Tom Fox, a member of the non-missionary Christian Peacekeeping Team, was the genuine article. We know this beyond all doubt by the way Tom Fox lived his life; by his long devotion to the causes that mattered to him. Being Christian amid a sea of impostors cannot be easy. It is dangerous work. As in the case of Christ himself, it may lead to crucifixion. Real Christians, as exemplified by the CPT, will always find themselves in formal opposition to U.S. policies of global domination and empire. But the apostles of wealth and empire, those who merely claim to be Christian, will sanction these same polices and proclaim they are the work of God. They are not.

Mr. Fox was executed by his captors in Iraq. His body turned up late last week with bullets to the head and chest. The fate of his fellow captives remains unknown. Execution, accentuated by possible torture, was a fate that Tom Fox did not deserve; but he, as a man of faith, willingly incurred the risk of doing God's work amid so much godlessness and ruin. But this is where the rubber meets the road, so to speak.

By all accounts, Tom Fox lived a life exemplified by his gentle soul, a generosity of spirit and strength that endeared him to his peers-traits of character that led him to a life of service not to his country, but to his God. Religion does not recognize, nor is it constrained by nationality or geopolitical boundaries. Unfortunately, that is rarely how it is taught here.

Tom Fox's beliefs were stated in the CPT's statement of Conviction: "We reject the use of violent force to save our lives should we be kidnapped, held hostage, or caught in the middle of a violent conflict situation. We also reject violence to punish anyone who harms us. We ask for equal justice in the arrest and trial of anyone, soldier or civilian, who commits an act of violence, and we ask that there be no retaliation on their relatives or property. We forgive those who consider us their enemies. Therefore, any penalty should be in the spirit of restorative justice, rather than in the form of violent retribution." Love thy neighbor. Tom lived and died by this biblical credo.

Contrast this mission statement, signed by Tom Fox, with the actions of George Bush. Consider the scale of the horror and bloodshed this man has wrought on hundreds of thousands of innocent people. Ponder, if you can, the unspeakable horror he has visited upon countless thousands of families, under the fallacious moral authority of a stolen Christianity he neither owns nor comprehends. It is plain to see who the Christian is and who is the impostor.

In a piece called "Fight or Flight?" written on November 30, 2005, Tom Fox made an important distinction between real Christians and the much more common impostors who misuse religion to serve empire and material conquest. He wrote, "The French theologian Rene Girard has a very powerful vision of Satan that speaks to me: Satan sustains himself as a parasite on what God creates by imitating God in a manner that is jealous, grotesque, perverse and as contrary as possible to the loving and obedient imitation of Jesus."

How could any words define George Bush and his followers more perfectly or succinctly? What must Tom Fox have thought of this evil little man? No doubt, his reaction was not one of malice or hatred; but of pity and forgiveness. It requires inner strength and a generous spirit to forgive such malicious behavior-strength of character that I find sadly lacking in myself most of the time. Tom Fox was a far better man than I.

The astute observations of Rene Girard that so impressed Tom Fox defines exactly what George Bush, Pat Robertson, and Jerry Falwell are. They are parasites of God masquerading as men of God for evil purposes. They imitate God in order to fool their sheepish cohorts into following what are in essence satanic policies. Their motives are betrayed by their hateful rhetoric, by acts of unprovoked violence against innocent civilians and the systematic killing of hope. Their allegiance is to Satan, not to God, as they profess.

Have we become so indoctrinated by the language of empire that we can no longer see the disconnect between these acts of terror and the non-violent teachings of Christ? Why are so many who call themselves Christians worshiping the parasites of god and empire, while shunning and betraying the genuine article?

George Bush, Pat Robertson, Falwell and the rest, have not so cleverly donned the garments of Christianity in order to deliberately mislead their helpless flocks, to press them into the service of Satan, while convincing them they are doing the will of God. Bush, just as he did when he appeared on the deck of that air craft carrier years ago wearing a leather flight jacket, betrays his ignorance about what the wearing of such garments entails. Donning an air force flight jacket does not make one a warrior, although it may make them look like one. Neither does donning the robes of Christianity make a man Christian, a servant of god.

