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Fiery Hell on Earth - Rachels 5-Part series on Nuclear Weapons
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
[Footnotes follow text for each of the 5 parts. See information on
Rachel.org at the end of the last part.]
sent by Tim Murphy
May 27, 2004
http://www.rachel.org
RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH NEWS #792
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
FIERY HELL ON EARTH, Pt. 1
For some time now, I have been searching for answers to a
deeply perplexing question: Why is the United States promoting
the spread of atomic bombs worldwide?
By "atomic bombs" I mean the kind that turned Hiro****ma and
Nagasaki into a fiery hell in 1945 -- A-bombs made from
plutonium (Nagasaki) or "enriched" uranium (Hiro****ma).
In this series, I will briefly examine the facts, then consider
some of the possible reasons why the U.S. might favor the
proliferation of atomic weapons worldwide.
In at least four different ways, the U.S. is refusing to limit
- -- and in some cases is actively promoting -- the spread of
atomic bombs around the globe.[1]
(1) The U.S. is helping foreign nations acquire nuclear power
plants, which everyone acknowledges have provided the basis for
A-bomb programs in India, Pakistan, South Africa, North Korea
and, during the 1980s, in Iraq.[2] In the hands of a willing
nation, nuclear power equals nuclear weapons.
(2) The U.S. is dragging its feet in achieving its stated goal
of preventing theft of nuclear weapons within the former Soviet
Union.[1]
(3) The U.S. is failing to retrieve 35,000 pounds of
weapons-grade uranium that the U.S. loaned or gave to 43
countries during the past 50 years. A crude but effective
A-bomb requires 110 pounds (50 kg) of enriched uranium.[3]
(4) President Bush has ordered a fundamental ****ft in U.S.
nuclear weapons policies, initiating what the New York Times
calls "the second nuclear age."
These new policies entail (a) creation of a new class of smaller
nuclear weapons, (b) guiding small A-bombs to their targets
from outer space, (c) reducing the time it takes to launch a nuclear
strike, and (d) a new policy of pre-emptive first use of nuclear
weapons even against non-nuclear states.
"It is precisely these kinds of provocative new weapons
capabilities -- at a time when the administration seeks to
prevent proliferation of weapons of mass destruction elsewhere
- -- that worries even hawkish Republicans," says James Sterngold
of the San Francisco Chronicle.[4]
Let's examine each of these four developments in more detail:
I. Nuclear power = nuclear weapons
The U.S. is urging -- and subsidizing -- foreign nations to
build new nuclear power plants to generate electricity, while
acknowledging that every nuclear power plant certainly provides
the stepping stones to A-bombs.
For example, when Vice-President Dick Cheney visited China in
April, 2004, he was promoting the sale of Westinghouse nuclear
power plants to the Chinese.[5] Current U.S. policy restricts
the ex****t of nuclear technology to China but the Bush
administration is expected to lift those restrictions in
September. The immediate beneficiaries will be Westinghouse and
General Electric.[6] China has already announced plans to build
32 nuclear power plants, and to ex****t the technology to other
countries. For example, China has said it intends to help
Pakistan build two large nuclear power plants capable of
producing plutonium.[5]
Within the U.S. itself, in recent months two cor****ate
consortiums have proposed building new nuclear power plants.[7]
President Bush is an enthusiastic sup****ter of nuclear power.
But nuclear power plants always carry an unspoken danger. For
nations that want to build A-bombs, nuclear power provides the
basis for all that's needed in the way of technology,
op****tunity and know-how.
No one disputes this view -- the "nuclear club" has been able
to expand only because the spread of nuclear power plants has
been encouraged and subsidized. Why does the U.S. continue down
this path?
As the New York Times wrote recently, "'If you look at every
nation that's recently gone nuclear,' said Mr. [Paul] Leventhal
of the Nuclear Control Institute, 'they've done it through the
civilian nuclear fuel cycle: Iraq, North Korea, India,
Pakistan, South Africa. And now we're worried about Iran.' The
moral, he added, is that atoms for peace can be 'a shortcut to
atoms for war.'"[8]
The Times goes on, "Today, with what seems like relative ease,
scientists can divert an ostensibly peaceful program to make
not only electricity but also highly pure uranium or plutonium,
both excellent bomb fuels."[8]
And: "Experts now talk frankly about a subject that was once
taboo: 'virtual' weapon states - Japan, Germany, Belgium,
Canada, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Taiwan and a dozen other countries
that have mastered the basics of nuclear power and could, if
they wanted, quickly cross the line to make nuclear arms,
probably in a matter or months."[8] Experts call crossing that
line "breakout."
Other nations thought to have the know-how (though not
necessarily the inclination) to cross the breakout line include
Egypt, Syria, Nigeria, and South Korea.
The U.S. is on record as vigorously opposing the proliferation
of nuclear weapons. However, U.S. actions to prevent
proliferation are half-hearted and contradictory at best.[1,9]
For example, when U.S. allies break all the rules and ex****t
A-bomb technology, the U.S. looks the other way. Earlier this
year, the world was rocked by news that Pakistan's chief
nuclear engineer, Abdul Qadeer Khan, had sold a "complete
package" of A-bomb technology to Libya, to North Korea, and
probably to Iran. The "complete package" included enriched
uranium, centrifuges for making more enriched uranium, and one
or more designs for A-bombs.[10] Dr. Khan even maintained a
telephone sup****t hotline for his A-bomb customers. It was a
good business -- Dr. Khan re****tedly received more than $100
million from Libya alone.[11]
When Dr. Khan's international smuggling network was
discovered, the President of Pakistan, General Pervez
Musharraf, forced Dr. Khan to retire as head of Khan Research
Laboratories, then turned around and gave him an official
pardon, lavished him with praise and gave him the title
"special adviser" to the president.[10] According to the New
York Times, "...some former and current American officials say
there was considerable evidence that General Musharraf was
turning a blind eye to Dr. Khan's activities, which they say
may have involved parts of the Pakistani military."[12]
The Bush administration did nothing. "Although Mr. Bush has
vowed to pursue and prosecute those who spread nuclear weapons
technology, the administration did not criticize Mr. Musharraf
when he decided to pardon Mr. Khan, who ran what now appears to
be one of the largest nuclear proliferation networks in the
past half-century."[10]
Did Dr. Khan provide bomb-grade uranium and nuclear know-how to
Al Qaeda? "It's mystifying that the administration hasn't
leaned on Pakistan to make Dr. Khan available for interrogation
to ensure that his network is entirely closed," writes New York
Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof. "Several experts on
Pakistan told me they believe that the [U.S.] administration
has been so restrained because its top priority isn't combating
nuclear proliferation -- it's getting President Pervez
Musharraf's help in arresting Osama bin Laden before the
November election," Kristof writes.[13]
Pakistan was not the only U.S. ally involved in selling A-bombs
to Libya, North Korea and Iran. Dubai in the United Arab
Emirates served as the "key transfer point" for all the
technology Dr. Khan was selling. Just as the Cayman Islands
are known for laundering drug money, Dubai is known for
laundering black-market products like A-bomb parts.[14]
When President Bush learned of Dubai's role in Pakistan's
atomic shopping mall, he again did nothing. As the scandal was
breaking in March, 2004, the Times re****ted that Lockheed
Martin was proceeding with the sale of 80 F-16 fighters to
Dubai -- apparently a reward to a trusted and valued ally.[14]
Even when wealthy, technically-savvy governments play strictly
by the rules, the civilian nuclear fuel cycle has proven
impossible to control. For example, the Japanese acknowledged
earlier this year that they have lost 435 pounds of plutonium
- -- enough to make about 25 nuclear bombs as big as the one that
wiped out Nagasaki in 1945. They know they produced it but they
have no idea where it went.[15]
So long as the U.S. continues to promote nuclear power for
itself and its allies, the fiery hell on earth draws ever
closer and more vivid.
I used to think this problem of "nuclear weapons proliferation"
was the "Achilles heel" of nuclear power -- the uncontrollable
problem that would finally convince the world to stuff the
nuclear power genie back into the bottle and never let it out
again.
I am now wondering whether I had it exactly backwards: perhaps
nuclear weaponry is the main appeal of nuclear power -- both to
those who are buying it AND to those who are selling it. (More
on this in Part 3.)
II. Turning a Blind Eye to Loose Soviet A-Bombs
The U.S. has continually failed to secure nuclear weapons left
over from the cold war in countries of the former Soviet Union.
As the New York Times re****ted in March 2004, "The bipartisan
[U.S.] program to secure weapons of mass destruction is starved
for funds -- but Mr. Bush is proposing a $41 million cut in
'cooperative threat reduction' with Russia."[13]
"I wouldn't be at all surprised if nuclear weapons are used
over the next 15 or 20 years," Bruce Blair, president of the
Center for Defense Information, told the New York Times
recently, "first and foremost by a terrorist group that gets
its hands on a Russian nuclear weapon or a Pakistani nuclear
weapon."[13]
There are an estimated 15,000 nuclear weapons in the countries
of the former Soviet Union -- 7,000 of them strategic weapons
plus an estimated 8,000 tactical weapons.[3] Strategic weapons
are the big ones capable of incinerating whole cities. They are
covered by disarmament treaties and so have been pretty well
inventoried. They are also physically large and protected with
several layers of elaborate codes and anti-detonation devices.
It would be extremely difficult to steal one and set it off.
But tactical nuclear weapons are a different story. "The most
troublesome gap in the generally reassuring assessment of
Russian weapons security is those tactical nuclear warheads --
smaller, short-range weapons like torpedoes, depth charges,
artillery shells, mines. Although their smaller size and
greater number makes them ideal candidates for theft, they have
gotten far less attention simply because, unlike all of our
long-range weapons, they happen not to be the subject of any
formal treaty," says the New York Times.[3]
The commonly-used estimate of 8,000 tactical nukes is "an
educated guess," says the Times. Other estimates range from a
low of 4,000 to a high of 32,000 tactical A-bombs. Even the
Russians don't seem to have a reliable inventory.[3]
"The other worrying thing about tactical nukes is that their
anti-use devices are believed to be less sophisticated, because
the weapons were designed to be employed in the battlefield.
