WMD? Nope. Oil? Nope. Try Gog and Magog...

[BeautifulBurnout]

Someone sent me this link to an article on the Council for Secular Humanism website that nearly knocked me off my chair when I read it.

A French Revelation, or The Burning Bush

JAMES A. HAUGHT

Incredibly, President George W. Bush told French President Jacques Chirac in early 2003 that Iraq must be invaded to thwart Gog and Magog, the Bible’s satanic agents of the Apocalypse.


Honest. This isn’t a joke. The president of the United States, in a top-secret phone call to a major European ally, asked for French troops to join American soldiers in attacking Iraq as a mission from God.


Now out of office, Chirac recounts that the American leader appealed to their “common faith” (Christianity) and told him: “Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East…. The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled…. This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.”


This bizarre episode occurred while the White House was assembling its “coalition of the willing” to unleash the Iraq invasion. Chirac says he was boggled by Bush’s call and “wondered how someone could be so superficial and fanatical in their beliefs.”


After the 2003 call, the puzzled French leader didn’t comply with Bush’s request. Instead, his staff asked Thomas Romer, a theologian at the University of Lausanne, to analyze the weird appeal. Dr. Romer explained that the Old Testament book of Ezekiel contains two chapters (38 and 39) in which God rages against Gog and Magog, sinister and mysterious forces menacing Israel. Jehovah vows to smite them savagely, to “turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws,” and slaughter them ruthlessly. In the New Testament, the mystical book of Revelation envisions Gog and Magog gathering nations for battle, “and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.”


In 2007, Dr. Romer recounted Bush’s strange behavior in Lausanne University’s review, Allez Savoir. A French-language Swiss newspaper, Le Matin Dimanche, printed a sarcastic account titled: “When President George W. Bush Saw the Prophesies of the Bible Coming to Pass.” France’s La Liberte likewise spoofed it under the headline “A Small Scoop on Bush, Chirac, God, Gog and Magog.” But other news media missed the amazing report.


Subsequently, ex-President Chirac confirmed the nutty event in a long interview with French journalist Jean-Claude Maurice, who tells the tale in his new book, Si Vous le Répétez, Je Démentirai (If You Repeat it, I Will Deny), released in March by the publisher Plon.

No wonder the French were "unwilling". Blimey.

What troubles me is the notion that he might have had the same kind of weird-ass conversation with Tony Blair, and Blair just said "Yes, you are absolutely right, George! We must fight Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies, in all his forms!"

[Rog]

i know i shouldn't have, but reading this caused me to laugh

[BeautifulBurnout]

Originally Posted by Rog

i know i shouldn't have, but reading this caused me to laugh

The 'ole fing's daft
I dunno why
You 'ave to laugh
Or else you cry
You 'ave to live
Or else you die
You 'ave to laugh
Or else you cry.

[Deckard]

"We may be the generation that sees Armageddon."
- Ronald Reagan, in a 1980 interview with Jim Bakker

"For the first time ever, everything is in place for the Battle of Armageddon and the second coming of Christ."
- Ronald Reagan, commenting in 1971 to James Mills regarding events in Libya

and somewhere I have quotes from the Bush administation members who believed in the rapture.


So much for the Seneca (or was it Lucretius?) quote about religion being regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.

Still, it supports my 'president-as-puppet' theory of power...

[BeautifulBurnout]

Puppet of whom exactly, though, Decks?

Are we talking military-industrial complex or the Illuminati?

Seriously though. And these people dare to call Muslims "extremists". They are complete whack jobs.

If someone in this country were to start telling people that we have to attack people because Gog and Magog infests their country and it is a mission from God, they would be sectioned under the Mental Health Act.

[Strangelet]

See...this is why I never bought the oil conspiracy. I thought it was too flattering to the neo cons. There always seemed to be a more dominant mumbo jumbo angle to the whole thing.