Tom Fox understood the kind of devotion and service to humanity, particularly to the poor and the oppressed, that wearing the garments of Christianity required. Bush, a man born of wealth and privilege has no conception about what it means to labor, to sacrifice and to serve others. He is all about serving those of his kind-the enemies of peace, the violent oppressors of the poor and the just. Bush, like his predecessors, is taking from the poor and giving to the rich; he is fomenting violence and death all over the world-his actions, his life, cannot be reconciled in any way with the teachings of Jesus Christ. Bush is an apostle of class elitism, of wealth and empire, not of god.

Just as when he donned that flight jacket years ago-a jacket he did not earn the right to wear with honor by service-Bush dishonored all of those who genuinely earned theirs'. Similarly, he dishonors true Christians, men like Tom Fox, each time he dons the mere garments of Christianity and uses them in the service of Satan and empire building. Tom Fox devoted his life to the service of his god by intervening on behalf of the oppressed and the traumatized-the victims of George Bush's military machine. A man cannot serve two masters.

It is difficult to fathom how easily people of faith can allow themselves to be deceived by the cheap imitations embodied by George Bush and his followers. We must learn the difference between the parasites of God and the servants of God-the two bear no resemblance to one another. It requires not only gross ignorance to brazenly don the garments of religion, without the years of service and self sacrifice they require of their wearer-it requires enormous hubris and contempt for integrity and honor. Balls without brains and conscience is a pitiful and grotesque sight.

Beware of any man who relies upon tricks and illusions to persuade people to follow him. That man is without substance-without heart and soul. Truth and justice are his enemies. He will go to great lengths to destroy them because they are all that keep him afloat upon the sea of lies he has created around himself. Such men sneak and cower and operate in secrecy. They must cloak their sinister purposes in euphemistic language to keep their crimes hidden from humanity. They are not what they appear to be. They don the garments of religion, the clothes of human decency, to conceal who they really are. Judge them not by what they say, by the clothes they wear; but by what they do and whom they serve. Follow the money trail and you will know who they are. They are fattened camels expecting to pass through the eye of a needle.

It is not hard to tell the real Christians from the parasites of God. Contrast the lives of Tom Fox and George Bush. Nothing in the personal history of George Bush suggests anything other than a parasitic connection to God. Hubris, sadism, the exploitation and abuse of others, are not characteristics of a man of god. They are a contradiction of God, an abomination. The president is a pathetic little stooge in pursuit of wealth and temporary power. History will not remember him kindly. By contrast, Tom Fox was a man of God who willingly gave his life trying to undo the damage caused by Bush and his followers. God will not confuse them and neither should we.

In fact, Mr. Bush lacks the grounding in reality to know the difference between playing soldier and being a soldier. Likewise, he believes that donning the mere robes of Christianity, without doing the often painful work required of Christianity makes him an apostle of Jesus. Only in America could such a pathetic, shallow, moronic imbecile become president. One wonders when this comic tragedy will end and how many will be dead when it does.

Charles Sullivan is a photographer, social activist and free lance writer living in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia. He can be reached at earthdog@highstream.net.

"We are not rushing to make him a saint... and are not calling on pilgrims to worship it," he added.

Despite attempts by Church officials to play down the incident, media coverage of the deceased monk, Vissarion Korkoliakos, has led thousands of people to flock to the site where the body is kept.

Church authorities had summoned four local doctors and an Athens coroner to explain the alleged phenomenon. However, experts could only describe the case as unique.

This is what makes the Mohammed cartoons so stupid and self-destructive. They have given Islamic extremists visible proof to show pious Muslims that the West relishes mocking what they hold most sacred: the prophet. They have united Muslim moderates with militants in common rage against us. They have added to the hatred of the West in the Islamic world as friends like King Abdullah of Jordan, Presidents Mubarak of Egypt and Karzai of Afghanistan, and Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey warned us they would.

One wonders. Did the cynical Europeans learn nothing from the Salman Rushdie episode? Did they learn nothing from the firestorm that erupted in the Islamic world when Christian ministers in the United States, post-9/11, called Mohammed a "terrorist"?

Why then did they do this? Why did the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten publish cartoons it knew to be so blasphemous to Muslims? Why did Le Monde, France Soir, Die Welt, El Pais, Il Stampa republish them-on their front pages? If a European newsman was oblivious to the probable effect among Muslims of plastering a cartoon of Mohammed with a bomb in his turban on page one, he is too stupid to be an editor. But if he did know the near-certain effect of such an in-your-face provocation, why would he do it? Is this the reflexive secularist hostility of the Europress to all religious faiths on display here or something else?

And so we come to the heart of the matter. Why? What was the motive here? What is the game that is afoot? The rationale of the imams who ensured that all Muslims knew of the cartoons and their contents and called for demonstrations and assaults on Western consulates and embassies is evident. They hate us, and they wish to drive us out of the Middle East. But what propelled our own ideologues to prod U.S. editors to republish the cartoons in "solidarity" with the Europeans? Who pushed George W. Bush and Condi Rice not to condemn the cartoons but to "stand up" for the freedom to publish and defy any "intimidation" by the Islamic world?

Answer: our cultural warmongers, who seek the same goal as their cultural warmongers-to ignite a war of civilizations. Both want the "long war" of which the Pentagon speaks, the "World War IV" against "Islamofascism" that is the dream of neoconservatives and the nightmare of their countrymen.

As has been evident for some time, bin Laden and the neocons both seek the same thing: a fight to the finish, no matter how long, no matter how many invasions it takes, no matter how many lives are lost. For if peace were reached between the Islamic world and the West, even a cold peace with Iran and Syria, what would they do then?

As the provocations of Ahmadinejad are music to the ears of neocons, for they rule out dialogue and diplomacy, the escalation of the cartoon wars into an all-out culture war between Islam and the West has made their day. But it has also wiped out much of the goodwill that George W. Bush has sought to rebuild in the region.

As one explores the arguments of the provocateurs in the West for what they are doing, on inspection all appear hollow. "We believe in the First Amendment!" comes the blustery reply of journalists when asked why they published the cartoons. The First Amendment protected the right of Trent Lott to toast Strom Thurmond. But that did not save Lott from the savagery of the neocons who demanded and got his ouster as Senate majority leader. Yet which is the more egregious offense? To pay a birthday tribute to a century-old man who was once a segregationist or to insult deliberately the most revered figure in the faith of a billion people?

Daily, U.S. editors decline to publish ethnic slurs and obscene remarks and cartoons that might offend a race or religion. This is not censorship. It is editorial judgment. The motto of the New York Times, which declined to publish the offending cartoons, is "All the News That's Fit to Print."

Conservatives contend that Islamic nations tolerate cartoons and TV shows far more viciously anti-Semitic than these cartoons were anti-Islamic. They are right. But Western newspapers never publish such cartoons, first, because they are outrageous, second, because publication would cost them advertisers, readers, and maybe their jobs. Insulting Muslims and Mohammed is a less risky and less expensive hobby than insulting Judaism or Jews. Indeed, if you insult Islam, you can make out credentials as a moral hero.

Though State initially condemned the cartoons-"Inciting religious or ethnic hatreds in this manner is unacceptable"-the neocons rapidly re-seized control of the message. In hours, State was in retreat: "While we share the offense that Muslims have taken at these images, we at the same time vigorously defend the right of individuals to express points of view." Of course we do. But do we believe freedom of the press was responsibly exercised when these idiot editors used it to incite a religious war?

And when it comes to press freedom, Europeans are world-class hypocrites. British historian David Irving has spent months in a prison in Vienna awaiting trial for two speeches he made 15 years ago. In Europe, skeptics and deniers of the Holocaust are fined and imprisoned with the enthusiastic endorsement of the press.

Unfortunately, Bush let slip an opportunity to show respect for the Islamic world and faith and, instead, let himself be intimidated into silently condoning an insult to both. Standing beside the King of Jordan, Bush denounced the violence the cartoons had ignited but declined to condemn the cartoons. Condi Rice denounced Iran and Syria for exploiting the rage over the cartoons but did not condemn the cause of that rage. If there is a double standard here, Bush is the guilty party. He rightly denounced Iran's president for mocking the Holocaust but would not denounce the European press for mocking the prophet.

If Bush and Rice cannot muster the moral courage to condemn the insulting content of the cartoons, as well as the violence being promoted by anti-Western agitators and demagogues, our wars for democracy in the Middle East are in vain. For we can never win the friendship of these people if they believe our words of respect for their religion cover up a sneering contempt.