Rummy's War: Gimme that ol' time religion

The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart: his words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords. ~Psalms 55:21

News broke yesterday that all through the "Rumsfeld era" of the illegal invasion of Iraq, Pentagon-issued military briefs were pumping Junior full of that old time religion to keep the man-child from losing his nerve when things started to go south.

According to GQ magazine, daily intelligence briefings, called "Worldwide Intelligence Updates," produced by the Pentagon for presentation to President Junior were adorned with colorful photos and captioned with warlike Biblical quotes.

Keepin' the boy-king bucked up

Rumsfeld, himself, is not a religious man, but he's smart. Certainly, he's smart enough to know how to play Junior like a fiddle. And what better way to manipulate an insecure dry drunk of limited intellect than by quoting from the one source that the poor sap feels he can trust? One can imagine that, public displays of resolution aside, in the dark days when Iraq was burning, Junior spent a lot of time curled up in some corner of the Oval office, sucking his thumb and hugging his pillow. These briefs, with their faith-over-fact assurances, might have been just the ticket to get him to pull himself together.

There is some question as to whether the religious quotations were actually dreamed up by Rummy or some demented Pentagon underling, but Rummy certainly saw the briefs before they showed up on the president's desk. Rummy, like his partner in crime, Big Dick, would likely recognize a useful tool when he saw one.

And so, everyday for a period of time, Junior's quaking heart was reassured with inspiring photos of soldiers praying, captioned with resolute Old Testament quotations. (Interesting, isn't it, how evangelicals like Junior seem to draw more from the Old Testament than from the words of Christ, Himself?)

Never mind that, were these briefs to ever be leaked, they would only serve to reinforce Muslim suspicions that the war was part of a larger inter-faith war, a modern-day Crusade, between Christianity and Islam. Never mind that Muslim-Americans working in the Pentagon took offense and began to question the virtues of their own government. Just like those poor civilians that got in the way of Rummy's "smart bombs" it was just collateral damage.

Rummy and Dick had a war to get rich off of. That's what was important.

Well, Rummy may have achieved his goal, but there is a price to pay. Check this video of Rummy's reception at a recent Washington, DC, function by members of Code Pink.