05/26/09 – Clive Hamilton – The Scott Horton Show

For Antiwar.com, I'm Scott Horton.
This is Antiwar Radio.
And our next guest on the show today is Clive Hamilton.
He's the former executive director of the Australia Institute.
And he's got this article at Counterpunch that is going to knock your socks off.
Bush, God, Iraq, and Gog.
Welcome to the show, Clive.
How are you?
I'm fine, Scott.
Thank you for joining us on the show today.
Sure.
What the heck is a Gog?
Well, Gog and Magog are two creatures or evil forces that feature in both the Old Testament and the New Testament, especially in the book of Ezekiel.
And according to the Bible, although it's pretty confused and you can get different stories, but Gog and Magog are the forces of the apocalypse who are going to come out of the north, somewhere north of the Middle East, and invade.
And unless they're stopped, they're going to destroy Israel.
And Gog and Magog have been the basis for quite a lot of Christian fundamentalist millenarian belief about the apocalypse for quite some years now.
And the scary thing is that George Bush believed in it.
Well, let me put that question on hold for a minute and go through some of this story here.
Again, the article is at counterpunch.org.
Bush, God, Iraq, and Gog.
And the story is about a conversation that George Bush Jr. had with France's president, Jacques Chirac.
Tell us what happened here and when.
What was it, 2003, when Bush was trying to get France to go along with the war.
Is that right?
That's right.
George Bush Jr. spoke to a number of world leaders, including President Jacques Chirac.
And according to information which has only recently started to emerge, and so far only in France and written in French, George Bush told President Chirac that he believed that going to war against Saddam Hussein in Iraq was a fight against the forces of Gog and Magog.
George Bush seemed to believe that this was the start of the apocalypse and that he, George Bush, had been chosen by God to resist the forces of Gog and Magog so that they could not destroy Israel.
And of course, Chirac was completely mystified by this crazy stuff that the leader of the free world was telling him and was completely unpersuaded, of course.
That's funny, I haven't heard anybody call America the leader of the free world in so long.
That was nice.
I'm sorry, go ahead.
Indeed.
The leader of the free world believes, apparently, in his biblical prophecy and his unique role in seeing the whole thing play out and stopping it happening.
So what happened was Chirac, who was, as I say, stupefied by this conversation he'd had with President Bush, asked his advisors what the hell it was all about.
They had no idea.
And so they decided to consult a leading theologian, a professor of theology, at the University of Lausanne, called Thomas Romer.
And so Romer wrote a report to the Elysee Palace, that is, Chirac's public servants, explaining about Gog and Magog and what Bush must have meant.
And it was only in 2007 that this extraordinary story appeared in public when Romer, Thomas Romer, gave an interview to the magazine of his university in which he spilled the beans on Bush's apocalyptic vision.
Well now, I have a friend who watches the Sunday morning TV preacher Jack Van Impey, simply for carnage purposes, he calls it, for the comedy of it.
And he says that when Jack Van Impey, who I think is a pretty standard TV evangelist crazy, when he talks about Gog and Magog, he's talking about Russia or the European Union or China, or something, nation states that these names stand for.
Do you have any indication whether Bush was talking about some demons loose on earth he believes in, like completely magic, or this is, to him, a metaphor for, I don't know, Hezbollah in southern Lebanon?
I'm not sure exactly, or do you know or have any idea what he was getting at really there?
Well, asking someone to work out what was going on in George Bush's mind is cruel and unusual punishment.
But particularly as the story of Gog and Magog, if you go and look in the various books of the Bible, it's very confused and there's really no consistent story.
Some people do interpret Gog and Magog as being Russia, you know, it's the country from the north.
It's very uncertain from what we can gather from the information available.
Bush saw Saddam Hussein and remember that Bush believed, although there was no evidence of this whatever, that Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein were in cahoots.
So in going into Iraq, you know, perhaps Saddam was Gog and Al-Qaeda was Magog.
