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 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-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:
WMadsen777@aol.com