Thread: Bush's Reason for the Iraq War as told to French President Chirac

A French Revelation, or The Burning Bush

JAMES A. HAUGHT



Incredibly, President George W. Bush told French President Jacques Chirac in early 2003 that Iraq must be invaded to thwart Gog and Magog, the Bible’s satanic agents of the Apocalypse.



Honest. This isn’t a joke. The president of the United States, in a top-secret phone call to a major European ally, asked for French troops to join American soldiers in attacking Iraq as a mission from God.



Now out of office, Chirac recounts that the American leader appealed to their “common faith� (Christianity) and told him: “Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East…. The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled…. This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.�



This bizarre episode occurred while the White House was assembling its “coalition of the willing� to unleash the Iraq invasion. Chirac says he was boggled by Bush’s call and “wondered how someone could be so superficial and fanatical in their beliefs.�



After the 2003 call, the puzzled French leader didn’t comply with Bush’s request. Instead, his staff asked Thomas Romer, a theologian at the University of Lausanne, to analyze the weird appeal. Dr. Romer explained that the Old Testament book of Ezekiel contains two chapters (38 and 39) in which God rages against Gog and Magog, sinister and mysterious forces menacing Israel. Jehovah vows to smite them savagely, to “turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws,� and slaughter them ruthlessly. In the New Testament, the mystical book of Revelation envisions Gog and Magog gathering nations for battle, “and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.�



In 2007, Dr. Romer recounted Bush’s strange behavior in Lausanne University’s review, Allez Savoir. A French-language Swiss newspaper, Le Matin Dimanche, printed a sarcastic account titled: “When President George W. Bush Saw the Prophesies of the Bible Coming to Pass.� France’s La Liberte likewise spoofed it under the headline “A Small Scoop on Bush, Chirac, God, Gog and Magog.� But other news media missed the amazing report.



Subsequently, ex-President Chirac confirmed the nutty event in a long interview with French journalist Jean-Claude Maurice, who tells the tale in his new book, Si Vous le Répétez, Je Démentirai (If You Repeat it, I Will Deny), released in March by the publisher Plon.



Oddly, mainstream media are ignoring this alarming revelation that Bush may have been half-cracked when he started his Iraq war. My own paper, The Charleston Gazette in West Virginia, is the only U.S. newspaper to report it so far. Canada’s Toronto Star recounted the story, calling it a “stranger-than-fiction disclosure … which suggests that apocalyptic fervor may have held sway within the walls of the White House.� Fortunately, online commentary sites are spreading the news, filling the press void.



The French revelation jibes with other known aspects of Bush’s renowned evangelical certitude. For example, a few months after his phone call to Chirac, Bush attended a 2003 summit in Egypt. The Palestinian foreign minister later said the American president told him he was “on a mission from God� to defeat Iraq. At that time, the White House called this claim “absurd.�



Recently, GQ magazine revealed that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld* attached warlike Bible verses and Iraq battle photos to war reports he hand-delivered to Bush. One declared: “Put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground.�



It’s awkward to say openly, but now-departed President Bush is a religious crackpot, an ex-drunk of small intellect who “got saved.� He never should have been entrusted with the power to start wars.



For six years, Americans really haven’t known why he launched the unnecessary Iraq attack. Official pretexts turned out to be baseless. Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction after all, and wasn’t in league with terrorists, as the White House alleged. Collapse of his asserted reasons led to speculation about hidden motives: Was the invasion loosed to gain control of Iraq’s oil—or to protect Israel—or to complete Bush’s father’s vendetta against the late dictator Saddam Hussein? Nobody ever found an answer.



Now, added to the other suspicions, comes the goofy possibility that abstruse, supernatural, idiotic, laughable Bible prophecies were a factor. This casts an ominous pall over the needless war that has killed more than four thousand young Americans and cost U.S. taxpayers perhaps $1 trillion.



James A. Haught is the editor of the Charleston Gazette (West Virginia) and a Free Inquiry senior editor.



http://secularhumanism.org/index.php...ge=haught_29_5

*the GQ article on Rumsfield referenced in the article: And He Shall Be Judged

...



On the morning of Thursday, April 10, 2003, Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon prepared a top-secret briefing for George W. Bush. This document, known as the Worldwide Intelligence Update, was a daily digest of critical military intelligence so classified that it circulated among only a handful of Pentagon leaders and the president; Rumsfeld himself often delivered it, by hand, to the White House. The briefing's cover sheet generally featured triumphant, color images from the previous days' war efforts: On this particular morning, it showed the statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down in Firdos Square, a grateful Iraqi child kissing an American soldier, and jubilant crowds thronging the streets of newly liberated Baghdad. And above these images, and just below the headline secretary of defense, was a quote that may have raised some eyebrows. It came from the Bible, from the book of Psalms: "Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him…To deliver their soul from death."



...

Thanks Nader.

Just makes you want to rush right out and vote for Palin fot President doesn't it? Bush is a throwback to the 1950's "kill a commie for Christ" movement.

Go figure.

Sells the french on the scary god fable and sells us on the scary WMD fable.

Kinda proves the lie, wouldn't you say?

[quote name='Inkslinger' date='30 January 2010 - 01:43 PM' timestamp='1264880606' post='108208']

Go figure.

Sells the french on the scary god fable and sells us on the scary WMD fable.

Kinda proves the lie, wouldn't you say?

[/quote]



The French never joined the coalition of the willing, they didn't buy the crap, not the religious nonsense or the WMD bullshit. Remember how the French were attacked by the conservatives, there were the efforts to boycott French wines and french fries were called freedom fries.



And if you recall, they were going to call the military action "The Crusade" but quickly realized that it would make the action appear to be religious - the American people would not go for that crap.

I hate that mission from God crap. It trivializes the Blues Brothers.

[quote name='Inkslinger' date='30 January 2010 - 01:43 PM' timestamp='1264880606' post='108208']

Go figure.

Sells the french on the scary god fable and sells us on the scary WMD fable.

Kinda proves the lie, wouldn't you say?

[/quote]

I think he sold a lot of that god fable shit to the american public also.

I also recall reading that there was a whole LOT of proselytizing going on in the halls of government those days, including official prayer groups.

[quote name='steezer' date='30 January 2010 - 05:06 PM' timestamp='1264892804' post='108313']

I hate that mission from God crap. It trivializes the Blues Brothers.





[/quote]



LOL funny thing, this 2005 Alex Jones political cartoon seemed to hit on just that.