On 30 September 2013, I sent this assessment in letter form to 298 (mostly women) members of the European Union Parliament. Why the women? Because the male politicians here in Europe (Germany particularly) have shown themselves to be rank cowards. Let’s hope the women will give this issue a bit of traction in the coming weeks and months-
I have been acquainted with Mikey Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation since June of 2008. A quick look into my mail program shows thousands of communications between myself, Mikey and his five times Nobel Peace Prize nominated organization. We have made common cause over these past several years, sharing enemies and challenges. What I admire most about Mikey is his ability to set aside differences and focus on where collaboration will serve the common good. And his infinite courage and dedication to defeating a dark evil while facing tall odds.
As courageous as Mikey is, the enemy we face is doubly dangerous because it is a lethally armed cowardice. When the ‘American Exceptionalism’ comes to a belief at the top levers of power, a drone launched Hellfire missile on one side of the planet, by a video game geek in uniform on the other side of the planet, ‘serves the purpose of the Lord’, it is more than fair to question what it is we are doing as a nation, it is actually a necessity to CHALLENGE the underlying motive of what has become, as Mikey straight-forwardly says, “A weaponized gospel of Jesus Christ.”
There was a brilliant novel, ‘Watership Down’, which portrayed a scene in which a Rabbit colony lived in denial of snares set throughout their warren. This peculiar form of cowardice is not unique. We have our folk wisdom underscoring this behavioral phenomena, for instance ‘the elephant in the living room’ no one will discuss. We have arrived there as a society, when our leadership and media will have no part of any discussion pointing to our own religious criminal elements responsible for reprehensible acts for which the most severe punishments should be meted out in any society under a functioning rule of law.
Mikey Weinstein could no doubt list hundreds (probably thousands) of punishable offenses under existing law that have gone unpunished in the United States military since his foundation had been established (2006.) These offenses are tolerated in the lower ranks because they do NOT offend the sensibilities of commanders at the very top ranks. I am speaking of the fanatic Christians that rule the greater military from the Pentagon, our nation’s top officers. In 2013, Mikey defends 34,000 mostly lower rank (soldiers, airmen and sailor clients) military from hate crimes by extremist Christians in uniform. This would be unnecessary except for the bigots running the Pentagon.
Here is the text of a recent, unedited hate mail, personally forwarded to myself by Mikey:
“I am a proud Christian living and spreading The Word of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ here in Tulsa. Me and my wife came to listen to the devil’s own MikieWienstein at the All Soul’s unitarian church here last saturday. Our pastor told us the next day at Sunday Service that this so called “church” should be renamed as “All Soul’s Going To Hell” for 2 reasons. First it invited one of the greatest enemys of Christ wienstein to even speak here in Tulsa in the first place. Second because noone at that “church” has been saved by the blood of the Lamb Jesus Christ. And they all then will burn in the Lake of Fire for they rejection of our Savior. We listened to mikieWienstein speak his evil words against allowing Christ to impower our U.S. army soldiers. We watched the jews face. We could not help but notice his face. Being a cunning jew he has a shrewd jew face to begin with to confuse the people. But the spirit on that dark face of his could only be of the Dark One himself satan. It was so obvious. It gave my wife and me chils to behold his demonism. My wife wanted to ask him a question at the microphone about him being of satan. But his evil glare from his dark father the fallen angel satan kept her from the strength to do so. And it was useless anyway. As all the others there will burn erternally in hell with that jew of satan. And he had to bring his big nigra guards with him for protection? He has no protection from The Way,The Truth and The Life of Jesus. Mikie should no that there is no protection from those who kiss the lips of satan. And reject the free gift of the love of Christ. He gets what is coming for him from the warriors of the Savior. It is only a matter of time now.”
The most influential thing encouraging this pervasive, vile and bigoted hate, is the refusal of the Pentagon to step up and meet the bigotry this mail fairly represents in our military. Why they do nothing is, because this is the prevailing belief at the Pentagon as well.