Some of the older systems are thought to have no permissive
action links at all, so that setting one off would be about as
complicated as hot-wiring a car," says the Times.[3]
But stealing a nuclear weapon may not be the easiest way for a
terrorist group to join the nuclear club.
Bill Keller, who wrote the eye-opening article, "Nuclear
Nightmares" for the New York Times magazine two years ago,
says, "The closest thing I heard to consensus among those who
study nuclear terror was this: building a nuclear bomb is
easier than you think, probably easier than stealing one."[3]
III. Sluggish Response to Weapons-Grade Uranium
So the third way that the U.S. is promoting the spread of
atomic bombs is by failing to retrieve the weapons-grade
enriched uranium that the U.S. sent abroad during the past 50
years.
Here is the opening paragraph from a New York Times story March,
7, 2004: "As the United States presses Iran and other countries
to shut down their nuclear weapons development programs,
government auditors have disclosed that the United States is
making little effort to recover large quantities of
weapons-grade uranium -- enough to make roughly 1,000 nuclear
bombs -- that the government dispersed to 43 countries over the
last several decades," including Iran and Pakistan.[16]
Why would President Bush fiddle around in the face of a threat
as serious and obvious as this one?
--Peter Montague
[To be continued.]
======
[1] This newsletter was written before the New York Times
editorialized as follows on May 28, 2004:
"While the Bush administration has been distracted by the
invasion and occupation of Iraq, it has neglected the far more
urgent threat to American security from dangerous nuclear
materials that must be safeguarded before they can fall into
the hands of terrorists. That is the inescapable conclusion to
be drawn from a new re****t that documents the slow pace of
protecting potential nuclear bomb material at loosely guarded
sites around the world.
"The re****t -- prepared by researchers at the Kennedy School of
Government at Harvard -- does not directly blame the invasion
of Iraq for undermining that effort. It simply notes that less
nuclear material was secured in the two years immediately after
the 9/11 attacks than in the two years before....
"The most plausible explanation is that the administration has
focused so intensely on Iraq, which posed no nuclear threat,
that it had little energy left for the real dangers. Indeed,
the Harvard researchers said that if a tenth of the effort and
resources devoted to Iraq in the last year was devoted to
securing nuclear material wherever it might be, the job could
be accomplished quickly."
[2] In early June, 1981, Israel bombed a nuclear power plant
under construction in Iraq, asserting that Iraq intended it for
making A-bombs. See Steven R. Weisman, "Reagan Asserts Israel
Had Cause To Mistrust Iraq: Senate Panel Not Convinced," New
York Times June 17, 1981. pg. A1.
[3] Bill Keller, "Nuclear Nightmares," New York Times May 26,
2002.
[4] James Sterngold, "A new era of nuclear weapons: Bush's
buildup begins with little debate in Congress," San Francisco
Chronicle Dec. 7, 2003.
[5] H. Josef Hebert, "Cheney to shop Westinghouse nuke
technology to China," Salt Lake City (Utah) Tribune April 10,
2004.
[6] Reuters, "Asian countries in race for nuclear power,"
Economic Times [of India] April 11, 2004.
[7] "A 2nd Consortium Wants a Reactor," New York Times April 1,
2004.
[8] William J. Broad, "Nuclear Weapons in Iran: Plowshare or
Sword," New York Times (Science Section) May 25, 2004.
[9] "Editorial: Half a Proliferation Program," New York Times
Feb. 16, 2004.
[10] David E. Sanger, "U.S. Widens Its View of Pakistan Link to
Korean Arms," New York Times Mar. 14, 2004.
[11] David E. Sanger and William J. Broad, "Pakistani's Nuclear
Earnings: $100 Million," New York Times Mar. 16, 2004.
[12] David Rohde and Talat Hussain, "Delicate Dance for
Musharraf In Nuclear case," New York Times Feb. 8, 2004.
[13] Nicholas D. Kristof, "A Nuclear 9/11," New York Times Mar.
10, 2004.
[14] Gary Milhollin and Kelly Motz, "OpEd: Nukes 'R' Us," New
York Times Mar. 4, 2004.
[15] Bayan Rahman, "Japan Loses 206 kg of Plutonium," New York
Times Jan. 28, 2003.
[16] Joel Brinkley and William J. Broad, "U.S. Lags in
Recovering Fuel Suitable for Nuclear Arms," New York Times Mar.
7, 2004.
***
June 10, 2004
http://www.rachel.org
RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH NEWS #793
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
FIERY HELL ON EARTH, Pt. 2
The U.S. is enabling the spread of atomic bombs worldwide in at
least four different ways (see Rachel's #792). But why? Do Mr.
Bush's military advisors or his core sup****ters in the
Republican party imagine some benefit from allowing A-bombs to
slip into the hands of terrorists?
In this series, I am searching for answers.
By "atomic bombs" I do not mean "dirty bombs" -- a few sticks
of dynamite wrapped with a packet of radioactive medical waste.
I mean the kind of A-bomb that turned the Japanese cities of
Hiro****ma and Nagasaki into a lake of fire in 1945.
There can be no question about it: In at least four ways the
U.S. is failing to stop -- in some cases is actually promoting
- -- the spread of A-bombs by:
(1) Helping foreign government acquire nuclear power plants --
a sure stepping stone to an A-bomb for any government inclined
to take the step (see Rachel's #792). All the newest members of
the "nuclear club" -- such as India, Pakistan and North Korea
- -- gained member****p by acquiring nuclear power plants, then
developing A-bombs. Nuclear power = nuclear weapons, and the
U.S. is aggressively promoting the spread of nuclear power
worldwide.
(2) The U.S. is dragging its feet in securing A-bombs that are
lying around in the countries of the former Soviet Union.
Thousands of Soviet A-weapons are still poorly secured. As the
New York Times wrote two years ago, "No observer of the
unraveling Russian military has much trouble imagining that a
group of military officers, disenchanted by the humiliation of
serving a spent superpower, embittered by the wretched
conditions in which they spend much of their military lives or
merely greedy, might find a way to divert a warhead to a
terrorist for the right price."[1]
Furthermore, the U.S.-Russian program to secure 68 tons of
plutonium (enough to make more than 10,000 A-bombs), begun in
1998, is "stalled" over a trivial legal technicality. As the
Wa****ngton Post re****ted last month, some analysts and
politicans -- including Republican Senator Pete Domenici (a
staunch proponent of nuclear power and weapons) -- "are
doubting the Bush administration's commitment" to securing the
plutonium.[2]
(3) The U.S. is failing to aggressively retrieve 35,000 pounds
of weapons-grade uranium that the U.S. and the Soviets gave or
lent to 43 countries during the cold war -- enough to make more
than 300 hefty A-bombs; and
(4) Reversing long-standing policy, the U.S. is now building a
new class of smaller A-bombs, which are being advertised as
"more usable" -- meanwhile telling the rest of the world to
renounce atomic weapons. "This administration seems to believe
that the United States can move the world in one direction
while we ourselves move in a different direction," says U.S.
Representative John M. Spratt, Jr. (D-S.C.), a senior member of
the House Armed Services Committee and an expert on U.S.
nuclear policy. Mr. Spratt says President Bush is "taking us
back to somewhere where we were years ago and were thankful to
have moved beyond."[3]
Here we pick up the story with point 3:
Late last month U.S. Energy Secretary Eliot Abraham announced a
$450 million effort to retrieve the 35,000 pounds of
weapons-grade uranium from 43 countries.[4] It is expected to
take 13 years, if all goes according to plan. Mr. Abraham said
his plan would ensure that nuclear materials "will not fall
into the hands of those with evil intentions."[5] This sounds
reassuring until you learn that Pentagon auditors concluded two
months earlier, in March, that "large quantities of
U.S.-produced highly-enriched uranium were out of U.S.
control."[6]
The New York Times re****ted in March, 2004, that "The Energy
Department's inspector general says that about half of the
[35,000 pounds of enriched] uranium is in the hands of
government agencies, universities or private companies in 12
countries that are "not expected to participate in the program"
to return it. Among those countries are Iran, Pakistan, Israel,
Mexico, Jamaica and South Africa.[6] Furthermore, according to
the Wall Street Journal, other countries with "research
reactors" that could be used to make weapons include Vietnam,
Syria, Serbia, Pakistan and North Korea.[7]
Commenting on Secretary Abraham's announcement, Graham Allison,
a Harvard professor and author of the forthcoming book, Nuclear
Terrorism [ISBN 0805076514], told the New York Times that the
plan would be "im****tant if the words are matched by deeds."
However, he said, the scale and speed of the effort are still
woefully inadequate. "There is still a serious imbalance
between the magnitude of the nuclear threat he [Abraham]
describes and the remedies proposed," Allison said.[4] Mr.
Allison subsequently signed up to advise the John Kerry
campaign, which has said the uranium cleanup job should take 4
years, not 13. Administration officials scoff at the Kerry
timetable as unrealistic.[8]
The fastest possible retrieval does seem warranted. As the New
York Times editorialized May 28, "Highly enriched uranium is
scattered at some 130 research reactors in more than 40
countries, often guarded by little more than a night watchman
and a chain-link fence. Dozens of these sites have enough
material to make a bomb."[9]
But, inexplicably, U.S. retrieval efforts have actually slowed
since 9/11. The Times noted that "less nuclear material was
secured in the two years immediately after the 9/11 attacks
than in the two years before."[9]
And: "Although the United States and Russia are cooperating on
a program to safeguard dangerous materials and have fixed some
of the most glaring vulnerabilities, only a fifth of the
dangerous nuclear material not in weapons has been protected by
comprehensive security upgrades, an appallingly sluggish
performance," the Times's editors said.[9]
Why is President Bush approaching this problem in an
"appallingly sluggish" fa****on? Who among the President's
advisors or core sup****ters in the Republican party imagine
that there's something to be gained by this approach?
