My political essays often emerge from musings on unrelated topics. I like to think that gives open minded readers a fresh perspective. This particular essay came out of a problem with a Foxpro database.
As one of my jobs, I manage and troubleshoot databases for the local schools. One persistent data corruption problem plagued me for six months and I spent numerous hours struggling to diagnose it. One day, I stopped at Borders to find a good FoxPro book for help, but they didn't even have one.
I also work on many other computer related problems for many other clients and one of my most useful tools is a Google search (aka the verb "to google"). As I drove home from Borders, the problem weighed on my mind and suddenly I thought, "Why don't you google it, you moron?" The next thing I asked myself was, "And why didn't you think of that in the first 10 minutes?"
But then, as they ever wander, my thoughts tackled the problem of how to avoid such obvious blindness in problem solving. How do you see what is so obvious it is invisible? I finally decided that a good tool to use was to ask, "What would God do?"
The tool is not morally based; it is based on the assumption that, to God, all choices are available. If you are God, you don't miss the obvious solution. Of course, God wouldn't have googled it; he would already have known what to do. But, by imagining what God might do, the problem solver can free himself or herself from the constraints of preconceived limitations.
It wasn't but a few seconds before I applied the tool to the problem of Iraq. Iraq is a vexing problem indeed for the conservatives who desired it and the Democrats who went along with it. They are either trying hard not to think about it or wringing their hands in anguish for lack of an easy way out. But what about people who really want to find an answer? My solution? Just ask, "What would God do?"
Keep in mind that the tool works only because God has unlimited options. Nothing prevents God from doing anything. God doesn't care who gets embarrassed. God is not interested in national honor. God doesn't care if He gets re-elected (nobody runs against God). God is not afraid to admit He made a mistake. Granted, God doesn't make mistakes, but I think we can all agree He would not be afraid of admitting He made one.
So, if faced with an open ended war, constant death, violence and suffering, what would God do? Bear in mind, the user of the tool is not trying to reveal God's will. You check with Pat Robertson for that. The user of the tool is trying to imagine what they themselves think God would do. Big difference.
So, what would God do? I think he'd get out of Iraq. If there was no reason to go in there, then, with things going to hell, there would be no reason to stay. I think God would require good reasons. In lieu of reasons, God would call it off.
Conservatives say there were good reasons to go into Iraq, lots of them. You know why there were lots of them? Because they weren't actually good reasons. They were all, to the last one, shaky reasons ( I'm being diplomatic here - other adjectives are weak, half-baked, made up, false, or deliberately misleading). So, conservatives decided that, in light of the shakiness of the reasons, it was best to have a lot of them. This shows that conservatives do not understand reason arithmetic.
As a review, regular arithmetic goes like this: one brick plus one brick equals two bricks. One half a brick plus one half a brick equals one brick.
Reason arithmetic doesn't work that way. For example, one good reason plus one good reason equals two good reasons. However, one shaky reason plus one shaky reason does NOT equal one good reason. It equals two shaky reasons. In fact, any number of shaky reasons added together will not add up to one good reason.
God understands this, which is why he never bought into the Iraq war in the first place. Unfortunately, we didn't have God for president, we had Bush.
So, if you imagine what God would do now, you can get an inkling of what one with infinite wisdom would do about Iraq. It doesn't even take infinite wisdom really. Just a little bit will do.
We went into Iraq; we can get out of Iraq. All we need do is decide. Doing something stupid is not a crime. Allowing continued stupidity in the name of America IS a crime. Let Cheney, Krystal, Barnes, etc. deal with the failure. It belongs to them. They'll just blame America's lack of will anyway. Don't try to debate it, just imagine what God would do. Don't worry about who to blame. God will sort them out.