People who increasingly characterize the war on terror as a battle of religions are increasingly correct. While the US and the West may wish to tell their citizens that it is a battle of societies and civilizations, it’s really about which Big Guy in the Sky that each side chooses to worship. The real irony is that essentially, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all share the same God, just by different names. But how can you say that, Mr Kedder, without any proof?

Well, let’s review some of the basic facts. George Bush (intentionally or not, it happened) called the operations in Afghanistan a “crusade”. Crusade is a term for a religious war. The religious leaders who so adamantly support our wonderful GOP Congress with political speeches in tax-exempt churches waste no opportunity to call Muslims “devils”, “Satan worshippers” and just plain “evil”. Even the military has hopped on board, apparently letting Jerry Falwell name our maneuvers with such inspiring monikers like “Divine Strake.” Divine strake, eh? What’s so divine about it again? Is it the immediate destruction or the lingering radioactive destruction?

But this isn’t a one-sided war that Christians are picking. (They’re just jumping in with such glee that it [i]seems[/i] like this is what they’ve been praying for all along.) Muslims aren’t making this any easier either. Just ask the folks that want to bring back the Caliphate. Oh, and am I the only one who had chilling visions of beheading squads roaming out of the mosque/palace/seat of government to punish all the non-believers at the mention of the phrase “the Caliphate”? Because reading that, I’m not exactly inspires that this bastion of Islamic society would allow such things as freedom of religion, or speech, or dissent, or many of the other lovely, quaint things that we’ve gotten so used to in our Great Satan Society over here. I mean, I could be way off, but it sounds like this Caliphate movement stands for nothing less than the extermination of all non-Islamic relgions. And what’s scary is that they have tens of thousands of followers, apparently.

Let’s do ourselves a favor and remain firm in the separation of church and state in this country. To allow the Christian right fringe and the Israel lobby continue to direct our international policy will be to put us into battles and wars that will serve no purpose other than to try and prove who’s God has a bigger dick. (Psst. It’s Vishnu.) Americans may want to give Christian fanatics a pass because they’re white, and they’re fellow citizens, and they seem slightly less radical than their Muslim counterparts, but rest assured, both sides are fighting to control all of life and society for all peoples based on the religous codes of outdated books with questionable authorship. I choose to believe that a secular government, protecting the private religions of all of its citizens, can combat the forces of jihad better than any Christian theocracy. And since America never was, isn’t now, and never should be a Christian theocracy, let’s try and keep things that way.