Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land

Chalmers Johnson: Militarism and the End of the Empire

Michael Scheuer: Obama and McCain Are Both Clueless On Terrorism

Michael Scheuer - "Both front-runner Candidates need to tell the
American people the truth about what motivates terrorism against
America."

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Michael F. Scheuer is a former CIA employee. In his 22-year career, he served as the Chief of the Bin Laden Issue Station (aka "Alec Station"), from 1996 to 1999, the Osama bin Laden tracking unit at the Counterterrorist Center. He then worked again as Special Advisor to the Chief of the bin Laden unit from September 2001 to November 2004.

Scheuer resigned in 2004. He is currently a news analyst for CBS News and a terrorism analyst for The Jamestown Foundation's online publication Global Terrorism Analysis.^[1] He also makes radio and television appearances and teaches a graduate-level course on Al-Qaeda at Georgetown University. He also participates in conferences on terrorism and national security issues, such as the New America Foundation's December 2004 conference, "Al Qaeda 2.0: Transnational Terrorism After 9/11." [3]

Scheuer is now known to be the anonymous author of both Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror and the earlier anonymous work, Through Our Enemies' Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of America.^[2]

Osama bin Laden stated in his September 7, 2007 message:

"If you want to understand what's going on and if you would like to get to know some of the reasons for your losing the war against us, then read the book of Michael Scheuer." [4][5]

Scheuer's latest book, Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq was released on February 12, 2008.

Not much is known about his personal history, though Scheuer was an analyst at the CIA and not a covert field operations officer. During a recent C-SPAN interview, he mentioned that he is a graduate of Canisius College. He also received a Ph.D. in British Empire-U.S.-Canada-U.K. relations from the University of Manitoba.^[3] Scheuer a 1974 graduate from Canisius university master’s degrees from Niagara University (1976) and Carleton University (1981).^[4]

In the 9/11 Commission Report, Scheuer is featured in Chapter 4, where his name is given only as "Mike". He is portrayed as being occasionally frustrated with his superiors' failure to aggressively target bin Laden.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Michael F. Scheuer is a former CIA employee. In his 22-year career, he served as the Chief of the Bin Laden Issue Station (aka "Alec Station"), from 1996 to 1999, the Osama bin Laden tracking unit at the Counterterrorist Center. He then worked again as Special Advisor to the Chief of the bin Laden unit from September 2001 to November 2004.

Scheuer resigned in 2004. He is currently a news analyst for CBS News and a terrorism analyst for The Jamestown Foundation's online publication Global Terrorism Analysis.^[1] He also makes radio and television appearances and teaches a graduate-level course on Al-Qaeda at Georgetown University. He also participates in conferences on terrorism and national security issues, such as the New America Foundation's December 2004 conference, "Al Qaeda 2.0: Transnational Terrorism After 9/11." [3]

Scheuer is now known to be the anonymous author of both Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror and the earlier anonymous work, Through Our Enemies' Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of America.^[2]

Osama bin Laden stated in his September 7, 2007 message:

"If you want to understand what's going on and if you would like to get to know some of the reasons for your losing the war against us, then read the book of Michael Scheuer." [4][5]

Scheuer's latest book, Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq was released on February 12, 2008.

Not much is known about his personal history, though Scheuer was an analyst at the CIA and not a covert field operations officer. During a recent C-SPAN interview, he mentioned that he is a graduate of Canisius College. He also received a Ph.D. in British Empire-U.S.-Canada-U.K. relations from the University of Manitoba.^[3] Scheuer a 1974 graduate from Canisius university master’s degrees from Niagara University (1976) and Carleton University (1981).^[4]

In the 9/11 Commission Report, Scheuer is featured in Chapter 4, where his name is given only as "Mike". He is portrayed as being occasionally frustrated with his superiors' failure to aggressively target bin Laden.

Israel and the Lobby

Michael Scheuer entered into the controversy surrounding the Mearsheimer and Walt paper on the "Israel Lobby". He said to NPR that Mearsheimer and Walt are basically right. Israel, according to Scheuer, has engaged in one of the most successful campaigns to influence public opinion in the United States ever conducted by a foreign government. Scheuer said to NPR that "They [Mearsheimer and Walt] should be credited for the courage they have had to actually present a paper on the subject. I hope they move on and do the Saudi lobby, which is probably more dangerous to the United States than the Israeli lobby."^[6]

In February, 2005, Scheuer gave an interview in which he discussed, among other things, Israeli lobbying in the United States.^[7] In the interview, the following exchange took place:

"QUESTIONER: I'm curious — Gary Rosen from Commentary magazine. If you could just elaborate a little bit on the clandestine ways in which Israel and presumably Jews have managed to so control debate over this fundamental foreign policy question.

SCHEUER: Well, the clandestine aspect is that, clearly, the ability to influence the Congress — that's a clandestine activity, a covert activity. You know to some extent, the idea that the Holocaust Museum here in our country is another great ability to somehow make people feel guilty about being the people who did the most to try to end the Holocaust. I find — I just find the whole debate in the United States unbearably restricted with the inability to factually discuss what goes on between our two countries."

Ron Paul

In the Republican Presidential Debate on May 15, 2007, presidential candidate Ron Paul stated that American foreign policy was a "contributing factor" in anti-Americanism in the Middle East. Rudy Giuliani denounced this as "absurd" and that he'd never heard such a thing before. In an interview on May 18, Michael Scheuer defended Paul, stating: "I thought Mr. Paul captured it the other night exactly correctly. This war is dangerous to America because it's based, not on gender equality, as Mr. Giuliani suggested, or any other kind of freedom, but simply because of what we do in the Islamic World – because "we're over there," basically, as Mr. Paul said in the debate."^[10]

On May 24, 2007, Ron Paul and Scheuer held a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. about the causes that led up to 9/11, American foreign policy and its implications on terrorism, security and Iraq.^[11] Paul and Scheuer argued that Rudy Giuliani is wrong on security and foreign policy and provided documentation about the unintended consequences of interventionism - known to many in the intelligence world as blowback - and assigned Giuliani a reading list of foreign policy books, including Dying to Win, Blowback, Imperial Hubris and the 9/11 Commission Report.^[12]

On Larry King Live, September 7, 2007, Scheuer alluded to the Fox News Republican Debate of September 5, 2007, where a Fox News moderator accused Ron Paul of taking "marching orders" from Al Qaeda. Scheuer said, "The truth of the matter is that it is all of the Democrats and the Republicans, except perhaps for Mr. Paul and Mr. Kucinich, who are marching to Osama Bin Laden's drum." Larry King Live Transcript

[edit] Iraq and al-Qaeda

Thomas Joscelyn of Weekly Standard wrote a highly critical piece on Scheuer and an interview Scheuer did on Chris Matthews Hardball. [11] Joscelyn wrote:

"When Michael Scheuer, the first head of the CIA's bin Laden unit, first emerged into public view almost a year ago, it was a curiosity how he could appear in the media--time after time--claiming that there was no evidence of a relationship between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and al Qaeda. It was curious because, in 2002, Scheuer wrote the book Through Our Enemies' Eyes, in which he cited numerous pieces of evidence showing that there was, in fact, a working relationship between Saddam and al Qaeda. That evidence directly contradicted his criticism of the intelligence that led this nation into the Iraq war, which he called a 'Christmas present' for bin Laden."

Scheuer wrote about the relationship between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda in his 2002 book (see above, 2002). Yet when interviewed in 2004 he stated that he had found no evidence of a Saddam/al-Qaeda connection. Tim Russert asked Scheuer to explain the seeming contradiction on Meet the Press (30 November 2004):

MR. SCHEUER: I certainly saw a link when I was writing the books in terms of the open-source literature, unclassified literature, but I had nothing to do with Iraq during my professional career until the run-up to the war. What I was talking about on "Hardball" was, I was assigned the duty of going back about nine or 10 years in the classified archives of the CIA. I went through roughly 19,000 documents, probably totaling 50,000 to 60,000 pages, and within that corpus of material, there was absolutely no connection in the terms of a--in the terms of a relationship.

