Our moron-in-chief used the word "crusade" to describe our response. Now there's a word without too much baggage.
Perhaps we need a search and rescue team to look for Dubya's tiny little brain.
As far as crusades go, I think I’m on record as saying that there are no holy wars. One man’s crusade is another man’s jihad. There may be wars that we feel we have to fight, but they should have been avoided; their necessity is not that of eating and sleeping. Apparent necessity cannot sanctify war.
The rhetoric we operate under is indeed important, and the possibilities of what we can say are already being limited. On the Late Show’s weird but moving return last night Dan Rather told David Letterman that this has nothing to do with Islam; that Islam doesn’t teach this path; that terrorists don’t represent Islam. Our attempts to protect religion from pollution by politics have always bred this sort of avoidance of the obvious. It’s like saying that certain fundamentalists here are not really Christians. They may be outside the mainstream of their fellows, but a religion is never solely defined by its orthodoxy. Of course the orthodox cannot admit this, so speech is cut off, and responsibility denied. I’m sure it’s important to disavow the unconscionable, but I’m afraid we are going to be under pressure to conform to orthodoxy. Religion can’t be the emperor’s new clothes; it has to be the nakedness beneath.
awesome post!!!
"Our attempts to protect religion from pollution by politics have always bred this sort of avoidance of the obvious."
That's more or less what I was saying to Hamid the trim carpenter's assertion that this cannot be a Holy War because Islam would only allow such if we were a nation of infidels, and so on and so forth. I did not offer my opinion as to the number of infidels in this country but mostly tried to make the point that no matter what position the greater body of Islamic believers held, if a group of extremists, who also consider themselves Muslims, say this is a Holy War, then in a very real sense it is a Holy War. I for one take very seriously the words of any group or any groups even fainly related to a group who would fly airplanes into one hundred story American buildings.
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Perhaps we need a search and rescue team to look for Dubya's tiny little brain.
- mark 9-18-2001 6:53 am
As far as crusades go, I think I’m on record as saying that there are no holy wars. One man’s crusade is another man’s jihad. There may be wars that we feel we have to fight, but they should have been avoided; their necessity is not that of eating and sleeping. Apparent necessity cannot sanctify war.
The rhetoric we operate under is indeed important, and the possibilities of what we can say are already being limited. On the Late Show’s weird but moving return last night Dan Rather told David Letterman that this has nothing to do with Islam; that Islam doesn’t teach this path; that terrorists don’t represent Islam. Our attempts to protect religion from pollution by politics have always bred this sort of avoidance of the obvious. It’s like saying that certain fundamentalists here are not really Christians. They may be outside the mainstream of their fellows, but a religion is never solely defined by its orthodoxy. Of course the orthodox cannot admit this, so speech is cut off, and responsibility denied. I’m sure it’s important to disavow the unconscionable, but I’m afraid we are going to be under pressure to conform to orthodoxy. Religion can’t be the emperor’s new clothes; it has to be the nakedness beneath.
- alex 9-18-2001 7:10 pm [add a comment]
awesome post!!!
- Skinny 9-19-2001 9:40 am [add a comment]
"Our attempts to protect religion from pollution by politics have always bred this sort of avoidance of the obvious."
That's more or less what I was saying to Hamid the trim carpenter's assertion that this cannot be a Holy War because Islam would only allow such if we were a nation of infidels, and so on and so forth. I did not offer my opinion as to the number of infidels in this country but mostly tried to make the point that no matter what position the greater body of Islamic believers held, if a group of extremists, who also consider themselves Muslims, say this is a Holy War, then in a very real sense it is a Holy War. I for one take very seriously the words of any group or any groups even fainly related to a group who would fly airplanes into one hundred story American buildings.
- jimlouis 9-22-2001 5:33 pm [add a comment]