Chuckie Watch 30: Chuckie Still Believes

Now, ole Chuckie (CHARLIE DANIELS) is a man of faith. As one might guess from the title of his latest Soapbox rant: What Is The Truth? (01/26/04). But the faith in this one is about the "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq. Chuckie has a whole series of questions for those who are still concerned over the fact that the WMDs that were the main justication for the Iraq War don't appear to exist in our plane of reality. All along the lines of, "Do you really believe that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction?"

Well, uh, Chuckie, I know Saint Paul said that faith is the evidence of things not seen. But he was talking about the spiritual world of angels and so forth. And it's fine for John Aschroft to believe that calico cats are symbols of a literal Devil who would like to drag innocent souls down to a literal fiery Hell. But that doesn't mean we should base public policy on it. Especially public policy that involves going to war and killing people.

Chuckie's arguments are an adaptation of Sunday School teachers' attempts to scare pubescent young class members into behaving. As in, "Don't you believe that God is watching everything you do?" The effectiveness of such arguments in the face of raging teenage hormones is well known, if not always admitted.

And for once Chuckie's simpleton, pseudo-redneck argument is really not much different than what any Iraq War fan has to make at this point. Do you really want to believe that the main reason for the war was a lie? No, I don't either. I wish America and Britain were led by more honest, less warlike leaders. But we aren't.

Rather than putting confidence in faith-based intelligence claims that have turned out (at least in the material world) to be bogus, maybe Chuckie and war fans like him should have spent a little more time a year ago practicing their Christian faith. For instance, they might have given some thought to the religious obligation of Christians to oppose unjust wars rather than putting their faith in men like Bush and Rummy.

Then they wouldn't be in the position now of making vapid Sunday School arguments to justify their support for war and killing in this instance.