Crusaders or Soldiers in Afghanistan?

[Steven_D]

We know that the military has been deeply infiltrated by evangelical Christians at every level, people whose allegiance to their faith trumps their allegiance to their country. I'm all for freedom of religion, but when you see a story like this one you start to wonder if our military has become more an armed force of missionaries and crusaders rather than a group of soldiers dedicated to defending our country. Because the missionary activity being encouraged by military chaplains in Afghanistan works at cross purposes with our stated goal to create a stable, democratic state that is no longer a haven for Islamic jihadists.

Qatar-based Al Jazeera television showed footage of a church service at Bagram, the main U.S. base north of the Afghan capital Kabul, in which soldiers had a stack of bibles in the local languages, Pashtu and Dari.

A military chaplain was shown delivering a sermon to other soldiers, saying: "The special forces guys -- they hunt men basically. We do the same things as Christians, we hunt people for Jesus. We do, we hunt them down."

Does this strike you as the definition of insanity. We invade a country, use our air power to kill civilians in pursuit of suspected Taliban fighters, send patrols out to capture "insurgents" (many of whom have no connection to the Taliban) whom we torture, and then we distribute bibles to try to convert believers in Islam to Christianity? Especially since its a crime to convert Afghanis from a belief in Islam to another religion.

Trying to convert Muslims to any other faith is a crime in Afghanistan. An Afghan man who converted to Christianity was sentenced to death for apostasy in 2006 but was allowed to leave the country after an international uproar.

And to say this is an isolated incident of "a few rogue Chaplains" won't wash in my opinion. Not when you realize that former soldiers are the ons blowing the whistle on this effort to turn our occupation force in Afghanistan into a corps of armed Christian missionaries.

The footage, shot about a year ago by Brian Hughes, a documentary maker and former member of the US military who spent several days in Bagram near Kabul, was obtained by Al Jazeera's James Bays, who has covered Afghanistan extensively.

In other footage captured at Bagram, Sergeant Jon Watt, a soldier set to become a military chaplain, said during a Bible study class: "I also want to praise God because my church collected some money to get bibles for Afghanistan. They came and sent the money out." ...

Hughes said: "The only reason they would have these documents there was to distribute them to the Afghan people and I knew it was wrong, and I knew that filming it … documenting it would be important." ...

It is not clear if the presence of the bibles and practice of calling on soldiers to be "witnesses" for Jesus continues, but they were filmed a year ago despite regulations by the US military's Central Command that expressly forbid "proselytising of any religion, faith or practice". ...

... the chaplains appear to understand their actions were in breach of a regulation known as General Order Number One.

"Do we know what it means to proselytise?" Captain Emmit Furner, a military chaplain, says to the gathering.

"It is General Order Number One," an unidentified soldier replies.

But Watt says "you can't proselytise, but you can give gifts".

The footage also suggests US soldiers gave out bibles in Iraq.

In an address at Bagram, Watt is recorded as saying: "I bought a carpet and then I gave the guy a Bible after I conducted my business.

"... the expressions that I got from the people in Iraq {were} just phenomenal, they were hungry for the word."

I guess that's one regulation no one is bothering to enforce. Of course, the military spokesperson at Bagram is claiming this footage was all taken out of context. I'd like to "believe" the military when they say no bibles were distributed, but based on the Pentagon;s record of disinformation regarding so many incidents in our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, count me as a serious skeptic of any denials the military issues. Not with all the evidence that The Pentagon has been corrupted into turning a blind eye to the evangelical agenda of so many officers and soldiers within its ranks. Consider the following examples from the May 4th edition of this year's Harpers' Magazine:

- An Easter Sunday raid on Iraqi insurgents in 2004. Special Forces Officers, inspired by a showing of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, wrote the words “Jesus Killed Mohammed” in Arabic on their Bradley Fighting Vehicle and shouted the saying in both English and Arabic to entice Muslim soldiers into the open before embarking on an attack to put down the insurgency.

- A meeting of an underground all-male, cadet-led prayer group at the U.S. Air Force Academy where members discuss, among other things, the deceptions necessary for missionary work in China. The author attended the group’s meeting under the promise that he would not publish the group’s name out of fear that: “Those who do believe in separation of church and state might interfere with its goal of turning the world’s most elite war college into its most holy one, a seminary with courses in carpet bombing.”

- Interviews with Lieutenant Colonel Bob Young in which he defends and shows no remorse for stating that it would be better for a black to be a slave in America and know Christ, than to be free and not know Christ.

- A speech given by Army Lieutenant Colonel Greg Metzgar before the Officers Christian Fellowship – a group with 15,000 active members at 80 percent of military bases – in which he stressed: “Christian soldiers must always consider themselves behind enemy lines, even within the ranks, because every unsaved member of the military is a potential agent of ‘spiritual terrorism.’”

- Excerpts from a book published in 2005 by Lieutenant Colonel William McCoy, Under Orders: A Spiritual Handbook for Military Personnel, which describes an “anti-Christian bias” in this country he seeks to counter by making the case for the “necessity of Christianity for a properly functioning military.” McCoy’s book was endorsed by General David Petraeus, who said: “Under Orders should be in every rucksack for those moments when soldiers need spiritual energy.” General Petraeus, while claiming his statement was not meant for the public, has never recanted his statement.

Do we have soldiers or killers for Christ on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan? It's hard to know, but the evidence of so many of these <i>radical</i> evangelical incidents by members of the US military at home and abroad is chilling, to say the least. And it's a massive problem for President Obama that so many of the men and women under his command do not deem him to be their true Commander-in-Chief. They swore an oath to defend the United States, but which United States? Their narrow vision of a theocratic state, or ours as established by the Constitution and the laws of this country? One can only wonder if push came to shove whether some of these Christian Warriors would attempt a military coup rather than obey the orders of a President they do not deem to be legitimate.