Doakes Sunday: The Straw

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails about a rather aggressive-sounding statement from a hitherto-pacifistic churchman:

But surely there is only one logical conclusion to be drawn? He sighs, and answers slowly. “You are asking me how we can deal radically with Isis. The only answer is to radically destroy them. I don’t think we can do it by dropping bombs. We have got to bring about real change. It is a terrible thing to say as a priest.
“You’re probably thinking, ‘So you’re telling me there should be war?’ Yes!”
I am shocked by his answer, because this is a man who has risked his life many times to bring peace.
“It really hurts. I have tried so hard. I will do anything to save life and bring about tranquillity, and here I am forced by death and destruction to say there should be war.”

 

The minister finally has reached the same place where Urban II stood in 1095, when he preached the First Crusade, and where Ann Coulter stood in response to the Twin Towers, when she wrote her column:

joe doakes

War, like self-defense, is the second-worst possible outcome to any given situation.

And ISIS is leaving an awful lot of people at the brink of the first-worst outcome.