Memorial Day 2011
(May 30, 2011, Christian Gallery News Service) It's too late to ask the men who fought at Bunker Hill or at Yorktown or at Shiloh or Antietam or Gettysburg, too late to ask the men who fought at Belleau Wood or in the trenches where the Mustard Gas was, it's almost too late to ask the men who fought at Normandy or the Battle of the Bulge or Corregedor or Iwo Jima, but it's not too late to ask the men who fought at the Chosin Reservoir, certainly not too late to ask the men who fought during Tet or in Khe Sahn, and obviously most of the men who fought in Baghdad and Afghanistan are still with us. We could ask them.
So I'll ask. Did anybody know the time would come when this nation would forthrightly fight its wars to destroy other people's religion? Is that what the fighting men of America signed up to die for?
I get my medical care from the VA. Which is a travesty of Justice because I only served 4 years in the USAF and fought only in the streets of Mobile, Al. with other drunks like me. But it turns out spending that four wasted years was the best financial investment I ever made. And there are other benefits as well.
Going to the VA Hospital means I get to look into the eyes of men who actually fought for their country.
And I can't help wondering whether American fighting men ever intended the day to come--which has clearly come in the War in Afghanistan--where our entire purpose for killing and dying there would be to destroy the religion of the people in Afghanistan.
If you don't believe me when I say that's what we're doing in Afghanistan, listen to Bob Woodward, in his book Obama's War, quote James L. Jones as the General explained the war in Afghanistan.
General James Logan Jones, Jr. is the former United States National Security Advisor and a United States Marine Corps General who retired from the Marine Corps on February 1, 2007, after 40 years of service.
After retiring from the Marine Corps, Jones remained involved in national security and foreign policy issues. In 2007, Jones served as chairman of the Congressional Independent Commission on the Security Forces of Iraq, which investigated the capabilities of the Iraqi police and armed forces. In November 2007, he was appointed by the U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, as special envoy for Middle East security. He served as chairman of the Atlantic Council of the United States from June 2007 to January 2009, when he assumed the post of National Security Advisor which he held until November 2010.
Few men have more credibility than General Jones when it comes to explaining the Afghanistan War.
Bob Woodward explains how he got General Jones's view on the war in Afghanistan, "Jones invited me to travel with him at the end of June [2009] for what would be a six-day trip to Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. I accepted.
"Taliban and insurgent attacks in Afghanistan were escalating, reaching an all-time high of more than 400 attacks during one week in May. Though that did not rival the violence in Iraq, which had peaked at 1,600 attacks in one week two years earlier, it signaled an alarming trend.
"Jones and a traveling party of about 40, including his staff and Secret Service protection, took off Sunday night, June 21, from Andrews Air Force Base in a giant C-17 cargo plane that can carry 160,000 pounds. The plane came equipped with about 100 standard airline seats and dozens of bunks. Jones occupied a security pod in the center of the cargo hold that contained a well-appointed office and several bunks.
"During an hour-long conversation mid-flight, he laid out his theory of the war. First, Jones said, the United States could not lose the war or be seen as losing the war.
'“If we’re not successful here,” Jones said, “you’ll have a staging base for global terrorism all over the world. People will say the terrorists won. And you’ll see expressions of these kinds of things in Africa, South America, you name it. Any developing country is going to say, this is the way we beat [the United States], and we’re going to have a bigger problem.” A setback or loss for the United States would be “a tremendous boost for jihadist extremists, fundamentalists all over the world” and provide “a global infusion of morale and energy, and these people don’t need much.”'
"Jones went on, using the kind of rhetoric that Obama had shied away from, “It’s certainly a clash of civilizations. It’s a clash of religions. It’s a clash of almost concepts of how to live.” [emphasis mine] The conflict is that deep, he said. “So I think if you don’t succeed in Afghanistan, you will be fighting in more places.
'“Second, if we don’t succeed here, organizations like NATO, by association the European Union, and the United Nations might be relegated to the dustbin of history...” General Jones concluded.
I have no doubt that General Jones is right. And that the USA has got itself into a war of religion. But what I'm confused about is what is the religion that the USA is bringing to this "clash of religions"?
