Military Evangelism Deeper, Wider Than First Thought

Military Evangelism Deeper, Wider Than First Thought
By Jason Leopold, t r u t h o u t | Report, Friday 21 December 2007

For US Army soldiers entering basic training at Fort Jackson Army base in Columbia, South Carolina, accepting Jesus Christ as their personal savior appears to be as much a part of the nine-week regimen as the vigorous physical and mental exercises the troops must endure.

That's the message directed at Fort Jackson soldiers, some of whom appear in photographs in government issued fatigues, holding rifles in one hand, and Bibles in their other hand.

Frank Bussey, director of Military Ministry at Fort Jackson, has been telling soldiers at Fort Jackson that "government authorities, police and the military = God's Ministers,"

Bussey's teachings from the "God's Basic Training" Bible study guide he authored says US troops have "two primary responsibilities": "to praise those who do right" and "to punish those who do evil - "God's servant, an angel of wrath." Bussey's teachings directed at Fort Jackson soldiers were housed on the Military Ministry at Fort Jackson web site. Late Wednesday, the web site was taken down without explanation. Bussey did not return calls for comment. The web site text, however, can still be viewed in an archived format.

The Christian right has been successful in spreading its fundamentalist agenda at US military installations around the world for decades. But the movement's meteoric rise in the US military came in large part after 9/11 and immediately after the US invaded Iraq in March of 2003. At a time when the United States is encouraging greater religious freedom in Muslim nations, soldiers on the battlefield have told disturbing stories of being force-fed fundamentalist Christianity by highly controversial, apocalyptic "End Times" evangelists, who have infiltrated US military installations throughout the world with the blessing of high-level officials at the Pentagon. Proselytizing among military personnel has been conducted openly, in violation of the basic tenets of the United States Constitution.

Perhaps no other fundamentalist Christian group is more influential than Military Ministry, a national organization and a subsidiary of the controversial fundamentalist Christian organization Campus Crusade for Christ. Military Ministry's national web site boasts it has successfully "targeted" basic training installations, or "gateways," and has successfully converted thousands of soldiers to evangelical Christianity.

Military Ministry says its staffers are responsible for "working with Chaplains and Military personnel to bring lost soldiers closer to Christ, build them in their faith and send them out into the world as Government paid missionaries" - which appears to be a clear-cut violation of federal law governing the separation of church and state.

"Young recruits are under great pressure as they enter the military at their initial training gateways," the group has stated on its web site. "The demands of drill instructors push recruits and new cadets to the edge. This is why they are most open to the 'good news.' We target specific locations, like Lackland AFB [Air Force base] and Fort Jackson, where large numbers of military members transition early in their career. These sites are excellent locations to pursue our strategic goals."

Mikey Weinstein, the founder and president of the government watchdog organization the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, whose group has been closely tracking Military Ministry's activities at Fort Jackson and other military bases around the country, said in an interview that using "the machinery of the state" to promote any form of religion is "not only unconstitutional and un-American but it also creates a national security threat of the first order."

A six-month investigation by MRFF has found Military Ministry's staff has successfully targeted US soldiers entering basic training at Lackland Air Force Base and Fort Sam Houston, with the approval of the Army base's top commanders.

"I've said it before and I will say it again," Weinstein said. "We are in the process of creating a fundamentalist Christian Taliban and somebody has to do something to stop it now."

Weinstein points out that on Fort Jackson's Military Ministry web site, the basic training battalion commander, Lt. Col. David Snodgrass, and the battalion's chaplain, Maj. Scott Bullock, who appear in uniform in a photograph with Bussey, is a clear-cut violation of Military rules. MRFF contacted Bussey via email on Wednesday to request information about the "similar programs" he claimed Fort Jackson has for soldiers of other faiths. Bussey, responding to MRFF via email, did not provide an answer to the watchdog group's question, but, instead, he fired back a query of his own asking MRFF Senior Research Director Chris Rodda to direct him to the place in the Constitution where it states there is a "separation of church and state."

A spokesperson for the Fort Jackson Army base did not return calls for comment. Earlier this week, after MRFF exposed the potential constitutional violations between Military Ministry and the Fort Jackson Army base, Bussey added language to Military Ministry at Fort Jackson web site in the form of a "notice to MRFF and ACLU types" in bold red letters that says the Bible study classes are strictly voluntary, not command directed in any way, allows soldiers to exercise for themselves the right of freedom of religion ... and similar programs exist on Fort Jackson for Soldiers of all faiths."

Clause 3, Article VI of the Constitution forbids a religion test for any position in the federal government, and the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights says Congress shall make no law regarding an establishment of religion.

In July, the Pentagon's inspector general (IG) responded to a complaint filed a year earlier by MRFF that accused Pentagon officials of violating the federal law governing the separation of church and state. The IG did not address the church/state issue, but he issued a 45-page report admonishing several high-level Pentagon officials for participating, while in uniform and on active duty, in a promotional video sponsored by Campus Crusade for Christ's Christian Embassy group. The IG report quoted one high-ranking military official as saying he believed his participation in the video was acceptable because Campus Crusade for Christ had become so embedded in the Pentagon's day-to-day operations that he viewed the organization as a "quasi federal entity."

The IG report recommended the military officials who appeared in the video be disciplined, but the Pentagon would not say whether it has in fact punished the military officers who appeared in the video.

