"River of blood, 200 miles long, about four-and-a-half feet deep..."

The journalist Craig Unger was interviewed by Amy Goodman the other day.  His new book, "The Fall of the House of Bush," takes a hard look at the Bush administration and the Christian Right.  As I read the interview, I found myself having an imaginary conversation with Unger who begins by laying out an overview of what the "war on terrorism" is all about.  With apologies to Amy Goodman for barging in on her conversation, here's Unger -- in italics:

I want to try looking at a new paradigm, and that is, I want to examine fundamentalisms, and by that I mean not just Islamic fundamentalism, but Christian and Jewish fundamentalism, as well. And I really throw in neoconservatism as sort of a secular form of fundamentalism, which are in conflict with a modern post-Enlightenment world. And I think that’s a larger conflict that has gotten us into trouble today in the Middle East.

You go, Craig!  That drive towards endless war in the name of "national security" is what no one seems to want to touch.  Genuine security has little if anything to do with it.  The Bush administration is riddled with viral fundamentalism and neo-fundamentalism in the service of wealth and self-aggrandizement, all led by a sicko.  You see Bush's ambitions and wrong-headedness as, in part, an outgrowth of his relationship with his father.

If you look at the current Bush administration, you realize he has put together an administration consisting of some of his father's worst enemies. For example, his father was a very congenial man, had very few bitter enemies, but one of them was certainly Donald Rumsfeld. In addition, his father had very little -- was not terribly fond of the Christian Right, and at one point he called them the “extra chromosome crowd,” a remark for which he had to apologize.

Whether you like Bush Sr.'s politics or not, you have to admit he and his eldest son are chalk and cheese -- totally different.  What's that quote from Bob Strauss who knew both of them well?

Bush Sr. doesn’t know how to strut; George W., Jr., doesn’t know how not to strut.

The potential for a dangerous, long-lasting Bush/Cheney "legacy" scares the hell out of me.  I don't think we can count on any candidate we know about -- so far -- who will be able to dismantle the machinery created by the neo-fundies within the executive branch of government.

What we really see going on here is the putting together of sort of an alternative national security apparatus. We have a $40 billion intelligence apparatus, when you put together the CIA and the various intelligence units in the State Department and the Pentagon and so on. What Cheney was was a brilliant master of the bureaucracy.

Well, and they've virtually destroyed the Republican party.  A lot of younger, angrier liberals either don't know or have forgotten that the Republican party, whether you espoused its politics or not, gave us some very respectable, responsible leaders.  Nixon blew it.  Reagan was even worse.  Bush, Sr., wasn't so bad, but by the time Bush and the master manipulator, Cheney, got into the White House, the Republican party had all but disappeared.  Genuine conservatives been replaced by a group of very arrogant, low-grade radicals with a scary hold on power.

Most of my sources are really Republicans. There are a lot -- at one point, I have nine military and intelligence officials speaking out. They’re lifelong members of the military. Most of them are lifelong Republicans, as well. And they have seen their party seized. Today, the Republican Party is basically a function of the Christian Right or the neoconservatives. In another world, someone like Chuck Hagel would be a serious candidate in the Republican Party. Today, a moderate like Hagel is marginalized within the party. And I think you'll see in the next election, whoever is the Republican candidate is almost certain to be committed to the current policies of George W. Bush.

The Christian conservatives would seem to have less power these days, less strength of will than six years ago.  Is that true?

I traveled undercover with Tim LeHay, who is the prophet of the "Left Behind" series. His books have sold an astonishing 63 million copies. I traveled with him to the battlefield of Armageddon, where they believe the final conflict would take place. And I also did research, and I began to trace it back to its roots, the roots of the Christian Right. And we often talk about the battle of the blue states or the red states or the cultural wars in America. I think it’s actually a much more profound division of faith versus science.

I was walking up the hill [of Megiddo... where, in the Book of Revelations, ...the final conflict will take place ] with LeHay and about ninety of his followers, and as you look over this spectacularly beautiful pastoral valley, you see a valley that, in their view, won’t be so -- they see a vision that is not so bucolic. They see that it will be filled with blood, the blood of as many as two billion people. And I talked with them about that, and they say there will be a river of blood, 200 miles long, about four-and-a-half feet deep. And I asked one of them when all this would take place. And they said, “Very soon, but not soon enough. Any day now.” So they see this fantasy is taking place, and this is sort of one of the horrific visions that is spelled out in the Book of Revelation.

And the greatest fear is that, as they find apocalypse is being unaccountably delayed, they will find ways to bring it about themselves.