Editorial

Pre-emptive War Reflects Cynicism,
As Well As "True Believer" Absolutism

Is it possible to be a cynical ‘true believer?’ The very question seems like a contradiction in terms if not an oxymoron, yet George W. Bush seems to embody the concept.

Mr. Bush may be the most cynical president the nation has ever endured, doing everything from giving national forest land to lumber interests in order to prevent forest fires, to telling Americans that by arbitrarily attacking other nations the United States will be more secure.

And simultaneously he loudly and persistently proclaims himself a ‘born again Christian,’ which has not been well discussed or its meaning dissected by the national media, perhaps because it is frightening to consider that the leader of the most powerful nation on earth is a ‘true believer.’   Someone who feels that they have directly felt the hand of God, and further, someone who has proclaimed personal failure and weakness and given over his or her self-determination – self-will – to be saved, to be ‘born again’ as a vessel for God’s will, is likely to act with the confidence that whatever he or she does after that compact is made is somehow only possible through the ‘will of God.’ And if the individual is suddenly more successful, where before he or she was inept or either unsuccessful or  only marginally successful, the sense of righteousness will be all the more intense.

With that sort of rationale automatically comes the evangelical desire to ‘save’ others; the saving often means converting others in order to ‘save’ them from the damnation that 'true believers' are certain  will occur to all who have not been ‘born again,’ etc., etc.

Absolutism is absolutism, no matter who practices it.

"We made a decision, you see: We will engage these enemies in these countries and around the world so we do not have to face them here at home," George W. Bush said over the July 4^th weekend in a speech given in Charleston, West Virginia.

He then played upon the anger and fear that people have felt since 9/11, and which has been exacerbated by the beheadings and other horrors committed since by the Muslim true believers.

"You can't talk sense to them," Mr. Bush said, referring to terrorists. "You can't negotiate with them." And the audience roared its approval.

"We must be relentless and determined to do our duty," Bush concluded. But here again cynicism reigns. The implication is that America must decide what nations, peoples and individuals present a danger, and pursue them before they can harm America. Having a president who can decide who poses a threat, according to the Bush doctrine, it then somehow becomes "our (American) duty" to subdue them before they can act as our government suspects they will, and while incapacitating them, perhaps we can ‘save’ them as well. Bullets and bibles.

Strike first and ask questions later has never been an accepted American policy, much less an American creed, but in the world of true believers that is irrelevant.

Pre-emptive war is nothing short of belligerent absolutism, and the justification offered by Mr. Bush is in the bald-faced manner of a true believer, someone so certain of being right that nothing else matters; not history, not the law, not truth, not long standing principles, nothing. The end, for all true believers, justifies the means.