Rumsfeld's Biblical Message-Laden Intelligence Briefs

[steven johnson]

This might be politically incorrect if you don't want to insult Islamic sensitivities.

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld prepared top-secret military intelligence briefs for former President George W. Bush with cover sheets featuring triumphant images from the Iraq war with "Crusades-like" Bible messages, according to an exclusive report in the latest June issue of GQ magazine.

The briefs, known as the Worldwide Intelligence Update, were prepared by Rumsfeld and often hand-delivered to Bush, and only circulated among a handful of Pentagon leaders and the president, according to GQ's Robert Draper.

A March 31, 2003 brief cover-sheet depicted a U.S. tank roaring through the desert with a biblical quote from Ephesians: "Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand."
An April 7, 2003 cover sheet depicted an image of Saddam Hussein under a quote from the First Epistle of Peter: "It is God's will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men."

An April 10, 2003 brief showed the statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down, an Iraqi child kissing an American soldier and jubilant Iraqi crowds with a quote from the book of Psalms: "Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him … To deliver their soul from death."
At least one Muslim analyst in the Pentagon had been offended, GQ reports, and others worried that the biblical passages would inspire Islamic outrage within Muslim nations.


http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/05/rumsfeld-gave-b.html

[napoleon_in_rags]

1. What's most disturbing is the way they equate the military with God.

I mean not just in the "military is godly" way, but rather in the "military is GOD" way. :(

[RandomThoughts]

4. Trying to get someone to claim they are a God, or sometimes just special

happens once someone figures out the spiritual world really exists.

The first lie of evil is there is no spiritual world, and just the mortal existence. But when someone finds themselves in a place where they know there is a spiritual world, evil uses tactics to try and tell the person lies of self importance and blasphemy.

Lots of tricks are used to try to make the person claim power, but the truth, in my belief, is all things of Good come from God. Works can be done through people, but they are from God.

And bad things also can work through people, especially if they can get the person to make false claims or have false thoughts of thinking they are special or a deity. Those thoughts both break empathy, and can lead to losing the protection of God.

Again this is just my view, but it is consistent with lots of examples. You see it all the time in cults.

Jim Jones at one point, might have really wanted to help the poor, then some evil temptation, made him think he was the source of spiritual powers, and then he bought into the lie, and made the false claims that led to his paranoia and destruction. All the punishments and bad things he did even early in his organizations reek of him taking guidance from a wrong spiritual force. Same thing with the consistency of child abuse in cults. The Wako guy, and the extremist Utah group. Its all consistent with listening to spiritual forces that also tell the person they are special or more important then other people.

If you think about it, thinking you are more important then someone else, is the opposite of 'do unto others as you would have done onto yourself' or 'Love your neighbor as yourself' or the many other versions of that sentiment. Which says others are just as important as how you think of yourself.

I would guess anyone in government or in the private sector that high up with power, has had temptations to claim they are special or even worse.




One more thing about this Rumsfield topic, it might be an attempt to help Bush reputation to realign Jeb Bush's opportunity in the future.

[SpiralHawk]

6. "Our republicon speciality is unknown unknowns." - Rummy

[napoleon_in_rags]

7. Good points. I agree.

Though I see more in terms of cause effect than in terms of an adversary: The aggrandizement of the self leads to seeing others in a bad way, and in terms of the spiritual reality of which we are mutually aware, this can mean existence in a really hellish place. Your post made me think of schizophrenics I care for. Their spiritual issue could be put in terms of inflated sense of self...but in way that they really suffer, they are not "egotists". For instance my one client hears people yelling at him all the time he thinks is real, and has for years. What he can't see is that nobody would fixate on him (or anybody) for years and years yelling from around every corner. Its a form of entrapment in self, really. He can't see the his small place in a bigger world, so he is trapped, he can't see the world at all.

But you also make a good point with the influence of power. I'm lucky in some spiritual ways to occupy a lowly role, because the temptations of elitist thinking are much less likely to bother me. But at the same time, the real struggle is always within, every place has its pitfalls.

Anyway, good post. Thanks for that! :)

[leftstreet]

2. Did they do this just to f**k with Dubya?

Didn't Bush consider himself a born again zealot type person, and he claimed God talked to him?

Were they just soaking his mental illness in more muck?

[AspenRose]

3. I think I'm going to throw up.

And I'm a Christian.

These people clearly are NOT.

[magellan]

5. But...I thought it wasn't a religious war?

:sarcasm:

[Ian David]

8. Confirms my earlier theory. See: America's Roadmap to The Apocalypse

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