Point 4: Provocative new A-bomb policies
The Bush administration is promoting the spread of nuclear
weapons worldwide in a fourth way -- by starting its own
provocative program to build a new generation of A-bombs,
reversing long-standing U.S. policy. Furthermore, the
administration has announced a new policy of possible
pre-emptive first use of nuclear weapons in emergencies, even
against non-nuclear states.[10]
Mr. Bush's military strategists say the new generation of
smaller weapons is desirable because smaller A-bombs are "more
usable." A New York Times editorial June 8 says "more usable"
means "easing the taboo that has kept nuclear weapons sheathed
since 1945 on behalf of a bomb that could still expose hundreds
of thousands of people to death or radiation sickness. With
nine countries now believed to have nuclear weapons, including
North Korea, Pakistan, India and Israel, the world does not
need America's encouraging the idea of more usable bombs."[11]
The Bush administration is also developing a new generation of
large A-bombs -- called bunker busters -- intended to penetrate
deep into the ground before exploding. "Just imagine launching
nuclear bunker busters based on weapons intelligence as
unreliable as that circulating before the Iraq war," says the
Times editorial. "Even if underground sites were accurately
identified, the resulting nuclear explosions could spread the
blast, radiation and toxins over populated areas." As an
alternative, the Times favors conventional ways of dealing with
underground fortresses -- like blocking air supplies or cutting
off external energy sources.
The normally-staid editors of the Times call Mr. Bush's new
A-weapons programs a "different and dangerous direction" for
U.S. policy, a "reckless folly" that "boggles the mind."[11]
Even some Republicans are dismayed at these policy ****fts. Rep.
Joel Hefley (R-Colo.), a senior member of the Armed Services
Committee, told the San Francisco Chronicle, "We don't need new
weapons, and in fact we cause more harm than good in our
relations with other countries in our moral position on nuclear
proliferation. I think they're almost obsolete. I'm not
convinced that we have to have that capability."[10]
Even inside the Pentagon some argue there is no need for a new
generation of nuclear weapons. A classified study by the
Defense Science Board, leaked in November 2003, stated,
"Current [Department of Defense] structure provides neither
clear requirements nor persuasive rationale for changing the
nuclear stockpile."[10]
Strangely, this is an issue that divides Democrats from
Republicans: "Traditionally, Democrats have viewed nuclear
weapons as nearly unusable, a deterrent of last resort," said
Loren Thompson, chief operating officer of the libertarian
Lexington Institute and an opponent of such new nuclear
research. "Republicans, on the other hand, particularly since
the Reagan years, have sought to integrate nuclear weapons into
the broader arsenal of war-fighting tools, to treat them simply
as a more powerful version of conventional weapons."[12]
This is precisely President Bush's approach -- to treat small
A-bombs as if they were simply more powerful versions of
conventional weapons. But of course they will leave radioactive
fallout and long-term radiation sickness in their wake, and so,
if used, they will send shockwaves of anger and outrage
throughout the world. After the U.S. unleashed a small A-bomb
or a larger atomic bunker buster, many small countries could
become convinced that there's no reason why they shouldn't have
their own A-bombs. Terrorists would no doubt redouble their
efforts to retaliate in kind, eager to deliver an A-bomb by
boat to the Statue of Liberty or the Golden Gate Bridge. An
effective A-bomb could enter U.S. waters in a "conex" ****pping
container and be detonated before passing through customs. Such
an attack would be extremely difficult to prevent. [1; and see
Rachel's #749.]
A tiny one-kiloton A-bomb (1/20th the size of the Hiro****ma
bomb) set off in New York City would probably kill 20,000
people immediately. In the next few days, tens of thousands
more would die from third-degree burns and radiation sickness.
The cloud of radioactive fallout would injure many more in the
Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, or New Jersey -- depending upon the
wind.[1]
President Bush's new policy is to fight arms of mass
destruction with arms of mass destruction -- something
approaching a modern version of an eye for an eye -- except
that Mr. Bush has announced he may be willing to take the first
eye. As the Times re****ted a year ago, "diplomacy and arms
control, for now, have taken a back seat to muscle
flexing."[13]
Others are itching to flex back. CIA director George Tenet
said more than a year ago, "The desire for nuclear weapons is
on the upsurge among small countries, confronting the world
with a new nuclear arms race that threatens to dismantle more
than three decades of nonproliferation efforts.... We have
entered a new world of proliferation," he said.[14]
And the U.S. is making very deliberate and systematic
contributions to arming this new world with A-bombs.
I keep asking myself, "What would possess President Bush to do
such a thing?"
How could the President or his core sup****ters in the
Republican party imagine that they -- or anyone else -- might
benefit from a world awash in A-bombs?
Some possible answers next time.
[To be continued.]
--Peter Montague
======
[1] Bill Keller, "Nuclear Nightmares," New York Times Magazine
May 26, 2002.
[2] Peter Slavin, "U.S.-Russia Plutonium Disposal Project
Langui****ng," Wa****ngton Post May 10, 2004, pg. A17.
[3] Peter Slevin, "Sounding the Alarm on Nuclear
Proliferation," Wa****ngton Post June 1, 2004, pg. A21.
[4] Watthew L. Wald and Judith Miller, "Energy Department Plans
a Push to Retrieve Nuclear Materials," New York Times May 26,
2004.
[5] Anonymous, "Update: Abraham Announces Plan to Cut Nuclear
Threat," Dow Jones Newswires May 26, 2004.
[6] Joel Brinkley and William J. Broad, "U.S. Lags in
Recovering Fuel Suitable for Nuclear Arms," New York Times Mar.
7, 2004.
[7] John J. Fialka, "U.S., Russia Will Seek Return of Nuclear
Fuel," Wall Street Journal May 26, 2004.
[8] Jodi Wilgoren, "Kerry Promises Speedier Efforts to Secure
Nuclear Arms," New York Times June 2, 2004.
[9] "Editorial: A Real Nuclear Danger," New York Times May 28,
2004.
[10] James Sterngold, "New era of nuclear weapons: Bush's
buildup begins with little debate in Congress," San Francisco
Chronicle Dec. 7, 2003.
[11] "Editorial: The Wrong Proliferation Message," New York
Times June 8, 2004.
[12] Robert Schlesinger, "Senate OK's repeal of 'mininuke'
ban," Boston Globe May 21, 2003.
[13] William J. Broad, "Chain Reaction: Facing a Second Nuclear
Age," New York Times August 3, 2003.
[14] Walter Pincus, "CIA Head Predicts Nuclear Race,"
Wa****ngton Post Feb. 12, 2003.
***
June 24, 2004
http://www.rachel.org
RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH NEWS #794
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
FIERY HELL ON EARTH, Pt. 3
In this series, we are searching for answers to the question,
"Why is the U.S. failing to stop, and in some cases actually
promoting, the spread of nuclear weapons worldwide?" (See
Rachel's #792 and #793.)
Answers to this question will help us understand President
Bush's philosophy of environmental protection -- or perhaps the
philosophy of his core sup****ters in the Republican Party on
whom he is depending in the 2004 election.
President Bush has made it clear that he understands the threat
posed by nuclear weapons, materials and know-how in the wrong
hands. He has said, "We will not permit the world's most
dangerous regimes and terrorists to threaten us with the
world's most destructive weapons."[1]
This was not an isolated statement. In two key White House
policy documents published in 2002, the Bush administration
concluded that, "The threat of weapons of mass destruction is
the highest priority for the United States and should be for
other countries."[2,3]
The President has spoken out strongly and repeatedly on the
matter and has even said that failure on this issue will be
judged "harshly" by history.
When the White House published its National Strategy to Combat
Weapons of Mass Destruction in Dec., 2002, the President said,
"The gravest danger facing the Nation lies at the crossroads of
radicalism and technology. Our enemies have openly declared
that they are seeking weapons of mass destruction, and evidence
indicates that they are doing so with determination. The United
States will not allow these efforts to succeed.... History will
judge harshly those who saw this coming danger but failed to
act."[3]
Yet the evidence is overwhelming that the U.S. is failing to
act on this growing threat. (See Rachel's #792, #793.) Indeed,
the Bush administration is actively engaged in spreading
nuclear technology and know-how into the hands of
potentially-unstable nations.
On June 20, 2004, the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace published a 96-page re****t agreeing with the Bush
administration that, "Terrorist acquisition of nuclear weapons
poses the greatest single threat to the United States."[4, pg.
25].
However, the Carnegie re****t points out, "The [Bush]
administration has not put money or significant political
effort behind [its] proposals."[4, pg. 13]
According to the Carnegie re****t, the President's proposed
budget for 2005 actually reduces the funds available for U.S.
efforts to curb the spread of weapons-grade plutonium and
uranium world-wide, and reduces the U.S. financial contribution
to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) "whose
responsibilities have greatly increased while its budget has
stayed flat."[4, pg. 13]
Nuclear-armed terrorists are the No. 1 threat to the U.S., and
the No. 2 threat is nuclear-armed states like Pakistan and
North Korea. As the Carnegie re****t says, "National instability
or a radical change in government could lead to the collapse of
state control over weapons and nuclear materials and the
migration of nuclear scientists to other nations or to the
service of other groups."
However, instead of trying to keep nuclear technology and
know-how out of the hands of such states, the Bush
administration is actively encouraging U.S. cor****ations to
sell their nuclear hardware and know-how abroad. On a recent
trip to China, Vice-President Cheney was peddling Westinghouse
nuclear power plants, even though China has announced that it
intends to transfer nuclear technology to Pakistan.[5]
These contradictory facts are deeply perplexing. I have been
reviewing the available literature on this subject for the past
two years, trying to answer the question, "Why is the Bush
administration promoting nuclear weapons, materials and
know-how world-wide?"
Naturally, all my answers are merely hypotheses because I have
no special knowledge of what motivates the President, the
Vice-President, their core sup****ters in the House and Senate,
and their advisors in the Pentagon. I only know what's in the
public record.
