The Immutable Law of Unintended Consequences

I recently read this great article from Reuters reporter Peter Graff that moved me to my core, so I had to write something.

Here's the link: http://news.yahoo.com/fear-death-squads-hunt-iraqs-gays-emos-153725256.html.

There's been 200 murders in Iraq over the past couple months, mainly around Baghdad, in which gays and emos are brutally killed with their heads bashed in and left on the street. I'd never heard of emos, but apparently it's a Western cultural import in which young people wear black clothing and have long or spiky hair and strive to be "emotional".

This is what we fought and died for, and suffered all the blown-away limbs, eyes, and brains, for 8 full years. This abomination cost us $2T (with a T)! It's much worse than a complete waste, because it released all the ethnic and religious hatreds that were suppressed under the brutal but secular regime of Saddamm Hussein. We're witnessing in Syria right next door what would have happened had we just waited out Saddam for a decade. The Arab Spring would have taken him down (if he was still alive) anyway, without the unbelievable house of horrors that we precipitated. When accounting is done for modern warfare you must double the cost numbers because the accountants do not include the fact that we've taken tens of thousands of young adults in the prime of the their lives and moved them over to the complete dependent side of the ledger. These kids that would have started businesses and been contributors to our economy instead are vegetables, blinded, with PTSD and a burden on our society for decades.

And now the Arab Spring is sweeping the Mideast. In addition to Syria, it has swept Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya. If Saddam Hussein were still alive today Iraq may be going through a revolution of their own, establishing their own democracy without our blood and money. Of course there is no way to know exactly how things would play out, but one thing is certain, we wasted an enormous amount of resources and human suffering. What a tragedy! And now it continues by our unleashing religious hatreds on gays and emos. Religious-based hatred is the most pernicious and enduring kind, because it allow humans to circumvent their natural evolution-born morality to justify anything their religion espouses.

Which brings me to my last take on this abomination in the streets of Iraq. Christian-based hatred of gays in the U.S. is no different than the Muslim-based hatred in Iraq. The only difference is that we have more rule-of-law in this country. Do we murder and bully gays in America? You betcha! Would it be much worse in the U.S. if our rule-of-law were less robust and more like Iraq's. No doubt about it! We actually rendition our hatred of gays to Africa. U.S. Christian minister Scott Lively is being sued in U.S. courts for exporting his hatred of gays to Uganda. He helped Ugandans drafts their laws criminalizing homosexuality, but claims he did not want violence against gays. Guess what Ugandans consider punishment for homosexuality. You got it: death!

When you hate, The Immutable Law of Unintended Consequences takes over, and you cannot control it.