April 22, 2003

Bush's "Christian" Blood Cult

Concerns Raised by the Vatican

by WAYNE MADSEN

George W. Bush proclaims himself a born-again Christian. However, 
Bush and fellow self- anointed neo-Christians like House Majority 
Leader Tom DeLay, John Ashcroft, and sports arena Book of 
Revelations carnival hawker Franklin Graham appear to wallow in a 
"Christian" blood lust cult when it comes to practicing the teachings 
of the founder of Christianity. This cultist form of Christianity, with 
its emphasis on death rather than life, is also worrying the leaders of 
mainstream Christian religions, particularly the Pope.  

One only has to check out Bush's record as Governor of Texas to see 
his own preference for death over life. During his tenure as Governor, 
Bush presided over a record setting 152 executions, including the 1998 
execution of fellow born-again Christian Karla Faye Tucker, a convicted 
murderer who later led a prison ministry. Forty of Bush's executions 
were carried out in 2000, the year the Bush presidential campaign was 
spotlighting their candidate's strong law enforcement record. The 
Washington Post's Richard Cohen reported in October 2000 that one of 
the execution chamber's "tie-down team" members, Fred Allen, had to 
prepare so many people for lethal injections during 2000, he quit his 
job in disgust.  

Bush mocked Tucker's appeal for clemency. In an interview with Talk 
magazine, Bush imitated Tucker's appeal for him to spare her life - 
pursing his lips, squinting his eyes, and in a squeaky voice saying, 
"Please don't kill me." That went too far for former GOP presidential 
candidate Gary Bauer, himself an evangelical Christian. "I think it is 
nothing short of unbelievable that the governor of a major state running 
for president thought it was acceptable to mock a woman he decided to 
put to death," said Bauer.  

A former Texas Department of Public Safety officer, a devout Roman 
Catholic, told this reporter that evidence to the contrary, Bush was 
more than happy to ignore DNA data and documented cases of prosecutorial 
misconduct to send innocent people to the Huntsville, Texas lethal 
injection chamber. He said the number of executed mentally retarded, 
African Americans, and those who committed capital crimes as minors 
was proof that Bush was insensitive and a "phony Christian." When 
faced with similar problems in Illinois, Governor George Ryan, a 
Republican, commuted the death sentences of his state's death row 
inmates and released others after discovering they were wrongfully 
convicted. Yet the Republican Party is pillorying Ryan and John 
Ashcroft's Justice Department continues to investigate the former 
Governor for political malfeasance as if Bush and Ashcroft are without 
sin in such matters. Hypocrisy certainly rules in the Republican Party.  

Bush's blood lust has been extended across the globe. He has given 
the CIA authority to assassinate those deemed a threat to U.S. national 
interests. Bush has virtually suspended Executive Orders 11905 (Gerald 
Ford), 12306 (Jimmy Carter), and 12333 (Ronald Reagan) which prohibit 
the assassination of foreign leaders. Bush's determination to kill 
Saddam Hussein, his family, and his top leaders with precision-guided 
missiles and tactical nuclear weapon-like Massive Ordnance Air Blast 
(MOAB) bombs is yet another indication of Bush's disregard for his 
Republican and Democratic predecessors. It now appears that in his 
zeal to kill Hussein, innocent civilian patrons of a Baghdad restaurant 
were killed by one of Bush's precision Joint Direct Attack Munitions 
(JDAMs). Like it or not, Saddam Hussein was recognized by over 100 
nations as the leader of Iraq -- a member state of the United Nations. 
Hussein, like North Korea' Kim Jong Il, Syria's Bashir Assad, and Iran's 
Mohammed Khatami, are covered by Executive Order 12333, which the 
Bush mouthpieces claim is still in effect. Bush's "Christian" blood cult 
sees no other option than death for those who become his enemies. 
This doctrine is found no place in Christian theology.  

Bush has not once prayed for the innocent civilians who died as a result 
of the U.S. attack on Iraq. He constantly "embeds" himself with the 
military at Goebbels-like speech fests and makes constant references 
to God when he refers to America's "victory" in Iraq, as if God endorses 
his sordid killing spree. He makes no mention of the children, women, 
and old men killed by America's "precision-guided" missiles and bombs 
and trigger-happy U.S. troops. In fact, Bush revels in indiscriminate 
blood letting. Since he never experienced such killing in Southeast 
Asia, when he was AWOL from his Texas Air National Guard unit, Bush 
just does not seem to understand the horror of a parent watching one's 
children having their heads and limbs blown off in a sudden blast of 
shrapnel or children witnessing their parents burning to death with their 
own body fat nurturing the flames.  

Bush and his advisers, previously warned that Iraq's ancient artifacts 
and collection of historical documents and books were in danger of 
being looted or destroyed, instead, sat back while the Baghdad and 
Mosul museums and Baghdad Library were ransacked and destroyed. 
Cult leaders have historically attempted to destroy history in order 
to invent their own. The Soviets tried to obliterate Russia's Orthodox 
traditions, turning a number of churches into warehouses and animal 
barns. Cambodia's Pol Pot tried to wipe out Buddhism's famed Angkor 
Wat shrine in an attempt to stamp out his country's Buddhist history. 
In March 2001, while they were negotiating with the Bush administration 
on a natural gas pipeline, Afghanistan's Taliban blew up two massive 
1600-year old Buddhas in Bamiyan. The Bush administration, itself run 
by fanatic religious cultists, barely made a fuss about the loss of the 
relics. It would not be the first time the cultists within the Bush 
administration ignored the pillaging of history's treasures.  