MR. RUSSERT: But your [2002] book did point out some contacts?

MR. SCHEUER: Certainly it was available in the open-source material, yes, sir.[12]

Scheuer explains more fully in the revised edition of his 2002 book the exhaustive study of the evidence of Iraq-al-Qaeda cooperation that eventually led him to the conclusion that there was no relationship between the two forces:

For a number of reasons, I was available to perform the review of Agency files on Iraq and al Qaeda, and the chief of the bin Laden unit handed me the assignment. I was delighted with the task, eager to begin, and sure that my research would support the analysis I had presented in Through Our Enemies' Eyes. For about four weeks in late 2002 and early 2003, I and several others were engaged full time in searching CIA files -- seven days a week, often far more than eight hours a day. At the end of the effort, we had gone back ten years in the files and had reviewed nearly twenty thousand documents that amounted to well over fifty thousand pages of materials. I was both pleased and embarrassed by the results of the research. I was pleased because CIA's position was reaffirmed and the analysis of Mr. Feith's unit was discredited. There was no information that remotely supported the analysis that claimed there was a strong working relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. I was embarrassed because this reality invalidated the analysis I had presented on the subject in my book.^[13]

Bibliography

[edit] Books

• Scheuer, Michael (2003). Through Our Enemies' Eyes: Osama Bin Laden, Radical Islam & the Future of America. Brassey's Inc. ISBN 1-57488-553-7.
• Scheuer, Michael (2004). Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror. Brassey's Inc. ISBN 1-57488-849-8.
• Scheuer, Michael (2008). Marching Towards Hell: America and Islam After Iraq. Free Press, Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-74329-969-8.

[edit] Articles

• "Battling the terrorists" Washington Times December 26, 2004.
• "Unraveling the Saga of Zarqawi's Injury" Terrorism Focus 2:11 10 June 2005.
• "Embracing a Lethal Tar Baby." Antiwar.com February 27, 2006.
• "How Bush Helps Jihadists." Washington Times 13 March 2006.
• "Al-Qaeda Doctrine: Training the Individual Warrior." Terrorism Focus 3:12 28 March 2006.
• "Does Israel Conduct Covert Action in America? You Bet it Does." Antiwar.com 8 April 2006.
• "Tenet Tries to Shift the Blame. Don't Buy It." Washington Post 29 April 2007.
• "Reading Bin Laden's Mind: The State of the Jihad, As He Might See It." Washington Post 17 February 2008.
• "Why Doesn't al-Qaeda Attack the US?" Antiwar.com May 29, 2008
• "Turning the Tables on the Israel-Firsters" Antiwar.com July 16, 2008

[edit] External links

• The latest Michael Scheuer articles at AntiWar.com [13]
• The latest Michael Scheuer articles at Jamestown Foundation [14]

[edit] Other

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Michael Scheuer

• Michael Scheuer Young Turks Interview on Video
• Bin Laden Expert Steps Forward - CBS News, November 14, 2004
• Interview in 2004-08-02 The American Conservative [15]
• Goss pushes change at CIA - Bill Gertz of The Washington Times, November 19, 2004
• C-Span discussion (requires RealPlayer) (current file -needs updating)
• 12-02-04 C-Span panel appearance on the War on Terror (no link yet)
• Why I resigned from the CIA, 2004-12-05 LA Times [16]
• “How Not to Catch a Terrorist”, The Atlantic Monthly, 2004-12
• BuzzFlash interview on January 5, 2005 [17]
• PBS Frontline interview on January 25, 2005 [18]
• Speech at Council on Foreign Relations on February 3, 2005 [19]
• BBC Radio 4, February 8, 2005 [20]
• Charles Goyette show, February 9, 2005: Part I / Part II
• CBC Radio 1, The Current, April 12, 2005 [21]
• Charles Goyette show, February 25, 2005: [22]
• Michael Scheuer's interview with Scott Horton [23]
• On NPR's Morning Edition, July 7, 2005 [24]
• A photograph! [25]
• 34 (or more) quotations from Scheuer [26]
• Leaking at All Costs Weekly Standard, November 30, 2005
• Scheuer's Response to "Leaking At All Costs" Powelineblog.com December 7, 2005
• "Hayden Seek" May 9, 2006 The Brian Lehrer Show
• Michael Scheuer's articles at The Jamestown Foundation [27]
• After a Decade at War With West, Al-Qaeda Still Impervious to Spies by Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post March 20, 2008
• CIA Antiwar Radio with Scott Horton and Charles Goyette interview Michael Scheuer, Antiwar.com April 17, 2008 41 minute audio.

[edit] Notes and references

1. ^ Global Terrorism Analysis.
2. ^ The authorship of these books is now widely known, and advertised as such. See [1] Council on Foreign Relations, Transcript of Interview Winning or Losing? An Inside Look at the War on Terror by Nicholas Lemann Dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, February 3, 2005. Also see: The Phoenix
3. ^ Georgetown Bio
4. ^ Canisius school News Story
5. ^ Foreign Policy: Seven Questions: Fixing U.S. Intelligence - May 16, 2006 (free registration needed to view the article)
6. ^ Paper on Israel Lobby Sparks Heated Debate, Deborah Amos, National Public Radio, April 21, 2006
7. ^ Council on Foreign Relations,[2], February 3, 2005
8. ^ Michael F. Scheuer, "Bill and Dick, Osama and Sandy," Washington Times (5 July 2006).
9. ^ "Transcript: Counterterror Experts Debate Clinton Claims on 'FNS'", Fox News (October 1, 2006).
10. ^ Antiwar.com Blog · Michael Scheuer
11. ^ Venue: National Press Club - Upcoming
12. ^ Reuters: N24342743.htm U.S. candidate Paul assigns reading to Giuliani. May 24, 2007.
13. ^ Michael Scheuer, Through Our Enemies' Eyes (revised edition). Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2006) p. 136.

Dangerous Dispensationalism and Zionism

Unfortunately, many who see this kind of thing think that this very vocal minority is a clear picture of what the Gospel, the Bible and discipleship to Christ is all about. This form of dispensationalism and zionism is as dangerous to world peace as it is damaging to the true mission of the Church and the Great Commission. Hank Hanegraaff did a wonderful job dissecting the belief system of this movement in his book "The Apocalypse Code". I recommend it highly. Now, if you can stomach it, watch the video.


Rapture Ready: The Unauthorized Christians United for Israel Tour from huffpost on Vimeo.

The The Kingdom of God and the Identity of the Real Enemy

I am not too sure about making Ronald Reagan, the poster person for the nuclear arms race, the thrower of gasoline onto the fire of MidEast conflicts by sending weapons into the theater, a Zionist as well as a supporter of terrorist tactics in El Salvador, Nicaragua and throughout Latin America- who means something entirely different when he speaks of fighting evil- a spokesperson for this message - but the overall sermon is on the money.

Revelation Without the "Rapture"- clip 1 of 6

First, the word Rapture is not even to be found in the Bible; Nor is the doctrine taught there.

Secondly, the Lord's return will not be. secretive or silent. Revelation 1:7 states that, "every eye shall see him', 1 Thessalonians 4:16, says that His coming will be heralded with, "a shout'. with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump of God".

Thirdly, the "tribulation" often referred to is based upon an erroneous interpretation of Matthew 24. This "tribulation' was associated with the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 according to the first question the Lord answered in Matthew 24:1-3. That "tribulation" did in fact come before that generation passed, Matthew 24:34.

