Dick Cheney, Vice President of the US, used the following quote by Benjamin Franklin on his Christmas card this year: "And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid ?"
The implication is that God must approve of the wars he is vice-presiding over, and be actively assisting the rise of the US empire. Folowing the same logic, God must also be approving of and assisting the Iraqi resistance to the occupation. Is God therefore following classic US foreign policy by supporting both sides in a conflict to destabilise a region ? Let's leave Cheney to this theological mess, he's used to messes, and move on to more relevant quotations from Benjamin Franklin he could have used.
As regards the total fuck-up the US has made in post-war Iraq (that means pre- Bush strutting about on an aircraft carrier) he could have used, " By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail."
As regards the onslaught on the people of Afghanistan following 9/11, we have, "Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame."
And as regards both wars started by the Bush regime to feed the bottomless greed of their corporate buddies, we have, "There never was a good war or a bad peace."
Finally, Franklin prophetically had the measure of Bush and Cheney as pathetic reincarnations of past greed and shame when he said, ".... the revenues of princes constantly increasing, and we see they are never satisfied, but always want more .... There is scarce a king in a hundred who would not, if he could, follow the example of Pharaoh, get first all the people's money, then their lands, then make them and their children servants for ever ..." That kind of encapsulates the essence of the Bush regime, and if Cheney won't use it next Christmas, Bush really should.