I’ve always been of the opinion that one’s god should never be a reason to go to war. Apparently, President Bush is of a different mind.
If anything, you’d think “Dubya” would have the sense to realize that fighting a war based solely on his judgment “that Saddam Hussein in Iraq was ‘evil,’” according to Newsweek, will make for a great deal of protest from anyone who doesn’t share his view.
I’m not contesting his pronouncement of Hussein as evil, but rather that he’s going to war with a nation for the evils of one man. There are many less bloody solutions to the problem of Iraq, but none of them offer a quick fix to the situation. Newsweek wrote that “Bush has satisfied himself that [war with Iraq] would be [a just war] – indeed, it seems he did so many months ago. But he didn’t do it by combing through texts or presiding over a disputation. He decided that Saddam was evil, and everything flowed from that.”
Furthermore, the term “holy war” is a paradox in itself, at least if you’re Christian, Catholic, Protestant, Baptist, or a member of any the myriad of religions so popular in the United States.
Come on, don’t preach that God is all-knowing and all-forgiving with one side of your mouth and scream for war with the other. They cancel each other out, leaving nothing but empty hypocrisy.
Bush claims that he’s fighting this war to free the people of Iraq from a brutal dictator, but “to many Muslims, especially Arabs, [Bush] looks sinister: a new Crusader, bent on retaking the East for Christendom,” says Newsweek.
I don’t exactly see our president dressing himself up in chain mail, taking up a broadsword, and wading into the Iraqi desert to free Iraq’s people from Hussein. Our ancestors eventually got some sense and gave up the notion of a “holy war”; I just pray that our leaders now do the same.
Precision bombing or not, this war means that people are going to die. Nearly a hundred Iraqi citizens have died already, and the future doesn’t look promising with Saddam vowing to wait patiently for revenge. “Revenge” to a man with weapons capable of inflicting horrible diseases on hundreds, even thousands of people isn’t an image I enjoy picturing.