MRFF uncovered another recent Campus Crusade for Christ promotional video filmed at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs that would appear to violate the same military rules detailed in the IG report. Cadets and academy officials appear in uniform discussing how Campus Crusade for Christ helped strengthen their bonds with Jesus.

Scot Blom, the Campus Crusade for Christ director assigned to work at the Air Force Academy, says in the video the organization "has always been very intentional about going after the leaders or the future leaders" and that's why Campus Crusade for Christ picked the Air Force Academy to spread its fundamentalist Christian message. Every week, according to the video, cadets are encouraged to participate in a Bible study class called "cru" short for "crusade."

"Our purpose for Campus Crusade for Christ at the Air Force Academy is to make Jesus Christ the issue at the Air Force Academy and around the world," Blom says in the video. "They're government paid missionaries when they leave here."

Weinstein said the recent promotional video for Campus Crusade for Christ, and the photograph of US soldiers holding Bibles in one hand and rifles in the other posted on the Fort Jackson Military Ministry web site, gives the impression the Pentagon endorses the fundamentalist Christian organization and underscores that the occupation of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan appears to be more of a modern-day fundamentalist Christian crusade. That message, Weinstein said, could lead to more "jihads" against the United States.

Indeed. Weinstein, a former White House counsel during the Reagan administration, former general counsel to Texas billionaire and two-time presidential candidate H. Ross Perot and a former Air Force Judge Advocate General, said he had an "unexpected" telephone conversation with several senior Bush administration intelligence officials this week who encouraged him "to continue to fight for the separation of church and state in the US military" because, these senior administration intelligence officials told Weinstein, US troops are being put in harms way.

Weinstein said the senior administration intelligence officials told him they too have been tracking Islamic web sites where people have been discussing on message boards the fundamental Christianity issues Weinstein has raised within the US military. The intelligence officials told Weinstein they are concerned the fundamentalist Christian agenda surfacing in the military could lead to attacks against US soldiers. Weinstein said he could not identify the senior Bush intelligence administration officials he spoke with because they contacted him with the understanding they would not be named.

Fundamental Christianity's Influence on the Bush Administration

While Weinstein has worked tirelessly the past four years exposing the Christian Right's power grab within the military, he says the White House continues to thumb its nose at the constitutional provision mandating the separation of church and state.

Indeed. This week a US District Court judge ruled the White House must disclose its visitor logs showing White House visits by nine fundamentalist Christian leaders.

The ruling was issued in response to a lawsuit filed by the government watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), and could very well show how much influence fundamental Christian leaders such as James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, Gary Bauer and Moral Majority co-founder Jerry Falwell have had on the Bush's administration.

"We think that these conservative Christian leaders have had a very big impact," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW. "The White House doesn't want to talk about how much influence these leaders have, and we want to talk about how much they do have."

Bush has been vocal about his fundamentalist Christian beliefs and how God has helped him during his presidency. A couple of weeks ago, the White House sent out Christmas cards signed by President Bush and his wife Laura that contained a Biblical passage from the Old Testament:

"You alone are the LORD. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you."

The inclusion of the Biblical passage caught the attention of longtime broadcaster Barbara Walters, who was a recipient of the presidential Christmas card.

Walters said she doesn't recall receiving "religious" holiday cards from past presidents and she wondered how non-Christians would receive such an overtly religious greeting.

"Usually in the past when I have received a Christmas card, it's been 'Happy Holidays' and so on," said Walters. "Don't you think it's a little interesting that the president of all the people is sending out a religious Christmas card? Does this also go to agnostics, and atheists, and Muslims?"

The Biblical passage inside the Christmas card did not amount to a constitutional violation because it was paid for by the Republican National Committee, but Weinstein said it's intolerable, nonetheless, because military officials believe they have the approval of the White House to allow fundamentalist Christian organizations and their leaders to proselytize in the military.

Recently, Bush nominated Brig. Gen. Cecil R. Richardson, the deputy Air Force Chief of Chaplains, to replace the outgoing Air Force Chief of Chaplains, and is in line to be promoted to Major General. Richardson was quoted in a front-page, July 12, 2005, New York Times story saying the Air Force reserves the right "to evangelize the unchurched." The distinction, Richardson said at the time, "is that proselytizing is trying to convert someone in an aggressive way, while evangelizing is more gently sharing the gospel."

Weinstein filed a federal lawsuit against the Air Force in October 2005 after Richardson's comments were published alleging "severe, systemic and pervasive" religious discrimination within the Air Force. Weinstein is a 1977 graduate of the Academy. His sons and a daughter in law are also academy graduates. Weinstein's book, "With God On Our Side: One Man's War Against An Evangelical Coup in America's Military," details the virulent anti-Semitism he was subjected to while he attended the academy and the religious intolerance that has permeated throughout the halls over the past several years.

The federal lawsuit Weinstein filed was dismissed, but the Air Force agreed to withdraw a document that authorized chaplains to evangelize members of the military. Still, Weinstein said MRFF would lobby senators to oppose Richardson's nomination because of his past statements Richardson has refused to retract.

"The Military Religious Freedom Foundation will do everything in our power to convince the United States Senate to reject the nomination of Brig. Gen. Cecil R. Richardson to become the chief of Air Force chaplains and his promotion to the rank of major general," Weinstein said in an interview. "We view Richardson as the prototypical poster child of the type of constitutional rapist we are trying to eradicate from existence within the US military."