So let us begin. In the remainder of this series, I will
examine the following hypotheses:
Hypothesis #1: Simple incompetence and confusion among the
nation's defense agencies. Perhaps they actually want to curb
the spread of nuclear technologies but just can't manage the
task.
Hypothesis #2: Perfectly normal cor****ate profit goals combined
with the ever-pressing need for re-election campaign
contributions. Perhaps the administration is promoting nuclear
power to reward potential campaign contributors in the nuclear
business, such as Westinghouse, General Electric, Framatone
(formerly Babcock & Wilcox), Bechtel, Halliburton, Brown &
Root, and other large-scale construction firms that build
nuclear power plants and the infrastructure they require
(roads, power lines, special docks at sea****ts, fuel processing
plants, security apparatus and training, and so forth.)
Hypothesis #3: Nuclear power is needed now to prevent nations
and regions from "going solar." Because each nuclear power
plant requires an investment measured in billions of dollars,
and because nuclear power plants are dangerous, they require
(and thus maintain) the highly-centralized, top-down,
quasi-military social structure that modern transnational
cor****ations provide. The "military-industrial" complex that
President Eisenhower warned us about in 1961 is epitomized by
nuclear technologies.
Solar power on the other hand can be small-scale,
locally-controlled, definitely not dangerous, much less subject
to terrorist disruption,[6] and therefore much more compatible
with an open, democratic social structure that might, as time
passes, erode cor****ate control. Therefore, in a sense, solar
power is dangerous and even subversive because it could subvert
"business as usual."
Hypothesis #4: Just as nuclear power plants require and promote
a centralized, quasi-military, cor****atized social structure,
so also does a world awash in weapons-grade uranium and
plutonium.
So long as a there is a thriving black market in weapons-grade
nuclear materials. then we can more easily justify a $450
billion annual military budget, a network of U.S. espionage
agencies active now in 80 countries,[7] and pre-emptive wars
such as the one now in Iraq (and others re****tedly being
readied now by the Pentagon against Syria, Lebanon, Libya,
Iran, Somalia, and Sudan[8]).
Whether your job is military, civilian, or somewhere in
between, if you're in the business of fighting the nation's
perceived enemies, and your want your business to thrive, then
enemies armed with small nuclear weapons may be the best kind
of enemies to have. Everyone will sup****t your work against
such enemies. They will even follow you into war against such
enemies.
Hypothesis #5: Now we enter the realm of realpolitik, the kind
of world that Henry Kissinger inhabits, where thinking the
unthinkable is routine.[9]
Is it possible that some people within the Bush administration,
(or among groups whom the Bush administration considers
essential to its electoral success in 2004), might imagine
benefits from a rogue nation or group detonating a small
nuclear weapon in Jerusalem or even New York?
Here are some crackpot speculations perhaps worth considering:
a) Maybe detonation of a small nuclear weapon would serve to
remind the current generation how dangerous nuclear technology
really is. A rogue nuclear detonation would quickly bring the
civilian nuclear power industry to an end. It might also spur
the international community to quickly sweep up the tons of
weapons-grade plutonium and enriched uranium lying about in
40-or-so nations.
b) A rogue nuclear detonation would almost certainly spell the
end of democracy as we know it. Major ****tions of the bill of
rights would probably be canceled within hours.
Recall that the Bush adminstration saw the mass murders on 9/11
as sufficient reason to scrap the legal doctrine of habeas
corpus which was formalized in English law in 1679 and was
embodied a century later in the U.S. Constitution.
The U.S. Supreme Court has "recognized the fact that `[t]he
writ of habeas corpus is the fundamental instrument for
safeguarding individual freedom against arbitrary and lawless
state action.'[10]
A writ of habeas corpus is a judge's mandate to a prison
official ordering that an inmate be brought before the court so
the court can determine whether or not that person is
imprisoned lawfully and whether or not he or she should be
released from custody. Without habeas corpus, people can be
imprisoned forever without any recourse whatsoever. Even the
fact of their imprisonment can be kept secret. This is what the
Bush administration has said it aims to do at Guantanamo Bay
and perhaps at other quasi-military prisons the U.S. maintains
around the world.
Seeing the right of habeas corpus repealed in response to the
mass murders of 9/11, everyone has to be impressed by the
fragility of what seemed like the immutable underpinnings of
democracy and indeed civilization itself. The enemies of
democracy -- inside the U.S. and outside -- can see as well as
anyone that a nuclear detonation in New York would almost
surely end the American experiment in self-rule.
c) There is a growing movement in the U.S. to erase the barrier
that separates church and state, to replace our secular
government with a religious government.[11] We can see the
beginnings of such thinking in the Texas State Republican Party
Platform for 2004, which says, "The Republican Party of Texas
affirms that the United States of American is a Christian
nation." And: "The Party understands that the Ten Commandments
are the basis of our basic freedoms and the cornerstone of
Western legal tradition." And: "Our Party pledges to exert its
influence to restore the original intent of the First Amendment
of the United States Constitution and dispel the myth of the
separation of Church and State."[12]
By removing the Constitutional wall that separates church and
state, some people merely hope to get a free handout from
Wa****ngton for their religious group (the President's
"faith-based initiative" gave $1.1 billion of taxpayer funds to
religious organizations during 2003).[13]
Others have much larger goals, hoping to institute a fully
theocratic order in which their idea of Christian Biblical law
replaces our secular democracy, essentially repealing the
enlightment and returning the world to the 17th century.[11]
d) There is a different, and much larger, group of Christians
who say they believe that their personal salvation depends upon
the return of Christ to Earth and that this second coming of
Christ requires a specific series of events to unfold in the
Middle East, including the battle of Armageddon, which many
interpret to mean a nuclear World War III.
These believers in Armageddon theology include the Reverend
Billy Graham, the Reverend Pat Robertson, the singer Pat Boone,
the Reverend Jerry Falwell, Ralph Reed, Jr., Gary Bauer,
Republican strategist Ed McAteer, advice columnist Laura
Schlessinger, writer Hal Lindsey ("The Late, Great Planet
Earth"), the Reverend Tim LaHaye (co-author of the 11-volume
"Left Behind" series), House Majority Leader Tom Delay
(R-Tex.), U.S. Senator James N. Inhofe (R-Ok., Chairman of the
Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works), Attorney
General John Ashcroft, and many others in top leader****p
positions within the Bush adminstration.
Author Grace Halsell -- herself a born-again Christian from
Texas -- toured the Holy Land in the Middle East twice with
followers of the Reverend Jerry Falwell. Halsell then wrote a
book about her experiences. In "Prophecy and Politics," which
she subtitled, "Militant Evangelists on the Road to Nuclear
War," Halsell wrote, "I have heard Falwell preach on nuclear
Armageddon, and I saw his face turn radiant at the thought."
[14, pg. 197]
--Peter Montague
[To be continued.]
====
[1] President Bush quoted in Dafna Linzer, "Re****t Faults U.S.
Action on Nuclear Proliferation," Wa****ngton Post June 21,
2004.
[2] The National Security Strategy of the United States of
America (Sept., 2002), available at
http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html
[3] National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction
(December, 2002), available at
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/12/WMDStrategy.pdf
[4] George Perkovich and others, Universal Compliance; A
Strategy for Nuclear Security (Wa****ngton, D.C.: Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, June, 2004). Draft available
at http://www.ceip.org/strategy
.
[5] H. Josef Hebert, "Cheney to shop Westinghouse nuke
technology to China," Salt Lake City (Utah) Tribune April 10,
2004.
[6 Amory B. Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins, Brittle Power; Energy
Strategy for National Security (Brown House Publi****ng:
Andoiver, Mass., 1982).
[7] Dan Balz and Bob Woodward, "Bush Awaits History's Judgment;
President's Scorecard Shows Much Left to Do," Wa****ngton Post
February 3, 2002, pg. A1.
[8] General Wesley R. Clark, "The Clark Critique," Newsweek
Sept. 29, 2003, pg. 31, which is an excerpt from Clark's book,
"Winning Modern Wars: Iraq, Terrorism, and the American Empire"
(Public Affairs, 2003; ISBN: 1586482777).
[9] See the video, The Trial of Henry Kissinger, based on the
book of the same title by British journalist Christopher
Hitchens (Verso paperback, 2002; ISBN: 1859843980); for the
video, see http://www.thetrialsofhenrykissinger.com/trials.html
[10] Brown v. Vasquez, 952 F.2d 1164, 1166 (9th Cir. 1991),
cert. denied, 112 S.Ct. 1778 (1992).
[11] See, for example, Frederick Clarkson, "Theocratic
Dominionism Gains Influence," Public Eye Magazine Vol. 8, Nos.
1 and 2 (March and June, 1994). Available at
http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=400
. And see Joan
Bokaer, "The Rise of the Religious Right in the Republican
Party," available in text format (no pictures) at
http://www.rachel./org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=407
and in a 2
megabyte PDF file at
http://www.rachel./org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=407
or you can
find start reading the 19-page web document at
http://www.4religious-right.info/
.
[12] "2004 [Texas] State Republican Party Platform" available
at http://www.texasgop.org/library/platform.php
[13] Elisabeth Bumiller, "Preaching to the Choir, Bush
Encourages Religious Gathering," New York Times June 2, 2004,
pg. A17.
[14] Grace Halsell, Prophecy and Politics; Militant Evangelists
on the Road to Nuclear War (West****t, Conn.: Lawrence Hill &
Co., 1986). ISBN 0-88208-210-8.
***
July 8, 2004
http://www.rachel.org
RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH NEWS #795
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Fiery Hell on Earth, Pt. 4
"GOD TOLD ME TO STRIKE"
In this series (see Rachel's #792, #793, #794), I am trying to
discover reasons why the U.S. is pursuing contradictory and
seemingly self-destructive nuclear policies, including:
(1) President Bush stresses again and again that the two
greatest dangers facing the U.S. are the spread of nuclear
materials and know-how into the hands of (a) terrorists and (b)
erratic and belligerent countries.
