God Told Me To Do It
When I first heard the reports that G.W. Bush had told Palestinian officials that God told him to go to war in Iraq, to root out terrorists in Afghanistan and to bring peace to the Middle East my initial thoughts were, “Of course, that just makes sense.” And that thought wasn’t a positive one; it was cynical, frustrated and disgusted. But I held back my opinions, because my news was coming third hand at best. Since first hearing of the Bush statement, I came to learn that it was merely the recollection of Nabil Shaath, former Palestinian foreign minister. The statement was supposed to have been uttered during a meeting in 2003 and was being recounted to the BBC for their documentary, “Elusive Peace: Isreael and the Arabs”. That opens a lot of holes for me, especially since some major newspapers weren’t checking all their channels, as they should have. It’s hard to believe a paper as far to the left as the SF Chronicle when it reports on statements like this without getting a statement from the supposed statement-maker. But then, if Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, is to be believed, there are minutes to this meeting. According to them, Bush’s statement was:
“God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them.”
So what’s the big deal, some of you may be asking. I’m a huge believer in the separation of Church and State. I don’t like the idea of any so-called leader doing anything because “God told me to”, regardless of how pure their intentions might be. I don’t think it takes much digging into history to see that some breathtakingly horrendous atrocities have been commited in the name of one God or another. In fact, I think there are examples daily of how believing that God is telling a person to do something is leading to a lot of pain and suffering all over the world. The fact that our country, and many countries all over the world, have been targets of so-called “holy wars” ought to make it obvious to even the most brain dead that asserting that God is telling you to fight wars, even if the eventual objective is peace, is a dangerous and foolhardy statement.
Furthermore, I don’t want any so-called leader of mine to use the concept of God as a crutch or justification for unconscionable acts. Nor should any nation’s leader make their policy or wartime decisions based on something that their God “told” them to do. Most likely, the divine message is nothing more than a way for the leader in question to influence those of a particular, religious nature, which is disingenous at best. In the event that it’s not just a ploy to appeal to a particular group but is, instead, an actual belief, then I want their psychotic ass out of office. Is it too much to ask that the decisions of those who wield so much power be made under the weight of logic?
None of this is to say that any person isn’t free to believe in what they will, but rather that those beliefs should be kept out of affairs of state. In this country, one person’s God is another person’s Devil and no one necessarily shares the same views. However, logic rises above the divisions of religion and, tempered with the morality that many religions teach, should be the base for all decisions.
Regardless of whether Bush said what is reported or not, the fact that the idea of him uttering such a statement doesn’t seem all that out of character is what worries me the most. I’m tired to leaders who, for whatever reason, flaunt their religion or claim that their religious beliefs led them to decisions. Bush ought to be especially careful here, for his decisions, that may have been based upon what he says God “told him”, have have caused the deaths of thousands. Those deaths are on his hands and, if you so believe, his soul and he will have to make a reckoning. Besides, I have a hard time imagining that any omnipotent God would feel the need to urge his followers to lead one another to their deaths, despite what their followers would have us believe.
