The Mythic Resolve

Imagination helps form questions and suggest answers that may make the difference between continued life or immediate death. All living species seem to choose life over death and humans are no different. The history of our religions goes all the way back to the instinct to survive which would follow the evolutionary path to the very beginning. That is the main reason God won't "Go Away."

Humans evolved imagination for the sake of survival. The same can be applied to the unknown. The massive forces of the mysterious skies above; the shaking of the ground; the fire from a mountain. The disappearing and re-appearing of the sun, the moon, the stars, etc. Imagination provided an interchange between the known and the unknown and still does today.

From there it evolved through hope and civilizing processes, including sociological development into our religions and cultures. We still use imagination in our art, scientific theorizing, and in our quest to survive. That may be a big reason why our religions remain with us as imaginative as we know they are. We can't let them go just because rationalism, a late bloomer in the philosophical game, decides they are false.

Science may reveal a lot, but along with everything science reveals, science reveals more of the unknown; more of the mystery. Not only that, Science is inclusive (and accepting) of error while religion tries to avoid or disguise error, or reject it. There are those of us who see beyond the curtain, as in in "The Wizard of Oz" when Toto the dog revealed the wizard creating the illusion of the big talking head. Illusion and delusion continue to play important roles in the conduct of the human experience and as much as we rant and rail against the deception, the fables and legends continue to rule our lives.

We seek the details; the mechanics; the historicity; the reality, but in the end, we restrict the imagination, and what develops is mysticism. Nameless faceless forces of unity and supremacy controlling the universe in the context of universal mind, or some such orientation meant to run from the details of religion while getting around the questions that science fails to answer or has yet to deal with. Behold the Spirt; Embrace the Mystery; Love your neighbors; all as if vagueness is a better choice than dogma or science. And on we evolve ever so slowly.

If Jesus was boring or poorly understood as a historical subject, we make him into a mysterious entity of the divine conception. Anything real about him would spoil the broth and everything we can imagine about him seems to be preferred by the masses. Nothing historical fits into the tale; the legend; the hoped for resolve of our human condition.  In the song of "Jesus Christ Superstar", "I don't Know How to Love Him", he's "Just a Man".

As I continue to read the materials; the documents, the articles, the blogs and the books of the historical quest, I have to ask, what will it change if we produce a purely historical human being who did or was nothing (or little) of what the imaginative works of the bible painted him out as doing and being?

In conclusion, the human dynamic seems to favor imagination.  The hard-working authors and scholars of literacy will continue to sell books and teach in universities, attracting the smaller and smaller percentages of higher and higher IQ, many of whom will still opt for mysticism rather than outright rejection of anything "divine" "supreme" or "spiritual" even.

The hard-core, uncompromising atheist precipitates out of the mix as a rebel of necessity and purpose, seeking to imprint upon the world, the ultimate challenge; To acknowledge there's nothing in the sense of a supreme, creator-being "up there", "out there", or even "inside of us", so let's make the best of what we are able to know as we seek to know more.

The Supernaturalist Gambit

I have a major problem with supernaturalism. If it was one thing and one thing only, everybody would agree and there would be no conflict as to what it was. Now everybody does NOT agree as to what supernaturalism is; what its intent is; what its name is.... so we have conflict.

 None of this would matter as long as supernaturalism was kept out of the ruling preeminence of our government.

As long as supernaturalism stays out of government it can be whatever anyone wants it to be as long as it does not break the law of the land; the SUPREME LAW OF THE LAND, which is the United States Constitution.

 This is what the founding fathers intended; not to rule out principles of supernaturalism guiding our government but to keep out dogmas about supernaturalism that differ from one person to another; one group to another; dogmas that serve not to guide but to DICTATE government law and policy.

Supernaturalism, by remaining hidden can never declare itself. That is at once, its strength and its danger. Once one brand of supernaturalism is allowed to dictate government policy we have the beginning of theocracy which has counteracted democracy everywhere it has appeared throughout human history.

 Our founding fathers knew this and that is AGAIN, why the U.S. Constitution declares itself, THE SUPREME LAW OF THE LAND.

