By Chris Floyd - The Moscow Times April 3, 2002.
"The rule of law is dead."
As we all know, Daddy Graham sealed his place
in history about 15 years ago by convincing the
booze-guzzling, nostril-burning -- but eminently
well-connected -- George W. Bush to trade Jack Daniels for
Jesus Christ
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Even as the sleek techno-wizardry of "Shock and Awe" gives way to the old-fashioned slog of "Blood and Guts" on the battlefields of Iraq, the Bush Regime's postwar plans continue apace. It's now clear that the Bushists aim to turn Iraq into an American protectorate -- a supine dependency like Guam, Puerto Rico or Britain -- by controlling every aspect of life in the conquered land.
The blueprint for colonial rule,
being drawn up by Project for the New American Century alum
Paul Wolfowitz
(without any input from those silly-billy Brits or --
it goes without saying -- that discarded hunk of junk, the UN), will
install a U.S. arms merchant, former general Jay Garner, as civilian
supremo, the Guardian reports. Garner -- who has publicly declared
his admiration for Israel's highly successful methods of
administrating occupied Arab territories -- will oversee a coterie
of American proconsuls and Iraqi factotums, including the
self-proclaimed, Washington-paid "leader" of the Iraqi opposition,
Ahmed Chalabi, a convicted bank fraudster who has not lived in his
native land since 1956.
American masters will determine
Iraq's domestic government, foreign policy, economic system, even
the education of its children -- the ones who haven't been killed by
their liberation, that is. Reconstruction contracts will be awarded
to favored U.S. companies, and the Bushists will seize control of
the UN's food-for-oil program to finance this ladling of prime
political pork. As imperial architect Wolfowitz
himself puts it:
"There's a lot of money out there. To assume we're going to pay for
this war is just wrong."
But you mustn't think that all this moolah-mongering means Iraq's spiritual needs are being ignored. As
always with your classic Anglo-American imperial conquest, sword,
flame, bullet and bomb will be accompanied by the maniacal whacking
of Biblical leather. Just this week, Bush of Arabia's favorite
preacher announced he was mustering an evangelical army to
Christianize the defeated heathen hordes, Newhouse News Service
reports.
Of course,
Christianity has existed in Iraq for 2,000 years -- rather longer
than in, say, Texas -- but such nuances are lost on the
Bushist Party's much-coddled "core supporters" in the hard-line
Christian Right. And so the Reverend [sic] Franklin
Graham, son of famed evangelist Billy
Graham, declared that his relief group, Samaritan's
Purse
, will
follow the Anglo-American invaders with blankets, food -- and Jesus
on tap. He was quickly joined by America's largest -- and most
Bushist -- Protestant sect, the Southern Baptists, who proclaimed
their plans to launch a second front of their own in the
bread-for-souls campaign.
As we all know, Daddy Graham
sealed his place in history about 15 years ago by convincing the
booze-guzzling, nostril-burning -- but eminently well-connected --
George W. Bush to trade Jack Daniels
for Jesus Christ. Graham also
schooled his acolyte in the inherent damnability of perfidious Jewry
-- a lesson little Georgie was a bit too apt to repeat in mixed
company, until his handlers finally got him under control.
[Yes, we know about the
influence of the small group of Likud-leaning, war-whooping Jewish
"neo-conservatives" -- Wolfowitz, the disgraced
Richard Perle, the convicted perjurer
Elliot Abrams,
etc. -- whom Bush has brought into
power. But these figures -- representing a tiny, extremist sliver of
the vast and variegated glory of Jewish thought -- are merely useful
tools for the "Dominion Christians" who serve as the fedayeen of the
Bushist Party. For believers of Bush's primitivist ilk, Israel's
only importance is its role as the staging ground for the universal
genocide of Armageddon -- a feast of carnage and obliteration for
which the Dominionites yearn with a deep, erotic fervor. Come the
Rapture, they will joyfully ship the Jews to Hell.]
Now, with Billy
ailing, son Franklin has taken over the pastoring of Bush's soul (or
the "Jack Daniels watch," as it's sometimes called). He even gave
the invocation at Bush's inauguration (or the "Loser Takes All
Ball," as it's sometimes called). We're sure that Franklin's deep
and sensitive understanding of Islam -- which he calls "a very
wicked and evil religion" -- will serve him well as, with the
president's blessing, he spreads the good news of Christ Militant
amongst the smoldering ruins and uranium-choked dust of Basra and
Baghdad.
But of course, the war is not
yet won. Young American men and women are still in the field, caught
in a vortex of fear, death, rage and atrocity. And so another group
of busy Bushist beavers is helping these war-battered troops stay
focused on the most important thing of all: praying for George W.
Bush.
Leather-whacking televangelist
Charles Stanley
has supplied thousands of U.S. soldiers with a list
of daily prayers for the Dear Leader -- and his holy family too.
There's even a tear-out card to mail the pledge directly to the
White House: "I have committed to pray for you, your family, your
staff and our troops." (Note the careful ordering here -- gotta get
your priorities straight!) Soldiers are directed to ask that God
keep the precious Bushist leaders "safe, healthy, well-rested and
free from fear" (unlike the poor suckers praying for them).
Finally, the ritual
supplications adjure our well-rested Crusader chieftains to
"recognize their divine appointment" and rule according to holy
scripture -- perhaps by following the postwar policy of the Lord
Himself (Numbers, Chapter 31) after His troops routed the Midianite
army: "Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept
with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept
with a man."
Yep, that old whacked leather
is just chockfull of handy wartime hints.
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