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Virtuous Goals, Murderous Methods
by Susan McKee
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Do the ends justify the means? The question that has bedeviled philosophers since ancient times doesn't seem to bother contemporary Americans.
Ask people what they think about the war in Iraq, and you'll hear this: "They" flew planes into "our" buildings. Therefore, "we" are justified in annihilating "them".
"They" are, of course, all those "wild-eyed enemies of America" defined by religion (Muslim) and ethnicity (Arab). "We" of course are the patriotic Americans lined up behind the decisions of "our" president under the approving eye of a Christian God.
This macho swagger has raised hackles around the globe. The flood of goodwill toward the United States in the wake of 9/11 has all but evaporated. Then, there was commonality in the nearly universal revulsion to senseless acts of terrorism.
Now that the United States has decided to "go it alone", America is widely regarded as a bully. We're the mightiest military power the world has ever known. We're the strongest economic force the world has ever seen. Therefore, we should impose our worldview on the rest of the globe - just because we can. The end - a Pax Americana -- justifies the aggressive means.
Part of the problem lies in American ignorance of the world, but the worse problem is our ignorance of America. Ours is a nation of immigrants. The first groups of settlers didn't come here to establish religious freedom for anyone but themselves (the Salem witch trials, hangings of Quakers and lynching of Mormons are just a few examples of America's religious intolerance).
We are a secular nation founded by deists who consciously decided to separate government from religion for the betterment of both. Students of the European Enlightenment, they institutionalized its core tenets - belief in human progress, rational inquiry and religious tolerance. While European politicians remain the heirs of Hobbes and Locke, Descartes and Voltaire, Americans have turned away from the heritage of the Founding Fathers.
The Christian West has had a fear of the Muslim East since Islamic warriors first surged out of Arabia bent on the twin goals of conquest and conversion. Islam marched victoriously as far north as suburban Paris (in the 8th century) and the gates of Vienna (in the 16th). In between, the Crusades pitted Christian European knights directly against those of the Muslim Near East. The United States had direct conflict with the Muslim states of the Barbary Coast (in the 19th century), and it's obvious the current American foreign policy has an anti-Muslim bent.
But, there are Muslims in America - and there have been since Christopher Columbus landed in the Caribbean. Americans include observant Christians, secular Jews, charismatic Catholics, Black Muslims, heretical Orthodox, militant atheists, New Age pagans, and everything in between, beneath and beyond.
Many, inside the U.S. and outside, look at the apparent hold the Evangelical Christian Right has on American political discourse and shudder. It's great that American soldiers could celebrate Easter on Iraqi soil - but was that the point of this war? Is Franklin Graham, who branded Islam as a "very wicked and evil" religion, to be the spokesman for us all?
Europeans look at the Bible-thumping of the Born Again politicians in the States and see only the violent exclusionary impulse of those claiming a proprietary pipeline to God.
Are we the people of the United States of America willing to cede to these politicians a free hand to determine which ends are justified by which means? To quote Voltaire, "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
Here's a website on the European Enlightenment by Richard Hooker of the University of Wisconsin if you want to learn more.
About the Author
Susan McKee, M.A., M.S., is a writer in America's heartland. She is the travel editor for Indianapolis Eye.
Article Source: www.homehighlight.org
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