They only tell us what they think we want to know

by Cathleen Hall

Bush warned Syria on Sunday (April 13, 2003) not to harbor Iraqi leaders and charged that Damascus has chemical weapons, but was careful not to threaten militaryaction. [1]

They just need to cooperate,’

George W. Bush said.

Contrary to this above statement reflected on Sunday’s (April 13, 2003) news around the world, it has come to the author’s attention that not only is Bush threatening military action, his commanders have already given orders for various military units throughout the United States to be deployed to the areas surrounding Syria.

It is just a matter of days now and our troops will be headed for that region.

If that does not mean military action, then what exactly does it mean. Does it mean he wants a Syrian souvenir and wants hundreds or thousands of our soldiers to bring it back to him?

Just goes to show that we really do not know what our governments around the world are doing.

For the past several weeks, I have heard time and time again that this is a US led war against Islam [2]. I personally have disagreed. I am not for the war, but never saw it as a threat against one of the world’s largest religions. I personally took it as a personal problem that the Bush family was having with the Hussein family in some common business that they share. I also attributed it to the fact that Bush, Jr., wanted to clear his father’s name from the laughing stock that Saddam was making him out to be. But never did I allow myself to take this war as the first strike against Islamic nations and against the very religion of Islam itself.

Knowing what I now know however, I think maybe all of you were right. I am starting to think that Bush really believed it when he said that we were “One Nation Under Jesus”. As absurd as this sounded to me (and I am certain to all the Muslims and Jews, as well as atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, Hindus, etc.), I thought he cannot really be going against the over 1 billion Muslims in the world, because a handful of Muslims made a plan and we lost many innocent citizens. I did not see churches being burned after McVeigh wiped out all those people in Oklahoma, including those poor babies in the daycare center that day. I still will never forget the funeral of two young children who were siblings. Their mother was having the Barney song played at the funeral. That song, which drove so many parents crazy in those days, was a song that was supposed to be played when your smiling toddler was singing away to it at her heart’s content. The fact that it was played at a funeral for two so young, just simply tore away at my heart.

We cannot judge religion by the conduct of the people who follow the religion. If we did that, everyone would simply say that all Catholics must be pedophiles, all Muslims terrorists, and all Jewish complaining that their children do not love them properly and how much they have put them through. One person’s actions have never defined a religion. I cannot understand how the majority of this great nation is allowing its leader to restart the crusades once again hundreds of years after the original crusades brought untold deaths and tales of rape, murder and destruction to this world.

All Muslims are not perfect, nor the Christians, nor the Jews, nor the Hindus, etc. We are all just humans, therefore imperfect. All of us are capable of silly or serious mistakes, and lack of better judgment.

Right now, I personally believe, this new Crusade is a huge lack of better judgment. The United States cannot abuse its power as a superpower to make nations adapt to its standards and its way of life. As a matter of fact, its way of life is more diverse than Bush would like us to believe. The United States right now has approximately 7 million Muslims living here. By deciding that we are “One Nation under Jesus”, Bush has taken away firstly the separation of church and state, and secondly our freedom of religion. Now it looks like he wants to do the same to several of the Muslim nations around the world. Isn’t that how Hitler got started? First the Jews, then the Poles, then any other group that did not fit exactly into his “Master Race”. Germans had a bad reputation for many years, because they were unable to stop their leader in time, do we have the power in our democracy to stop ours? How many more nations will fall after Afghanistan and Iraq, before we will find our voices again to say “Stop in the name of our founding fathers. Stop in the name of our freedom of religion for which we lost many of our great grandfathers. Stop in the name of what this country is based upon. Stop in the name of humanity.” Let him live in freedom, even if he does not live like me.

Notes: