Onward
Christian Soldiers
March 11, 2003
By Sheila Samples
I
used to think inbreeding that produced madmen was mostly about
marrying your cousin. Not the deliciously titillating madness
of an Edgar Allen Poe - but the crude, one-branch family tree
that, throughout history, produced cackling fools, maniacal
genuises, and dangerous czars - most of whom built their empires
and crushed their enemies with the help of angry and vengeful
gods.
History's madmen are eerily similar in their sense of manifest
destiny. They are the offspring of promiscuous copulation
between religious zealots and crusading warmongers, and seem
to arrive fullblown on the scene, bloated with Biblical bloodlust.
And, did you notice that a destructive, all-powerful God personally
chose each of them for a particular moment in history? Strange,
isn't it, that each power-mad dictator's "moment" involves
massive expansion - a Messianic struggle for world dominion
- an insatiable thirst for the destruction of all who stand
in his way.
So, is Bush "mad" for relentlessly waging his Crusade of
Infinite Justice to rid the world of evil and liberate all
of humanity? Well, considering that he's scarcely more than
a boisterous 16-year-old when it comes to sober thinking -
considering the gaggle of really creepy loons with which he's
surrounded himself - a case could be made that he's headed
in that direction. Maybe I'm reading too much into all of
this. Or maybe the Dubster's just plain nuts. Think about
it. No, really.
Think about how this cabal of unelected individuals got there
in the first place and, as Ari Fleischer once admonished -
watch what they say; watch what they do. This rhetorically-challenged
gang blurts out their "strategery" all the time, but we're
laughing too uproariously to pay them any mind. Geedubya himself
never shuts up about it. He tells us over and over, again
and again, "they all hate us because we love freedom and they're
jealous of our democracy. And, make no mistake about it,"
he said shortly after 9-11 - "freedom is granted to each American
by Almighty God." I'm not saying that's crazy. It could even
be true. But if it is, Bush needs to take his attorney general
aside and explain to him the freedom chain-of-command.
He then expanded that startling revelation in a Crawford
Ranch interview with the Washington Post's compliant
and adoring Bob Woodward by saying, "There is a value system
that cannot be compromised. And if the values are good enough
for our people, they ought to be good enough for others, not
in a way to impose because these are God-given values.
These aren't US-created values. These are values of freedom,
the human condition, mothers loving their children..."
By the time his State of the Union address rolled around,
Bush had not only elevated himself to a god-like superiority
over all living beings, but had wrested the flight controls
from God Himself and was sitting firmly in the Captain's seat.
He was now the religious-zealot-in-charge. The world could
only watch in shock and awe as he flailed full-bore against
the mighty Axis of Evil. "The liberty we prize," he thundered,
"is not America's gift to the world - it is God's gift to
humanity."
Talk about evolution! Bush has come from cowering in multiple
hidey-holes on 9-11 to boldly striding forth to answer the
call of History. He's really big on answering History's call.
One can only wish he had learned History's lessons as well.
This is his "moment" in History - his Manifest Destiny. As
God's agent here on earth, he tells us America "bears the
hope of the world, and it is up to us to set things right."
So, let me get this straight - even though the entire Third
World doesn't take kindly to being threatened with democracy,
we're gonna liberate their asses anyway and - with the help
of God and a long-handled spoon - stuff freedom down their
throats until they beg for the love and magic that only God
can bring to their worthless, swarthy lives. Hmmm... Does
that sound suspiciously like the Coulter Doctrine to you?
I thought so.
Did I miss anything? Oh yeah - it's gonna take a lot of pre-emptive
strikes and a lot of regime changes. At least that's what
crusading warmongers Richard Perle and Condaleeza Rice are
saying, and they should know since it's their plan.
