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A Few Questions for Bush’s Christian Supporters about Bush and God.

Questions I wish one reporter had the guts to ask!!                                              By Lonna Gooden VanHorn, Oct. 28, 2004

If God is guiding Bush, why have so many of his decisions been so wrong?  If we are blessed to have Bush as president, why are so many of us so much worse off in 2004 than we were in 2000?

Many Christians believe that America is a country special to God.  Many fundamentalist Christians and other Christians believe that with George Bush as president, God is in the White House.

George says he asks for guidance from God and he asks God for wisdom.   I believe him.  I have never doubted his sincerity in his belief in God. 

My favorite verses in the Bible are ones written by Paul  “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his Counselor…?”  Romans 11:33 –36. 

I don’t claim to know the mind of God.  Neither did a truly great president, Abraham Lincoln, who said he could not know the mind of God.  He said he could not say God was on his side.  He only hoped that he was on God’s side.  But, Bush has reportedly said both that he speaks for God and that God speaks through him, and Bush supporters believe Americans are blessed, both as a nation and as people to have him as president.   With those facts in mind, I have a few questions. 

We know Bush was strongly warned by Clinton and others in his outgoing administration that he would need to make Bin Laden and terrorism a high priority. We know that Richard Clark had drawn up a plan on terrorism during the waning days of the Clinton administration and had tried to arrange meetings with Bush and Rice about it.   We know that in the summer of 2001 no meetings had yet been held.  We know that during that summer there were so many warnings from U.S. and foreign sources something was up with Bin Laden that Richard Clark and George Tenet were nearly frantic with concern.  Ashcroft stopped flying on commercial planes.

If George and God are so tight, why did not God nudge Bush to pay attention to the terrorists warnings by operatives in our own and foreign governments in the summer of 2001 that something was about to happen?  Why did he take no actions to try to prevent an attack, even after the July and August PDB briefings that said Bin Laden was determined to strike inside the U.S.  Warnings that  mentioned both New York City and Washington D.C. as potential targets?

A Buzzflash reader has previously written in “Supreme Irony” that as a pilot for the Air National Guard, Bush had undoubtedly flown mock intercepts.  Therefore, he, more than any other president, should have known what to do after receiving such briefings.  At the very least, after so many warnings, an alert former fighter pilot who happened to be president would have put up fighter jets to patrol 24/7.  And, if God guides Bush, one might think God might have nudged him to pay special attention to those warnings and briefings.  But, if God nudged Bush, Bush ignored the nudge.  Bush did nothing to protect “God’s country” and its’ people.  Can anyone seriously doubt if either Clinton or Gore had presided over such a disaster, especially after it had been learned they had received such strong warnings that a terrorist threat was likely, they would have been impeached for it?   Rush, Hannity, et. al. would have spouted righteous indignation and outrage every day until impeachment happened.

In Afghanistan the military had Bin Laden cornered at Tora Bora.  But, Bush pulled troops and resources from Afghanistan to prepare for the push into Iraq he had been planning almost since the day he came into office.  And now Al Qaeda has regrouped and dispersed to countries around the globe.  Some high ranking terrorists have been caught or killed, but not the mastermind, Bin Laden.  Bush is so hated, particularly since Abu Ghraib, that Al Qaeda’s ranks have swelled.  Many say Bush is the best recruiting poster Al Qaeda ever had.  If Bush and God have a special pipeline, why did Bush not get the heightened sense to “go in for the kill” at Tora Bora?

Bush reportedly said that God told him to strike Saddam, but as WWII bomber pilot, and ‘72 presidential candidate George McGovern noted in an article in the Nation magazine titled “The Reason Why,”

“The President frequently confides to individuals and friendly audiences that he is guided by God's hand. But if God guided him into an invasion of Iraq, He sent a different message to the Pope, the Conference of Catholic Bishops, the mainline Protestant National Council of Churches and many distinguished rabbis--all of whom believe the invasion and bombardment of Iraq is against God's will.”

And if it was God’s will that Bush invade Iraq, why did God not give him a bit better idea of what was needed??  After all, the HUMAN advice from General Shinseki and others was there that he would need a hundred thousand more troops to secure the country.  But God, apparently, did not tell George he needed more troops, and George did not heed General Shinseki.  The result has been disastrous, both for our troops and the Iraqi people.  Bush did not even see to it that Biblical artifacts in Iraq’s museum were guarded during the invasion.  The only government building that was guarded during the invasion was the oil ministry. 

