The Iraq war was - and still is - a religious crusade

(from Kevin Phillips, author of American Theocracy: The Perils and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century, via Steve Clemons at The Washington Note...)

not that we don't intuitively know this, but it's always good to have it backed up by someone who knows what he's talking about...

Richard Cizik of the National Association of Evangelicals noted in 2003 that since the break-up of the USSR, "evangelicals have substituted Islam for the Soviet Union. The Muslims have become the modern-day equivalent of the Evil Empire."

you don't have to read very many wing-nut blogs to run across the term "islamofascism..." maneuvering to get the political support of this constituency was a natural ploy for satan's very own right-hand man, karl rove...

Because such beliefs concentrate among very pro-Bush evangelicals, fundamentalists, and Pentecostals, my [Kevin Phillips] estimate is that some 55 percent of the people who voted for Bush in 2000 would have told pollsters about believing in the end times and Armageddon.

and, as we know all too well, manipulating the "end-times evangelicals," for rove, was like shooting fish in a barrel...

[This] huge chunk of Bush voters would want to view the U.S. attempt to topple Saddam Hussein in terms of the war of good versus evil. Weapons of mass destruction were a prop but collateral to the larger biblical context. Invading Iraq would evoke that context because Saddam was one of the evil ones -- maybe the Evil One, given his Babylon tie-in. Toppling him could aspire to biblical interpretation. Aiding Israel was also biblically vital. Bush had already carved out a related, overarching "good versus evil" posture with his heavily religious post-9/11 rhetoric.

all of which would explain why, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary and the absence, in most cases, of any rational thought, these folks are still rabidly and slavishly supporting dear leader...

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