From the Los Angeles Times this morning: the news that the US Department of Defense was (until halted by an investigation by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation) intending to distribute “freedom packages” to troops in Iraq. What would they contain?
Not body armor or home-baked cookies. Rather, they held Bibles, proselytizing material in English and Arabic and the apocalyptic computer game “Left Behind: Eternal Forces” (derived from the series of post-Rapture novels), in which “soldiers for Christ” hunt down enemies who look suspiciously like U.N. peacekeepers.
Tempting to snigger it may be, but as the op-ed – written by Military Religious Freedom Foundation staff – notes:
American military and political officials must, at the very least, have the foresight not to promote crusade rhetoric in the midst of an already religion-tinged war. Many of our enemies in the Mideast already believe that the world is locked in a contest between Christianity and Islam. Why are our military officials validating this ludicrous claim with their own fiery religious rhetoric?
