The thing that bugs me, and scares me, about Cheney, is that his disdain for the idea of “sensitive” implies the dark side of his self-absorbed mind: that unlimited casualties on “their side” is worth it; that bombs can “take out” terrorists. How many of them is it “permissable” to kill in order to kill One terrorist? And not even actual terrorists (of certainty) , but only “Potential terrorists” (of “guessing”). Do they have “Minority Report’s pre-cogs”? No. This is all a “theoretical” , “best guess” end-sum game, and not even a good or logical one at that. The message of Imperial Hubris is that this war is poorly conceived, and distracted by conceit and machoism. It’s what allowed the adminstration to “dutifully” ignore Richard Clarke and the CIA overwhelming evidence that Al-Quieda was indeed the threat that they were. THESE PEOPLE were criminally negligent, and from comments heard, or attitudes expressed, a lot of this “neglect” and failure to take seriously these warnings and “opportunities” were partisan politics at it worst: it was a “Clinton thing”. Bill Clinton’s brain activity (and apparently the activity of some other pieces of his anatomy) is one that dwarfs the present president’s.
Potential terrorists? Wow… I’m at a loss for words.
Brad,
How does this strike you? I’m not sure about how you mean this. I have an idea, from prior conversations, but I am curious.
Dale
That term seems to give them an incredible amount of freedom in choosing who they kill. Heck, anyone who doesn’t follow the patriot act to the “T” they could call a “potential terrorist”. Anyone who doesn’t agree with them is suspect. We have too many war-hungry or perhaps power-hungry people in the current administration. Even if Bush was honest and humble, the people directly under him seem to be blood thirsty. I like your reference to Minority Report -it sums up my reaction well.
You took my meaning well. Thanks for verifying that. A guy named James Carroll, who writes for the Boston Globe and is a chaplain (who I have quoted today and yesterday) has been arguing for “police action over war”, since “War inevitably generates its own momentum, which has a way of inhumanely overwhelming the human purposes for which the war is begun in the first place”. And, in addtion, it ends up creating more of the same rage in the subjects of our own “justice” (which for Christians, should be of a totally different nature than the way the Bush administration uses it (they originally wanted to call the Afganistan war “Operation Supreme Justice”)
Dale
Christianity in our nation has been horribly tainted by administering this sort of “justice” in the name of Christ. And they wonder why non-Christians want nothing to do with them (and call it persecution). I pray that N.T. Wright’s popularity will begin to cause change in the Church for becoming the “new humanity”, which bears striking similarity in the way he describes it to that of the way Elizabeth O’Connor and Gordon Crosby describe it. It seems that more and more are standing up and crying out for reconciliation and restoration of the world. But for now, they are branded liberals and heretics by the “Church at large.”
Sorry, I don’t mean to rant. It’s just that I’m taken back by what is being done and accepted by publicized Christianity within all of this. I know that wasn’t the point of your post though, at least not directly.
Brad,
Hey, blogs are expected to have rants. My whole blog is a rant, although it seems that to call these types of things “rants” is to detract from some of the importance of them…..but in a blog world, rants can be righteous. In fact, I believe we Christian blogers are CALLED to do so. I am so encouraged when other Christians to can step outside of all this heretical nonsense and see it with eyes which seem to me to be better adjusted to reality. This is a needed witness. Not that my audience is anything approaching massive, but I can only cover the area of relationship I have been given. Blogs and such make for a potential widening of that set of relationships.
Right now, I’m surrounded by Bush-Cheney 2004 signs in my neighborhood (the work of my discerning fundamentalist neighbors), so I need to go find me one like “Show Bush the Door in 2004” and “God is Not A Republican or a Democrat”
Peace,
Dale