Fourthly, according to the Bible there is but one resurrection and that will include both the good and evil., John 5:28-29, states, "all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth".

Fifthly, based upon the Bible, Christ's Kingdom is not future. It has already been in existence for nearly 2000 years and it is a spiritual kingdom, not an earthly one. Jesus stated it in John 18:336 "My kingdom is not of this world." Christ promised Peter in Matthew 16:18-19-that he could open the doors of the kingdom, and this the apostle exercised in Acts 2:38-47. John, the apostle, stated in Revelation 1:9 that he was "in the Kingdom". Now all of these books were written in the First Century and the kingdom was spoken of as existing then. Mark 9:1 is a passage that definitely puts the beginning of the kingdom in that generation.

Lastly, the idea of a thousand year reign of Christ on earth is a gross distortion of Revelation 20:1-7. This is a highly figurative context within a very symbolic book. The reign viewed in Revelation 20 is not an "earthly" reign of the Lord at all. It is a spiritual reign with victorious saints (Revelation 20:4). In Revelation 6:9-11 these martyred souls were, "underneath the altar", crying for vindication; in Chapter 20, however, they were on, "thrones reigning with their Lord." This was a prophetic indication that Christianity would be triumphant over its enemies. The 1,000 years is likely a symbol of the completeness of that victory. The number 1,000 is used more than 20 times in the book of Revelation, but not in a literal sense. The whole concept of the so-called Rapture contradicts scores of Bible passages of the clearest import.
Category: News & Politics
Tags:
premillenial dispensationalism rapture Christian preterism left behind zionism eschatlology revelation Church Christ

Mitt Romney Sells His Soul For A Shot At The Presidency

Mitt Romney has sold his soul to become president. Its all in the record, on tape, in black and white- preserved forever in the ether, in cyberspace and in the hearts and minds of the spiritually discerning. I will demonstrate this reality in his own words. Here they are from his recent speech where he sought to allay concerns over his Mormonism... let's parse it together shall we?:

Romney:

"A person should not be elected because of his faith, nor should he be rejected because of his faith. Let me assure you that no authorities of my church, or of any other church for that matter, will ever exert influence on presidential decisions. Their authority is theirs within the province of church affairs, and it ends where the affairs of the nation begin. As governor, I tried to do the right, as best I knew it, serving the law and answering to the Constitution. I did not confuse the particular teachings of my church with the obligations of the office and of the Constitution. And, of course, I would not do so as president. I will put no doctrine of any church above the plain duties of the office and the sovereign authority of the law."

SS says:

So, its pretty clear from this statement alone that Romney's allegiance is to the nation first and God second. That's what is called idolatry in biblical terms. This pretty much proves the thesis in much of this blog and in my personal communications that the idea of a "Christian nation" is an oxymoron and pretty much of an impossibility. Greg Boyd, preacher and author of "Myth of a Christian Nation", was cited in the CNN special "God's Warriors" as saying, "you can no more have a Christian nation than you can have a Christian Bicycle". Mitt Romney is confirming that thesis with great clarity in his statements. The Bush II administration and others before it insinuated with their campaigning for office that the possibility of a Christian nation is an attainable goal- that it is a reachable ideal. The idea of this is of course extremely appealing to those who count themselves among the Christian faithful. In the simplest of terms "One cannot serve two masters". The religious folks are equally prone to not comprehending this maxim which is from the very words of Christ. I just heard a radio sermon today on my daily commute where a well known preacher, Richard Land, was reasoning that since Jesus referred to his followers as the salt of the earth and it is impossible for salt to season something unless it comes into contact with it
that it stands to reason that it is in fact a Christian duty to get involved in politics. It is amazing to me however, that this sort of reasoning does not seem to comprehend that the best way for the church to influence the world is to BE the Church, affecting culture from the roots up by living out the ideals of the Church by example and so affecting culture in this way. That's a full time job. That does not mean that Christians should not be unaware of politics and their implications or let themselves be heard especially in the voting booth. What it does mean is that Christians trying to serve two masters must always make compromises that detract from their faith and so participating in worldly, political power games should be done with great caution if at all. Romney shows exactly why is his speech.

The faithful of course expected G.W. Bush to do the opposite of what Romney is assuring everyone he won't do.... that being let his faith or religion exert influence on presidential decisions. Of course it is impossible to imagine someones whose religious beliefs, no matter how paper thin or shallow, would not surface at least as moral attitudes or core values in decision making processes. To suggest that they wouldn't is not only bad psychology but... well amoral and/or immoral to boot. I listened to several radio commentators remarks on Romney's speech today. Most of them being so-called conservatives were busy rationalizing Romney's remarks and failed to even bring up the points I raise here. This pretty much confirms for me once and for all that these guys armed with microphones and radio towers are for the most part either not very smart, morally illiterate and/or bankrupt, completely sold out or all of the above.
I digress.

More Romney:

"Each religion has its own unique doctrines and history. These are not bases for criticism, but rather a test of our tolerance. Religious tolerance would be a shallow principle, indeed, if it were reserved only for faiths with which we agree."

"There are some who would have a presidential candidate describe and explain his church's distinctive doctrines. To do so would enable the very religious test the founders prohibited in the Constitution."

SS says:

Well, a week or two back I heard some remarks Romney made along these lines after John McCain, an opponent for the presidency, took a shot at Romney's Mormon roots. Romney basically said that to criticize someone about their religion was un-American. All the talking heads on TV that night seemed to agree that this turn of events would work in Romney's favor.
Now, they postulated, every time someone asks about Romney's religion or begins to critically analyze the doctrines of his religion and their possible influence on him and his decisions he can now play the "un-American" card. The problem with this sort of thinking is that its ridiculous to assume that if Romney were, say a Satanist, Voodoo priest, u.f.o. Cult member, Muslim, Qabbalist, Scientologist or one of those snake handling, charismatic Christians that it would be inappropriate to ask him about it or ponder the implications it might have for the presidency. Such a concept is, of course, ridiculous. The fact is that Mormonism is not a mainstream belief system either. I will address that more in a paragraph or two.


More Romney:

"When I place my hand on the Bible and take the oath of office, that oath becomes my highest promise to God. If I am fortunate to become your president, I will serve no one religion, no one group, no one cause, and no one interest. A president must serve only the common cause of the people of the United States."

SS says:

I question why he would bother putting his hand on the Bible, make an oath or promise anything to God at all. Of what value would it be since he has already stated that his nationalism comes before his religion, his faith and thus before God and that, "A president must serve only the common cause of the people of the United States?"

Believe me I understand the principles and advantages of separating the Church and State. I don't need a civics lesson. However, I think its safe to say that a real disciple of Christ is not very well suited to the compromises of governing anything larger than a small community, clan, tribe or village. Its unthinkable in this day and age of mega cultures and megalomania that a meek, humble, non materialistic, non violent, lover of neighbor as self, lover of enemies and deeply committed spiritual person could attain let alone hold the office of president of the USA without selling out his spiritual values to some degree.... like Romney just did. This selling out is also manifested for Romney in the positions he has articulated where he condones pre emptive warfare (which is what the attack on Pearl Harbor was), torture, secret prisons and the contravention of the rule of law not to mention the scriptural mandate to love your enemies and treat everyone as you would be treated with regards to 'enemy combatants" (who are essentially whoever the president decides they are nowadays). He also has resolutely refused to negotiate with enemies whatsoever which is neither wise nor biblical.

Separating church and state then, is not only a protection of the value system of the state (AKA in biblical terms "the world") but also a concept that protects the virtue of the Church.

