The Crusade Continues in Iraq → Washingtons Blog
The Crusade Continues in Iraq - Washingtons Blog

Monday, January 18, 2010

The Crusade Continues in Iraq


ABC News is reporting that U.S. military weapons are inscribed with secret 'Jesus' Bible codes:

Coded references to New Testament Bible passages about Jesus Christ are inscribed on high-powered rifle sights provided to the United States military by a Michigan company, an ABC News investigation has found.

The sights are used by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the training of Iraqi and Afghan soldiers. The maker of the sights, Trijicon, has a $660 million multi-year contract to provide up to 800,000 sights to the Marine Corps, and additional contracts to provide sights to the U.S. Army ...

One of the citations on the gun sights, 2COR4:6, is an apparent reference to Second Corinthians 4:6 of the New Testament, which reads: "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

Other references include citations from the books of Revelation, Matthew and John dealing with Jesus as "the light of the world." John 8:12, referred to on the gun sights as JN8:12, reads, "Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."

Trijicon confirmed to ABCNews.com that it adds the biblical codes to the sights sold to the U.S. military. Tom Munson, director of sales and marketing for Trijicon, which is based in Wixom, Michigan, said the inscriptions "have always been there" and said there was nothing wrong or illegal with adding them. Munson said the issue was being raised by a group that is "not Christian."The company's vision is described on its Web site: "Guided by our values, we endeavor to have our products used wherever precision aiming solutions are required to protect individual freedom." ...

A photo on a Department of Defense Web site shows Iraqi soldiers being trained by U.S. troops with a rifle equipped with the bible-coded sights.

"It's wrong, it violates the Constitution, it violates a number of federal laws," said Michael "Mikey" Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, an advocacy group that seeks to preserve the separation of church and state in the military.

"It allows the Mujahedeen, the Taliban, al Qaeda and the insurrectionists and jihadists to claim they're being shot by Jesus rifles," he said.

Weinstein, an attorney and former Air Force officer, said many members of his group who currently serve in the military have complained about the markings on the sights. He also claims they've told him that commanders have referred to weapons with the sights as "spiritually transformed firearm[s] of Jesus Christ."

He said coded biblical inscriptions play into the hands of "those who are calling this a Crusade."

This is an isolated incident, right?

Unfortunately not.

As I wrote on May 4th:

Conservative Christians were the biggest backers of the Iraq war ...

One of the top Pentagon officials involved in the Iraq war - General William Boykin - literally:

Sees the "war on terror" as a religious war between Judeo-Christian civilization and Satan, with Islam of course cast in the latter role.

Jeremy Scahill describes Boykin as:

A Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence under Bush. Boykin was part of Donald Rumsfeld's inner circle at the Pentagon where he was placed in charge of hunting "high-value targets." Boykin was one of the key U.S. officials in establishing what critics alleged was death-squad-type activity in Iraq.

Boykin's crusade is also important because one of his assigned jobs was:

Speeding up the flow of intelligence on terrorist leaders to combat teams in the field so that they can attack top-ranking terrorist leaders. It can easily be speculated that it is this urgency to obtain intelligence, and an uncompromising religious outlook backed by a [crusader] mentality, that has led to the lower echelons in the US military to adopt Saddam Hussein-like brutalities.
Moreover, the U.S. military has just been busted trying to convert Afghanis to Christianity (the same thing happened in Iraq).

As Scahill notes:
What's more, the center of this evangelical operation is at the huge US base at Bagram, one of the main sites used by the US military to torture and indefinitely detain prisoners.
The bottom line is that - while torture was ordered by the highest level Bush administration officials in order to create a false link between 9/11 and Iraq - it seems like many of those who enthusiastically rallied around torture looked at it, literally, as a religious crusade.

As I wrote on May 25th:

According to French President Chirac, Bush told him that the Iraq war was needed to bring on the apocalypse:

In Genesis and Ezekiel Gog and Magog are forces of the Apocalypse who are prophesied to come out of the north and destroy Israel unless stopped. The Book of Revelation took up the Old Testament prophesy:

"And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them."

Bush believed the time had now come for that battle, telling Chirac:

"This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people's enemies before a New Age begins"...

There can be little doubt now that President Bush's reason for launching the war in Iraq was, for him, fundamentally religious. He was driven by his belief that the attack on Saddam's Iraq was the fulfilment of a Biblical prophesy in which he had been chosen to serve as the instrument of the Lord.

And British Prime Minister Tony Blair long-time mentor, advisor and confidante said:

"Tony's Christian faith is part of him, down to his cotton socks. He believed strongly at the time, that intervention in Kosovo, Sierra Leone – Iraq too – was all part of the Christian battle; good should triumph over evil, making lives better."

Mr Burton, who was often described as Mr Blair's mentor, says that his religion gave him a "total belief in what's right and what's wrong", leading him to see the so-called War on Terror as "a moral cause"...

