Jackson, The fundamental issue

One of the basic American constitutional values is that a person has a right to believe whatever she or he wants, and may freely express these beliefs.

Never entirely accepted in the United States --- fractious society that it is --- this idea, insisted upon by the Jeffersonians and enshrined in the First Amendment to the US Constitution, has spread over much of the world and nowadays provides the principal litmus test that distinguishes free and unfree countries.

Most important, and most controversial then and now, was the bit about religion.

No official state religion? In the US you have always had a fringe that would declare a Christian theocracy, but most Americans are afraid of people who think like that and the popular culture mocks them.

No prohibition of the free exercise of religion? Whether it's the Jews or the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Moonies or the Mormons, the Nation of Islam or Islam in general, the Quakers or the ghost dancers, American history is replete with attempts to suppress particular religions. However, these efforts have largely failed to thrive.

Why?

Because the United States is a nation of immigrants, the early generations of which contained a high proportion of refugees from religious wars and sectarian persecutions. Because many of the founders of the American republic were freemasons, heirs to the tradition of tolerance that arose when the gory atrocities of the Crusades and the realities of doing business in Jerusalem led the bankers for those Christian holy wars, the Knights Templar, to conclude that a good Muslim or a good Jew was as good as a good Catholic.

Freedom of religion and the prohibition of an official government theology were put into the Bill of Rights because the American people didn't want any part of crusades or jihads or holy inquisitions.

But now the president of the United States has declared a crusade, a Christian holy war to the death against the world's billion-strong Muslim community. It's a fundamental break with American traditions. It's a policy error that if continued would mean at least a generation of war on many fronts, which the United States is far from certain to win.

Wait a minute, you may protest. Just because George W. Bush declared a "crusade" doesn't mean that he meant it that way.

The problem is, he had the best educated and most expensive team of advisors in the world, people who know very well what the concept "crusade" means to Muslims and to many Christians as well, and he still used that word. And then to emphasize the point, he ordered a "pre-emptive war" against a mainly Muslim country. He ordered the use of torture against Muslims who had committed no offense. As part of that mistreatment, troops under his command went well out of their way to insult Islam.

Do not call W's attitude "fundamentalist Christian." There is no such thing as a fundamentalist Christian Republican. Jerry Falwell, Ralph Reed, Pat Robertson, John Ashcroft et al say that every word of the Bible is the inerrant word of God which must be obeyed, but many of them actually discount the authority of the bit about not bearing false witness and not a one of them supports the institution of the jubilee found in chapter 25 of the Book of Leviticus. There is nothing the least bit Christian in Bush's call for a new crusade.

The fundamental policy issue in dispute in this year's US election is whether Western Civilization will be dragged by George W. Bush and his gang of fanatics on the one hand, and Osama bin Laden and his gang of fanatics on the other, into an immense conflagration with Islamic Civilization.

Yes, Osama called a holy war against us first, because he considered the presence of American troops on the Arabian Peninsula to be a profane insult against Islam. But the United States could have reached out to the great majority of the world's Muslims to isolate Osama bin Laden instead of driving them into the jihadis' arms by declaring a crusade.

The fundamental administrative issue in dispute in this year's US election is George W. Bush's dogmatism. He was told by honest and conscientious men and women in the intelligence agencies that Iraq, grim as it was under Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, posed no immediate military threat to anyone. The people who tendered that accurate assessment were treated as if they were disloyal. He was told by honest and conscientious military commanders that his Iraq war plans were flawed because they didn't include enough troops to maintain order and turn the country's water, electricity and phones back on with reasonable promptness. The people who tendered that accurate assessment were treated as cowards. He was told by honest and conscientious long-time friends of the United States that an occupation of Iraq would prompt ferocious and prolonged resistance. The people who tendered that accurate assessment were treated as enemies.

And now the United States is estranged from its old friends, while more and more young Muslims are rallying to Osama bin Laden's perverse cause.

The need to confront and defeat al Qaeda is not in dispute in the contest between Bush and Kerry. The choice is about how this will be done: Bush's reckless American charge toward Armageddon, or Kerry's more deliberate and international approach to the problem.

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opinion

The fundamental issue