Pentagonal juxtapositions (or, Holy assassins, Baath-man!)
![[The dodecahedron]](/mt/archives/images/12hedron_132x145.jpg)
Seymour Hersh writes a new article in The New Yorker, Moving Targets, that begins —
The Bush Administration has authorized a major escalation of the Special Forces covert war in Iraq. … [The Special Forces group’s] highest priority is the neutralization of the Baathist insurgents, by capture or assassination.
This radical Pentagon news once again juxtaposes contrasting concepts on the teleprompter in my head …
An American who has advised the civilian authority in Baghdad said, “The only way we can win is to go unconventional. We’re going to have to play their game. Guerrilla versus guerrilla. Terrorism versus terrorism. We’ve got to scare the Iraqis into submission.”
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness;
only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate;
only love can do that.
Hate multiplies hate,
violence multiplies violence,
and toughness multiplies toughness
in a descending spiral of destruction. …
The chain reaction of evil —
hate begetting hate,
wars producing more wars —
must be broken,
or we shall be plunged
into the dark abyss of annihilation.”
—Martin Luther King, Jr. at MLK Jr. Quotations, cited from his 1963 book Strength to Love)
Can logic — or sanity — encompass both these beliefs? (I think not.)
One of the key planners of [this] Special Forces offensive is Lieutenant General William (Jerry) Boykin … In October, the Los Angeles Times reported that Boykin, while giving Sunday-morning talks in uniform to church groups, had repeatedly equated the Muslim world with Satan. Last June … he told a congregation in Oregon that “Satan wants to destroy this nation, he wants to destroy us as a nation, and he wants to destroy us as a Christian army.” … The Muslim world hates America, he said, “because we are a nation of believers.”
(emphasis mine)
“I say to you who are listening now to Me: [in order to heed, make it a practice to] love your enemies, treat well (do good to, act nobly toward) those who detest you and pursue you with hatred,
“Invoke blessings upon and pray for the happiness of those who curse you, implore God’s blessing (favor) upon those who abuse you [who revile, reproach, disparage, and high-handedly misuse you]. …
“Love your enemies and be kind and do good [doing favors so that someone derives benefit from them] and lend, expecting and hoping for nothing in return but considering nothing as lost and despairing of no one; and then your recompense (your reward) will be great (rich, strong, intense, and abundant), and you will be sons of the Most High, for He is kind and charitable and good to the ungrateful and the selfish and wicked.
“So be merciful (sympathetic, tender, responsive, and compassionate) even as your Father is [all these].”
—Jesus (Luke 6:27-36, AMP)
Boykin says we are a nation of believers. But believers in whom?
“Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?”
—Jesus (Luke 6:46, NIV)
[story link via Meteor Blades at Daily Kos]
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