Monday, June 23, 2003

Bread and Circuses again? In his recent article for Perspective in the San Jose Mercury, Michael Zielenziger, a foreign correspondent who just returned to the US after a seven year absence, provides a thought provoking commentary on why so much of the rest of the world is negative about the US. Perhaps, we should look at ourselves a little more critically before jumping to point out everyone else's flaws. 11:11:05 AM    comment []

Militant Democracy In his history of the crusades (mentioned on 6/21/03), Riley-Smith adds that "holy wars such as the crusades" required two additional underlying premises: that violence is not intriniscally evil; and that "Christ's wishes for mankind were associated with a political system or political events..." He goes on to state that for crusaders, "Christ's intentions were embodied in a politcal conception, the Christian Republic." Translating these to the present-- bombing, destruction and civilian casualties in Iraq were unfortunate, but not evil, if they were for the purpose of eliminating weapons of mass destruction and the evil despot, Saddam. Substitute the concept of 'democratic government' for Christian republic, and the second premise becomes evident. The pentagon claimed that the Iraqis would view US forces as liberators and that our attack on Iraq would plant the seeds of democracy for the entire mid-east. It strikes me that the crusades essentially failed a thousand years ago and that having the pentagon establish foreign policy will also fail in the long term. 9:49:29 AM    comment []