The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) was founded in 2005 by U.S. Air Force Academy graduate and Reagan administration White House counsel Mikey Weinstein, after the harassment his own sons faced as Jewish cadets at the Academy led him to discover that the fundamentalist Christian takeover of the Air Force Academy was far from an isolated problem. It was a military-wide issue that needed to be confronted head on. But it quickly became apparent that MRFF's initial mission of protecting the rights of our men and women in uniform was only addressing part of the problem. The evangelizing and proselytizing of Iraqi and Afghan Muslims by both private religious organizations and U.S. military personnel also had to be exposed and stopped -- particularly the materials and media available via the internet and television that could be used by extremists as propaganda for recruiting purposes.
When MRFF began exposing some of what we were finding on the internet, Weinstein was contacted by two Bush administration national security officials, one civilian and one military, confirming that the kind of stuff we were exposing was, in fact, being used as fodder for propaganda, and urging him not to stop what MRFF was doing. The most astounding thing, as you'll see in the list below, is that it's not the private religious organizations who are most at fault in spreading the crusader message, but the U.S. military itself.
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9. Have top U.S. military officers appear in a video showing just how Christian the Pentagon is
In addition to inadvertently providing propaganda material to our enemies, public endorsements of Christianity by U.S. military leaders can also cause concern among our Muslim allies.
When Air Force Maj. Gen. Pete Sutton decided in 2004 to appear in uniform at the Pentagon in the Campus Crusade for Christ Christian Embassy promotional video, a video full of government officials and high ranking military officers saying things like "we're the aroma of Jesus Christ," he probably didn't give any thought to the potential ramifications of publicly endorsing this fundamentalist religious organization. But, not long after appearing in this video, Sutton was assigned to the U.S. European Command, Ankara, Turkey, as Chief of the Office of Defense Cooperation. Here's what happened, according to the Department of Defense Inspector General's report on the Christian Embassy video investigation.
8. Plant crosses in Muslim lands and make sure they're big enough to be visible from really far away
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But now, in Iraq and Afghanistan, Gen. Schwarzkopf's common sense policies and priority of keeping the troops safe have been replaced by a flaunting of Christianity in these Muslim lands by Christian troops and chaplains who feel that nothing comes before their right to exercise their religion, even if it means putting the safety of their fellow troops at risk. Numerous reports and photos received by MRFF, like the one below, as well as photos posted on official military websites, show conspicuously displayed Christian symbols, such as large crosses, being erected on and around our military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan.
These large Christian murals were painted on the outside of the T-barriers surrounding the chapel on FOB Warhorse in Iraq. In addition to being a highly visible display of Christianity to Iraqis on the base, these photos were posted on an official military website. It is even more important that the Army regulation prohibiting displays of any particular religion on the grounds of an Army chapel, a regulation that protects the religious freedom of our soldiers by keeping chapels neutral and open to soldiers of all faiths, be strictly enforced on our bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. But, as these and other photos collected by MRFF clearly show, violations of this regulation that probably wouldn't even be tolerated on bases in the U.S. are not only tolerated but promoted on our bases in Muslim countries.
7. Paint crosses and Christian messages on military vehicles and drive them through Iraq
For those Iraqis who may not see the overt displays of Christianity on and near our military bases in their country, there have been plenty of mobile Christian messages, painted on our tanks and other vehicles that patrol their streets.
The title of Jeff Sharlet's May 2009 Harper's Magazine cover story, "Jesus killed Mohammed: The crusade for a Christian military," actually comes from one such vehicular message -- the words "Jesus killed Mohammed" painted in large red Arabic lettering on a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, drawing fire from nearly every doorway as it was driven through Samarra. Other vehicles have sported everything from the Islamic crescent overlaid with the internationally recognized red circle and slash "No" sign to crosses hanging from gun barrels. The photo below of the tank named "New Testament" was actually released by a military public relations office.
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4. Invite virulently anti-Muslim speakers to lecture at our military colleges and service academies
In June 2007, Brigitte Gabriel, founder of the American Congress for Truth and author of Because They Hate, delivered one of her typical anti-Muslim lectures at the Joint Forces Staff College (JFSC). In February 2008, Walid Shoebat, along with his fellow self-proclaimed ex-terrorists turned fundamentalist Christians, appeared at the U.S. Air Force Academy's 50th Annual Academy Assembly.
Gabriel's JFSC lecture, including the following quotes from the question and answer segment, was broadcast to the world on C-SPAN.
In answer to the question, "Should we resist Muslims who want to seek political office in this nation?," Gabriel replied:
"Absolutely. If a Muslim who has -- who is -- a practicing Muslim who believes the word of the Koran to be the word of Allah, who abides by Islam, who goes to mosque and prays every Friday, who prays five times a day -- this practicing Muslim, who believes in the teachings of the Koran, cannot be a loyal citizen to the United States of America."
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3. Have a Christian TV network broadcast to the world that the military is helping missionaries convert Muslims
Travel the Road, a popular Christian reality TV series that airs on the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), follows the travels of Will Decker and Tim Scott, two "extreme" missionaries who travel to remote, and often dangerous, parts of the world to fulfill their two part mission to "1. Vigorously spread the gospel to people who are either cut off from active mission work, or have never heard the gospel," and "2. Produce dynamic media content to display the life of missions, and thus, through these episodic series electrify a new generation to accomplish the Great Commission."
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2. Make sure Bibles and evangelizing materials sent to Muslim lands have official U.S. military emblems on them
1. Send lots of Arabic, Dari, and Pashtu language Bibles to convert the Muslims
Worse than any English language Bibles, even those stamped with official U.S. military emblems, are the countless thousands of Arabic, Dari, and Pashtu Bibles making their way into Iraq and Afghanistan, often with the help of U.S. military personnel.
In his autobiography, It Doesn't Take a Hero, Gen. Schwarzkopf recounted his run in with Franklin Graham's organization, Samaritan's Purse -- an incident that made it clear that the Saudis' fears and complaints of Christian evangelizing were not unfounded. While some of the Saudis' fears, as the general explained, had resulted from Iraqi propaganda about American troops disrespecting Islamic shrines, the attempt by Samaritan's Purse to get U.S. troops to distribute tens of thousands of Arabic language New Testaments to Muslims was real.
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2009/9/18/121931/814/Front_Page/Top_Ten_Ways_to_Convince_the_Muslims_We_re_On_a_CrusadeREAD the entire article. I had no idea of all the methods used to try to convert people.
No wonder they are being fought tooth and nail by the people. People in the US are having conniptions at the thought of Muslims converting people to Islam. It's the same difference.
Get the soldiers out NOW! Not only are we in an area where we aren't wanted with a muddled strategy, but the intentions of some people for being there are endangering all of them even more. Being in a war is bad enough, but to possibly be unwittingly furthering "goals from God" is wrong on so many levels.
Court martial some damn people.