Jesus killed Mohammed: The crusade for a Christian military by Jeff Sharlet

[BrklynLiberal]

original at:
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/05/0082488


Need to register to read it. Here is the location of an excerpt you do not need to register to read:
http://killingthebuddha.com/mag/dogma/jesus-killed-mohammed/

<snip>
Early that morning, a unit from the 109th National Guard Infantry dropped off their morning chow. With it came a holiday special–a video of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ and a chaplain to sing the film’s praises, a gory cinematic sermon for an Easter at war. Humphrey ducked into the chow room to check it out. “It was the part where they’re killing Jesus, which is, I guess, pretty much the whole movie. Kind of turned my stomach.” He decided he’d rather burn trash.
<snip>
The rest of that Easter was spent under siege. Insurgents held off Bravo Company, which was called in to rescue the men in the compound. Ammunition ran low. A helicopter tried to drop more but missed. As dusk fell, the men prepared four Bradley Fighting Vehicles for a “run and gun” to draw fire away from the compound. Humphrey headed down from the roof to get a briefing. He found his lieutenant, John D. DeGiulio, with a couple of sergeants. They were snickering like schoolboys. They had commissioned the Special Forces interpreter, an Iraqi from Texas, to paint a legend across their Bradley’s armor, in giant red Arabic script.

“What’s it mean?” asked Humphrey.

“Jesus killed Mohammed,” one of the men told him. The soldiers guffawed. JESUS KILLED MOHAMMED was about to cruise into the Iraqi night.
<snip>
The Bradley seemed to draw fire from every doorway . There couldn’t be that many insurgents in Samarra, Humphrey thought. Was this a city of terrorists? Humphrey heard Lieutenant DeGiulio reporting in from the Bradley’s cabin, opening up on all doorways that popped off a round, responding to rifle fire–each Iraqi household is allowed one gun–with 25mm shells powerful enough to smash straight through the front of a house and out the back wall.

Humphrey was stunned. He’d been blown off a tower in Kosovo and seen action in the drug war, but he’d never witnessed a maneuver so fundamentally stupid.
<snip>

Pretty complete version of article...
http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board/viewtopic.php?p=260335&sid=c11cce97ce33090df5f7e07dd71fdffd

If you want to hear the author describe what is going on at the US military training academies-ALL OF THEM....listen to this!!
http://www.wnyc.org/flashplayer/player.html#/play/%2Fstream%2Fxspf%2F130897

Discussions of the article-
http://markcrispinmiller.com/2009/04/harpers-cover-story-jesus-killed-muhammad-on-newsstands-tomorrow.html
http://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org/press-releases/blog_ronwest.html
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2009/4/16/12377/3097

[Bolo Boffin]

1. Wow, that is colossally stupid.

What's Arabic for "My God's Dick is bigger than your God's Dick"? Unbelievable.

[ananda]

10. Particularly since Mohammed..

.. lived in the seventh c. ce.

[Recursion]

17. And that Muslims admire Jesus greatly

It's not just that they're insulting the most-revered prophet in Islam, they're saying he was killed by the second-most-revered prophet in Islam.

Want to make a fundie's head explode? Show him the parts of the Qur'an that say Jesus is the Messiah and will return on judgment day.

[damntexdem]

2. Winning hearts and minds.

What a fine example of military intelligence.

[rdmtimp]

3. And you know what George Carlin always said...

Military intelligence was a contradiction in terms.

[juno jones]

4. K&R!

This is why we need to get the fuck out of there and 'tend to our own knitting', as my mom would say.

Are these people gonna be any friendlier to non-christians in civilian life? I think not. They are hate crimes waiting to happen.

[BrklynLiberal]

5. a little self-serving kick.

[Karenina]

6. Can we get 3 more recs, QUICKLY?

[nxylas]

7. Just rec'd

2 more to go.

[HillWilliam]

8. K&R

I've been posting about this insane shit for some years now, before I came to DU. The nutters have been using our military as a training ground for their twisted versions of armageddon and dreamed of race wars back home in the US. Anyone who thinks they aren't gearing up and training up for it is sleeping or floating on some river in Egypt.

All those guns and ammo the nutbars have been buying up the last few months ain't just for show and tell over the mantle.

[pnorman]

9. I just Google-bookmarked this entire thread.

I'll go through it at greater leisure later. THANKS!

pnorman

[Robbien]

11. Isn't Jeff Sharlet the guy who wrote about fundamentalism in government

about "The Family"?

He is a great writer who tries to expose how religion in the wrong hands is a powerful tool to suppress the masses.

Thanks for the thread.

[nichomachus]

12. And we're supposed to "support" these dickwads? n/t

[tblue37]

13. "*Fundamentaly* stupid"--exactly. F*** fundamentalism. nt

[tblue37]

14. From the article:

“I heard some guys were vandalizing mosques,” Humphrey says. “Spray-painting ’em with crosses.”

[BrklynLiberal]

15. Thanks everyone. I felt this was worth posting.

:thumbsup:

[Wednesdays]

16. K&R

:kick: