Jing-reed's Musings from Thailand

New Fundamentalist Military . . .

Mandatory U.S. Army Survey Says Non-Believers Unfit to Serve

"Last week, a number of religious freedom activists, bloggers and organizations were alerted by Sgt. Justin Griffith, a soldier at Fort Bragg, N.C., to a mandatory U.S. Army survey called the "Soldier Fitness Tracker." One of the areas included in this survey, which measures a soldier's fitness in a number of areas, is "spiritual" fitness. According to his survey results, Sgt. Griffith is unfit to serve.  . . . . ." 

Army's "Spiritual Fitness" Test Comes Under Fire

Test Was Designed by Psychologist Who Inspired CIA's Torture Program

An experimental, Army mental-health, fitness initiative designed by the same psychologist whose work heavily influenced the psychological aspects of the Bush administration's torture program is under fire by civil rights groups and hundreds of active-duty soldiers. They say it unconstitutionally requires enlistees to believe in God or a "higher power" in order to be deemed "spiritually fit" to serve in the Army. ..... the test contains questions written predominantly for soldiers who believe in God or another deity, meaning nonbelievers are guaranteed to score poorly and will be forced to participate in exercises that use religious imagery to "train" soldiers up to a satisfactory level of spirituality.

Christian Soldiers

The growing controversy over military chaplains using the armed forces to spread the Word.

Ever since former president George W. Bush referred to the war on terror as a “crusade” in the days after the September 11 attacks, many have charged that the United States was conducting a holy war, pitting a Christian America against the Muslim world. That perception grew as prominent military leaders such as Lt. Gen. William Boykin described the wars in evangelical terms, casting the U.S. military as the "army of God." Although President Obama addressed the Muslim world this month in an attempt to undo the Bush administration's legacy of militant Christian rhetoric that often antagonized Muslim countries, several recent stories have framed the issue as a wider problem of an evangelical military culture that sees spreading Christianity as part of its mission.

A May article in Harper’s by Jeff Sharlet illustrated a military engaged in an internal battle over religious practice. Then came news about former Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s Scripture-themed briefings to President Bush that paired war scenes with Bible verses. Later in May, Al-Jazeera broadcast clips filmed in 2008 showing stacks of Bibles translated into Pashto and Dari at the U.S. air base in Bagram and featuring the chief of U.S. military chaplains in Afghanistan, Lt. Col. Gary Hensley, telling soldiers to “hunt people for Jesus.” 

Jim Ammerman's Lunacy

Jim Ammerman  is the founder of an organization called the Chaplaincy of Full Gospel Churches (CFGC), which provides the official endorsements for 270 chaplains and chaplain candidates in the U.S. military (including the disgraced Gordon Klingenschmitt, who retains his endorsement from the group despite having been discharged from the military). Ammerman was himself an Army Colonel.

 

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Jim Ammerman from Bruce Wilson on Vimeo.

 

Report on Military "Spirituality Test" Featured by Keith Olbermann

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Power and Hypocrisy

Now why does the following article not surprise.  I would venture to guess it is because everyone knows that most power hungry individuals, notably politiicans, military and the clergy, are notorious hypocrites. 
Homo sapiens is indeed a strange species.

Power breed hypocrisy – powerful people judge others more harshly but cheat more themselves

"Last year, the UK press was abuzz with the so-called “expenses scandal”. In a time when the county was gripped by recession, we were told that Members of Parliament (MPs) were claiming for all sorts of ridiculous luxuries, all at the taxpayer’s expense. The revelations dominated the news, but the idea that people in positions of power often behave hypocritically isn’t new. It is said, after all, that power corrupts. Now, Joris Lammers from Tilburg University has found solid evidence for this.

Through five compelling experiments, Lammers has shown that powerful people are more likely to behave immorally but paradoxically less likely to tolerate immorality in other people. Even thinking about the feeling of power can trigger these double standards. . . . .

It seems that power breeds a sense of entitlement, where people feel that they can take more than other people, but also dictate how others should behave. They can preach without the need to practice. But this hypocrisy hinges on the legitimacy of their power. Power corrupts, but it seems that only true power truly corrupts."

Bradley Manning

In Wikileaks, the Pentagon is confronting a challenge like none before. The public agent was Assange, but the source of most of the raw material came from Sp. Bradley Manning, a previously unknown military specialist in Iraq. The big question should be, not whether is he a traitor, but rather,: "How does someone/anyone react when confronted with information about the evil actions their own government?"

Bradley Manning is a complex human being.  And so far, not well known by the average person and certainly not by the MSM.  

Private Manning and The Making of WikiLeaks [This Land Press]
"The Inside Story of the Oklahoman Behind the Biggest Military Intelligence Leak Ever"

The inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning's detention [Salon]

According to Glenn Greenwald of Salon, Bradley Manning has been detained at the U.S. Marine brig in Quantico, Virginia for five months -- and for two months before that in a military jail in Kuwait -- under conditions that constitute cruel and inhumane treatment and, by the standards of many nations, even torture. ......

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Two Related Videos

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Fighting the U.S. Military

THANKS FOR NOTHING - Joshua Kors

PBS NOW - Fighting The Army

PBS Now investigates the thousands of soldiers who are scarred by war, and then thrown out of the military under personality disorders or for mis-conduct, and not getting treated for their service-connected injuries. includes interviews with US Army Sgt. Chuck Luther and his family. Luther served in the military for 12 years with distinction and went to Iraq. But was then thrown out of the military without benefits after showing symptoms of PTSD, and was told he had a pre-existing personality disorder. Iraq veteran Jonathan Norell was among the 40,000 troops thrown out of the military for mis-conduct since 2001, even though a military doctor recommended the battle-scarred medic be medically retired due to his severe PTSD. Military spouse and advocate Carissa Picard, with Military Spouses for Change, talks about how soldiers being booted from the military are often forced to pay back their enlistment bonuses, in addition to losing all of their benefits.


