Thomas Paine said belief in a cruel God makes
a cruel man. Paine biographer
John Keane points out that Paine criticized organized
religion and the
cruel-God concept, while at the same time defending
"the idea of a benevolent
Creator of the universe."
George W. Bush's God is so cruel that he wants
Bush to massacre Iraqi
children in order to "get" Saddam Hussein and
install a puppet government,
which he mislabels "democracy." The "God"
whispering in George W. Bush's ear
is cruel enough to sanction lying as a way to
gain support for slaughtering
innocents. This "God" also approved the
widely reported U.S. bugging of
United Nations members as a means to his murderous
ends.
Evidently, this isn't the same God bending the
Pope's ear, or speaking to the
Dalai Lama, to former President Jimmy Carter,
or countless other widely
respected spiritual and political leaders and
antiwar protesters, because that
God is saying "don't massacre Iraqi babies based
on lies." Whether one is
religious, spiritual, agnostic or otherwise,
it's hard for the clear thinking reader
to deny there's something deceptive and, well,
diabolical about George W. Bush's "God."
The Progressive magazine (February 2003) referred
to Bush's belief he can
purge the world of evil at the point of a gun
as "messianic militarism."
Bush has referred to his mission to "democratize"
the Middle East as his
"crusade," calling perceived enemies "evildoers"
and members of an "axis of evil."
The Progressive quotes reporter Bob Woodward as
saying that Bush
characterizes his "mission" and that of the U.
S. "in the grand vision of God's
master plan." According to Woodward's book,
BUSH AT WAR, Bush often
states he operates mainly by gut instinct.
He told Woodward, "I'm not a textbook
player. I'm a gut player."
After spending long hours studying Bush's public
statements and interviewing
him, Woodward concludes that Bush's instincts
"are almost his second
religion." With the power to go around
the world making war on any nation
his instincts tell him is "evil," Bush feels
no need to clarify his reasons
to critics or to seriously consider counsel from
those with differing views.
Bush told Woodward, "I don't need to explain why
I say things. That's the
interesting thing about being the President.
Maybe somebody needs to explain
to me why they say something, but I don't feel
like I owe anybody an explanation."
The Progressive points out that when Bush was
governor of Texas he stated, "I
could not be governor if I did not believe in
a divine plan that supercedes all
human plans." His mother, Barbara Bush,
told her son he was a Moses figure,
and in Bush's campaign book, he claimed he had
"a charge to keep."
This messianic zeal combined with the militaristic
goal of bombing the Middle
East allegedly for the sake of "democratizing"
the region, but in reality
done for the purpose of dominating world events,
endangers the entire planet.
Television news has barely touched on the
fact that war hawks in the Bush
administration, including Dick Cheney, Donald
Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz,
have long planned to use military force to remake
the entire Middle East.
Fortunately, the print media have repeatedly
shown evidence that Bush hawks
consider Iraq a mere first step in a series of
preemptive attacks on supposedly
"evil" nations that Bush and company imagine
might some day threaten U. S.
global domination.
In The American Prospect (March 2003) Robert Kuttner
writes that "throughout
the Cold War, the lunatic fringe - people like
Gen. Curtis LeMay, who wanted
to bomb North Vietnam 'back to the Stone Age'
- often served in government.
But providentially, these radicals never seized
control of policy. Until now."
Today the radicals of the far right have taken
control of American foreign
policy. Kuttner says the Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz
contingent "are
considered lunatic fringe" even among certain
foreign policy realists.
Kuttner concludes that though the Bush team's
crusaders might wish it weren't
true, it's impractical "to drain every political
swamp" by removing every
world dictator. "Despite abominations like
Vietnam and sundry CIA-sponsored
coups," says Kuttner, "on the whole the United
States has borne its vast
power with a strategic sense of proportion.
Until now."
Now we have the Dr. Strangelove types, the war-zealots,
at the helm. These
messianic crusaders think they can do no wrong
and that they therefore can
totally ignore, or deem irrelevant, the United
Nations, the Pope, countless
other dissenting spiritual and political leaders
and the masses of protesters
around the world, because their cruel God is
on their side.
The "God" leading George W. Bush and his minions
into battle says the ends
justify the means. This "God" condones
lying and murder and has chosen cruel
men as his vehicles.
Not every stray Bush administration gut "instinct"
or apparent spiritual
"inspiration" is divine. Don't wise spiritual
leaders suggest we might
distinguish between good and evil "spirits" or
individuals by their "fruits,"
or the results of their actions?
In a Buzzflash interview (February 23, 2003),
Mark Crispin Miller, NYU
Professor and author of "The Bush Dyslexicon,"
accurately described Bush as
"a swaggering contradiction of the Sermon on
the Mount." Miller also mentioned
Bush seems to believe "that God has chosen him
to be His instrument against 'the evil one.'"
This "divine instrument" has promoted many lies
in order to trump up support
for his upcoming war(s). As LA Times reporter
Robert Scheer pointed out
(Marcy 4, 2003), Bush has lied so often about
such crucial matters that
increasingly people in government are speaking
out.
For example, John Brady Kiesling, a 20-year veteran
of the U.S. Foreign
Service, resigned recently, saying in his letter
of resignation that because
of the actions of the current administration,
he no longer believed that
upholding the policies of the president also
meant upholding the best
interests of America and the world.
Kiesling said, "we have not seen such systematic
distortion of intelligence,
such systematic manipulation of American opinion,
since the war in Vietnam."
Is "God" guiding the Bush team to distort intelligence
reports and deceive the public?
Robert Scheer notes that Bush lied when he claimed
Iraq aided the September
11 terrorists. Bush also lied when he claimed
Iraq's alleged weapons of mass
destruction are an imminent threat to the U.S.
Bush is lying when he claims
his only interest is getting rid of Saddam Hussein
and restructuring Iraq.
Scheer is another respected journalist confirming
the fact that the Bush hawks
have no intention of stopping with Iraq, but
intend to reshape the entire Middle East.
Other journalists criticizing the Bush administration's
deception include
Paul Krugman of the New York Times who has written
that "the Bush
administration lies a lot." In an October
Washington Post article, Dana
Milbank listed eight Bush administration statements
that were lies. William
Raspberry said of Colin Powell's report to the
UN, "I don't believe him."
The Bush team's many lies should raise questions
about the motives and
"divine" nature of their mission. It also
makes sense to ask whether "God"
would approve their "dirty tricks" campaign,
described in a leaked National
Security Agency memo. The memo ordered
agency staff to spy on UN Security
Council members in an effort to win votes for
war against Iraq. According to
Martin Bright, Ed Vulliamy and Peter Beaumont
in The Observer (March 2,
2003), the surveillance operation involved "interception
of the home and
office telephones and the emails of UN delegates
in New York."
A few months ago, the Dalai Lama sent a letter
to George W. Bush, trying to
talk him out of attacking Iraq. The Dalai
Lama once said his religion is
about loving kindness, adding that if he had
to choose, he would rather the
world include larger numbers of loving, kind
people than more Buddhists. In
contrast, Bush would apparently prefer to bully
and blackmail the world into
following his crusade than to cultivate loving
kindness and worldwide good will.
The Bush hawks claim that doing nothing would
be more dangerous than going
forward with their war plans. However,
in his January 2003 article, "An
Alternative to War," former President Jimmy Carter
suggested a third option,
namely "a sustained and enlarged inspection team,
deployed as a permanent
entity until the United States and other members
of the UN Security Council
determine that its presence is no longer needed."
The earth might be a safer
place if the Bush team would consider such options.
The Bush administration's mindset and actions
are leading the world toward a
destructive future - toward a new and eerie "world
order" of unprecedented
darkness and peril - an order that would please
the cruelest "God" imaginable.
People of conscience the world over would do
well to oppose this.