by Matt Barr

Watcher's Council results, August 25

The Watcher's Council spoke thusly last week:

Iraq: Quit or Commit, Rick Moran insists:

[A]s it stands now, we are at a psychological tipping point in Iraq where drastic measures are needed in order to turn the situation around and give the weak Iraqi government a chance to gain control. There are many hands raised against this government and as of right now, they are losing any semblance of legitimacy due to their powerlessness in the face of the massive violence that has been unleashed.

The President and Sec. Rumsfeld must swallow it and commit more troops to Iraq, or bring the ones we have there home. A courageous post. It won the Council vote.

Bad Faith at 3:AM won best non-Council post.

However malleable and interchangeable religions are thought to be, one cannot ignore the actual tenets of a given faith, as outlined explicitly in its texts and embraced by millions of adherents. The founder of a religion, his example, and the particulars of his worldview are rather important to many believers. And the likelihood of a religion being associated with intolerance and violence will in part be determined by how violent and intolerant a religion's founder was, and the means by which that founder enjoined others to propagate the faith. One can no more erase Mohammed from Islam than one could airbrush the Biblical Jesus from Christianity.

The full results are posted here and the list of the week's nominees here.

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