Our Pentagon poster child for this vile expression of American Exceptionalism degenerated to religious motivated hate, and the lesson of the Rabbit warren in denial, is David A Patraeus. The cover story is General Patraeus resigned from the CIA over marital infidelity. In fact, a major British mainstream newspaper, The Guardian, was putting the finishing touches on a documentary film tying General Patraeus to black site torture centers and death squads in Iraq. It would never do to have a sitting Director of the CIA implicated for international crimes in our national press if the New York Times or Washington Post were to pick this story up and run with it. True to the principle of ignoring the ‘elephant in the living room’, American mainstream media sucked up to Obama’s ‘look forward, not back’ policy and did not run the Guardian exposé implicating not only Patraeus but also Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld.
General Patraues ties with extreme Christian fundamentalism at the Pentagon has been established by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. He had endorsed extreme literature (“a copy should be in every soldier’s rucksack”), and under General Patraeus command, not only having a ‘weaponized gospel of Jesus’ shoved down soldiers throats had been tolerated, but pervasive sexual assault, and murder of women soldiers as well (according to the informed assertions of Colonel Ann Wright.) If you are familiar with extreme Christian theology, women are not really that cool, women being responsible for everything gone wrong in this world since ‘The Fall.’ Last year there were 26,000 sexual assaults in the United States military, up from 19,000 the year before. Almost no one is punished. See anything wrong with this picture? Who has had an office in the Pentagon for years? General Patraeus’ favored “Officers Christian Fellowship”, a 20,000 member fundamentalist Christian military organization that views our armed forces as a crusader force; and whose senior members were put on a fast track to promotion for 8 years under the Evangelical Bush. The result is, men who believe woman are inferior and Muslims are the children of Satan are running the Pentagon, controlling the triggers from half a world away, sending Hellfire missiles into homes where they ‘suspect’ a militant might be. Are these really the people you’d like to see keeping custody of the world’s largest nuclear arsenal?
And speaking of nukes, we have a rabidly evangelical command structure in the United States Air Force where most of those nukes are held. Aside altogether from the ‘strategic’ inter-continental ballistic missile, the Air Force has custody of enough ‘tactical’ nuclear weapons that can be dropped from planes, to ignite any region of the world in flames, leaving little more than ash. Those ‘tactical’ weapons are not necessarily ‘secure’ when you can easily assemble flight crews who believe (like their superiors at the Pentagon) in literal Armageddon.
A mainstream media in the United States which refuses to report on war crimes tied to General Patraeus in Iraq, as documented by The Guardian, is certainly not to be trusted to report the fact the United States military has become, in and of itself, a world threatening entity. The information is there, they know the facts and the facts do not go to press. One of Mikey Weinstein’s great concerns is Christian fanatics having custody of America’s nuclear arsenal. I agree. What are the New York Times and Washington Post thinking? That Obama’s generals will turn themselves in and confess the facts? Or has the media decided it’s too ‘inconvenient’ for a Commander-in-Chief (Obama) to be bothered during a time of war with the small detail his generals are the 21st Century equivalent of NAZI field marshals, who likely share a beer in pure joy every time one of the hate mails directed at Weinstein is made public and nothing is done.
On this side of the pond (I am in Germany), my endeavor has been to raise awareness in our NATO allies, of just how dangerous an entity the USA has become, if only because it is plain there is little political will at top levers of power in the USA to confront what is pointed to an out of control circumstance threatening our world. The hate mail quoted in this article is one of many I have forwarded to German politicians and I must say the cowardice I’ve encountered here is indeed great. How do I know this? I have all of the training and resources needed to determine the Federal Republic of Germany has been made fully aware, at the top tier of power, of the circumstance as detailed in the preceding. After all, the facts as presented are a NATO issue. To be certain I had their attention, I’d filed a complaint against Germany in the International Criminal Court for aiding and abetting the USA in war crimes. Subsequently, it would appear the body politic here is in the pocket of the USA (the Merkel administration) or has it’s tail tucked firmly between its legs (everyone else.)
Will Mikey give up? Never. Nor will I, because something has to give before this thing ends us all, simply stated. This is about future generations.
I’m fine free lancing on my own, but you can help Mikey’s efforts with providing support to:
www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org
Within a few days of my penning this article, it had been revealed an American televangelist who’d called for a military coup and martial law in the USA has a direct conduit into the Pentagon. Read the article at the Huffington Post by senior Military Religious Freedom Foundation researcher Chris Rodda at this LINK
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^ This should NOT become reality
Ronald Thomas West 