In September, MRFF filed a lawsuit in federal court against Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and US Army Maj. Freddy Welborn, on behalf of an Army soldier stationed in Iraq. The complaint filed in US District Court in Kansas City alleges that Jeremy Hall's an Army specialist currently on active duty in Combat Operations Base Speicher, Iraq, First Amendment rights were violated when Welborn threatened to retaliate against Hall and block his reenlistment in the Army because of Hall's atheist beliefs.

"When You Join the Military, Then You Are Also in the Ministry"

The executive director of Military Ministry, retired US Army Major General Bob Dees, wrote in the organization's October 2005 "Life and Leadership" newsletter, "We must pursue our particular means for transforming the nation - through the military. And the military may well be the most influential way to affect that spiritual superstructure. Militaries exercise, generally speaking, the most intensive and purposeful indoctrination program of citizens...."

Moreover, Military Ministry's parent organization, Campus Crusade for Christ, has been re-distributing to military chaplains a DVD produced a decade ago where Tommy Nelson, a pastor at the Denton Bible Church in Denton, Texas, tells an audience of Texas A&M cadets and military officers when they join the military "then you are also in the ministry."

"I, a number of years ago, was speaking at the University of North Texas - it happens to be my alma mater, up in Denton, Texas - and I was speaking to an ROTC group up there, and when I stepped in I said, "It's good to be speaking to all you men and women who are in the ministry," and they all kind of looked at me, and I think they wondered if maybe I had found the wrong room, or if they were in the wrong room, and I assured them that I was speaking to men and women in the ministry, these that were going to be future officers," Nelson says in the DVD.

.......................................................................................................................................................
Jason Leopold is senior editor and reporter for Truthout. He received a Project Censored award in 2007 for his story on Halliburton's work in Iran.

Also see:

Charges in Religious Lawsuit Against Army Detailed

Soldier Who Sued Army Facing Threats

Pentagon Sued Over Mandatory Christianity

Kill or Convert, Brought To You By The Pentagon

Video, Report Details Evangelism At Highest Levels Of US Military

Swastikas at Hunter Airfield, and a Rabbi on the Run

With God on Our Side: Evangelical Christianity On Steroids In  US Military

Ft. Leavenworth Army Chaplains Preaching Anti-Semitism to US Soldiers

Anti-Semitic Bible Teachings Disappear From Army Site

There's more: "Military Evangelism Deeper, Wider Than First Thought" >>

Kill or Convert, Brought To You By The Pentagon

Kill or Convert, Brought to You by the Pentagon
By Max Blumenthal, The Nation, Tuesday 07 August 2007 (via truthout)

Actor Stephen Baldwin, the youngest member of the famous Baldwin brothers, is no longer playing Pauly Shore's sidekick in comedy masterpieces like Biodome. He has a much more serious calling these days.

Baldwin became a right-wing, born-again Christian after the 9/11 attacks, and now is the star of Operation Straight Up (OSU), an evangelical entertainment troupe that actively proselytizes among active-duty members of the US military. As an official arm of the Defense Department's America Supports You program, OSU plans to mail copies of the controversial apocalyptic video game, Left Behind: Eternal Forces to soldiers serving in Iraq. OSU is also scheduled to embark on a "Military Crusade in Iraq" in the near future.

"We feel the forces of heaven have encouraged us to perform multiple crusades that will sweep through this war torn region," OSU declares on its website about its planned trip to Iraq. "We'll hold the only religious crusade of its size in the dangerous land of Iraq."

The Defense Department's Chaplain's Office, which oversees OSU's activities, has not responded to calls seeking comment.

"The constitution has been assaulted and brutalized," Mikey Weinstein, former Reagan Administration White House counsel, ex-Air Force judge advocate (JAG), and founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, told me. "Thanks to the influence of extreme Christian fundamentalism, the wall separating church and state is nothing but smoke and debris. And OSU is the IED that exploded the wall separating church and state in the Pentagon and throughout our military." Weinstein continued: "The fact that they would even consider taking their crusade to a Muslim country shows the threat to our national security and to the constitution and everyone that loves it."

On the surface, OSU appears as a traditional entertainment troupe that brings cheer to American troops around the globe. Founded by champion kickboxer Jonathan Spinks, OSU performs comedy, acrobatic stunts and strongman displays. Its roster of entertainers includes a former WNBA star, the Flying Wallendas, a ventriloquist, and former boxing champ Evander Holyfield. "We make no bones about the fact that we are speaking directly to the soldiers of the greatest fighting force of in the world," OSU proclaims. "No ‘mamsie pamsie' stuff here!"

But behind OSU's anodyne promises of wholesome fun for military families, the organization promotes an apocalyptic brand of evangelical Christianity to active duty US soldiers serving in Muslim-dominated regions of the Middle East. Displayed prominently on the "What We Believe" section of OSU's website is a passage from the Book of Revelations (Revelation 19:20; 20:10-15) that has become the bedrock of the Christian right's End Times theology: "The devil and his angels, the beast and the false prophet, and whosoever is not found written in the Book of Life, shall be consigned to everlasting punishment in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."

With the endorsement of the Defense Department, OSU is mailing "Freedom Packages" to soldiers serving in Iraq. These are not your grandfather's care packages, however. Besides pairs of white socks and boxes of baby wipes (included at the apparent suggestion of Iran-Contra felon Oliver North, according to OSU) OSU's care packages contain the controversial Left Behind: Eternal Forces video game. The game is inspired by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins' bestselling pulp fiction series about a blood-soaked Battle of Armageddon pitting born-again Christians against anybody who does not adhere to their particular theology. In LaHaye's and Jenkins' books, the non-believers are ultimately condemned to "everlasting punishment" while the evangelicals are "raptured" up to heaven.

The Left Behind videogame is a real-time strategy game that makes players commanders of a virtual evangelical army in a post-apocalyptic landscape that looks strikingly like New York City after 9/11. With tanks, helicopters and a fearsome arsenal of automatic weapons at their disposal, Left Behind players wage a violent war against United Nations-like peacekeepers who, according to LaHaye's interpretation of Revelation, represent the armies of the Antichrist. Each time a Left Behind player kills a UN soldier, their virtual character exclaims, "Praise the Lord!" To win the game, players must kill or convert all the non-believers left behind after the rapture. They also have the option of reversing roles and commanding the forces of the Antichrist.

more...

Producers of the Left Behind videogame were faced with a storm of controversy after Christian blogger Jonathan Hutson exposed its eliminationist overtones in a series of posts on the website Talk2Action. Statements by the Anti-Defamation League, the Conference on American Islamic Relations, the Christian Alliance for Progress, and others condemned the game and demanded that Walmart pull it from its shelves. Even Marvin Olasky, the evangelical publisher, intellectual author of "compassionate conservatism," and a force behind the George W. Bush Administration's White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives," denounced the Left Behind videogame. In a blog post on the website of his World Magazine, Olasky described the game's content as akin to "the way homicidal Muslims think." As a result of the fallout, Left Behind Games fired its senior VP and released three board members.

This controversy has not deterred OSU from encouraging US troops to play virtual rounds of kill or convert after a hard day of house-to-house searches and counterinsurgency warfare against Iraqi insurgents. What's more, OSU's "Freedom Packages" include a copy of evangelical pastor Jonathan McDowell's More Than A Carpenter - a book advertised as "one of the most powerful evangelism tools worldwide" - that is double-published in Arabic. Considering that only a handful of American troops speak Arabic, the book is ostensibly intended for proselytizing efforts among Iraqi civilians.

OSU has cultivated support from the Department of Defense for years. After a private October, 2005 meeting between OSU's Spinks and Defense Department officials, OSU was invited to perform inside the Pentagon. This week, Pentagon employees and active duty service members are expected to enjoy a breakfast with Spinks and Baldwin, followed by an OSU performance in which they will receive "spiritual encouragement via a Biblical message." The events will be held respectively in the Pentagon Executive Dining Room and the Pentagon Auditorium.

Spreading the Gospel to US troops is only one of many crusades Baldwin has waged in the name of the Lord. During 2006, Baldwin frequently stationed himself on the sidewalk outside a pornographic video store in New York. There, he photographed the license plates of people entering the store and threatened to publish an ad in a Nyack paper publicizing the names of those who patronized the store. "In my position, I just don't think I'm supposed to keep my faith to myself," Baldwin told a group of Texas Southern Baptists in 2004. "I'm just doing what the Lord's telling me to do."

Soon after his appearance at the Pentagon, Baldwin ships out to Iraq for OSU's "Military Crusade." With its cadre of celebrity entertainers pushing End Times theology, and the overt support of the Defense Department, OSU is hoping to transform Bush's surge into a battle of biblical proportions.

They just can't keep their faith to themselves.

................................................................................
Also see:

Pentagon Sued Over Mandatory Christianity

Video, Report Details Evangelism At Highest Levels Of US Military

Swastikas at Hunter Airfield, and a Rabbi on the Run

With God on Our Side: Evangelical Christianity On Steroids In US Military

Ft. Leavenworth Army Chaplains Preaching Anti-Semitism to US Soldiers

Anti-Semitic Bible Teachings Disappear From Army Site

[Cross-posted at Edgeing]



There's more: "Kill or Convert, Brought To You By The Pentagon" >>

Don't Watch This Video

From Bear Republic Action Group. This is what is being done in Iraq in your name, while Republicans continue to support George W. Bush and the Democrat controlled Congress refuses to stop funding and put an end to George W. Bush's occupation of that country:

Warning: This video is ugly, savage and without a doubt not for the kids or the squeamish….But it is what George W. Bush and his ‘Rubber Stamp Republican Party’ are doing in the full light of day. Send a link to this to anyone you know who thinks the ‘Surge’ is working or that, in fact, the people ‘running’ this brutal, illegal occupation have any fucking idea what they are doing. And I do mean any idea at all.

[Cross-Posted at Edgeing]




There's more: "Don't Watch This Video" >>

Republicans Panicking Because the Greatest Heist the World Has Ever Seen is Failing

It strikes me as I listen to the ongoing debate about Iraq that the Republicans are so split because they are beginning to realize that the Greatest Heist the World has Ever Seen is failing. And it scares them spit-less, as no operation of this size has ever been pulled off, and the American people are unwilling to any longer play the willing sheep to the Big Bad Wolf that is the GOP.

The sheer logistics involved, the numbers of people who had to be either corrupted or shut up, the stealing of billions and billions of dollars from hapless Americans in order to strike the jackpot of the old, "Black gold, Texas tea," and steal from the Middle Eastern countries control of all their oil fields is staggering to the mind.

As I see it (and this is admittedly pure speculation, but speculations drawn from reasonable inferences) the plan went something like this:

From the very moment bush/cheney were put into office by the Supreme Court they began planning to attack Iraq. On an otherwise unmarked map of Iraq, cheney and his consultants on his "Energy" task force literally divided the spoils of the war that was to be and broke up the distribution rights to all that Iraqi oil. The only thing the maladministration lacked was a casus belli to attack Iraq, and we already know that bush was so desperate to get his end of the plan going that he deliberately tried to provoke Iraq into an attack on American or UN resources to justify war.

Then September 11, 2001, happened. 14 Saudi Arabians and a few others hijacked commercial airliners, flew them into the WTC, and, manna from heaven, now bush could obtain virtually any authority to form any response he thought necessary. Did he think it necessary to attack those who attacked us, the Saudis who ostensibly were allies, or, knowing it would be impossible to attack the world's leading gas station, did bush/cheney decide it was more important to manufacture an enemy in closer proximity to the Iraqi oil fields? It had to be an country adjacent to Iraq for logistical purposes, Osama Bin Laden played the convenient villain, and Afghanistan was already such a war-torn, run-down, and easy country to attack that it filled bush/cheney's original purposes perfectly. (They made very sure that all the rest of the Bin Laden family, many of them in business with the Bush family, got out of the country safely when no one else in America could fly anywhere.)

Afghanistan went much too well for bush/cheney, the boogey-man Bin laden became trapped at Tora Bora, and our forces were ordered to allow his escape so the "war on terror" could continue. After all, by then bush had ordered the diversion of funds meant for Afghanistan to the build-up towards the war he really wanted, war with Iraq.

The neocons, including bush, fancied that they could dispense with plans many years in the making by our military experts and believed they could blast in with "shock and awe," install a puppet government and grab command of the oil fields. The puppet government would be required to sign the Profit Sharing Agreements (PSAs) that would give American Big Oil 85%-87% of all oil profits for the next thirty years.

The plan was proceeding brilliantly, handing out no-bid contracts to cronies who in turn kicked back billions to the government "off the books," I would imagine, for how else could anyone steal billions and billions of dollars from the mightiest fighting force in the world without some complicity from those handing out wheelbarrows full of cash? Over ten billion dollars stolen! A very small down payment compared to the trillions of dollars of oil profits to be had.

Then something went seriously wrong. The insurgency wasn't it, because any competent military planner would plan for peace as well as war. Did competent people draw up this plan, ignoring the thousands of years of history, or was it the failure to be able to install an Iraqi-American government favorable to this entire endeavor that caused things to go awry? Or did the government we installed come to the realization of our intent to take their oil and decided to fight even harder against the U.S.? Why should they give away trillions of dollars, not a penny of which would be spent to benefit Iraq?

The only way the Iraqi's can seek to hold onto what rightfully belongs to them is to stall, harass, and harangue and continue their insurgency against the U.S.

Now time is running out with the American people, who have grown weary watching their loved ones die to satisfy bush's imperial goal of giving all that oil to American Big Oil. bush now regularly states that the oil agreement is the single-most important thing for Iraq to do. Now the parliament won't meet, vacations while our troops die, can't form a quorum, and failed to meet bush's deadline of June 30th for signing of the oil agreements.

This means that bush/cheney must get a new, more pliable government in place before the American public really rises up and forces troop withdrawal.

Then the failed plan will come to light. The greatest theft of money from our country in history so far, but a theft that will seem miniscule in comparison if bush/cheney manages to steal all that oil.

Until very recently bush never consulted the Democratic members of congress at all, so there is a good chance SOME congresspersons are not party to this grandiose scheme, but Republicans have been briefed every step of the way and I believe large numbers of the Republicans know exactly why we are in Iraq and support this theft on a global scale. That's why so many of them are running scared and trying to distance themselves from the Greatest Failed Robbery in History, for if my speculations here are true, there will be lots and lots of heads rolling for attempting the theft at all, plus tremendous public outrage at finding that this war was not for noble purposes, but was strictly a plan to steal what does not belong to us, killing many thousands of Americans and committing genocide against the Iraqi people in violation of everything for which America used to stand.

It's stealing. It's dying for stealing. It's killing in untold numbers to steal. It's causing incalculable damage to the world in general, and Iraq specifically, just to steal oil.

And meanwhile, China is circling the globe quietly purchasing every oil contract they can snap up, for a fraction of the cost in lives and treasure that the Greatest Attempted Heist in History will cost America.

Watch the Republicans squeal, twist, turn, and scream like a stuck pig as their continuing perfidy becomes clear to the world, they start turning on bush/cheney, and attempting to deny the role of the GOP and their own support for this failed theft.

Cross-posted from VidiotSpeak

There's more: "Republicans Panicking Because the Greatest Heist the World Has Ever Seen is Failing" >>

Keith Olbermann: All Hail the Prophetic Gut!

All Hail the Prophetic Gut!
Keith Olbermann, MSNBC Countdown, Thursday 12 July 2007 (via t r u t h o u t)

[Cross-posted @ Edgeing]

Explaining Michael Chertoff's counterterrorism stomach.

You have by now heard the remark - instantly added to our through-the-looking-glass lexicon of the 21st century, a time when we suddenly started referring to this country as "the homeland," as if anybody here has used that term since Charles Lindbergh or the German-American Bund in 1940.

