By now you have heard that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took the unprecedented step of sending President Bush a long-winded letter advancing his ideas for solving the problems that plague humanity. Actually letters like this aren't completely unprecedented. President Carter sent a handwritten letter to the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1978 praising him as "a man of God", offering "the closest of possible ties."
Courtesy of Indy Media, here is the full text of Ahmadinejad's letter.
Among the ramblings of the letter (including long portions that seem to have been 'cut and pasted' from standard American anti-war rally speeches) we find passages like this one:
Can one be a follower of Jesus Christ (PBUH), the great Messenger of God,
feel obliged to respect human rights, present liberalism as a civilization model, announce one’s opposition to the proliferation of nuclear weapons and WMDs, make “War on Terror” his slogan, and finally, work towards the establishment of a unified international community – a community which Christ and the virtuous of the Earth will one day govern, but at the same time, have countries attacked. The lives, reputations and possessions of people destroyed and on the slight chance of the presence of a few criminals in a village, city, or convoy for example, the entire village, city or convoy (are) set ablaze.
I am surprised that more Christians aren't blogging about this letter, since "blue" or "liberal" Christians have attacked President Bush for "not being a Christian" based on exactly the same reasoning.
Of course one could ask President Ahmadinejad how he could claim to represent Islam, the religion of peace, and at the same time seek to build a nuclear bomb and declare that Israel should be "wiped off the map."
The answer to Ahmadinejad's question is that we didn't elect George W. Bush to be president of Christendom. We elected him to be President of the United States. His job is to protect the people and interests of this nation. And sometimes that means doing lesser evil in order to prevent a greater evil from dominating.
For a good laugh, read the version of the letter "leaked" by Scott Ott over at ScrappleFace.
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