Should religion be directing national security policy? If so, WHOSE?

*'s?


http://men.style.com/gq/features/landing?id=content_9217

http://men.style.com/gq/features/topsecret

Religion should be private and personal, and never used to judge someone else.

"For why should my liberty be subject to the judgement of someone else’s conscience?" 1 Corinthians 29

..and I say this as a theologian.

If religion is going to direct national security policy then what is the point of having Congress and their laws?

Wouldn't that be a violation of the Constitution to allow U.S. policies be directed by one's religious belief?

If the Bible is such a great book then why are there so many different interpretations and off-shoots of the Christian religion? Why are there so many writings by Paul, a man that never met Jesus? Why is Paul the predominant writer instead of Peter? Why are there writings in the New Testament that have unknown authors?

Why is Matthew listed first when Mark was apparently written before the other 3 Gospels?

This long article from Harper's is probably the most comprehensive and harrowing overview of how thoroughly rightwing Christianity has embedded itself into the military and changed its culture and operations, and how official efforts to investigate their influence has been stymied by willful neglect. Even the Army's man of the moment, General Petraeus, has indicated he's a sympathizer to the fundie faction:

...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.

The Bradley, a tracked "tank killer" armed with a cannon and missiles -- to most eyes, indistinguishable from a tank itself -- rolled out. The Iraqi interpreter took to the roof, bullhorn in hand. The sun was setting. Humphrey heard the keen of the call to prayer, then the crackle of the bullhorn with the interpreter answering -- in Arabic, then in English for the troops, insulting the prophet. Humphrey’s men loved it. "They were young guys, you know?" says Humphrey. "They were scared." A Special Forces officer stood next to the interpreter -- "a big, tall, blond, grinning type," says Humphrey.

"Jesus kill Mohammed!" chanted the interpreter. "Jesus kill Mohammed!"

A head emerged from a window to answer, somebody fired on the roof, and the Special Forces man directed a response from an MK-19 grenade launcher. "Boom," remembers Humphrey. The head and the window and the wall around it disappeared.

...

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.

http://harpers.org/archive/2009/05/0082488

In a little-noticed French article 2 years ago, it was reported that Dubya stunned world leaders when he pitched his mideast ambitions as a God-ordained battle against Gog and Magog. It was recently confirmed by Jacques Chirac:

"This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people's enemies before a New Age begins".

...

The story has now been confirmed by Chirac himself in a new book, published in France in March, by journalist Jean Claude Maurice. Chirac is said to have been stupefied and disturbed by Bush's invocation of Biblical prophesy to justify the war in Iraq and "wondered how someone could be so superficial and fanatical in their beliefs".

In the same year he spoke to Chirac, Bush had reportedly said to the Palestinian foreign minister that he was on "a mission from God" in launching the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and was receiving commands from the Lord.

http://www.alternet.org/politics/140221/bush%27s_shocking_biblical_prophecy_emerges%3A_god_wants_to_%22erase%22_mid-east_enemies_%22before_a_new_age_begins%22

National security policy needs to be firmly grounded in reality. It needs to be evidence-based. We've already seen what happens when such policy is based on what leaders want to believe.

On the other hand, if the US decides to cut its military budget greatly and use prayer to defend itself instead, that has its attractions.