"jesus killed mohammed"--article from harpers - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

roachboy · 06-09-2009, 07:06 AM

here's the opening section of a pretty startling article:

Quote:

Jesus killed Mohammed:
The crusade for a Christian military

By Jeff Sharlet

When Sergeant Jeffery Humphrey and his squad of nine men, part of the 1/26 Infantry of the 1st Infantry Division, were assigned to a Special Forces compound in Samarra, he thought they had drawn a dream duty. “Guarding Special Forces, it was like Christmas,” he says. In fact, it was spring, 2004; and although Humphrey was a combat veteran of Kosovo and Iraq, the men to whom he was detailed, the 10th Special Forces Group, were not interested in grunts like him. They would not say what they were doing, and they used code names. They called themselves “the Faith element.” But they did not talk religion, which was fine with Humphrey.

An evenhanded Indianan with a precise turn of mind, Humphrey considered himself a no-nonsense soldier. His first duty that Easter Sunday was to make sure the roof watch was in place: a machine gunner, a man in a mortar pit, a soldier with a SAW (an automatic rifle on a bipod), and another with a submachine gun on loan from Special Forces. Together with two Bradley Fighting Vehicles on the ground and snipers on another roof, the watch covered the perimeter of the compound, a former elementary school overlooking the Tigris River.

Early that morning, a unit from the 109th National Guard Infantry dropped off their morning chow. With it came a holiday special—a video of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ and a chaplain to sing the film’s praises, a gory cinematic sermon for an Easter at war. Humphrey ducked into the chow room to check it out. “It was the part where they’re killing Jesus, which is, I guess, pretty much the whole movie. Kind of turned my stomach.” He decided he’d rather burn trash.

He was returning from his first run to the garbage pit when the 109th came barreling back. Their five-ton—a supersized armored pickup—was rolling on rims, its tires flapping and spewing greasy black flames. “Came in on two wheels,” remembers one of Humphrey’s men, a machine gunner. On the ground behind it and in retreat before a furious crowd were more men from the 109th, laying down fire with their M-4s. Humphrey raced toward the five-ton as his roof shooters opened up, their big guns thumping above him. Later, when he climbed into the vehicle, the stink was overwhelming: of iron and gunpowder, blood and bullet casings. He reached down to grab a rifle, and his hand came up wet with brain.

Humphrey had been in Samarra for a month, and until that day his stay had been a quiet respite in one of the world’s oldest cities. Not long before, though, there had been a hint of trouble: a briefing in which his squad was warned that any soldier caught desecrating Islamic sites—Samarra is considered a holy city—would fall under “extreme penalty,” a category that can include a general court-martial and prison time. “I heard some guys were vandalizing mosques,” Humphrey says. “Spray-painting ’em with crosses.”

The rest of that Easter was spent under siege. Insurgents held off Bravo Company, which was called in to rescue the men in the compound. Ammunition ran low. A helicopter tried to drop more but missed. As dusk fell, the men prepared four Bradley Fighting Vehicles for a “run and gun” to draw fire away from the compound. Humphrey headed down from the roof to get a briefing. He found his lieutenant, John D. DeGiulio, with a couple of sergeants. They were snickering like schoolboys. They had commissioned the Special Forces interpreter, an Iraqi from Texas, to paint a legend across their Bradley’s armor, in giant red Arabic script.

“What’s it mean?” asked Humphrey.

“Jesus killed Mohammed,” one of the men told him. The soldiers guffawed. JESUS KILLED MOHAMMED was about to cruise into the Iraqi night.

The Bradley, a tracked “tank killer” armed with a cannon and missiles—to most eyes, indistinguishable from a tank itself—rolled out. The Iraqi interpreter took to the roof, bullhorn in hand. The sun was setting. Humphrey heard the keen of the call to prayer, then the crackle of the bullhorn with the interpreter answering—in Arabic, then in English for the troops, insulting the prophet. Humphrey’s men loved it. “They were young guys, you know?” says Humphrey. “They were scared.” A Special Forces officer stood next to the interpreter—“a big, tall, blond, grinning type,” says Humphrey.

“Jesus kill Mohammed!” chanted the interpreter. “Jesus kill Mohammed!”

A head emerged from a window to answer, somebody fired on the roof, and the Special Forces man directed a response from an MK-19 grenade launcher. “Boom,” remembers Humphrey. The head and the window and the wall around it disappeared.

