"Please don't kill me."-- W.

Concerns Raised by the Vatican

by WAYNE MADSEN

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 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 blood letting. 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 a
parent watching one's 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 Revelations - 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 prophesized 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, DC-based investigative journalist and
columnist. He wrote the introduction to Forbidden Truth.

http://www.counterpunch.org/madsen04222003.html

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