Forrest blogs what he feels in this righteous rant against the War. Although it woudn’t play in a Face to face setting as an effective subject of debate (it wouldn’t sit too well with its targets, and thus cut them off from the possibility of conversion), it aptly and accurately describes my feelings when I see the yard sign down the street from our house “Jesus is the Reason for the Season”, which stands in the same yard that had Bush/Cheney signs during October and November, and I am sickened and shake my head EVERY day when I pass it on my way to work, and see it in my headlights on my return at the end of the day).

Forrest, brother, I acknowledge your rage and recognize it. I was just thinking about what I should endeavor to do in 2005. It seems not enought to just blog about peace, and against the war. It is beyond the point of urgency to stop this mess; way past the point where a sane leadership would need to re-assess and admit error and change course. It’s way past the point where we need to stop this sinful and willful rejection of the wisdom of “the rest of the world” as if the rest of the world is caught in some mass deception becasue they don’t see things the way the pro-war Americans do. I am particularly saddened when I hear Christians joining this chorus of support for this deceptive band of renegade conservatives (the neocons); “renegade”, becuase there are growing scrores of conservatives who put conscience and reason above politics and refuse to surrender their freedom to think and inform themseleves.

I wonder if the Church will begin to show signs of resistance such that the Bush administration will be forced to heed the call of their “base”. I won’t hold my breath, but the Silent Night trnches story reminds me there is always hope.

American Bodhisattva

I’m now to the point where I grow furious at people who claim the situation is improving in Iraq. They have nothing on which to base such assertions. The terrorists are not “getting desperate again”. They’re fighting this war the way they want to, and it gets easier for them all the time. They organize effective attacks against American forces in the more vulnerable cities, then run and begin hitting other cities when reinforcements arrive. Its guerrilla warfare, and its as effective now for the Iraqi resistance as it was for the American colonists against the British.
The so-called “Green Zone” in Baghdad used to be free from attacks and was supposedly safe. Not anymore. American soldiers are now being attacked in parts of Baghdad in which they had not been attacked since the April 2003 invasion began.
I’ve reached the conclusion placing the blame entirely on Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Bush for this war is unfair.
Those of you that voted for the jackass are the targets of my rage now. You are the reason that American soldiers will continue to be led by incompetent officials, and you are the reasons that kids my age, young parents, and even grandparents will continue to die daily in this meaningless war.
You are the un-American ones. You’re responsible for the deaths of the 135 soldiers this month. Their blood is on your hands. And like you have done for the last year and a half, you’ll probably continue to ignore whats going on. And you do it in the name of patriotism. There are not words in the English language to describe how pathetic you are.

Harsh words, but recognizable, as I fight with them every time I consider such things in the signs I see and the things I hear said by people who claim to follow Christ.