(2) Meanwhile Vice-President Cheney and the Commerce Department
are promoting the sale of nuclear power plants around the world
even though it is widely acknowledged that nuclear power
provides a sure path to nuclear weapons for any country so
inclined. Witness the recent experience of India, Pakistan,
North Korea and Iran.
(3) President Bush has initiated a "second nuclear age,"
ordering up a new generation of small atomic bombs which are
needed because they are "more usable" than older, larger
A-bombs. And Mr. Bush has announced provocative new war
policies, including the threat of pre-emptive nuclear strikes
against America's enemies, even enemies without nuclear arms.
(4) Meanwhile the U.S. is deliberately dragging its feet in
efforts to secure thousands of loose nuclear weapons in
countries of the former Soviet Union, and is failing to
retrieve tons of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium that were
given or lent to 40 or more countries under the "atoms for
peace" program begun by President Eisenhower.
It's as if U.S. leaders -- or the political sup****ters to whom
they are beholden -- believe that the rogue detonation of a
nuclear device in some key city like Jerusalem or even New York
is inevitable and can't be stopped, or perhaps might even be
beneficial in some way and therefore should be enabled.
In Rachel's #794, we examined half a dozen hypotheses that
might explain the deep inconsistencies in U.S. policies toward
rogue nuclear detonations. I don't think we can rule out any of
these hypotheses. To one degree or another, all of them may be
affecting President Bush's nuclear policies.
However, to me the most compelling hypothesis, the one with the
broadest explanatory power, is this: certain fundamentalist
Christian leaders within the U.S. say they believe that World
War III is inevitable (some even say desirable) because it is
part of God's plan, and those same Christian leaders control
the political agenda of the Republican Party, which in turn
controls the Congress and the Executive Branch.
These fundamentalist Christian leaders are, therefore, in the
best position to promote the spread of nuclear technologies
abroad, and to slow U.S. efforts to retrieve and secure
weapons-grade nuclear materials. Many of them also preach that
a fiery conflagration is required to defeat the armies of the
Antichrist and thus usher in Christ's thousand-year reign of
peace. This hypothesis, and its attendant theology, also may
clarify some of President Bush's other policies, such as those
on taxation, science, education, women's issues, Middle East
policy, and the environment.
This is a complicated story and I must emphasize at the outset
that it is not a story about Christianity or about
fundamentalist Christians or about Republicans. This is a story
about a few fundamentalist Christian leaders who decided 20
years ago to take "working control" of the Republican Party,
and a few Republican political strategists who sought the
sup****t of fundamentalist Christians to increase the numerical
strength of the Republican Party.[1]
By 1994, both groups had succeeded -- fundamentalist Christians
had gained working control of the Republican Party, and the
Republican Party had achieved electoral majorities that would
have been impossible without the organized sup****t of Christian
fundamentalists and their evangelical followers.
Christian fundamentalists first appeared on the national
political scene when the Reverend Jerry Falwell and the
Reverend Tim LaHaye organized the Moral Majority in 1979-80.
Ten years later the Reverend Pat Robertson formed the Christian
Coalition for the purpose of influencing state and national
elections. In 1992, he told the Denver Post, "We want as soon
as possible to see a majority of the Republican Party in the
hands of pro-family Christians."[2] By 1994, the Coalition had
succeeded.
The Christian Coalition rates members of Congress according to
their votes on issues, giving us a way to measure the influence
of conservative Christians within the Republican Party. Here
are the ratings of the 10 most powerful Republicans in the U.S.
House of Representatives. (Following each person's Christian
Coalition [CC] rating, I have added the person's rating by the
League of Conservation Voters [LCV] to show how Republican
Christian leaders vote on environmental matters.)
House Speaker Dennis Hastert (Ill.): CC: 100%, LCV: no data;
Majority Leader Tom Delay (Tex.): CC: 100%, LCV: 0%; Majority
Whip Roy Blunt (Mo.): CC: 92%, LCV: 0%; Chief Deputy Whip Eric
Cantor (Va.): CC: 100%, LCV: 0%; Republican Conference Chair
Deborah Price (Ohio) CC: 58%, LCV: 4%; Republican Conference
Vice-Chair Jack Kingston (Ga.): CC: 100%, LCV: 0%; Republican
Conference Secretary John Doolittle (Calif.): CC: 100%, LCV:
0%; Republican Policy Committee Chair Christopher Cox (Calif.):
CC: 100%, LCV: 14%; National Republican Congressional Committee
Tom Reynolds (N.Y.): CC: 92%, LCV: 18%; Chairman of the
Republican National Leader****p Rob ****tman (Ohio): CC: 100%,
LCV: 18%.
And here are the Christian Coalition (CC) and League of
Conservation Voters (LCV) ratings for the 7 most powerful
Republicans in the U.S. Senate: Majority Leader Bill Frist
(Tenn.): CC: 100%, LCV: 0%; Assistant Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell (Ky.): CC: 100%, LCV: 4%; Republican Conference Chair
Rick Santorum (Pa.): CC: 100%, LCV: 4%; Republican Conference
Vice Chair Kay Hutchinson (Tex.): CC: 100%, LCV: 4%; Republican
Policy Committee Jon Kyl (Ariz.): CC: 100%, LCV: 4%; National
Republican Senatorial Committee George Allen (Va.): CC: 100%,
LCV: 0%.[3]
This tally clearly reveals the power of fundamentalist
Christians to control the agenda of the Republican Party, and
their consistent hostility to environmental protection.
President Bush is now entirely beholden to evangelical
Christian leaders because evangelicals provided about 40% of
the votes cast for Mr. Bush in 2000, according to the New York
Times.[4] As Newsweek said in 2003, evangelical Christians now
"form the core of the Republican Party.... Bible-believing
Christians are Bush's strongest backers and turning them out in
even greater numbers is the top priority of the president's
political adviser Karl Rove."[5]
The Republican Party, and the Bush family, discovered the
im****tance of the evangelical vote in 1988 when George H.W.
Bush (father of current President Bush) was running for
president. According to Doug Weed, political advisor to both
father and son, in the 1988 presidential election, "We lost as
we always do the Jewish vote, the Hispanic vote and all those
folks. We lost the Catholic vote. We were the first modern
presidency to win an election -- and it was a landslide -- and
not win the Catholic vote." Mr. Weed goes on, "[In 1988] the
message did come home -- by God, you could win the White House
with nothing but evangelicals, if you could get enough of 'em,
if you could get 'em all."[6]
George W. Bush and the Republican Party have been wooing,
relying on, and taking direction from, evangelical leaders ever
since.[7]
The mass media tend to use the label "evangelical" when
referring to all fundamentalist Christians, as if all
evangelicals were fundamentalists. They are not. Furthermore,
the media assume that all evangelicals share one set of
political and theological beliefs. This is another serious
error. There is a very broad spectrum of political and
theological beliefs among evangelicals -- at least 10% are
liberals.[8] An estimated 15% of evangelicals are
African-Americans and, of those, 75% are staunch Democrats.[9]
However, among the fundamentalist Christians who have taken
working control of the Republican Party, the spectrum of
beliefs is much, much narrower and definitely not liberal.
What is fundamentalism?
Religious historian George W. Marsden begins his book,
Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism, this way: "A
fundamentalist is an evangelical who is angry about
something."[10] The Reverend Jerry Falwell has on occasion used
Marsden's definition to describe himself and his millions of
followers. Fundamentalists are pugnacious evangelicals who are
willing to take a stand and fight against liberal theology,
changing cultural values, and secular humanism. Fundamentalists
are very clear about their goals. They see themselves as
Christian soldiers engaged in a "culture war," a crusade
against the dominant liberal culture, which they consider evil.
Their stated goal is to win the culture war and to impose what
they believe are Christian standards of behavior on
everyone, in sum, a theocracy.[11]
In sum, the goal of fundamentalist Christian leaders is to take
dominion over American society -- a goal that the Reverend Pat
Robertson stated explicitly as early as 1984.[12]
Christian fundamentalist leaders are much further along toward
their goal of dominion than most people realize. They control
the Congress and the White House, and they are now working
methodically to take over the courts. Perhaps because religious
beliefs are considered to be a private matter in the U.S., the
mass media have largely ignored this, the most im****tant
political story of our time.
Evangelicals tend to hold a common set of core beliefs,
including these:
(1) the Bible is the infallible ("inerrant") word of God;
(2) the salvation of lost and sinful people (which includes all
humans at birth) is only possible through regeneration by the
Holy Spirit -- a deeply personal experience of being "saved"
that many liken to being "born again" at the moment when they
accept Christ into their hearts;
(3) all who do not accept Christ as their personal savior
(including Muslims, Jews, atheists and agnostics, Hindus,
Buddhists, and all other non-Christians) will be resurrected
into damnation when they die and will spend eternity suffering
unspeakable agonies in the fires of hell;
(4) Because the stakes are so high, those who have been saved
by accepting Christ into their hearts have an obligation to try
to persuade others to accept Christ by spreading the "gospel,"
which is also called the "good news." (The word
"evangelicalism" comes from the Greek word evangelion, meaning
"the good news.")
(5) Christ will eventually return to Earth in power and glory.
Within the group of all evangelicals, there is a somewhat
smaller group called "premillenial dispensationalists" or more
commonly, "rapture Christians." They accept the five basic
tenets described above, and more.
What Do Dispensationalist Leaders Believe?
Dispensationalist leaders believe that before Christ returns to
Earth he will physically trans****t to heaven ("rapture") all
those who have been saved, whether they be dead or still
living. As the Reverend Billy Graham wrote in 1984, "The day is
fast approaching when Jesus Christ will come back to 'snatch
away' His followers from all the graveyards of the world, and
those of us who are alive and remain will join them in the
great escape!"[13]
The rapture entered U.S. evangelical theology in the 1860s and
has been widely accepted since then.[14] Today
dispensationalist views are taught at over 200 institutions of
higher learning, such as the Dallas Theological Seminary, the
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and the Moody Bible
Institute. Dispensationalist views are also reflected in the
notes accompanying popular study Bibles, such as the Schofield
Reference Bible and the Ryrie Study Bible.