Michael Chertoff's "gut feeling."

Which, he took pains to emphasize, was based on no specific nor even vague intelligence that we are entering a period of increased risk of terrorism here.

He got as specific as saying that al-Qaida seems to like the summer, but as to the rest of it, he is perfectly content to let us sit and wait and worry - and to contemplate his gut.

His gut!

We used to have John Ashcroft's major announcements.

We used to have David Paulison's breathless advisories about how to use duct tape against radiation attacks.

We used to have Tom Ridge's color-coded threat levels.

Now we have Michael Chertoff's gut!

Once, we thought we were tiptoeing along a Grand Canyon of possible and actual freedoms and civil liberties destroyed, as part of some kind of nauseating but ultimately necessary and intricately designed plan to stop future 9/11s or even future Glasgow car bombers who wind up having to get out and push their failed weapons.

Now it turns out we are risking all of our rights and protections - and risking the anger and hatred of the rest of the world - for the sake of Michael Chertoff's gut...>>

I have pondered this supreme expression of diminished expectations for parts of three days now. I have concluded that there are only five possible explanations for Mr. Chertoff's remarkable revelations about his transcendently important counterterrorism stomach.

Firstly, Mr. Chertoff, you are, as Richard Wolffe said here the other night, actually referencing not your gut but your backside - as in, "covering it." CYA.

Not only has there not been a terrorist attack stopped in this country, but your good old Homeland Security hasn't even unraveled a plausible terrorist plan.

And you and your folks there have a different kind of stomach pain, knowing that with a track record that consists largely of two accomplishments - inconveniencing people at airports and scaring them everywhere else - your department doesn't know what the hell it's doing, and even you, Mr. Chertoff, know it.

Secondly, of course, there is the explanation of choice for those millions of us who have heard the shrill and curiously timed cries of "wolf" over the past six years - what we've called here "the Nexus of Politics and Terror" - that there isn't anything cooking, and your "gut feeling" was actually that you'd better throw up a diversion soon on Mr. Bush's behalf or something real - like the Republicans' revolt about Iraq, and the nauseating "gut feeling" that we have gotten 3,611 Americans killed there for no reason - was actually going to seep into the American headlines and consciousness.

It's impossible to prove a negative, to guarantee that you and your predecessors deliberately scared the American public just for the political hell of it - even though your predecessor, Mr. Ridge, admitted he had his suspicions about exactly that.

Suffice to say, Mr. Chertoff: If it ever can be proved, there will be a lot of people from Homeland Security and other outposts of this remarkably corrupt administration who will be going to prison.

Thirdly - and most charitably, I guess, Mr. Chertoff - is the possibility that you have made some credible inference that we are really at greater risk right now but that any detail might blow some sort of attempt at interruption. There is some silver lining in this one.

But the silver lining would have been a greater one if this National Counter Terrorism Center Report hadn't leaked out the day after you introduced us to your gut, a report suggesting al-Qaida had re-built its operational capacity to pre-9/11 levels.

Not only did this latest hair-on-fire missive remind us that al-Qaida's re-growth has been along the Pakistan/Afghanistan border; not only did it remind us that your boss let this happen by shifting his resources out of Afghanistan to Iraq for his own vain and foolish purposes, to say nothing of ignoring Pakistan; not only did it underscore the ominous truth that if this country is victimized again by al-Qaida, the personal responsibility for the failure of our misplaced defenses would belong to President Bush and President Bush alone, but on top of all of it, Mr. Chertoff, it revealed you for the phony expert you are - the kid who hears in confidence something smart from somebody smart and then makes his prediction that what the smart kid said confidentially is about to happen.

It reads just as you revised the "gut" remark this morning, sir - the "informed opinion." The kid telling stories out of school.

The fourth possibility is a simple reversal of the third, Mr. Chertoff.

You shot off your bazoo, and then this National Counter Terrorism Center report was rushed out - even created - to cover you, to give you credibility, to cloud the reality that you actually intoned to the Chicago Tribune, the 21st-century equivalent of "by the pricking of my thumb, something wicked this way comes."

But the fifth possible explanation of your gut, Mr. Chertoff, is the real nightmare scenario.

And it is simple.

That you, the man who famously told us "Louisiana is a city that is largely under water," meant this literally.

That we really have been reduced to listening to see if your gut will growl.

That your intestines are our best defense.

That your bowels are our listening devices, your digestive tract is full of augurs, your colon produces the results that the torture at Gitmo does not.

All hail the prophetic gut!

So there are your choices: bureaucratic self-protection, political manipulation of the worst kind, the dropping of opaque hints, a gaffe backfilled by an "instant report," or the complete disintegration of our counterterror effort.

Even if there really is never another terror attempt in this country, we have already lost too much in these last six years to now have to listen to Michael Chertoff's gut, no matter what its motivation.

We cannot and will not turn this country into a police state.

But even those of us who say that most loudly and insistently acknowledge that some stricter measures, under the still-stricter supervision of as many watchdogs as we can summon, are appropriate.

But you're not even going to wring any of that from us, Mr. Chertoff, if we're going to hear remarks about your "gut feelings."

You have reduced yourself to the status of a hunch-driven clown, and it's probably time you turned your task over to somebody who represents the brain and not the gut, certainly to somebody who does not, as you do now, represent that other part of the anatomy - the one through which the body disposes of what the stomach doesn't want.





