WAR, RELIGION, AND IRONY:
Reflections on Lincoln, Bush, and American Leadership
By David R. Cook
From the earliest settlements on the American continent the image of this new nation-to-be was suffused with a providential ethos. Whether it was surviving privations or enjoying the fruits of abundant resources, Americans have tended to equate fortuitous circumstances with the blessings of God.
This is the source of our American exceptionalism. American interests, American actions, American power is always deployed on the side of “good”. Our wars are always moral and we always are fighting on the side of righteousness. As noted, this national sense of ourselves has a very long history which continues unabated in the 21st Century world of global commerce and the threat of terrorism.
That America is a very “religious” nation is an undebateable fact. Unfortunately, this aspect of the American character has too often been expressed without awareness of the ironic situations into which American religiosity so often propels us. The vices which are hidden in our virtues go essentially unnoticed, especially by our leaders. The great exception to this tendency was Abraham Lincoln.

December 15, 2006

Open Letter to Senator Barack Obama:

From: David Cook, Menomonie, WI

As you ponder whether you will enter the race for the Democratic nominee for President in 2008, I would like to share with you my heartfelt request that you only make the decision to enter this contest if you are willing to lose the nomination on the basis of your policy positions.
I am writing as a progressive Democrat, a senior citizen on Medicare, and an active member of the United Church of Christ.

Anyone who knows anything about the nature of the sectarian violence in Iraq knows that there can be no “victory” in Iraq for the United States. Richard Haass, a former Bush State Department official, said recently, “The Iraq situation is not winnable in any sense of the word ‘winnable’.”

Mr. Bush knows this because he was told this by Fouad Ajami, a Shia intellectual and professor at the School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University. Bush invited Ajami to the White House last June to discuss the Shia/Sunni sectarian violence. He told the president that the Shia resurgence in Iran and Iraq was a historical process that would prove difficult and probably could not be stopped. Ajami said, “The idea that the Shia will make their claim on political power in the affairs of the Arab world and that it will be peaceful is not really tenable.”