Are We in a Holy War?: No

Illustration by Alexandria Clark / VOX Staff

By Alexandria Clark / VOX Staff
 
So many followers of Christianity and Islam, as well as outside onlookers, believe that we, the United States of America, and they, the Middle Eastern countries that harbor terrorists, are engaged in a holy war — a war primarily waged over differing religious beliefs than for political gain or social good.
 
They believe it’s a matter of fighting and defending our way of life in the name of their respective gods. But as history has shown us, religion may be a catalyst or influencer of war, but it is rarely the root cause.
 
In my opinion, war is fought for only one reason — power. For as long as mankind has existed, leaders have lusted for control over people, land and money. Religion is merely used as a way to stir up the masses and justify aggressive actions through scripture.
 
Terrorist leaders such as Osama Bin Laden strike out against Western civilization in the name of Allah, even calling the United States “The Great Satan,” when in reality all the want is to shift the balance of power.
 
Leaders currently in control of fundamental Islamist states, such as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, use religion to unify their region against the U.S. because alone, they risk losing their power — much like Saddam Hussein did in Iraq.
 
Though President Bush may invoke religious references to pepper his speeches about the war, I believe that it is merely to placate his strong base of fundamentalist Christian supporters. After the invasion of Iraq, Bush said: “God told me to strike at al Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam [Hussein], which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East.”
 
We forget that Bush once said such things, because these days his administration is distancing itself from any discussion of the war being a so-called holy war. It was nothing more than a ploy to cover up the real reasons we got involved — and I’m not talking about the threat of the never-found weapons of mass destruction, but the perceived need to protect our access to oil.
 
Bush and other world leaders know the masses respond to the emotional call of religion much more than practical or political reasons that need to be explained in thorough detail. Invoke the name of God, and people come running to your defense, even in a nation that supposedly separates Church and State.
 
Bin Laden has done the same type of thing, justifying the reasons for his blatantly immoral terrorist acts as part of an Islam jihad — a word that he interprets to mean “holy war” and more moderate Muslims translate as “internal struggle of the soul.”
 
Bin Laden goes so far to say that violence is condoned by Islam. “We should fully understand our religion,” he once said. “Fighting is a part of our religion and our Sharia [an Islamic legal code].
 
Those who love God and his Prophet and this religion cannot deny that. Whoever denies even a minor tenet of our religion commits the gravest sin in Islam.”
 
Here Bin Laden picks and choose passages from the Quran and other Muslim texts to suit his very political and power-hungry needs. Bush and his administration have done the same thing, as has the Pope.
 
To understand what the current war is about — whether it’s a war on terror or something entirely different — we need to look past our emotions and rationally analyze what’s going on behind the smoke and mirrors. I believe most people will not support war unless their strong personal beliefs are put to trial — as they are when they feel their religion is being attacked.
 
We can look back at The Crusades of the Middle Ages and see that they were not really about religion, but about extending the political power of the Catholic Church.
 
We can look at the warring between the Irish Republican Army and Britain to see it was about who was in control of policies, not whether you were protestant or Catholic.
 
 And I think when we look back at what’s we’re fighting about now, we’ll finally be able to see the true reasons for the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, and realize that religion was only a ruse.
I am not sure what type of God other people believe in, but this Christian girl cannot imagine her God condoning any kind of war — or as I call it, mass murder — in his name.
 
Alexandria is a senior at Southwest DeKalb.