There are so many disparate and monumentally discordant factions vying for prominence in the upcoming war with Iraq that one realizes that none of the participants have a clue as to how it will eventually resolve. It is almost impossible to rectify all of the contingencies. You have the neo- conservative’s Pax Americana replete with neotech symbols and Teutonic emblems (reminiscent of you-know-who) ready to clash with the “towel-headed” Muslims. Supporting them in every way are the millions of Armageddonists praying that this war is the war that will see that the Israelis are sufficiently fire-and-brimstoned to warrant the Rapture and Second Coming.
In the Muslim world, various factions are positioning and grooming themselves to be the Saladin incarnate or the next imam for a billion or so believers. They are salivating at the possibility of immense collateral damage to the Iraqis to justify their Jihad to end all Jihads. The Bush administration's fixation on Saddam seems to have blinded it to the possibility that Usama might be perversely encouraging America in this war. The administration and Al Qaeda both have a purpose for invading Iraq, and both want a regime change.
"Both talk about "liberating" the Arab people, but Usama's vision is apocalyptic, but so also is the Rapturists, who can’t wait for Armageddon either. Usama wants the Middle East — Israel and the Arab monarchies — to go up in flames. By Zionizing our battle with Iraq and promising an anti-American theocracy, he hopes to radicalize recruits for a jihad against an American occupation of Arab land." Usama's own fanaticism was forged by foreign occupations — the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan and American forces stationed in Saudi Arabia.
What is deeply troubling is the inordinately shrill cacophony of “prayer”, blaring out from the minds and hearts of Christians, Muslims and Jews alike, all imploring the One God to bless their own personal Armageddon agenda. Meanwhile the Pope and the various other factions of sane humans are praying for the cosmic commodity of Peace to be place like a cold cloth on the heads of all of these warmongers.
The PNAC’s Secret (Pax Americana)- The Project for a New American Century (PNAC) -
In September 2000, before the election and one year before the attack on America, the PNAC released a report entitled “Rebuilding America’s Defenses.” The report is a blueprint for an American “empire” and goes a long way in explaining the Bush “National Defense Strategy.” Membership in the PNAC is overflowing with the usual neo-conservative suspects: Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle and various upper-staff bigwigs.
The members are basically the talking heads for the sprawling, voracious, military- industrial complex which has constituted anything but free enterprise from its very inception during World War II. These are the great arms firms which have managed to slough off much of the normal risk of doing business in a genuine market, passing on many of their excessive costs to the taxpayers while still realizing extraordinary rates of return on investment.
“At no time in history has the international security order been as conducive to American interests and ideals,” the report says. “The challenge of this coming century is to preserve and enhance this ‘American Peace.’” The report promotes escalating world-wide military bases including an increased presence in the Middle East.
The report calls for control of the world’s energy resources and the targeting of Iraq to achieve our goals because “the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.”
To create the environment to achieve these objectives, the report says that what America needs is “some catastrophic and catalyzing event — like Pearl Harbor.” The people who wrote the PNAC report make their intentions very clear. These people are now in power and with the “event” they needed to kick things off, i.e., the 9/11 attacks.
The CIA’s former head of counterintelligence, Vincent Cannistraro, has said, “Basically, cooked information is working its way into high-level pronouncements and there’s a lot of unhappiness about it in intelligence, especially among analysts at the CIA.”
World War Armageddon
Conjoined at the hip with these neocons are the “dispensationalists,” who spun off from the ranks of Christian Fundamentalism to a more radical cult status of Armageddonists. The book and movie phenomena, LEFT BEHIND, is a good portrayal of this “philosophy.” These are ultra-fundamentalists who mimic their Muslim counterparts quite well, as noted by the Washington Post calling this belief "Christian jihadism," to indicate the followers determination to drive their country into World War Armageddon.
There are millions of people praying daily that modern day Israel be utterly annihilated at the great battle of Armageddon – signaling the End of History and the Return of Christ the King. According to the "Dispensationalists", what’s left of Israel will take the place of the Church on earth, and a new "dispensation" (or era) will be inaugurated, as mankind approaches the "End Times." Millions of Americans pine for a nuclear Armageddon because it will fulfill their "prophecies." Somewhat schizophrenically, while ignoring the national interests of their own country, they have become a potent political force in the U.S., and practically dominate the Republican party.
These days, the partnership is benefitting from the sense of a mutual enemy: Islam. The Rev. Jerry Falwell, who has said Islam "teaches hate," went further on "60 Minutes" when he asserted, "I think Muhammad was a terrorist."
A grim comedy of mutual condescension
Evangelicals fervently support Israel for theological reasons of their own, based on a literal reading of the Book of Revelation that entwines the Jewish commonwealth with the Apocalypse and Second Coming. As Mr. Falwell instructs: "You and I know that there's not going to be any real peace in the Middle East until one day the Lord Jesus Christ sits on the throne of David in Jerusalem."
When the Rapture comes, they grouse, the holy alliance between Christians and Jews will suddenly become unholy, with Christians levitating and Jews left behind to deal with the Antichrist, plagues, sores, boils, frogs and locusts from the "bottomless pit," each with a human face, horse's body, scorpion's tail and a sting that torments for five months.
"This is a grim comedy of mutual condescension," says Leon Wieseltier, the Jewish scholar and literary editor of The New Republic. "The evangelical Christians condescend to the Jews by offering their support before they convert or kill them. And the conservative Jews condescend to Christians by accepting their support while believing that their eschatology is nonsense. This is a fine example of the political exploitation of religion."
Meanwhile Back at Home
Many believe that the government’s fast-paced shell game of swiftly changing our concentration from one nut shell to another, is simply a rue. They see this entire scenario as the Orwellian grab of the millennia. If ever you wonder what was going through the minds of the Germans in the 1930s that they “allowed” the ascent of Nazism, simply ask an American what they are thinking today.
The opportunists is this administration have shown that the hand is quicker than the eye, as draconian legislation breezes through the somnolent Congress. According to Rep Ron Paul, "The second Patriot Act is a mirror image of powers that Julius Caesar and Adolf Hitler gave themselves. Whereas the First Patriot Act only gutted the First, Third, Fourth and Fifth Amendments, and seriously damaged the Seventh and the Tenth, the Second Patriot Act reorganizes the entire Federal government as well as many areas of state government under the dictatorial control of the Justice Department, the Office of Homeland Security and the FEMA NORTHCOM military command. The Domestic Security Enhancement Act 2003, also known as the Second Patriot Act is by its very structure the definition of dictatorship.”
God forbid, but it looks as if we might start pining for the “the good old days” of the Clintons. And wouldn’t it be weird, if all of this warring backfires on Bush the younger just as it did on his dad, and we find another Clinton in the White House in 2004?! And take a look now at all of the executive power that she will have at her disposal. . . and can you, or your grandparents for that matter, remember the last time the government ever willingly unwound one of its “programs” ?!