“Jesus kill Mohammed!” Another head, another shot. Boom. “Jesus kill Mohammed!” Boom. In the distance, Humphrey heard the static of AK fire and the thud of RPGs. He saw a rolling rattle of light that looked like a firefight on wheels. “Each time I go into combat I get closer to God,” DeGiulio would later say. He thought The Passion had been a sign that he would survive. The Bradley seemed to draw fire from every doorway. There couldn’t be that many insurgents in Samarra, Humphrey thought. Was this a city of terrorists? Humphrey heard Lieutenant DeGiulio reporting in from the Bradley’s cabin, opening up on all doorways that popped off a round, responding to rifle fire—each Iraqi household is allowed one gun—with 25mm shells powerful enough to smash straight through the front of a house and out the back wall.

Humphrey was stunned. He’d been blown off a tower in Kosovo and seen action in the drug war, but he’d never witnessed a maneuver so fundamentally stupid.

The men on the roof thought otherwise. They thought the lieutenant was a hero, a kamikaze on a suicide mission to bring Iraqis the American news:

jesus killed mohammed.

Jesus killed Mohammed: The crusade for a Christian military?By Jeff Sharlet (Harper's Magazine)

it's difficult to know what to make of some of the information in this article because it seems to me to speak to and about a conflict between types of worldviews that works are a quite basic level....one is either inside this fundamentalist world that the article outlines, or one is entirely outside it. from the outside, it looks quite dangerous and, frankly, kinda nuts.

but one thing that the article addresses seems to me quite interesting and maybe even important for understanding to state of things in the us--the long-term process whereby fundamentalist christianity opened itself onto the military, the kinds of organizations that were created, the consequences of this movement, the pathological consequences of it, PARTICULARLY in the context of the "war on terror" which has been--as is obviously the case for the folk whose stories are told in the opening anecdote--a war on islam.

and it speaks to the broader phenomena of constitutional fundamentalism, the nature of contemporary ideological conservatism.

there's alot to talk about with this article, if you've the time to read it...but rather than try to post a study-guide like list of things i think are interesting, i'll just post one question and hope that others get raised along the way...

it also speaks to what i think is a basic contradiction between this type of radical protestantism and anything remotely like a democratic project.
the article presents the two as if they're contradictory--but what do you think.

Willravel · 06-09-2009, 08:26 AM

If our government is secular, why is our military blatantly religious? I'm fine with the people in military being predominately religious, statistically it makes sense, but when it moved beyond a personal philosophy and becomes part of why they fight, we cease to be a nonreligious republic and become a theocratic empire.

A lot of people are surprised when they find out that the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan think that we're fighting a religious war. "Why would they think something silly like that?" Because it's true. As a religious fundamentalist, each and every one of George W. Bush's decisions was infected with his insane worldview. We have ten thousand little George W. Bush's (without rich parents, though), complete fools that are motivated by their own hateful ignorance covered in the guise of religion, over there spreading the "good word" by further enraging the peoples we've invaded. The worst part is the religious moderates are afraid to stop them because they can't always tell who the crazy ones are.

Gays should be allowed in the military. Religious fundamentalists should not.

scout · 06-09-2009, 01:33 PM

I guess it's pretty easy to "armchair" quarterback while online from the ease of your living room. Their surrounded, low on ammo and night is falling. It appears the Lt. done what he was trained to do to gain an advantage of some sort and that is get into their heads. I guess it would be time to pull out all the stops and if getting in someone's head allows you to live another day then I suppose it's worth it. Was it a poor choice to use religion to get into their heads? I dunno as I've never been to Iraq and never in that situation. It sounds like most of the troops that was in that spot at that particular time are coming home so it appears to have worked. Right, wrong or indifferent I am not passing judgment on any of our men or women in uniform serving in that cesspool the world refers to as Iraq. You do what you have to do with what you have to work with and move on, live another day if you can. Eventually they all add up and you come home if your lucky.

roachboy · 06-09-2009, 07:24 PM

well the opening bit, which i quoted as a teaser for the main article--which you can get to via the link--are quite different from each other. if all there was to it was the opening paragraphs, i would agree with you scout--but i also probably wouldn't have quoted it because i wouldn't have found much to talk about really. the bulk of the article has more to do with the history, extent, organizational infrastructure and effects of the opening up of (largely) protestant fundamentalisms to the military. if you read that part, then the opening paragraph is less a factoid than an opening move that one can read in the context of this larger situation/relationship.

