The President is now making the point that we should continue "the fight" because to not do so would dishonor "the dead."
Joe Conason gives the details.
RECAP:
We invaded Iraq because Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (related activities update), for to wait for a mushroom cloud would show us to be fools. We then remembered that we invaded Iraq to liberate Iraqis and bring them democracy and freedom, which currently looks like we have helped create an Islamic state in what had been run as a secular country, and millions of Iraqi women have lost their rights to be treated as equals--now we're pretty sure we're killing people in Iraq because our soldiers are dying over there--that's right: we're killing because we're dying. And as an extra-added bonus: we destroy troop morale if we talk about the war in anything other than glowing terms. Tell you what: send me a big, fat check and I'll forget the whole thing and move to New Zealand.
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Comments
I've been reading some anti-war blogs lately and a few things have struck me. I have only vague notions of just what it is you people belive. I don't know what "you people" believe either. If you are reading anti-war blogs and you can't understand what their points are I cannot help you: perhaps you should read them slower. But I will state that your use of the word "belief" betrays a thought process. Many of the anti-Iraq war people I have communicated with state facts and not "beliefs" when addressing this issue.
You accuse the religious right of hate and yet you have whole blogs spewing indignation, in most cases, and vitriol in many, at President Bush. I personally have not accused the religious right of hate, but I am sure there is plenty of hate there. Most humans have to deal with hate in one form or another. As for President Bush, I disagree, down to the marrow in my bones, with just about everything this callow man has done. He and his cronies are trying to destroy the part of our government that actually helps Americans, and he cloaks it in some self-righteous code-speak to feed his loyal fundies. Never has a group of people done more against their own self-interests then this strange and death-worshipping crowd. As for Bush: he has sent our nation's youth to fight, get maimed and die in a country that did not attack us, and he does so at the behest of mega-corporations who profit mightily because of his actions. He says "the casue is noble" but ask yourself how many children of wealthy conservatives are serving in Iraq? Noble my Aunt Fanny.
...don't you have better things to do with your life? The Internet is a medium I rather enjoy, so no, I don't have better things to do while I am doing it--at least no offers are pouring in to disabuse me of my time here.
I realize that there are things going on that make you feel bad, but do you really believe that the actions of the president have more power over your feelings than your own? I do not write in this blog because I think the President has more power over my "feelings." A very odd notion, that.
If all these circumstances suddenly changed you would still be the same person. The fact is they wont change. It is the nature of this fallen world that we inhabit. Um, "fallen world?" Fallen from where? Are you suggesting that because "perfection" can only exist as an abstraction that the phenomenal world and all that is manifest are, by their very natures, subject to entropy and dissolution and therefore irredeemable in some metaphysical sense? Listen: Nothing could exist without death--we'd get mighty crowded in these here parts without the natural cycle of birth, growth, maturity, decline and death. If you think we're "fallen" because some tribal mythology tells you so then I cannot help you.
It is when I realized this I stopped caring so much about politics, and I can't imagine going back to the person I was. Good for you. I can't imagine it either. When you find a kind of bliss or peace in this life, but others are suffering, you can choose to ignore that suffering, or you can try and offer succor and aid. Politics is everywhere, and one can either be at the mercy of it or one can learn about it and make it work for them. If you are happy, great, but don't worry about others who seek more than happiness.
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We're there because they died because we're there...
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To every season, turn, turn, turn...
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>If you think we're "fallen" because >some tribal mythology tells you so >then I cannot help you.
What tells you that it is not?
If by tribal mythology you mean the Bible, then yes I'm one of those stupid people who believes all that junk. When some insignificant sheep herders in the middle of the desert, out of no where, develop the most sophisticated monotheistic religion in the world at that time, I'm not willing to simply put it on the same level as other tribal mythologies.