I mean, who can tell, but we do know that Bush did talk about the need to go into Iraq with the military to stop Gog and Magog.
So what sort of crazy connection he was making, who knows?
Well, see, this is where, you know, obviously there are other stories like this.
He told Pat Robertson, apparently, we're not going to have a single casualty there.
You know, this whole thing is going to be magic.
And he told a Palestinian parliamentarian or something, I think, that he was on a mission from God like the Blues Brothers or that kind of thing.
But I wonder when I hear these stories whether this isn't just Junior trying to talk smart by repeating something he heard somewhere or something.
You know what I mean?
I do, but I think also, and this is just pure speculation, we do know that George Bush used to hit the bottle pretty hard.
And when he went on the wagon, he discovered Christianity at the same time.
And does appear to have really swallowed a whole box full of fundamentalist views, including apocalyptic prophecy.
So from what we know, I think it's fair to assume that Bush really did believe this stuff.
And yeah, he didn't have a bottle of Jack Daniels when he was talking about it like the Blues Brothers.
But, you know, he was drunk on the word of God, perhaps.
And so when you start talking to world leaders about being on a mission from God, obviously that makes people very concerned.
Particularly if, in the Middle East, you believe that the United States does see itself on some sort of crusade.
Because, as you know, religious sensitivities are extremely tricky in the Middle East, and George Bush seems to have inflamed them.
I'm talking with Clive Hamilton.
He's a visiting professor at Yale University.
And again, he's got this article at Counterpunch Bush, God, Iraq and Gog.
And I think I want to focus more on the sincerity of this.
I'm not necessarily disputing your conclusion.
I'm not certain myself what to believe about this.
But, well, like in Oliver Stone's movie W, they have him saying, I'm never going to get out-Christianed again.
Because that's what happened when he first ran for Congress, is the other guy out-Christianed him.
Because he was an Episcopalian from Connecticut and not a real Southern Methodist like the people who he was trying to get the votes of.
And so this was simply just a cynical political ploy all along.
And I just saw something not too long ago that said that virtually the whole time this man was present, despite what all these pro-torture Bush-worshipping Republicans out there think, he hardly ever went to church the whole time he was in D.C.
And the few times he did, he went to Episcopal church.
Look, I think that's a fair point.
And undoubtedly, the reasons for going to war were much more complicated.
Undoubtedly, they were going after what they saw as enemies of the United States.
Undoubtedly, the protection of oil supplies was part of the motivation.
But I think a good case can be made that Bush was in part motivated by these religious considerations.
I mean, think about it.
Assuming this story of Chirac is true, and the sources are very good, so I think it is true.
Why would you try to persuade a French president to join the war by talking about Gog and Magog?
I mean, that's a surefire way to turn off any sensible person, isn't it?
You'd think this guy's crazy.
So I think that was part of it.
And I think he was, although there are other reasons.
And of course, the people behind him, like Rumsfeld and Cheney, didn't fall for all this religious mumbo jumbo.
And they were the ones, of course, pushing it.
But I think Bush himself probably did entertain these apocalyptic views.
The question is, I suppose, whether the tremendous defeat that he suffered has caused him to change his mind.
To change his mind, I read in a journal of record, a pretty poor one, I must say, the other day, that George Bush is sitting down there on his ranch, deeply depressed and having suicidal thoughts.
Wouldn't that be great if he did a row and jumped off of something tall?
Pardon me for thinking out loud like that all over your interview.
Well, I have to say, when I read about former President Roh of South Korea committing suicide, I did feel concerned about George Bush down there.
According to this story I read in The Globe, which is a sort of trashy supermarket magazine, Laura has left him and he's gone back on the bottle.
Oh, I don't know about all that.
I think it's probably just made up.
But it has a sort of ring of credibility.
Well, I wouldn't worry about him committing suicide.
Because unlike Roh, who had honor and said that the reason he was killing himself was because of all the harm he had caused other people.
Those kinds of thoughts would never occur to George Bush Jr.
