Tornado Alley (PROG)

[rico7]

The four horsemen of the Apocalypse are:

Bush Cheney Rumsfeld Rove

Bush's apocalyptic end-of-world holy war vision - if given another four years to be fully realized - will lead us all down the path to hell on earth.

Of course, Bush also gets to play the starring role of Anti-Christ with Bin-laden being his spear-carrier.

http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041031/NEWS/410310318/1014

Be fearful - not of Bin-laden - but of Bush.


The next war – a holy one?

October 31, 2004

What's at stake on Tuesday? Let's think about it. Five days after the 9/11 attack, President Bush said in a news conference, "This is a new kind of evil. And the American people are beginning to understand, this crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while."

Having spent much of my career in the Middle East, my first reaction to the president's use of the word "crusade," was that it would go down very badly in the Islamic world. The Christian crusades of the Middle Ages are universally viewed by Muslims as the ultimate in holy wars — a time when their lands were brutally invaded and occupied for two centuries by European armies, united under the cross of Christianity with the encouragement of the pope. The crusades stripped Islam of much of its spiritual and worldly power and to this day represent an event of enormous historical significance in the minds of even the most casual observers of Islam.

My second reaction was that this was another example of Bush's lack of sophistication in world affairs — that he wouldn't have understood how inflammatory the word "crusade" would be.

But only two weeks later, after the White House had issued an apology of sorts for the president's use of the word, the president again referred to the war on terror as a crusade, this time in a speech in Alaska. And as other elements of his policies, his public statements and things he says in more guarded situations have emerged during the past three years, it is now not so far fetched to wonder if Bush might indeed have an actual crusade in mind.

He sees the world in the stark terms of good and evil. He seems to think that those who do not approve of his policies are therefore supportive of the enemy. And to my mind, most troubling of all, is the possibility that he sees himself as God's instrument.

In a recent cover story in The New York Times Sunday Magazine author Ron Suskind explored Bush's faith and how it seems to shape his policies. Suskind found a number of people who are not Democrats or Kerry supporters, but Republicans and religious leaders who are unnerved by things Bush says that imply a special relationship with God.

The article begins with an extraordinary statement from a man who was an aide to both Ronald Reagan and Bush's father. His name is Bruce Bartlet.

"Just in the last few months," Bartlet says, "I think a light has gone off for people who've spent time up close to Bush: that this instinct he's always talking about, is this sort of weird Messianic idea of what he thinks God has told him to do. This is why George W. Bush is so clear-eyed about al-Qaida and the Islamic fundamentalist enemy. He believes you have to kill them all. They can't be persuaded that they're extremists, driven by a dark vision. He understands them because he's just like them. He truly believes he is on a mission from God."

In my view, the Middle East, particularly the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, is the area where U.S. policy is most susceptible to Bush's religious beliefs.

For the first time since Henry Kissinger's diplomatic shuttles following the 1973 Mid-East War, the United States has effectively given up evenhandedness in trying to bring the two sides together. Every president since Nixon has made tireless efforts to try to achieve Middle East peace, with some degree of success. But a full year before 9/11, Bush told his cabinet that he didn't see much point in continuing the peace process, much to the consternation of Secretary of State Colin Powell.

At a time when the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may be the major factor in inspiring ever more converts to militant Islam, to give up this country's mediator role is astonishing.

Even Brent Skowcroft, the national security adviser and close friend of George Bush the father, is so distressed by this that he went public with his criticism just days before the election. Skowcroft said he thought Bush the son had been "mesmerized" by Israeli prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Skowcroft said, "Sharon just has him wrapped around his little finger – and Sharon has been nothing but trouble."

Skowcroft also said he had warned Condoleezza Rice, the current national security adviser for whom he was once a mentor, that the Israeli plan to withdraw from the Gaza strip was simply a ruse to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state.

The pro-Israeli lobby in this country is often identified as a problem for U.S. policymakers. But that has always been the case. There were hardliners in the Jewish community who accused Kissinger of trying to sell out Israel when he was trying to make peace in the 1970s. But I believe this time around, it's not so much American Jews but American fundamentalist Christians who are the principle stumbling block to U.S.-Middle East peace efforts.

When I make that point many people are perplexed. They ask, "What do the Christians have to do with it?" The answer is – it's in the Bible.

The Book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible's New Testament, predicts that Armageddon, the ultimate battle between good and evil, and the Second Coming of the Christ, can only take place when the Holy Land is once more under the control of the Jewish people. So for fundamentalist Christians, the Palestinians and a Palestinian state are a threat to the fulfillment of that end-of-the world Biblical prophesy.

Now there is nothing more important for White House political strategist Karl Rove, than making sure the vast majority of the country's estimated 40 million fundamentalists and evangelicals vote to re-elect Bush. To do that, the administration has gone out of its way to satisfy their demands, on issues like abortion, embryonic stem cell research, gay marriage – and evidently, to giving short shrift to the Middle East peace process.

But while it may seem that Bush's approach to the Middle East is tied to domestic politics, there is one other possibility – that Bush really and truly shares the beliefs of the Christian fundamentalists in their literal interpretation of the Book of Revelation.

That raises the most frightening possibility of all – that the 9/11 attack, followed by the invasion of Iraq and the War on Terror, are actually, the early stages of a worldwide holy war.

It is a monumental understatement to say that this world does not need another such war. People can and will do anything in the name of God, especially when they believe they are God's messenger – when they are convinced they are doing His work and expressing His will.

In the past, such conflicts have caused enormous bloodshed and suffering. But now, when these three great religions may be edging toward a showdown, the Christians, the Jews and the Muslims, all have nuclear weapons.

What kept the United States and the Soviet Union from ever having a nuclear exchange was the concept of mutual assured destruction or MAD as it was called.

But in a religious war, in which suicide bombers are killing civilians in the expectation that doing so will get them into heaven, MAD may no longer work. Religious zealots may actually be attracted to the idea of nuclear holocaust.

Let me add, I do not see a new, catastrophic holy war as inevitable. But I believe that thoughtful people ought to be aware of the direction in which we may be moving. And that is why this election is so very, very important.



Barrie Dunsmore is a veteran diplomatic and foreign correspondent for ABC News now living in Charlotte.