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“They are proselytizing not on behalf of the Constitution of
the United States . . . but rather on behalf of some sort of fanatical
view of end times. And they are using our army to affect that.”
-Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson-
Last
August the watchdog group, Military Religious Freedom Foundation,
foiled a Pentagon plan that would have allowed the shipment of “freedom
packages” to soldiers and Marines in Iraq. The parcels were put
together by the fundamentalist Christian ministry, Straight Up, and
contained Bibles, proselytizing tracts in English and Arabic, and the
apocalyptic “Left Behind” computer game, in which Christian Tribulation
forces convert or kill infidels—nonbelievers, Muslims and Jews.
On May 1 the Senate approved the promotion of Brigadier General
Robert L. Caslen Jr. to Major General. Currently the commandant of
cadets at West Point, he will become the commander of the 25th Infantry
Division. He is also president of the stridently fundamentalist Officer’s Christian Fellowship, whose vision is a “spiritually transformed military, with ambassadors for Christ in uniform, empowered by the Holy Spirit”
General
Caslen was promoted despise the Defense Department’s recommended
disciplinary action against him and several other senior military
leaders because they had “improperly endorsed and participated with a
nonfederal entity while in uniform” by participating in a promotional
video for the Campus Crusade For Christ’s Christian
Embassy, an evangelical organization that ministers to Beltway politicians and sponsors weekly Bible studies at the Pentagon.
According to the DoD Inspector General’s report,
one of the generals involved “asserted that Christian Embassy was
treated as an instrumentality of the Pentagon Chaplain’s office for
over 25 years, and had effectively become a ‘quasi federal entity.’”
Arguably, he believed his participation in the video was in the line of
duty.
Considering both the Pentagon’s evangelical proclivity and a 2006 Pew survey which found that of the major religious groups in America, evangelicals
have the most negative views of Islam and Muslims, the U.S. sniper who
was recently caught using the Quran for target practice in the Baghdad
neighborhood of Radhwaniya might be excused for thinking the book was a
legitimate target upon which to perfect his craft . . . excused for
thinking he was acting in the line duty.
And
is it any wonder that with evangelicals and fundamentalists at the very
top of the military’s officer corps —to say nothing of their Commander
in Chief—that an enlisted Marine was passing out Christian “witnessing
coins” inscribed in Arabic at a checkpoint in Fallujah? One side of the
coin asked, “Where will you spend eternity?” An evangelical favorite,
John 3:16, was on the flip side.
Sheik
Adul-Rahman al-Zubaie, a tribal leader in Fallujah who was outraged by
the Marine’s proselytizing said, “This event did not happen by chance,
but it was planned and done intentionally.”
While
the Marine’s proselytizing is not the official policy of the
predominately Christian force occupying the predominately Islamic Iraq,
it was done “in the line of duty” with a wink and a nod from his chain
of command. Think Abu Ghraib!
From
Fort Jackson, the Army’s largest basic training facility, where
trainees are encouraged to attend Campus Crusade’s weekly “God’s Basic
Training” programs, to the U.S. Air Force Academy where students are
pressured to attend the Crusade’s weekly “cru” (short for crusade)
Bible study, American military personnel are, as Campus Crusade’s Scot
Blom gloats, “government paid missionaries” when they complete their
training.
As the demands of
fighting a perpetual war against “radical Islam” begins to strain both
the military’s resources and the country’s resolve, the Pentagon has
begun outsourcing larger chunks of the war to private contractors.
Predictably, our “government paid missionaries” have become more
expensive and much less controllable or accountable.
The
Bush administration’s favorite contractor, Blackwater, is the most
powerful private army in the world. It commands thousands of
mercenaries in Iraq and Afghanistan, has over a billion dollars in
government contracts, and enjoys complete immunity from prosecution for
its theater of operations’ conduct.
Blackwater’s
founder, Erik Prince, a staunchly conservative Catholic, has also
served on the board of directors of Christian Freedom International, a
crusading missionary organization operating in the overwhelmingly
Islamic countries of Sudan, Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq. Prince
envisions an evangelical “end time” role for his warriors, “Everybody
carries guns, just like Jeremiah rebuilding the temple in Israel—a
sword in one hand and a trowel in the other.”
No
one in the last decade has contributed more to end time, apocalyptic
evangelism than John Hagee, a televangelist seen by millions of viewers
weekly and pastor of the 19,000-member Cornerstone Church. Hagee
preaches that in order to bring about the Second Coming of Christ and
the Rapture of true believers, Islam first has to be destroyed.
In a 2006 interview
with National Public Radio’s Terry Gross, Hagee told her, “Those who
live by the Quran have a scriptural mandate to kill Christians and
Jews.” He went on to claim that there are 200 million Muslims waiting
for the chance to attack Israel and the United States. From his pulpit,
Hagee makes it clear
to his congregation and the radio and television audience what they can
expect from American Muslims if such an attack ever took place, “While
American Muslims live in America, 82 percent are not loyal to America
and are not willing to fight and defend America.”
In
his book, “Jerusalem Countdown - A Warning to the World,” Hagee warns
that the war between Islam and the West “is a war that Islam cannot and
must not win.”
John Hagee is not just a mad evangelizing prophet. He is the
mad evangelizing prophet who is courted by a war president, a hawkish
presidential candidate and members of Congress from both parties. His
Islamophobic bilge has trickled down from Capital Hill, through the
labyrinthine corridors of the Pentagon, and into the chamber of a
sniper’s rifle and the hand of a Marine guarding a checkpoint in
Fallujah.
Officers in the
military are expected to lead by example. Enlisted personnel are
expected to follow that example. If the recent incidents at Radhwaniya
and Fallujah are not just the acts of renegades, then the chain of
command seems to be working the way it was designed.
-END-
Biography: Robert
Weitzel is a contributing editor to Media With a Conscience. His essays
regularly appear in The Capital Times in Madison, WI. He can be contacted at:
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