I also understand that a person's theology definitely matters, especially when they hold the most powerful office in the world. Theology matters. look at the conflicts in Israel, Palestine, the entire Mideast. All the different groups believe it is they that have the rights to certain blocs of land... it is they that hold the truth... it is they that will survive and triumph with God on their side. On that score Romney's Mormonism frightens me as well. There are doctrines in the Mormon faith which should make everyone somewhat uncomfortable. Mormons believe that the Bible is valid, but that the Book of Mormon is the completion and perfection of the Bible. As a traditional, mainstream Christian I have no problem saying that I have a problem with that. If you look at the skirmishes between the Arab world and the Christian West its safe to say that the beliefs of both sides concerning, eschatology, the end of days, prophecies about the end of the world all play into the geopolitical dynamics of things. This realization is where I got the concept for the title of this blog, Geotheology.

The end times doctrine, or eschatology of many Mormons holds the belief that in the "last days" (which a lot of people anxiously ASSUME we are in) a Mormon world leader from the USA will arise and save the nation from complete destruction and set the world to rights. Then Jesus will come back and set up the millennial reign of His Kingdom somewhere in Missouri. I don't know about you, but at this stage of things I am really not comfortable with someone with a hero complex and delusions of glory and pretensions about saving the world though warfare for Jesus, as if Jesus needed help, at the helm of the world's only superpower and with his itchy trigger finger on the button of its nuclear arsenal.
The last Bit from Romney:

"We separate church and state affairs in this country, and for good reason. No religion should dictate to the state nor should the state interfere with the free practice of religion. But in recent years, the notion of the separation of church and state has been taken by some well beyond its original meaning. They seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God. Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life. It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America — the religion of secularism. They are wrong."

SS says:

This last set of statements is just a lot of hot air designed to somehow qualify his statements and appeal to those among us who are worried that God is losing and the secular world is winning. I would encourage such people to re-read their religious texts and see who always wins in the end. Its funny that Romney wants to keep the ten commandments hanging on the walls in public places but has already in his previous statements broken the first three commandments ;

Exodus 2:3-7

3 Do not have any other gods before Me.

4 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me,

6 but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.

7 You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.

Romney has already shown in his own words who his god is, the USA, his idol. He has also in this statement taken the name of the Lord in vain, essentially swearing to God to put the USA over Him:

"When I place my hand on the Bible and take the oath of office, that oath becomes my highest promise to God. If I am fortunate to become your president, I will serve no one religion, no one group, no one cause, and no one interest. A president must serve only the common cause of the people of the United States."


I won't even go into the other commandments that he will undoubtedly break if his ideas on policy, warfare and the treatment of prisoners go into effect with him as president.


Think eternally. Act spiritually. Pray Hard.

The Bases Are Loaded- Chalmers Johnson on Imperialism and Militarism

LEFT BEHIND: The Skewed Representation of Religion in Major News Media

source

LEFT BEHIND:

The Skewed Representation of Religion in Major News Media

It would surprise few people, conservative or progressive, to learn that coverage of the intersection of religion and politics tends to oversimplify both. If this oversimplification occurred to the benefit or detriment of neither side of the political divide, then the weaknesses in coverage of religion would be of only academic interest. But as this study documents, coverage of religion not only overrepresents some voices and underrepresents others, it does so in a way that is consistently advantageous to conservatives.

As in many areas, the decisions journalists make when deciding which voices to include in their stories have serious consequences. What is the picture of religious opinion? Who is a religious leader? Whose views represent important groups of believers? Every time a journalist writes a story, he or she answers these questions by deciding whom to quote and how to characterize their views.

Religion is often depicted in the news media as a politically divisive force, with two sides roughly paralleling the broader political divide: On one side are cultural conservatives who ground their political values in religious beliefs; and on the other side are secular liberals, who have opted out of debates that center on religion-based values. The truth, however is far different: close to 90 percent of Americans today self-identify as religious, while only 22 percent belong to traditionalist sects. Yet in the cultural war depicted by news media as existing across religious lines, centrist and progressive voices are marginalized or absent altogether.

In order to begin to assess how the news media paint the picture of religion in America today, this study measured the extent to which religious leaders, both conservative and progressive, are quoted, mentioned, and interviewed in the news media.

Among the study's key findings:

• Combining newspapers and television, conservative religious leaders were quoted, mentioned, or interviewed in news stories 2.8 times as often as were progressive religious leaders.
• On television news -- the three major television networks, the three major cable news channels, and PBS -- conservative religious leaders were quoted, mentioned, or interviewed almost 3.8 times as often as progressive leaders.

• In major newspapers, conservative religious leaders were quoted, mentioned, or interviewed 2.7 times as often as progressive leaders.

Despite the fact most religious Americans are moderate or progressive, in the news media it is overwhelmingly conservative leaders who are presented as the voice of religion. This represents a particularly meaningful distortion since progressive religious leaders tend to focus on different issues and offer an entirely different perspective than their conservative counterparts.

The Jesus Factor Part 3

The Christian right has no religious legitimacy. It is a mass political movement. It ignores the core values of the Christian religion, summed up by Jesus in the sermon on the mount, and the core values of American democracy. They are not biblical literalists as they claim- but selective literalists choosing bits and pieces of the Bible that conform to their ideology and bigotry and ignoring, distorting or making up the rest. ~Chris Hedges


More than five years after President Bush created the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, the former second-in-command of that office went public with an insider’s tell-all account that portrays an office used almost exclusively to win political points with both evangelical Christians and traditionally Democratic minorities. See "Tempting Faith" an expose' on how the GOP and the presiding admin. seduced and used the evangelicals for political power HERE at Christianbook.com.

Scott Starr said...

Ahhhh yes, when faith meets politics...

...its sorta like when Church meets the State, the World meets Chrisitianity, an Indian meets with a Uncle Sam bearing a treaty ... or when...er....faith meets politics...


"We tried to tell them,"- Chief "Runs With Scissors"- Blacktoe Tribe

After the catastrophic Bush administration does anybody still think having Christians attempt to overtake political structures is a good thing? I maintain rendering into Caesar what is Caesar's and letting the Church BE the Church is best for both Church and State- instead of the Church co-opting itself to the "World" ( I consider the idea that we Christians can control humanity by employing the infernal methodology of wordly politics and/or military might in the first place to be a very "liberal" - even humanist notion). Wake up.

Also click on the header below to learn more about:

The Evangelical Roots of American Unilateralism: The Christian Right's Influence and How to Counter It.

Scott Starr said...

I can personally attest to being in the same room with a drunk George W. Bush on two occaisions- both between 1997 and 1999- well after he allegedly gave up drinking and after he started claiming sobriety and running for president.

So, apparently the image he constructed to win the support of evangelical Christians was a taylor made and yet false one.

The Jesus Factor Part 2

The Christian right has no religious legitimacy. It is a mass political movement. It ignores the core values of the Christian religion, summed up by Jesus in the sermon on the mount, and the core values of American democracy. They are not biblical literalists as they claim- but selective literalists choosing bits and pieces of the Bible that conform to their ideology and bigotry and ignoring, distorting or making up the rest. ~Chris Hedges


More than five years after President Bush created the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, the former second-in-command of that office went public with an insider’s tell-all account that portrays an office used almost exclusively to win political points with both evangelical Christians and traditionally Democratic minorities. See "Tempting Faith" an expose' on how the GOP and the presiding admin. seduced and used the evangelicals for political power HERE at Christianbook.com.

Scott Starr said...

Ahhhh yes, when faith meets politics...

...its sorta like when Church meets the State, the World meets Chrisitianity, an Indian meets with a Uncle Sam bearing a treaty ... or when...er....faith meets politics...