Any supernatural hierarchical order which is allowed to prevail within government, will, by its own nature, prioritize itself as the supreme law over and above the Constitution. It is inherent in supernaturalist thought, that the Divine though unseen, prevails over all things seen and human.



The move of reactionary politics in this election season, which is set out to create an issue with a falsely perceived, illusory “War against God” on the part of the Obama Administration, is an opening gambit in a war against the Constitution itself. Having run out of viable points to score against the incumbent president, the GOP, a la Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, and to a lesser degree, the closet moderate, Mitt Romney (who knows his Mormonism would take a hit for its peripheral position in the context of standardized American Christianity), is now out to make the president’s perceived absence of supernaturalist conformity, a plank to be removed in the election of November, 2012.

Appealing to God-fearing, God-Worshipping, Christian voters across the land, these ruthless brandishers of the sword of indiscernible truth are presenting much more than a challenge to Barack Obama. By persistently trumpeting the message of the founding fathers, they are out to destroy the most precious part of their legacy, which is religious freedom. If Barack Obama is espousing a false theology, as Rick Santorum charges, it should be his right to believe in a theology that is different from the theology of Mr. Santorum or Mr Gingrich, or even the Mormon, Mr Mitt Romney.



For what it is worth, the Anglican Church of England represented the official standard of Christianity throughout the British Empire against which the Founding Fathers fought a bloody revolution to separate this nation from. It wasn’t supernaturalism that the founding fathers took issue with. It was the BRAND of supernaturalism promoting itself over and above any other kind of supernaturalism or absence of such. It was Anglicanism moving beyond supernaturalism to declare itself the sole arbiter of the kind of law and dispensation of judgment that should prevail throughout the empire which, at the time, included the unrepresented American Colonies of the New World.



It is very interesting that these self-righteous, new-age theocrats fail to even cite Article Six which lies not in the amended body of the Constitution, but within the main body itself, indicating it resonated with the original thought and intent of the signers of the Constitution:



“...The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”



NO RELIGIOUS TEST MEANS NO RELIGIOUS TEST. 



Therefore, no politician running for office in the United States should be making an issue about an incumbent president’s THEOLOGY, particularly in the implied sense that his theology is “incorrect”, as though a “correct” theology could be adequately discerned when it involves supernaturalism, which, by its very nature, is indiscernible.



Back to Article Six:




“...This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.”



Now detractors could argue that the word “supreme” was meant to contrast the law of the Constitution from any Law of a State or such jurisdiction as should have a law, which may compete with the Constitution. One may rightly argue that Article Six mandates a supremacy of Federalism, and sets the foundation for the Federal Government which mostly conservative politicians and voters seem to have a problem with now that Barack Obama is the head of this government.

Whatever the argument may be, “supreme” is a word over which there can be no higher authority. As grievous as this may sound to most supernaturalists, it is, rather, a platform guarantor of the very religious freedom which allows for a personal choice in the matter of embracing supernaturalism or not embracing it at all.



Thus, it should be a cautionary defensiveness with which concerned Americans meet the current fusillade against the incumbent president’s choice of religious belief or willingness to put aside dogma in favor of the religious freedom which the Constitution, by restricting supernaturalist tests, actually serves to protect.

A secular government is the best venue for a free-fall interpretation of supernaturalism within the confines of the institutions and their schools which represent the various characterizations, forms, and dogmas which present our rich culture of religious diversity and open dialog, which includes the right not to believe anything at all, that cannot be singularly discerned or empirically evaluated.

Lest we remain unceasingly vigilant and unfailingly cautionary when confronted with these less-than-oblique entreaties against our most guarded of freedoms, the clock may be set as in the film about the fictitious Benjamin Button, to begin ticking backwards to a time when anybody espousing a difference of interpretation as to supernaturalism or failing to espouse one at all, might find their head on a chopping block; their lives in danger; or their place in the world one of permanent banishment.



Let’s all pray that this never happens in America.




RWH 2/27/2012

No Time for Resurrection Politics

In response to an Article in The Daily Beast entitled "Hillary Told you So"

Please read the article here:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/07/hillary-clinton-2012-calls-grow-with-anger-at-obama-debt-capitulation.html

My Response:

How soon we forget the Hillary Health Care disaster when she couldn't convince congress to go for it during her husband's administration. The GOP is simply out for blood. They have no intention of handing over an improved economy to Barack Obama in 2012. No sitting Democratic president would have prevailed against this congress. Certainly not Hillary Clinton.