Anti-war campaigners criticised remarks Mr Blair made in 2006, suggesting that the decision to go to war in Iraq would ultimately be judged by God.

Given that the Iraq war really was a crusade, the fact that the Pentagon is now saying that it may have to leave troops in Iraq for another decade shows that the crusade is still ongoing under Obama.
Indeed, churchgoers are more likely to back torture of suspected terrorists than atheists (and see this), and torture is apparently still continuing under the Obama administration.

Heck of a job winning hearts and minds, guys.

11 comments:

  1. Violates the Constitution? I don't recall seeing any part of it stating that private businesses couldn't engage in that sort of behavior. It is smart given the sitution? Absolutely not.

    I do find it ironic that a weapons manufacturer is citing the Bible - not a very Christian business if you ask me.

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  2. The quote comes to mind: "What would Jesus do?" if asked the question "Would you torture enemy combatants using waterboarding?"

    If they cannot answer that by saying yes, then they should pack up the kit and head home.

    Unless, the prosecution of christians and laying the blame at their feet for this debacle is a convenient scapegoat for this shitstorm that is...

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  3. So the ReichsChurch is at it again, is it, George? Distressingly and increasingly, Evangelical Christianity shows itself as having little or nothing to do with Jesus Christ. There seems to be absolutely no consciousness of the fact in those precincts that with the big stadium rallies, the studied, conspicuous public prayers of football coaches and authority figures, the aggressive proselytism of other Christian believers, and the passing out of tracts and the like that they treat him -
    Jesus - as though He were a kind of commodity and they his marketing arm. With this rather sneaky, backdoor tactic that you describe, one not at all unlike many of this character that they all-too-typically employ, Evangelicals make themselves out as weaselly and absolutely repellant even to other, believing Christian people. The Jesus that I know doesn't have a Sales Department and has nothing whatsoever to do with bigness, war, torture and an identification with a political party. Rather, He is quite beyond ideology, is humble, and makes Himself small out of a self-donative love. Happily, that's the Jesus that rules the world.

    Andrei Vyshinsky

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  4. This has to be one of the most far out there theories of why Bush went for iraq and afghanistan. The one about fighting for democracy is the only one that tops this. I would add the quest for the arc of the cabinet as one... Somalia people say.

    The current theories would be wise to include oil drugs and empire building by proxy. oh and money/power pure and simple.

    To add religion to this is a smoke screen for the higher ups who could care less about religion, they know it's about control.

    For the religious study people, go and check out the resonanceproject, you might find it interesting. look up nassim haramein on youtube and watch. War is about control and people are inclined to fall for it every time so far. That will hopefully change.

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  5. Religion and nationalism, the bane of man, strikes again. Simply unreal as we touch the fabric of reality with science and tech yet are encumbered by man made myths created thousands of years ago.

    "Religion is the only reason why the rich are not strangled by the poor." Napoleon

    "Man will never be free until the last king is strangled by the entrails of the last priest.Denis Diderot

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  6. what? no reference to thou shalt not kill? shocking...

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  7. Christianity is just another pagan religion inspired in the rituals of Ancient Egypt, Persia and Greece. The core of its dogma is based on an astrological book called "The Holy Bible". People who hold some sort of allegiance to these types of cults are just a bunch brainwashed bigots incapable of differentiating reality from fiction. Karl Marx's assertion that religion is people's opium is 100% valid.

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  8. It was and is always a war between good and evil, religions, sects, secrete societies..they are only an consortium that dwell on defining goo and evil.
    only a battle ground can set the balance right, please bear in mind we didn't choose as Muslims this religious war, it is been forced upon us.
    they call themselves Christians..that they may be but what i am sure of is that they are for sure fanatics and psychopaths.
    moon

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  9. Striking, isn't it, how quickly a legitimate criticism of Evangelicalism degenerates into unabashed Christian hating. The sociopathological Diderot comment just had to come from some credulous, adolescent left libertarian or Marxist, in either case every bit the religionist as those he wishes to persecute. And the trite sloganering of the paganist, astrological assertions from a confused and very angry little fella almost certainly bent on convincing himself that he really doesn't believe in God after all. Still living with mommy, guys?

    Andrei Vyshinsky

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  10. As a 5 year old once told me "Jesus invented peace" Too bad "Christians" don't seem to understand what a 5 year old can.

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  11. Actually, the original Biblical passage would have used the term for 'killing from hiding' or murder. That, however, is immaterial. Those that claim to be Christians who condone such have forgotten the core of the teachings, and apparently would be more interested in power and control than in peace, love, acceptance, and not judging others.

    As a student of history, all of this is quite familiar. The truly ironic part is those that claim to 'believe' often are using the belief as a stepping-stone to what they want, without regard for the contradictions within the desire, and the belief. Rationalization, 'end outweighing the means', and many other strange things occur.

    "For the greater good".

    But then, what do I know? I admit to being an idiot.

    ReplyDelete

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