It's A Lost Cause

Lots of news on the radio about how badly the war in Iraq is going. It's a lost cause.

This may be a bit simplistic, but the "religious right," in this country, is wrong. Maybe our "religious right" put too much faith in deeply religious people of the Middle East. Maybe they thought the religious folks of that region would co-operate in a fledgling democracy. "After all, aren't they moral people with deep religious convictions, albeit Muslim?"

Well, the intolerance of that region has turned to sectarian violence and civil war. Religious fundamentalists will do that.

Here in America, it took our so called "good people;" often religious people, several hundred years to craft the liberal democracy we now enjoy. In the "good old days," we nearly exterminated the American Indian and made their religions illegal, until more recent times. We've had slavery and our own civil war.

It took us several hundred years and we are still learning the lessons of tolerance. Still learning how to celebrate diversity. If the Middle East learns these lessons in 50 years, it will be moving faster than our past history.

We have come a long way as a liberal democracy. We even have liberal and accepting religions.

We need to tend to our own needs better, so as to become an even greater example of civilization to the world. Continue to put our own house in order.

Just think, what if all the billions spent on "military in Iraq" could have been used domestically, on things like alternative energy. Our foreign policy could advance past the ulterior motive of keeping oil flowing.

That would be "domestic spending;" not the priority of most Republicans. It would also be idealism. Daring to dream.

Some would scoff, but look what so called "realistic thinking" has brought us - a lost cause in Iraq and a black hole for large sums of money, not to mention all the lives lost.

Right at the start, it looked like getting rid of Iraq's dictator had some merit. I admit, I was a fence sitter (undecided) on the question of yes, or no, back in 2003.

Now it looks like the various religious fanatics in that region are making any positive outcome improbable.