This is a sad capitulation to the kind of resurrection politics that commits the essential fallacy in logic which is begging the question. There is absolutely no basis from which to contend that Hillary would have done better with the resistant right whose aim has nothing to do with the good of the country. They want back in, that's all. They would have conspired to unseat Hillary Clinton just as they are conspiring to unseat President Obama. The president offered them every possible setup including twice the spending cuts, but added the inevitable: Increased taxes on the wealthy.

The ultimate fix will include raising taxes on the wealthy and closing some tax loopholes. Bill Clinton did it in his administration and it balanced the budget. Even though a GOP President in 2012 would eventually see that, none of the above wanted to concede it last week and possibly avoid this supposedly dreaded credit-rating reduction of fractional value at best.

The "other side" wants the wealthy on their side in 2012 and will string them along until after they (God forbid) win. Then the revenues will simply have to be increased. Period. We're no longer a nation of under 200 million people. We are going beyond 300 million and growing in leaps and bounds as we write. At some point, the haves are going to have to up their ante unless they want their wealth to diminish in a tide of reduced-value dollars.

So dig up the bones of Hillary Clinton if you will, but take a good look at her in any pictures you can find. The State Dept gig is wearing her OUT. The girl is EXHAUSTED. And now you want to submit her to the PRESIDENCY???? That should be a felony. Angry liberals are only going to make things worse for themselves hashing up a Clinton Re-Campaign. Play right into the GOP plan.

Vast right wing conspiracy? You mean the same one that was out to unseat her husband with those scurrilously fallacious claims of his dalliance with Monica Lewinsky? That one? Oh yeah. I remember that. It's not so vast nor is it so sinister. It's out in the open and called the TEA PARTY. The less-than-covert plan is to wreak the economy and sow the seeds for a GOP win in November based on their wreckage.


One of the "offers" the other side made was to OK a temporary debt ceiling increase, then vote on another one in 2012. Yeah. Right. Sure. Make it all about the debt ceiling and not about their mission to enlarge and perpetuate the underclass in this country, build walls around our nation, and finance the wealthy and the huge corporations like GM which originally showed up in Washington on PRIVATE JETS to negotiate their BAIL OUT. They want to throw the Debt ceiling debate right into the mix of 2012 politics and really stick it to the president by screwing the people of this country. And all these nerdy Dems have to say was HILLARY would have done better?



My guess is that this president knew what was coming and played out the bid for tax increases as long as he possibly could just to show the nation who the real terrorists are in this upcoming election season. My hope is that in the subsequent blame-game, his eloquence and coolness at the helm will edge out the aspiring fix-it candidates that haven't a clue as to what they will do to change what their predecessor managed to de-construct by catering to Wall Street, big bankers, and Corporate America. A man who owns enough land to establish a 51st State and whose family holdings rival the GDP of a developing nation has disappeared into the range while Barack Obama gets pistol-whipped by a greedy, win-hungry elite of wanna-be leaders who think they have a better plan.

So go ahead you foolish mortals. Bang the president around and call on a loser to mount a challenge. When the GOP is back in the White House and the Tea Part-controlled Republicans run slash and burn policies on entitlements, the backlash of angst and reaction-ism will rival that of Syria, Libya, Egypt, and London combined. To be forewarned is to be fore-armed.


BH

Not Noble

To Joe Scarborough,
MSNBC News (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6330851/)

I think, sir, that you are 100% wrong about Iraq. You speak as though we went in there with the intent to bring our values into their lives. We did not. We went in search of WMD, according to President Bush who used this line to get support from the US Congress and the UN. Once the lies and discrepancies, as well as the failure to find any such weapons surfaced, we had to change our tone and sing a new song. This was one of freedom, democracy and all its glory. We rained bombs and decimated the landscape. We killed and maimed innocent citizens and mired our forces in a situation for which there seems to be no escape. We have spawned more terrorists than we have eliminated by our actions. We remain there because we are logistically stuck there,

