God's Oil Profiteers

A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION
By One Citizen

Certain religious leaders, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Billy Graham, for example, have gone entirely mute regarding the Bush administration's policy of torturing prisoners of war.

Although the legal ramifications and finer points of torture were well researched by the Oval Office legal team and bounced off Pentagon staffers back around August of 2002, it is apparently the moral and spiritual aspects of torture which now trouble many Americans.

And now because those Administration policy memos have been revealed to have specifically defined procedures for the implementation of pain, fear, and deprivation, it has suddenly fallen upon the fundamentalist Christian leadership to quell the growing outrage and embarrassment of their congregation. To do that properly, they only need to address one question:  "Why would Jesus torture?".  -

This question cannot be casually dismissed as mere rhetoric or political sloganeering primarily because the Religious Right's leadership is staunchly supportive of Bush's pre-emptive war doctrine. This is despite the fact that his arguments for bombing Baghdad have long been debunked. 

Now those same church leaders are tacitly supporting torture and abuse in U.S.- run prisons by remaining entirely mute on the moral question of the Bush Administration's policy. 

Is it possible that Bush's promotion of the inhumane treatment of prisoners isn't moral a question? To his credit, he did very publicly voice his personal disgust over photos which surfaced depicting the physical results of his Oval Office's legal wranglings. But shortly after, at the same press conference he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with, and wholeheartedly endorsed War Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who was later revealed to have actually sanctioned his torture policies for him!

So it turns out that that Bush really couldn't have been morally outraged by the abuse, after all, considering the level of  involvement of his top legal and war staff. It now appears more likely that he was voicing his disgust over the quality of the photography than his anger over the contents of those photographs!   

Is it possible that those religious leaders' complete silence on this moral issue has been influenced by House Republican Whip Tom DeLay's implied promise of even more faith-based "initiative" money in the future? 

All Christians who doubt the scenario of their leaders being morally swayed by the promise of money should remember that it was one of Christ's closest friends that betrayed him for the promise of a Pharisee-sponsored faith-based "initiative"!

So if it troubles you because your church's leaders appear to lack a moral compass when it comes to Bush's treatment of our war prisoners, then just slap a copy of One Citizen's homage to God's Oil Profiteers on their front door.

Be sure to print plenty of extras to place on those luxury SUV windshields in the parking lot this Sunday, too!

-One Citizen

A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION