The egregious violations of constitutional rights by the USA in nearly all (probably all, actually) departments, points to the general contempt for the rule of law by my nation. As Christian nationalism grows at the Pentagon, denying the Enlightenment roots of the American secular republic, we see the spreading fruit of the National Security Act of 1947 having upended our constitution and supplanted rule of law with color of law. Were the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution to mean anything, with its provision for “equal protection of the law” applied in the present circumstance, transgender people would have every right to both; be themselves and to perform their military duties without exception. The following op-ed points to the patent meaninglessness of our leaders oath to uphold the constitution, or worse, the inability to grasp the point and meaning of that very oath. Following article reposted with permission of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation.
*
– March 25, 2018
Statement by Transgender Client of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) on the Reissued Ban on Transgender People in the Military:
Friday the Trump Administration reissued its ban on Transgender people in the military. The exceptions are persons who have been “stable for 36 consecutive months in their biological sex prior to accession [and] service members who do not require a change of gender.” While it’s unclear how the Administration defines the term biological sex, “those requiring medications and surgery” are out. Clearly, Trump has an unwarranted bias against Transgender people who need to physically transition.
This time they have gone past the trite and debunked arguments of unit cohesiveness, medical costs, and deployability to a broad claim that Transgender people “present considerable risk to military effectiveness and lethality.” As a retired military officer, defense worker and a Transgender person who still works on a military installation, I find this accusation deplorable. It desecrates my 40 years of sacrifice, dedication, and public service to the nation. To insinuate that I have been and am a risk to national defense is ludicrous and demeans the medals, promotions and great things I accomplished while serving in the name of national security.
The truth is, there are and have been Transgender military members serving with honor and distinction for centuries. I am just one of many. We were forced to keep out of sight. But isn’t that the Administration’s objective? This move is simply a Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy for Transgender people: Out of sight, out of mind. The Administration wants to force Transgender members out, keep Transgender applicants out, and scare those left into hiding; demand they be someone they are not and compromise their personal integrity.
The Administration and those egging them on, want to first erase us from the military, that’s the easy one. Then erase us from the rest of society. Last month the Kansas Republican Party approved a resolution that opposes “all efforts to validate Transgender identity,”
What do these people use as the rationale for their Transphobia? They cite “God’s design for gender”. It has nothing to do with the ability to perform the tasks required of a military member. It’s really all about forming a rigid society void of diversity by exploiting the hypnotic power of religion to rid the society of individuals who don’t strictly adhere to their model.
To achieve this goal within the constitutional confines of the U.S. they must secure religious exemptions by manipulating political power (i.e. the Trump Administration). These exemptions are special rights to unleash their discriminatory and oppressive bigotry in violation of civil rights protections and equality standards. Within the military, this is what really undermines unit cohesion and places national security at risk.
As a client and supporter of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), I am incensed. The tenets of our Constitution, the ones I swore to uphold, and the standards of integrity we expect of our soldiers, sailors and airmen, are being undermined by a hypocritical cult who is weaponizing the Christian religion and is bent on creating a military that mirrors their myopic societal view to further their dominionist aims.
We Transgender people are contributing members of society. We deserve the same rights and respect afforded all citizens including serving in the U.S. military; no more, no less. The Transgender community, who adds a chromatic spectrum to the human experience, is the low hanging fruit for these theocratic ideologues and the canary in the coal mine for true freedom-loving Americans.
Deborah Schoenfeld (photo courtesy of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation)
The content of this letter, reproduced here with the permission of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, is amazing. What’s more amazing is, this demand for compliance to law prior to filing a lawsuit, is in the 21st Century as opposed to the dark ages:
October 5, 2015
ATTN: LTC Dennis Holt Clinical Dentistry Flight Commander, 579th DS 238 Brookley Avenue, BLDG 1300 Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling Washington, DC 20032
CC: COL James M. Howell Commander, Fort Meade Dentac 8476 Simmonds St. Ft. Meade, MD 20755
Sir,
Got witches? Are you and your staff quite out of your Constitutionally derelict minds?
It has been brought to the attention of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), that an incredibly volatile, hostile and toxic evangelical Christian work environment under your direct command has resulted in the pernicious harassment, disenfranchisement, and firing of a once valued member of your team, Ms. Deborah Schoenfeld. We are writing you today in order to inform you that we will be immediately providing aggressive advocacy services for Ms. Schoenfeld as a MRFF client pursuant to her resolute quest to obtain a just resolution to her shocking complaints which have now been officially filed through the appropriate military Equal Employment Opportunity (EO) channels.
For the record, Ms. Schoenfeld practices the Hindu religion and has interest in Wiccan practices. A brief summary of her complaints follows:
In her time at Epes Dental Clinic she was actually and specifically accused of “witchcraft” and “bringing demons into the office.” She has been officially advised that she is not allowed to know who her accusers are.
She has been openly disparaged for not having the same religious views as her superiors (evangelical Christian) and being “uninterested in taking part” in Christian rituals or the rampant and rapacious, workplace-based, evangelical Christian proselytizing which is outrageously and comprehensively supported by her former command.
She has been admonished that practicing yoga is “satanic”, and will “cost (her) her soul”.
She was advised by her chain of command to pray against the recent Supreme Court ruling against same sex marriage, as it is “an abomination to their religion” (an employee in the office wanted all the civilians to pray against the legalization of same sex marriage at a clinic meeting.)
She was chastised for playing Indian music in the workplace as it was “not Christian”, while Christian music was commonly played throughout the entirety of this armed forces dental clinic.
After filing an EO complaint, as anyone in her perilous situation of abject persecution should and would have done, she was swiftly fired from her job for false and scurrilous accusations from unknown persons asserting that she allegedly used profanity in the workplace.
She was advised that she was accused of wrongdoing, and that she did not have the right to know her accuser(s).
Her career has been unjustly and abruptly derailed and terminated by a literal “witch hunt” within your command.
We have spoken with witnesses at the clinic under your command who have universally confirmed that, not only did this horrid harassment take place, but ever since the execution of her punishment for failing the religious test imposed by the leadership of Epes Dental Clinic, a particular offending party has effusively celebrated her replacement by a Catholic woman by saying publicly that “It’s good to see we got an angel, since last time we had the devil.”
One witness has reported to MRFF that the clinic NCOIC responsible for Ms. Schoenfeld’s firing has issued specific and detailed instructions, warnings and threats to remaining personnel to make no efforts in supporting Ms. Schoenfeld’s return to duty lest they face similar consequences of employment termination and related personal disparagement.
Sir, this is by far the most ludicrous, scandalous and outrageous treatment of a valued member of our military team that I have come across in my decade-plus of fighting these religious intolerance issues. Ms. Schoenfeld’s basic Constitutional civil rights have been obliterated and ripped asunder. Her administrative due process rights have been wretchedly desecrated. What has happened here under your command is precisely why we at MRFF refer to such bigotry as “spiritual rape”.
The astonishingly egregious behavior of those afflicting our MRFF client under your direct command is wholly unconstitutional. It viciously violates a vast sea of DoD and USAF Directives, Instructions and Regulations. Indeed, Air Force Instruction (AFI) 1-1, Section 2.12 makes it crystal clear that leaders at all levels in the Air Force, such as for example YOU, Lt. Col. Holt, “must ensure that their words and actions cannot reasonably be construed to be officially endorsing or disapproving of or extending preferential treatment for any faith, belief or absence of belief.” Violations of this specific AFI are fully and potentially punishable as a felony under the Uniform Code of Military Justice pursuant to inter alia Article 92. I am confident that you recognize the value of the positive changes we have made as a society regarding religious freedom since Salem, 1692. Witch hunts are now illegal, sir.
Ms. Schoenfeld is Hindu, not Christian. That fact should have no bearing whatsoever on her ability to perform her duties as a civilian contractor with the United States Air Force. Clause 3, Article VI of the United States Constitution outlaws any “religious test” in the federal government such as the test those under your direct command have clearly utilized to torture, terrorize and torment our MRFF client. The No Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of our nation’s Constitution absolutely forbids the exact same type of practices which are so commonplace under your command in the brazen establishment of evangelical Christianity as the only approved solution for religious belief in the 579th DS of the Epes Dental Clinic at Fort Meade, Maryland.
Ms. Schoenfeld desires to expeditiously return to duty in good standing at Dental Clinic 3 on Fort Meade as soon as possible and to see swift and appropriate justice served against all of the offending parties who have either directly or indirectly eviscerated her Constitutional civil rights; including you, Lt. Col. Holt, as her erstwhile commander.
Please let MRFF know immediately what you intend to do to timely remediate this scandalous, actual “witch hunt” and all of its associated transgressions of law and regulation.
Respectfully,
Michael L. “Mikey” Weinstein, Esq. Founder and President Military Religious Freedom Foundation
CC:
General Martin E. Dempsey – Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Deborah L. James – Secretary of the Air Force
General Mark A. Welsh III – Air Force Chief of Staff
John M. McHugh – Secretary of the Army
General Raymond T. Odierno – Army Chief of Staff
Randal G. Mathis, Mathis & Donheiser P.C. – MRFF Lead Trial Counsel
After seeing the spin coming out of the White House, Pentagon and NATO, following a sustained, multiple strikes of the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, I decided to put this mail (below the italicized text) out for public perusal. Why were the Médecins Sans Frontiéres people blown up? Because they would treat the Taliban wounded no differently to they would treat anyone else? Or is the reason more insidious?
The bombing of the hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan; Doctors Without Borders reporting the facts: The hospital compound was secured for the night and there were no Taliban forces engaging anyone from within the hospital grounds. Previous to this, NATO had the hospitals precise GPS coordinates on record, in both Kabul and at the Pentagon, and were apprised this was a neutral humanitarian site. Pinpoint runs from the American aircraft, precisely targeting the main hospital building, continued for an hour following NATO in Kabul and the Pentagon in Washington being notified they were bombing a hospital.
According to the USA, first it was ‘collateral damage’ from bombs dropped ‘in the vicinity’ of the hospital. Then it was Taliban were firing on US Special Forces from the hospital compound. Next, it’s ‘Afghan forces were taking fire and called in the airstrikes’ where several civilians were ‘accidentally struck.’ And then, the story is clarified but with a deceit; According to Defense One “Afghans called in the strike. That’s the long and short of it, according to Gen. John Campbell, top U.S. commander of the Afghanistan war… “The Afghans asked for air support from a Special Forces team that we have on the ground providing train, advise and assist in Kunduz,” he said, while visiting the Pentagon Monday. Campbell said U.S. forces were not fired upon and not simply returning fire. Instead, just one AC-130 gunship pounded the hospital over and over”
Do you see the deceit in this immediate preceding? The Afghans COULD NOT call in the strike, they have to ask the American Green Berets accompanying them in the battle zone to call in the strike. But because the Afghans now supposedly asked for a strike, the American team calls the strike in and that’s called Afghans called in the strike. Meanwhile, the Afghan government denies it was their forces made the request.
And finally, General Campbell, USA commander in Afghanistan, admits the entire business of attacking the hospital was taken within USA command structures. He had to have realized there was ultimately no way around this admission.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter: “There will be accountability, if that is required.” ‘If that is required’ ? Carter should have rather more honestly said ‘There will be impunity, it’s the norm’
Dear Doctors without Borders
I am a longtime donor and supporter of MSF. I am also a former military special operations intelligence professional and anti-corruption investigator. In relation to the recent NATO bombing of your organizations hospital at Kunduz, Afghanistan, I wish to draw your attention to the work of the 7 time Nobel nominated Military Religious Freedom Foundation (website) http://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org and the work of its founder, Mikey Weinstein info@militaryreligiousfreedom.org.
I regret to inform you the work of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation clearly points to a United States Air Force with little to no regard to Muslim life and/or persons sympathetic to the same. Mr Weinstein, following on years of investigation by his organization, a USA 501 C 3 non-profit civil rights group, has labelled the Pentagon “Christian Taliban” and points to radicalized Islamophobic hate as endemic to the U.S. Air Force officer corps particularly and to the officer corps of the United States Military generally.
I believe you would be well informed to contact Mr Weinstein to better understand the context of the too frequent ‘collateral damage’ (NATO & Pentagon euphemism) bombings in Afghanistan. When the Muslims you serve with medical treatments are quite likely considered less than human by those providing the strike coordinates, it may be there is no action you can take to avoid being targeted short of addressing the murderous, ethnocentric, extreme Christianity handling the combat missions.
My condolences to your organization in this difficult moment
Review of No Snowflake in an Avalanche by Mikey Weinstein, originally posted to amazon.com in 2012 –
This book is a damning indictment of the cowardice of men in leadership, a testament to the courage and sacrifice of those they presume to lead. For anyone who’d thought a nascent and growing extreme fundamentalism in the USA merely a threat, this book should make them think again and should rightfully frighten and galvanize to action anyone concerned a cult within our military can both: break the mentality of, and train a young officer for future assignment to launch nuclear weapons.
Where to begin? I could write essays on multiple subjects of peril this book has only scratched the surface of, yet that scratch bleeds profusely throughout its pages. It may seem odd to some that, for me, the most striking and empathetic passages of the book is a wife and mother with Multiple Sclerosis surrendering her dream of a life as uncomplicated as possible, as a matter of principle, giving up her pursuit of happiness and the American Dream to take on the malignant social cancer infesting and infecting what must ultimately be what our nation is judged by in the eyes of today’s world; The perception of American empire, the Armed Forces of the United States of America.
As I write, I know empathy, suffering Neuro-Behcets Syndrome, a mimic Multiple Sclerosis. My own desire has been many years wishing only to live out those years I have left in peace, but no, a narcissism of arrogance circumstantially known as fundamentalist Christian dominionism has dictated my duties according to conscience as well. Yes’m, I understand and know empathy in our common alliance against evil.
The human dimension is profound, the humiliation, the grief, the sacrifice and the fighting back against stacked odds at every turn for those ethical civilian and military warriors detailed in this book.
