March 13, 2003

Politics: This Bible Sh*t is Getting Outta Hand

In case you missed it (and how did Oliver and I both opt not to blog on it?), the Air Force tested out just about the biggest goddamn bomb you've ever seen the other day. News reports actually called it "the largest non-nuclear bomb in the world," so we're obviously not screwing around. This in itself is the kind of disturbing thing you would expect our military to do, whether they were honestly preparing for war or just jacking around in the desert, right? Right.

But I want to put on my totally insane conspiracy theorist tin-foil hat for a second, okay? The name of the bomb is "Massive Ordnance Air Blast," or MOAB for short. Some have, as this hyperbolic New York Post item did, dubbed the bomb the "Mother of All Bombs," which also shortens to MOAB.

But the guy under the tinfoil hat can't help but notice what had better be a coincidence. Or maybe it's not.

There are a whole slew of websites and even a book positing that Saddam Hussein is the Antichrist and whatnot. Most of the people aren't just afraid of Hussein, they are actually getting all lathered up for the end of the world, presumably the rapture, and the final whatever that evangelicals are always talking about.

Of course, many of the Bush administration's biggest wigs are in fact nutso envagelicals with all kinds of rapture/endtime personal beliefs, which I couldn't even begin to understand. (I learned alot about these whack-jobs in Gershom Gorenberg's excellent review/explanation of Tim Lahaye's "Left Behind" book series.)

The intersection of these two threads is clear when you read some biblical quotes. Moab was the son (or in some cases, the grandson) of Lot. Lot, you may remember, had his wife turned into a pillar of salt after the two of them fled the hot sex and good times of Sodom and Gomorrah. Anyhow, the land of Moab is present-day Jordan. It is said that Lord communicated to the Israelites (dictating, it turns out, the book of Deuteronomy) through Moses in the land of Moab. It is also said that Moab was the place the Israelites pitched their final camp before entering the promised land.

In any case, it seems pretty clear that somebody in the government thought that a freaky biblical name would be a good way to wink at all the other evangelicals out there, and spook anybody who dug deep enough, or happened to be a dweller in the area. Rummy has already admitted that the bomb, and the earth-shattering test that occurred at Eglin Air Force base were mostly a psy-ops production. (Incidentally, my wife and I were married on property owned by the USAF adjacent to Eglin, and we had our reception at the Eglin Officer's Club)

The mention of Moab is generally made to talk about conversion: Ruth in the bible left Moab and converted from her religion to the religion of the chosen people. Another frequent reference to Moab is that staging area-affect. The Mormons named the Utah city of Moab to symbolize the border of the promised land; Moab is also the only major Utah city on the Colorado River, as the biblical land of Moab was on the banks of the Jordan. In both references, the idea seems vaguely hostile to non-Christians, and at the least a ham-handed way of cramming a little bit of Christian dogma into our bombs.

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