Silly Little Country

Oliver Kamm and the 'Peacemakers'

I think what he says here matches my feelings about the recent Christian Peacemakers 'rescue' in Iraq.

I think it fits the word I used in an earlier post - 'churlishness'. His comments expand nicely on what I took myself to mean. Fascinating to me was his wonderful quotation from Reinhold Niebuhr (and I am no fan of theologians of any brand):

Pacifism either tempts us to make no judgements at all, or to give an undue preference to tyranny.

By the way, Hammorabi is very suspicious about this 'rescue', one might say he thinks it was a 'release', and not entirely without reason, I think.

There is no question that pacifism, and its somewhat more activist manifestations, is very attractive as a sort of philosophy. It is particularly attractive in countries like Canada that can easily be free riders from a self-defence point of view.

posted by Alan Adamson @ 7:43 PM