Just a God of War?

I have been asked how I can believe that the God I believe in can be a 'God of Love' and how any 'god' who supports the annihilation of men, women, children and livestock is no better than Saddam or any other tyrant or dictator.

A good question, which I will attempt to answer and hopefully clarify what I have written previously about the 1 Sam 15:2-3. Here Saul is ordered to go and destroy the Amalekites and everything that is theirs. Basically they are to be eradicated from the face of the earth. "How is this not genocide and can't you see the parallels in the realities of the Shoah," (I prefer this to 'holocaust' for 'Shoah' means desolation whilst holocaust is an offering made to God) people cry.

So is this the act of a cruel, spiteful and warlike, war-loving, unjust God or is it the act of a God who seeks conflict and then after it nothing but peace (at least in that theatre of conflict). I have to say that this is the latter as I see it for the following reasons:

i. If everyone from that tribe is put to death then there will be no one left to engage in a 'blood feud' and therefore, as bloody and as awful such acts might seem to our cosy little Western mindsets, this is a 'war to end all wars'. If you don't believe me take a look at the Serbs and Croats and their conflict and resultant genocide. One interview showed leaders of a group of milita who were raping, looting and killing. Their prime mover was revenge. Revenge for murder and rape by those who were now being killed. The shock was that the initial event which was being avenged was some six hundred years before!

So perhaps there is some wisdom in the eradication principal. Mind you, it doesn't sit well with our concept of proportionality but in the setting of the ANE (ancient Near East) it was also a bit different for them too as they took the defeated tribe and used them as slaves, for entertainment and abused them in so many ways that death was not only different but also merciful.

ii. Because they destroyed everyone and everything this moves the action away from something which brought wealth and therefore removes from the conflict any accusation of engaging to line one's own pockets. 'Just' war, regardless of how bloody, is not about gaining land, possessions or people (although we don't 'do' slaves and have apologised as a nation for it too!). The livestock, precious metals and the people were all assets to be acrued and yet God instructed that they should not be viewed as this.

iii. We also have accounts of the building being broken into unusable rubble and the fields salted so as to prevent anything growing there. This is another way of bringing peace for if the place was left fertile and habitable then it would eventually be settled and at some stage there was sure to be someone who wanted to avenge the original inhabitants. So once again we see a tactic that seeks to end and re-engagements in the shape of feuding and the like.

Seems to me that this is nothing like the Shoah and God is not acting like a wicked or vindictive God here. There is nothing of a despotic and cruel dictator, killing all who stand opposed to him, this is an and of justice - hard and rough justice, but it is reaping what has been sown. What would happen if we were to look at what the crime of the Amalekites was and suggest that they were merely acting in the same manner as pirates? If this was the case then I bet the majority would would cheer if they were all drowned and their vessel sunk, even if their families were on it, so where and how do we make such clear cut distinctions about them when we can have such attitudes ourselves now?

Oh yeah, I've realised - this is about God being wrong and not about us. Good job because I would imagine it wouldn't take long to see the paucity of our own moral and intellectual rectitude. Best to keep examining the specks in God's eyes then isn't it?