To Those Who Died Today

What are we fightin' for?

What will I tell my daughter?
What will you tell your son?
Where were all the doves?
That we were nothing but a shadow,
a faceless generation devoid of love?

The crucifix ain't no baseball bat
Tell me what kind of God is that?
Ain't nothing more godless than a war
So what are we fightin' for?

Excerpt from the alternative music group Live.

This post is dedicated to all the people who died in Iraq today. It was a bad day, with violence throughout the country. So much killing, hate, and destruction.

Both sides are equally guilty. I don't understand exactly why so many people in the Middle East are so eager to become suicide bombers. Maybe their situation is desperate or maybe they want their 72 virgins. I do not know. On the aircraft that went down in Pennsylvania on 9/11 I did hear the recording of the terrorist screaming, "God is great" as he dove the plane into the ground. God must NOT be so great if he's allowing an aircraft full of innocent people to die.

And an invasion disguised as a "liberation?" What is up with that? No question that Saddam was a thug, but with the creative minds of our nation we could have come up with a way to address the problem. Instead, we acted rashly.

Maybe this isn't an oil war after all. Maybe it is a religious war between fundamentalists. But what is up with Islam, Judaism, Christianity, and all this global violence? Maybe our religions are like stretched out Silly Puddy — we stretch, bend, and modify our faiths to justify whatever the heck we feel like doing, whether it's justifying slavery, bashing gays, or blowing up infidels while screaming "God is great."

The Roman General Constantine tried the "God is Great" thing with great success on the evening of a great battle. A rival army was approaching and he was in big trouble. What should Constantine do? Of course, have a vision. The general looked up, saw a cross of light in the sun, and he told all of his soldiers to paint a cross on their shields. GOD told him to do it, so darn it, get your paint out and make those crosses. We are going to war. The God of Love is the God of War, and with his holy army, Constantine won the Battle of Milvian Bridge. Oh, and Constantine got to become emperor too.

So the Roman Empire converted to Christianity and the Empire never went away — it just moved to America. Come on, visit Washington, DC and it looks eerily similar to ancient Rome. It's 1700 years later, yet we are still painting crosses on our shields and going to war, and the so-called enemy is screaming "Holy Jihad" and going to war too. Nothing has changed.

God told him to use the sign he had been given as a safeguard in all of his battles. Thus, Constantine converted to Christianity and ordered the symbol of his Savior's name (the intersection of the Greek letter chi and rho) to represent his army. Constantine was victorious in the battle of the Milvian Bridge, and he continued to wear the symbol for Christ against every hostile power he faced.

But, oh, it's okay because Saddam tortured and killed his own people. Well, he had a rough bunch to rule over, I mean, now they are busy killing each other in ethnic, sectarian, and political violence. The Americans, I suppose, are mainly staying in their bases, but they are still getting killed too. They are lured out of their compounds and then attacked.

I'm not sure where it all ends or what it all means. However, I do know that the United States still hasn't learned its lesson. Maybe we will learn this time.