Where to begin? Striking is the thought, here is the true story’s protagonist with impeccable conservative credentials, Michael L. ‘Mikey’ Weinstein, breaking down every stereotype and smashing every barrier in a focused, concerted effort which, if successful, and there is no guarantee of success, should win the admiration of dyed in the wool liberals, feminists particularly, and people of every sane persuasion. Mikey has marched a long march to arrive on the cusp of achieving immortality in history. I am moved by his story and, by my own independent research, towards expending precious drops of my own small reservoir of life force to help Mikey achieve his goals.
This is no small achievement in its own right that a man, Mikey Weinstein, would have come so far in his personal evolution as to overcome his history of working to keep Iran-Contra from spilling into the open under Reagan, to win my avowed admiration. But here again is a striking moment, it was my own experiences as a soldier had turned me against wars altogether, no different to Howard Zinn. Mikey fits the same mold, only we each have our separate timelines to fated evolution and goals.
Mikey’s goal is quite straight forward. To take the American military, the most lethal military in the world by far, out of the hands of and keep it out of the hands of, what can only be accurately described as Madmen. Any such endeavor is highly worthy of my liberal support.
Where to begin? Critically important, the book makes a case for young American service women and men dying in vain on account of the narcissism, and nothing more, of those General Officers and politicians trusted with our soldiers care at the highest levels of these United States of America’s institutions, whether at the level of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or sitting in either house of Congress.
This last will be the focus of my essay; I will leave the several other critically important subjects to the insights of other reviewers. I cannot speak to nukes as an expert, there are better qualified to speak to contemporary military/civilian life, but one thing I had dusted off and polished these past several years were my intelligence analysis skills. Here follows my analysis, in lockstep with the books conclusions, insofar as how deeply penetrated and compromised our military’s highest offices and ranking officer corps have become by dominionism and will yet cost us dearly in American lives and blood.
In my day, our Special Operations Forces had not yet become pervasively criminalized. We saw ourselves more along the lines of an elite Peace Corps working the most hazardous territories of a Cold War world. Critical to our mission was pacification of populace in the areas we worked, and pacification is and was a straightforward word. We worked to bring peace to neighborhoods in conflicts. John Wayne stereotype aside, the military aspects were honest endeavor to provide self-defense training to remote villages with an objective the populace could not be easily exploited by irregular militia, but that was never going to be accomplished in any case, except that we understood and respected and even integrated to the local customs and culture. That we had elite and lethal training was primarily survival oriented, yes there were the occasional ‘special operation’ to perhaps decapitate the leadership of a particular guerrilla group or undertake sabotage behind enemy lines in the course of our work, examples given, but this was the exception, not the rule. Primarily our superior skills were required to operate small teams in areas where we might meet with considerably stronger numerical force. The highly honed and elite skills of the 1960s and 1970s Green Berets teams were more often than not, more than equal to any larger irregular force. If vastly out numbered, we knew how to inflict savage and costly casualties on our pursuers in the course of evasion. In our pacification work, Action Anthropology was the norm of the day. We integrated to our human and social environment. We were armed educators, medical providers and social workers. We were not primarily meant to be offensive; to the contrary, restraint was a big piece of our discipline and training. Cowboy mentalities were not tolerated.
It is quite clear things have changed away from this focus, dramatically, for the military applications of special operations forces, in the approximately four decades since Vietnam.
In the span of a few hours or so in Iraq, one Special Forces team leader, inflamed by watching the ‘Passion of the Christ’, instigated an incident that effectively made a war zone of an entire neighborhood and radicalized several hundred, perhaps several thousand Muslims. This commissioned officer had used a bullhorn to have “Jesus kill Mohammed” blared into a Muslim neighborhood, and when the perfectly predictable reaction was everyone with a gun in that area of the city showing up to shoot at this moron, a weapon that could blow through the front and back wall of a house was turned on the neighborhood homes by the Special Forces team.
Many of those consequently radicalized Iraqis no doubt turned to local militia and offered their services to train to kill our regular American soldiers over this one of many [unpunished] incidents of Christian extremism provided elite training. Our ‘elite’ forces had just accomplished the absolutely criminal act of getting more Americans killed in future battles. This is the criminalization of our special operations forces by extremist Christian fundamentalist commanders. Who are those commanders? I will name two.
General William G. Boykin. A rabid fundamentalist Christian, his career in special operations is littered with tactical disasters. It would seem his only qualifications to have advanced throughout his career are his ‘belief in God.’ That and his belief in his special operations crusaders. With these mentalities at the top of command, what is promoted under you will be a solid corps of those with shared bigoted beliefs. General Boykin, since his retirement in 2007, had to be ‘dis-invited’ from speaking at West Point Academy on account of his virulent hatred of all things and people that are ‘not Christian or not Christian enough.’ Consider it is today’s special operations trained veterans who move into SWAT jobs in your local and state police force, are hired by Blackwater [then Xe Corp, now Academi, a lot of changed identities over a string of fundamentalism motivated crimes] and other de facto corporate militia, join the CIA and FBI or simply become mercenaries. These people with elite training and extreme belief will be getting many more Americans killed over a long haul ahead of us and not only in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. Their numbers are only growing, thanks in large part to:
General Patraeus. It is common political knowledge in Washington DC that President Obama had appointed General Patraeus to head the CIA as a means of sidelining the General’s political ambitions over serious concerns Patraeus would hook up with the likes of Sarah Palin or Michelle Bachman in a run against Obama for the presidency in 2012. Either way you have it, a commander-in-chief, whether a military veteran or not, is a sword that can cut two ways. Obama’s naiveté in military affairs, having never served, is the 2nd worst possible circumstance in an America where naked fundamentalist ambition has overtaken the leadership of American military command structures, outside an out and out fundamentalist president. That Obama would, as a matter of political expediency, appoint Patraeus to head up the CIA with its out of control Operational Division working in close concert with the radicalized and criminalized Christian extremist special operations forces of today’s American military, is simply asking for disaster. General Patraeus was key [together with Robert Gates] in convincing Obama to radically beef up the USA’s special operations forces, at a time it was already decided the overall troop numbers would have to be reduced.
General Patraeus has had a close association with special operations forces throughout his career. Since Patraeus appointment to DCI [Director of Central Intelligence or CIA] Admiral William H McRaven, now overall boss of the special operations forces which these days are routinely assigned to CIA operational missions, has requested his forces be allowed to operate outside the traditional Department of Defense channels. This is, no doubt, a sleight-of-hand grab for these elite forces away from normal supervision via established Department of Defense structures, and away from oversight by Admiral McRaven’s professional associate CIA Director Patraeus. This cannot be a good thing.
The myth of General Patraeus in the public purview is a demonstrable tactical lie. In fact the ‘surge that turned around the war in Iraq’ for which he became famous was at best a deceit along the lines of a shell game or bait and switch. General Patraeus beefed up the American force, momentarily disrupted the insurgency with an all out push that could not be sustained in any case, and then pulled the bulk of the American forces back to their bases and took the Americans, for the first time, largely out of public circulation before the insurgents could regroup. It is this removing the American soldiers from the everyday Iraqi life which had dramatically dropped the violence in Iraq, nothing more. The same could have been accomplished in 2004, and honestly at that, were it not for literally crusading extremist neo-con commanders and secular officers afraid to speak out and challenge the status quo at the CIA and Pentagon, to call a spade a spade, a career ending move. It is truly Faustian, if you speak out your career is over and you have been weeded from the ranks which only become more Christian extremist with the favored or ‘blessed’ replacements, if you keep your mouth shut, it all evolves towards fascism regardless.
