One nation, under water

First, W referred to our struggle against Islamic terrorists as a “crusade.”

Now Karen Hughes, our PR in the mideast, shows her profound lack of understanding of the Islam-US relations, and in doing so plays into the hands of extremists.

While addressing a group of Egyptian dignitaries, Hughes asserted that "Many people around the world do not understand the important role that faith plays in Americans' lives,"

When asked by an Egyptian opposition leader why Bush mentions God in his speeches so much, Hughes asked him "whether he was aware that previous American presidents have also cited God, and that our Constitution cites 'one nation under God.'”

Of course, our Constitution says nothing of the sort. She is confusing the CONSTITUTION, the document our government is based upon, with the PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE, a ditty written by a speechwriter for President Harrison, who, engaged in a little PR campaign of his own, sought to counter a similar pledge written by a NYC official for their public schools. The NYC official’s pledge contains the line “We give our Heads - and our Hearts -to God and our Country,” whereas the original Pledge of Allegiance proclaimed by Harrison did NOT mention god. The author of Harrison’s pledge was a Freemason and a supporter of the strict separation between church and state. The phrase “under God” was inserted in 1954, back when the godless communists were going to invade our country and overrun us with godforsaken godless no-goddity.

Remember?

Wolverines!!!!

Anyhoo…Sidney Blumenthal effectively elucidates why Karen and the rest of the god people should shut the fuck up already:

With these well-meaning arguments, Hughes has provided the exact proof for what Osama bin Laden has claimed about American motives. "It is stunning ... the extent [to which] Hughes is helping bin Laden," Robert Pape told me. Pape, a University of Chicago political scientist who has conducted the most extensive research into the backgrounds and motives of suicide terrorists, is the author of "Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism," and recently briefed the Pentagon and the National Counterterrorism Center. "If you set out to help bin Laden," he said, "you could not have done it better than Hughes."

Pape's research debunks the view that suicide terrorism is the natural byproduct of Islamic fundamentalism or some "Islamo-fascist" ideological strain independent of certain highly specific circumstances. "Of the key conditions that lead to suicide terrorism in particular, there must be, first, the presence of foreign combat forces on the territory that the terrorists prize. The second condition is a religious difference between the combat forces and the local community. The religious difference matters in that it enables terrorist leaders to paint foreign forces as being driven by religious goals. If you read Osama's speeches, they begin with descriptions of the U.S. occupation of the Arabian Peninsula, driven by our religious goals, and that it is our religious purpose that must confronted. That argument is incredibly powerful not only to religious Muslims but secular Muslims. Everything Hughes says makes their case."…

…Hughes' trip "would be a folly," Pape says, "were it not so dangerous."