There's more: "Keith Olbermann: All Hail the Prophetic Gut!" >>

Joe Wilson On Libby Commutation: Bush Administration "Corrupt to the Core"

Keith Olbermann interviews Joe Wilson.

Joe Wilson: Springing Libby Shows Administration Is "Corrupt to the Core"
Editor & Publisher via truthout, Tuesday 03 July 2007

Appearing in an audio interview on MSNBC's "Countdown," Wilson called the move the latest evidence that the administration is "corrupt to the core." He added that it meant that the president was now participating in the "obstruction of justice."

Wilson called on both the president and Libby's former boss, Vice President Cheney, to "come clean" on their roles in the leaking of his wife's name, now that Libby has been spared prison. He called the leaking of the name "treasonous."

Asked by host Keith Olbermann if there was a "quid pro quo" - Libby would remain silent about crucial details of Cheney's role in the case in exchange for a pardon or commutation - Wilson answered, "absolutely."

There's more: "Joe Wilson On Libby Commutation: Bush Administration "Corrupt to the Core"" >>

Keith Olbermann To Bush: J'Accuse - You Ceased To Be The President

The News Hole - Special Comment: It's Time to Resign:

I accuse you, Mr. Bush, of lying this country into war.

I accuse you of fabricating in the minds of your own people, a false implied link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11.

I accuse you of firing the generals who told you that the plans for Iraq were disastrously insufficient.

I accuse you of causing in Iraq the needless deaths of 3,586 of our brothers and sons, and sisters and daughters, and friends and neighbors.

I accuse you of subverting the Constitution, not in some misguided but sincerely-motivated struggle to combat terrorists, but to stifle dissent.

I accuse you of fomenting fear among your own people, of creating the very terror you claim to have fought.

I accuse you of exploiting that unreasoning fear, the natural fear of your own people who just want to live their lives in peace, as a political tool to slander your critics and libel your opponents.

I accuse you of handing part of this Republic over to a Vice President who is without conscience, and letting him run roughshod over it.

And I accuse you now, Mr. Bush, of giving, through that Vice President, carte blanche to Mr. Libby, to help defame Ambassador Joseph Wilson by any means necessary, to lie to Grand Juries and Special Counsel and before a court, in order to protect the mechanisms and particulars of that defamation, with your guarantee that Libby would never see prison, and, in so doing, as Ambassador Wilson himself phrased it here last night, of becoming an accessory… to the obstruction of justice.
...
When President Nixon ordered the firing of the Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox during the infamous "Saturday Night Massacre" on October 20th, 1973, Cox initially responded tersely, and ominously:

"Whether ours shall be a government of laws and not of men, is now for Congress, and ultimately, the American people."

President Nixon did not understand how he had crystallized the issue of Watergate for the American people.

It had been about the obscure meaning behind an attempt to break in to a rival party's headquarters; and the labyrinthine effort to cover-up that break-in and the related crimes.

And in one night, Nixon transformed it.

Watergate -- instantaneously -- became a simpler issue: a President overruling the inexorable march of the law… of insisting -- in a way that resonated viscerally with millions who had not previously understood - that he was the law.

Not the Constitution.
Not the Congress.
Not the Courts.
Just him.

Just - Mr. Bush - as you did, yesterday.

The twists and turns of Plame-Gate, of your precise and intricate lies that sent us into this bottomless pit of Iraq; your lies upon the lies to discredit Joe Wilson; your lies upon the lies upon the lies to throw the sand at the "referee" of Prosecutor Fitzgerald's analogy… these are complex and often painful to follow, and too much, perhaps, for the average citizen.

But when other citizens render a verdict against your man, Mr. Bush -- and then you spit in the faces of those jurors and that judge and the judges who were yet to hear the appeal -- the average citizen understands that, Sir.

It's the fixed ballgame and the rigged casino and the pre-arranged lottery all rolled into one -- and it stinks.

And they know it.

Nixon's mistake, the last and most fatal of them, the firing of Archibald Cox, was enough to cost him the presidency.

And in the end, even Richard Nixon could say he could not put this nation through an impeachment.

It was far too late for it to matter then, but as the decades unfold, that single final gesture of non-partisanship, of acknowledged responsibility not to self, not to party, not to "base," but to country, echoes loudly into history.

Even Richard Nixon knew it was time to resign

Would that you could say that, Mr. Bush.

And that you could say it for Mr. Cheney.

You both crossed the Rubicon yesterday.

There's more: "Keith Olbermann To Bush: J'Accuse - You Ceased To Be The President" >>

Iraq: The Death Of Reason

NEW FILM EXPOSES EVANGELICAL HYPOCRISY IN WAR SUPPORT AND OUTLINES BUSH ADMINISTRATION DECEPTIONS/WAR CRIMES

Iraq: The Death of Reason has now been released to the public by Voice in the Wilderness productions. This stunning new film attacks the Evangelical Church’s error in supporting the war in Iraq. Produced and directed by Raymond Schwab and Elliott Nesch of Beit Shalom Ministries, Iraq: The Death of Reason addresses just war theory, Abu Ghraib torture, depleted uranium, the deceptions sold to the American public by the Bush administration, false flag operations, war profiteers and calls the Christian church to reconsider their position, since prior to invasion 79% of evangelicals supported military action.

There's more: "Iraq: The Death Of Reason" >>

IRAQ: The Surge Is Working?

