The Faith-Based War President

Gary Kamiya has written an interesting piece for Salon.com entitled, War, chaos and Bush's faith. The following is excerpted from that piece:

America is not the first country to be led like a half-hypnotized lamb to the slaughter by a delusional leader. The ultimate responsibility rests with Bush. Which raises a final question: Where did Bush's fatal hubris come from? Why did he think he could challenge God?

The question of how a president's faith affects his decisions is, of course, a matter of conjecture. But there is ample evidence that Bush's delusions about Iraq are inseparable from his religious faith. Of course, there are millions of deeply religious people whose faith has not led them to abandon reason. But Bush's faith appears to have only deepened his native arrogance: He sees it as a form of humility, a poor sinner's acceptance of God's will. Bush believes that God is on the side of this war, and that everything will therefore come out all right in the end. He does not care about the real world -- because for him it isn't the true reality. The war in Iraq, that horror in which real human beings are dying, is merely a stage before good finally triumphs over evil. And if that victory does not take place in our lifetime, it doesn't matter: All that matters is that he fought the good fight. This is why he did not concern himself, and still doesn't, with details such as whether this war is winnable in any non-biblical time frame.

So there are two related lessons America should take away from the Iraq disaster. First, don't treat war lightly. It is an insanely powerful and unpredictable agent, one that can destroy everything it touches. Second, beware of leaders whose devotion has not brought them real humility -- and beware of their wars. They will see war as a toy, which they control, or which is controlled by their God. But nobody controls war. Not even God.