Is This Even Possible?

We know that President Bush is a born-again Christian, and that he depends on his faith to guide him. These are laudable, and there is nothing inherently wrong with this position.

What is wrong is this article from the Council for Secular Humanism.

I'm not even sure where to start with this. Let's consider this paragraph:

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

The article continues:

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

This is disturbing on several counts. First, it's that the President seems to believe that the End of Days are occurring on his watch and that it's his duty as a Christian to cast out the evil that is the sovereign state of Iraq. Even more concerning is that he apparently used this belief as the crux of his argument in attempting to garner support for his invasion of Iraq. But perhaps the most confounding of this is that this was never mentioned as one of the "justifications" for the invasion to the American people back in 2003, thus denying us the opportunity to see how his faith "guided" him.

This was all reported by former French President Chirac, who confirmed it, according to the article linked above. While this hasn't been confirmed by the Bush White House, and I doubt it will be because of the hyper level of fanatical nonsense involved, perhaps an actual denial from Bush and company might be necessary to at least give a counter-point - though with all the other "reasons" for the invasion holding no water, it's unlikely a denial will ring terribly true.

And the religious Right, who are attempting to vilify President Obama as a Muslim now, were all up in arms about his connections to (Christian) pastor Jeremiah Wright. Wright is a loudmouthed boor, but to the best of my knowledge, he hasn't attempted to convince anyone that he is on a mission from God to relieve the world of Gog and Magog.