The vast majority (perhaps all) of the evangelical leaders
visible on the political scene now are dispensationalists. The
Reverend Jerry Falwell boasts that he can mobilize 70 million
dispensationalists (36% of all U.S. adults); others say the
true number of dispensationalists is no more than 40 million
(20% of all adults).[15] Either number is politically
significant because only 50.99 million people voted for Al Gore
in 2000 and even fewer voted for George W. Bush.
Dispensationalist leaders believe the rapture will be followed
by a seven-year period of "tribulation" during which those who
are "left behind" (not raptured) will be afflicted with
terrible calamities including earthquakes, locusts, scorpions
and boils. During the tribulation, everyone left behind will
have another chance to accept Jesus into their hearts.
Dispensational leaders believe the tribulation years will see
mounting chaos, crime, blasphemy, adultery, homo***uality and
other evidence of moral decay. During this period, the
Antichrist, a diabolical dictator, will appear, offering
solutions to all the world's problems. The Antichrist will try
to organize a one-world government something like the United
Nations or perhaps the World Trade Organization.
At the end of the seven-year tribulation, Christ will lead his
armies of compassion against the Antichrist's armies of
evil-doers in the cataclysmic battle of Armageddon, after which
Christ will reign over the Earth during a thousand years of
peace (the millenium).
Based on their reading of the Book of Revelation in the Bible,
dispensationalist leaders believe that the "end times," leading
to the millenium, must unfold in a particular sequence.
First, the Jews must return to, and take control of, the
"covenant lands" -- lands given by God to the children of
Abraham, as recorded in Genesis 15:18. Then a temple must be
built on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, which happens to be
occupied today by the Al-Aqsa Mosque, a shrine that Muslims
believe is among the two or three most sacred spots on
earth.[16, pg. 109] After the Mosque is removed, the temple
will be built and animals will be sacrificed within it. Then
the rest of the "end times" can unfold -- the rapture, the
tribulation, the Antichrist, Armageddon, and the thousand years
of peace.[17, pgs. 88-116]
Many dispensationalist leaders believe that the end times were
set in motion by the creation of Israel in 1948 and were
accelerated by the six-day Arab-Israeli war of 1967 in which
Israel doubled the territory it controls by occupying
Palestinian lands known as the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
However, according to Genesis, the "covenant lands" stretch
from the Euphrates River (in central Iraq) eastward to "The
River of Egypt" which dispensational leaders interpret to mean
the Nile. If you look at a map, you can see that the existing
state of Israel -- even if you include the occupied territories
of the West Bank and Gaza -- does not presently encompass
anywhere near all the "covenant lands." So some Christian
fundamentalist leaders, such as Tom DeLay, the Republican
majority leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, insist
that Arabs and others should be forcibly removed from those
lands to make way for Christ's return. A year ago, when
President Bush proposed his "road map" plan that could
eventually create an independent Palestinian state on a ****tion
of the covenant lands, Mr. DeLay made a special trip to Israel
to stir up opposition to the "road map."[18] Mr. Bush
subsequently stopped promoting his peace plan.
Israeli occupation of the "covenant lands" is exceedingly
im****tant to Christian dispensationalist leaders. For example,
the 1967 Arab-Israeli war was a turning point in the life of
the Reverend Jerry Falwell. According to his biographers, prior
to 1967 Mr. Falwell said he believed preachers had no business
in politics. But Mr. Falwell saw the rapid victory of the
Israelis in the "six day war" of 1967 war as clear evidence of
"the intervention of God Almighty."[17, pg. 72] Mr. Falwell
soon visited Israel to meet Menachim Begin, then leader of the
convervative Likud Party, and subsequently energized a powerful
political movement in the U.S. known as "Christian Zionism" --
Christians eager to help Israel take and maintain control over
the convenant lands, as a necessary step toward the second
coming of Christ.
The Reverend Mr. Falwell is on record saying that Israel should
seize ****tions of present-day Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Saudi
Arabia, Egypt, and Sudan, plus all of Lebanon, Jordan and
Kuwait.[17, pg. 141] An effort to forcibly remove tens of
millions of Muslims from their homelands would almost certainly
lead to World War III but there are many in the U.S. who might
say, "Bring it on." Shortly after 9/11, neoconservative
polemicist Ann Coulter wrote in the National Review, "We should
invade their countries, kill their leaders and Christianize
them."[19] The Reverend Mr. Falwell himself asserts that God
favors war: "God is pro-war," he re****tedly said earlier this
year.[20] Other fundamentalist Christian leaders agree. The
Reverend Charles Stanley, a former president of the Southern
Baptist Convention -- the largest Christian sect in America,
with 16 million members -- re****tedly said last year, "God
favors war for divine reasons and sometimes uses it to
accomplish His will."[20]
For people holding such views, the present U.S. invasion of
Iraq may hold special meaning because it can be seen as an
essential step toward the second coming of Christ. Indeed,
President Bush describes his own role in the Iraq war in deeply
religious terms. When the President visited the Middle East a
year ago, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, which is owned by the
New York Times, re****ted that the President said, "God told me
to strike at al Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed
me to strike at Saddam, which I did...."[21]
[To be continued.]
--Peter Montague
============
[1] I am indebted to Joan Bokaer, director of Theocracy Watch
(a project of the Center for Religion, Ethics and Social Policy
(CRESP) at Cornell University) whose work helped me make sense
out of an amazingly large number of threads that make up the
complex tapestry of this story. Her 20-web-page document, The
Rise of the Religious Right in the Republican Party, is
essential reading for anyone who wants to really understand the
influence of the religious right on American culture and
politics. See http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=411
or http://www.4religious-right.info/
. I am also indebted to
Sr. Miriam McGillis, a member of the Dominican Sisters in
Caldwell, N.J., who introduced me to Ms. Bokaer's work.
[2] Quoted in Joan Bokaer, "The Rise of the Religous Right in
the Republican Party -- Introduction," available at
http://www.4religious-right.info/introduction2.htm
.
[3] Data from Joan Bokaer, "The Rise of the Religous Right in
the Republican Party -- Government," available at
http://www.4religious-right.info/govern.htm
.
[4] Elizabeth Bumiller, "Evangelicals Sway White House on Human
Rights Issues Abroad," New York Times Oct. 26, 2003.
[5] Howard Fineman, "Bush and God," Newsweek, March 10, 2003.
Available at http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=419
[6] Doug Weed appeared on the Frontline program, "The Jesus
Factor" broadcast nationwide on PBS April 29, 2004. Available
online at
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jesus/view/
.
[7] See, for example, Alan Cooperman, "Churchgoers Get
Direction from Bush Campaign," Wa****ngton Post July 1, 2004.
Available at http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=420
And David D. Kirkpatrick, "Party Appeal to Churches for Help
Raises Doubts," New York Times July 2, 2004. Available at
http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=421
[8] Don Wagner, "Beyond Armageddon," The Link Vol. 25, No. 4
(Oct.-Nov., 1992). Available at
http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=392
[9] Stanley B. Greenberg and others, "Evangelicals, Born
Agains, and Fundamentalist Christians in Election 2004," May
26, 2004. Available at
www.cnionline.org/hearings/armageddon/Evangelical-stats.ppt
http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=417
and see
"America's Evangelicals; Key Survey Findings," Religion and
Ethics Newsweekly, May, 2004, available at
http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=388
[10] George M. Marsden, Understanding Fundamentalism and
Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eeerdmans
Publi****ng Co., 1992). ISBN 0802805396. And see George M.
Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1980). ISBN 0195030834. And see Nancy Tatom
Ammerman, Bible Believers (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers
University Press, 1987). ISBN 081351231X.
[11] Michelle Cottle, "Team Bush is on a Crusade," New Republic
June 4, 2004. And see David Gates, "Religion: The Pop
Prophets," Newsweek Mar 24, 2004. And, David D. Kirkpatrick,
"The Return of the Warrior Jesus," New York Times April 4,
2004, Week in Review section. See especially Note 19, below.
[12] The Reverend Mr. Robertson quoted in Joan Bokaer, "The
Rise of the Religous Right in the Republican Party --
Introduction," available at
http://www.4religious-right.info/introduction2.htm
. And see
Robert Kuttner, "America as a One-Party State," American
Prospect Vol. 15, No. 2 (Feb. 1, 2004). Available at
http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=404
[13] Billy Graham, Peace with God (Nashville, Tenn.: W
Publi****ng Group, 1953; revised edition, 1984), pg. 256. ISBN
0849929911.
[14] Larry Eskridge, "Defining Evangelicalism," (undated)
available at
http://www.wheaton.edu/isae/defining_evangelicalism.html
.
Accessed June 16, 2004.
[15] Jeremy Leaming, "Religious Right Leaders Press For Passage
Of U.S. Rep. Jones' Church Electioneering Bill," Church and
State magazine Feb. 2004. Available at
http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=422
[16] Hal Lindsey, The Late Great Planet Earth (Grand Rapids,
Mich: Zondervan, 1970); ISBN 031027771X.
[17] Grace Halsell, Prophecy and Politics; Militant Evangelists
on the Road to Nuclear War (West****t, Conn.: Lawrence Hill &
Co., 1986). ISBN 0-88208-210-8.
[18] David Firestone, "DeLay Is to Carry Dissenting Message On
a Mideast Tour," New York Times July 25, 2003. Available at
http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=409
[19] Ann Coulter, "This is War," National Review Sept. 13,
2001. Available at
http://www.nationalreview.com/coulter/coulterprint091301.html
[20] John F. Sugg, "America The Theocracy," Weekly Planet
(Tampa, Fla.) March 2004, quoting the Reverend Mr. Falwell and
the Reverend Mr. Stanley. This is a clear explanation of
the goals of Christian fundamentalists in the U.S. It is
available at http://www.weeklyplanet.com/2004-03-25/cover.html
and at http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=418
.
