How Long?

I love my mom. She's a great lady, she has very deep convictions, and like every mom, she really really wants to help. So she's always sending me emails about the election, the war in Iraq, etc. A lot of it I don't blog on because it's already pretty well-disseminated. Some I don't because I can't verify the facts. But this time I'm going to. Well, at least in part. She sent me an interesting email regarding Iraq and the Bible:


IRAQ - VERY INTERESTING - DID YOU KNOW?

1. The garden of Eden was in Iraq.
2. Mesopotamia, which is now Iraq, was the cradle of civilization!
3. Noah built the ark in Iraq.
4. The Tower of Babel was in Iraq.
5. Abraham was from Ur, which is in Southern Iraq!
6. Isaac's wife Rebekah is from Nahor, which is in Iraq.
7. Jacob met Rachel in Iraq.
8. Jonah preached in Nineveh - which is in Iraq.
9. Assyria, which is in Iraq, conquered the ten tribes of Israel.
10. Amos cried out in Iraq!
11. Babylon, which is in Iraq, destroyed Jerusalem.
12. Daniel was in the lion's den in Iraq!
13. The three Hebrew children were in the fire in Iraq (Jesus had been in Iraq also as the fourth person in the fiery furnace!)
14. Belshazzar, the King of Babylon saw the "writing on the wall" in Iraq.
15. Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, carried the Jews captive into Iraq.
16. Ezekiel preached in Iraq.
17. The wise men were from Iraq.
18. Peter preached in Iraq.
19. The "Empire of Man" described in Revelation is called Babylon,which was a city in Iraq!

And you have probably seen this one. Israel is the nation most often mentioned in the Bible. But do you know which nation is second? It is Iraq! However, that is not the name that is used in the Bible. The names used in the Bible are Babylon, Land of Shinar, and Mesopotamia. The word Mesopotamia means between the two rivers, more exactly between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. The name Iraq, means country with deep roots.

Indeed Iraq is a country with deep roots and is a very significant country in the Bible. No other nation, except Israel, has more history and prophecy associated it than Iraq.

The email goes on to make some observations regarding the current conflict and certainpassages in the Koran, but since I'm not a Muslim, and cannot confirm the accuracy of the observation, I will leave it out.

This is all just an introduction to my actual point, however. But since I intend to quote the Bible to emphasize the actual point, I thought it would be interesting.

I watched the debate last night. I've posted on other threads on other blogs regarding how I think it went, so I won't here. What I do want to comment on is a comment by John Kerry, which was echoed today in another reader's comment to another blog. The comment was that while Kerry acknowledges the need to eliminate Saddam Hussein, he felt that Bush failed to exhaust all diplomatic options, and that he should have waited longer to use the military option.

My response is to ask of Kerry and all those who make this argument, the same thing many a prophet in the Old Testament asked God:

Habakkuk 1:2 O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and thou wilt not hear? Or cry to thee "Violence!" and thou wilt not save?

How long? How much longer should we have let the sanctions work? How many more UN Resolutions? Months? Years? 1 resolution? 10? 100? Given what we know about the Oil for Food corruption, do you think he really would have cracked? And if they didn't work then, then what? Would you honestly then suupport military action? If not, would we have lifted sanctions? And what response from Saddam would have been considered satisfactory? If he complied with inspections, and then the UN lifted sanctions, and he started all over again, then what?

I'm just asking.