Moving over to Afghanistan, notoriously there have been many special operations forces crimes, inclusive of attacking a wedding where fleeing women and kids had been shot in their backs, cold blooded murders. We pay the Afghans compensation but the root problem of anti-Islam fundamentalism is never effectively addressed and the hate for the Americans only spreads. General Patraeus has had a large hand in keeping these American special operations independent of NATO, effectively exercising impunity and generating a strengthened Taliban when the Americans are seen as a worse curse.
Now, we are seeing the full fruition of the crusading mentality and criminal anti-social behaviors with the ‘burning of the Koran’ riots in Kabul triggering a long pent up but growing frustration of the Afghan people as a whole. No Snowflake in an Avalanche points towards the inevitable conclusion: Our fundamentalist neo-con Generals, in the guise of patriotism, have handed an untrained Obama a perfect storm. This is no accident.
The book’s holdings are consistent with the preceding scenario I have drawn for the reader from my knowledge of social psychology, special operations intelligence and tactics. The book meticulously documents the facts of the extremism in our military leadership; it is a well written book, concise and cohesive to the points of sedition and treason at the highest levels of the United States Armed Forces and matches my independent assessment of these past several years, summarized in the preceding.
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No Snowflake in an Avalanche by Michael L. ‘Mikey’ Weinstein and David Seay
Review by Ronald Thomas West, Vietnam Veteran, recipient of the United States Army Commendation Medal (individual citation) & the Vietnam Cross of Gallantry (Brigade Aviation, 199th Light Infantry Brigade, unit citation.) Subsequent to extended tour of Vietnam, Ronald served as non-commissioned officer in charge, operations & intelligence, Detachment 1, Company C, 5th Battalion, 19th Special Forces Group. Ronald also achieved Distinguished Graduate status at the Hawk Improved Missile program at the U.S. Army Missile School, Ft Bliss, Texas.
Ronald’s family tree has soldiers serving in nearly every period of American conflict including the Civil and American Revolutionary Wars. Immediate family members who have served in the military include both grandfathers, his father, uncle, brother, nephew and two of his three sons.
Ronald is co-author [together with Dr Mark D Cole] of the Mueller-Wilson report [International Law/Human Rights.] Today he is a medically retired investigator and blogger on intelligence (primarily.)
Forget about Dan Brown’s fantasy conspiracy cult, this is a story of the real Opus Dei:
The American founders clearly recognized the history and danger of any ‘Christian Dominion’ as eloquently stated by James Madison:
“Experience witnesses that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and virtue of religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution”
Also, there was no sense of certainty, on the American founders’ part, there would be an infallible institution of government born of the American revolutionary experiment. When emerging from the Constitutional Convention, the waiting-shouting crowd demanded an answer of Benjamin Franklin, on the form of a new government to be given them. His answer?
“A republic, if you can keep it.”
We couldn’t. The founders were well aware of centuries of Vatican intrigue in relation to manipulating geopolitics, governments and related demands of submission, examples now include condemning the Magna Charta, causing a civil war, to demanding authority over the divorce of Henry the VIII, to the modern church support of Francisco Franco:
“Franco’s concordat gave state funding to the Church and legally enforced Church teaching. In return, the Vatican … granted him the full version of “royal patronage” (patronato real). This was the ancient privilege of Spanish kings to name bishops and veto appointments down to the level of the parish priest”
The Catholic Church is dominionist by deed. ‘Christian Dominion’ is perhaps most easily described as the ‘rule of God’s law’ trumps the ‘rule of secular law’, Jesus commandment to ‘render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s’ notwithstanding. Practical ‘Christian Dominion’ as employed by the modern church at Rome is evident in several respects; based on a principle of forgiveness of ‘lesser evils’, follows here are four salient examples:
1) Third Reich war criminals, forgiven and protected for the purpose of fighting a greater evil such as ‘godless’ communists. This resulted in the Vatican ‘rat lines’ evacuating tens of thousands of Nazi war criminals to safety and away from prosecutions, in the immediate post World War II years:
“It gets a little crazy, when you let one thing [anticommunism] take over to the extent that you forgive everything else” -CIA officer Victor Marchetti
2) Protecting pedophile priests identities, shielding these criminals throughout the world, moving them from parish to parish while protecting them from civil authorities and prosecutions.
“From the time the Paraclete brothers—over the objections of the order’s founder—began treating pedophiles there in 1965, Camp Ped was little more than a recycling center for child-molesting priests. Bishops used it as a holding tank for clerical sickos until they could foist them on new and unsuspecting parishioners. Its miserable track record can be measured in countless children’s ruined lives”
3) In this third instance, you see how the previous two instance combine to demonstrate a model; when an Argentine priest who’d participated hands on in torture interrogations, and murders, of ‘disappeared’ persons, the Church at Rome had allowed him to serve as a parish priest under an alias while a fugitive war criminal. It was only after the priest had been exposed by investigative journals, that he’d been brought to justice.
“The parishioners in the coastal village in Chile knew their priest simply as the Rev. Christián González. Only his accent gave away that he was an Argentine. So it came as a shock to them when he traveled back to Argentina last year and had to face charges here for crimes dating to the military dictatorship of the 1970’s. Under his real name, Christián von Wernich, he is accused of 19 counts of murder and 33 of abduction and torture”
4) This fourth instance reinforces the preceding third instance; providing alias to Rwandan priestscomplicit in genocide and placing them in parishes abroad:
“Accusations that the Catholic leadership acted as apologists for the génocidaire have been buttressed by the involvement of a network of church organisations, from monasteries to missionaries, in helping priests accused of murder in Rwanda to evade justice. Some were hidden away in Europe, taken on under false names as parish priests”
These (linked) preceding instances of modern church history are too similar, too geographically widespread, too often repeated, to be anything less than actual church policy, these facts are NOT anomalies. In each instance, it is a case of ‘rehabilitation through forgiveness’ or “Go and do not sin again” which, according to the factual deeds of church hierarchy, demonstrates ‘God’s law’ trumps accountability to any secular rule of law. If the church forgives, it is the position of the church, that is where accountability ends. This becomes ever-more-so problematic as the litany of criminal behaviors only grows. Church empowered IMPUNITYundermining democracies, is the practical result. This is especially relevant to Opus Dei.
Excluding the rebellious, hyper-radical, extreme fringe of right-wing Catholicism represented in the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), Opus Dei is the mainstay institution for the hardcore religious-right in the church at Rome. Conservatives throughout the Catholic hierarchy defer to Opus Dei, or curry favor with Opus Dei, to position themselves for advancement. Accommodating Opus Dei is a required element for any who aspire to the highest office, the papacy, no matter that person’s church society affiliation. This is matter of fact internal church hierarchy politics and the Jesuit Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s rise cannot be considered an exception.
Opus Dei, which flourished in its early (formative) decades in Franco’s Spain, prior to expanding aggressively into Latin America, points to two events so similar, they cannot be considered to be unrelated.
“In the decade following the end of the Spanish Civil War, an unholy alliance of doctors, priests, and General Francisco Franco’s secret police systematically took thousands of children from vulnerable women known to have supported the Republican cause. These women were often in prison, or their husbands had been killed or were also in jail. It was seen at the time as an effective way of inflicting a lasting punishment on those who had backed the wrong side in the war, at the same time as preventing the appearance of a new generation of “reds” by placing the children in the care of families who supported the new regime”
“Priests and bishops in Argentina justified their support of the government on national security concerns, and defended the taking of children as a way to ensure they were not “contaminated” by leftist enemies of the military, said Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, a Nobel Prize-winning human rights advocate who has investigated dozens of disappearances and testified at the trial”
General Videla himself stated he had the advice of the church in the policies he’d initiated, including the disposition of infant and small children taken from parents the regime had murdered:
“Ex General Jorge Videla said he had “many conversations” with Argentina’s primate, Cardinal Raúl Francisco Primatesta, about his regime’s dirty war against left-wing activists. He said there were also conversations with other leading bishops from Argentina’s episcopal conference as well as with the country’s papal nuncio at the time, Pio Laghi … “They advised us about the manner in which to deal with the situation” said Videla”
Noting General Videla’s naming of Cardinal Primatesta, who refused testimony to any lawful tribunal concerning the crimes of the Argentine junta…
“On his death in 2006 human rights campaigners in Argentina said he took to the grave many of the junta’s secrets after they failed to force him to testify about his dealings with it”
…it is interesting to note an official Opus Dei bulletin [announcement] endorsing and associating with the criminal Cardinal’s activities as recently as 2001:
^ “Dans la ville de Córdoba (Argentine), le cardinal Primatesta, qui présidait la célébration, a commenté que le bienheureux Josémaria a aidé des milliers de personnes à s’unir à Dieu, chacun à l’endroit où il est”
Translation:
“In the city of Córdoba (Argentina), Cardinal Primatesta, who presided [at] the celebration, said that Blessed Josemaria “has helped thousands of people to unite with God, each in the place where he is” [referring to celebrating the founder of Opus Dei]
A few years later, we discover Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio has filled Cardinal Primatesta’s shoes for the same Opus Dei event:
^ “Archbishop of Buenos Aires and Primate of Argentina, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, presided in the metropolitan Cathedral at a Mass concelebrated with Fr. Patricio Olmos, Regional Vicar of Opus Dei in Argentina”
Jorge Mario Bergoglio DID appear before the tribunal investigating ‘disappeared’ (murdered) persons in Argentina because he’d been fingered by a low ranking Jesuit priest, Fr Yario, as the man responsible for giving him up to the junta to experience five months of torture. A brave liberal Catholic woman investigated Bergoglio’s tetimony and demonstrates Bergoglio stonewalled, prevaricated, refused answers (and we’ve since discovered, outright lied), here is a telling tribunal transcript snippet:
Tribunal: “Did the general of the Jesuits know that there were accusations made against this group [that included Jalics and Yorio]? Did the General [the global head of the Jesuits] share those [critical] views?”
Bergoglio: [no answer]
The article concludes (among other things)
“Under Jorge Mario’s [Bergoglio] leadership, the Society of Jesus [Jesuits in Argentina], was shaped into a theological phalanx of the right-wing dictatorship. Bergoglio did not answer the question put to him about whether the Superior General of the Society of Jesus (worldwide) shared Bergoglio’s critical view of liberation theology and its preferential option to the poor. If so, he would have had to say that the answer was no”
It would appear Bergoglio’s concerns for social justice and the poor are at best superficial or for appearance sake, and at worst, are left outside the door in any case, when it comes to protecting the interests of Opus Dei. Opus Dei is a ‘personal prelature’ answering to the Curia at the Vatican:
“A personal prelature is a Church jurisdiction without geographical boundaries designed to carry out particular pastoral initiatives. At present, the only personal prelature in the Church is Opus Dei”
In effect, Opus Dei or ‘The Work’ is (these days) a society which can be assigned specific errands by the Holy See. However Opus Dei might take issue with that interpretation, at least for public consumption, it does well to recall the organization’s history in relation to collusion with intelligence agencies and consequent ties to false-flag terror carried out by fascist Catholic cells. It was a former CIA director, Bill Colby, had blown the whistle the CIA had employed Opus Deito set up Operation Gladio throughout Western Europe:
“Colby’s story is absolutely correct. Absalon was created in the early 1950s. Colby was a member of the world spanning laymen Catholic organisation Opus Dei, which, using a modern term, could be called right-wing. Opus Dei played a central role in the setting up of Gladio in the whole of Europe”
Keep that thought in your pocket when considering how great a favor Dan Brown had done Opus Dei; when he’d created a mythical cult or far-fetched conspiracy theory detracting from real world crimes with Opus Dei fingerprints .. involving the slaughter of innocents with bombs and machine guns:
^ Watch beginning about 3 to 4 minutes in
These are practically solved murders that have gone un-prosecuted for essentially two facts; 1) the interference of the Western democracies intelligence agencies derailing investigations and 2) the fact of the Catholic hierarchy harboring those very criminal elements devoted to the overthrow of ‘godless’ secularism. Jorge Mario Bergoglio has all of the necessary evidence at his disposal, as the present lead authority over the ‘personal prelature’ of Opus Dei, to produce the criminally complicit fascist cells involved in the slaughter of innocents in Italy, Germany and Belgium, and deliver these killers to justice. What has he done in reality? Promoted Opus Dei to the top levers of power at the Vatican:
“Opus Dei, an official institution of the Catholic Church, at the top is a secret society of international bankers, financiers, businessmen and their supporters. Their goal is the same as other plutocrats – unbridled power – except they use the influence of the Catholic Church and its worldwide network of institutions exempt from both taxes and financial reporting requirements to advance rightwing parties and governments. A year after Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s elevation as head of the Church and his many appointments, the dust has settled. Three cardinals have emerged as the most powerful in this papacy; all have close ties to Opus Dei. Two now control all Vatican finance”
Moving towards the conclusion of this assessment, it does well to recall Argentina by the time Vatican ‘rat lines’ had smuggled thousands of Nazis out of Europe and into that nation:
“In October 1961, Caggiano and the then president of Argentina, Arturo Frondizi inaugurated the first course on counter-revolutionary warfare in the Higher Military College. One of the tasks set in the course was to explain this quotation from the bishop of Verden, Dietrick von Nieken in 1411:
“When the existence of the Church is threatened, it is no longer bound by the commandments of morality. When unity is the aim, all means are justified: deceit, treachery, violence, usury, prison and death. Because order serves the good of the community, and the individual has to be sacrificed for the common good.”