[21] Arnon Regular, "'Road map is a life saver for us,' PM
Abbas tells Hamas," Haaretz June 24, 2003. Original is
available at
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml
?itemNo=310788, and a PDF version is available at
http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=416
.
***
July 22, 2004
http://www.rachel.org
RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH NEWS #796
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Fiery Hell on Earth, Part 5
A MARRIAGE MADE IN HEAVEN
We began this series seeking an explanation for America's
contradictory and self-defeating nuclear policies. We end by
seeking explanations for larger -- but equally perplexing --
U.S. environmental policies.
The stated goal of U.S. nuclear policy is to keep weapons-grade
nuclear materials out of the hands of terrorists and hostile,
unstable nations.
Yet in actual fact the U.S. (1) is failing to sweep up
weapons-grade nuclear materials that are lying around loose in
40 countries, and (2) has opened "a second nuclear age" by
creating a new generation of smaller, "more usable" A-bombs,
and (3) despite the terrors of 9/11 the U.S. government is
still peddling Westinghouse nuclear power plants to countries
like China that have announced plans to pass along the latest
nuclear technology to countries like Pakistan. (See Rachel's
#792, #793, #794, #795.) In the hands of any willing nation,
nuclear power equals nuclear weapons, as we know from India,
Pakistan, North Korea and Iran, among others.
As I said in Rachel's #795: It's as if U.S. leaders -- or the
political sup****ters to whom they are beholden -- believe that
the rogue detonation of a nuclear device in some key city like
Jerusalem or even New York is inevitable and can't be stopped,
or perhaps might even be beneficial in some way and therefore
should be enabled.
I'd prefer to explain these bizarre U.S. nuclear power policies
as ordinary cor****ate/politico shenanigans -- the
Vice-President hawking Westinghouse's nuclear wares in return
for a generous campaign contribution. I'd like to believe that
U.S. nuclear weapons policy is nothing more than the muddled
work of neoconservative eggheads who think the world will be
safer for democracy if theater commanders can call up a small
nuclear strike against any enemy at any time.[1] In this view,
the fanatics in Falluja might think twice about shooting at our
soldiers (and thumbing their noses at us) if they really
believed we were ready to nuke their children.
But these "rational" explanations aren't persuasive to me. If
such rational considerations are really controlling U.S.
nuclear policy, why aren't we scooping up all the weapons-grade
uranium and plutonium from around the world as quickly as
possible? What is to be gained by allowing a "black market" in
weapons-grade nuclear materials to continue? And how "rational"
is it for the U.S. to continue spreading atomic power plants
and nuclear know-how into a post-9/11 world? Here I have to
wonder whether something else might be at work. Could the
spiritual beliefs of the people who control the U.S. be
influencing U.S. nuclear policies and, indeed, the nation's
other environment-related policies?
As we saw in Rachel's #795, we do know that a small number of
fundamentalist Christian leaders now controls the Republican
Party. We also saw that Republican political operatives believe
they can only keep their electoral majorities by retaining the
sup****t of evangelicals. To hear them tell it, Republicans have
now put most of their electoral eggs in this particular Easter
basket. This gives fundamentalist leaders decisive political
influence over the Republican agenda.
Furthermore, we know that these same fundamentalist leaders
believe that a cataclysmic battle of Armageddon is required to
pave the way for Christ's return to Earth. These particular
Christian leaders find nuclear war foretold in Ezekiel chapters
38 and 39. So for 20 years they have been preaching, promoting,
and selling Americans on the idea of building more bombs and
using them to fulfill God's plan. In this "end times" scenario,
these particular Christian leaders believe they will not
personally experience Armageddon because they will be
"raptured" (physically trans****ted) to heaven before it
happens. The formal name for this rapture theology is
"premillenial dispensationalism." (See Rachel's #795.)
This dispensationalist "end times" scenario is an abstract idea
with real consequences. For example, leading members of the
U.S. Congress work hard to derail peace negotiations between
Arabs and Israelis because they believe Israel must expand its
territorial control to fulfill God's plan for the Second Coming
of Christ. In this dispensationalist reading of Genesis 15:18,
God made a "covenant" giving land to the children of Abraham,
and Jews must occupy those "covenant lands" before Christ can
return to Earth. So, for example, Senator James Inhof (R-Ok.)
says, "I believe very strongly that we ought to sup****t Israel
- -- because God said so. Look it up in the Book of Genesis. This
is not a political battle at all. It is a contest over whether
the word of God is true."[2] If you think an uncompromising
Biblical interpretation of the Arab-Israeli conflict can't have
real consequences, read the 9/11 Commission Re****t.[3]
Leaders of the conservative Likud Party in Israel[4] and U.S.
fundamentalist Christian leaders have different reasons for
wanting to drive Muslims from the "covenant lands" but they
work effectively together toward that goal.[5]
It is worth noting that fundamentalist Christian sup****t for
Israel's territorial expansion is not quite the same thing as
sup****t for the Jewish people. According to Biblical prophecy,
as interpreted by fundamentalist leaders like Hal Lindsey, when
the "end times" scenario unfolds, at least two-thirds of all
Jews will be killed and will be resurrected into an eternal
agony of fire. In his best-selling book, The Late Great Planet
Earth, Mr. Lindsey describes this holy pogrom in a section
titled, "A bright spot in the gloom."[6, pg. 167, citing
Zechariah 13:8,9.] Before he was President, Mr. Bush himself
told a newspaper re****ter that no Jews can enter heaven.[7] And
in fundamentalist theology there is only one other place to
spend eternity -- in a lake of fire.
If the return of Christ and the battle of Armageddon are
prophesied in the Bible and are therefore inevitably going to
happen, how should individual Christians respond? Should they
obey Christ's Sermon on the Mount (Matthew chapters 5-7; Luke
6:20-49) and work for peace, justice, and mercy in this world,
even though this could be interpreted as working against the
"end times" prophecy? Or should they try to provoke chaos and
violence, hoping to accelerate the "end times" calendar, even
at the risk of igniting nuclear World War III? Fundamentalist
Christian leaders are divided on this question but many --
perhaps a majority -- say that preaching peace is heresy
because God's plan requires an endless battle against evil,
culminating in World War III.
The Reverend John Hagee, a televangelist and pastor of the
17,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Tex. is
typical when he says the current wave of Palestinian and
Israeli terrorism in the Middle East will "produce a third
world war. And that will be the coming of the End Times. That
will be the end of the world as we know it," he says.[8] He
sees this as a good thing. Such views are mainstream among
fundamentalist Christian leaders, including those who are
consulted on a regular basis by the White House.[9]
The Reverend Billy Graham's son, the Reverend Franklin Graham,
says he believes Christians and Muslims are destined to do
battle against each other until the Second Coming of
Christ.[10] The Reverend Mr. Graham believes Christians have an
obligation to battle Muslims because, he says, Islam is a "very
evil and very wicked religion."[11] The Reverend Mr. Graham is
widely respected within the Republican hierarchy. He led the
prayer at President Bush's inauguration in 2001,[12] and last
year, just as the Iraq war was getting under way, the Pentagon
selected him to deliver a Good Friday message to the world.[12]
In a recent radio interview, Wayne Slater, Austin (Tex.) bureau
chief for the Dallas Morning News, explained how such
fundamentalist views play out in the real world: "I was down in
Georgia the other day talking to some pastors and when I talk
to them about the war in Iraq they understand fundamentally in
ways that George Bush does not talk about that this is part of
a millenial crusade. Bush got in trouble using the word
crusade. You talk to some pastors in suburban Atlanta, they
understand that this war is against the Muslims, against the
infidel, in a way, fundamental ways, that hasn't changed in a
thousand years. They see that this is, the president is,
engaged in something bigger than just this moment."[13]
It was President Ronald Reagan who first brought Armageddon
theology deep into the White House. Mr. Reagan said in 1976
that he had had a "born again" experience, and while he was
President he said publicly on a half-dozen occasions that he
believed that nuclear Armageddon was imminent. His close friend
and adviser, the Reverend Billy Graham, agreed with him.[14,
pg. 28] President Reagan's Secretary of Defense Caspar
Weinberger affirmed, "I have read the Book of Revelation, and,
yes, I believe the world is going to end by an act of God, I
hope but every day I think time is running out." President
Reagan's Secretary of the Interior, James Watt, questioned the
need for environmental protection because, he said, "I don't
know how many future generations we can count on until the Lord
returns."[8]
If you think -- even hope -- that the world will soon end, then
it may seem logical to conduct policy as if there's no
tomorrow.[15] Within a millenial framework, fiscal conservatism
- -- or any other kind of real conservatism -- may appear foolish
or simply irrelevant. What does it matter if we bequeath a
mountain of debt to our children? The Reverend Jerry Falwell
believes that the Second Coming is so imminent that, "I don't
think my children will live their whole lives out."[14, pg. 35]
Such a view may clarify the Republican Party's environmental
agenda.
The current administration's environmental goals and policies
have been thoroughly cataloged in a new book by Robert S.
Devine.[16]
Since taking office in 2000, Mr. Bush has reversed hundreds of
regulations intended to protect the environment and human
health. For example, a plan to reduce toxic mercury emissions
from power plants has been delayed by 10 years or more. The
Kyoto Protocol to limit global warming has been abandoned. The
cost of cleaning up chemical "Superfund" dumps has been ****fted
from industry to taxpayers, and cleanup funds have been
drastically cut. Mr. Devine's list of Bush administration
regulatory reversals and rollbacks is detailed and long.
Mr. Devine summarizes three effects of Republican environmental
rollbacks: (1) to favor private industrial activity over
protection of the commons (the natural resources that we all
inherit together and none of us owns individually, like air and
water), (2) to favor the interests of the wealthy over those of
the middle and working classes, and (3) to "favor the present
over the future."[16, pg. 18] Among Republican leaders, the
future counts for little.
