From Crooks and Liars:
DOD Web site jokes of Christian crusade against Muslims
via First-Draft : It’s a photo of a US tank dubbed the “New Testament” – the name of the tank is written across its barrel. The even funnier part is that this photo MADE IT PAST military censors and the DOD Web page with the photo on it even brags about the name “New Testament” in the caption. So some jerk at the Pentagon knew exactly what this was about and found it funny enough to put on their Web site, and it passed various level of review. Lovely. click here for the picture
Will they have an old testament tank for us Jews?
The headline is from the original post on AmericaBlog. The story on the USMC site is about Abrams tanks’ capability to withstand IEDs & car bombs. The image is one of three thumbnails attached.
Nothing in the article, including the captions even suggests “jokes” about a “Christian crusade” against Muslims. That may be the author’s characterization, but it’s hardly accurate. Further, G.I.s in combat are world renowned for their “naming” of everything from tents to bombers.
Glad to see these folk are so easily amused. Must’ve been a slow day.
while I agree that the caption is dead-pan, let’s consider the mindset that fails to understand the significance of the barrel of a tank, the instrument of death, being labelled ‘The New Testament’.
First of all, this should be as offensive to Christians as it is to Muslims.
But it isn’t. And that is sad on numerous levels.
but I agree with your comment on the use of the phrase “new testament.”
Nothing in the website hints at a crusade, but I’ve seen more than a few accounts (though I don’t have the time to dig them up for links) discussing how military commanders and personnel are viewing the Iraq War through the prism of a religious calling – a fact underscored by the recent disclosures of how religious bigotry is running rampant at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.
The naming of the tank exists in a context that all to readily recalls the religious wars of old.
My point is simply that this is not an item that deserves to be elevated into a national news story. I know that fundamentalism has crept into every nook and cranny of the military – including the Air Force Academy (which I diaried) – and most here do also.
But the greater public will only see youngish faces in the middle of combat writing names on their gear, and wonder what all the fuss is about. (That’s assuming this story ever reaches the MSM.)
I seriously doubt the Iraqis under the floor in Ubaydi, or the troops from the 3rd/25th Marines give a shit about anything other than staying alive. I also don’t think either side cares about offending those who are trying to kill them.
The focus of the story was the power and safety a tank provides in battle. Not the writing on the barrel.
Again, I agree with your general point. The issue is that the Pentagon seems to censor and fabricate news, but they can’t choose a different tank? They can’t photoshop that out?
When the Pentagon puts it on their website it sends a bad message. The issue isn’t that kids put that on their tank, although that should be outlawed for PR’s sake, the issue is that the Pentagon put it on their website. WHICH IS DUMB.
Agreed, it is dumb that it was allowed on the site. And you’re right about the Pentagon screeners – I should’ve included them as “idiots”.
So you’re saying it’s okay for them to scrawl whatever they want on weaponry — paid for by U.S. taxpayers who, for the moment, still live in a non-theocratic society — that’ll be seen by non-Christians or that will affect non-Christian members of the military?
I realize the problem of hyper-sensitivity — and, to that end, I’m a huge fan of South Park because the show loves to offend everyone. And, on my fav show’s season finale last night, I watched white men demean Chinese at every turn, treating them as deaf and dumb beasts of burden. (Deadwood)
But I don’t think we’re being hypersensitive in finding this offensive.
it’s offensive to Christians…or it should be.
The New Testament is not about tanks. It’s not about laying waste to whole cities. The other Testament has a good deal of this activity documented in it.
But Jesus and Paul did not go around calling for the destruction of the occupier, or the occupied.
I’m not making a judgement call. It’s not for me to judge how different people react to being in combat. As for offensive, the tank doesn’t come close to the “headline” on the AmericaBlog post.
Nobody knows how many they have murdered, even in just the past week, but the number is more than adequate to reassure anyone who might have thought it was a joke.
.
It’s a matter of starting the printing press, let’s roll.
Crusader with armor:
Chevalier Croisé – 1249
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco
Oui – Liberté – Egalité – Fraternité
.
Charles Krauthammer, a prominent columnist with the Washington Post and Weekly Standard, recently wrote, “People are now coming out of the closet on the word, empire. The fact is no country has been as dominant culturally, economically, technologically and militarily in the history of the world since the Roman Empire.”
What few outside Washington realize, is that Krauthammer, and most of the prominent voices who
are all part of a small, very well-financed policy faction: called neo-conservatives, or neo-cons.