This is a new Vietnam in the making, and there is no nobility whatsoever in the illegal and unsupported invasion of a country which had no partnership in any attack upon us. All the talk of regime change and bringing freedom to Iraq is C.Y.A. nonsense. What we need is an exit strategy using the combined forces of the European community seasoned with the blessings of the UN. They could pledge not to attack the Iraqis and stand by as we get out. Then they themselves, having stood by as protective non-combatants, could exit. Once we have departed that country, a major thorn in their side will be gone. Whatever government rises out of the smoke may well be not much different from any other totalitarian government in the Middle East, many of which are friendly to us. Why scorn a totalitarian government in Iraq when we cooperate with the likes of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Oman? Syria, Jordan, Iran are all basically totalitarian governments. Shall we bomb them into a state of freedom as well?

Robert W.. Hamilton

Faith and the Iraq Morass

This is a reply to a friend of mine who is a Christian and a supporter of the current US-led operations inside of Iraq. Comments are always welcome .

So you want Christianity for the Arab world? That's incredible. How myopic. You just want to trash 1400 years of their history and culture and render them Christian through bombs, missiles, exploding shrapnel and murder. Then you want to about face and talk about the force of war being the only way THEY were able to promote ISLAM. Do you proof read what you write?

How do you "make" Iraq a free society? How? Oh yeah, just read the newspapers from 3-22-2003. While you're at it, find the front page of the NY Times 6-19-2003, and meditate on that picture. You bomb Iraq into being a "free" nation, and then when Christianity comes, you eradicate the link between it and the violence that made the way for it. Go back to the history of the war in Lebanon 1974 when it was over and the Lebanese Christians went into the Palestinian camps and murdered thousands of non-Christians in cold blood.

A search for the true God, huh? He's that hidden isn't He? He can't do anything at all to end the confusion? We covered that in the book. Like YOU have the keys to the secret. You feel emboldened enough to declare Allah a false God? The Qur'an links Allah directly to Abraham and all the prophets. You differ with that? Can't you see the ongoing manufacture and re-manufacture of God on the part of humans? Can't you see the invention, the rationalization for all this violence? Did you jump and shout when Bush said America was being led by the hand of God? You didn't find that appalling? The most warmongering and murderous president we have had in recent times, and you think there is no link between violence and the infusion of Christianity?

There is plenty of impetus for change in Iraq and there are people who LIVE there who have ideas about that. You are dedicated to either changing people or killing them. That makes you party to the mass homicide going on in Iraq. You say what you couldn't do, but you support young men and women going over there and committing murder. Murder is what it is because we have no right to be there. We invaded on false pretenses and without the consensus of the Security Council of the UN.

You are a Unique Christian because you write out of both ends of your pen. You should be disgusted with this government, considering your Christian nature. Yet you support this gang of criminals in their illegal incursion into a sovereign nation. You support continued bloodshed and bombing. Just leave those people alone to form whatever government they want to form. Their violent posturing is a mirror of what they face in opposition. If they weren't so ready to be violent, the Western nations would have overrun them hundreds of years ago. Beat all the swords into plowshares and see who is first to forge some of them back into swords.

3,500,000 is not a huge majority. George Bush almost got run out of office. He is because he is wasting serious billions of dollars killing Iraqis, trying to subdue them and force them into "freedom". If freedom was so desirable, then why didn't Mr Bush use that idea in the first place? Why didn't he go to the UN and say, "Iraq needs freedom. We have the bombs and the missiles to start killing them off until they submit, and we need help. Help us bomb Iraq into democracy"? He used the word freedom as a last resort when he ran out of reasons for this war.

The most intelligent sector (the Northeast) voted against George Bush. So did California. We almost got him. This country is virtually divided over who should be in the White house and it's great that we only have four more years to deal with this president.

The government cannot wage war against another nation without a declaration from congress. They got away with it in Vietnam, and now Iraq. You can't just "trust" your government to make the right decisions when that means sabotaging a balanced budget and sending more than a thousand (and counting) young Americans to a needless death. What will it take for you to question your government? A missile attack on North Korea? An invasion of Iran? Cuba? How aboutPakistan? Now THAT's a place that could get invaded, but they have nukes. Why Pakistan, you ask? Because i have a feeling they are protecting Bin Laden. I think they know where he is and he has a lot of support in that country. President Masharif fears for his life if he dares to make a move against the factions that are protecting Osama. Ordinarily, I would understand Bin Laden's point of view, but he took a srike against us. That makes capturing and/or killing him a legal enterprise.

