This is just too flat-out bizarre for words: During the first days of the Iraq War in 2003, the Rumsfeld-led Pentagon prominently put Biblical quotes on the cover sheets to their reports to the White House. The quotes are juxtaposed with pictures of military folks huddling, or apparently praying, and tanks and planes.
Check out the gallery of images at GQ.
The charitable explanation for this is that they were trying to assure the Commander-in-Chief that he was doing the right and Godly thing in ordering the country into war. The other explanation was that they all did in fact view it as a Crusade, as the opportunity to impose Western/Christian power and hegemony over a region of infidels.
This maniac was our Secretary of Defense. The degree of his eccentricity, incompetence and flat-out malice never fails to surprise and shock.
Discuss
24 Comments . Comments are closed.I question the authenticity.
Those pictures look like cheap photoshops. And besides, confidential Pentagon reports to the White House being a GQ.com exclusive?
This smells like fake to me.
Seems like a reasonable question to me
Really? You think they're fakes?
You may want to take a look at the work the Military Reliogious Freedom Foundation has been doing for these past several years:
http://www.militaryreligiousfr...
These images are not surprising at all, and I doubt they are fakes - if they were, the denial would already be in gear...
I hope you're right.
For what it's worth, I hope we're all being punked.
Given that they are all over the news today...
...it would appear that these are genuine. What do you say to that, JoeTS?
that I'm not particularly suprised?
So it smelled like a fake to you, until it didn't?
You might want to consider holding your tongue when the thought of leaping to the defense of the Bush administration enters your mind, Joe. You lept right into this discussion, suggesting these were faked - now that they are proved real, you look foolish in front of everyone who reads this blog. Aren't you sick of "leaders" who cause that to happen to you?
That the Bush administration harmed this country immeasurably is clear to everyone except for the 20% right wing fringe that appears to have taken over the Republican party. If you want to have any chance to return to power, you have to moderate your positions - otherwise, you're going the way of the Whigs...
You seem strangely combative on this
did you look at them? They look like cheap photoshops that any GQ intern could have made in 30 minutes. I don't think I look foolish in front of anyone. It was a legitimate question to ask. Are they real?
I think it would be far more foolish to assume that anything printed in a magazine is gospel and I shouldn't question the veracity of any of it.
You need to take a chill pill. ZOMG HE'S DEFENDING BUSH! ANGST! is a far more foolish position than mine.
you read GQ?
Conservatives never cease to amaze me. ;)
I read harpers too. The other day I read through XXL.
I must say, I thought XXL was for more entertaining.
I don't read NR, though. I feel like it's self-serving.
I seem combative?
Photos are released showing the Bush administration in a bad light and you jump in calling them fakes - now that they're proved real, I'm the combative one because I called you on it? That's laughable, Joe.
The problem you have is that you listen to people who lie to you, and when a kernel of truth punctures that bubble, you exhibit this knee-jerk reaction to jump in and defend the lies. You're not alone in this - may of the conservatives on this board do the same thing. All of you need to wake up and smell the coffee...
Why are you surprised?
George W. Bush Doing God's Will in Iraq? July 17, 2007
http://www.thebigdaddyweave.co...
Have we not been told...
"The devil quotes the scriptures for his own purpose."
Verily.
Old vs. New Testament
Given what we know of the administration's mindset, the authenticity wouldn't surprise me. Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers...", but the Old Testament has several instances of God helping the Israelites defeat their enemies in battle. Sometimes I think the crowd that got us into Iraq thought all our military would have to do is march around Baghdad seven times and blow their trumpets and the city would be ours without a real fight.
Well...
First we'd have to have DARPA conceptualize an advanced shofar and then pay Lockheed-Martin a few billion to design an unmanned shofar-drone that would never actually work.
Mark Twain's war prayer.
The war prayer:
"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle - be Thou near them! With them - in spirit - we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with hurricanes of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it - for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen."
I can picture this coming from GWB
After all, isn't that what he has done to America's poor and middle class.
GWB and his followers had some insane and unknown reason for initiating the Iraq War. They seemed to find pleasure in every moment of it. It was sickening, and their attitude made it even more unbearable. Did anyone else notice their toned down joy and lack of empathy for those who were losing their lives.
GWB is a scary man, and so is Rumsfeld. Even though they tried hard to keep their psychopathic tendencies to themselves, you could sense it in their aura and hear it in their tone. It was enough to make you cringe when they were speaking. Ugly, ugly hearts. And using Christianity as a tool to cover the ugliness is deeply troubling. How did we ever let someone like that become our President? That is even more frightening to think about.
Mystery
I'm reluctant to attribute to the Iraq War to simple psychopathy, but, in retrospect, the "true" purpose of the war remains mysterious. Certainly the Bush Administration's motives matter so much less than its actions. That doesn't keep me from futilely trying to solve this puzzle.
Whats really disturbing
Is if these are true the shitstorm that would have happened overseas' if they had leaked out and how much more danger that could have put our soldiers at risk, and Americans in general at risk overseas. Half the muslim world already viewed the War on Iraq as a crusade, and these images would have certainly f---ed over any of the moderates left over there who insisted we were just going in to defend ourselves.
In fact it wouldnt surprise me that these will be taken out of context over there by Al Jazerra and other propaganda outlets and might still damage the very relations 44 is trying to mend. It seems that the ghost of 43 will still live on and keep wreaking havoc over our new ertswhile young commander in chief. Its sad that he is naive enough to think that Muslim ancestry and nice words will be enough to undo the damage 8 years of completely incompetent rule have wrought on our foreign policy. He has not helped himself exonerate neo-con ghosts by putting in interventionists like Clinton, Susan Rice, and Jim Jones into positions of power and influence. Clinton would have us bomb Iran, Rice would put us into a quagmire in Darfur, and Jones is behind the inept Afghanistan surge. Im really quite worried that the same foolish thinking that got us into Iraq is still being viewed as conventional foreign policy wisdom by the folks in charge.
Oh and I am sure Rumsfeld is an atheist just like the rest of the neocons, he was just manipulating his puppet. Apparently religion can be the opiate of those in power too, and I say this as a God-fearing Christian but boy did Bush get duped.
I'm not sure it's that mysterious.
Once or twice GWB let his guard down and pretty much admitted that Saddam's assassination attempt on GHWB was a key motivator.
It's finally happened: Our military policy is a Monty Python sketch
...And Saint Attila raised [The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch] up on high, saying, "O Lord, bless this Thy hand grenade that with it Thou mayest blow Thine enemies to tiny bits, in Thy mercy."
... And the Lord spake, saying, [...] "Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it." Amen.
The inability to count...
... would certainly explain some aspects of the money black hole.
Interesting hearing this after having watched Constantine's Sword.
There is a part of the documentary that deals with evangelical influence at the Air Force Academy. Starts at the four minite mark.
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