Tom Friedman of Friedman Unit fame (the next six months are crucial) in an NYT editorial, seems to have finally concluded that George W. Bush's "surge", otherwise known as Operation Last Chance, is failing:

It’s too early to pronounce the U.S. military’s surge in Iraq a failure. It’s not too early to say, though, that there’s no sign that it’s succeeding — that it’s making Iraqi politics or security better in any appreciable, self-sustaining way. At best, the surge is keeping Iraq from descending into full-scale civil war. At best we are dog paddling in the Tigris. Which means at least we should start to think about what happens if we have to get out of the water.

The first choice for many Shiites is a pro-Iranian, Shiite-dominated religious Iraq, where Sunnis have little say and little power. . . . In short, our first-choice soldiers are dying for Iraqis’ second choice. That is wrong, terribly wrong. It has to stop.

Friedman is probably right from the point of view of most reasonable people, but (and it's a big but) the "surge" may actually be a roaring success, and only failing depending on who you ask.

I'll explain why on the flip. Be warned though, it's not good news.

On April 08, 2007:

[Iraqi cleric] Muqtada al-Sadr urged the Iraqi army and police to stop cooperating with the United States and told his guerrilla fighters to concentrate on pushing American forces out of the country, according to a statement issued Sunday. The statement, stamped with al-Sadr's official seal, was distributed in the Shiite holy city of Najaf on Sunday -- a day before a large demonstration there, called for by al-Sadr, to mark the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad. "You, the Iraqi army and police forces, don't walk alongside the occupiers, because they are your archenemy," the statement said.

Up till April this year al-Sadr had been telling his people to restrain from open battle with US Troops.

On Sunday June 03 the NYT reported that:

Three months after the start of the Baghdad security plan that has added thousands of American and Iraqi troops to the capital, they control fewer than one-third of the city's neighborhoods, far short of the initial goal for the operation, according to some commanders and an internal military assessment.

On Monday June 04 The Herald reported that:

The toll from the booby-trap devices rose from 35% of all American fatalities in January to 80% last month, despite an outlay of more than £2.5bn on countermeasures since 2003.
...
A total of 127 died in May, the third worst total for US forces since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The previous most lethal months were April and November, 2004, when 135 and 137 soldiers died in large-scale offensives in Falluja.

On Friday June 29 AP reported that:

Baghdad - A huge bomb explosion followed by a hail of gunfire and grenades killed five U.S. soldiers, the military said Friday. The attack climaxed the deadliest three-month period for the Americans since the war began.The toll for the past three months - 329 - made it the deadliest quarter for U.S. troops in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion. That surpasses the 316 soldiers killed during November 2004 to January 2005.

Iraqis will never quit. Iraqis want exactly what most Americans want... they want their own country - without a foreign occupying army. They don't want 'help' from US Troops - they want them gone, or dead.

They also want the Iraq puppet government gone, or dead:

"More than half the MPs, ministers and senior officials are on vacation, sick leave or on official assignment abroad (at any given time)," a government official told IPS on condition of anonymity. "It is common practice now that they spend more time abroad than in their offices. The main reason is their fear of being targeted inside the country "... Over the past year, an increasing number of Iraqis have begun to see the Iraqi government as no more than pawns of the United States...

It's all over but the denial.

In the bizarro logic used to continue the debacle in Iraq arming the people you've been killing for years and invaded the place to oust from power makes perfect sense.

It gives them the weaponry needed to kill American soldiers in Iraq, thus proving beyond all doubt that the place is riddled with terrorists and justifying sending more American troops in...

In other countries it's called treason, and war crimes.




There's more: "IRAQ: The Surge Is Working?" >>

Who Pays The Price For The Idiocy?

Iraq Ambush Caps Bloodiest Months for US
By Robert H. Reid, The Associated Press, Friday 29 June 2007

Baghdad - A huge bomb explosion followed by a hail of gunfire and grenades killed five U.S. soldiers, the military said Friday. The attack climaxed the deadliest three-month period for the Americans since the war began.

Seven soldiers were wounded in the attack Thursday in the Rasheed district, a mixed Sunni-Shiite area of southern Baghdad where U.S.- led forces recently stepped up pressure on extremists. The commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad suggested the ambush could be part of an escalating backlash by Sunni insurgents.

Those deaths brought to 99 the number of U.S. troops killed this month, according to an Associated Press count. The toll for the past three months - 329 - made it the deadliest quarter for U.S. troops in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion. That surpasses the 316 soldiers killed during November 2004 to January 2005.

Maj. Gen. Joseph F. Fil Jr., who heads U.S. forces in the Iraqi capital, said U.S. casualties had mounted because Sunni extremists are "starting to fight very hard" as U.S. forces press into areas of the capital where militants once had free rein.

Part of an escalating backlash by Sunni insurgents?

As I noted on Thursday, these would be the same Sunni insurgents that Bush, out of his "respect" for the US military, has decided to supply with weapons:

The "insurgency" IS Iraq. It is Iraqis.

By arming Sunnis to ostensibly help fight al-Qaeda (who was NOT in Iraq before the invasion and is such a small minority the Iraqis will slit all their throats the moment they are not distracted by throwing the US out) but who will use the help to fight Shias Bush is now taking sides in a civil war with people who composed Saddam's Ba'ath Party, against the very Shia backed puppet government Bush set up in the first place.

There's more: "Who Pays The Price For The Idiocy?" >>