The question is: has God spoken? If he has then how do you know what he said? If he hasn't then you are the one who serves a hostile distant God. I belive the Bible is the inerrant word of God. I'm not here to defend any one persons interpretation of it. That is a completely different topic. All I want to know is, is there something beyond yourself that you base all your judgments. You dersively use the word believe and tell me you base it on the facts. But that is circular logic. The only answer you are left with is that you base it on your feelings.
>It is when I realized this I stopped >caring so much about politics, and I >can't imagine going back to the person >I was. Good for you. I can't imagine >it either. When you find a kind of >bliss or peace in this life, but >others are suffering, you can choose >to ignore that suffering, or you can >try and offer succor and aid. Politics >is everywhere, and one can either be >at the mercy of it or one can learn >about it and make it work for them. If >you are happy, great, but don't worry >about others who seek more than >happiness.
You hit a soft spot here and I appreciate what you are saying, but the thing is, I have never had a greater burden for suffering people than I do right now. I have to admit that I am a selfish person, but I want to be better. That is why I am here right now. I believe there is something ligitamate behind your feelings and I want to build bridges and show the world how much different kinds of people need each other.
I will not debate the merits of your religion: belief belies logic, and most conversations end up in "Because the Bible says so..." If the proof for your religion is " When some insignificant sheep herders in the middle of the desert, out of nowhere, develop the most sophisticated monotheistic religion in the world at that time, I'm not willing to simply put it on the same level as other tribal mythologies." I must point out the myriad influences that inform Judeo-Christian dogma, including the influences of Zoroastriansim on the Semites, the Greek influences on the story of the Messiah ("Christ" comes from the Greek Christos which means messiah), the Egyptian, Mithraic and so-called pagan motifs of virgin birth, ritual sacrifice, rebirth, etc. Christianity did not "appear" ex-nihilo ("out of nothing") but as a rather organic growth of Judaism.
One of the problems of didactic religions is that they keep their worshippers in an infantile state: God is the Father, you have to obey, etc. You never "grow up" out of an original experience of life, you simply walk through holding the one specially ordained road map--if that works for you, so be it, but in my opinion you're missing a spiritual experience of life that doesn't necessarily fit into two and three thousand year old dogmas. Many are warned of the dangers of "straying from the path" but that is something we tell children to keep them on the sidewalk. When you are young your parents are Santa Claus (unless this pagan ritual was banned from your home) but when you grow up and have your own children you must become Santa Claus, lest Santa disappear. So too with God. You can write me at my e-mail if you want me to explain my point any further.
As for believing in something outside of oneself, I believe duality is an illusion, a marvelous one at that. I also believe in what Spinoza wrote in the 17th century: there is no outside to God's skin. His meaning is an essential component of my relationship to a poetic understanding of life: God cannot "not" be, lest God be mere material, with finite borders. If God, the alpha and omega of being, is finite then God is not a totality, and if God is not a totality then what is? God, therefore, to be this concept we call "God" cannot have finite borders; the manifested Universe is the "body" of God...these concepts are limited by language, as many a Christian has pointed out that such talk is rubbish because how could a loving God be Hitler, etc. That question can be asked whether you are a pantheist or Christian: how does an ethical, loving God allow evil to roam at will? Would you answer for God on that one? How anyone can speak for this spiritual concept is beyond me: I take it you believe that the Bible (multiple translations, contributers, omissions [see Council of Nicea]) is the One true Bible. I don't believe that for a second, but does that mean I can cast you as a fool, or you can cast me as only believing in myself? How so?
Lastly, I believe that the concept of God has been stuffed into a small container so as to be more controllable. Jung said that (paraphrased) "Religion protects us from having a direct experience of God."
Find your Christ-heart and do no harm, realize that when a prophet said "Eat this and become as me" it is highly probably he meant "eat of this knowledge and know that we are one"--perhaps the Christian Messiah is the Herald of the Two Trees in the Garden. Perhaps the Garden is all that truly exists.
Good luck with your journey in life.
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