It was legal to disarm and dispel the Taliban. They had a chance to produce bin Laden and protected him instead. There is a time for war, as the Bible says. There is also a time for peace, and the UN is an agency set up to try to bring peace into the world. They have rules, and we violated those rules. Stay with the news. We are not getting anywhere in Iraq. Grab up a handful of sand and close your hand into a fist. Most of the sand rushes out between your fingers. To even hope to avert the "insurgency", We would need an infusion of about 500,000 troops all over Iraq. We admit to there being about 75,000 "insurgents". I think there are way more. We would need to create Buffer zones along the Iranian, Syrian and Turkish borders. There is no strategy for winning this war as I can see. Every day American soldiers die while the "insurgency" inflicts heavy causalities in other areas of Iraq, esp. in Baghdad.

Not only do I mistrust this government, I mistrust the reporting regarding the war. They are lying just like they did in Vietnam. They are inflating enemy casualty figures and holding the line on American casualty figures. Who's checking? When you get your 19 year old son back in a body bag, how do you know how many more families are receiving such parcels? Who can verify American casualty reports? Who can verify enemy casualty reports? Who can verify casualty figures of innocent Iraqis?; friendly fire? I just wish there was a point to this war, but there isn't. Just the belated expressions of freedom coming from a our government in Washington DC who which erred that day in March, 2003 and has been trying to Cover its tracks ever since.

They won the election because the democrats put John Kerry up as a sacrificial lamb. They knew the chances for loss against an incumbent would be high, Bill Clinton's 1992 success notwithstanding. I think 2008 will be a different picture for the Democrats. I can't help but think they "threw" this one because they weren't 100% about Mr.Kerry. Lieberman will run again. So will Kucinich, Dean, Clark, and even Hillary. Maybe Al Sharpton will do us all a favor and run his campaign as reality TV so we can be entertained! When they saw John Kerry emerge as the front runner, I think they all withdrew their money from their own campaigns to save it for 2008. I think their support was less that what it could have been. The fact that John Kerry won as many votes as he did indicates that the people of this country prefer him. 3,500,000 votes was too much to get out of the elite Democratic leadership? They are currently oiling up their guns for the 2008 primaries, along with John Edwards who will have a different take on John Kerry in 2008. Watch and see.

What does it take for you to see the mass charade being carried out in the name of freedom and God? Now don't blame me. George Bush brought God into the picture. So did the debate moderators who relentlessly challkenged both candidates to account for their faith. George Bush, like it or not, became the "God" candidate. The harbinger of faith. the protector of Christian values. He is the Head Christian of this nation right now. How can he do wrong now that he has declared GOD to be leading America? You have to be BLIND not to see through this buffoonery; this sacrilege; this indecent pandering to Theism at the expense of human blood being wasted on the sands of Iraq.

The only faith I have concerning Iraq is that cooler heads will prevail on both sides, once there is a cease-fire and a truce preceding a departure of the US-led Coalition.


BH 11/11/04

Defense of Freedom?

I went into a bar two nights ago to get some chicken wings. I was on my way home from work. This was a neighborhood bar, a downscale, dart-board, Karaoke, beer-on-draft, T-shirt kind of a place. Everyone was smoking and drinking and I immediately knew that I would be there only as long as it took to get my wings. I took a seat forward of the bar near the Karaoke setup to wait for my order.

The drinking was excessive, and I was being harassed by a drunken mumbling patron who was trying to make conversation with me as I sat watching the wailing Karaoke singers wreak havoc on the music culture. Suddenly I had this vision of American freedom as I sat there. Our system enables this kind of freedom. Our system encourages the sale and use of alcohol and cigarettes. This was not the first time since my the onset of my sobriety that I have been able to recognize the deep and profound level of social destruction that substance use/abuse engenders. This was truly a place where I would have to "shake the dust off my sandals" after I left.