The ransacking of Iraq's historical treasures is explainable when one 
considers what the blood cult Christians really think about Islam. 
Franklin Graham, the heir to the empire built up by his anti-Semitic 
father, Billy Graham, has decided being anti-Muslim is far more 
financially rewarding than being anti-Jewish. Billy Graham, history 
notes from the Nixon tapes, complained about the Jewish stranglehold 
on the media and Jews being responsible for pornography.  

Franklin Graham continues to enjoy his father's unfettered and 
questionable access to the White House. But in the case of Bush, 
the younger Graham has a fanatic adherent. Graham has called Islam a 
"very evil and wicked" religion. He then announces he wants to go to 
Iraq. Graham obviously sees an opportunity to convert Muslims and 
unrepentant Eastern Christians, who owe their allegiance to Roman and 
Greek prelates, to his perverted form of blood cult Christianity. Graham 
says he is ready to send his Samaritan's Purse missionaries into Iraq to 
provide assistance. Muslims and mainstream Christians are wary that 
Graham wants to exchange food, water, and medicine for the baptism of 
Iraqis into his intolerant brand of Christianity. In the last Gulf War, 
Graham could not get away with his chicanery. The Desert Storm 
Commander, General Norman Schwarzkopf, stopped dead in the tracks 
Graham's plan to send 30,000 Arabic language Bibles to U.S. troops 
in Saudi Arabia. Today's Pentagon shows no such compunction to put 
a rein on Graham. It invited him to give a Good Friday sermon at the 
Pentagon to the consternation of the Defense Department's Muslim 
employees. To make matters worse, under Bush's "Faith Based 
Initiative," Graham's Samaritan's Purse stands to receive U.S. 
government funds for its proselytizing efforts in Iraq, something 
that should be an affront to every American taxpayer.  

Bush's self-proclaimed adherence to Christianity (during one of the 
presidential debates he said Jesus Christ was his favorite "philosopher") 
and his constant reference to a new international structure bypassing 
the United Nations system and long-standing international treaties are 
worrying the top leadership of the Roman Catholic Church. Well-
informed sources close to the Vatican report that Pope John Paul II is 
growing increasingly concerned about Bush's ultimate intentions. The 
Pope has had experience with Bush's death fetish. Bush ignored the 
Pope's plea to spare the life of Karla Faye Tucker. To show that he 
was similarly ignorant of the world's mainstream religions, Bush also 
rejected an appeal to spare Tucker from the World Council of Churches -
 an organization that represents over 350 of the world's Protestant and 
Orthodox Churches. It did not matter that Bush's own Methodist Church 
and his parents' Episcopal Church are members of the World Council.  

Bush's blood lust, his repeated commitment to Christian beliefs, and his 
constant references to "evil doers," in the eyes of many devout Catholic 
leaders, bear all the hallmarks of the one warned about in the Book of 
Revelations - the anti- Christ. People close to the Pope claim that amid 
these concerns, the Pontiff wishes he was younger and in better health 
to confront the possibility that Bush may represent the person 
prophesized in Revelations. John Paul II has always believed the world 
was on the precipice of the final confrontation between Good and Evil 
as foretold in the New Testament. Before he became Pope, Karol Cardinal 
Wojtyla said, "We are now standing in the face of the greatest historical 
confrontation humanity has gone through. I do not think that wide circles 
of the American society or wide circles of the Christian community 
realize this fully. We are now facing the final confrontation between the 
Church and the anti-Church, of the Gospel versus the anti- Gospel." The 
Pope, who grew up facing the evils of Hitler and Stalin, knows evil when 
he sees it. Although we can all endlessly argue over the Pope's 
effectiveness in curtailing abuses within his Church, his 
accomplishments external to Catholicism are impressive.  

According to journalists close to the Vatican, the Pope and his closest 
advisers are also concerned that the ultimate acts of evil - the 
September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon 
- were known in advance by senior Bush administration officials. By 
permitting the attacks to take their course, there is a perception within 
the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy that a coup d'etat was implemented, 
one that gave Bush and his leadership near- dictatorial powers to carry 
out their agenda.  

The Pope worked tirelessly to convince leaders of nations on the UN 
Security Council to oppose Bush's war resolution on Iraq. Vatican 
sources claim they had not seen the Pope more animated and 
determined since he fell ill to Parkinson's Disease. In the end, the 
Pope did convince the leaders of Mexico, Chile, Cameroon, and Guinea 
to oppose the U.S. resolution. If one were to believe in the Book of 
Revelations, as the Pope fervently does, he can seek solace in scoring 
a symbolic victory against the Bush administration. Whether Bush 
represents a dangerous right-wing ideologue who couples his political 
fanaticism with a neo-Christian blood cult (as I believe) or he is either 
the anti-Christ or heralds one, the Pope should know he has fought the 
good battle and has gained the respect and admiration of many non-
Catholics around the world.  

Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and 
columnist. He wrote the introduction to Forbidden Truth.  

Madsen can be reached at: WMadsen777{at}aol.com

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Source: Counterpunch - http://www.counterpunch.org/madsen04222003.html


Cheers, Steve..

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