Bush's Praetorian Guard

On Sunday afternoon on C-Span's book TV, I heard author Chris Hedges discuss his book, “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America” . He listed the inroads the Christian right has made into various national institutions. The far right social agenda was familiar - anti-women, anti-gay, anti-science, xenophobic. But what really got my attention was the chilling description of the increasingly military / para-military nature of the movement. According to Hedges, the militant right has been emboldened during the past six years of the Bush presidency to flex its muscles not just in the figurative sense but literally - with combat style vigilante activities. They aggressively spread their message among the police and the military (often through the chaplaincy); they are in Iraq as brutal mercenaries not answerable to any governmental authority; and most surprising for me, they apparently patrolled the streets of New Orleans after Katrina, as heavily armed self appointed "law & order" officers. Makes you wonder who is in charge of our local police precincts.

An excerpt from Hedges' account of America's Holy Warriors:

"During the past two years I traveled across the country to research and write the book “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.” I repeatedly listened to radical preachers attack as corrupt and godless most American institutions, from federal agencies that provide housing and social welfare to public schools and the media.  But there were two institutions that never came under attack—the military and law enforcement.  While these preachers had no interest in communicating with local leaders of other faiths, or those in the community who did not subscribe to their call for a radical Christian state, they assiduously courted and flattered the military and police.  They held special services and appreciation days for all four branches of the armed services and for various law enforcement agencies.  They encouraged their young men and women to enlist or to join the police or state troopers.  They sought out sympathetic military and police officials to attend church events where these officials were lauded and feted for their Christian probity and patriotism.  They painted the war in Iraq not as an occupation but as an apocalyptic battle by Christians against Islam, a religion they regularly branded as “satanic.” All this befits a movement whose final aesthetic is violence.  It also befits a movement that, in the end, would need the military and police forces to seize power in American society. 

One of the arguments used to assuage our fears that the mass movement being built by the Christian right is fascist at its core is that it has not yet created a Praetorian Guard, referring to the paramilitary force that defied legal constraints, made violence part of the political discourse and eventually plunged ancient Rome into tyranny and despotism.  A paramilitary force that operates outside the law, one that sows fear among potential opponents and is capable of physically silencing those branded by their leaders as traitors, is a vital instrument in the hands of despotic movements.  Communist and fascist movements during the last century each built paramilitary forces that operated beyond the reach of the law. 

And yet we may be further down this road than we care to admit.  Erik Prince, the secretive, mega-millionaire, right-wing Christian founder of Blackwater, the private security firm that has built a formidable mercenary force in Iraq, champions his company as a patriotic extension of the U.S. military.  His employees, in an act as cynical as it is deceitful, take an oath of loyalty to the Constitution.  These mercenary units in Iraq, including Blackwater, contain some 20,000 fighters.  They unleash indiscriminate and wanton violence against unarmed Iraqis, have no accountability and are beyond the reach of legitimate authority.  The appearance of these paramilitary fighters, heavily armed and wearing their trademark black uniforms, patrolling the streets of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, gave us a grim taste of the future.  It was a stark reminder that the tyranny we impose on others we will one day impose on ourselves."