Bush's "Christian" Blood Cult: Concerns Raised by the Vatican by Wayne Madsen
(The following story was originally published by CounterPunch www.counterpunch.org on April 22, 2003. Reprinted with permission from the author) April 28, 2003, 1700 hrs PDT (FTW) -- George W. Bush proclaims himself a born-again Christian. However, Bush and fellow self-anointed neo-Christians like House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, John Ashcroft, and sports arena Book of Revelations carnival hawker Franklin Graham appear to wallow in a "Christian" blood lust cult when it comes to practicing the teachings of the founder of Christianity. This cultist form of Christianity, with its emphasis on death rather than life, is also worrying the leaders of mainstream Christian religions, particularly the Pope. One only has to check out Bush's record as Governor of Texas to see his own preference for death over life. During his tenure as Governor, Bush presided over a record setting 152 executions, including the 1998 execution of fellow born-again Christian Karla Faye Tucker, a convicted murderer who later led a prison ministry. Forty of Bush's executions were carried out in 2000, the year the Bush presidential campaign was spotlighting their candidate's strong law enforcement record. The Washington Post's Richard Cohen reported in October 2000 that one of the execution chamber's "tie-down team" members, Fred Allen, had to prepare so many people for lethal injections during 2000, he quit his job in disgust. Bush mocked Tucker's appeal for clemency. In an interview with Talk magazine, Bush imitated Tucker's appeal for him to spare her life -- pursing his lips, squinting his eyes, and in a squeaky voice saying, "Please don't kill me". That went too far for former GOP presidential candidate Gary Bauer, himself an evangelical Christian. "I think it is nothing short of unbelievable that the governor of a major state running for president thought it was acceptable to mock a woman he decided to put to death", said Bauer. A former Texas Department of Public Safety officer, a devout Roman Catholic, told this reporter that evidence to the contrary, Bush was more than happy to ignore DNA data and documented cases of prosecutorial misconduct to send innocent people to the Huntsville, Texas lethal injection chamber. He said the number of executed mentally retarded, African Americans, and those who committed capital crimes as minors was proof that Bush was insensitive and a "phony Christian". When faced with similar problems in Illinois, Governor George Ryan, a Republican, commuted the death sentences of his state's death row inmates and released others after discovering they were wrongfully convicted. Yet the Republican Party is pillorying Ryan and John Ashcroft's Justice Department continues to investigate the former Governor for political malfeasance as if Bush and Ashcroft are without sin in such matters. Hypocrisy certainly rules in the Republican Party. Bush's blood lust has been extended across the globe. He has given the CIA authority to assassinate those deemed a threat to U.S. national interests. Bush has virtually suspended Executive Orders 11905 (Gerald Ford), 12306 (Jimmy Carter), and 12333 (Ronald Reagan) which prohibit the assassination of foreign leaders. Bush's determination to kill Saddam Hussein, his family, and his top leaders with precision-guided missiles and tactical nuclear weapon-like Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) bombs is yet another indication of Bush's disregard for his Republican and Democratic predecessors. It now appears that in his zeal to kill Hussein, innocent civilian patrons of a Baghdad restaurant were killed by one of Bush's precision Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs). Like it or not, Saddam Hussein was recognized by over 100 nations as the leader of Iraq -- a member state of the United Nations. Hussein, like North Korea' Kim Jong Il, Syria's Bashir Assad, and Iran's Mohammed Khatami, are covered by Executive Order 12333, which the Bush mouthpieces claim is still in effect. Bush's "Christian" blood cult sees no other option than death for those who become his enemies. This doctrine is found no place in Christian theology. Bush has not once prayed publicly for the innocent civilians who died as a result of the U.S. attack on Iraq. He constantly "embeds" himself with the military at Goebbels-like speech fests and makes constant references to God when he refers to America's "victory" in Iraq, as if God endorses his sordid killing spree. He makes no mention of the children, women, and old men killed by America's "precision-guided" missiles and bombs and trigger-happy U.S. troops. In fact, Bush revels in indiscriminate bloodletting. Since he never experienced such killing in Southeast Asia, when he was AWOL from his Texas Air National Guard unit, Bush just does not seem to understand the horror of parents watching children having their heads and limbs blown off in a sudden blast of shrapnel, or children witnessing their parents burning to death with their own body fat nurturing the flames. Bush and his advisers, previously warned that Iraq's ancient artifacts and collection of historical documents and books were in danger of being looted or destroyed, instead, sat back while the Baghdad and Mosul museums and Baghdad Library were ransacked and destroyed. Cult leaders have historically attempted to destroy history in order to invent their own. The Soviets tried to obliterate Russia's Orthodox traditions, turning a number of churches into warehouses and animal barns. Cambodia's Pol Pot tried to wipe out Buddhism's famed Angkor Wat shrine in an attempt to stamp out his country's Buddhist history. In March 2001, while they were negotiating with the Bush administration on a natural gas pipeline, Afghanistan's Taliban blew up two massive 1600-year old Buddhas in Bamiyan. The Bush administration, itself run by fanatic religious cultists, barely made a fuss