Cramer reports on wingnut site WorldNetDaily running a serial by a mad, rapture Christian author on mercenaries in Africa. Strangely, he seems especially keen on the white ones. Now, anything involving WND ought to be shunned if only for the weird quack remedy ads that seem to finance it, but this is interesting. (Please note: the links in that post ought to be handled with tongs) Kathryn Cramer goes on to ask if mercenaries and Africa figure in end-times ideology in any particular way. I can’t speak for their ideology, but they certainly show up in their financial interests.

After all, Pat Robertson, US political/fundamentalist preacher and Christian Coalition founder, was exposed in 2001 by the Washington Post as being involved in a dubious business scheme with the even more dubious Liberian dictator, alleged war criminal, alleged al-Qa’ida collaborator and client of Viktor Bout, Charles Taylor. Robertson set up a Cayman Islands-based company in order to exploit supposed gold deposits in south-eastern Liberia back in 1998. In the next year, Robbo’s business partner (with 10% and probably another 15% of the firm in his own name, not to mention the Liberian Government’s stake) would go on to welcome Khalfan Ghailani, an AQ finance expert, to Liberia, and pay large sums of money to Richard Chichakli’s San Air General Trading from the Liberian shipping registry. (link)

So, he either finds it so profitable or so religious that it’s worth doing all this goood stuff. I wonder who set the WND chap on the story in the first place?