[NYTr] Not So Fast, Christian Soldiers: Pentagon in Bed with Fundie Loonies

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by rick kissell

Los Angeles Times - Aug 22, 2007
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-aslan22aug22,0,4674900.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail


Not so fast, Christian soldiers

The Pentagon has a disturbing relationship with private evangelical
groups. 

By Michael L. Weinstein and Reza Aslan

Maybe what the war in Iraq needs is not more troops but more religion. 
At least that's the message the Department of Defense seems to be
sending.

Last week, after an investigation spurred by the Military Religious 
Freedom Foundation, the Pentagon abruptly announced that it would not
be delivering "freedom packages" to our soldiers in Iraq, as it had 
originally intended.

What were the packages to contain? Not body armor or home-baked
cookies. Rather, they held Bibles, proselytizing material in English
and Arabic and the apocalyptic computer game "Left Behind: Eternal
Forces" (derived from the series of post-Rapture novels), in which
"soldiers for Christ" hunt down enemies who look suspiciously like U.N.
peacekeepers.

The packages were put together by a fundamentalist Christian ministry 
called Operation Straight Up, or OSU. Headed by former kickboxer 
Jonathan Spinks, OSU is an official member of the Defense Department's 
"America Supports You" program. The group has staged a number of 
Christian-themed shows at military bases, featuring athletes, strongmen 
and actor-turned-evangelist Stephen Baldwin. But thanks in part to the 
support of the Pentagon, Operation Straight Up has now begun focusing
on Iraq, where, according to its website (on pages taken down last
week), it planned an entertainment tour called the "Military Crusade."

Apparently the wonks at the Pentagon forgot that Muslims tend to
bristle at the word "crusade" and thought that what the Iraq war lacked
was a dose of end-times theology.

In the end, the Defense Department realized the folly of participating 
in any Operation Straight Up crusade. But the episode is just another 
example of increasingly disturbing, and indeed unconstitutional, 
relationships being forged between the U.S. military and private 
evangelical groups.

Take, for instance, the recent scandal involving Christian Embassy, a 
group whose expressed purpose is to proselytize to military personnel, 
diplomats, Capitol Hill staffers and political appointees. In a
shocking breach of security, Defense Department officials allowed a
Christian Embassy film crew to roam the corridors of the Pentagon
unescorted while making a promotional video featuring high-ranking
officers and political appointees. (Christian Embassy, which holds
prayer meetings weekly at the Pentagon, is so entrenched that Air Force
Maj. Gen. John J. Catton Jr. said he'd assumed the organization was a
"quasi-federal entity.")

The Pentagon's inspector general recently released a report
recommending unspecified "corrective action" for those officers who
appeared in the video for violating Defense Department regulations.
But, in a telling gesture, the report avoided any discussion of how
allowing an evangelical group to function within the Defense Department
is an obvious violation of the establishment clause of the 1st
Amendment.

The extent to which such relationships have damaged international 
goodwill toward the U.S. is beyond measure. As the inspector general 
noted, a leading Turkish newspaper, Sabah, published an article on Air 
Force Maj. Gen. Peter Sutton, who is the U.S. liaison to the Turkish 
military -- and who appeared in the Christian Embassy video. The
article described Christian Embassy as a "radical fundamentalist sect,"
perhaps irreparably damaging Sutton's primary job objective of building
closer ties to the Turkish General Staff, which has expressed alarm at
the influence of fundamentalist Christian groups inside the U.S.
military.

Our military personnel swear an oath to protect and defend the 
Constitution, not the Bible. Yet by turning a blind eye to OSU and 
Christian Embassy activities, the Pentagon is, in essence, endorsing 
their proselytizing. And sometimes it's more explicit than that.

That certainly was the case with Army Lt. Gen. William "Jerry" Boykin, 
deputy undersecretary of Defense for intelligence. The Pentagon put him 
in charge of the hunt for Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda in 2003. The
same year, Boykin was found to be touring American churches, where he
gave speeches -- in uniform -- casting the Iraq war in end-times terms. 
"We're in is a spiritual battle," he told one congregation in Oregon. 
"Satan wants to destroy this nation . . . and he wants to destroy us as 
a Christian army." The story wound up in newspapers, magazines and on 
"60 Minutes." And, of course, it was reported all over the Muslim
world. The Pentagon reacted with a collective shrug.

American military and political officials must, at the very least, have 
the foresight not to promote crusade rhetoric in the midst of an
already religion-tinged war. Many of our enemies in the Mideast already
believe that the world is locked in a contest between Christianity and
Islam. Why are our military officials validating this ludicrous claim
with their own fiery religious rhetoric?

It's time to actively strip the so-called war on terror of its
religious connotations, not add to them. Because religious wars are not
just ugly, they are unwinnable. And despite what Operation Straight Up
and its supporters in the Pentagon may think is taking place in Iraq,
the Rapture is not a viable exit strategy.

[Michael L. Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom 
Foundation, wrote "With God on Our Side: One Man's War Against an 
Evangelical Coup in America's Military." Reza Aslan, author of "No god 
but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam," is on the MRFF 
advisory board.]