Voice of the people

Bush must focus on U.S., not Iraq

Anybody who says that war is romantic has no conception whatsoever what war is all about. We are in a disaster now, in a six-year war that we should have not started to begin with.

President Bush has not shown any remorse for having started a war that he cannot stop and has shown no regard for the American people when polls show that 86 percent want out of Iraq now. It's a shame that it is up to him to call an end to lives and fortune that our country is spending in a war that has no end in sight. He has no conception of the stress that our troops and their families are going through.

Iraq's war is not our business. They've been fighting civil wars for thousands of years, and they will not stop it because Bush says so.

Last year, Bush said that Iraq will be paying its own way soon. Meanwhile, Iraqis are accumulating billions of dollars in American and foreign banks, and as long as we are footing the bill, they won't spend any of their own money. According to politicians currently running Iraq, this is not a very functional government and will never be.

Mr. Bush, you should be worrying about our country. We are having big problems, jobs are declining, we are facing a depression, not a recession, our currency is losing value, people are getting sicker and dying for lack of affordable drugs, gas and food sky high and veterans are coming home and can't find jobs. Also, all of Iraq's leaders are friends with Iran and are now taking advice from them. So before you attack Iran, think of the burden you will be putting on Iraq and the American people.

Mr. Bush, with freedom comes responsibility.

Robert Garcia

Kenova

Dig deeper into truth of afterlife

This is in response to the letter published on April 1 that concludes with the sentence, "Where will you spend eternity?"

The writer's veiled threat of hellfire comes from a misinterpretation of the Book of Revelation. The afterlife is not that simple. Besides, in this stage of our evolution, we have an arguably more formidable future: the unspeakable horror of repeated earthly lives. We cannot spend eternity in hell and be reincarnated both at the same time.

Philosophically sophisticated people through the ages have steadfastly maintained the truth of the law of karma and reincarnation despite its having been declared anathema by the Council of Constantinople in A.D. 553, which was manipulated by the Empress Theodora because reincarnation stood in the way of her anticipated apotheosis after her death. It was also at this time that Justinian, the secular emperor, usurped the ecclesiastical authority of Pope Virgilius, thereby rendering the council's authority highly questionable. Despite its impropriety, however, this decision has left its mark.

Besides, reincarnation is affirmed in the Gospel of Matthew in two places: 11:14-15 and 17:9-13, when Jesus refers to the rebirth of the prophet Elijah as John the Baptist.

The human journey toward perfection is a long one and does not bend to the easy answers of either the atheists or the blindly devout.

The Rev. Jack Wilkinson

(retired)

Huntington