and the relationship is really quite problematic---ultra-reactionary, debilitating in it's bizarre-o modes of conflating religious and secular (political, military in particular) texts, encouraging of a number of forms of bigotry, and--worse--operating with seemingly no way for adherents to see what they're doing in a self-reflexive way. the other problem really is what, if anything, can be done about this if you accept the outlines of the analysis....

scout · 06-10-2009, 01:09 AM

Ok my bad, I actually clicked the link yesterday but for whatever reason I didn't see the rest of the article. I'm getting old and going blind I guess. I just glossed over it but I'll have to return and actually read it when I have more time.

mixedmedia · 06-10-2009, 02:29 AM

I'm going to read this during my lunch break at work. My first reaction is that it is quite shocking, my second reaction is 'why should I be shocked?' It is quite disturbing, though, to think that fundamentalist Christians are (seemingly) freely exercising their faith through their work, especially as officers.

roachboy · 06-10-2009, 04:09 AM

no worries--the op could have been a bit more explicit that the paragraph was a teaser because when you chase the link the teaser is the first thing you see. so you figure i already read this and that's that. makes sense..i just didn't anticipate it because i got interested in the opening bit last, after i read the whole piece...

there we are.

Telluride · 06-10-2009, 06:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willravel

I'm fine with the people in military being predominately religious, statistically it makes sense, but when it moved beyond a personal philosophy and becomes part of why they fight, we cease to be a nonreligious republic and become a theocratic empire.

Are you talking about why the individual soldiers choose to join the military, or why the government chooses to send them to combat when and where they do?

Willravel · 06-10-2009, 07:39 AM

The government isn't an individual. Many individuals in the military from the lowest rungs right on up (like the previous president) are fundamentalist in their faith and allow their extremist faith to become a big part of their work. In an area so religiously charged, it seems like a recipe for disaster allowing these individuals to express the hatred and/or extremism of their religion in the way they apparently are. I cannot imagine a more inflammatory way for a soldier in the Middle East to act than to be handing out Bibles to Muslim children. This "Jesus killed Mohammed" situation is just more of the same.

If would help if military leadership could stand up and remind the soldiers that we have a secular military made up of people with many faiths and lack of faiths. They represent the secular government in their service. They're free to worship on their own time, to pray, to take communion, etc., but when they put on their gear and head out they're US soldiers first.

mixedmedia · 06-10-2009, 11:51 AM

It's a lengthy article, but I think some other key portions will perhaps motivate more folks to read it:

Quote:

Within the fundamentalist front in the officer corps, the best organized group is Officers’ Christian Fellowship, with 15,000 members active at 80 percent of military bases and an annual growth rate, in recent years, of 3 percent. Founded during World War II, OCF was for most of its history concerned mainly with the spiritual lives of those who sought it out, but since 9/11 it has moved in a more militant direction. According to the group’s current executive director, retired Air Force Lieutenant General Bruce L. Fister, the “global war on terror”—to which Obama has committed 17,000 new troops in Afghanistan—is “a spiritual battle of the highest magnitude.” As jihad has come to connote violence, so spiritual war has moved closer to actual conflict, “continually confronting an implacable, powerful foe who hates us and eagerly seeks to destroy us,” declares “The Source of Combat Readiness,” an OCF Scripture study prepared on the eve of the Iraq War.

But another OCF Bible study, “Mission Accomplished,” warns that victory abroad does not mean the war is won at home. “If Satan cannot succeed with threats from the outside, he will seek to destroy from within,” asserts the study, a reference to “fellow countrymen” both in biblical times and today who practice “spiritual adultery.” “Mission Accomplished” takes as its text Nehemiah 1–6, the story of the “wallbuilder” who rebuilt the fortifications around Jerusalem. An outsider might misinterpret the wall metaphor as a sign of respect for separation of church and state, but in contemporary fundamentalist thinking the story stands for just the opposite: a wall within which church and state are one. “With the wall completed the people could live an integrated life,” the study argues. “God was to be Lord of all or not Lord at all.” So it is today, “Mission Accomplished” continues, proposing that before military Christians can complete their wall, they must bring this “Lord of all” to the entire armed forces. “We will need to press ahead obediently,” the study concludes, “not allowing the opposition, all of which is spearheaded by Satan, to keep us from the mission of reclaiming territory for Christ in the military.”