He'll live to be 95 or better, I'm sure.
And here's the thing, too.
In this article, there's the direct quote, I guess, or the paraphrase by way of Jacques Chirac.
This confrontation is willed by God, who wants us to use this conflict to erase his people's enemies before a new age begins.
So, is this a reference to the Third Temple kind of thing in Israel?
I don't even really know what all that means.
But it seems like there's a bunch of right-wing religious kooks in Israel and in America who are trying to push for Armageddon and the next stage of, you know, how life on Earth shall be after the next part of the Bible comes true, whether it's a complete apocalypse or something else.
Yes, I mean, that quote comes from, well, the paraphrase out of an interview that Chirac did with a French journalist, which appears in a book in French, which came out in March of this year.
So, let's hope it gets translated into English.
But it's a horrible fact that there are some kooky fundamentalists out there, both Christian and Islamic ones, who believe that war is a necessary cleansing process, who actually welcome war with all of its horrors.
Now, it's hard for normal people to credit that anyone could believe that.
But if you think you're acting on behalf of a greater power, or there are greater forces being played out with a degree of inevitability as per a prophecy, then it's possible to welcome war.
And when you see very influential people in the United States, certainly in the Bush administration, and in Israel, thinking this way, we really do have to be very, very scared.
Well, and you know, pardon me, because I know this is a little bit kooky, but, hey, you brought it up in your article.
Bush and his father and his grandfather are all members of something called the Order of Skull and Bones at Yale.
And Bush Sr., you say in your article, his skull and bones name is Magog.
And, you know, I guess, mostly my view of skull and bones is, you know, this is a bunch of very rich waspy types who make sure to give each other a lot of jobs.
And protect each other, and that kind of thing.
But this does raise the question of whether there's some kind of, you know, religious intention behind even, like, the Bush Sr. view of the world.
And whether this is, in fact, a religious war.
Maybe when the, you know, Osama Bin Laden and the terrorists say, hey, this is a war against Islam, and cite all the evidence that they say points to that, maybe they are actually, you know, right about that, you know?
No, Scott, I think your characterization of the Skull and Bones Society is a correct one.
And there isn't a religious element to it.
And I'll tell you why.
Yes, George Bush Sr.'s nickname in the Skull and Bones Society was Magog.
But there's a tradition in the Skull and Bones Society.
When they welcome a new group of juniors who are becoming seniors, and, you know, there are only about 15 of them that get tapped on the shoulder each year.
There are certain nicknames that are passed on from year to year.
And the person coming into the Skull and Bones Society who is regarded as being most sexually promiscuous is given the name Magog.
And the person who is regarded as being most sexually inexperienced is given the name Gog.
So George Bush Sr. seems to have had a bit of a playboy reputation.
And so when he got into Skull and Bones, he got the name Magog.
Well, yeah, that's interesting.
I guess, you know, the Episcopalians...
See, I'm not really an expert in religious stuff, because I don't have a religion myself, and I don't really care about, you know, what other people believe.
That's their business.
So I haven't really taken an interest in all this stuff.
But I guess I sort of believe or conceive that the Episcopalians, like the richer and whiter you are, the less you really believe in this stuff.
And it's more just about pomp and circumstance and, you know, relationships between people.
Look, I think there's a strong element of that, that it becomes a question of social obligation and conformity, which is why, you know, it's consistent for Bush.
Bush doesn't like...
There is W.
He doesn't like to talk about Skull and Bones or Yale, because he really has repudiated that whole, you know, WASP, East Coast, Yale, ruling class type of background, which he grew up in.
Because remember, he reinvented himself as a good old Texas boy and started mixing not with the Episcopalians, but with the fundamentalists.
I mean, for cynical political reasons and business reasons, let's face it.
That's why we see Bush, who sort of went the other way towards the fundamentalist end.
He did it for social and political reasons.
And undoubtedly, at the higher ranks of the Episcopalian church, they're appalled and afraid of the type of view that Bush represents as we are.
