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This is a serious question that I don’t have an answer for. Are we looking to puff our chest to show just how serious we are? Are we the world’s police force? Are we being provoked? Are we trying to put Kim Jong Un in his place? What place is that?
What do we gain from this little adventure? Is the point to raise the polls at home? A war usually has a good effect for that – time to rally round the flag and president. Will that work if we end up in war this time? Who knows?
Lots of questions. I just don’t get it. But then again, I’m not into seeking power. I’m not into telling people what they “have to” do or “must do.”
Of course, I’m finishing up seminary and hope to be a pastor soon, but really, being a pastor isn’t about going around and telling people what they “have to” do. I don’t/won’t have that kind of authority – ever. Plus as a Lutheran, our focus is on what God is doing anyway. We can’t do anything to bring about our own salvation. We can’t even go and decide to accept Jesus. We can respond to what God is doing in our lives, but we can’t initiate the relationship.
So what about international relations. What would be Lutheran way of looking at these things? I’m not sure actually. Maybe it would be a different approach. It probably wouldn’t sit well with people who think “America first!” Maybe it would involve grace and mercy. Maybe it would involve wiping the dust off our shoes in relation to them. Maybe it would be confrontational.
I don’t know. I do know that our actions are raising a level of anxiety around the world when it comes to North Korea. What they do seems to be predictable. Tyrants have a way of being predictable – they do what keeps them in power.
Raising anxiety is not a good solution to the challenge. Raising anxiety probably means we are trying too hard, that we are looking to save something. Are we looking to be the savior of the planet? Sorry, the job has already been taken.
What do we gain? Well, if successful, we gain a world without insane, tyrannical, Korean dictators with little to lose having both nuclear weapon and a delivery mechanism to threaten much of the world.
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If only it were that easy. Human history shows that things, nations, leaders, etc don’t exist in a vacuum. Remove one insane, tyrant and out comes more to replace them. If removing people were the answer, then we should have world peace by now – humanity has the whole killing thing down pretty good.
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If only it were that simple is right in that you’re oversimplifying the issue and the expected solution. This wouldn’t be a targeted strike against Kim; it’d be a total destruction of their military, political, and industrial capacity – think WW2 in effect but with a geographically much smaller scope.
Or, so I would hope because otherwise you’d be right.
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I don’t agree, but I do appreciate you contributing to the conversation. Thank you for reading the post and for adding your own thoughts.
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You really make it appear really easy with your presentation but I find this matter to be really something that I feel I’d by no means understand. It seems too complex and extremely vast for me. I’m looking forward on your subsequent post, I’ll try to get the grasp of it!
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I just re-read what I wrote. I’m not sure how you took away that I think this is an easy situation – maybe you could explain what you saw as a easy. My post is full of questions that I don’t have the answer to. Mostly because it is very complex. It’s never an easy situation – especially when you are dealing with a foreign culture, language, different political situation, leadership, etc. I struggle to get a grasp on it too. I think the danger is in thinking that it is easy – cut and dry. I welcome your thoughts on this.
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