On this Memorial Day I wish I could ask all the American fighting men who have ever lived and died for the land that now carries the name United States of America what they think the religion is that is now in a state of "clash" with the religion of the men fighting against us in Afghanistan.
Osama bin Laden was convinced it is the Christian religion that is behind the war being waged by the government of the USA.
Osama bin Laden described the war in Afghanistan on Nov 3, 2001, shortly after 9/11. "The entire West, with the exception of a few countries, supports this unfair, barbaric campaign, although there is no evidence of the involvement of the people of Afghanistan in what happened in America...The people of Afghanistan had nothing to do with this matter. The campaign, however, continues to unjustly annihilate the villagers and civilians, children, women, and innocent people." Bin Laden concluded.
Bin Laden's self-serving lie told in the previous quote by Bin Laden was obvious in 2001: Afghanistan certainly did have something to do with the attacks on Washington and New York; Afghanistan, under the control of the Taliban government, was harboring Bin Laden!
Virtually all Americans supported President Bush's decision to send troops to Afghanistan to punish Bin Laden and Al Queda for the attacks on American soil.
But did American fighting men intend for the War in Afghanistan to morph from a hunt for bin Laden to a "clash of religions" as General Jones explained the war in Afghanistan had become in 2009? That is the question that must be asked this Memorial Day 2011.
And there is another question: If the American fighting men are prepared to take on the Muslim religion, what religion is the American fighting man representing in this "clash" of religions?
Bin Laden calls us Christian Crusaders. He said in the 2001 communique, "...This war is fundamentally religious. The people of the East are Muslims. They sympathized with Muslims against the people of the West, who are the crusaders... Those who try to cover this crystal clear fact, which the entire world has admitted, are deceiving the Islamic nation... They are trying to deflect the attention of the Islamic nation from the truth of this conflict."
Bob Woodward's book Obama's War shows much about the attitude toward God that is currently present among the leaders of the government of the USA. Woodward records days--weeks--of conversations between everyone from Barack Obama to Hillary Clinton to Joe Biden to everyone else at the top of the decision making pyramid of the government of the USA and these are the quotes concerning God that can be found in Woodward's retelling of Obama's War. "Thank God"..."God", Mullen said..."My God," Donilan said..."...my God, you know, the Himalayas..." "God damn, Lute thought..."If, God forbid, Shahzad's SUV had blown up in Times Square..."...the CIA director added, "The Times Square bomber, thank God, did not get enough training."
And that's the totality of the discussion concerning God in Obama's War.
In a war that is defined by our enemies, as well as the most alert of our military commanders, as a "clash of religions", what is the religion that is being revealed by America to Muslims around the world?
From where I stand it looks like the religion of the USA is not Christianity unless Christianity is defined as equivalent to secular humanism.
And of course I could spend the rest of a very long article--a book even--proving that a nation that legalizes abortion and homosexuality and every other example of sexual licentiousness is a religion not of Christ Jesus but of secular humanism--the creature worshipping the creature, not The Creator; and simply cannot be called a Christian nation--Except by the enemies of Christ Jesus like Bin Laden and all those Christians who have allowed this present creature worshipping mishmash of religions called the United States of America to pass as a Christian nation.
I would like to ask the fighting men of the USA in the past 200 years if they thought this current generation of citizens in the USA are Christians, if they thought bin Laden was right in calling this nation Christian Crusaders.
But of course I can't ask because most of the American fighting men are dead--if not from the battle field, from old age. And those who are living probably have become convinced that this generation of people who call themselves Christians are in fact Christians and will be all right with the Lord Jesus Christ on Judgment Day...if there is anybody left who actually believes Judgment Day is coming.
So in conclusion on this Memorial Day, I have to report to the American Fighting Men--those who are with us and those who are not--that it's a God damn shame what's happened to the religion of the United States of America if we're fighting in Afghanistan to make sure they get legalized abortion and legalized homosexuality and legalized fornication and legalized whatever the next abomination of the day will be. And don't you for a second think I'm using the name of the One, True God in vain.
If you want to see the only religion that the USA has ever been sanctioned to fight for, you need to learn about The Creator's Rights Party.
Neal Horsley