In Khaled Hosseini's novel, The Kite Runner, the homicidal Assef, childhood bully of the main character and his friend, has joined the Taliban. Afghanistan is under an extreme-fringe interpretation of Sharia law. The law is really whatever the Taliban rule. Mobs of young Taliban men massacre people in the streets and destroy centuries-old artifacts. In a climactic chapter of the novel, the first-person narrator, Amir, is confronted by his childhood enemy, Assef, who describes to Amir the massacre of members of an Afghani minority group:
"You don't know the meaning of the word 'liberating' until you've done that, stood in a roomful of targets, let the bullets fly, free of guilt and remorse, knowing you are virtuous, good, and decent. Knowing you're doing God's work. It's breathtaking." He kissed the prayer beads, tilted his head.
It's a horrifying scene and a horrifying philosophy, that rampant murder of innocent people is blessed by God. As the writer of the novel wants to convey, that philosophy does not reflect the true philosophy of Islam, that it is the philosophy of fringe elements, bullies, thugs.
As I read the novel, I realized that we have our own religious fringe elements, people who say they are "Christians" and yet who tout a philosophy not unlike that of Assef. They might not be massacring people on Mainstreet, U.S.A., but they are communicating that philosophy politically through other means, and even, yes, with weapons.
Here are a few examples of how this idea of a "weaponized Christianity" is spreading, intentionally in some ways, unintentionally in other ways, yet no less creepy and insidious.
The war in Iraq has particularly brought out the militant in the Christianity fringe. We see evidence of this in stories about Blackwater, the military contractor that sent many people to Iraq to guard government personnel. The owner of Blackwater, Erik Prince, and his company have been under investigation for some time for illegally smuggling arms into Iraq and for killing Iraqi civilians. Now Prince is getting a closer look: A former employee of Blackwater and an ex-Marine who worked in security for the company have filed sworn statements in court against Prince and his company:
The two men claim that the company's owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee also alleges that Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," and that Prince's companies "encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life." (from "Blackwater Founder Implicated in Murder," by Jeremy Scahill, in The Nation, posted August 4, 2009.)
According to one of these former Blackwater employees, Erik Prince deliberately hired men who
shared his vision of Christian supremacy, knowing and wanting these men to take every available opportunity to murder Iraqis. Many of these men used call signs based on the Knights of the Templar, the warriors who fought the Crusades.
Mr. Prince operated his companies in a manner that encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life. For example, Mr. Prince's executives would openly speak about going over to Iraq to "lay Hajiis out on cardboard." Going to Iraq to shoot and kill Iraqis was viewed as a sport or game. Mr. Prince's employees openly and consistently used racist and derogatory terms for Iraqis and other Arabs, such as "ragheads" or "hajiis."
Despite these allegations and previous investigations, Blackwater, which has been renamed Xe, continues to be hired by the Obama administration to provide security overseas. (See "U.S. Still Paying Blackwater Millions," Jeremy Scahill, The Nation, 7 August 2009.)
As Jeremy Scahill relates in an interview with Keith Olberman, one of these former employees of Blackwater was also in management in Blackwater, someone who would be intimately familiar with the culture of the company. He and the second Blackwater employee provided this startling information in "sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia." Jeremy Scahill has been researching the use of privatized armies for some time and has written a book based on his research.
These are not frivolous allegations, and their content unnervingly reflects an apocalyptic viewpoint expressed by other people in our government, including, evidently, former president George W. Bush. Jacques Chirac, president of France when the Bush administration was pushing invading Iraq, has revealed the language President Bush used to try to convince France to join the coalition:
"Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East. ... The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled. ... This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people's enemies before a New Age begins." (from "Agog over Bush's Comments on Gog and Magog," Saturday Gazette-Mail, posted 22 July 2009, by James Haught--h/t to David Crisp; See also, Mitch Potter, "Did He Feel the Hand of God?: Apocalyptic fervor may have held sway in White House," Toronto Star, 29 May 2009, posted on TheSpec.com--h/t to Kevin Drum)
Evidently puzzled by this language President Jacques Chirac asked a theologian at the University of Lausanne to explain the strange references. Thomas Romer, the theologian, later "recounted Bush's strange behavior in Lausanne University's review, Allez Savoir." He explained to Chirac that the arcane references were to Biblical scripture from the books of Ezekial and Revelation. It's troubling to me, as it should be to all Americans, that our president may have been making decisions of war based on an interpretation of Biblical scripture that remains in great dispute among Christians.
Also evident in these stories is the racist attitudes expressed toward Muslims and citizens of Middle Eastern countries. People who incline toward racism in the first place are emboldened when their attitudes are supported, tacitly or explicitly, by their leaders. In his article for Harper's, "Jesus killed Mohammed: The crusade for a Christian military," Jeff Sharlet describes how a Special Forces unit in Samarra carried out their military mission: by openly denigrating the religion of the people they were there to "liberate." Sergeant Jeffery Humphrey and his squad of nine men were assigned to guard the 10th Special Forces Unit, who called themselves "the Faith Element." He recalls how the men that Easter Sunday were shown Mel Gibson's bloody re-telling of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Then the 109th National Guard Infantry rolled out to confront insurgents; they returned under fire from a furious crowd, and the compound remained underseige for the rest of the day.
Sergeant Jeffery Humphrey describes how the men in the compound prepared four Bradley Fighting Vehicles to run from the compound in order to draw enemy fire and how "his lieutenant, John D. DeGiulio," and a couple of sergeants were snickering because they had convinced their interpreter, an Iraqi from Texas, to paint in Farsi on the side of the vehicle: "Jesus Killed Mohammad." At dusk, this tank, along with the others, rolled into the streets of Samarra, a holy city of Iraq, with its militarized Christian message on its side and the Iraqi interpreter shouting from a bullhorn, "Jesus kill Mohammad, Jesus kill Mohammad," while local Iraqis were being called to evening prayers. Of course, the tank came under increasing fire, and its superior firepower exploded house after Iraqi house. Who was firing from those houses? Just insurgents? Or perhaps, also, Iraqi civilians angered by the lack of respect shown their religion?
"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."
According to Jeff Sharlet, a militarized version of Christianity permeates American armed forces. He cites example after example of highly-placed military leaders who view the United States' intervention in Iraq through apocalyptic lenses; they are holy warriors. How, then, do they--and we, if we do not work diligently to maintain our Constitutional ideal of separation of church and state--differ from the Assefs of the world?
Sources and Further Reading:
- James Haught, "Agog over Bush's Comments on Gog and Magog," Gazette-Mail, 22 July 2009.
- Mitch Potter, "Did He Feel the Hand of God?," Toronto Star, 29 May 2009, posted at TheSpec.com.
- Jeremy Scahill, "Blackwater Founder Implicated in Murder," The Nation, 4th August 2009.
- Jeremy Scahill, "US Still Paying Blackwater Millions," The Nation, 7 August 2009.
- Jeff Sharlet, "Jesus Killed Mohammad: The Crusade for a Christian Military," Harper's, May 2009.
- Scott Horton, "Blackwater's Dark Secrets," No Comment, Harper's, posted 6 August 2009.
- Bill Moyers interviews Jeremy Scahill on PBS's Bill Moyer's Journal about the use of Blackwater mercenaries on U.S. Soil, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. See, also, Bill Moyers' website on PBS: Information about Blackwater and extended interview with Jeremy Scahill.
- David Antoon, "The Cancer from Within," Truthdig, posted 7 November 2007. (one man's experience and opinion)
- Eric Mandonnet, "Chirac, Bush et l'Apocalypse," L'Expresse.fr, published 26 February 2009. (h/t truthout.org).
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