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"Troops then moved in to the nations's palaces, painted murals of missiles raining down on the walls - and subsequently held Christian Baptism ceremonies in the swimming pools, having brought in an "Alpha" Christian indoctrination course, enthusiastically run and embraced by the self- appointed "Vicar of Baghdad," Canon Andrew White (iii,iv) who also came in with the tanks.
White's party piece for visiting journalists is to present them with a copy of one of his books and comment that he is signing it with the pen he lent Prime Minister Maliki to put his signature to Saddam Hussein's death warrant. History does not relate how a man of the cloth became involved in this ghastly act.
Dismiss any doubts about it not really being a "Crusade" and being another George W. Bush "miss-speak."
By 1st May, to declare, mission accomplished," George W. Bush landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln in a little flying suit, his manhood apparently encased in lead. Seldom "in the field of human conflict," has a Commander in Chief looked such a prat. (Apologies to Winston Churchill.)
The episode, did, however, perhaps encapsulate the gargantuan, tragic, fantasy-land concept of the whole illegal, ill-conceived Iraq invasion, the venture of a very "New World," into the "Cradle of Civilization" and, as Petra, it's archeologically ancient cities: "half as old as time."



















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