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Karma hits the war mongers
HIGH GROUND By William M. Esposo
Inq7.net 2006-11-13
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"Give war a chance" proclaimed the headline of Alex Magno's column when the debate for or against the invasion of Iraq was raging.
"It's either you're with us or against us" US President George W. Bush hurled his arrogant challenge to the rest of the world.
The hawks that promoted the Iraq War were so self-assured of the rightness of their cause, albeit on false premises, that they reminded us of the Holy Crusades that sought to regain the Holy Land from the Saracens in the 12th century. Well, just like those ill-fated and failed crusades, the Iraq War promoters have now also fallen by the wayside-defeated, scorned and shamed.
True to his historic role, it was the late Pope John Paul II who registered the greatest opposition to the invasion of Iraq. It was also Pope John Paul II who achieved the milestone inroads towards inter-religious dialogue with the Muslims.
But the neo-conservative hawks, who like to wrap themselves with the mantle of religious fervor, would not listen to the words of the late Pope. They branded themselves the "Coalition of the Willing." Today, they are nothing more than the Coalition of the Fallen.
The first to fall from grace was Spain's Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar. Then it was the turn of Italy's Silvio Belusconi to be discharged from office. UK's Tony Blair, perhaps the smartest of the lot, read the handwriting on the wall, avoided the fate that was to befall him and announced that he was stepping down as Prime Minister.
Last Tuesday, the American people regained their wits (many all over the world thought that the Americans must be a dim-witted lot to have re-elected George W. Bush) and repudiated Bush and the Republican Party in the November 7, 2006 US Mid-term Elections.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, one of the most controversial promoters of the Iraq War, was fired barely 36 hours after the American voters expressed their sentiments. Days earlier, Bush announced that Rumsfeld was staying despite the pressures that came even from fellow Republicans.
Iraq is lost. It is just a matter of time that the US will be forced to exit Iraq, just as they fled from Vietnam in 1975. But the fallout of the Iraq War misadventure extends to far more serious concerns that go beyond the territorial boundaries of Iraq.
The Iraq War was waged on the justification that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and was supporting Islamic terrorists like Al Qaeda. Both premises have been disproved and the fact that American boys are dying for all the wrong reasons heightens the rage of the American public.
However, in Iran and in North Korea there are real developments towards the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction, nuclear bombs. In fact, North Korea already tested its nuclear bomb last month. Little is known about the status of Iran's nuclear program.
Iran and North Korea are far greater threats than Iraq ever was to US interests and security. But because of the Iraq misadventure, the US now finds itself in no position to take a military option in dealing with the Iran and North Korea problems.
Just as the stakes are real and very high, the world's only superpower finds itself powerless. The American people will not allow another military campaign-not at this time, not after the Iraq quagmire.
Christians call it God's justice. The Buddhists call it karma.
You may email William M. Esposo at: macesposo@yahoo.com
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