Letter: Who will deliver us from evil in ourselves?

Thursday, July 20, 2006 | 7:28 a.m.

The Bush administration, in its 2002 "National Security Strategy (NSS)" to Congress, outlined a policy under which the United States arrogates to itself a supposed right to wage "preventive war," also called "anticipatory self-defense" against anyone it deems "a sufficient threat to our national security."

The opening paragraphs of the NSS states, "It is the policy of the United States to seek and support democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.

"In the world today, the fundamental character of regimes matters as much as the distribution of power among them. The goal of our statecraft is to help create a world of democratic, well-governed states that can meet the needs of their citizens and conduct themselves responsibly in the international system. This is the best way to provide enduring security for the American people."

While our old enemies, communism and fascism, have come and gone, the new enemy according to the Bush administration is the result of a "perversion of a proud religion" by religious fanatics.

Three days after 9/11, George Bush, in a televised speech at Washington's National Cathedral, said, "Our responsibility to history is clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil."

Here in the United States we have presumably come to embrace a purely "secular philosophy," which is especially evident in our judiciary system.

In this secular environment our people are called to support a philosophy which makes possible abortion on demand, same-sex "civil unions," a 50 percent divorce rate, public behavior of a sort that has not been seen since ancient Rome in its decadence, and a "freedom of religion" that prevents the display of the Ten Commandments from being displayed in courthouses but allows tax-exempt status for a "church" dedicated to the worship of Satan.

Doug Locke, Las Vegas