The Poet's Eye 
                    commentary by Lightning Rod

the Poets' Eye is skeptical
without being cynical, innocent
without being naive and
critical without being
judgemental

Religious War and The Great Satan

 

"This use of religion for extreme repression, and even terror, is not of course restricted to Islam. For most of its history, Christianity has had a worse record. From the Crusades to the Inquisition to the bloody religious wars of the 16th and 17th centuries, Europe saw far more blood spilled for religion's sake than the Muslim world did. And given how expressly nonviolent the teachings of the Gospels are, the perversion of Christianity in this respect was arguably greater than bin Laden's selective use of Islam."
--The New York Times Magazine, Andrew Sullivan.

" . . . For the American forces to expect anything from me personally reflects a very narrow perception. Thousands of millions of Muslims are angry. The Americans should expect reactions from the Muslim world that are proportionate to the injustice they inflict." Osama bin Laden Time Magazine Dec 1998

''I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the A.C.L.U., People for the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.'''--Jerry Falwell, shortly after 9/11

The Crusades II

Bin Laden and Jerry Falwell are counterparts in the current religious war. In these final days, both Christianity and Islam are feeling the pressures of reason, science and modernity. This is evidenced by the rise of fundamentalism in both religions. Fundamentalism represents an embattled or defensive stance, a desire to go to war on behalf of dogma.

While The Poet's Eye sees that while oil and money are the prime motivations behind the American adventure in the Mid East, there is a religious subtext as well.

The Muslim world has been simmering for the past 56 years (since the advent of Israel) about the affront of westernization to their culture and the perceived occupation of their lands in Palestine. Gulf wars I and II have instilled no great affection for America in Islam either.

So far this has been the American plan to make friends in the Mid East: 1. Back the State of Israel. 2. Install a tyrant in Iran that oppresses his people and insults the culture with Western capitalism to the point that there is a revolution favoring an Islamic theocracy. 3. Arm and support a neighboring tyrant (Saddam) to distract the unruly Iranians with a war that costs over a million lives. 4. When our pit bull (Saddam) gets too mean and greedy for oil, we declare him an evil dictator and bomb him back into, if not the stone age, at least to medieval times. Then we starve the Iraqis for twelve years and, for no good reason, bomb them again and invade them for the purpose of securing their natural resources. It's no wonder they love us over there.  

It's hard to sell democracy when your customer wants theocracy. And this is the paradox of capitalism, the customer is always right even when he is wrong. But one of the traits of a fundamentalist is that he believes that it is his duty to save the infidel from his own ignorance, even at the stake or the point of a gun. This is true of fundamental Islam, fundamental Christianity or fundamental Capitalism.

Let's look at this another way. Monkey #1 (America) gets slapped by monkey #2 (Osama bin Laden.) Monkey #1 then slaps monkey #3 (Afghanistan) because monkey #3 is a friend of monkey #2. Then monkey #1 slaps monkey #4 (Iraq) because monkey #4 has a banana that monkey #1 wants and monkey #1 is in a slapping mood.

I don't know what religion monkeys have, or if they separate church from state. But I know it's our monkeys against their monkeys in religious war. Fanatics are made of the same sugar, no matter what flavor they happen to be.

Peter Schweizer and Rochelle Schweizer write in the LA Times:

"George (Bush) sees this as a religious war," one family member told us. "He doesn't have a PC view of this war. His view is that they are trying to kill the Christians. And we the Christians will strike back with more force and more ferocity than they will ever know."

The Poet's Eye sees that the mythical War on Terror is a religious war as well as one of economics, and that the policies of the Bush administration are creating more terrorists abroad than they are creating jobs at home. We all fight for our religion.

"Allah, Christ and Buddha
Sacred saccharin sugah
smoke that jumby numby
Holy Hope, I love thee."
--Brahma of San Antonio
 

   

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