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?
Talking Points Memo has this: last week, US Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell was giving an interview to a Texas newspaper, and when asked about the upcoming Congressional debate over wiretapping, he said the result of having a public debate over the legislation would be that:
“…some Americans are going to die.”
Indeed. As one of the comments on the post sagely quotes:
“You can’t handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who’s gonna do it? You? … You don’t want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall.“
I suspect these words will at some point be delivered by the Vice President.
Gregory Djerejian at Belgravia Dispatch has a good tip if you’re after an informed blog to decode recent happenings on the financial markets: Nouriel Robini’s page on RGE Monitor, a macroeconomic analysis site. Robini’s diagnosis:
Someone’s found interview footage of Dick Cheney being interviewed in 1994 about the 1991 Gulf War. Should US or UN forces have pressed on to occupy Baghdad, the interviewer wonders? No, says Cheney: it would have led to a quagmire. Anyway, he continues, the Administration concluded that when it came to figuring out how many US servicemen deaths it would be worth to take down Saddam Hussein, the answer was “not very many”.
Which, when you stop to think about it, doesn’t do a great deal for the theory that the current Administration went to war with Iraq because of ‘unfinished business’ post-91…