The truth is that most advisors around Bush had already figured out George did not want to hear their best advice, he only wanted to hear what he wanted to hear.  And most in his circle obliged.  If they did not they were ridiculed or shunned.  According to Bob Woodward, Colin Powell, for instance, was told that we were going to war after Bush had already told Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia, the home of the 9/11 terrorists and those who financed them, of his intentions. Powell was told almost as an afterthought. Why would Bush tell an ambassador from the country that  was home to those who attacked us and those who financed that attack that  we were going to war with Iraq before he told his own Secretary of State, who happens to be a former general in our military?

We were told by Paul Wolfowitz and others the financial cost of the war would be only $50 billion or so, and that most of that cost would be offset by Iraqi oil revenue. Now we know they are about to ask us for another $70 billion or so for the war, even though they cannot account for tens of billions already spent.  With that $70 billion the cost of this war will be almost exactly $1000 for every man, woman and child in the United States, and that does not include the cost of the $420 billion dollar a year defense budget.  It is in addition to our defense budget.  Was this optimistic error another bit of poor listening on Bush’s part to the “guidance” he received  (from God?) in Bush’s “catastrophic” success?

According to Col. Hackworth, one of America’s most decorated living soldiers, and others, the situation in Iraq is so unstable, mainly because Bush and Ashcroft went in “on the cheap,” troops will be needed there for years.  A draft is inevitable.  Uncle Sam will soon want your kids or grandkids.  And the financial cost will, in the end, be astronomical.  Perhaps one of YOUR kids or grandkids, not someone else’s kids or grandkids will pay with their lives for what appears to be a defective pipeline between God and Bush.

Bush said he was going to take a trillion dollars of the 3 or 4 trillion dollar surplus Clinton left him with and give it to those who “paid the bills.”  He gave that money mainly to those who needed it least.  And, the deficits are not, as he says, because of the war (another lie).  The war and rebuilding have not yet been figured into the budgets.  Why did God not tell Bush that tax cuts, especially during war time, might not be such a good idea?  At least not after the first tax cut? Why did God not give him some inkling that such tax cuts would decimate the surplus and take us into deficits as far as the eye can see mainly because of his tax cuts for the wealthy? Or does Bush not care, because he and his family are among the few who benefited significantly from all of his tax cuts?

General Boykin and others have said that because Bush did not win the popular vote but became president anyway, that proves God wanted Bush to be president. If God is a God of goodness truth and light and God wanted Bush to be president badly enough to “interfere” in the election for Bush, as Pat Robertson and General Boykin have indicated he did, why did God not just nudge enough more Republicans than Democrats to go vote on election day so that George would have won the popular vote and the election honestly, without all the strife and hard feelings of the disputed 2000 election in which Gore won the popular vote by 540,000 votes nation wide? Did God also tell Jeb to remove the names of legal voters (mostly black) from the Florida voter rolls prior to the election??  Prior to the election, this had nothing to do with the recount.  Is God dishonest?  He had to “cheat” to accomplish his goals?  Because it is indisputable that if brother Jeb had not been governor of Florida at that time, Gore would have won Florida and thus the electoral college.  Bush must believe all is fair in love and war.  What happened to “honesty is the best policy?’ 

Why was the 2000 election so chaotic and divisive?  I thought it was Satan who presided over chaos? 

Why if we are so blessed to have Bush as president are more of us unemployed?  More of us living in poverty? More of us living without health care?  

If Bush is such a good Christian, and the Bush family is so moral, why have their business dealings been so consistently unethical and even illegal?  Why is money and power so important to them?   Why is the linchpin of this Christian administration greed?  Why do the people of this administration always protect the interests of the corporations and the wealthy against the interests of the workers and the environment??   The earth God said we are to be stewards of?

Under Eisenhower, the richest among us paid 90% of their income in taxes and corporations paid 52% and Ike refused to support lowering those rates.  Is God a God who now has decided to become an advocate for the rich?  In the Bible I read, Christ tells us to take care of the poor, and he says it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.  Has God adopted the idea of “success theology” that Bush seems to adhere to??  The idea that you are rich because you deserve to be and poor because you deserve to be?

George was a failure in at least three businesses.  He does not “deserve” to be rich.  But, because of who he was, daddy’s rich friends and we taxpayers bailed him out of his failures, and he came out of them a rich man while his investors took the hit.  Martha Stewart is now doing time for business ethics less onerous than those of G.W.

Why is a Christian president so greedy and so unwilling to sacrifice in any way himself to pay for a war he pushed, that he threatened to veto a bill which would have made the richest 1% of the population (the 1% that includes him) forgo their tax cut for one year to pay for the $87 billion Iraq appropriations bill, and instead tacked it onto the debt our grandchildren will be paying for generations?  Kerry, another rich man, co-sponsored the bill that advocated paying for it with his money and Bush’s money, but Bush refused to support that kind of sacrifice by the rich.  Above all, why are so many members of Bush's family engaging in war profiteering – making money off the war Bush started? Why has the media been so silent about all this?  There was a blip in the news about James Baker being on the verge of securing another billion dollars for his and Bush, Sr.’s  Carlyle Group after George appointed him to help “restructure” Iraq’s debt, and there have been a few stories about Halliburton, but there have been almost no stories about the Bush family’s war profiteering. 