Quote:

Following the 2005 religion scandal at the academy [Air Force Academy], its commander, Lieutenant General John Rosa, confessed to a meeting of the Anti-Defamation League that his “whole organization” had religion problems. It “keeps me awake at night,” he said, predicting that restoring constitutional principles to the academy would take at least six years. Then he retired to become president of the Citadel. To address the problems, the Air Force brought in Lieutenant General John Regni, a tall, broad-shouldered man with a dome of hair streaked black and silver, the very picture of an officer, calm and in command. When I spoke to Regni, I began our phone conversation with what I thought was a softball, an opportunity for the general to wax constitutional about First Amendment freedoms. “How do you see the balance between the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause?” I asked.

There was a long pause. Civilians might reasonably plead ignorance, but not a general who has sworn on his life to defend these words: “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

“I have to write those things down,” Regni finally answered. “What did you say those constitutional things were again?”

Sometime early this summer, a general named Mike Gould will succeed Regni as head of the academy. A former football player there, Gould granted himself the nickname “Coach” after a brief stint in that capacity early in his career. Coach Gould enjoys public speaking, and he’s famous for his “3-F” mantra: “Faith, Family, Fitness.” At the Pentagon, a former senior officer who served under Gould told me, the general was so impressed by a presentation Pastor Rick Warren gave to senior officers that he sent an email to his 104 subordinates in which he advised them to read and live by Warren’s book The Purpose-Driven Life.

Note: 3. Warren’s bestseller sometimes displaces Scripture itself among military evangelicals. In March 2008, a chaplain at Lakenheath, a U.S. Air Force–operated base in England, used a mandatory suicide-prevention assembly under Lieutenant General Rod Bishop as an opportunity to promote the principles of The Purpose-Driven Life to roughly 1,000 airmen. In a PowerPoint diagram depicting two family trees, the chaplain contrasted the likely future of a non-religious family, characterized by “Hopelessness” and “Death,” and that of a religious one. The secular family will, according to the diagram, spawn 300 convicts, 190 prostitutes, and 680 alcoholics. Purpose-driven breeding, meanwhile, will result in at least 430 ministers, seven congressmen, and one vice-president.

Quote:

“Under the rubric of free speech and the twisted idea of separation of church and state,” reads a promotion for a book called Under Orders: A Spiritual Handbook for Military Personnel, by Air Force Lieutenant Colonel William McCoy, “there has evolved more and more an anti-Christian bias in this country.” In Under Orders, McCoy seeks to counter that alleged bias by making the case for the necessity of religion—preferably Christian—for a properly functioning military unit. Lack of belief or the wrong beliefs, he writes, will “bring havoc to what needs cohesion and team confidence.”

McCoy’s manifesto comes with an impressive endorsement: “_Under Orders _should be in every rucksack for those moments when Soldiers need spiritual energy,” reads a blurb from General David Petraeus, the senior U.S. commander in Iraq until last September, after which he moved to the top spot at U.S. Central Command, in which position he now runs U.S. operations from Egypt to Pakistan. When the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) demanded an investigation of Petraeus’s endorsement—an apparent violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, not to mention the Bill of Rights— Petraeus claimed that his recommendation was supposed to be private, a communication from one Christian officer to another.

“He doesn’t deny that he wrote it,” says Michael “Mikey” Weinstein, president of MRFF. “It’s just, ‘Oops, I didn’t mean for the public to find out.’ And what about our enemies? He’s promoting this unconstitutional Christian exceptionalism at precisely the same time we’re fighting Islamic fundamentalists who are telling their soldiers that America is waging a modern-day crusade. That _is _a crusade.”

Petraeus’s most vigorous defense came last August from the recently retired three-star general William “Jerry” Boykin—a founding member of the Army’s Delta Force and an ordained minister—during an event held at Fort Bragg to promote his own book, Never Surrender: A Soldier’s Journey to the Crossroads of Faith and Freedom. “Here comes a guy named Mikey Weinstein trashing Petraeus,” he told a crowd of 150 at the base’s Airborne and Special Forces Museum, “because he endorsed a book that’s just trying to help soldiers. And this makes clear what [Weinstein’s] real agenda is, which is not to help this country win a war on terror.”

“It’s satanic,” called out a member of the audience.