"We tried to tell them,"- Chief "Runs With Scissors"- Blacktoe Tribe

After the catastrophic Bush administration does anybody still think having Christians attempt to overtake political structures is a good thing? I maintain rendering into Caesar what is Caesar's and letting the Church BE the Church is best for both Church and State- instead of the Church co-opting itself to the "World" ( I consider the idea that we Christians can control humanity by employing the infernal methodology of wordly politics and/or military might in the first place to be a very "liberal" - even humanist notion). Wake up.

Also click on the header below to learn more about:

The Evangelical Roots of American Unilateralism: The Christian Right's Influence and How to Counter It.

Scott Starr said...

I can personally attest to being in the same room with a drunk George W. Bush on two occaisions- both between 1997 and 1999- well after he allegedly gave up drinking and after he started claiming sobriety and running for president.

So, apparently the image he constructed to win the support of evangelical Christians was a taylor made and yet false one.

FPIF Special Report March 2004 The Evangelical Roots of American Unilateralism: The Christian Right's Influence and How to Counter It By Duane Oldfield Duane Oldfield is an associate professor of political science at Knox College and the author of The Right and the Righteous (Rowman & Littlefield, 1996). An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2003 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, August 28-31, 2003.
Foreign Policy In Focus www.fpif.org
While the United States will constantly strive to enlist the support of the international community, we will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our right of self defense by acting preemptively... Today humanity holds in its hands the opportunity to further freedom's triumph over all these foes. The United States welcomes our responsibility to lead in this great mission (emphasis mine). But our responsibility to history is clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil. --The National Security Strategy of the United States (2002), p. 6, preface, and p. 5. That the administration of George W. Bush is pursuing a unilateralist foreign policy on issues ranging from the Iraq War to global warming to the International Criminal Court is obvious to observers at home and abroad. Also clear is the fact that the Bush policy, at least in its broad outlines, is very much in keeping with the preferences of the Christian right. As the second two quotes above indicate, the president, himself a born-again Christian, does not hesitate to use a moralistic, implicitly religious language in defense of his policies. What, exactly, is the relationship between the Christian right and the unilateralist foreign policy of the present administration? For the last quarter century, the Christian right has been a key player regarding domestic social issues such as abortion, gay rights, and prayer in schools. While journalists, politicians, and academics continue to analyze and debate the Christian right's effectiveness in these areas, less attention has been paid to the religious right's influence on American foreign policy. However, that influence is becoming difficult to ignore and is in need of further analysis. 1 In the first two sections of this paper, I examine the political and religious roots of the Christian right's unilateralism and the development of the alliances that have allowed the Christian right to become a significant player in contemporary U.S. foreign policy. The final section of the paper looks at a second question: how should progressives understand and respond to the Christian right's influence? I contend that focusing on the “extremism” of the Christian right is a misguided strategy and that we should instead see the Christian right as part of a dominant foreign policy alliance. Resisting that unilateralist alliance requires a focus on its inherent contradictions. I. The Roots of Christian Right Unilateralism Although the unilateral inclinations of the present administration stand in at least partial contrast to those of its predecessors, unilateralism is nothing new for the Christian right. Decades ago, movement precursors aimed their fire at internationalists and the UN. The John Birch Society launched its drive to “Get US out of the UN!” in 1959. In 1962, Billy James Hargis, leader of the anticommunist organization Christian Crusade, declared that “the primary threat to the United States is internationalism” (Redekop 66). Several older Christian right figures such as Phyllis Schlafly and Tim LaHaye trace their political origins back to the nationalist right of this era (see McGirr). Opposition to internationalist institutions, which are seen as a threat to American sovereignty and the country's role as a “redeemer nation,” continues to this day in Christian right circles (see Lienesch, chap. 5). During the cold war era, the primary foreign policy concern of the Christian right and its precursors was the anticommunist struggle. Support for unilateralism was part of a larger mission of throwing off internationalist constraints and unleashing U.S. power to conduct a more vigorous crusade against “Godless” communism. With the fall of the Soviet Union, unilateralist anticommunism lost much of it relevance. 2 In the 1990s, a new set of concerns about international institutions came to the fore and led the Christian right to increase its attention to global affairs. 3 These concerns are rooted in a fear that the United Nations is being used to advance a liberal social agenda. High-profile UN conferences on the rights of women and population policy were among the developments that set off alarm bells for Christian right leaders. 4 Laurel MacLeod, former Director of Legislation and Public Policy at Concerned Women for America, described her group's deepening involvement with international issues by saying: “We got involved, from my perspective, in international issues in late '94, when we prepared for the fourth world conference on the status of women in Beijing, and I like to say that with UN issues and international issues, it was like we stuck our toe in a pond and fell in up to our neck and realized that it was the Pacific Ocean.” 5 The Christian right's activism on UN issues has lured it into tricky territory. Led by the organizers of the World Congress of Families, elements of the Christian right have developed seemingly unlikely alliances, working with social conservatives around the world--including the Vatican and some Islamic groups--to defend the “natural family” in the international arena. 6 Furthermore, as Concerned Women for America, Eagle Forum, and the Family Research Council have obtained official nongovernmental organization (NGO) status and participated in UN forums, they have potentially helped legitimate an institution many of their members see as profoundly illegitimate. Yet even as the Christian right grapples with the dilemmas of working within the UN, it remains quite hostile to the institution in its present form and opposes U.S. cooperation with it. From the Christian right perspective, the UN is an institution dominated by radical feminists bent on using international institutions to impose their agenda on both the U.S. and a socially conservative third world. Another major foreign policy concern for the Christian right over the last decade has been the issue of religious persecution, especially the persecution of Christians in China, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan. Christian right activism played a significant role in the passage of the International Religious Freedom Act in 1998 (see Hertzke). The religious persecution issue is not as closely linked to unilateralism as the issues discussed above, but it is worth noting that remedies pursued by the Christian right--such as the International Religious Freedom Act, sanctions against Sudan, and the denial of U.S. trade benefits to China--all involve unilateral U.S. action against violators of religious rights rather than reliance on international organizations to define and defend those rights. Finally, the Christian right's unilateralist inclinations are rooted in its reading of biblical prophecy. From the 1970s, when Hal Lindsey's The Late Great Planet Earth was the decade's best-selling nonfiction book to the current success of Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins's Left Behind series, works of biblical prophecy have enjoyed enormous popularity among the Christian right's supporters and beyond. 7 Details vary, but most accounts feature the rapture of believers, a period of war and natural disaster marked by the emergence of the Antichrist, and finally the second coming of the true Christ. Critically important for the purposes of this paper is a theme common to many such accounts, the creation of a one-world government, a "New World Order" led by none other than the Antichrist himself. The Antichrist's reign is said to feature attempts to impose a single world currency and a single world religion. The UN does not fare well in these accounts. The role of the UN varies over the course of Hal Lindsey's many books on biblical prophecy. In some of his accounts, the European Union is the confederation headed by the Antichrist (Buss and Herman 26). The UN, however, is the more common villain in recent evangelical end-time writings. In the Left Behind series, the Antichrist, Nicolae Carpathia, is head of the UN. In Pat Robertson's The End of the Age, Antichrist Mark Beaulieu supplants the UN with a new and even more powerful world body, the Union for Peace. 8 In all these writings the basic message is clear: multilateral governmental bodies will be the instruments used by the Antichrist to attain world domination. These end-time accounts fuel resistance to perceived attempts to submit the United States to the authority of any regional or international governing body. The exact impact of end-time prophecies is difficult to measure. Not surprisingly, Washington representatives of Christian right organizations are hesitant to acknowledge prophetic motivations behind their groups' actions. However, given the popularity of end-time publications, including those produced by major Christian right figures such as Pat Robertson and Tim LaHaye, it is hard to believe that they do not have a significant impact. 