“…among its instructors were priests such as Victorio Bonamín, whom Caggiano had chosen as his associate in the military vicariate general. At the start of the course, the director of the Higher Military College explained that it would be dealing with a new kind of warfare “which we could call ‘internal warfare’”, to be fought “without concern for the means, or scruples, or ethical principles”
The mandatory Nuclear Ethics and Nuclear Warfare session, which includes a discussion on St. Augustine’s “Christian Just War Theory,” is led by Air Force chaplains and takes place during a missile officer’s first week in training at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. St. Augustine’s “Qualifications for Just War,” according to the way it is cited in a PowerPoint presentation, are: “to avenge or to avert evil; to protect the innocent and restore moral social order (just cause)” and “to restore moral order; not expand power, not for pride or revenge (just intent)”
And in light of the preceding, examine recent Opus Dei meddling in American military affairs, falsely attacking the man most responsible for forcing the American military to confront its violation of laws prohibiting religious influences guiding military policies:
“Newsmax said, in an email … that it had removed the article produced by the Vatican-backed Aleteia because the author did not answer questions raised about it.
“The article implied that Mikey Weinstein, Founder and President of the organization, lied or exaggerated his ties with the Reagan White House to raise money to support the civil rights organization head leads. It has 40,000 active duty and veteran service members, of all faiths (about 96% are practicing Christians) and no faith, who want to keep the church out of the military’s business. They campaign aggressively to stop unconstitutional proselytizing throughout the U. S. armed forces and otherwise keep the “God Boys” out of the nation’s military where not to do so would be unlawful
“In the article, written by Mark Stricherz, two officials were quoted challenging Weinstein’s legitimacy.
“Ray Wilson, an archivist at the Reagan White House Library, was quoted as saying records did not show any indication Weinstein worked for the White House. Wilson on Thursday, in a telephone interview, disputed [that] and said he told the author he didn’t have time to make an exhaustive check and a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request should be filed if he wanted an authoritative response.
“University of Minnesota Professor Richard Painter, former deputy legal counsel for Reagan, was quoted as implying that although Weinstein did work for the Reagan White House he was exaggerating his role. Painter said he was asking for a correction from Aleteia”
Evidence for the Aleteia publication denouncing Weinstein connection to Opus Dei is clear, per the publication’s own listing of its ‘research experts’
“Fr. C. John McCloskey, III is a priest of the Prelature of Opus Dei. He currently is Research Fellow of the Faith and Reason Institute in Washington DC”
The question every *truly* rational person on this planet should be asking themselves is, how do you envision a future related to Opus Dei actively working to undermine a man dedicated to keeping religious fanatics hands off of the largest nuclear arsenal in the world?
Update 12 April 2015: Pope Frances (to date) is standing behind the promotion of the criminal dictator Augusto Pinochet’s military priest, Juan Barros (presided at Pinochet’s funeral), despite the fact Barros shielded one of the church’s most notorious pedophiles
Well, let’s offer a not so wonderful view of what’s up with the symbiotic relationship between the USA’s military and the USA’s police forces and I’m not talking about giving police charged with ‘protecting schools’ grenade launchers, machine guns and other inappropriate ‘surplus’ equipment. Rather I’m going to write about the altogether wrong sort of meme involved with creating a collective mentality, germinated in the American military and infused into the American ‘civilian’ police.
We’ll go for this short ride employing simple social psychology principles in combination with demographics. When ‘veterans preference’ is imposed on police hiring as a matter of law, and a society such as ours is one recently put through some considerable stresses, economic and social, resulting in both heightened paranoia and less opportunities at well paying jobs, the civilian police forces will become packed with ‘war on terror’ military veterans. This combined phenomena will translate into many veterans who’ve developed an ‘us versus the enemy’ mentality integrated into America’s police forces in relation to community, particularly when ‘community’ is demographically dissimilar to one’s own, and this mindset manifests when Black communities are policed largely by White officers.
Now, we stir into the mix some more unpleasant facts; in today’s America, conservatism has become poisoned by the religious right. A volunteer military is historically attractive to conservative mentality, more so than other outlooks, and this is what will be fed into the police hiring rosters in by far out of proportion (to larger society) numbers. The religious right is primarily White and has undeniable racist roots in a large segment or subculture. But there is more than significant, underlying elements of racism at issue here.
The soldiers advocate-civil rights group Military Religious Freedom Foundation, has determined that somewhere between 28 and 34% of the United States military is presently “Christian Dominionist” or that is to say hardcore or on the right of the religious right. These people do not respect secular democracy, they do not respect people holding opinion of tolerance or diversity, and they most certainly do not respect a civil rights movement traditionally rooted in the left of the political spectrum.
A simple rule of social psychology would be, with an extreme ‘strict father’ model of conservatism upbringing, extreme even by traditional conservative standards, the religious extremist desiring to exercise ‘authority’ is the prototype personality that will most often gravitate to police employ via ‘veterans preference’ … strengthening the hand of those fascist forces rapidly gaining practical control over American society as a whole. Religious-right sympathetic personalities have already gained control over Congress and the Pentagon and by extension, NATO, and now these patently reactionary, militant forces are taking practical control of America’s streets, the Posse Comitatus Act notwithstanding.
Now, as a matter of consequence, our rapidly militarizing police have integrated, and continue to integrate, those personalities most inclined to view the public they were intended to serve as an opposing or threatening force .. with all of the attending impunity they experienced in a hyper-religious military environment; whether an attitude a woman’s rape ‘must’ve been God’s will’ with little motivation to pursue and solve cases or punish perpetrators (except in case of a Black on White rape, that must be prosecuted in any White supremacist ruled society), men whose military background had been poisoned by theological interpretations on the far right by officers who shoved religious motivation down soldiers throats (officers who believe Muslims are ‘the children of Satan’ as taught by the Assemblies of God, example given), soldiers now moved on to bashing in the heads of protestors because they must be liberal, left, deviants, and certainly it translates to White officers policing Black neighborhoods seeing themselves in circumstance little different to occupying a hostile neighborhood in a war zone; where everyone, including children, are not only a threat, but are in no uncertain terms viewed as ‘the enemy.’
At the end of the day, ’veterans preference’, without safeguard to weed out those tens of thousands of “Christian Dominion” personalities whose primary motive is towards an America to be ruled by those ‘chosen by God’ (their own kind, exclusively, who just happen to be mostly White) in patent violation of our constitution, and with attending attitude of our citizens civil rights be damned, is one more large step on the road to societal disintegration ultimately inviting a severity of control along the lines of Franco’s Spain or Pinochet’s Chile (or worse)
A postscript would be, the USA’s constitutional prohibition of any prerequisite ‘religious test’ to serve in government, would appear to have been turned on its head in present circumstance; whereas any applicant for police work in any federally funded force (now days includes nearly all, if not all, police in the USA) could not be questioned or evaluated per a religious belief devoted to the undermining and ultimate overthrow of the secular democratic principle, opening a most unpleasant panorama-
There is a growing rage in this country and we’re not talking about communities or minorities angry over a miscarriage of justice. This rage is genuinely felt, but it is fabricated, fully manufactured, and fueled by a network of traditional and new media, almost wholly on the right. It is a rage both clumsy and ruthless, lashing out at anyone and everyone put before it. Over the last 10 years, Bonnie Weinstein and her husband, Mikey, of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation have been square in the cross-hairs.
