--- Gautam Mukunda <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > --- Deborah Harrell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Overstatement. A coalition was forged before, so > > it can be again. Will it be easy? No. But that's > > not a reason not to try. > No, it really wasn't an overstatement. Do you have > _any_ evidence that a coalition can be forged again. <sniplet> > We have tried continually to form a coalition. No, some in the Administration have acted and spoken as if non-Americans don't matter and never will. Belittling and insulting people is not the way to form a coalition. The efforts to forge 1441 were laudable. > We got a unanimous > resolution of the Security Council _which is being > ignored_. Given that fact - that the opponents of > the > war were willing to vote for a resolution and then > turn around and completely ignore its explicit terms- > what, other than wishful thinking, makes you think > that this can happen? 1) Resolution 1441 was - with great effort - passed. Why is it "wishful thinking" to try to get another passed and implemented? 2) Blair, Powell and others don't seem to think they're wasting their time in pushing for a coalition. <I snipped a lot of - to borrow your prior use - snarky comments, which I will address in another post.> > > Bluntly, because I find the "holier than thou" > > attitude WRT the-US-vs.-the-world foolish, > > condescending, and most of all **counterproductive > > to the stated goals** of the government. It's one > > thing > > to claim to be better (which we are), another > > _entirely_ to state that one has both God's ear > and His mission --which happens also to be the claim > of certain Muslim extremists. If this is presented > > as a "holy war," it *will not* stay > > confined to Iraq. > > Can you please give me a quote where anyone in the > government "state[d] that [we] ha[ve] both God's ear > and His mission?" Or presented this as a "'holy > war'"? Even _one_? The "stated goals" to which I referred were the disarmament of Iraq and the destruction of its WoMD. I did not *quote* the "God's mission" because that is how I further described Bush's attitude WRT the rest of the world - not Iraq specificly; illustrative statements include: http://jerusalem.indymedia.org/news/2003/03/108547.php {a March '03 article, looks like a reprint of a Newsweek article} >>At Opryland in Nashville�the old �Buckle of the Bible Belt��Bush told religious broadcasters that �the terrorists hate the fact that ... we can worship Almighty God the way we see fit,� and that the United States was called to bring God�s gift of liberty to �every human being in the world.� In his view, the chances of success were better than good. (After all, at the National Prayer Breakfast a few days before, he�d declared that �behind all of life and all history there is a dedication and purpose, set by the hand of a just and faithful God.� If that�s so, America couldn�t fail.) >>"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity." Context: This statement is not found in Scripture, but harks back to the writings of French political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville. It raised a red flag for supporters of separation of church and state. {I include the following not as a quote, but to show that I am far from alone in hearing that Bush is 'on a mission.') >>But the president is facing a mighty force of religious leaders on the other side. They include the pope (Bush will meet with a papal envoy this week, NEWSWEEK has learned), the Council of Bishops, the National Council of Churches, many Jewish groups and most Muslim leaders. �People appreciate his devotion to faith, but, in the context of war, there is a fine line, and he is starting to make people nervous,� says Steve Waldman, the editor and CEO of Beliefnet, a popular and authoritative Web site on religion and society. �They appreciate his moral clarity and decisiveness. But they wonder if he is ignoring nuances in what sounds like a messianic mission.� While this site is obviously anti-Bush, it has further quotes from the President on religion. http://www.dubyaspeak.com/theologian.shtml >>We welcome all religions in America, all religions. We honor diversity in this country. We respect people's deep convictions. ...Since America's founding, prayer has reassured us that the hand of God is guiding the affairs of this nation. We have never asserted a special claim on His favor, yet we've always believed in God's presence in our lives. This has always been true. -- Same speech, two different sentiments, National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast, Washington, D.C., May 16, 2002 How one can claim that "the hand of God is guiding the affairs of this nation" yet deny "a special claim on His favor" is not comprehensible. After 9/11 (article from Oct '01): http://www.msnbc.com/news/632784.asp?cp1=1 >>Unblinkingly resolute before a cheering Congress, George Bush defiantly vowed in God�s name to lead an anxious nation and the civilized world in a decisive campaign against the forces of terror. The fight would focus initially, he said, on Islamic extremist Osama bin Laden and his Qaeda network in the mountains of Afghanistan... >>Besides allies, Bush said, America would need�and receive�assistance from Above. �Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war,� he said, �and we know that God is not neutral between them.� >>There would be no freelancing of the kind that had led him to describe the task at hand as a �crusade��a word with an unfortunately specific historical and theological meaning that had outraged Muslims when he used it. >From the same article, showing that extremist Muslims (in this case, the Taliban) _do_ think of opposing the US as a "holy war:" >>As the president spoke, American warplanes, ships and troops were speeding bin Laden�s way�and the dictatorial clerics who rule the country prepared for what they later called a �showdown of might� in an Islamic �holy war.� Please note that I am not mocking Bush's faith - I believe that he fervently believes what he says, and that he is very sincere in his faith and _what it demands that he do_. That is scary to me (who also believes in a Divine Presence, but doesn't claim to know what It wants). Debbi who now has to run off to Brighton for a horse-training session, and didn't get nearly as far as I'd hoped in plowing through the BrinL flood :) __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, more http://taxes.yahoo.com/ _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