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   PART 2

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    PART 3

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A Tale of Disposable Soldiers for Veteran's Day

A disturbing story of how American treats its military, and unfortunately this is not an isolated case. 

Disposable Soldiers

"The mortar shell that wrecked Chuck Luther's life exploded at the base of the guard tower. Luther heard the brief whistling, followed by a flash of fire, a plume of smoke and a deafening bang that shook the tower and threw him to the floor. The Army sergeant's head slammed against the concrete, and he lay there in the Iraqi heat, his nose leaking clear fluid.

"I remember laying there in a daze, looking around, trying to figure out where I was at," he says. "I was nauseous. My teeth hurt. My shoulder hurt. And my right ear was killing me." Luther picked himself up and finished his shift, then took some ibuprofen to dull the pain. The sergeant was seven months into his deployment at Camp Taji, in the volatile Sunni Triangle, twenty miles north of Baghdad. He was determined, he says, to complete his mission. But the short, muscular frame that had guided him to twenty-two honors--including three Army Achievement Medals and a Combat Action Badge--was basically broken. The shoulder pain persisted, and the hearing in his right ear, which evaporated on impact, never returned, replaced by the maddening hum of tinnitus.

Then came the headaches. "They'd start with a speckling in the corner of my vision, then grow worse and worse until finally the right eye would just shut down and go blank," he says. "The left one felt like someone was stabbing me over and over in the eye."

Doctors at Camp Taji's aid station told Luther he was faking his symptoms. When he insisted he wasn't, they presented a new diagnosis for his blindness: personality disorder.  . . . . . "

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Christian Crazies in the U.S. Military

Troops: Skipping Christian Concert Got Us Punished

"The Army said Friday it was investigating a claim that dozens of soldiers who refused to attend a Christian band's concert at a Virginia military base were banished to their barracks and told to clean them up.

Fort Eustis spokesman Rick Haverinen told The Associated Press he couldn't comment on the specifics of the investigation. At the Pentagon, Army spokesman Col. Thomas Collins said the military shouldn't impose religious views on soldiers.

.... Smith, 21, was stationed in Virginia for nearly seven months for helicopter electrician training when the Christian rock group BarlowGirl played as part of the "Commanding General's Spiritual Fitness Concerts."

Smith said a staff sergeant told 200 men in their barracks they could either attend or remain in their barracks. Eighty to 100 decided not to attend, he said.

"Instead of being released to our personal time, we were locked down," Smith said. "It seemed very much like a punishment."


The "Commanding General's Spiritual Fitness Concerts" - now that is a WTF moment if I ever encountered one.


Meet the Military Man Battling Dangerous Christian Extremism in the Military

 "A pervasive Christian supremacist milieu exists inside the U.S. military that's a danger not only to constitutional order, but to the American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In his fight against British imperialism, Mahatma Gandhi described the life cycle of successful civil disobedience: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." Mikey Weinstein, the 55-year-old founder of the Albuquerque, New Mexico-based Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), likes to quote it, knowing full well he's crossed the line into a bloody-knuckle brawl. Over the past year, Weinstein and his organization have recorded a tremendous string of victories in the fight against Christian supremacists inside the armed forces.

.....Yet inside the U.S. military a small, determined, and fanatical clique wants to abuse its power and prosetlyze to service members below them in the chain of command. Through this captive market, they can inject their peculiar ideology into the most powerful institution on earth. As Weinstein likes to say, this isn't just a civil rights issue, it's a national security threat of the gravest magnitude. The description sounds hyberbolic, but according to Weinstein there's a pervasive Christian supremacist milieu inside the U.S. military that's a danger not only to constitutional order, but to the American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. ....."


IF I were religious I would get down on my knees and fervently pray, "Jesus, Jehovah, Allah, Krishna, Buddha, whoever.  save the world from your rabid followers!"

The Wounded Platoon

 

A PBS/Frontline report on an important aspect of the Iraqi War.

"The dark tale of the men of 3rd Platoon, Charlie Company, 1st Battalion of the 506th Infantry & how the war followed them home. Since the Iraq War began, soldier arrests in the city of Colorado Springs have tripled. At least 36 servicemen based at the nearby Army post of Fort Carson have committed suicide. And 14 Fort Carson soldiers have been charged or convicted in at least 11 killings. Many of the most violent crimes involved men who had served in the same battalion in Iraq. Three of them came from a single platoon of infantrymen. FRONTLINE tells the dark tale of the men of Third Platoon, Charlie Company, 1st Battalion of the 506th Infantry and how the war followed them home. It is a story of heroism, grief, vicious combat, depression, drugs, alcohol and brutal murder; an investigation into the Army's mental health services; and a powerful portrait of what multiple tours and post-traumatic stress are doing to a generation of young American soldiers."

If you live in the U.S. the entire program can be viewed on PBS/Frontline, The Wounded Platoon.  Outside of the U.S. it can be found on YouTube.

     The Wounded Platoon  [Part 1 of 8]

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"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes. .....  I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism."   [General Smedley Butler, USMC]