By DAVID EPPS
Pastor

If anything was learned from World War II, it was that evil must be utterly and totally eliminated.

Evil cannot be accommodated and evil cannot be tolerated. Evil cannot be bargained with and it cannot be ignored. The nature of evil is to destroy and to spread.

Eventually, the evil spawned by Japan ended in total surrender on the battleship Missouri and the evil of Adolf Hitler was pursued into the capital city of Berlin and to the madman's bunker door before it was finally put down like a rabid dog.

Evil was at work this week in the destruction of the World Trade Center and the attack on the Pentagon. Evil is unrelenting and unrepentant, as was seen months ago prior to the execution of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. McVeigh saw the Federal Building as a "target" and the dead children killed in the nursery as "collateral damage." To the end, a remorseless McVeigh was defiant, smug, and belligerent.

Evil cannot be understood. It can only be hunted down and destroyed before it destroys everything around it.

It is past time to target the evil of terrorism, search it out, hunt it down, and eliminate it. The Book of Ecclesiastes declares that there is both a "time for peace and a time for war." Although the United States prefers to be at peace, it is clear that there are those evil men in the world that are themselves at war with this country.

Four airplanes, full of innocent people, were turned into instruments of destruction and death by evil men. Evil filled the skies and rained down hatred on America last Tuesday.

Estimates on Tuesday evening surmised that between 100 and 800 people in the Pentagon perished in the flames of evil. The mayor of New York indicated that 200 firefighters and nearly 80 police officers died trying to rescue the people attacked by this evil.

No one was willing to even speculate how many hundreds, or thousands, of innocent people met their deaths in a ball of flame, or in the crushing collapse of the buildings, or by throwing themselves over 80 stories to their deaths to escape the hellish inferno.

All over America, citizens were shocked, stunned, and horrified as they watched planeloads of doomed people plow into buildings. In the streets of Palestine, as Americans watched on television, people danced for joy. It is difficult for most Americans to comprehend that their nation is hated by many people in far off lands.

Evil is fueled by hatred and envy and there is no shortage of either in this volatile world. But evil must be dealt with at its source.

Just as the Allies took the battle to the homelands of Japan, Italy, and Germany a generation ago, those who would defeat the evil of terrorism must seek, locate, and destroy, at the foundation, those who would inflict suffering and death on innocent people.

President George W. Bush has declared that those nations that harbor terrorists are to receive the same wrath of the United States as will the terrorists themselves. Rogue nations who overtly or covertly endorse or allow terrorists groups to live or operate within its borders should be given one week to rid themselves of such organizations.

After that, if these nations refuse to oust these purveyors of evil, then the full force and might of the U. S. military should be unleashed, in all its fury, upon these noncompliant nations.

It is said that the Masai tribe of Kenya never starts a war or a conflict. Yet, the Masai are feared by other tribes because of the proven ferocity of the Masai.

A Masai warrior once explained, "We never start a war. We do not seek nor desire war. Yet, if we are attacked, we will respond with an unbridled fury and totally destroy any tribe that dares to attempt to do us harm." Hence, the Masai live in peace. No one dares to challenge them because the price they will have to pay is too great.

It is time to recognize the wisdom of the Masai approach and root out forever the threat and evil of terrorism. The United States has the most powerful military force in all of human history at its disposal.

The President and all others who serve the nation have sworn to protect the United States against all "enemies foreign and domestic." Unleash the power and defend the nation.

Some will moan and wring their hands and say, "The Christian response is to turn the other cheek." Yet, the same Jesus also instructed his disciples to purchase a sword, if they did not have one.

Scriptures are full of the stories of heroes, such as David, who fought and defeated powerful enemies and saved their nation. There is a time for peace and a time for war.

Evil men have determined that this present moment is a time for war. They cannot be allowed to prevail.

[David Epps is Rector of Christ the King Church. He may be contacted at FatherDavidEpps@aol.com. He served with the U. S. Marine Corps during the Vietnam era.]

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