Bonnie is an unlikely activist. She is a middle-class mother of three, and grandmother of one, pursuing the American dream with a deep respect for all those things that make this country great. Her husband Mikey, her two sons, her daughter-in-law, son-in law and brother in-law are all Air Force Academy graduates. Her father-in-law is an Annapolis grad. But these days she is the target of vandalism, endless hatred, email and snail mails frothing with fury, some with detailed threats of death and torture worthy of Hannibal Lector.
I had a chance to chat with her this week about how this all started, and her new book on the subject of hate. As she described a few of her experiences, her hands would occasionally shake and her voice would crack. But her resolve burns through the virtual bulls-eye haters have painted across her chest. Join me below to see what started this madness and how she neatly turned the tables on the haters.
When did you start the foundation and why?About eleven years ago our two boys were cadets at a the U.S. Air Force Academy and they told us they would get pressured to leave their Jewish faith and convert to Christianity. This immediately turned us into pissed off parents for obvious reasons. Here our two sons were willing to put their lives at risk to defend the Constitution, and we felt strongly they should get the same freedom of or from religion they had sworn to uphold for all of us.
So to answer your question, well, we dealt with it and thought that was it, that it was just a single group of cadets, probably with good intentions, crossing the line at this one place. But then we started peeling back layers and started hearing about more incidents, and we starting hearing about the same kind of thing going on at other military academies (West Point, Annapolis et al) and eventually, throughout the entire armed forces. We weren’t alone, a lot of service people were telling us of intimidation and strong armed tactics, and as you can imagine that didn’t sit well with them. The Foundation grew from there.
The vast majority of people in the military support us and the Constitution and they are dedicated to the same ideals we are and feel the same way about religious liberty. In fact, today, the overwhelming majority of MRFF’s nearly 40,000 active duty and veteran clients describe themselves as religious and about 96% of them are Christian. The foundation is not about Christians vs non-Christians, or religion vs non religion, it’s about the Bill of Rights and the United States Constitution. It’s about our service people feeling they can freely, openly worship how and when they see fit or being free not to worship at all if they so desire.
So we’re not against religion, in fact if anything we are pro religion. More specifically, we are “pro-choice” when it comes to faith or no-faith. We’re concerned about a specific pattern of of intimidation and strong arm tactics associated most often with fundamentalist or “dominionist” Christianity which simply violates the Constitutional Rights of American service members, and in almost all cases, these tactics are seriously undermining the morale, discipline, the careers and could even threaten the safety of our troops. It doesn’t matter which religion or sect or denomination is being pushed by commanders and superiors, we would feel the same. It’s how they do it, the time, the manner and the place they do it, the aggressive and unlawful way they go about it.
How do they go about it?
There’s the usual ways, you don’t have to be in the military to relate. Your boss at work invites you to a seminar or to their home, where you get heavily pressured into doing something that has nothing to do with your job. But it’s worse in the military in some ways. Military commanders are not just a boss, they have way more power over their subordinates.
A commander can literally decide who goes to the Arctic or into live combat zones, they can assign the worst duties to people they don’t like and vice-versa, they can deny leaves and furloughs. They can look the other way if a group of sympathetic ‘coworkers’ decide to take matters into their own hands back in the barracks — that can get ugly. These days, with active conflicts going on, an officer or NCO can lay his hand on the shoulder of a nervous new guy and say, ‘hey, you could get killed today, now would be the time to get right with God/Jesus and I’m here to help you do that.’
Opposing that nonsense doesn’t sound particularly controversial, when did the trolling and threats start?
Early on, after we formed the Foundation and realized the scope of the problem, and came to realize other parents, spouses and service members felt the same way, the hate mail and phone calls would kind of rise and fall with media attention. Some media do a better job than others. Over time it became clear that out there, maybe in some churches or blogs or whatever, people were being told we are militant atheists or religion haters, or at the very least Jesus haters, that’s when the hate really started flowing. This is not simply“trolling”. This is pure, abject hate that the average person will never have to experience in their lifetime. That’s when it got scary.
Scary how?
That’s what the book is about! The torrent of email and letters we get full of the vilest, threatening crazy stuff you’ve ever seen. This particular kind of e-mail outlined in my book is almost always anonymous. They hide behind fake e-mail addresss and making up disgusting user names. These letters hardly ever come with name, home phone numbers and return address attached. These people are cowards. They’re hiding behind a computer screen, and are afraid to go on the record. That’s scary.
Our windows have been shot out, we’ve had swastikas and crucifixes painted on our house, we’ve had animals decapitated and their heads left at our home and we’ve had all kinds of weird mail show up in our mailbox right in front of our house, creepy phone calls, these are people telling us and showing us they know exactly who we are and exactly where we live. That bulls-eye painted on me in the pic, it’s not a joke. That’s how I really feel and you never get used to it, it’s a scary way to live.
You certainly turned the tables. Did you know the book was going to take off right away?
We would get reports of preorders coming in. So we knew pretty fast it had sold out of the first print run before the official Dec 2nd release date. Our publisher, Rare Bird Books in Los Angeles, is awesome and immediately started up a second run, there’s no shortage.
But I don’t think of it as turning the tables. I think of it as setting the record straight about what’s really going on in so many parts of our country’s military, in some corners of the country, and what the foundation is all about. When news that the book sold out started getting around, requests for interviews like this went way up. But there’s just no way to condense it all into a few questions and answers. To appreciate the problem, let alone address it, you’ll need to read the book. And you might want to have a good stiff drink nearby when you do, because some of the stuff you’ll read about is mind-blowing to say the least.
Bonnie and Mikey Weinstein are the co-founders of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. The Foundation is solely dedicated to ensuring that all members of the US military receive the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom to which they are entitled by virtue of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Readers interested in learning more are encouraged to visit the Foundation’s homepage here.
In the Tom Englehardt interview with Laura Poitras (Snowden documentary film-maker) wondering if, in relation to the security state…
“the goal that they proclaim is not the goal”
…is the most astute and least explored observation in not only the interview, but the least explored phenomena of the entire security state. The usurping of our constitution and rule of law is not about fighting terror and fighting terror is in fact a purposeful avenue to coup de état. The same purpose is served with NATO aggression with pretext of Ukraine. A social tension to a degree where military is justified to make policy (we already see this) is avenue to suspension of habeas corpus.
Where Poitras has missed the boat and is to a great extent misled, is also where professional intelligence information operations will spend high $ and go into hyper-drive/overtime to shape the public discourse away from the deep state goal. That strategy can include deliberate leaks accompanied by persecution/prosecution to draw attention to the Mannings & Assanges of this world, to keep the focus of personalities like Poitras off the mark. Katrina vanden Heuval, in her ‘The Nation’ interview with Snowden, brought up a ‘deep state’ concept which Snowden acknowledged but the subject was as quickly dropped. Why? Because they’ve no idea where that trail leads to?
