Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Iraq - Is it God's war? - part 2

Search For God

I always thought that both Christian and Muslim religions preach love and kindness for other people. Perhaps it is the more radical elements within each religion that preach the concept of my way or the highway. Is it the will of the people to allow our religious beliefs to be radicalized or have we allowed small fanatical elements in both religions to seize control of our emotions and force us into a war we really don’t want and don’t believe in, using the name of the Almighty whether it is God or Allah.

Recent polls indicate that more than seventy percent of the American public doesn’t believe in the war with Iraq. The cost of the war includes twenty-three hundred Americans killed, seventeen thousand wounded, and more than thirty thousand Iraqis killed. Is this terrible price in terms of lost humanity God’s will? The cost of the war in money to America is more than six billion a month, presumably at the expense of domestic social projects. The cost in suffering and stress to all people of good faith seems to me to be incalculable and too high. Is it God’s will that America bring freedom and liberty to the whole world whether or not they want to be liberated?

Approximately eighty percent of Iraqis want American forces out of their country. They view us as occupiers not liberators. If democracy in some form is to come to Iraq, I don’t believe Americans can force it down their throats. The country seems poised at the brink of a civil war. We had our own civil war. I don’t think it is our business to participate in another countries internal conflicts. One has to question whether our participation in what may well turn out to be a fiasco in the name of democratization is really God’s will.