Originally posted by: Athanasius
I think that by reducing these issues to a struggle of civilizations we make it too easy for the mind to come to rest. Ah yes the struggle of civilizations, we better kill them before they kill us. The issue is far more complex that civilizations, I think. We are all human and if we switched babies our kids would grow up hating their parents. I think you have to look at culture, but you have to look below it to understand what it means to be a human being. Humiliate and frustrate the human spirit's will to soar and you get a perverted being. Lets look to providing people with some hope of a life and see where the clash of civilizations goes.
With that last paragraph, I am in complete agreement. BTW, I say the Iraq war did affect Bush's credibility. It certainly does with me. But it appears that most Americans do not think so:
Majority See Little Credibility Issue and Still Supports Use of Force in Iraq and Iran As Well
I find that poll quite troubling.
the reason it's so troubling to me is that it shows just how critical it is that we elect people with some profundity of character to the office of President. Under the right conditions a man can lead any country astray.
But it seems (some) people take great pleasure in villifying Bush far beyond what the evidence supports. Is Bush the kind of noble and principled man that we need? I fear that he will not rise to that challenge. Is he the devil in Republican clothing? No, he is not. Even Blix was unable to explain why Saddam Hussein did not come clean about his supposed lack of WMD. Blix was left scratching his head and saying, "Perhaps it was just Saddam's pride."
Pride does before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. Will America escape that trend?
Bush, as I implied above, is far more dangerous, I think, than you suggest.
It seems a little askew to trivialize the clash of civilizations when some are so polarized in our own.
I would focus especially on this phrase:
Lets look to providing people with some hope of a life and see where the clash of civilizations goes
I believe that phrase is true. But where does that hope lie? I have reasons for the hope that lies within me, but that hope will not be realized through the "clash of civilizations" or any other political process. All of it is "wars and rumors of wars," as Jesus said. Some have little grasp of the depths to which radical Islam and Arab disdain for the West captures millions of peoples' hearts. Personally, I think Saddam should have been removed eight or so years ago, for two reasons: his obvious disdain for the terms of the Persian Gulf War and his brutal oppression of his own people. But the man in office at that time lacked the moral courage to take that political risk.
Removed how, by killing more people ourselves? I fully understand and agonize with you over this issue, but more than anything in the world I fear my own solution. How do you live when you have taken life. We worked hardly at all to find another way. That was what was politically cowardly, in my opinion.
I guess it might bother you that I seem so ambivalent about it. I hypothesize that, if I were Preseident, we would have either gone to war with Iraq eight or so years ago (for the starightforward reasons I listed above), or we would not have gone three months ago. In my heart, that is what seems right to me. So I see America as failing to use force when it should of and then having its leadership feel like it needed to use force when it shouldn't have. Does that simplify it for you? [No not in the slightest because your ambivalence breaks my heart. You are somebody who can't be sure. You have modesty and humility and a spirit that wrestles with the immensity of life. You are a person who feels and wants to find his way. I don't find that simple at all
But I am not President, and I think you should consider the possbility that Bush really felt like he could never live with himself if Saddam's Iraq had ultimately been the connection that led to another tragedy for the American people. Isn't it even remotely possible that he genuinely feels that way? And that, based on that conviction, he then saw enough evidence to convince himself that he needed to act? Are you so sure that you know?
It is because Bush can arrive at conviction that he scares the hell out of me. It is exactly why he should never have been selected as President. He was convinced exactly like evil wanted him to be, by that which is worst within us
Moonbeam, the Islamic and/or anti-western Arab world sees representative republics and free press and open culture as Satan incarnate. I think that scares Bush, and I think he then believed what he wanted to believe to justify his own actions.
Hehe, I just said that. That's happened already a number of times as I go through this post. Saddam left plenty of reasons to believe he had WMD if one felt very threatened by him and wanted him gone. Almost everyone thinks that way. I am not excusing it, but I am not villifying it either. It is all too human. That's why an extreme liberal will never even consider whether the Florida Supreme Court blew it in the 2000 election even when their own Chief Justice (a Democrat) said they did and the US Supreme Court voted 7-2 on that point. But I guess that is just closed-minded Republican sheep-bleating