One should take great comfort in knowing that we have a Christian president. In the White House, we have a man who studies the scriptures daily and strives to emulate the perfect example of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
We have a president who is committed to promoting a "culture of life" where, as he said in last year's first political debate, "every being counts and every person matters."
For the first time in history, we have a president who named Christ as his favorite political philosopher.
Thus there can be no doubt what his response will be to the recent Newsweek story regarding the Pentagon's discussion on training and releasing "death squads" in Iraq much like the Reagan administration did in the 1980s in Latin America.
According to Newsweek, "the Pentagon is intensively debating an option that dates back to a still-secret strategy in the Reagan administration's battle against the leftist guerrilla insurgency in El Salvador in the early 1980s. Then, faced with a losing war against Salvadoran rebels, the U.S. government funded or supported 'nationalist' forces that allegedly included so-called death squads directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers. Eventually the insurgency was quelled, and many U.S. conservatives consider the policy to have been a success -- despite the deaths of innocent civilians and the subsequent Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal."
Knowing the historical price of such an action --- the lives of untold numbers of innocent civilians --- our moral, Christian president will surely step in and prevent such a plan from coming to fruition.
After all, according to Human Rights Watch, "Experience from countries such as Colombia, Sudan and Russia (in Chechnya) shows that 'death squads' and paramilitary groups created to combat insurgencies take on a life of their own and are often difficult to rein in. Once established, it is difficult to prevent them from killing whomever they want for whatever reasons they want, opening up the possibility that civilians will be targeted because of personal or political vendettas in violation of the Geneva Conventions."
Christ most certainly would not support such actions.
While Bush has yet to comment on the death squad issue, one can guess his perspective by a sign that always speaks volumes about a Christian: the company he keeps. Both Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld have compared Iraq to El Salvador. Hence it is not much of a stretch that they would suggest similar tactics, regardless of the cost.
More importantly, though: John Negroponte, the ambassador to Honduras in the '80s who turned a blind eye to the U.S.-trained death squads' atrocities, is now ambassador to Baghdad. Convicted perjurer Elliott Abrams, who Bush's father pardoned for his Iran-Contra convictions, is one of Bush's senior advisers.
But I'm sure our president was just practicing Christ's call in Matthew 18:22 to forgive seven times 70 times. (That seems to be his policy with everyone else in his administration.)
Yes, with our country in the hands of a humble follower of God, we, the people of Iraq and the rest of the world need not worry.
Surely the president will learn from the mistakes of the other god that he and his party worship --- Ronald Reagan. If he's smart --- and we all know he's a geyser of wisdom and knowledge --- he'll avoid the same scar that marred Reagan.
Write to David at swimminginbrokenglass@gmail.com
Visit http://www.bsu.edu/web/dmswindle
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