Dubya's Crusade: Southern Baptist Invade Iraq

Onward Christian Soldiers, MARCH!

"we should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." Ann Coulter

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0111.coulterwisdom.html

'Spiritual warfare' looms

By DOUG SAUNDERS

From Wednesday's Globe and Mail

Washington is trying to portray its battle as one of liberation, not conquest, but Iraq is about to be invaded by thousands of U.S. evangelical missionaries who say they are bent on a "spiritual warfare" campaign to convert the country's Muslims to Christianity.

Among the largest aid groups preparing to provide humanitarian assistance to Iraqis ravaged by the war are a number of Christian charities based in the southern United States that make no secret of their desire to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ and win over Muslim souls.

The largest of these is the Southern Baptist Convention, an ardent supporter of the war as an opportunity to bring Christianity to the Middle East. It says it has 25,000 trained evangelists ready to enter Iraq.

"That would a heart change would go on in that part of the world," Mark Liederbach of the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary explained in a recent speech to the SBC. "That's what we need to be praying for. That's how a Christian wages spiritual warfare."

Such words have caused deep alarm among military and diplomatic authorities. Although Christian aid organizations have worked comfortably alongside secular groups in other conflicts, Muslims around the world are already suspicious of U.S. motives in Iraq, and the worry is that missionaries could reinforce the widespread popular belief that the war is really a "clash of civilizations" between Christians and Muslims.

http://www.globeandmail.com

Published on Thursday, October 10, 2002 by CommonDreams.org

Onward Christian Soldiers: The March to War

by John Buell

After meeting Vladimir Putin last year, President Bush assured the American people that he had looked into the Russian leader’s eyes and established that “he was a good man.” Whether Putin, who now expresses reservations about invading Iraq, retains that status is uncertain. It is clear that this President has extraordinary confidence in his ability as an opthamologist of the soul. Discerning obvious good and evil in the world, he moves singlemindedly with little tolerance for dissent. When political leaders of the left are motivated by such confident, singular visions, media portray them as mindless apostles of political correctness, demagogues, and utopians. When such a style emanates from the right, it becomes moral courage and political conviction. I believe that neither left nor right is well served by this mindset, but its dangers become all the more apparent as we approach war.

Though this Administration periodically invokes self defense, much of its rhetoric—and the evident contradictions in its case—belie this rationale. The case against Iraq rides on the Administration’s obsessive quest for “regime change.” Every state in that vital region must not only respect borders but deploy itself in such a way that it can never become a threat to US cultural, economic, or military interests.

The Guardian commented late last summer that” First the pretext was Iraq's non-existent links with… September 11. Then it was the anthrax attacks in the US, which turned out to be a domestic problem. Then it was the long-running dispute over Iraq's drastically depleted chemical and biological weapons capacity and its resistance to the return of UN weapons inspectors. But now that Saddam has begun to signal a climbdown on inspectors (apparently going a good deal further in private messages passed to the US administration via Jordan's King Abdullah), they seem to be something of a side issue after all. As John Bolton, the US undersecretary for arms control, blurted out, the "regime change" policy "will not be altered, whether inspectors go in or not".”

Responding to such criticisms, the Administration now seeks to resurrect the al-Qaida connection, but, as the Washington Post comments, even US intelligence officials discount such reports. The Administration’s further contention, that an al-Qaida official sought medical treatment in Iraq would, even if true, hardly constitute a role in sustaining terrorism even remotely equal to the part played by many prominent Saudis.

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/1010-09.htm

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