When I was on the Duluth School Board 3 years ago I started saying “Allah” rather than “God” during the Pledge of Allegience. Then I wrote about it in the Reader. Either no one read my column or nobody who did read it cared enough to comment. That surprised me because even then Republicans were hysterical that California’s “liberal” 9th District Court might overturn the mandatory reciting of the Pledge in schools.
Despite my eagerness to defend all religions I take a dim view of religious fanaticism. The news that newly liberated Afghanistan is about to execute a Christian for his conversion from Islam troubles me.
Even while George Bush has switched his rational for the Iraq war to saving Iraqis from religious fanatics he has managed to keep his own religious fanatics happy.
I’ve always been sympathetic to to one of Bush’s earlier war rationales – that of rescuing the Iraqis from Saddam. Nonetheless I’ve always been skeptical of Bush’s ability to win this gamble. This is how I put it three years ago as our troops were days away from invading Iraq: “Of course, if we get stuck in a terrorist’s playground for a decade and become desperate, paranoid and vengeful like the Israelis it will be a fiasco. It will be especially bad if every terrorist we kill is replaced by two more (which is what happened in Ancient Greece whenever some hero chopped off one of the heads of the terrible Hydra).”
Sadly, Iraqi’s have almost as much to fear from our Peace movement as our inept President. The former is demanding the return of US troops which will guarantee a civil war vastly more bloody than the current terrors.
Like it or not we are in a war between western values of tolerence and Islam’s medieval ethos. We should honor Middle easterners who have the courage to stand up for the values of tolerance and inquiry which we in the West prize. Here’s one such hero.
The shame is that there are many Republicans, Kevin Phillips estimates they comprise about 50% of the Party, who are as radical as the medieval Islamic mullahs who pine for Heaven’s 72 virgins. The heaven that our Republicans pine for, however, will only come with the Rapture when the rest of us are condemned to an eternity in Hell. I pointed this out too.
