More Beheadings

I heard yesterday that two abducted Italian women, aid workers, may have been killed in Iraq by insurgents. Meanwhile, two more Americans have been beheaded and a British man is pleading with Blair for his head.

These images are of course infuriating. Only by the grace of God will I even be able to contemplate loving my enemies on this one. My more natural desire is for our military to blow up places like Fallujah.

I'm not going to use these feelings to complain about how our military is prosecuting the war. I'm 100% behind our military. That's not to deny that they may have made some tactical mistakes. I think it was John McCane who said that they they should not have backed off once they entered Fallujah until they were in control of the city. I know I couldn't do any better. Even if I think going to war with Iraq was a mistake--the timing in particular--we are there and have a moral obligation to see the Iraqi people through.

So how does this bear on how I will vote?

On the one hand, I probably agree with Guliani that Bush was the right person to have in office on 9-11. What I mean is, I support the move we made against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afganistan. I'm not fully convinced that Gore would have "gone in" like that.

But I wish Gore had been in office in the lead up to war with Iraq. Will we have lost as many soldiers in Iraq as we lost people on 9-11 before that mess is through? And what of the killings we will experience for the next thirty years from the bin Laden's we have created from our action there?

So again, what about the future? Who do I want to be in after the next 9-11, if there is one?

I'll admit that it's a hard question for me. On the one hand, surely America will insist on tracking down those guilty for any such attack. Can we really imagine that a Kerry will have any choice but to pursue anyone guilty of such atrocities? I think no matter who is in office, the people will make sure that justice is pursued.

But I'm frankly not interested in attacking any other countries. Do I want Bush in office because I know he'll attack other countries while Kerry won't? HA! No way! Do I want Bush in office because I know he'll use any attacks on us as an excuse to attack tangentially related countries, resulting in further depletion of American lives as well as further deficit increase? Probably not.

In the end, I suspect this is a good time to have someone in office whose disposition is against going to war. Frankly, while Bush can't admit it (political suicide), I suspect he himself wouldn't go to war with Iraq if he had it to do over again. He had visions of peaches and cream and "I love you American liberators" dancing in his head. I suspect he's actually learned a few things on this score. You can bet he will think a lot harder before he launches a war against any one else--including those forces that may actually be threats to our future.