“Yes,” agreed Boykin. “It’s demonic.”4

Note: 4. 4 After 9/11, Boykin went on the prayer-breakfast circuit to boast, in uniform, that his God was “bigger” than the Islamic divine of Somali warlord Osman Atto, whom Boykin had hunted. “I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol,” he declared, displaying as evidence photographs of black clouds over Mogadishu: the “demonic spirit” his troops had been fighting. “The principality of darkness,” he went on to declare, “a guy called Satan.” Under fire from congressional Democrats, Boykin claimed he hadn’t been speaking about Islam, but in a weird non sequitur he insisted, “My references to. . . our nation as a Christian nation are historically undeniable.” These strategic insights earned Boykin promotion to deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence, a position in which he advised on interrogation techniques until August 2007.

And it goes on and on and on...
One of the most disturbing articles I've read in recent years. Not simply because there are Christian fundamentalists in powerful positions in the military, but because they are obviously using their power to perpetuate a very disturbing and dangerous agenda.

And as for your question, rb. I cannot imagine anything more antithetical to a democratic project than a military operating (even arbitrarily) on theocratic principles. It's deeply alarming and I've had a knot in my stomach ever since finishing the article. This shit needs to cease. And, once again, it seems we don't have backup in the White House. It's just...a fucking nightmare. I must find ways to laugh about it quickly before I throw up.

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

If would help if military leadership could stand up and remind the soldiers that we have a secular military made up of people with many faiths and lack of faiths. They represent the secular government in their service. They're free to worship on their own time, to pray, to take communion, etc., but when they put on their gear and head out they're US soldiers first.

If you read the article, you see that it is military leadership, not just enlisted folks.

Willravel · 06-10-2009, 12:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mixedmedia

If you read the article, you see that it is military leadership, not just enlisted folks.

That's what I meant. As leadership, they should be setting a better example. If they can't get it through their heads that they're not a part of a crusade, we have an even bigger problem than handing out Bibles.

scout · 06-13-2009, 02:50 AM

In a nutshell, the author used the opening saga to polarize the audience and to help sell the story to a major outlet. The author admits the military as a whole is less religious than the general population. I seriously doubt the Special Forces Lt. was using religion for anything other than to get his men out of a very bad situation. In fact, in many ways, stating Jesus Killed Mohammed is as insulting to Christians as it is to Muslims. Of the 15000 or so officers belonging to the OCF it's very likely only a very small percentage of them have any control over front line grunts. Most of them are probably pretty safe pulling down jobs behind the lines in support of the front line troops. It would be interesting to know the exact percentage but for every grunt on the front line there is probably four or more grunts behind the lines supporting his effort and the percentage of officers behind the lines in support would probably be at least the same but more likely greater considering all the doctors and such are officers. I don't know the exact percentage but for every officer on the front lines there is probably 6 or 8 behind the lines in support. I don't know the hard numbers so if anyone has them feel free to post. Nonetheless, it's hardly enough to call the Iraqi war effort a Christian Fundamentalist "Jihad". So in a nutshell, the author took a non-story and added a little bit of flavor to sell his piece.

06-09-2009, 01:33 PM	#3 (permalink)
scout Psycho	I guess it's pretty easy to "armchair" quarterback while online from the ease of your living room. Their surrounded, low on ammo and night is falling. It appears the Lt. done what he was trained to do to gain an advantage of some sort and that is get into their heads. I guess it would be time to pull out all the stops and if getting in someone's head allows you to live another day then I suppose it's worth it. Was it a poor choice to use religion to get into their heads? I dunno as I've never been to Iraq and never in that situation. It sounds like most of the troops that was in that spot at that particular time are coming home so it appears to have worked. Right, wrong or indifferent I am not passing judgment on any of our men or women in uniform serving in that cesspool the world refers to as Iraq. You do what you have to do with what you have to work with and move on, live another day if you can. Eventually they all add up and you come home if your lucky. __________________ "The beauty of the second amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it." Thomas Jefferson

