I am writing this article primarily at the Christian warmongers who believe that the Bible generally and Jesus specifically condones genocide against anyone. The so-called Religious Right thumps their bibles and eagerly anticipates the Rapture, so they've been doing everything they can to get the world in a nuclear confrontation to "force" Jesus to return for the Second Coming faster, itself contrary to the Bible because it place man over God, which is the essence of 666. They've manipulated the federal government, including George Bush who claimed that "God told him to invade Iraq" and that the U.S. was on a "crusade" in the Middle East, and have served as Israel's "Amen Corner" to cover up Israel's human rights violations of innocent Palestinians.

Let us examine the pretext for the illegal Iraq war. Bush and his minions claimed that Saddam Hussein's Iraq was teeming with Weapons of Mass Distraction Destruction, including nuclear weapons in progress, and that he was hell bent on using them in the immediate future if we didn't invade to protect ourselves. Bush also tried to tie Saddam Hussein to 9/11 and Al Qaeda. Bush even circumvented the UN by ignoring UNSC Resolution 1441's lack of authorization for invasion.

On the subject of UNSC 1441, Bush's apologists disingenuously claim that the UN Security Council "knew what it meant" to pass the resolution after the Congress abrogated its Constitutional duty and signed over the War Powers to Bush. If UNSC 1441 allowed an invasion, then it would have spelled it out. It didn't. When the U.S. and Britain tried to get an additional resolution passed, France said it would not authorize it, which is why the idiots in Congress used taxpayer resources to change French fries to Freedom fries, remember?

As it turned out, France and Russia and even Iraq were right. Saddam Hussein had already destroyed his WMD's. ("Intent" to rebuild the programs at some later date is not recognized under international law.) There were none to be found. American soldiers were dead. Lots of innocent Iraqis were dead. Did that stop Bush? Nope. Bush, rather than go before the American people and admit that he made a mistake and apologize to the world and the Iraqi people, changed the mission. He now wanted to bring democracy to the Iraqi people by killing more Iraqis and causing the deaths of more American soldiers and Marines.

Even today, there are some on the "Christian Right"--which is neither--that the Bible supports the actions of Bush in invading another sovereign country and murdering its citizens. Jacob Hornberger, in his excellent essay "The Demise of Conscience" sums up the hypocrisy of that position in the following:

Now that Bush has us firmly mired in Iraq and his potential successor has assured us that he doesn't care if we are in Iraq another 100 years. For those of you with babies and children, that means that he expects that you would be willing to send them to die in the desert around their 18th birthday.

Even worse, Bush and Israel have us poised to attack Iran. The CIA, last November, in its National Intelligence Estimate said that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons and that the program was suspended in 2003. (This is the same type of NIE that Bush used to justify invading Iraq, so he of all people should support its veracity.) Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmenijad says that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons and that it would be contrary to Islamic law to do so. Even the international body, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons. Yet, Bush and his War Party continue to run around like Chicken Little, "Iran has nuclear weapons. Iran has nuclear weapons."

Bush has also gone on record as saying that Iran is supplying the insurgents in Iraq, as another pretext for attacking Iran. The trouble is, when pressed to actually show evidence of Iranian weapons and munitions, they cannot. Here is a website refuting the popular media myths about Iran and the allegations of nuclear weapons:
Answering the Charges Against Iran

The international community has woken up to Bush's lies and Neocon ambitions. If the recent invasion of South Ossetia by U.S.-backed Georgia and fierce and strong beatback by Russian forces is any indication, the days of Bush acting with impunity are over. Russian PM Vladmir Putin is on the record as saying that a U.S. attack on Iran is an attack on Russia and will be dealt with accordingly. Since Russia has nuclear weapons and supplies Europe with 40% of its energy, Bush is delusional when he says he can attack Iran without repercussion or with the blessing of his traditional allies. Even without being bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military would be hard-pressed to sustain any sort of bombing campaign against Iran without using tactical nuclear weapons to widen the damage area on each target.

Still, the Christian Right would have us believe that Bush is a national hero worthy of sainthood for killing Muslims "over there instead of over here". As Robin Cook, the British foreign secretary who resigned after the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003 said, "There were no international terrorists in Iraq until we went in. It was we who gave the perfect conditions in which al-Qaeda could thrive."

The longer the U.S. is in Iraq and Afghanistan and, if Heaven Forbid, Bush lets loose nuclear weapons to bomb Iran, the more terrorists our country will create that will have to be fought somewhere. The fact that our own government funded and armed Osama bin Laden and continues to conduct business-as-usual with the real origin of the 9/11 hijackers, Saudi Arabia, should tell you where the real terrorists in the world are located: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC.

So, while the religious zealots wrap themselves in their Made-in-China American flags while waving their Bibles around like a genocidal permission slip and they are mandated to be "Christ-like", my question to the religious right is "Who Would Jesus Nuke?"