I was struck by the irony the other day with all of the news reports regarding the funeral of Gerald Ford and the execution of Saddam Hussein. In both cases, the government closed off the possibility of information getting out to the public.
I remember when Ford pardoned Nixon. Many of the current talk about that act refer to it as a positive act which spared the US from "looking like a banana republic with its leader on trial"(actual comment from one news person). I think and thought then that the results were exactly the opposite of that. The US did look like some corrupt country in the developing world where the leader was above the law. To make matters worse, because he was pardoned so early in the process, we never even learned what crimes he had committed. Somebody didn't want something to come out. Perhaps, it never did.
Watching the events unfold in Iraq, I wonder how many secrets have been buried with Hussein. Why the rush to execute him when there were so many trials yet to come and so much information to come out? Somebody didn't want some of that information to be made public. And to make matters worse there, the execution seems to have radicalized many more of the Sunnis left in Iraq.
Will we ever learn?
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Thin Places - those places or events in life where the dividing line between the holy and the ordinary is very thin... to the point that the ordinary becomes holy and the holy becomes ordinary
About Me
- roy
- - follower of Jesus (most of the time if I'm honest) - I'm pastor of the Cambridge Drive Community Church in Goleta, CA - guitarist - I play a Lowden O25C Custom acoustic, a fretless Bee Bass GrooveBee bass, & a partscaster electric that I put together. I also have a baritone ukulele that is fun to play. You can listen to some of the music I did with Alexis d by clicking below. And you can watch my sermons at Cambridge Drive Church here - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2N6eGxfyTaKjNV8r2_lQLQ
Alexis d Music
1 comment:
Roy,
I don't think I agree with you on the Ford call. I can see where people might have wanted to see "all the gory" details come out, but I do believe that[full disclosure] was what the country needed at that time. We are in a different place now, so perhaps if the same thing happens today, then yes, but at that time, probably not.
On Hussein, I agree that there was a big rush. I too would have liked to have learned more. But I am not sure we would have been able to do so. Was there more to hear? Certainly. It is one reason this administration chose a trial in Iraq as opposed to the World Court, to limit information and keep a tight reign on what people heard.
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