It is no wonder why Arab nations are struggling to build Islamic republics which ban such activities, including (God forbid) music. I am not in favor of this, but I understand it. "Freedom" can bring on this kind of social dissolution, immorality, cheating, drunkenness, gambling, etc. that we find so entertaining over here. The Muslims have issues against "freedom" and these issues possess a degree of validity, I think. At any rate, they should be "free" to determine the moral character of their own country and not have to pander to West just because we have the military force capable of overpowering them with death and destruction if they refuse to accept our "gift" of freedom.

When I considered Christian freedom during my Divinity School days, I thought this way: We are free to choose to follow or reject God. Freedom to choose God means freedom to accept the "blessed tyranny" that comes with the package. It means that you are free to either live your life willy-nilly without God or any observance of legislated morality, or choose God and decide to live according to His law. In God's law, there is no freedom to live as one chooses. Christians are yoked (through a "loving" relationship with God) to a narrow morality very similar to Islam. Their existence in a free secular society, however, encourages them to redefine and re-invent their concept of Christian morality to include behaviors that some Muslims find appalling.

The very freedom that we are said to be fighting for in Iraq is the same poison that is enabling the dissolution of our society. It helps to create the same affect that Christians describe as sin. We are free to live as we choose, but not enough of us embrace the degree of responsibility and self-management that needs to accompany such freedom. Many Muslims don't like what they see in our world and blame it on our attitude about personal freedoms.

What about guidance? What about legislated morality? I don't believe in legislated morality, but many Muslims do and all they want is the freedom to enact their own forms of government in a quest to assure morality and control of self. If what that takes is Imams, Princes, Dictators, and Sheiks, then so be it. That is their history. That is their culture. We have Priests, Rabbis, Potentates, Elders, Reverends, and the like fomenting evangelistic influence upon our elected leaders as well as the constituency that elects them. If our "freedom" is so great and desirable, then why do we have to bomb it into their throats and declare it with their blood?

Finally, I should point out that my understanding of freedom in America is that we are able to choose our leaders. We are able to reject our government through free elections. I think the idea of living anyway you want to live is distorted from the principle of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. This comes with a commitment to responsibility which is often neglected in the way some people live their lives. I understand the concept of supporting these elected governments, but there is a limit. The following excerpts are from our beloved Declaration of Independence:

“to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

“when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

Here are some excerpts from the grievances named in that same document directed against the British Crown:

“For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us”

“For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States”:

“He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.”

Now George Bush has quartered large bodies of troops among the Iraqis. He has plundered their seas, ravaged their coasts, burnt their towns, and destroyed the lives of their people. I don't even have to paraphrase the Declaration here. I'll just repeat it verbatum:

“He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized” nation.

For these and other grievances, the colonists formed a band of "insurgents" who hid behind rocks and trees, sniping at the British, and committing acts of what could be described as terrorism in defense of their fledgling nation. We must remember our roots. We must respect other nations and their will to self-govern. We must depart from Iraq.


Robert Hamilton 11-9-2004

The Iraq Blunder

I think George Bush blundered by getting into the war in the first place and now he's trapped. Retreat has become difficult and dangerous. The opposition will attack in the vacuum left by our tracks. We are not getting the truth in the news reports. Trust me. The attack on Fallujah will fail. The "insurgents" will go elsewhere. They're already counterattacking in other cities and reassembling. They are the ones with the moral high ground. They are just trying to defend their country from outsiders. I truly believe Iraq can work things out without us and come up with a representative government.

Many of the Iraqi soldiers are deserting and defecting. You don't hear about that. Who is George Bush to bomb democracy into somebody? And what is freedom? The Iraqis see our society as sin-soaked and evil. They truly believe we are the Great Satan. They see our crime, our drug addiction, our greed, our corruption, our love affair with alcohol and wanton sex, and say "this is not for us". The "insurgent" Iraqis will never rest with Allawi's effort to structure a puppet government through the charade of "free" elections. There must be a LOT of them. Consider the all out effort being lodged against Fallujah. Does this look like an opposition of rag-tag mercenaries and foreign fighters? HELL no. They are organized, equipped, funded, and motivated, taking on as many recruits as they lose in battle. They are legion. They are strong and all over the country. Read between the lines. The US Coalition is nowhere near a victory in this campaign, and Iraqis are dying every day, along with Americans.