9 The inherited unilateralism of the anticommunist right, opposition to the UN's perceived social agenda, and biblical prophecy combine to create a movement resolutely opposed to multilateralism. The exact nature of that opposition varies from group to group. Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum and the Concerned Women for America are hostile to virtually any form of multilateral authority, while the Family Research Council and the World Congress of Families are somewhat more open to compromise. All of these groups, however, endeavor to steer U.S. foreign policy in a more unilateral direction. II. Building Alliances: How the Christian Right Came to Be a Player in Foreign Affairs Although the Christian right's unilateralism is not new, its proximity to power is. Three developments have helped make the Christian right a significant player in U.S. foreign policy: the election of a president with close ties to the movement, the growth of the Christian right's grassroots organizational strength, and the development of an alliance with neoconservatives, who have come to play a crucial role in the present administration. A. A Sympathetic President The Christian right played a supporting role in the Reagan administration's war on Central America, particularly in funneling aid to the Nicaraguan contras (Diamond, 1989, chaps. 5 and 6). However, its activism in the 1980s was primarily on the domestic front. The administrations of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton provided few opportunities for Christian right influence, at least at the presidential level. A committed multilateralist, Bush Sr. set off alarm bells in the Christian right with his talk of a “new world order.” For many elements of the Christian right, that phrase tapped into a long history of right-wing demonology, symbolizing a world government--perhaps Satanically inspired--threatening American sovereignty. 10 And antagonism toward Bill Clinton was even stronger. Demonized by a Christian right that vigorously fought to have him impeached, Clinton had little incentive to grant its leaders access to foreign policy decisionmaking. The disputed election of George W. Bush provided the Christian right with a far more sympathetic president. Bush's personal history helps cement his ties to the movement. Although his father was clearly uncomfortable with the movement's style of mixing religion and politics, the current president, saved from the sin of alcoholism by his own born-again experience, has long understood the nuances of the Christian right's religious constituency and speaks its language. Recognizing this back in 1988, Bush Sr. gave his son the task of reaching out to that constituency for him in his presidential campaign. Campaign aide Doug Wead worked with George W. Bush as part of an effective effort to woo evangelical leaders. 11 George W. Bush's White House reflects its occupant's comfort with evangelicalism. The first words heard by Bush speechwriter David Frum when he arrived at the White House were “missed you at Bible study” (see Frum). B. A Grassroots Network The personal inclinations of the current president are reenforced by the development of the Christian right's grassroots electoral capabilities. Prior to Pat Robertson's 1988 presidential campaign, the Christian right had very limited experience with precinct organizing. Robertson's nomination campaign failed in its immediate objective, but it laid the groundwork for the emergence of the Christian Coalition. That coalition's grassroots network, in turn, played a significant role in the Republican congressional victories of 1994. In the run-ups to the 1996 and 2000 campaigns, the Christian Coalition's annual convention became a required stop for GOP presidential aspirants. Early on, George W. Bush hired former Christian Coalition Director Ralph Reed as a consultant for his nomination campaign. After Bush lost the New Hampshire primary, strong support from the Christian Right, especially in South Carolina, helped him beat back a serious challenge from Senator John McCain. With the Christian right now a central part of the Republican electoral coalition, presidents of that party must take the constituency's concerns into account. And the change goes even deeper than that. When Christian right activists entered party politics during the Robertson campaign in the late 1980s, the distinction between these activists and established Republicans was clear. For many party regulars, the Robertson activists were alien interlopers who had somehow descended on the party. In the words of the president's brother Neil Bush, they were “cockroaches” issuing “from the baseboards of the Bible-belt.” 12 Though tension between the Christian right and other party factions continues, the Christian Right is now an established component, and in some areas even a dominant feature, of the party coalition. John Green provides an insightful analysis of the evolution of the “collective identity” of the Christian right: from sectarian religious identities in the early 1980s to a pro-family identity that helped unite Christian right members across religious lines to the current era of “evangelical Republicans,” in which partisanship is central to movement identity. Ralph Reed, former executive director of the Christian Coalition and now chair of the Georgia Republican Party, exemplifies this trend. As Christian rightists become party activists, Christian right organizations may suffer, as the Christian Coalition has since Reed's departure, but their influence within the party grows. In a Republican Party dominated by conservative Southerners such as George W. Bush, Tom Delay, and Dick Armey, Christian right activists are no longer interlopers; they are insiders. C. Neoconservative Ties Finally, the Christian right's access to power has been greatly aided by the ties it has developed with neoconservatives influential within the present administration. Neoconservative intellectuals, many of them Jewish, may seem unlikely allies for the Christian right, but this partnership has developed across several issue areas. The most important basis for this partnership is a common support for Israel or, to put it more accurately, for the Likud Party's vision of Israel's interests. The Christian right's support for Israel harks back to the movement's beginnings in the late 1970s, but it has risen to a higher level in the last few years. The 2002 annual convention of the Christian Coalition culminated in a rally for Israel, and Ralph Reed and Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein recently founded a new group, Stand for Israel. Meanwhile, throughout Christian right media, criticism of the Palestinians and support for hard-line Israeli policies has grown more intense. The Christian right's support for Israel is closely interrelated with prophetic concerns discussed earlier in this essay. In the words of Christian right author John Hagee: “Israel is the only nation created by a sovereign act of God, and He has sworn by His holiness to defend Jerusalem, His Holy City. If God created and defends Israel, those nations that fight against it fight against God.” 13 At a recent Christian Coalition gathering, a speaker even suggested that the September 11th attacks were God's punishment for America's insufficient support of Israel (Arab News, 2003). Links with neoconservatives have also been forged around the issue of religious persecution. Michael Horowitz, a neoconservative senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, and Nina Shea of the Puebla Institute, were instrumental in mobilizing evangelicals around the issue of religious persecution. 14 Elliott Abrams, then head of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, wrote extensively supporting the cause and, along with Nina Shea, was later appointed to the commission created by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, eventually serving as its chair. 15 Abrams has moved on to human rights and Middle East policy positions at the National Security Council. In 1997, when the Project for the New American Century was born, it united conservative leaders around a call for a much more aggressive U.S. foreign policy (including forceful action against Iraq's Saddam Hussein). The group's Statement of Principles declared: “Such a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity may not be fashionable today. But it is necessary if the United States is to build on the successes of this past century and to ensure our security and greatness in the next.” Among the 25 signatories were leading neoconservatives and future players in the Bush administration including Elliott Abrams, Dick Cheney, Frank Gaffney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz. Also on the list were Gary Bauer, long-time head of the Family Research Council, and author William Bennett. 16 A sympathetic president, grassroots electoral strength, and ties to influential neoconservatives have given the Christian right influence in American foreign policy, providing support for a militant unilateralism and unwavering backing for Israel . The Christian right has been rewarded with appointments on delegations to UN conferences and supportive administration action on its international social agenda (see Butler), and it has been heartened by the president's use of religious language to justify his policies. The religious right does not dominate foreign policymaking in the current administration; for example, it lacks key posts at the State and Defense departments. However, the Christian right has provided powerful grassroots support for the unilateralist forces that currently dominate American foreign policy. III. A Progressive Response How should progressives understand and respond to the Christian right's foreign policy influence? One of the most common approaches adopted by opponents of the Christian right and its predecessors has invoked the language of extremism. Extremists, such as members of the radical right, are seen as distinct from the reasonable world of normal or mainstream politics. They are viewed as irrational, psychologically disturbed people who do not accept the rules of the democratic game. This approach has a long, intellectual history from Daniel Bell, Seymour Martin Lipset, and Richard Hofstadter's analyses of McCarthyism and the John Birch Society to later interpretations of the Christian right (see Bell 1955, 1963, Lipset and Raab, and Crawford). Although this approach has been much criticized by academics, it is the analysis that guides major lobbying groups that attempt to counter the Christian right. 