently freed.

Call Tom Fox naïve if you will. I have no argument with that. Call him wrong-headed, even; again, I have no beef with that. Call him a fool. Fine. But considering him to be a terrorist sympathizer, and claiming that he was on “their side,” as if he supported their violent and anti-life barbarism, simply because he was living out what he understood to be a message of Christian love, non-violence, and justice is where I feel the need to draw the line.

He was in Iraq trying to free terrorists. What part of that do you not understand, Jimmy?

Jimmy;

Can you cite an example where Fox opposed the violence of the Caliphascists the same way he opposed the violence of the Coalition? Moreover, he opposed the occupation. Not the violence of it, but the occupation itself, the forces that are trying to stop the violence. If some one claims to be a pacifist but only oppose the violence committed by one side in a conflict, then he’s a partisan, not a pacifist. Just like those “human shields” who were willing to shield the assets of a brutal, murdering dictator but not the schools and markets of innocent civilians.

The best time to perform an intervention is just after a major event. Such an event would be that the addict got arrested, or when he/she has wronged (lied, stolen, cheated etc.) a family member and would show remorse or guilt. Another good time would be if his /her spouse is leaving, if they are about to loose custody of the kids.

_____

Hello Drug Intervention,

do you really belive in this what you are saying? I cant agree with that.