RuralEngineer wrote:
I think there were a few murders thrown in the mix as well. Oh, there were more than a few threats of jihad.
Jihad is a strange concept. It's sort of like a combination of rioting and going to church.
In thinking about the U.S. response to the radical Islamic call for jihad on and after 9/11, rather than labeling holy wars as the most vicious and impossible conflicts to resolve throughout history, Bush was happy to respond to the jihadist's claims that the U.S. was the evil one with the rebuttal that God was actually on the side of the U.S., and that if they didn't like it they could suck an egg because God told him that he preferred the U.S. in any military confrontation because the U.S. was always on the right side of any battle between good and evil. (So much for framing the confrontation with an eye toward resolution.)
If I had been President I might have just said "These people say they are waging holy war by killing as many innocent people as they can. Back in Texas we have a word for that sort of thing--it's called murder." From there he could have still done all the bombing and killing he wanted to, but he wouldn't have given the radical Muslims the satisfaction of validating their claims that they were, in fact, engaged in a holy war with the U.S. (with the only open question being which side God was supporting).
Another thing along these same lines that I find bizarre is that if you go into many churches in the U.S., here is the message you will hear: "The U.S. is in decline because all of the child molesters, pornographers, and gay people are taking over and God will punish us the same way he punished the people of Sodom and Gomorrah if we don't quickly change our country back to the way it was in the good old days." But then we hear that if the U.S. decides to attack another country like Iraq that God has reviewed the situation and determined that the U.S. is justified in its actions and its position is endorsed and supported by God. Really? God is that annoyed with us because of the depravity that has crept into all aspects of our lives, but he still supports without question our foreign policy? That just strikes me as a little weird.
It would be kind of fun to stand up in church when the preacher is railing about the wretched state of the U.S. and God's imminent judgment on us, and ask him if he thinks that this judgment will affect God's support of our foreign policy. I wouldn't actually do that, but it's kind of fun to think about.