They don't want freedom for the sake of freedom, especially if women, children, and innocent people have to die for it, and lose their homes, their infrastructure, their livelihoods, etc. How can you look at that carnage and destruction without hatred for George Bush and co? I can't STAND watching the coverage of this attack. It is cruel, criminal and downright WRONG. It is sickening to see babies crying, and elderly women limping through the streets. We will eventually have to leave, just like we did after Tet in Vietnam. Any moral argument regarding Saddam's behaviour has validity in its own right, but reality is making that argument irrelevant. The question is, do we need to be there, spilling the blood of our soldiers, and innocents? Is there a clear mandate to crush the insurgency in order to protect our lives here in the USA? HELL no again. They had nothing to do with 9/11. I'd sooner see Bush invade Pakistan, because THOSE are the people protecting Osama Bin Laden! Musharif probably knows where he is, but hey. THEY have nukes, so we are best to leave them alone, right? Korea's got nukes too, and soon Iran will have them. The whole thing is getting out of hand and we need to bring a man like Cyrus Vance into the picture and begin to talk and negotiate.

We are going into the hospital and taking patients out of their beds! Handcuffing them. What are people there to think about the Americans? What do those screaming kids think is happening to them and why? How can they be reasoned with after they see their family and friends obliterated by US Bombs? They are being de-limbed, blinded, infected by their wounds, and run out of their homes. All for what? I believe a Cease Fire with the protected retreat of Coalition forces is the first step. Get US out of there. Then let the cards fall where they may. Something strong and stable will rise out of the dust of this war. If the people know they are getting their country back and being left alone to establish stability and security, there will be a pride factor in that. Iraq for Iraqis.

There will be continued bloodshed, but a strong leader will emerge and then there will be peace, and they will be more than happy to sell us their oil at a reduced price. Right now I believe we are stealing that oil. I have always believed that. If you want my assessment of a motive behind the actions of this lunatic president of ours, its is pure thievery. He has been stealing that oil from day uno, right out of the port there in Bashra where the British went in the early days of the war and met a LOT of resistance. They secured that port immediately and that is where the oil leaves that country by tankers. Halliburton oversaw the entire operation. It was a Heist. That's what it was. It had nothing to do with Kurds, Freedom, WMD, or anything else. All that was cover. Bush is an oil man from an oil family. Cheney and Rumsfield are all about oil. That's my answer for this war; OIL.

I take no issue as to the nature of Saddam Hussein. All I know is that he was in his box when 9/11 happened and we invaded his country for no reason whatsoever. You don't invade countries just because their dictators shoot people who disagree with them. That is an issue for the country itself. Foment a revolution. Use Covert Ops to assassinate the bastard. But tomahawk missiles, M.O.A.B. bombs, gunship artillery, etc.? THIS is crazy considering they did nothing to us. It was up to Saddams own people to take him out, and they should have. They could have. History proves that the US panders to dicators when they keep control in a country where the cultural and religious differences are overwhelming. Fear and murder become viable tools of control, and we knew all about Saddam and his ways long before this war. We supported him against Iran. We GAVE him the WMD technology used against the Kurds. When we have this conversation twenty years from today, there will be an Islamic Republic in Iraq, just like the one in Iran that we could not prevent as hard as we tried, even using Saddam to wage war against that country. He was our friend then.

Look at Vietnam. Communist from north to South. All the South Vietnamese Army folk who fought under us are now begging mercilessly in the streets and trying to sell trinkets to stay alive. You just cannot beat a people into submission. Why we haven't learned that, I don't know. We will Bomb and Bomb and Bomb, but will not break the will of the Iraqi people even as much as our journalist agents try to get us to believe these are just renegade insurgents we are fighting. "Terrorists", we call them. Just because they disagree with us and want us out of their country and are willing to use any means necessary to so so. The blood will continue to run in the streets of these Iraqi cities until maybe congress or some church group mounts a full scale protest against our actions there. Hopefully the college campuses will re-awaken and sound the trumpet of dissent and get our troops OUT of that country and back home where they belong.