Bush’s campaign strategy is and always has been to bear false witness against his opponent.  His modus operandi is and always has been to smear his opponent.  To the best of my knowledge there is still a commandment against bearing false witness.  A former long – time bishop in his own church has called his campaign of fear-mongering “blasphemous.”

The following is what a former REPUBLICAN Senator from Kentucky, Marlow Cook, who will be voting for Kerry (as will Ike’s son, John)  has to say about our Christian president’s campaign strategy and moral standards.

“In 2000, to defeat Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. — a man who was shot down in Vietnam and imprisoned for over five years — they used Carl Rove's "East Texas special." They started the rumor that he was gay, saying he had spent too much time in the Hanoi Hilton. They said he was crazy. They said his wife was on drugs. Then, to top it off, they spread pictures of his adopted daughter, who was born in Bangladesh and thus dark skinned, to the sons and daughters of the Confederacy in rural South Carolina.

To show he was not just picking on Republicans, he went after Sen. Max Cleland from Georgia, a Democrat seeking re-election. Bush henchmen said he wasn't patriotic because Cleland did not agree 100 percent on how to handle homeland security. They published his picture along with Cuba's Castro, questioning Cleland's patriotism and commitment to America's security. Never mind that his Republican challenger was a Vietnam deferment case and Cleland, who had served in Vietnam, came home in a wheel chair having lost three limbs fighting for his country. Anyone who wants to win an election and control of the legislative body that badly has no moral character at all.

Can anyone imagine a man whose acts have proven his Christianity, Jimmy Carter, using such tactics against his opponent?  Or allowing his surrogates to employ such tactics?  Yet even when asked by former POW, John McCain, who respects Kerry and is his friend, to specifically disavow the Swift Boater’s ads against Kerry, Bush would not.  He knows the ads are not true, he, himself, says Kerry served bravely in Vietnam, yet he refuses to disavow dishonest ads by people who did not serve with Kerry and whose claims, according to the people who were there and to official records are lies.  Former Senator Cook continues:

“We know his father got him in the Texas Air National Guard so he would not have to go to Vietnam. The religious right can have him with those moral standards. We also have Vice President Dick Cheney, who deferred his way out of Vietnam because, as he says, he "had more important things to do."”

Cook also said:

“ I have just turned 78. During my lifetime, we have sent 31,377,741 Americans to war, not including whatever will be the final figures for the Iraq fiasco. Of those, 502,722 died and 928,980 came home without legs, arms or what have you.

Those wars were to defend freedom throughout the free world from communism, dictators and tyrants. Now Americans are the aggressors — we start the wars, we blow up all the infrastructure in those countries, and then turn around and spend tax dollars denying our nation an excellent education system, medical and drug programs, and the list goes on. ...

I hope you all have noticed the Bush administration's style in the campaign so far. All negative, trashing Sen. John Kerry, Sen. John Edwards and Democrats in general. Not once have they said what they have done right, what they have done wrong or what they have not done at all.

Lyndon Johnson said America could have guns and butter at the same time. This administration says you can have guns, butter and no taxes at the same time. God help us if we are not smart enough to know that is wrong, and we live by it to our peril. We in this nation have a serious problem. Its almost worse than terrorism: We are broke. Our government is borrowing a billion dollars a day. They are now borrowing from the government pension program, for apparently they have gotten as much out of the Social Security Trust as it can take. Our House and Senate announce weekly grants for every kind of favorite local programs to save legislative seats, and it's all borrowed money.” http://www.courier-journal.com/cjextra/editorials/2004/10/20/oped-marlow1020-8060.html

Most good Christians I know are humble and seek advice from knowledgeable sources.  They want to know others’ thoughts.  Why is our president so arrogant and belligerent?  Why can he still admit no mistakes, when he and his administration have made so many?  He might, for instance, say he wished he would have paid more attention to the terrorists warnings of 2001.  OR that he wished he would have sent more troops to Iraq to secure its’ borders. OR that perhaps his tax cuts were a mistake.  Or that maybe he should have listened to scientists about the threat of global warming.  But, he only listens to “yes” men and women.