Perle, the brutish chairman of the Defense Policy Board over
at Rummy's Little Shop of Horrors, is the inspiration for
establishing the new world order by waging violent, endless
war. It is only with great effort that Perle refrains from
stomping his cloven hooves as he quivers with anticipation
at the thought of impending chaos and destruction. Perle told
filmmaker and journalist John Pilger late last year, "This
is total war. We are fighting a variety of enemies. There
are lots of them out there... If we just let our vision of
the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely, and we don't
try to piece together clever diplomacy, but just wage a
total war... our children will sing great songs about
us years from now..." Verily, mine eyes have seen the Glory.
Not to be outdone, National Security Advisor Rice - "Condi"
to those who know and love her - said in a moment of light-hearted
idiocy, "Once the United States overthrows Saddam Hussein
and liberates Iraq, it will then proceed to spread
democracy, human rights, and enlightenment throughout the
world, but most notably in the Mideast." Yes oh yes. Like
jam on toast. Spread it thick...yummm.
I don't know about you, but I'm hearing looney tunes from
one end of this administration to the other - and all in the
name of Jesus Christ. I want to stand up and shout, "Hey -
I know Jesus Christ! Jesus is a friend of mine. And the guy
you're hiding behind - the one you're wagging in everybody's
face for political gain - is no Jesus Christ." But all
I can do when Bush or his legions blaspheme the name of Jesus
and order God - like an unbottled heavenly genie - to wreak
Old Testament vengeance, is clap my hands over my ears, rock
back and forth in agony, and burst into uncontrollable tears.
How can Christians stand by, mute, and allow the world to
be savagely sodomized, allow millions of innocents to be slaughtered
- and allow it all to be blamed on the spotless and gentle
risen Savior? How?
Having displayed neither the interest nor the ability to
lead, it seems Dubya asks only that those who are actually
in control allow him to be called the leader - a noble and
self-righteous dictator, protecting his subjects, killing
his way to peace. This seems little enough to ask, not only
of those who control him, but of those who selected him for
this high office. In a May
2002 article in First Things Magazine, Supreme
Court Justice Antonin Scalia said that God-chosen leaders
must "seize power in conflict," thus demonstrating that God
chose them over others.
"It is easy to see the hand of the Almighty behind rulers
whose forebears, in the dim mists of history, were supposedly
anointed by God, or who at least obtained their thrones in
awful and unpredictable battles whose outcome was determined
by the Lord of Hosts, that is, the Lord of Armies," Scalia
wrote. "It is much more difficult to see the hand of God -
or any higher moral authority - behind the fools and rogues...whom
we ourselves elect to do our own will..."
Scalia knew. They all knew that the people cannot be trusted
with the freedoms of self-government. Like all of History's
madmen, they knew if you inundate the people with a relentless
wave of confusion and fear, if you amp up the sound until
it shatters all reason, if you stir a vengeful God into the
mix - the fools and rogues will come to you and lay freedom
at your feet. They will beg you to take it.
I'm not suggesting that everyone in this brutal, sinister
Evangelical cabal is stark raving mad. Not at all. But - bottom
line - it's either them or me. Every day I become more convinced
that I tripped and fell into the town of Stepford and cannot
find the way out. They are everywhere. For example, on a C-SPAN
call-in show last week, the moderator asked for listeners'
opinions on whether we should wage preemptive war on Iraq.
The first response was from a woman who said in a sweet voice,
"Oh, yes. Mr. Hussein is an evil man who killed 3,000 Americans.
We need to attack Iraq, but" - she added hurriedly - "in a
Christian way."
In search of some sanity, I turned desperately to a listing
of historical quotes on war. There, I found Arnold Toynbee
saying, "History teaches us that when a barbarian race confronts
a sleeping culture, the barbarian always wins."
Adolf Hitler then assured me that, "The one means that wins
the easiest victory over reason is terror/force."
Even Reverend Billy Graham, God's most prolific soul-winner
who personally brought Dubbie to Jesus, warns, "We must have
military power to keep madmen from taking over the world."
Yes indeedy. From Graham's lips to God's ears. I am convinced
at last that we are witnessing Bush's Moment in History. Praise
the Lord.
And pass the ammunition...
Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma freelance writer and a former
U.S. Army Public Information Officer.
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