Erik Prince and the Council for National Policy: Armageddon Soon
Today, Blackwater founder Erik Prince defended all of his company's actions in Iraq to the Congress (and to the American people) as being as close to earthly perfection as humans can achieve on god's earth. Prince, who is a also a founder of a right-wing foundation called "Freiheit," which is German for "liberty," aimed a laser-like scowl at the forehead of Chairman Henry Waxman and the other Democrats as they dared to ask questions of a CEO who has clearly grown accustomed to operating without oversight.
Herr Prince's appearance before the committee led me to wonder what he has been discussing behind closed doors lately as a member of the super-secret "Council for National Policy." Other right-wing luminaries who belong to the Council for National Policy include the Armageddonist novelist Tim LaHaye, and the right-wing evangelical leaders Pat Robertson, Tony Perkins, James Dobson, Gary Bauer, and Ralph Reed. The late Jerry Falwell was also a member. There also close ties between the CNP and the beer magnate Holland Coors, the NRA leader Wayne LaPierre, Phyllis Schlafly, Oliver North, Grover Norquist, and Frank Gaffney.
The Council for National Policy recently held a top-secret meeting in Utah that Vice President Dick Cheney attended. "The media should not know when or where we meet," the Council instructs its members, "or who takes part in our programs, before or after a meeting."
All of this over-the-top secrecy raises the obvious question: What do these guys have to hide?
Are they already planning the next five or six new wars? Do they think they can create so much misery and mayhem in the Middle East that the messiah will return?
Today, Representative Dennis Kucinich, while questioning Prince, made the clear-headed point that so long as Blackwater and other private contractors are being handed lucrative contracts during "wartime" there is a strong incentive to keep the war going, or to start new ones.
Or maybe the profit motive is secondary and they really are a bunch of Armageddonists.
In January 2001, the Republican Senator from North Carolina, Jesse Helms, said: "John Bolton is the kind of man with whom I would want to stand at Armageddon, if it should be my lot to be on hand for what is forecast to be the final battle between good and evil in this world." (It's better if you read it aloud with a thick drawl.)
In their conservative, Christian evangelical eschatology Jesus Christ is supposed to ride down from heaven in some sort of golden chariot or something with angels blaring trumpets. There will be a "rapture" of the faithful, and they will be whisked up to the heavens to sit next to Christ's throne where, presumably, Pat Boone or somebody like him will lead a sing-along of "Onward Christian Soldier." Jews need not apply; the unbelievers will be "Left Behind." Condi Rice, John Bolton, General Boykin, Ted Haggard, and the rest of them can hold hands and greet Armageddon together. It will be a loving tribute to the "intelligent design" of a "creator" who would never hurt a stem cell but is willing to blast the whole planet to bits. [The music swells, a slow dissolve, roll credits.]
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Amen!
See Joseph A. Palermo's Profile
Tim Lahaye's novels are pretty clear about their eschatological belief system -- the fact that he even gets to sit in the same room as the Vice President is scary enough.
Historically, oppressive powers have deployed a special thuggish force to create terror, mayhem and chaos, supplemented by the regular professional military who operate in accord with a codes of conduct and established procedures. Usually, the latter will not participate in what is viewed as invalid military exercises. These special forces have tended to be from the most extreme political and/or religious fanatic factions. It seems that the Blackwater soldiers are just a part of the "armed forces" in Iraq, with responsibilities that the U.S. military would disdain. The Blackwater soldiers' accountability is unknown, at least for public consumption. A young girl once asked President Bush, during a Johns Hopkins speech, who these mercenaries reported to, and President Bush said he did not know, but that it was a good question and he would ask his Secretary of Defense--patting himself on the back for his managerial prowess. This was a few years ago, and still no answer. Blackwater is another Republican taxpayer rip off, but it seems that a more primary reason exists for their presence.
A decent mental health program in this country would go a long way toward improving government.
Word!
People on the list for mental health evaluation and treatment:
Fred Phelps, Anne Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Rielly, Erik Prince, and every other nut-case who is a "Typhoid Mary" of this public mental health crisis.
I have no doubt that these nuts are armageddonists, crusaders II: high tech babies. However, without the filthy lucre, they couldn't fight any kind of war anywhere!
