Onward Christian Soldiers: The Bush Christian Crusade in the Middle East

In December 2006, Chris Hedges wrote of the infiltration of the U.S. military by Christian right groups. At the time he wrote, half of military chaplains were of the Christofascist Zombie persuasion:

The politicization of the military, the fostering of the belief that violence must be used to further a peculiar ideology rather than defend a democracy, was on display recently when Air Force and Army generals and colonels, filmed in uniform at the Pentagon, appeared in a promotional video distributed by the Christian Embassy, a radical Washington-based organization dedicated to building a “Christian America.”

The video, first written about by Jeff Sharlet in the December issue of Harper’s Magazine and filmed shortly after 9/11, has led the Military Religious Freedom Foundation to raise a legal protest against the Christian Embassy’s proselytizing within the Department of Defense. The video was hastily pulled from the Christian Embassy website and was removed from YouTube a few days ago under threats of copyright enforcement.

Dan Cooper, an undersecretary of veterans affairs, says in the video that his weekly prayer sessions are “more important than doing the job.” Maj. Gen. Jack Catton says that his being an adviser to the Joint Chiefs of Staff is a “wonderful opportunity” to evangelize men and women setting defense policy. “My first priority is my faith,” he says. “I think it’s a huge impact.... You have many men and women who are seeking God’s counsel and wisdom as they advise the chairman [of the Joint Chiefs] and the secretary of defense.”

Col. Ralph Benson, a Pentagon chaplain, says in the video: “Christian Embassy is a blessing to the Washington area, a blessing to our capital; it’s a blessing to our country. They are interceding on behalf of people all over the United States, talking to ambassadors, talking to people in the Congress, in the Senate, talking to people in the Pentagon, and being able to share the message of Jesus Christ in a very, very important time in our world is winning a worldwide war on terrorism. What more do we need than Christian people leading us and guiding us, so, they’re needed in this hour.”

Now it seems that there are some boots on the ground in the U.S. military who have gotten the message loud and clear that yes, Virginia, this IS a religious crusade against Islam:

The U.S. military suspended a Marine on Thursday for distributing coins quoting the Gospel to Sunni Muslims, an incident that has enraged Iraqis who view it as the latest example of American disrespect for Islam.

The Marine, stationed in the western city of Fallujah, handed out silver-colored coins this week that said in Arabic: "Where will you spend eternity? (John 3:36)." The other side read: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16)."

"We are sorry for this behavior," said Mike Isho, a U.S. military spokesman in Anbar province, which includes Fallujah. He said the Marine, whom he did not identify, distributed only a few of the coins and that the episode was under investigation.

"This incident doesn't represent the morals of the Marines," he said.

Mohammed Amin Abdel-Hadi, the head of the Sunni Endowment in Fallujah, an institution responsible for overseeing the sect's mosques, criticized U.S. troops, whom many in the city view as occupiers, for acting like Christian missionaries. He said the coins were part of a pattern of insensitivity toward Muslims, citing the outcry this month over a U.S. sniper in Baghdad who used a Koran, Islam's holiest book, as a target for practice.

"We demand the Americans leave us alone and stop creating religious controversies," Hadi said. "First, they shot the Koran, and now they come to proselytize inside Fallujah."

Mohammed Jassim al-Dulaimi, 43, said a Marine forced one of the coins into his hand Tuesday morning as he passed through a checkpoint at the western entrance to Fallujah. He said he was shocked when he read it.

"The claims that the occupation is a Crusader War make sense now," Dulaimi said.

I dispute that this Crusader for Christ is some kind of renegade and that the U.S. military takes seriously the idea that it's not there to convert the heathen to the One True Faith. First of all, are we supposed to believe that NO ONE KNEW this guy was doing this? None of his fellow Marines? Are we supposed to believe that he's the only one who had these coins? Second of all, the suspension didn't occur until AFTER McClatchy newspapers broke the story, and the story refers to multiple Marines, not just one. And third, this follows on the heels of the story of a U.S. sniper who was using the Quran for target practice.

Look at what's happened in this country in the aftermath of nineteen guys with box cutters. What do you think would happen here if an Islamic country sent its army here en masse to occupy this country and used the Bible for target practice? As it is, we have Dunkin' Donuts caving into lunatics like Michelle Malkin because Rachael Ray wore a scarf in a TV commercial. So why on earth is it so difficult to understand why proseletyzing is unacceptable behavior in an Islamic country? Perhaps it's because the military's own commander-in-chief and his mouthpieces have been framing this war by dogwhistling to the Christofascist Zombies every step of the way.