Wait, really?
Did I just hear a vice presidential candidate call American involvement in Iraq a mission from God?
That’s right. An all powerful, all knowing, enlightened supreme entity, creator of all things, infinite in his love and understanding and perfect in his wisdom has been waiting for 13.73 billion six thousand years. To send Americans to Iraq. To do… what exactly?
Well, we do have a strategic toehold in the most volatile region on the planet. Russia can’t jerk Europe around AS hard when it comes time to write the Energy check at the end of the month. Annnnd, we do have Iran surrounded. That’s pretty sweet I guess.
What I don’t get is why any Christian would want to associate their god’s skills as an administrator and planner with the results of… Iraq.
But let’s set aside that Iraq has been a logistical clusterfuck with piss poor planning and shoddy execution. We can even set aside that this poor planning and shoddy execution was at least in part contrived to increase the amount of time that security and development firms close to the Bush administration are able to rape the american tax payers for hundreds of billions of dollars, while international bankers and other connected insiders grow wealthy off of the interest that the US taxpayer will be paying back on our war debt for the next 8,000 years.
What’s really frightening is that this “mission from god” nonsense will be music to the ears of a large percentage of the American populace. It might even swing things in McCain’s favor. And it’s not just Farmer Ted and Zeek down at the bait shop. It’s “normal” people in mainstream America that think that they talk to god every day.
Psh, Thermodynamics... that's just fancy talk for devil worship!!
God must be getting his signals crossed. Perhaps he needs to switch long distance carriers. When he was sending out the “murders to be committed in my name” notices, all the guys in the middle east mistook “drop smart bombs” for “strap dynamite to the chests of teenagers” and “target military installations and infrastructure” for “blow up school busses”.
But it seems that God may have communicated the wrong ideology as well. It’s not about wiping out the infidel for choosing the wrong imaginary friend. What “Holy War” really means is invading a soverign nation on false pretenses, and passing development and security contracts on to old college buddies and former business associates. Then watch while the puppeteers who pull your strings get rich off of the interest on the debt you’ve run up. Duh.
Meh. Pass me a Budweiser and a hot dog. I’m fine with protecting the American way of life through exploitation of the developing world, but don’t try and turn it into something it’s not (like devine will, for example).
America would be a lot better off if we did what we wanted and built a good life for ourselves out of a confident national pride and a powerful sense of entitlement. You won’t see China apologizing or making excuses for it’s cutthroat economic rise to power. Nor will you see Russia sugar coating it’s need to maintain control over former soviet states and their pipelines full of Russian oil. We should adopt a similar attitude if America hopes to stay at all competitive in “The Asian Century”.
Instead, it looks like we will continue to eek through moral quagmires with a weak dependance on “God’s plan” to assuage our collective guilt and inspire the masses into action.
