Bush's Decisions

Recently, a reader of my blog (and a dear friend) questioned me about the decisions I thought George Bush had made as president which didn't line up with the character and nature of God. (He didn't write in to Dear Victorious, because he is a personal friend and knows my personal e-mail.) At any rate, I thought I'd publish the answer here - for posterity's sake.

Specifically what decisions did George Bush make that you don't believe line up with the character and nature of God?

Dear _____,

My first thought was torture, but another came to my mind right after that.

The first thing George Bush did that I thought was a clear violation of his own principles was to declare war on Iraq in violation of the United Nations. We are members of the U.N. and agreed to abide its resolutions on foreign matters. The U.N. agreed to go into Afghanistan. It did not believe we had sufficient evidence to go into Iraq. President Bush disagreed and declared war on Iraq anyway - in clear violation of our U.N. agreements.

I don't believe God told George Bush to do this. And it turned out George was wrong. There were no weapons of mass destruction. And the U.S. has been paying for that mistake for years. We will be paying for that mistake for years. It has been one of the most expensive wars the U.S. has ever fought.

The second thing George Bush did that I thought was a clear violation of his own principles was to consent to - as in not stop wrong imprisonment of suspected war criminals. We captured and held people in prison without charging them of any crime. Many of them have been held for years - without being charged. This is a clear violation of our own U.S. Constitution. It's also immoral.

Finally, George Bush consented to - or at least failed to prohibit - gross torture of suspected war criminals as an interrogation technique. Some of the torture was heinous. There is nothing Biblical about it. In no way could it be constituted as "loving our enemies."

I've not said that George Bush was an bad man or an evil man. But as someone who professed to be a born-again Christian, he has fallen quite short of making decisions that line up with the character and nature of the Christ he professes to be submitted and surrendered to.