If the Jesus of the bible does return, Bush, Prince et all will blast that sucker right off the face of the earth. He just ain't their kind of people.
I'm not so worried about the Biblical Armageddon as the bush armageddon. The second one we can do something about ..
Mr.Palermo
If all who would oppose the "moral majority" right understood what you do, they would know that this NeoCon crowd respects NOTHING outside their bubble of religious babble, and will do anything to get and keep power.
Rule of law? Constitution? Bill of Rights? The American Way? Americans? Decency? Science? Fact? It's all mere dust and insignificance in the sight of God and the Godly.
All the real Americans from all regions need to put dialectical differences (your Southern accent comment not appreciated esp considering W is a fake Southerner and little more than a neo-carpetbagger) aside & work together to rescue our form of government, the very concept of America, and along with it, possibly the Free World and civilization as we know it.
See CHRISTIAN CAMP.
Palermo was advising us to read the Jesse Helms quote with a southern accent because Jesse Helms was from NC. If I ever want a reminder of how backwards my state is, I need only remember Jesse Helms and cringe...
Paranoia is alive and well on the left ;^)
yes only rational people believe in a literal interpretaion of the bible and that we are living in the End Times. Any one who takes note of this widespread beleif is "paranoid"--thanksa for clearing that up, and See ya in Church fellow Crusader!
As the great Howland Owl once said, "Yes, I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?" A certain amount of paranoia is a rational response to a government that tortures, spies on its citizens, employs trigger-happy mercs, doesn't give a shit about its own cities and bridges, doesn't give a shit about children's health care, doesn't give a shit about the whole Constitution, doesn't give a shit about the lives and health of its own military, and puts into place a wrong-headed educational program that is stifling our teachers and students.
When a person who has achieved all that they think that they can They some times commit suicide. Bush and company have achieved all that they can except the total destruction of all life on Earth.
In early 2000 there was a report that George had delusions that he was the anti-Christ. If this is true then his goal is simple, destroy all that he can and begin Armageddon.
My opinion is that he is simply a nut case.
Join the protest of the proposed Blackwater West facility this weekend in Potrero, CA. in eastern San Diego Coiunty just above the border with Mexico. I hate to see those thugs get a no-bid contract to shoot anybody that looks brown.
I wish Jesus would get a move on and beam these people up already!
"Are they already planning the next five or six new wars? Do they think they can create so much misery and mayhem in the Middle East that the messiah will return?"
The right wing version of this, as espoused by such intellectual luminaries as Glenn Beck, stars The Twelth Mahdi instead of The Messiah, and is sued as an explanation for the "strategy" of Ahmadinejad. According to this version of reality the top Iranian leadership is actually trying to goad Bush into an attack on Iran because that will hasten the coming of their preferred super warrior, and they can finally begin the process of implementing Allahs plan for his knigdom on this planet. And they tell the story on the radio in ways guaranteed to make the listening wingnuts tremble in fear.
And then the remedy is said to be to give the Iranians exactly what they are planning, but more of it than they bargained for. Those "World War III" red necks, you gotta love em.
But if we did give into them and take the plunge, they would look at whatever resulted, no matter how awful, and say "Well at least we defeated The second coming of The Twelth Mahdi, so it was clearly all worth it".
But we can't just do nothing for a couple of years, and show them that there is still no sign of the mythical Mahdi (or Messiah) because "the stakes are too high to take a chance."
Bushies and others need to keep in mind that Ahmedinajad is NOT the power in Iran. That would be the ayatollahs, and possible relationships with them call for more nuance. But neo-cons don't do nuance.
What Joe says here is true. Erik Prince envisions himself as a christian soldier on a modern-day crusade to cleanse the holyland and prepare for the rapture. If Erik could obtain thermonuclear weapons, I have no doubt that he would use them to obliterate the vestiges of the Ottoman Empire. This is no paranoid fantasy, and the Blackwater shootings are only the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
Onward Christian soldiers, marching off to war. Talk about loyal Bushies, profits, and secrecy. What happens when AIPAC realizes that the neo-nazis are not going to welcome them into their ranks because they are not Christian? Maybe the war will end then. If we could separate money from religion, defense from politics, politics from religion, we could have peace on Earth.
Some people could not tolerate peace. They would have to look themselves in the face in a mirror.
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