Wednesday, July 02, 2003

No!      Apparently we have a significant number of evangelical missionaries beginning to follow US troops into Iraq to convert Muslims. Time Magazine declares that "Not for a century has the idea of evangelizing Islam awakened such fervor in conservative Christians." Now we have the likes of Franklin Graham, who called Islam ' "a very evil and wicked religion" ', headed to Iraq to save the people from Satan. Not only do some want to change the regime and remake the government, they want to aggressively meddle in the dominant religion. Talk about provoking hostility. The crusades not only failed, but created animosity and even hatred that lasts to this day.  Resurrection of crusading will only further stoke the fires of animosity for generations to come. 10:11:33 PM    comment []

Bellicosus Rex: Does Tough Talk Really Help? President Bush, as reported by BBC News, challenged Iraqi attackers and said today that US troops will deal with them harshly. The US presumption that underlies the macho approach is that the attacks on US and British forces are being carried out by Baathist party remnants. How widespread is the resistance to the US occupation really? What will be the impact of the increased use of force? Maybe it is time to utilize some finesse. Perhaps the tough talk is really aimed at shoring up American resolve. The BBC article also notes that a recent poll found that 56% of respondents thought things were going well for US forces in Iraq.  This represents a significant drop from 86% in a similar poll in the second week in May. Will the US commitment waver if more Americans believe the post-war efforts are going badly? 6:02:50 PM    comment []

WMD Stories Time magazine asks "Who Lost The WMD? and a recent poll reports that more people believe that the Bush administration stretched the truth. 10:08:01 AM    comment []