Vacationing in Abidjan in happier days, three lillywhite supporters of ex-president Gbagbo’s Christian regime are speaking out against the duly elected Alassane Ouattara, because, well, he’s a Muslim— and the power of Christ compels them, or something. If you want to size up their religious bigotry, you must click it.
Four months after losing an election certified by the international community, Laurent Gbagbo is hunkered down in a bunker underneath his residence, besieged by a host of forces including UN troops, the French military, and his own countryman.
With the International Criminal Court busy preparing indictments for war crimes and crimes against humanity, international pariah Gbagbo can count few allies these days. Among them, however, is an unholy trinity of three influential Americans on the Christian Right: Pat Robertson, Sen. James Inhofe, and Glenn Beck.
On Tuesday, Think Progress described the situation thusly :
Gbagbo is reportedly negotiating a surrender and the conflict, which analysts just days ago feared could spin out of control, could now come to an end within “hours.”
That is, unless some in the American Christian right, who want to turn this into a religious battle, have their way. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) took to the Senate floor yesterday to give a lengthy speech in defense of incumbent Gbagbo and his powerful wife, whom Inhofe called “good friends.” Inhofe painted a picture of the conflict in polar opposition to the facts on the ground, accusing challenger Ouattara of “rigg[ing]” last November’s elections, and ludicrously claiming that Gbagbo’s forces “don’t have any weapons.” Thus, Inhofe demanded an immediate ceasefire in the conflict, even though Gbagbo’s forces have already been routed. Watch a portion of Inhofe’s speech:
Why would Inhofe defend a war criminal tyrant in contradiction to every international human rights organization and his own government? As Salon’s Justin Elliott reported last week, Gbagbo, an evangelical Christian, has “longtime ties to the Christian right in the United States,” in part through a secretive international network of powerful evangelical Christians known as the Fellowship. Inhofe and many of his colleagues have reportedly lived in the Fellowship’s congressional boarding house on C Street in Washington.
You remember The Fellowship, which member and convicted Watergate conspirator Charles Colson once described as a “veritable underground of Christ’s men all through the U.S. government.” Those would include family values champion Nev. Senator John Ensign (R), whose mummy and daddy paid a former staffer $96,000 in hush money to cover up his extra-marital affair; former Republican Congressman and family values champion, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford (R), who went incommunicado for four days, ostensibly while hiking the Appalachian Trail when he was really climbing all over his Argentine mistress; and a host of present and former members of Congress, as well as “corporate executives, heads of religious and humanitarian aid organizations, and ambassadors and high ranking politicians from across the world.”
IOKIYAEC– It’s Ok If You’re An Evangelical Christian. Especially if the opponent happens to be a Muslim.
People are always talking about countries they don’t know. Always accusing others without facts… just based upon what some so-called media reported from a hotel room by the sea shore.
If you knew the Ivory Coast, you would have know who mister Gbagbo is, and what is stands for, and aslo who Ouattara is, and all his rebels have done since they invaded the country in September 2002.
Please do your homework before posting stuff and talking about things you have no clue about…
And for your information, mister Ouattara is not even a Muslim.
Talking about Pat Robertson, Sen. James Inhofe, and Glenn Beck, they can speak for themselves. I only speak for the people of the Ivory Coast.
Hi Mike:
You wrote:
“People are always talking about countries they don’t know. Always accusing others without facts… just based upon what some so-called media reported from a hotel room by the sea shore.”
You’ve said “always” twice in two consecutive sentences. While I’ll grant you that some reporters spend a lot of their around the hotel pool and the bar when they should be out doing actual reporting, I can’t believe that ALL of them do that ALWAYS. Just saying.
“If you knew the Ivory Coast, you would have know who mister Gbagbo is, and what is stands for, and aslo who Ouattara is, and all his rebels have done since they invaded the country in September 2002.”
Sounds like your guy lost the election– sorry about that. Happens to me all the time.
And you’re right– I don’t know much about either man or their politics. The point of the post was to highlight the role that a group of American Christian supremacists played in trying to influence the election, of trying to prevent the replacement of their guy with a man whose supporters are largely Muslims. You may not be aware of it, but there is a growing anti-Islamic movement here in the USA, and its not just a few crazy bigots on the fringe that are trying to gin up a conflict with the whole Muslim world but highly influential politicians, Christian evangelists, and a large chunk of the media establishment.
BTW, it’s not clear to me how rebels can invade their own country, but whatever.
“Please do your homework before posting stuff and talking about things you have no clue about. And for your information, mister Ouattara is not even a Muslim.”
Then you might want to correct the BBC, which lists him as one. And while you’re at it, his Wikipedia entry too, which says: “He is a descendant from his fathers side of the Muslim rulers of the Kong Empire, also known as the Wattara or Ouattara Empire.” I may be wrong, but as I understand the tenets of the Muslim religion, if his father was a Muslim and he was raised as a Muslim, he’s a Muslim. Unless he converted to another relgion. Did he? And do his Muslim followers know about it? If that’s the case, I suspect he’s in big trouble.
“Talking about Pat Robertson, Sen. James Inhofe, and Glenn Beck, they can speak for themselves. I only speak for the people of the Ivory Coast.”
Wow. Mike Mo speaks for the people of the Ivory Coast. Impressive. I had no idea you were so honored in your own country. Are you like a pope or a president or something?
that picture is just scary. 😯 the c street house might be empty, but its legacy lives on. i wonder where they have their meetings now. any caves in d.c.?
Don’t the Three Ivory Amigos come from the Elephants’ Graveyard?