YOUR VIEWS

THE appearance of Blair in front of the Chilcot enquiry proved to be somewhat of a non event with Blair sticking to his, “I knew best” and “no regrets” platform.

I was extremely disappointed that none of the panel pressed to quiz him on his almost messianic belief that war appeared to be the only course of action to him.

In 2003 while lobbying leaders to put together the Coalition of the Willing, President Bush spoke to France's President Jacques Chirac. Bush wove a story about how the Biblical creatures Gog and Magog were at work in the Middle East and how they must be defeated.

In Genesis and Ezekiel Gog and Magog are forces of the Apocalypse who are prophesied to come out of the north and destroy Israel unless stopped.
The Book of Revelation took up the Old Testament prophesy: “And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.” Bush believed the time had now come for that battle, telling Chirac, “This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people's enemies before a New Age begins”.

The story of the conversation emerged only because the Elyse Palace, baffled by Bush's words, sought advice from Thomas Romer, a professor of theology at the University of Lausanne.

The story has now been confirmed by Chirac himself in a new book, published in France.
Chirac is said to have been stupefied and disturbed by Bush's invocation of Biblical prophesy to justify the war in Iraq and, “wondered how someone could be so superficial and fanatical in their beliefs”.

Now, with the hindsight that Blair was more than wobbling towards the Catholic church at the time of the invasion of Iraq, it is not beyond belief that the obviously receptive Blair wasn't subjected to the same fire and brimstone sermon by Bush during their cosy, private, prayer sharing chats! To both of them (and to the millions of other nutters who use “God” as an excuse for conflict) I would quote, “There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life”.

Yours,

John Rule
Sol de Mallorca