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/