So long as the focus can kept be on personalities revealing facts but not leading to motive, and individual acts & information that distract from an internal ‘deep state’ are the obsession, the perpetrators within a security state’s concealed agenda will be winning. In this scenario, if Snowden was unforeseen, Assange has been a tool where the man is the issue, as much as what he has released doesn’t touch where the internal threat of the security state issues from. This becomes a distraction and creates numerous rabbit trails obscuring the source of the malevolent security state behaviors. Poitras and her ilk on the left hasn’t seen through this.
One reason for Poitras and the left’s myopia is embrace of a political mythology. When your archetype myth is challenged, there is a visceral rejection of evidence that is staring one in the face. In fact Pentagon liaison to the CIA, L. Fletcher Prouty, a man who would be in position to know without a doubt as one of the authors of the so-called Pentagon Papers, long ago fingered Daniel Ellsberg as at the center of a deliberately engineered (by the security state) leak meant to shift responsibility for the failures of Vietnam policy from the CIA to the military. Ellsberg is a keystone of the deep state disinformation campaign on the left; the people who’ve built information that tend to support Colonel Prouty’s revelation (not a hypothesis) are on the center right and better positioned to know where the deep state derives from (the right.)
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation is one such organization. Presided over by a Reagan White House attorney, Mikey Weinstein, there is no one better positioned to point to a hyper-right-wing Christian religious coup at the Pentagon. Colonel Prouty, an old line conservative, had labeled this deep state cult ‘The Secret Team’ and described it as a “new religion.” Investigative reporter Jeff Sharlet has documented the related Doug Coe cult extensively. Seymour Hersh and more have touched on it. It has both Catholic & Protestant membership that overlaps with Opus Dei and Assemblies of God (and other sects.) This endeavor had began in the 1930s with Hitler sympathetic-religious businessmen organized into cells based on intelligence agency model. The goal of an elite, weaponized, Christian hierarchy usurping western democratic institutions, an international endeavor based in powerful corporate board interests integrated to our most powerful law enforcement, intelligence agency and military personalities, is nearly within reach for what amounts to a self-annointed ‘chosen’ Christian religious cult-international criminal syndicate.
So long as the left embraces a mythology induced myopia that precludes a straightforward exam of this reality, the deep state will remain poised to win at the end of a day that is not very far away-
For the record, more evidence of the Nazi meme supporting a ‘Christian Dominion’ takeover of NATO, directed at the six time Nobel nominated Military Religious Freedom Foundation (forwarded mail, below.) This new communication is consistent with my history of anti-corruption work and past experience in military intelligence (special operations intelligence professional.)
As I time to time expand the contacts list of my record providing intelligence to your institution, a recap of the information provided to members of the Bundestag over the span of these past two years is in order.
Operation GLADIO B is a recent false flag history of the NATO aligned democracies intelligence agencies, so named by the the USA’s Federal Bureau of Investigation:
The Nazi Meme is a short, explanatory essay of Christian Dominion background with open source analysis collected works pointing to the result of the Christian Dominion infection of NATO:
At the end of the day, it is the several NATO nations intelligence agencies are behind GLADIO and its several offspring. The purpose of these mails are twofold; to inform faithfully and honestly on the several NATO intelligence agencies which conceal the facts from & misinform the very democracies they purport to serve .. and to be certain history will hold yourselves accountable if nothing is done.
From: joeldhon@yhidgone.com
Subject: How to fix Pentigon
Date: October 17, 2014 at 10:01:55 AM MDT
To: Mikey Weinstein <mikey@militaryreligiousfreedom.org>
*
Note on the above email(s) would be, the spoofed sender’s address is an anti-Semitic slur. The image (no text) is the message directed at Mikey Weinstein, a former officer of the United States Air Force. This is one of several dozens of hate mails provided by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, all spurred by the foundation’s efforts to root Christian Extremism out of the United States Military generally and the Pentagon particularly-
To: hans-christian.stroebele@bundestag.de, gregor.gysi@bundestag.de, ulla.jelpke@bundestag.de, irene.mihalic@bundestag.de, michael.hartmann@wk.bundestag.de, armin.schuster@bundestag.de
To the several German parliamentarians:
Again, I am forwarding example of support for the ‘Christian Dominion’ infection of NATO, directed at the president of the six time Nobel Peace Prize nominated Military Religious Freedom Foundation. Beginning with mails to MP Stroebele well over a year ago, I have sent on numerous examples of the Christian hate abiding in NATO command structures, nursed from its inception in the several officer cadet corps.
Today I will like to draw your attention to the excellent essay of veteran Dutch journalist Karel Van Wolferen on ‘Atlanticism’ concerning EU policy in relation to NATO and pose a question; what right has Germany to collude in behaviors threatening the very underpinnings of life in Europe?
I pose this question particularly in light of my having previously provided ample intelligence of the criminal (one might say ‘insane’ without exaggeration) behaviors of the several allied agencies collusion in covering up ‘Dominionist’ activities, up to and inclusive of murder. Your several offices are in possession of my un-redacted report of which a lightly redacted version may be read at this link:
Relevant to this immediate preceding, I have also provided your offices with related background analysis detailing history and behaviors which may also be read at these links:
…and pose another question: Is a blind faith in any institution, in this case NATO infected with a criminal, dominion oriented meme devoted to the overthrow of secularism at any price, worth the risks entailed? Confrontation based in self justifying NATO expansion, generating hostilities brings us to this:
The proposed upgrade of NATO’s tactical nuclear weapons stocks in Western Europe converts this cold war era deterrent into a patent offensive weapon in geo-strategic equation and is extremely destabilizing and dangerous, as is pushing a ‘missile shield’ construction on Russia’s borders. In this case, I would add one more link; an interview with Mikey Weinstein, whom the numerous hate mails provided to you, is the target. Here we can listen to the former White House attorney state in no uncertain terms the Pentagon, a critical component of NATO, is Christian Taliban central, and certainly cannot be trusted with the world’s most lethal arsenal in the current state of Christian Dominion take-over:
Ask yourselves: Where do you wish to be in the pages of history? Evolved to sane geopolitic or alternatively, a 21st century enabler of 1938’s “Gott Mit Uns” ? Is pleasing the armaments industry, and its deadly minions propping up the western democracies war footing economy, more important to you than the lives of your constituents? A decision must be taken.
“The history of the great events of this world are scarcely more than a history of crime” -Voltaire
Message forwarded: (provided courtesy of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation)
From: my63mustang@jefdayvuslives.com
Subject: you fucking piece of shit jew
Date: August 21, 2014 at 6:09:03 PM MDT
To: Information Weinstein <mikey@militaryreligiousfreedom.org>
jewboy don’t you evercome back to our state. Your not wanted here. Keep you godam mffr hands off our Holy Univ. of No. Georgia Cadets corps. you fucking jew muslam queer loving jew. servant of satan. Why don’t you eat some of your jewbread soked with the blood of innocent Christian children? To make it tasty for you you jew of jews. We don’t eat your jew children wienstein. How you like it if we eat your jew children wienstein? Our church met last night to disgust all about you right here in our back yard in Ga. We all hope you choke to death eating your little piece of jewbread. Then burn for all ages in hell. Jesus Christ Rules and His Kingdom Come at UNG Corps!
Ronald Thomas West 