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.
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 robertweitzel@mac.com
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