An Episcopal bishop speaks out on war

Thomas Friedman of the New York Times recently wrote: "The world hates George Bush more than any president in my lifetime. He is radioactive — and so caught up in his own ideological bubble that he is incapable of imagining or forging alternative strategies." It is the solemn duty of the elected officials from both parties to rise now and right this Ship of State.

Cowboy Diplomacy in a Frightening World

by Bishop John Shelby Spong

In one of its regular features The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on PBS recently showed the pictures of 16 more American military personnel who had recently lost their lives in Iraq. I watched with wrenching emotions. Each photograph represented the broken dreams of a now shattered family. These photographs were not just of a soldier or a marine, they were the pictures of a child, a spouse, a grandchild or a friend. The rest of the NewsHour chronicled the war going on in Lebanon, the bombardment of Gaza, the nuclear threats from Iran and North Korea, the newly rising tensions in Afghanistan and the civil strife in Iraq. It is a very uncertain world.

I suspect that there have been few eras in human history in which genuine peace has prevailed, but the tensions that have exploded into hot wars in recent days seem to me to be excessive. I do not know that any administration in Washington can be held responsible for all of the chaos across the globe at any one time but there is no question that this administration's actions have been a contributing factor to a number of the present tragedies.

(The entire article is here.)