Obama's Relgious War

Perverse Vanity

The days of the Crusades are long gone.  But Islamists have so reconstructed history that they believe they are living amidst another Western Crusader campaign.  So, let's leave them to that particular distortion and self-deceit.  What needs concern us in the West is the religious war about to be waged by President Obama.  It is our duty to think carefully through, not from Islamist eyes, but from clear sighted objective perception.  For many in the West amongst the Commentariat this would be painful indeed.

We would begin by observing that going to war, as Obama has declared himself bent to do, is always a religious act.  It always involves the imposition of a religion to one degree or other, because it necessarily involves the use of force--deadly force--justified by the beliefs of the aggressors, regardless of the non-belief of the targets.  "You rulers of Syria have done something wrong in our eyes.  We will wage war upon you for vengeance, because you have breached some principles (ethics, morals, fundamental beliefs) we believe are ultimate verities." 

When Obama goes to war, we need to ask, In the name of what religion is he going to kill?
  To be justified the religion ought to be true, at the least.  Obama is not a religious man in a formal, creedal sense.  He is an Unbeliever, a secularist.  But, like all men, he is nevertheless deeply religious.  He has ultimate beliefs that he holds true, no matter what.  He believes that these truths are self-evident and binding upon all human beings.  He believes that violation of these truths is sufficiently blasphemous to warrant the use of deadly force upon the guilty.

This is becoming more clear as debate swirls about the US going to war in Syria.  Obama cannot point to a clear and present danger to the US as justification.  Neither can he point to a clear and present danger to the Sunni supported forces opposing the government in Syria as justification.  After all, over 100,000 people (warriors, women, and children, and other non-combatants) have already been killed in that conflict over a period of two years and Obama has not gone to war. And even if he could find a clear and present danger to Sunni insurgents, why does the United States have an obligation to go to war in their behalf?  And if it does, why just Sunni insurgents.  There are thousands of similar evils being perpetrated upon the globe at this very moment.  Why would not Obama have his wars defending them all?

But the president has revealed his mind in the matter.  He has declared that it is the moral obligation of the United States to go to war against the Syrian government and use deadly force, killing even non-combatants (what the American military euphemistically refer to as "collateral damage").  How, moral?  What morality is this?  One nation is going to go to war against another in the name of a moral principle.  What is it?  Fortunately, Obama has been forthright: it is the moral principle of "humanity"--by which one presumes he means acting humanely, or acting for the greater good of all humanity on the planet, or something.  Who knows.  It is a swirling mist.

The particular occasion or provocation is the Syrian government's use of poison gas (alleged at this point, but let's grant it for the present).  That violates the moral principles of Obama and the entire United States (he reckons).  He no doubt wishes he could invoke the conscience of the entire world, but the UN--being made up of the entire world as represented through their respective governments--disagrees.  So now, Obama is manifest as one who believes (no doubt religiously) that the entire world's conscience can be discerned by just one nation (the United States)--and more than that, by just one person within that nation, its president.  (It is true that Obama has sought the imprimatur of  Congress upon this decision, but he has also declared that whether Congress agrees or not, he will go to war.)  This one person, on behalf of just one nation, can declare transcendental truths on behalf of all other human beings.  More, he can buttress those truths by deadly force.  He can command his nation go to war in their defence. 

Behold Obama's religion.  He would impose it upon all others.  He alone is so sure of these religious truths, so adamant in their verity, that in the name of the nation he leads, he will invoke his god and go to war.  The Syrian government will be punished and held to account before the countenance of Obama's god. 

The Islamists are right to a point.  They are confronted with another crusade.  Different religion, but a Western Crusade, nonetheless, to invade and wreak vengeance, and kill in the name of a god.  But this time the name of the god is Man, and Obama is his prophet. 

How ashamed we are to be human and how loathsome is the false prophet.  How we detest such perverse idolatry. 

We expect that Obama will go to war.  He will bomb a few chemical weapon sites--now ensconced amongst civilians.  Men, women and children and materials will be destroyed.  Nothing will be gained.  The Syrian government will grow more determined, more deadly.  Many more lives will be lost.  The whole exercise will extol the perverse vanity of  the religion of humanitarianism.  Man as god always was, and always will be, a deadly doctrine.