The narrative of the Iraq invasion, properly told, resembles a story out of Shakespeare.

Oh it does resemble a tragedy…. if you don’t consider the Americans as the protagonists, but as the Other. Think of Bush as the Dauphin from Henry V, perhaps

When it comes to the use of force abroad, you are far too generous here. A matter, I suspect, of the usual human failure to transcend your own perspective.

Were you a member of a foreign community opposed to collaboration with US forces interfering in their nation, and had you seen how US invasion and occupation rips apart your society, hands power to the worst parts of it (those willing to collaborate) and routinely abuses and slaughters the best (those willing to stand up and resist), as well as numerous innocent bystanders, you might recognise that the more accurate statement in this context would be:

“I doubt that anyone is virtuous enough to refrain from consistently wrongfully using the enormous power the executive has”.

To the average American, those distant injustices are just numbers – of people arbitrarily detained and brutally treated, of people killed, of people forced to flee their homes and lose everything. To the substantial proportion of Americans who are positive promoters of evil, these people are mere collateral damage in their government’s great project (whether “defensive” or “humanitarian”). Even to most of those Americans who recognise that their government’s actions are wrongful, the victims are bloodless statistics worthy only of theoretical disapproval or minor political debate.

In fact each and every one of them represents another indelible stain of foul guilt upon America and Americans, and a cause of burning, frustrated hatred of the US amongst their relatives and friends.

If the price is not paid in this world, we can hope it will be paid in the next. Americans should indeed tremble for their country, if and when they reflect that God is just.

On matters of national security, the executive has far more latitude than any institution should ever have, and it commands a frightening degree of automatic deference from Congress, the media and the public. This deference becomes even greater when the media and the public assume the executive is acting in good faith. The potential for abuse is staggering, even, or perhaps especially, when the government is staffed by “decent” and “well-intentioned” people. There are very few people in the world who consciously acknowledge that they are doing truly wrong and evil things when they do them. Most people believe that they are doing the right things in a good cause. In this way, the “decent” and “well-intentioned” people working in the context of a dysfunctional constitutional system can sometimes be just as dangerous as willfully malicious people, if not more so.

A church I used to be a member of just saw its pastor resign after having convinced a poor young woman to have an affair with him, she having been “counseled” by him after depression. My wife and I, along with a number of other families, had warned the elders in years past of this pastor and of his manipulative (though at that point not quite so severe) nature. But they assured us that he was a good man, and that all in the church were “good people,” and that it was a “great community,” and everything would be OK.

Interesting, in light of this, to read the above. Church and state may be separate — and should be — but they can certainly resemble one another. And if a church can go so astray, what surprise is it to see our governments do so too?