Anyone hear of the book "The Family" by Jeff Sharlet? Members of congress, policy wonks, etc trying to establish a "christian totalitarianism"

[jOHN rODRIGUEZ]

There was no oil "conspiracy".

But do try to visualize, maybe, a little bit of all of the points mentioned above. The mess we're in cannot be boiled down to one(1) all-encompassing-pin-pointed reason. Life isn't a Hollywood film with a happily ever after ya know.

[Strangelet]

Originally Posted by jOHN rODRIGUEZ

There was no oil "conspiracy".

But do try to visualize, maybe, a little bit of all of the points mentioned above. The mess we're in cannot be boiled down to one(1) all-encompassing-pin-pointed reason. Life isn't a Hollywood film with a happily ever after ya know.

well I guess that was sort of a legitimate retort so I'll bite and respond.

Believing that Iraq was for oil is a conspiracy because it contradicts the stated reasons for the invasion, its not provable, but is nevertheless a reasonable theory.

I don't buy it because I subscribe to yet another conspiracy theory, that is probably no more provable beyond doubt, but I find nevertheless is more justifiable by the evidence. That is, the iraq war was an ideological conflict. The motivating ideology can range from spreading "american values" to a full on apocalyptic crusade. Its not so interesting to me what the exact ideology was. Whether or not Bush told Chirac that the battle of Gog and Magog was upon us is not as interesting, from a perspective of understanding the causes, as it is to simply claim that the causes were religious. Religous devotion to Jesus, religious devotion to "american way of life" or "american democracy" whatever.

If you like I can go back and outline all of the aspects of the conflict that betray the religious, as opposed to the cold, mercenary competition for resources, or strategies of defense in the "war on terror."

Regarding the dangers of christian fascism as a "hollywood movie" conspiracy.... Please read American Fascism by Chris Hedges, Blackwater by Jeremy Scahill, and the family by Jeff Sharlet, and lets talk about whether or not a push for christian autocracy is a sandwich board toting crazy's concern, or if its something worthwhile to discuss.

As an example, from the video I posted, Sharlet referenced the push to build megachurches on all military bases. Do you think the intention is to instill values of brotherly love and forgiveness in the members of our armed forces? Its to theocratize what should be and must be our democratic military.

So I just took your post seriously and responded with sincerity, please don't make me regret it by simply tagging this post with trollish knee jerk nonsense like you do all my other ones.

[jOHN rODRIGUEZ]

Originally Posted by Strangelet

So I just took your post seriously and responded with sincerity, please don't make me regret it by simply tagging this post with trollish knee jerk nonsense like you do all my other ones.

Who? Me?

Also, I would never knee jerk you, you're too tall.

[bryantm3]

Originally Posted by Deckard

"We may be the generation that sees Armageddon."
- Ronald Reagan, in a 1980 interview with Jim Bakker

"For the first time ever, everything is in place for the Battle of Armageddon and the second coming of Christ."
- Ronald Reagan, commenting in 1971 to James Mills regarding events in Libya

and somewhere I have quotes from the Bush administation members who believed in the rapture.


So much for the Seneca (or was it Lucretius?) quote about religion being regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.

Still, it supports my 'president-as-puppet' theory of power...

this post offends me, not only in that you make the implication that all religion is a foolish notion, but that you make the implication that everyone who follows a religion must be a fool. now, i'm not sure if this report about bush is true; it sounds like horseshit, but regardless of that, his supposed quote is a different case entirely than Ronald Reagan's. Ronald Reagan expressed his personal opinion that Christ may come again very soon, and to a religious person, the rapid advance of technology to the point that terroristic acts are carried out daily, and the similarity to some events in the bible, may lead a person to think the end times are coming; whether you agree with that or not is irrelevent as it is a personal opinion. Bush's supposed quote is entirely different because that would mean that he based an entire military operation and the welfare of the country on such a personal opinion. The argument should be against Bush risking the lives of soldiers and taking the lives of civilians because of a personal religious belief, not a call for historic quotes from Republicans to bash their personal beliefs.