Religion, etc.

[Bob Sheridan]

It seems a lot easier to hang a label on an idea, as being in origin 
religious, ethical, moral, political, secular, pragmatic, etc., than it 
is to come up with a definition that enables one to identify in advance 
its true nature, if there is such a thing, as one of these.  This is as 
hard to do as it is to define the different levels of generality or 
specificity upon which so much constitutional law depends, as in Gerald 
and Michael's case.

But if God tells you to do something, such as to kill someone, 
presumably that's a religious idea.  I don't know which religious people 
are more inclined to think that God provides them with fatal answers to 
hard questions, Muslims, Christians, Jews, or Other, but there's a news 
report today that Pres. Bush has said that God told him to make war in 
Iraq, which is either a real or symbolic statement:

 From the San Francisco Chronicle, URL at bottom:

*Jerusalem* -- President Bush told two high-ranking Palestinian 
officials that he had been told by God to invade Afghanistan and Iraq 
and then create a Palestinian state to bring peace to the Middle East, 
they recall during a documentary on Middle East peace that airs next 
week in Britain.

"President Bush said to all of us: 'I'm driven with a mission from God,' 
" said Nabil Shaath, who was the Palestinian foreign minister at the 
time of a top-level meeting with Bush in June 2003. Mahmoud Abbas, then 
Palestinian prime minister and now the Palestinian Authority president, 
was also present for the conversation with Bush.

"God would tell me, 'George, go and fight those terrorists in 
Afghanistan.' And I did, and then God would tell me, 'George, go and end 
the tyranny in Iraq ...' And I did. And now, again, I feel God's words 
coming to me, 'Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis 
their security, and get peace in the Middle East.' And by God I'm gonna 
do it," Shaath quotes the president as saying in the three-part series.

Shaath, who is now Palestinian minister of information, said he was 
encouraged, not dismayed, by the president's comments.

"President Bush was saying that, 'Having been imbued with a message of 
God to free the people of Afghanistan and then Iraq, I have a calling 
now to give the Palestinians a state of their own and their freedom, to 
give Israel security and bring peace to the Middle East,' " Shaath told 
The Chronicle, confirming the accuracy of the BBC report.

But Shaath said the Palestinians at the meeting did not think the 
president was suggesting that God actually spoke to him. "I think it's a 
manner of speech," Shaath said. "I don't think he meant an actual call 
from God. He was talking about a commitment. The man wasn't saying there 
was an angel hovering over his head talking to him.

"We took it as a commitment of the highest level by Mr. Bush to really 
invest his effort and his determination to get an independent 
Palestinian state. We welcome this commitment by the president and hope 
he will fulfill it."

It wasn't the first time Bush used the symbolism of his Christian 
beliefs to describe the U.S. role on the international stage. U.S. 
foreign policy is still paying for Bush's post-Sept. 11 description of 
the U.S. war on terror as a crusade, a term that reminded many people in 
the Middle East of the medieval Christian crusades in which European 
warriors trying to wrest Jerusalem and the Holy Land from Islamic rule 
killed untold thousands of Muslims.

"One of the biggest problems the Bush administration has is the 
translation of American Christian culture to the world, and specifically 
to Muslim countries," said commentator Micah D. Halpern, author of "What 
You Need to Know About: Terror."

"It's not that these societies are foreign to Christians, it's just that 
the Christianity that Bush embraces is not the Christianity that these 
Muslim countries see at home," Halpern said. "In that mistranslation, 
his message is ballooned out of proportion. One of America's biggest 
diplomatic mistakes is their lack of understanding of local Muslim and 
Arab cultures abroad. You can't just throw out the word God and assume 
that everyone's on the same page."

When Condoleezza Rice arrived in the West Bank last June for her first 
visit as secretary of state, Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Zahar went on 
Palestinian television to accuse Bush of launching a wave of crusades 
that had already claimed the lives of 70,000 Islamic martyrs.

"This is a new ... war of crusades that Bush is leading," said Al-Zahar, 
interspersing the English word crusade with the Arabic equivalent "hamla 
salibiyya." In 2001, Pentagon officials junked the name "Operation 
Infinite Justice" for the war on terror after realizing it could upset 
Muslims' belief that only God can dispense "infinite justice."

Although U.S. officials have tried to play down the war on terror as a 
clash of civilizations or a war of Christians against Muslims, the 
imagery of the United States as the reincarnation of those medieval 
warriors has taken hold.

Osama bin Laden's videotaped speeches are laced with references to 
crusaders and infidels, designed to stoke religious sensitivities.

Sheikh Dr. Ahmad Abd Al-Latif, a professor at Um Al-Qura University in 
Saudi Arabia, told viewers on Saudi Channel TV1 last year that the 
U.S.-led wars to oust the leasers of Afghanistan and Iraq was evidence 
of the Christians' "cruel aggression against Islamic countries."

"This is a crusading war whose goal is to harm Muslims," he said.

Page A - 12
URL: 
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/10/07/MNGNVF3SFM1.DTL 


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