When the President of the United States of America, the most powerful military and economic force on the planet, utters such an inflammatory phrase, it can only be done so with the corroboration of his top advisors and with a knowledge that the at-home audience will accept it. When that president is a recognized Bible-loving Born Again Christian, with a firm and absolute “belief” in the nightmarish concept of Armageddon, then the World had better sit up and take note.
It is unknown by most that Armageddon is an actual place as well as the fictitious future final battle between good and evil. The battlefield is described in Revelation 16:16 and it is accepted that Armageddon, derived from Megiddo (Judges 5:19), on the Plain of Esdraelon, is the location. The site, in northern Israel, is an Old Testament killing field of the highest order with the slaughter of such proportion as to warrant it to be a fitting place for this “impending” auspicious occasion.
The majority adherents of both the Christian and Muslim religions have a “belief” in, respectively, Armageddon and the Day of Judgment event, with each generation having some expectation it will happen in their lifetime. Firm believers, fundamentalists, have no doubt at all. Their warped sense of reality even has them accepting as true, that the end times can be precipitated by some catastrophic human action, with nuclear conflict high on that list.
The terminology, “axis of evil“, can only be perceived as drawing a line in the map of ideological idiocy, separating the good Christians from the bad Muslims. Somewhere in the order of 100 million people from Iran, Iraq and North Korea have been directly upset by George W. Bush’s loose lipped or purposed comment. Most likely another billion people of the Islamic “faith” have been pushed into a deeper, if that is possible, hatred of The Great Satan, the United States of America.
September the 11th has so frightened the USA super-power, that it is willing to allow a pre-emptive language escalation of an unprecedented magnitude. Nations are nervous enough, as they should be, with tightrope political diplomacy stretched to the limit on a number of fronts. This kind of diplomacy is a final stage of politics and is one step away from attempted resolution by armed conflict. Once again, within months of a similar scenario between Pakistan and India, nuclear weapons stand ready to be used to push a particular point of view.
Does the White House consider that it can intimidate the Eastern world into submission by language alone, and thus end violent opposition to people of the USA? Or, is it preparing the “Christian axis of good” for all out war?
The very important and most pertinent question is: Has the born again and literal Bible believing Christian President, George W. Bush lost the plot completely and taken on the role of the initiator of Armageddon?
History is full of insane people in power and just because this is all happening in our time, is no reason alone to suspect that these thoughts may not be dripping in truth. Religious extremism is not an uncommon condition of the mind, with its severity and capability to do harm to others an unknown factor. History, past and recent, clearly demonstrates that nearly any action can be justified by the overtly religious.
It is a very serious matter, when the most powerful person on Earth appears to be unconcerned with using provocative supernatural orientated terminology of the likes of, “axis of evil“.
We should all be very, very worried.
2nd February, 02
By David Nicholls