Picture the Holy Crusades with nuclear weapons

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are defending a new deputy undersecretary of defense "who has reportedly cast the war on terror" in religious terms. Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin, whose promotion and appointment was confirmed by the Senate in June, has said publicly that he sees the war on terrorism as a clash between Judeo-Christian values and Satan, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday.

Appearing in dress uniform before a religious group in Oregon in June, Boykin said Islamic extremists hate the United States "because we're a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christians. ... And the enemy is a guy named Satan." Discussing a U.S. Army battle against a Muslim warlord in Somalia in 1993, Boykin told one audience, "I knew my god was bigger than his. I knew that my god was a real god and his was an idol." [CNN]

The above article is a PR stunt.

Bush and his co-conspirators have failed to sell the threat of WMDs as justification for Iraq, let alone future planned wars to conquer the Mideast's oil. So, what was a "war on terror" (Reg Trademark White House) is being morphed into a new Holy Crusade. One reason given for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq was that they were supposedly ridding the world of autocratic religiously based rule (which was not true in Iraq's case, as Saddam's government was a secular one), but apparently theocracy is now back in fashion in the US. It just depends on whose hands hold those collection plates.

I can see why Bush and his buddies are playing the "God Gambit". The Christian fundies are already convinced that they are going to get a free ride into heaven if they just help Israel blow up the whole world first. And, citing the gods as an authoritative source avoids those embarrassing questions about whether there really were WMDs or a threat.

There is no rational answer to "God told me to kill all those people and steal their oil." Being on a mission from god means never having to say you're sorry to the taxpayers. Screw them! They are sinners if they don't understand. Time to grab those heretics who whine about the Geneva Protocols and torture them into seeing things our way. Boy it will be fun, we haven't had a good witch-burning in a while!

Folks, we have put men on the Moon. US spacecraft have left the solar system and are on their way to the stars. We've cracked the DNA code that makes us all work. Whacking each other over whose gods have the bigger dicks went out with whale oil lamps.

"Killing for Jesus" has no place in the modern world and makes about as much sense as two kids fist fighting over whether Superman or Batman is the greater comic book hero!

We've been suckered down this road before. Holy Crusades make the rich richer and kill a lot of innocent and harmless people along the way.

"Entering the city [Jerusalem, July 15, 1099], our pilgrims pursued and killed Saracens up to the Temple of Solomon, in which they had assembled and where they gave battle to us furiously for the whole day so that their blood flowed throughout the whole temple. Finally, having overcome the pagans, our knights seized a great number of men and women, and the killed whom they wished and whom they wished they let live.... Then, rejoicing and weeping from extreme joy, our men went to worship at the sepulchre of jour Saviour Jesus and thus fulfilled their pledge to Him.... They also ordered that all the Saracen dead should be thrown out of the city because of the extreme stench, for the city was almost full of their cadavers. The live Saracens dragged the dead out before the gates and made piles of them, like houses. No one has ever heard of or seen such a slaughter of pagan peoples since pyres were made of them like boundary marks, and no one except God knows their number." -- [Histoire anonyme de la premiere croisade, L. Brehier, ed. Paris: Champion, 1924 (From The Portable Medieval Reader, Ed. James Bruce Ross and Mary Martin McLaughlin)]

"A curse on him who is lax in doing the LORD's work! A curse on him who keeps his sword from bloodshed!" -- Jeremiah 48:10, Motto of Pope Gregory VII.