And by the way, you're a visiting professor there at Yale.
What's the deal with Skull and Bones nowadays?
It seems like it's, you know, in the age of the Internet, there's no secret about it, right?
And anybody who wants to know about that kind of thing can learn all about it.
Is it still the richest, widest sons who get tapped to run that thing, or is it pretty much just a joke nowadays, or what?
Well, both of those.
Richest, widest, and most conformist, although they do try to tap a couple of types of people you wouldn't expect.
You know, they'll make sure they get one person of color, and they'll get a woman if they can.
And so they sort of pretend to be a bit more diverse.
But really, it's a breeding ground for future leaders and clans.
But I think that a lot of people laugh at it, but it's also true that a lot of juniors in Yale would love to be tapped to become members of it, because, you know, if you're interested in self-promotion, making a lot of money and becoming politically powerful, it's a very good stepping stone to that objective.
All right.
Well, I was going to refer back to the kind of ridiculousness of Bush saying this to Jacques Chirac, of all people, that, you know, I guess you were saying that's an implication to you that he really did believe in this, or else what the hell would he be talking about to say something like that to Chirac?
But it seems like even George Bush would know better to say that, even if he really did believe it to somebody like that.
I mean, I could see saying that to the guys in Lubbock kind of under your breath.
All right, guys, this is the real deal here, is we're fighting the forces of the devil.
Are you going to tell that to the President of France?
Well, the story's a pretty credible one.
And I must say, as an Australian, and bearing in mind that Australia joined the Coalition of the Willing, we were one of the first to sign up, I asked myself whether our former Prime Minister, John Howard, also heard the Gog and Magog spiel from George W.and went into this war all the same.
It makes me pretty damn scared that my country could go into a war partly on the basis of these sort of crazy apocalyptic visions.
Of course, there are other reasons that countries went into that war, but certainly, like Chirac, it did make you very nervous about joining that sort of coalition.
Yeah, you know, that's what really does creep me out, because this is the kind of thing where, you know, like they have the same special, they change it every time to make it fit, but the same special they always do on TV, you know, year after year about Nostradamus.
And basically, like, this is that level of understanding of the world.
Like, oh, Nostradamus said something was going to happen or something.
And this is basically, you know, the president of the biggest empire in the world.
I know, and it's frightening.
You'd think that there'd be a sort of rationality filter, that as people rise up through the political ranks, the kooks and the crazies would be filtered out.
Somehow there seems to have been a big hole in the filter that W managed to squeeze through.
Yeah, Bill Moyers said, the delusional is no longer marginal.
That's the worst thing.
Yeah.
Yeah, and of course, it was because of his family connections he was able to be the one.
Well, and some powerful business interests that could see, and political interests that could see that here is a person that could potentially be president, and who would fulfill our ambitions better than anyone else.
So there's no doubt, you don't have to be a conspiracist to see what was going on politically in the way in which George W.was the perfect person to carry through the plans and interests of some very powerful business and political elites.
Yep.
Well, a million dead Iraqis and counting, and at least tens of thousands of dead Afghans, and tens of thousands of dead Somalis, and I guess we'll just try to keep score on how many more innocent people have to die for this ridiculous nonsense.
I mean, we might as well be talking about Zeus throwing lightning bolts from Mount Olympus at this point.
I don't mean to ridicule people's religions, but jeez, this is pretty ridiculous.
Well, for my money, Zeus throwing thunderbolts has more credibility than Gog and Magog.
No doubt.
It sure seems like it.
I mean, at least we can see lightning in the sky, right?
Yeah, indeed.
Indeed.
And the Greeks were more sensible than the Christian apocalyptic visionaries of the pre-Christ era.
All right.
Well, listen, I really appreciate your time on the show today, Clive.
It's been great.
Thanks, Scott.
All right, everybody, that's Clive Hamilton, visiting professor at Yale University, and the article is at Alex Coburn's Bush, God, Iraq, and Gog.
We'll be right back.