So, I've been really enjoying all the great features of my palm TX. I'm able to surf the web in bed, I can listen to Hugh Hewitt while I'm driving, I can read or play a video game while I'm waiting in line someplace and it even reminded me that it was my mom's birthday (something that I was sure to forget). I can even read my email in the bathroom at seminary during the break in class (it's the only place I can get a descent WI-FI connection at seminary).
On the way to seminary, I listened to the debate between Tony Campolo and Frank Gaffney on Hugh Hewitt's show. It was an excellent debate and if you haven't heard it, go listen to it. There was real dialogue between them and were even able to agree on some things. Both were given enough time to articulate their view on the war in a Iraq and the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
Though Campolo's language was a little over the top in regards to Israel, he backed down from it by the Q and A time. He believes that Israel has done some evil things during this conflict with Palestine but when pressed, had only anecdotal evidence and agreed that there really wasn't any comparison between the evils committed by the Palestinians and whatever evil he thinks Israel has committed.
One of the areas of disagreement proved to be instructive. Campolo believes that Bush should humble himself and admit that it was mistake to go into Iraq because we were wrong about WMD's but Gaffney disagreed:
One of the things that was determined by the Iraq Survey Group, not to be confused with the Iraq Study Group, Jim Baker fame, but the Iraq Survey Group, the team that was dispatched to go look at the weapons of mass destruction issue on the ground after the country was liberated, came back, you saw the banner headlines, No WMD. But what they also found was that Saddam Hussein did indeed have weapons of mass destruction production lines that were up and running at low levels for chemical and biological agents, and worse, he had plans to ramp them up when the sanctions were lifted, which was thought to be imminent, and worse still, he had plans to put the products of those chemical and biological weapons lines into aerosol cans and perfume sprayers, for shipment to the United States and Europe. Now I daresay probably nobody in this room knew that, but it is nonetheless a fact, and it is the kind of thing that I believe justified the liberation of Iraq, and was what I was worried about happening, what the President was clearly worried about happening in the aftermath of 9/11. Terror with weapons of mass destruction, made possible by an enemy that made abundantly clear his desire to wreak revenge against the United States. If we have time after the break, I’d like to tell you what I do about it, but the short form of it is I think you have to deal with the Iranian regime that is doing everything it can to destroy the future we’re trying to help the Iraqis obtain.This is a bone of contention between the left and right that will probably never be resolved. We don't believe it was a mistake to go to war but the left does. There can be no real dialogue on this issue, so I never address when the left brings it up in comments. I don't feel the need to beat a dead horse.
One of the things I love about the Hugh Hewitt show is he is an excellent interviewer and gives his guests enough time to answer questions, he doesn't talk over them, he wants his audience to hear their position. He also asks penetrating and leading questions, making the guests admit to the implications of their position. Hewitt zeroed in on a major flaw in Campolo's "pacifist tendencies" but Campolo was more open than most to admit to flaws:
This exchange demonstrates why this was such an interesting debate but what was even more astounding was that Gaffney actually offered Campolo a nonmilitary option for Darfur:HH: Tony, I said I wanted to ask you the toughest question of all. I was walking in the hallway here at Eastern, and I saw a standout for Darfur. And I thought that’s wonderful. And I know that you believe that, too. Well, how’s a Christian do that if they have force…if they have the ability to wield force, ought they not to be urging the United States to do that to save those people?
TC: You really put me on the spot, didn’t you? Because the reality is you know I have pacifist tendencies, and do not…
HH: I read the book.
TC: Yeah, I wish you hadn’t. Most people who criticize my book have not read it. So thank you for doing that, I guess. You bought it, too, didn’t you?
HH: No, no. It was sent to my by your publisher.
TC: Oh, geez. I didn’t even make a buck on you.
HH: I won’t resell it, though. Go on.
TC: Holy mackerel. In any event, I do think that there are other ways of handling Darfur. I don’t think that we have gotten the African League sufficiently involved in putting pressure on this situation. I think that the African League could do incredibly more, and I think we have the leverage to get them to do more, and I would like to see if we could do that before we did anything militaristically.
HH: And how many people would have to die, and how long would you have to wait to say that?
TC: Oh, I said you’ve got me in a very difficult place. I’m what we call a troubled pacifist for many reasons. Most of all is I live in a country where I wouldn’t have the right to say the stuff that I say save that brave people laid down their lives on the battlefield to make that possible. So here I am as somebody who’s a pacifist who is dependent upon militarists to maintain my freedom to be a pacifist. And that’s a paradoxical situation for any Christian.
You can read the rest of the transcript here or listen online here. It's in two segments that combined last about an hour. Go listen because it's really fascinating to hear that on some of the issues we aren't too far apart and on other issues, we have reasons for our differences.HH: And Frank, the reality is Darfur will continue to bleed unless and until the West decides to stop it.
FG: I think that there may be some good news for Tony. I think there may be options to do something about the government in Khartoum, which is actually the problem, of course, without using military force. And just very briefly, we have been championing for about two and a half years now a project which we called Divest Sudan, as part of a larger project of divesting the stocks of publicly traded companies that do business with terrorist-sponsoring regimes, and which of course, Sudan is one. It’s not only engaged in genocide, it’s not only engaged in slave trading, it’s also engaged in terrorism and the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. Taking the money away from these guys was again, one of the tools that was in Ronald Reagan’s playbook against the Soviet Union, cutting off their cash flow. And there’s billions of dollars being put into Sudan now by people buying their oil, and helping them build their infrastructure. We ought to cut it off.
