Of course, in the "US mainstream news media" you will hear more about how Sen. John F. Kerry is pro-abortion and should not receive communion because...because...because...
(Afterall, the "US Mainstream News Media" largely ignored the Pope's strong and unequivocal opposition to the incredible shrinking _resident's foolish military adventure in Iraq...The "US Mainstream News Media does the bidding of the "vast reich-wing conspiracy" by playing the Catholic card on Abortion, but they never play it on the Death Penalty or on the Middle East.)
But here at the LNS, this extraordinary story will live on in the searchable database...Indeed, it reminds me that Pope John Paul II is overdue to have his name scrawled on the John O'Neill Wall of Heroes for his outspoken opposition to the war in Iraq. Bravo, Mr. Madsen...
Wayne Madsen, Counterpunch: 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.
Restore the Timeline, Show Up for Democracy: Defeat
Bush (again!)
http://www.counterpunch.org/madsen04222003.html
Bush's "Christian" Blood Cult 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
Well-informed sources close to the Vatican report that
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. 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.
Madsen can be reached at: WMadsen777@aol.com
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