17 People for the American Way's very name implies a distinction between the normal politics of the “American way” and the dangerous extremism of the group's opponents, “the radical right.” The Interfaith Alliance describes itself as an “organization of people of faith and goodwill” engaged in the process of “promoting mainstream values” and “shining the light on extremism.” (see Interfaith Alliance). Painting oneself as mainstream and one's opponents as extreme and un-American can be an effective political strategy. Elements of the Christian right's approach to foreign policy, equating the UN with the Antichrist for example, certainly are extreme and should be pointed out by its opponents. Nonetheless, understanding and countering the Christian right's foreign policy influence by using the language of extremism is a mistaken approach for several reasons. The extremism approach has particular dangers for those critiquing the Christian right from the left. The analysis of extremism is inherently one that upholds the “responsible” center against both extremes. Michael Rogin provides a powerful account of the ways in which such an analysis was inaccurately used not only to attack the radical right but also to link it to--and thereby discredit--progressive movements involving populists and the student activists of the 1960s. 18 An analysis that contrasts the pragmatic and responsible leadership of, say, Colin Powell and George Bush Sr. with the extremism of Christian fundamentalists can also be used to contrast such leadership with the extremism of antiglobalization protesters. Pitting a rational center against irrational extremists also blinds everyone to the irrationality of the center and the rationality of the extremes. It is a serious mistake to think that the extremes of the Christian right are the only places where dangerous nationalist myths take root. The ideology of American unilateralism draws on a variety of sources from mainstream popular culture and civil religion (see Jewett and Lawrence). It is also a serious mistake to underplay the rationality of the Christian right. Dismissed again and again as an irrational, reactive movement lashing out against the modern world, the Christian right has continually confounded its critics by behaving in an effective and politically astute manner, building its institutions, forging alliances, and working pragmatically to advance its agenda. Finally, and most importantly, the Christian right is no longer an extreme separate from the foreign policy mainstream. Seeing the Christian right as an extreme fringe element that has somehow wormed itself into the realm of responsible mainstream foreign policymaking is simply mistaken. With its grassroots strength, the Christian right is a major component in the electoral coalition of the country's dominant political party. It enjoys close relations with the president and his neoconservative advisers, and, for the moment at least, the Christian right is a significant element in a unilateralist alliance that dominates American foreign policy. This stature must be taken into account by those who would attempt to counter the influence of the religious right. If the Christian right is part of a dominant foreign policy alliance, how should those who oppose it proceed? The most obvious and effective countermeasure would be the electoral defeat of the party and administration with which it is allied. Over the last quarter century, the Christian right has become ever more closely intertwined with the Republican Party. Its potential for influence closely tracks that party's electoral fortunes. Of course, this solution begs the question--how is this electoral defeat to be accomplished? I have no magic bullet to offer, and the question is beyond the scope of this paper. However, I would suggest that those looking to organize against the Christian right, and the unilateralist alliance of which it is a part, begin by examining the inherent tensions and contradictions within that alliance and within the Christian right itself, a few of which I will now enumerate. A. Economic Globalization Thus far, our account of the Christian right and institutions of international governance has focused upon the United Nations, the primary target of Christian right unilateralism. However, elements of the Christian right have also aimed their fire at institutions of international economic governance, such as the World Trade Organization and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Although the Bush administration is willing to cast off multilateral constraints in some areas, neither the White House nor the business allies so crucial to its success are interested in a unilateralist rejection of the neoliberal economic order. Christian right resistance to neoliberal economic globalization could potentially pose a serious threat to the current corporate-friendly foreign policy coalition. That threat loomed large in the 1990s, when Christian right groups were found among the opponents of NAFTA, the extension of fast-track trade authority, and the granting of favored trade status to China. In these battles, Eagle Forum, Concerned Women for America, and the Family Research Council found themselves at odds with GOP leadership and their normal allies such as the Heritage Foundation. Gary Bauer denounced “the giddy globalism of corporate Republicans,” and Christian right activists found themselves in uneasy alliances with labor unions, human rights advocates, and antiglobalization organizers. The Bush administration's exploitation of September 11th, the “war” on terrorism, and the war in Iraq have effectively displaced controversies surrounding economic globalization. As E.E. Schattschneider, among others, has pointed out, determining the issue is among the most potent of political powers. The Bush administration, with its plans to tie in the 2004 Republican convention to the third anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, certainly has taken that lesson to heart. Progressives need to bring the issues of economic globalization back to the fore, not only to highlight their concerns, but also because a focus on this topic exposes serious contradictions within their opponents' foreign policy coalition. B. Religious Persecution The subject of religious persecution poses potential problems for the GOP-Christian right coalition, through the issue's link to the conflict between Christian right and business interests discussed above. Christian right opposition to favored trade status for China was closely tied to that country's treatment of its Christian citizens. Both the International Religious Freedom Act and appeals by Christians for sanctions against Sudan have further raised the specter of a clash between trade promotion and the right of religious expression. Even more serious are the problems that the issue of religious persecution poses for the Bush administration's conduct in its war on terrorism. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the White House has shown little inclination to raise human rights matters involving regimes willing to cooperate with its antiterrorist campaigns. Yet many key U.S. allies in the war on terror, such as Pakistan, are precisely the countries of most concern to religious persecution activists associated with the Christian right. Although religious persecution issues spell tensions for the dominant foreign policy coalition, progressives must be cautious in exploiting those tensions. In the present climate, concern for the treatment of Christians in Islamic nations can easily slide into promotion of a clash of civilizations between the West and Islam. At a February 2003 “Symposium on Islam” sponsored by the Christian Coalition, featured speakers declared that Muslims “want to kill Christians by any means,” and some compared Islam to Nazism (see Arab News). Franklin Graham, in a highly publicized statement, recently characterized Islam as an “evil” religion. Though such statements certainly complicate the diplomacy of the Bush administration, these are hardly the sort of complications that progressives want to promote. However, there are more positive ways to leverage the religious persecution issue. Progressives need to bring human rights concerns back to the front burner in a way that explicitly addresses cases of religious persecution and emphasizes multilateral norms and enforcement mechanisms. Raising these human rights concerns is the right thing to do, and such a move holds the potential to create serious divisions between the Christian right and the Bush administration. C. Global Social Conservatism and Its Inherent Tensions Serious tensions exist not only between the Christian right and alliance partners in the U.S. but also between the U.S.-based Christian right and potential overseas allies. In recent years, elements of the Christian right have attempted to build an international social conservative alliance, uniting evangelicals, the Vatican, and even some Islamic groups against gay rights, population control policies, and, above all, feminism. The most notable institutional embodiment of this alliance is the World Congress of Families, uniting groups of various faiths in defense of the “natural family.” As this social conservative alliance has made its voice heard at UN forums and resisted UN initiatives, it has often used a strangely progressive language, defending third world autonomy against the meddling of first world feminists and the international institutions that they allegedly control. This international alliance has always been unstable. Much of the Christian right's base is hesitant to support cooperation with the Vatican , much less with Islamic groups. 