Posted on 3-11-2003
The
Revolution Was Not Televised
By William Rivers Pitt, www.truthout.org,
31 October 2003
There was a large anti-war rally in Washington last week. The
standard
slogans were on display for all to see: Impeach Bush, Bring
The Troops
Home, No Blood For Oil. On the periphery of the protest stood
a few dozen
'patriots' holding a counter-demonstration in support of Bush
and the Iraq
war. Among the signs carried by this crew was a banner that
succinctly
summed up the madness of the age, and the dangerous nature of
the current
ruling class.
Across the top of the banner, which was clearly professionally
made and
not hand-lettered, were the block-letter words "SUPPORT PRESIDENT
BUSH."
Through the center of the banner were black outlines of a fighter
aircraft, a tank, an M-16 rifle, a .45 caliber pistol, an attack
helicopter, a surface-to-air missile battery, and a thermonuclear
bomb.
Underneath these images were two more block-letter words: "TRUST
JESUS."
The sentiment apparently finds resonance with Senator Trent
Lott,
Republican of Mississippi. The Wednesday edition of The Hill
carried a
story about GOP concerns over the manner in which the post-war
war is
unfolding. The trepidation is understandable; more American
troops have
been killed in the 'Mission Accomplished' phase of the war than
in the war
itself. Lott responded to the crisis in Iraq by saying, "If
we have to,
we just mow the whole place down, see what happens."
The Bush administration has tried to frame their wars as not
being a
religiously-based crusade against the Islamic world. This has
been a
hard-sell with Muslims, especially since Bush used the word
"crusade"
immediately after September 11. Norman Podhoretz, one of the
ideological
fathers of the cadre of hawks currently running our foreign
policy,
publicly described our conflict in the Mideast as being a process
aimed at
bringing about "the reformation and modernization of Islam."
The
religious overtones are difficult to miss.
Perhaps the best example of where we stand today comes in the
guise of Lt.
General William Boykin, deputy undersecretary for defense, who
is charged
with finding important enemies like Osama bin Laden. Boykin,
when not
smoking 'em out of their holes, has been touring the fundamentalist
pulpits across the America. Describing the hunt for a Somali
warlord last
January, Boykin said, "I knew that my God was bigger than his.
I knew that
my God was a real God and his was an idol."
Boykin has held forth on the true meaning of the War on Terror.
"Satan
wants to destroy this nation," says Boykin, "he wants to destroy
us as a
nation, and he wants to destroy us as a Christian army." In
June of 2002,
Boykin held up a photograph of Mogadishu to a church congregation.
The
photo carried the image of a dark spot in the sky above the
city. "Ladies
and gentlemen," Boykin said, "this is your enemy. It is the
principalities
of darkness. It is a demonic presence in that city that God
revealed to
me as the enemy."
The banner carried by the 'patriot' in Washington should have
had the
black outline of an oil well alongside all those weapons. Trusting
Jesus
has been a lucrative business for some. The Center for Public
Integrity
released a report on Thursday which details how $8 billion in
contracts to
'rebuild' Iraq and Afghanistan have gone exclusively to companies
which
donated piles of money to Bush's 2000 election campaign. These
contracts
were awarded without the usual bidding process; few beyond the
friends of
Bush were given the opportunity to cash in on the war.
Most prominent on the list of companies awarded these contacts
is
Halliburton, the oil company recently run by Vice President
Dick Cheney.
Halliburton subsidiary, Kellog Brown & Root, has gathered
to itself a tidy
$2.3 billion contract to repair Iraq's oil industry. The price
tag for
this project was doubled recently by the Bush administration
so
Halliburton could get a larger share of the $87 billion allocated
for
Iraq. The reason for the doubling? Halliburton plans to go beyond
repairing old oil wells and develop new wells to tap virgin
supplies of
oil and gas.
Islam is not the only religion to have a militant, fundamentalist
Taliban
wing making up part of the whole. In America, the Taliban wing
of
Christianity has assumed power. The banner at that 'patriot'
rally
captures the essence of these frightening extremists: Supporting
Bush is
placed on the same level as worshipping Jesus, and shot through
the middle
is the steel fist of weapons and war. September 11 has been
refashioned
by the Christian Taliban as a rallying cry for an end-times
death match
against Islam, a rallying cry that obscures the orgasm of profiteering
that is taking place behind the scenes.
There has been a religiously fundamentalist revolution in the
United
States. The extremists have taken control of the White House,
Congress,
the courts, and the military. You did not see this on NBC, ABC,
CBS, CNN,
MSNBC, CNBC or Fox, but it happened all the same.
U.S. Contractors Reap the Windfalls of Postwar Reconstruction
Center for
Public Integrity www.publicintegrity.org/wow/
|