Karma Or Not

Now that Iraq falls into discord again, we think maybe the concept of "karma" has something of the eternal and the divine in it. Maybe we are accountable for our actions, and maybe we are accountable in the here and now, as well as in the world to come.
Maybe.
I myself think more of "ironic reversal", much along the lines of "the bigger they are, the harder they fall", or even more iconic, "the bigger the black silk top hat, the more snowballs thrown at it".

We acted violently based on lies and deceit, and we expect the kingdom of heaven. Which crime is worse? The deliberate self delusion? The descent into violence and war? The inexplicable arrogance of expecting rewards accruing to immoral acts?

There is Divinity, whether it be karma or not.

Just before the start of the Iraq War in 2003, I was intensely involved in the news about what was going on. I fell asleep in front of my computer, after praying for clear understanding.
When I awoke, I awoke with the intense understanding that there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs).

I was uncomfortable with this.
At the time, even though the UN weapons inspectors had said there were no WMDs in Iraq, it was very, very reasonable to assume there might be a few stray bombs or uranium centrifuges laying about on the beach, chillaxing.
After all, we had backed Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran, the country that was the demon du jour or de l'an at that time. We had a little list of the bombs and planes and chemicals we had supplied him, and we had lists from our friends concerning what they had supplied to Iraq.
We knew they had had WMDs at one time.
In our age, it was madness to have had a weapon that could so easily destroy life and give it up. Saddam Hussein was not mad. Therefore, Iraq still had WMDs. QED.

So I was uncomfortable in taking such an extreme view. Surely there must be some atomic bomb blueprints in some commissary that had been used to wrap sandwiches. Surely.

Only there wasn't.

And that was terrifying... for my country to have been entirely wrong. The wrong-side had given 110% as the sports section has it.

That was an awesome thing to look at.

At some point, given the absolute falsity of our beliefs and the violence we started and engaged in, we should have attempted some sort of reconciliation between all the parties involved. That was our responsibility.

However, we did not even do that.
We left Iraq. We allowed a civil war that mirrored the Iraqi sectarian strife to grow luxuriantly on Iraq's borders with Syria. We supported the radicals in this Syrian war and allowed and encouraged our "allies" to support them even more.

Now we are arguing and fighting our old political battles of six to eleven years ago, as Dick Cheney is on the TV with his nonsense daughter, and we write arguments against his arguments.

Karma will not harm us if we strive to be as perfect as possible in the work of the present. Karma arises from the imperfections of the body and the spirit. Remedy it.

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ps.
The gross spectacle of the hanging of Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, is not forgotten, and - as usual - is coming back to haunt us. We could have prevented it and made the execution clean and precise, but we allowed it to become a Shia vs. Sunni YouTube event.
Failures mount upon failures.

And Saddam's life thread was colored by karma coming on the Ba'athist killing of Abd al Karim Qasim.

 

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