Food for thought: intentions and actions

“If our inner soul is good our outer actions must, by definition, be good. This is a naïve idea in the extreme and the source of a certain kind of American nationalism. The person who expresses this idea with intuitive ease is George W. Bush. He said after the 7/7 bombings, while he was in Britain: 'If they could only see into our hearts they would know how good we are', and he honestly believes that. He looks into his own heart and believes he is a good man and therefore his policies must be good, and everything the US does must be good. But there is a flip side of that. Other people say, 'Well, my own heart is not so good. I see envy, rapacity, greed, lust, therefore I know I am not a good person, therefore nothing the United States does can be good. Everything must be bad.' It's George W. Bushism flipped on its head. There is a great deal of this. People say, 'what are we doing trying to fight bad guys in other parts of the world? We should look in our own hearts and see that we are bad'. Instead of trying to rescue oppressed people in other parts of the world, let us try vigorously to improve our own characters. […] I think some element of that entered into the Bush administrations thinking about Iraq. Like everyone I have been dumbfounded at the stupidity of many of the things that have been done, and I try to understand how they could have thought things through so poorly. I think there was a simple faith that everything was going to work out for the best. Bush thought his intentions were good in his own heart and therefore the results were going to be good.” Paul Berman.