about the loss of the relics. It would not be the first time the cultists within the Bush administration ignored the pillaging of history's treasures. The ransacking of Iraq's historical treasures is explainable when one considers what the blood cult Christians really think about Islam. Franklin Graham, the heir to the empire built up by his anti-Semitic father, Billy Graham, has decided being anti-Muslim is far more financially rewarding than being anti-Jewish. Billy Graham, history notes from the Nixon tapes, complained about the Jewish stranglehold on the media and Jews being responsible for pornography. Franklin Graham continues to enjoy his father's unfettered and questionable access to the White House. But in the case of Bush, the younger Graham has a fanatic adherent. Graham has called Islam a "very evil and wicked" religion. He then announces he wants to go to Iraq. Graham obviously sees an opportunity to convert Muslims and unrepentant Eastern Christians, who owe their allegiance to Roman and Greek prelates, to his perverted form of blood cult Christianity. Graham says he is ready to send his Samaritan's Purse missionaries into Iraq to provide assistance. Muslims and mainstream Christians are wary that Graham wants to exchange food, water, and medicine for the baptism of Iraqis into his intolerant brand of Christianity. In the last Gulf War, Graham could not get away with his chicanery. The Desert Storm Commander, General Norman Schwarzkopf, stopped dead in the tracks Graham's plan to send 30,000 Arabic language Bibles to U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia. Today's Pentagon shows no such compunction to put a rein on Graham. It invited him to give a Good Friday sermon at the Pentagon to the consternation of the Defense Department's Muslim employees. To make matters worse, under Bush's "Faith Based Initiative", Graham's Samaritan's Purse stands to receive U.S. government funds for its proselytizing efforts in Iraq, something that should be an affront to every American taxpayer. Bush's self-proclaimed adherence to Christianity (during one of the presidential debates he said Jesus Christ was his favorite "philosopher") and his constant reference to a new international structure bypassing the United Nations system and long-standing international treaties are worrying the top leadership of the Roman Catholic Church. Well-informed sources close to the Vatican report that Pope John Paul II is growing increasingly concerned about Bush's ultimate intentions. The Pope has had experience with Bush's death fetish. Bush ignored the Pope's plea to spare the life of Karla Faye Tucker. To show that he was similarly ignorant of the world's mainstream religions, Bush also rejected an appeal to spare Tucker from the World Council of Churches -- an organization that represents over 350 of the world's Protestant and Orthodox Churches. It did not matter that Bush's own Methodist Church and his parents' Episcopal Church are members of the World Council. Bush's blood lust, his repeated commitment to Christian beliefs, and his constant references to "evil doers", in the eyes of many devout Catholic leaders, bear all the hallmarks of the one warned about in the Book of Revelation -- the anti-Christ. People close to the Pope claim that amid these concerns, the Pontiff wishes he was younger and in better health to confront the possibility that Bush may represent the person prophesied in Revelations. John Paul II has always believed the world was on the precipice of the final confrontation between Good and Evil as foretold in the New Testament. Before he became Pope, Karol Cardinal Wojtyla said, "We are now standing in the face of the greatest historical confrontation humanity has gone through. I do not think that wide circles of the American society or wide circles of the Christian community realize this fully. We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-Church, of the Gospel versus the anti-Gospel". The Pope, who grew up facing the evils of Hitler and Stalin, knows evil when he sees it. Although we can all endlessly argue over the Pope's effectiveness in curtailing abuses within his Church, his accomplishments external to Catholicism are impressive. According to journalists close to the Vatican, the Pope and his closest advisers are also concerned that the ultimate acts of evil -- the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon -- were known in advance by senior Bush administration officials. By permitting the attacks to take their course, there is a perception within the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy that a coup d'etat was implemented, one that gave Bush and his leadership near-dictatorial powers to carry out their agenda. The Pope worked tirelessly to convince leaders of nations on the UN Security Council to oppose Bush's war resolution on Iraq. Vatican sources claim they had not seen the Pope more animated and determined since he fell ill to Parkinson's Disease. In the end, the Pope did convince the leaders of Mexico, Chile, Cameroon, and Guinea to oppose the U.S. resolution. If one were to believe in the Book of Revelations, as the Pope fervently does, he can seek solace in scoring a symbolic victory against the Bush administration. Whether Bush represents a dangerous right-wing ideologue who couples his political fanaticism with a neo-Christian blood cult (as I believe) or he is either the anti-Christ or heralds one, the Pope should know he has fought the good battle and has gained the respect and admiration of many non-Catholics around the world. -- Wayne Madsen is a Washington-based investigative journalist and former naval officer assigned to the National Security Agency. He testified before Cynthia McKinney's hearing on the genocide in the DRC in May 2001 and has worked with Bob Barr on privacy legislation in the past. He wrote the introduction to Forbidden Truth. Madsen can be reached at: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