The Bush administration's most inventive and pioneering
environmental policies derive from a unique perspective on
science. As many scientists have noted, within the Bush
administration science is routinely manipulated until it gives
the desired answer. Last month 4000 scientists, including 42
Nobel laureates, complained publicly that the administration
has been distorting science for political purposes.[17] Even
the editor of Science magazine, voice of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science, has complained
publicly about Mr. Bush's misuse of science.[18]
However, it is im****tant to note that the Bush administration's
approach to science is not whimsical. It has real philosophical
roots.
Traditionally, policies to protect the environment are based on
environmental science. The bedrock of environmental science is
evolutionary biology, the concept of ecosystems that are
constantly evolving.
Fundamentalists like Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay
(R-Tex.) deny the basis of modern environmental science. Mr.
DeLay argues that evolution does not occur -- and has never
occurred -- because there has been no need for it. He reasons
that, "God is perfect, so He would not make something
imperfect" that needed to change via evolution.[19] This is a
logically consistent and essentially irrefutable position, if
one accepts the initial premises.
Of course science is not the only way of knowing about the
world, and spiritual knowledge is very im****tant. The great
value of science as a way of knowing is that it allows people
of different cultures to reach agreement about im****tant
aspects of reality. No matter where you live, no matter what
your spiritual beliefs, water at sea level boils at 212 degrees
Fahrenheit. When one's commitment to science as a way of
knowing is weak or non-existent, then agreement is all but
impossible to achieve on complex problems like environmental
deterioration and associated threats to human health.
For his part, President Bush says "the jury is still out" on
evolution,[20] so it seems safe to say that the President is
not fully committed to environmental science as the basis for
policy. Within such an uncertain intellectual framework,
verifiable facts of a scientific nature have little persuasive
power, and the uncertainties inherent in all scientific inquiry
may be used to "prove" that scientists cannot be trusted. In
contrast, to those who accept its premises, fundamentalist
theology offers absolute certainty.
Many fundamentalist Christian leaders have been taught -- and
now teach -- that there cannot ever be any environmental
problems because "Christians know that God has made the earth
sufficiently large, with plenty of resources to accommodate all
the people He knew would come into existence... Our world has
plenty of room and plenty of natural resources."[21] In such a
world, there's no need to fret. If one place seems depleted,
crowded, or contaminated, there's always a sparkling new place
just over the horizon. "...[T]he Christian knows that the
potential in God is unlimited, and that there is no shortage of
resources in God's earth. The resources are waiting to be
tapped."[21]
So, within dispensational theology, as interpreted by political
leaders, we find four separate rationales for Bush
administration environmental policy:
(1) Humans have a God-given duty to "Be fruitful and multiply,
and fill the earth and subdue it" (Genesis 1:28) And after the
Flood, God said to Noah and his family, "The fear of you and
the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and
upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the
earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; unto your hand are
they delivered." (Genesis 9:2) Taken literally, such language
seems to invite -- even demand -- domination and exploitation,
not steward****p.
(2) The world is already perfect because God would not create
an imperfect world;
(3) Resources, including places needed for discarding wastes,
are inexhaustible because God made the world abundantly
adequate for all human needs; and
(4) Environmental problems, if any were to appear, wouldn't
matter because the Second Coming of Christ will sweep away this
corrupt world.
Rational debate and a few more facts are not going to overcome
arguments like these. Against the self-assured certainty
expressed by our fundamentalist political leaders, traditional
"environmentalist" arguments are like the chaff which the wind
driveth away.
Notice, too, that all four fundamentalist Christian arguments
sup****t basic laissez faire "free market" economics and the
kind of "hands off" environmental policies favored by the
cor****ate leaders who make up the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and
who form the other major constituency within the Republican
Party. To some, this confluence of interests between worldly
cor****ate leaders and their fundamentalist counterparts will
seem a cynical marriage of convenience; to others, it seems a
marriage made in heaven. --Peter Montague
==========
** My thanks to Jim Compton-Schmidt for providing me during the
past two years with numerous E-mails, citations, and copies of
articles about premillenial dispensationalism and its
consequences in the real world.
[1] The neoconservative Project for a New American Century has
been advocating U.S. nuclear rearmament for several years. See
their web site, http://www.newamericancentury.org/
and read
criticisms of their ideas at http://www.pnac.info/
.
[2] Senator Inhof quoted in Allen C. Brownfield, "Strange
Bedfellows: The Jewish Establishment and the Christian Right,"
Wa****ngton Re****t on Middle East Affairs (August 2002), pgs.
71-72. Available at
http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=389
[3] Thomas H. Kean and other, The 9/11 Commission Re****t
(Wa****ngton, D.C. July 22, 2004). Full re****t (7.5 megabytes)
available at http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=423
.
For example, on pg. 147, the Commission describes the
motivation of Kahlid Shaikh Mohammed [KSM], the man who dreamed
up the 9/11 attacks and then persuaded Osama bin Laden to
organize them: "By his own account, KSM's animus toward the
United States stemmed not from his experiences there as a
student, but rather from his violent disagreement with U.S.
foreign policy favoring Israel."
[4] See Ian S. Lustick, For the Land and the Lord; Jewish
Fundamentalism in Israel (New York: Council on Foreign
Relations, 1988). ISBN 0876090366. Lustick describes pugnacious
ultraconservative Israelis who share the "covenant land"
territorial goals of Christian fundamentalists, though the two
groups have little else in common.
[5] Margot Patterson, "Will fundamentalist Christians and Jews
ignite apocalypse?" National Catholic Re****ter Oct. 11, 2002.
Available at http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=383.
See also, Margot Patterson, "Hebron: A West Bank Magnet for
Trouble," National Catholic Re****ter Oct. 18, 2004. Available
at http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=384.
And see
Margot Patterson, "Americans in every aspect of Mideast
conflict," National Catholic Re****ter April 12, 2002.
http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=386
And see
Jeffery L. Sheler, "Odd Bedfellows; Evangelicals sup****t
Israel, but some Jews are skeptical," U.S. News & World Re****t
August 12, 2002. Available at
http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=424
[6] Hal Lindsey, The Late Great Planet Earth (Grand Rapids,
Mich: Zondervan, 1970); ISBN 031027771X.
[7] Tom Hamburger and Jim VandeHei, "Chosen People: How Israel
Became a Favorite Cause of Christian Right," Wall Street
Journal May 23, 2002, pg. A1.
http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=425
And Howard
Fineman, "Bush and God," Newsweek, March 10, 2003. Available at
http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=419
[8] Nancy Gibbs, "Apocalypse Now," Time July 1, 2002. Available
at http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=394
[9] Rick Perlstein, "The Jesus Landing Pad," Village Voice May
18, 2004. http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=426
And:
Elizabeth Bumiller, "Evangelicals Sway White House on Human
Rights Issues Abroad," New York Times Oct. 26, 2003.
[10] Andrew Gumbel, "Evangelical Crusaders Prepare to Fight
Islam with Aid and a Bible," The Independent (UK) April 22,
2003. http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=427
And be
sure to read Nicholas Kristof, "Jesus and Jihad," New York
Times July 17, 2004.
http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=434.
[11] David Rennie, "Bible Belt Missionaries Set Out On a 'War
for Souls' in Iraq," London Telegraph (UK) Dec. 27, 2003.
http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=428
And see
Maureen Dowd, "A Tale of Two Fridays," New York Times April 20,
2003.
[12] Martin E. Marty, "The Sin of Pride," Newsweek Mar. 10,
2003. http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=429
[13] Terri Gross's "Fresh Air" radio program, "The Jesus
Factor," on WHYY (Philadelphia) April 29, 2004. Available for
listening at http://freshair.npr.org/week_fa.jhtml
Recently two leading neoconservatives acknowledged that the
Iraq war has religious as well as "geopolitical" motivations.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and Daniel Pipes, whom
President Bush appointed to the board of directors of the US
Institute for Peace, have both said the ultimate purpose of the
"war on terror" is an "Islamic reformation," the
"modernization" of Islam, or "religion-building" rather than
"nation-building," as they put it. See Jim Lobe, "US: From
nation-building to religion-building," Asia Times April 9,
2004. http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=435
[14] Grace Halsell, Prophecy and Politics; Militant Evangelists
on the Road to Nuclear War (West****t, Conn.: Lawrence Hill &
Co., 1986). ISBN 0-88208-210-8. Essential reading.
[15] Economist Paul Krugman has noticed that the Bush
administration "governs like there's no tomorrow" but he makes
no theological connection to this observation. See "Looting the
Future," New York Times Dec. 5, 2003.
http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=430
[16] Robert S. Devine, Bush Versus the Environment (New York:
Anchor Books, 2004); ISBN 1400075211.
[17] Andrew Buncombe, "The defiance of science," Independent
(UK) June 29, 2004.
http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=431
And see Scientific Integrity in Policymaking; Investigation
into the Bush Administration's Misuse of Science (Cambridge,
Mass.: Union of Concerned Scientists, February 2004). And see
Scientific Integrity in Policymaking; Further Investigation...
(Cambridge, Mass.: Union of Concerned Scientists, July 2004),
both available at http://www.ucsusa.org/global_environment/
rsi/page.cfm?pageID=1449.
[18] Donald Kennedy, "Editorial: An Epidemic of Politics,"
Science Vol. 299 (Jan. 31, 2003), pg. 625.
http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=432
[19] Peter Perl, "Absolute Truth," Wa****ngton Post Sunday
Magazine May 13, 2001, pg. W12.
http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=433
[20] Nicholas D. Kristof, "The God Gulf," New York Times Jan.
7, 2004.
[21] Mark A. Beliles and Stephen M. McDowell, America's
Providential History (Charlottesville, Va.: Providence
Foundation, 1989), pg. 197. ISBN 1887456007. This is a textbook
aimed at teenagers that falsifies American history to make it
appear that the founding fathers intended the U.S. to be a
Christian theocracy, despite the absence of evidence in the
Constitution.
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we are making "fair use" of the material under Title 17, but if
you choose to use it for your own purposes, you will need to
consider "fair use" in your own case. --Peter Montague, editor
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