06-09-2009, 07:24 PM	#4 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	well the opening bit, which i quoted as a teaser for the main article--which you can get to via the link--are quite different from each other. if all there was to it was the opening paragraphs, i would agree with you scout--but i also probably wouldn't have quoted it because i wouldn't have found much to talk about really. the bulk of the article has more to do with the history, extent, organizational infrastructure and effects of the opening up of (largely) protestant fundamentalisms to the military. if you read that part, then the opening paragraph is less a factoid than an opening move that one can read in the context of this larger situation/relationship. and the relationship is really quite problematic---ultra-reactionary, debilitating in it's bizarre-o modes of conflating religious and secular (political, military in particular) texts, encouraging of a number of forms of bigotry, and--worse--operating with seemingly no way for adherents to see what they're doing in a self-reflexive way. the other problem really is what, if anything, can be done about this if you accept the outlines of the analysis.... __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

06-10-2009, 01:09 AM	#5 (permalink)
scout Psycho	Ok my bad, I actually clicked the link yesterday but for whatever reason I didn't see the rest of the article. I'm getting old and going blind I guess. I just glossed over it but I'll have to return and actually read it when I have more time. __________________ "The beauty of the second amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it." Thomas Jefferson

06-10-2009, 02:29 AM	#6 (permalink)
mixedmedia has all her shots. Location: Florida	I'm going to read this during my lunch break at work. My first reaction is that it is quite shocking, my second reaction is 'why should I be shocked?' It is quite disturbing, though, to think that fundamentalist Christians are (seemingly) freely exercising their faith through their work, especially as officers. __________________ Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

06-10-2009, 04:09 AM	#7 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	no worries--the op could have been a bit more explicit that the paragraph was a teaser because when you chase the link the teaser is the first thing you see. so you figure i already read this and that's that. makes sense..i just didn't anticipate it because i got interested in the opening bit last, after i read the whole piece... there we are. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

06-09-2009, 08:26 AM	#2 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	If our government is secular, why is our military blatantly religious? I'm fine with the people in military being predominately religious, statistically it makes sense, but when it moved beyond a personal philosophy and becomes part of why they fight, we cease to be a nonreligious republic and become a theocratic empire. A lot of people are surprised when they find out that the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan think that we're fighting a religious war. "Why would they think something silly like that?" Because it's true. As a religious fundamentalist, each and every one of George W. Bush's decisions was infected with his insane worldview. We have ten thousand little George W. Bush's (without rich parents, though), complete fools that are motivated by their own hateful ignorance covered in the guise of religion, over there spreading the "good word" by further enraging the peoples we've invaded. The worst part is the religious moderates are afraid to stop them because they can't always tell who the crazy ones are. Gays should be allowed in the military. Religious fundamentalists should not.

06-10-2009, 07:39 AM	#9 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	The government isn't an individual. Many individuals in the military from the lowest rungs right on up (like the previous president) are fundamentalist in their faith and allow their extremist faith to become a big part of their work. In an area so religiously charged, it seems like a recipe for disaster allowing these individuals to express the hatred and/or extremism of their religion in the way they apparently are. I cannot imagine a more inflammatory way for a soldier in the Middle East to act than to be handing out Bibles to Muslim children. This "Jesus killed Mohammed" situation is just more of the same. If would help if military leadership could stand up and remind the soldiers that we have a secular military made up of people with many faiths and lack of faiths. They represent the secular government in their service. They're free to worship on their own time, to pray, to take communion, etc., but when they put on their gear and head out they're US soldiers first.

06-13-2009, 02:50 AM	#12 (permalink)
scout Psycho	In a nutshell, the author used the opening saga to polarize the audience and to help sell the story to a major outlet. The author admits the military as a whole is less religious than the general population. I seriously doubt the Special Forces Lt. was using religion for anything other than to get his men out of a very bad situation. In fact, in many ways, stating Jesus Killed Mohammed is as insulting to Christians as it is to Muslims. Of the 15000 or so officers belonging to the OCF it's very likely only a very small percentage of them have any control over front line grunts. Most of them are probably pretty safe pulling down jobs behind the lines in support of the front line troops. It would be interesting to know the exact percentage but for every grunt on the front line there is probably four or more grunts behind the lines supporting his effort and the percentage of officers behind the lines in support would probably be at least the same but more likely greater considering all the doctors and such are officers. I don't know the exact percentage but for every officer on the front lines there is probably 6 or 8 behind the lines in support. I don't know the hard numbers so if anyone has them feel free to post. Nonetheless, it's hardly enough to call the Iraqi war effort a Christian Fundamentalist "Jihad". So in a nutshell, the author took a non-story and added a little bit of flavor to sell his piece. __________________ "The beauty of the second amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it." Thomas Jefferson