Some months after Krauthammer and this small group of influential hawkish intellectuals had begun to call for an American Empire, another event took place in Washington. On October 11, thousands of supporters of an organization called the Christian Coalition, gathered at the Ellipse in Washington D.C. to proclaim solidarity with Israel.
The two currents, the unabashed neo-conservative advocacy of an American Imperialism, and the mobilization of the Christian Coalition to support Israel, are connected. Very few Europeans I know, let alone Americans, have the slightest idea how the two are connected, and how that influences Washington policy after September 11. A closer look at this cynical political coalition of curious interest groups that seems to exercise power over war and peace today is urgent to understand U.S. actions and words.
YOU CAN’T BEAT PERCEPTION
Oui – Liberté – Egalité – Fraternité
. Right and the Military.
[Column in Military.com — see also his advertisement — registration required — an excerpt was not possible without losing context of article]
.
Washington, D.C. – This week, Americans commemorate the 63rd anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, which killed 2,403 Americans. It was the worst attack on American territory until the terrorist strike on September 11, 2001. Both surprise attacks signaled the beginning of a bitterly fought war for survival against a brutal, fanatical foe. And both the Pacific War and the present Global War on Terror pitted the United States, virtually alone, against adversaries on a “holy mission” to drive westerners from “their” territory. The parallels don’t stop there.
To the extent that today’s school children are taught anything about the origins of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the unprovoked assault is explained away as the consequence of “Japanese expansionism,” or worse yet, the result of America denying Japan “essential raw materials and oil.” Such historical contortions from the Blame America First crowd ignore the ideological conviction of Tokyo’s leadership, from Emperor Hirohito on down, that the Japanese had a “divine duty” to cleanse Asia of westerners and “inferior western influences and institutions.” In short, the Imperial Army, Navy and Air Force became the instruments of a race war, waged with religious zeal. Today’s radical Jihadists have precisely the same goal – evicting the infidels – meaning “westerners” – and all their institutional influence – from “Islamic lands.”
The Japanese military never contemplated “invading” the continental United States. Nor do the extremist Imams, Sheikhs and Mullahs inciting today’s jihad envision seizing U.S. territory. But then and now, our adversaries were – and are – willing to employ any tactic, violate any rule of “civilized war,” and commit any atrocity to accomplish the “holy goal” of driving “westerners” from “their region” of the world. Thus the horrific images found in Fallujah’s slaughterhouses – even the broadcast TV facility uncovered this week – have an eerie precedent in the films and photographs of Japanese soldiers proudly holding the severed heads of brutally murdered American, British, Dutch and Australian prisoners of war. Then, as now, those images were shown widely to the “home audience” as proof of oriental superiority over western interlopers.
But in this kind of “holy struggle,” being a “local” won’t guarantee safety. During the Pacific War, Japanese troops were merciless with indigenous populations that failed to appreciate their “liberation.” Filipinos, Koreans, Chinese, Indonesians, Indo-Chinese and Pacific Islanders who were believed to have cooperated with the hated westerners were raped, tortured and violently murdered. Today, Iraqis, Afghanis and other Muslims who help coalition forces, or even benign western aid organizations, face the same horrors. Thus, Iraqi government workers, policemen and supporters of democratic elections – institutions peculiar to western civil order – are as vulnerable to Jihadist’s retribution as Christian missionaries were on New Guinea in 1942.
There is yet another parallel between the Global War on Terror and the Pacific War: martyrdom. Though most histories record the sinking of the USS St. Lo on October 25,1944 as the first organized Kamikaze attack of the war – there had in fact been hundreds of prior “killer-suicides.” Japanese Banzai charges on Guadalcanal – starting in August 1942 – were ground-based versions of the same tactic: convincing a young fighter that he will be granted eternal rewards and promising his family material benefits – for dying the right way while killing a “westerner.” Substitute “Christian,” or “Jew” or “infidel” for the word “westerner” – and the description fits today’s “Islamic martyr” in Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan – or on September 11, 2001.
During the Pacific War, an estimated 40,000 Japanese soldiers died in suicidal Banzai charges, and another 2,100 perished in Kamikaze aircraft. On Saipan, more than 800 Japanese women and children committed suicide, rather than surrender to American troops. Hundreds of incidents were recorded throughout the Pacific where wounded Japanese soldiers pleaded for help – only to blow themselves up with hand grenades or explosives in an effort to kill the American medic, Corpsman, soldier or Marine who tried to treat their wounded adversary. To the practitioners of Japanese Bushido, compassion was a weakness. So it is with today’s “Islamic martyrs.”
