CNN.com – Palestinian: Bush spoke of Iraq as divine mission – Oct 7, 2005:
In advance excerpts from the television series “Elusive Peace: Israel and the Arabs” to be broadcast this month, Shaath says: “President Bush said to all of us: ‘I’m driven with a mission from God. 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 him as saying.
In response, White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters in Washington: “He’s never made such comments.”
Shaath, who at the time was foreign minister under then- prime minister Abbas, confirmed what he had told the BBC.
But he added: “It was really a figure of speech (by Bush). We felt he was saying that he had a mission, a commitment, his faith in God would inspire him … rather than a metaphysical whisper in his ear.”
In the past, this wouldn’t have been a huge deal. The problem I have w/ this is that we’re supposed to be a nation that’s working on separating church from state.
The president was re-elected based largely on the support of the ultra-conservative states that rallied behind a man who was so openly religious. I don’t have a problem with this: the idea behind our system is that people can choose a leader based on whatever their own personal beliefs are. The guy who wins will ideally be the one who’s beliefs match up best w/ the majority of the nation.
Here’s the rub: we’re also a nation that claims to be about welcoming all people and honoring *their* beliefs. If we’re TRULY going to live up to this ideology, then we need to govern our nation w/ some sense of religious neutrality, leading back to the point of separating church from state.
Freeing Iraqis from tyranny is an admirable notion, and it’s definitely A Good Thing™, but committing an entire nation to a war that has no end in sight (which is great news for Halliburton, no?) based on one man’s belief’s is SO two thousand years ago.