Studies have proven Bush supporters are woefully uninformed about his actual policies.  They also ignore or refuse to admit the fact that Bush lies all the time.  For instance, last July Bush said we went to war with Iraq because Hussein did not let the weapons inspectors in.  The truth, of course, was that the inspectors WERE there, they wanted more time, but Bush pulled them out because he thought he knew where Hussein was and wanted to begin bombing.

Wrong again.

He said we would only go to war with Iraq if inspections didn’t work, but we know he had been intent on war with Iraq since he came into office. Henry Waxman chronicled 237 lies or misleading statements made by the administration about its justification for war in Iraq, and that was many months ago.  Economists decry Bush’s lies about his budgets, and scientists and environmentalists denounce his lies about the environment.  His administration even edited EPA reports that made his policies look bad. 

How many good Christians are serial liars about important things?  Again, recall Jimmy Carter who said he “lusted in his heart” after other women, and who took personal responsibility for the failure of his rescue attempt of the hostages held in Iran.  Not only has Bush not admitted any personal responsibility for the mistakes made in the invasion, against all evidence to the contrary, he has still not admitted any mistakes were made!!

An added question night be why were there four hurricanes in Florida this year?  From what I understand up until the last one, Ivan, at least, they even did more damage to counties that voted for Bush in 2000 than ones that voted for Gore.  I don’t happen to believe God interferes in weather patterns, but people who believe God directs every act do not appear to have spent a lot of time wondering about that. 

My question is, if God is really guiding Bush, why have we gone from prosperity, security, and peace to fewer jobs, fewer people with health care, unending debt and unending war?   Why is the pipeline between God and Bush seemingly so defective??  Or is it God’s intent to punish most among us who are not rich??

Believe me, I can think of many reasons Americans deserve to be punished, although they probably would not jive with the reasons fundamentalist Christians would cite.  But  why would such punishment come under such a “godly” president instead of an ungodly president, as many believe Clinton to have been?  Why does every choice Bush has made seem to have been the wrong one?  Why did America go from being a beacon of light to the world to the most hated nation on earth under Bush?  How is it  any  thinking person can possibly believe that a man who has made billions more people hate us world-wide, especially after Abu Ghraib – another screw-up under Bush -- could possibly be “better” on either terrorism or the Iraq War than John Kerry when he has botched both so badly?

Among those billions of new American haters Bush has created are undoubtedly ones willing to die taking Americans out wherever they find them.  Our soldiers will be the first to experience their rage, as has already been demonstrated.  Most Iraqis did not hate us in the beginning.  More hate us all the time because we are not keeping them safe.

Why did abortions actually go up under Bush after a decade long down turn??  Could it be because abortions always go up during bad economic times?  If Bush really wanted to cut down on the number of abortions, he might foster policies designed to help the poor and the middle class.  If Roe v. Wade were overturned and abortions became illegal again, his rich friends would go abroad to terminate pregnancies.  The poor and middle-class would revert to the sort of back-alley abortions that took place before Roe v. Wade.

Some how or other all of this, no doubt, is Clinton’s fault.  G.W. can not even think of ONE real mistake he has made during his presidency.  And he takes responsibility for nothing.  That has been the one constant in his life.  He has never had to pay for his mistakes.  Because his brother was governor of Florida and because of his daddy’s rich friends, he became president even after losing the election of 2000.  And, as is being demonstrated all over the country, Republican operatives have been working overtime trying to steal the 2004 election for him as well.  How can such dishonest and unethical behavior be of God?

If Bush is elected next week, honestly or dishonestly, and dishonestly seems more likely, we will all find out in a year or two the damage Bush has done to our country.  Unfortunately, the damage from his first four disastrous years will become most apparent in the middle of the next presidential term, be it Kerry or Bush who becomes president.   Economists believe we have some hope of getting out of the mess Bush has gotten us into if Kerry is elected.  If Bush is elected, many say that a South American style fiscal meltdown is inevitable.  Bush’s economic policies are so disastrous they have the IMF concerned. 

If Bush is elected and his  “guidance” over the next four years is as mistaken as it was this four years, God help us all!!

Bio:  Lonna Gooden VanHorn is a mother and grandmother who was so upset by the media’s failure to hold Bush accountable for his words and actions she began writing out of her frustration.

Wednesday, after Kerry is elected president, she hopes to get back to her regular life of dieting and yard work.  If, however, in spite of her efforts,  Bush is elected, her 6 children are already researching sanitariums, but in any case if Bush is elected, she will not diet, as she feels she will need to save all her fat for the eventual famine his presidency will usher in.

Raised on a small farm in Minnesota, she now lives in New Mexico with her husband, a veteran who served 18 months in Vietnam and proudly wears his “veterans for Kerry” button.  She has a journal of things to think about before you vote at: http://criticaltolerance.org/mpl/LonnaJournal.doc