[Dialogue] A New General for God's Army?

[Harry Wainwright]

Published on Thursday, June 14, 2007 by Inter Press Service
<http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38156>  

A New General for God's Army?

by Bill Berkowitz

OAKLAND, Calif. - In recent appearances on two U.S. cable news networks, he
was slinging and zinging - the well-rehearsed pitchman for the Biblical "End
Times" was dead certain that "Iran is going to have to be attacked" before
2008.

He also claimed that during a recent visit to Iraq, he was told by
intelligence sources that Iran had given the green light to Hezbollah to
unleash suicide bombers in the United States this summer. 

Mike Evans is a shock jock for Armageddon, a cheerleader for the apocalypse.
These days, the bestselling author and head of the "Jerusalem Prayer Team",
a U.S.-based pro-Israeli Christian evangelical organization, is at the top
of his game. On Jun. 3, his new book, "The Final Move Beyond Iraq: The Final
Solution While The World
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/1599791889?tag=commondreams-20&camp=0&creative=0&l
inkCode=as1&creativeASIN=1599791889&adid=1WE8FTYKNN11W2494MCT&>  Sleeps",
made it onto the New York Times bestsellers' list at number one in the
paperback category.

Evans's publisher bills him as "one of America's top experts on the Middle
East" and "a personal confidant to most of Israel's top leaders." He has
several bestselling books under his belt, including
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/1593790104?tag=commondreams-20&camp=0&creative=0&l
inkCode=as1&creativeASIN=1593790104&adid=1QC3FNQ6W9AF9H88X7DY&> "Beyond
Iraq: The Next Move" and "The American Prophecies
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/044652252X?tag=commondreams-20&camp=0&creative=0&l
inkCode=as1&creativeASIN=044652252X&adid=1RSP3N78ADYTTWR1M94Q&> ".

Evans' latest offering - 200 pages of text and 100 of assorted appendices -
is relatively uncomplicated: Iran is the biggest threat to the United States
and to peace in the Middle East, and it should be confronted militarily no
later than the end of the George W. Bush presidency. Under no circumstances
should U.S. troops be withdrawn from Iraq before the mission is accomplished
- the mission being the disarming of Iran. The U.S. public has been dumbed
down by the secular left and the liberal media. And god has been removed
from the public square in the U.S., resulting in Christians being
systematically "stripped" of their rights.

His prose is pugnacious, a style you might expect from a writer who claims
that he is giving the U.S. its "final wake up call." In the book, and in its
promotional materials, terms like "appeasement," "secular humanist
God-haters," and "pro-Islamic radical sympathizers" are tossed around as
easily as if he were playing catch in the backyard.

In one passage, Evans maintains that the recommendations in the bipartisan
Iraq Study Group (ISG) report, issued in early December 2006, are a "call to
appeasement - just like Chamberlain's in the face of Nazi aggression in
1938."

The ISG report, which was largely ignored by the administration, had urged
the withdrawal of virtually all U.S. combat troops by next spring, as well
as the engagement of Iraq's neighbors, including Syria and Iran, as part of
a comprehensive "diplomatic offensive" designed to both stabilize Iraq and
to address "key regional issues", including the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Evans essentially agrees with the core group of neoconservatives in the Bush
administration who were the architects of the war in Iraq and have more
recently been advocating a robust response to Iran. He departs company with
them, however, in that his analysis appears to be strictly based on his
reading of the Bible and what he calls the relentless attack on Christians
in the United States.

In the penultimate chapter, titled "The Battle for the Soul of America",
Evans argues that the assassinations in the 1960s of President John F.
Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. "signaled the end of the
age of innocence that had been enjoyed by the American people."

The social revolution that followed "was a full frontal assault against
traditional family values and an American culture steeped in the tenets of
the Bible," and was accompanied by a "lack of moral clarity."

This "lack of moral clarity" resulted in "battle after battle [that] has
slowly stripped Christians in America of their rights," he says. "The
American courts that espouse such movements as 'gay rights,' 'abortion
rights,' and even 'animal rights' are now pursuing the right to be godless."

The book's appendices offer an interesting array of excerpts from interviews
with former Israeli Defence Forces Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon, former
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former CIA director James Woolsey, former
Chairman of the Armed Services General Hugh Shelton, Harvard University Law
Professor Alan Dershowitz, and U.S. News & World Report editor-in-chief Mort
Zuckerman.

The journey of "The Final Move Beyond Iraq
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/1599791889?tag=commondreams-20&camp=0&creative=0&l
inkCode=as1&creativeASIN=1599791889&adid=1WE8FTYKNN11W2494MCT&> " to the
number one spot on the New York Times bestselling paperback book list is a
fascinating tale in and of itself. Evans and his publisher, FrontLine, an
imprint of the Christian publishing house, Strang Communications, flew under
the radar of the mainstream media, using near-daily e-mail blasts to
supporters urging them not only to buy multiple copies of the book, but to
help publicize it by writing five-star reviews at Amazon.com.

The goal of the campaign was two-fold: Become a bestselling book, and have
that result in multiple appearances on mainstream radio and television
programs. By all accounts, this approach has achieved its aims.

Evans had "made himself a major religious movement and media figure long
before his new book was published," John Stauber, executive director of the
Center for Media and Democracy and the co-founder of PRWatch, told IPS.
Although "he pegs himself as a 'journalist,' he's really a right-wing
religious political advocate with great media marketing savvy."

For Stauber, the co-author of two books on Iraq, "
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/1585422762?tag=commondreams-20&camp=0&creative=0&l
inkCode=as1&creativeASIN=1585422762&adid=1E9G5AQ20H71WRYKSFQD&> Weapons of
Mass Deception," and "
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/1585425095?tag=commondreams-20&camp=0&creative=0&l
inkCode=as1&creativeASIN=1585425095&adid=0S6TTFYT77FVWNNDVR5Z&> The Best War
Ever," Evans fits into the conservative evangelist Pat Robertson category
"in some ways." After all, "Pat started the 700 Club and morphed his run for
the presidency into the Christian Coalition."

The success of Evans' book "shows is that if you can tap into a passionate
movement, present yourself well in the media, know how to raise money, and
have a fan base of hundreds of thousands of rabid fans, you can sell books.
He uses the media - right wing, religious, mainstream and online - very
effectively. He's not just an author, he's a general in God's patriotic
army, and he knows how to mobilize his troops," Stauber added.

Bill Berkowitz is a longtime observer of the conservative movement. His
column "Conservative Watch" documents the strategies, players, institutions,
victories and defeats of the U.S. Right.

Copyright C 2007 IPS-Inter Press Service

Article printed from www.CommonDreams.org 

URL to article: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/06/14/1879/

 

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