Question from Samuraigamer:
Few days ago finally the man who killed 3000 INNOCENT people *for his religious convictions* at 9/11 was killed in the name of justice. Should the rest of the world expect that George Bush, the man who has killed over a million INNOCENT people *despite his religious convictions*, is to be put to death as well?
Answer by SmartLX:
The policies of the George W. Bush administration that resulted in so many deaths in Afghanistan, Iraq and beyond were not entirely implemented despite the man’s religious convictions; rather, it was at least partially because of them. As he revealed to the French president at the time, he apparently thought he was waging a battle against the minions of Satan. Many Christians share his conviction; the broader Middle East conflicts are supposed to drive a series of prophesied events leading to the Rapture and Armageddon, which is a good thing to those who expect to be Raptured. So they escalate the fighting however they can.
The world shouldn’t sensibly expect Bush to be killed anytime soon, if nothing else because Bush is much better protected than bin Laden. As for whether Bush deserves capital punishment, if he does then so do a great many of the world’s leaders, past and present, for initiating other bloody conflicts. The responsibility of individual politicians for the actions of soldiers of the state is a philosophical can of worms, but it’s safe to say that it’s difficult to single Bush out.
One thought on “Osama vs Bush”
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I am not sure of “millions” being killed by George Bush and his policies, thousands maybe. A critical difference between George Bush and Osama is that GB could be voted away, and if saner voices did not prevail, one could at-least look forward to the end of his term of buffoonery. The same cannot have been said of Osama.
Another difference is that GB was the product of an established system. Osama more or less cultivated his own institution and planted himself in control of it. And his system was meant to be just a disruptive system – a system to disrupt states he regarded as bad/ corrupted.
Which also brings me to another point – the point of religious faith being disruptive to rational thought in most cases. When the leader of the most powerful state on earth can take rotten decisions based on religious convictions, it really dilutes the case for religion as a thing that makes you do the right stuff. Both Osama and GB are in their own separate ways examples of what harm literal religious thinking can do.
No system is perfect – the likes of Osama and GB will be thrown up as leaders in the world as long as we humans continue not to want to exercise our brains too much, not to think for ourselves. Its so nice to follow the dictats of an easy philosophy (Non-Islam = Infidel, Syria+North Korea+Iraq = Axis of Evil), so difficult to reason out things.
But thankfully in some systems, you do not have to live long with fools that the system spurts out as leaders time and again.