19 Although groups from a variety of nations participate in the World Congress of Families, participation is heavily skewed toward the U.S. Christian right. Given the militant nationalism of the Christian right and its belief in the unique U.S. role as a “redeemer nation,” it is hardly surprising that such religious nationalists are ambivalent about crafting a truly international coalition. The 9/11 attack, the war on terrorism, and the war against Iraq have heightened this nationalism and further complicated the Christian right's efforts at international coalition building. In the current environment, cooperation with Islamic groups is especially problematic. These difficulties notwithstanding, we should not underestimate the potential of a worldwide socially conservative alliance and its possible effectiveness in resisting the efforts of international governing bodies to defend women's rights or implement effective AIDS policies. Opposition to feminism and gay rights is widespread around the world. Even if evangelical-Islamic cooperation is unlikely in the present climate, U.S. religious conservatives can look to the explosive growth of conservative Christianity around the globe in their search for potential allies (see Jenkins). The current controversy over gay ordination in the Episcopalian church is illustrative. U.S. opponents of the church's recent decision to ordain a gay minister have forged an alliance with conservative members of the international Anglican community, particularly with members of its massive and rapidly growing African branch. Progressive internationalism, i.e., utilizing international institutions to promote equitable economic development rather than neoliberalism, poses serious problems for the Christian right's attempts to construct a global alliance of social conservatives and undercuts the unilateral American nationalism of the Christian right. Few of the Christian right's potential allies in other parts of the world are fervent American nationalists, and they are generally more favorably inclined toward the UN (see Buss and Herman). Moreover, a progressive international economic agenda highlights real contradictions between the neoliberalism of the current administration, with which the Christian right is allied, and the economic interests of prospective third world allies that the Christian right is attempting to win over on social issues. Shifting the global social conservatism debate to an agenda of progressive internationalism, translating concerns over religious persecution into commitment to a general defense of human rights, and countering economic globalization are obviously not easy tasks. However, if done correctly, pursuit of such goals can trigger a win/win scenario: it's the right thing to do, and it could create serious problems for the Christian right and the unilateralist alliance now dominating American foreign policy. Bibliography Elliott Abrams, ed., The Influence of Faith: Religious Groups & U.S. Foreign Policy (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001). Arab News, “Christian Coalition's Panelists Distort Islam” (2003) available online at <http://www.palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20030224092753598>. Daniel Bell, ed., The New American Right (New York: Criterion Books, 1955). Daniel Bell, ed., The Radical Right (Garden City: Anchor Books, 1963). Chip Berlet and Matthew N. Lyons, Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort (New York: Guilford Press, 2000). Paul Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992). Paul Boyer, “When U.S. Foreign Policy Meets Biblical Prophecy” (2003) available online at <http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15221>. Doris Buss and Didi Herman, Globalizing Family Values (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003). Jennifer Butler, “New Sheriff in Town: The Christian Right Nears Major Victory at the United Nations” (2003) available online at <http:www.publiceye.org/magazine/v16n2/PE_Butler2.htm>. Alan Crawford, Thunder on the Right (New York: Pantheon, 1980). Sara Diamond, Roads to Dominion (New York: Guilford Press, 1995). Sara Diamond, Spiritual Warfare: The Politics of the Christian Right (Boston: South End Press, 1989). David Frum, “The Real George Bush” (2003) at The Atlantic Online available online at <http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/interviews/int2003-02-12.htm>. John Green, “The Spirit Willing: Collective Identity and the Development of the Christian Right” in Jo Freeman and Victoria Johnson, eds., Waves of Protest (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999). Joshua Green, “God's Foreign Policy,” Washington Monthly, November 2001, pp. 26-30. Grace Halsell, Prophecy and Politics (New York: E.J. Hill & Co., 1989). Allen Hertzke, “The Political Sociology of the Crusade Against Religious Persecution” in Elliott Abrams, ed., The Influence of Faith: Religious Groups & U.S. Foreign Policy (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001). Interfaith Alliance (2003) home webpage at <http://www.interfaithalliance.org/About/aboutList.cfm?c=4>. Philip Jenkins, The Next Christendom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). Robert Jewett and John Shelton Lawrence, Captain America and the Crusade Against Evil (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003). Michael Lienesch, Redeeming America: Piety and Politics in the New Christian Right (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1993). Seymour Martin Lipset and Earl Raab, The Politics of Unreason (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978). William Martin, “The Christian Right and American Foreign Policy” Foreign Policy, vol. 114, Spring 1999, pp. 66-79. Lisa McGirr, Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001). Matthew Moen, The Christian Right and Congress (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1992). Duane Oldfield, The Right and the Righteous (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996). Project for the New American Century, “Statement of Principles” (1997) available online at <http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm>. John Harold Redekop, The American Far Right: A Case Study of Billy James Hargis and Christian Crusade (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1968). Pat Robertson, The End of the Age (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1995). Pat Robertson, The New World Order (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1991). Michael Paul Rogin, The Intellectuals and McCarthy (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1967). United States Government, National Security Strategy of the United States (2002) available online at <http://www.cdi.org/national-security-strategy/washington.cfm>. Clyde Wilcox, Onward Christian Soldiers (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996). Endnotes Many works on the Christian right have given scant attention to foreign policy issues. For examples, see Moen (1992), Wilcox (1996), Oldfield (1996), and Watson (1999). A major exception to this trend has been the work of Sara Diamond (1989, 1995). In the last few years the foreign policy activism of the Christian right has been the focus of more scholarly attention. See Martin (1999), Abrams (2001), and, most notably, Buss and Herman (2003). Opposition to “Red” China, however, remains a significant item on the Christian right's foreign policy agenda, particularly for the Family Research Council. The general trend toward greater involvement in international affairs masks some differences among Christian right groups. Phyllis Schlafly, head of the Eagle Forum, has long been active in international issues. The Christian Coalition has generally avoided international matters, except for issues of religious persecution and support for Israel. Christian right groups also object to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, seeing it as a potential threat to the authority of parents. Moving beyond a social issues agenda, Christian right groups have raised objections to the U.S. peacekeeping troops serving under UN command in Bosnia. The UN's Biosphere reserve program, seen as a threat to U.S. sovereignty over its parklands, has also come under Christian right fire. Interview with author, July 30, 1998. See Buss and Herman for a comprehensive account of the Christian right's alliances and activism at the UN. Several novels in the Left Behind series have reached number one on the New York Times bestseller list, and overall sales for the series now top 50 million books. Lindsey's sales were less noticeable to those outside the evangelical community, because until recently the Times did not poll Christian bookstores in calculating its sales figures. Beaulieu is eventually defeated through the leadership of a televangelist who bears a remarkable similarity to Robertson himself and a U.S. general who craftily withholds a segment of the American military from the control of the new world government. Robertson's role as a televangelist, Christian right presidential candidate, and long-time president of the Christian Coalition is well-known. LaHaye has been somewhat less visible to outsiders, but he too has played an important role in the movement as an author, cofounder of the Moral Majority, and as the husband of Beverly LaHaye, founder and former president of Concerned Women for America. Robertson (1991) and personal interview with Leigh Ann Metzger, who served as the elder Bush's outreach director for religious conservatives (August 21, 1994). Doug Wead, personal interview with author, May 1989. Baltimore Sun, November 25, 1987, as quoted in Campaign Hotline-American Political Network, Inc. Quoted in Paul Boyer (2003). For more on prophecy and Christian right foreign policy, see Boyer (1992) and Halsell. Although end-time prophecies lead to strong support for Israel, a closer examination reveals that Jews, or at least those who do not convert to Christianity, do not fare well in end-time scenarios. Richard Cizik, vice president for governmental affairs at the National Association of Evangelicals, personal interview with author, July 1998, and Green (2001). Shea's Puebla Institute was best known for its criticism of Nicaragua's Sandinista government and, allegedly, had ties to that government's contra opponents. See <http://rightweb.irc-online.org/ind/shea/shea.html>. See Hertzke. Bauer and the Family Research Council have been closer to neoconservatives than other elements of the Christian Right. Bauer is more supportive of free trade and an activist U.S. foreign policy than leaders at Concerned Women for America and, especially, Eagle Forum's Phyllis Schlafly, whose isolationist tendencies slot her closer to the paleoconservatives. The Massachusetts-based Political Research Associates is a notable exception. See Oldfield as well as Berlet and Lyons for critiques of the extremism approach to interpreting the Christian right. Darren Logan, Family Research Council, interview with author, July 1998. See also Buss and Herman.