In August 1945, President Harry Truman stopped the bloodletting and forced the Japanese to surrender unconditionally by dropping the only two nuclear bombs ever used in war. Since the use of such weapons is out of the question in the Global War on Terror, how do we convince the perpetrators of today’s jihad to stop killing? Those who think that withdrawing from Iraq will solve our problem aren’t paying attention to what’s happened in Fallujah.
The opponents of democracy in Iraq aren’t just remnants of Saddam’s regime. Among those captured and killed in Fallujah and Ramadi are Jihadists – not insurgents – from at least twelve different countries including Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, Sudan, Morocco, and Algeria. They came to Iraq to stop the January election. They – and those who enticed them to the “Jihad” – know that women’s suffrage, private property rights and respect for other religions – all part of the Iraqi election – will have the equivalent effect of a nuclear bomb. And while it’s not obvious from all the hand wringing in the so-called mainstream media, we are faring far better in this campaign than we did during World War II. It wasn’t until the Battle of Midway in June 1942 that the “turning point” was reached in that war. By then, tens of thousands of American soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Guardsmen were dead, prisoners of war or missing in action. Reinforcements were sent. Intelligence was improved. And the tide of war shifted in our favor.
That’s what’s happening today. The smartest and best educated, trained and equipped military force in history has suffered fewer than 2,000 killed in action and one missing in action in three years of fighting the Global War on Terror. Thanks to their heroism, perseverance and selfless sacrifice, Afghanistan has its first democratically elected government. In Iraq, the terrorists are on the run. Reinforcements are on the way. And if we are steadfast, years from now, historians will look back and note that the turning point in the Global War on Terror began with the Battle of Fallujah and ended with the Iraqi elections on January 30, 2005.
Oliver North is a nationally syndicated columnist, founder and Honorary Chairman of Freedom Alliance, and Host of “War Stories” on the FOX News Channel. The opinions expressed above are his own and do not reflect the views of FOX News.
“…at least ten journalists have been killed by the U.S. military, and according to reports I believe to be true, journalists have been arrested and tortured by U.S. forces.”
– Eason Jordan, CNN Executive Vice President
Washington, D.C. – Eason Jordan is described by CNN as the network’s “chief news executive” and the person who provides “strategic advice to CNN’s senior management team.” In November, he offered the above murderous assessment of America’s military to a group of Portuguese journalists and got away with it. On January 27, he apparently made a nearly identical outrageous, unfounded accusation at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. This time he got caught – not by his colleagues in the so-called mainstream media – but by “bloggers” who were in attendance.
[…]
Watch dramatic footage of urban combat in Iraq. According to our source, this is footage of the initial breach of Fallujah by Army Taskforce 2-7. The video shows Army Bradley Fighting Vehicles ramming through the insurgents’ perimeter defenses.
This video deserves some discussion. [Military.com – Registration Required]
Oui – Liberté – Egalité – Fraternité
Gee thanks Oui for hitting me with Ollie North first thing monday morning…his name alone can raise my blood pressure, the sanctimonious prick. Who in typical whack job fashion gets almost all the facts wrong.
I so miss reading what a real war hero-Col. David Hackworth had to say on his blog site. I will think about him on this coming Memorial Day.
for the ass….!
I couldn’t find any words worthwhile to describe him, and especially his BS writing in the column of Military.com. Not a single sentence is truthful or historic in his analysis. Throws all anger and doom at the Islamists, threatens with nukes, complete annihilation, and compares the global Muslim community with the Jap fascists of WWII. This guy has no perspective or reality, this is just hogwash.
How is it possible Oliver North is considered Reagan’s hero, has friends in the White House, amongst GOP leadership and is favored by Republicans in general. Why doesn’t the US convict its crooks, political and corporate, and give these convicts real hard jail time.
Had to mention Ollie though in this diary, as he bridges the Right Wing Christians – NeoCons | GOP – military & US soldiers.
Oui – Liberté – Egalité – Fraternité
Well one reason that Olliebygolly has escaped any persecution I would guess is that he’s wrapped himself in the mantle of the born again christian baloney. He has prayer meetings in house, etc etc and preaches his ‘facts’ at churches and such. I remember him at the Senate hearings during the whole Contra debacle and he just made me livid with his phony patriotism. Yet he is a fucken hero to all the ‘righties’ and fake christians here. Makes me want to puke.
As to why we don’t prosecute these criminals, well that is our big shame here in the US. Just look at Martha Stewart vs Ken Lay.(not that I thought Stewart was a criminal but railroaded for some idiotic reason-and I never even liked her)