thedrifter
09-03-07, 09:12 AM
Editorial: Inappropriate message
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Posted : September 10, 2007
A charitable group that enjoys at least tacit official support from the Pentagon is embroiled in a controversy that is proving too hot for defense officials.
Operation Straight Up, one of 250 groups that have massed under the Pentagon’s “America Supports You” charity banner, planned to send care packages to U.S. troops in Iraq.
Along with the usual stuff — baby wipes, snacks — were to be two unusual items: a video game based on the “Left Behind” novels that tell of the End of Days, Armageddon and the Rapture; and a book, “More Than A Carpenter,” by Josh McDowell, in both English and Arabic.
Those two items, critics say, inappropriately use the care packages to convey a religious, specifically Christian, message.
Less than 24 hours after a liberal periodical, The Nation, raised questions about that plan, a Pentagon spokesman, speaking only on condition that his name be withheld, said the group would not send care packages to Iraq.
OSU still plans to take a Christian-themed entertainment troupe to Iraq, but the Pentagon spokesman was vague about the level of support the group would receive from the military.
He referred all further inquiries to OSU, which didn’t respond.
However well-meaning OSU’s efforts to proselytize among troops in Iraq may be, it is an inappropriate violation of military regulations that were created to protect the religious freedoms of all service members.
“This kind of thing can be playing with fire,” said attorney Gene Fidell, head of the National Institute of Military Justice.
Given the intense religious passions at play in Iraq — and the violence inflicted on Christian missionaries in that part of the world — this posed a serious potential hazard both to U.S. troops and also to the American mission in Iraq.
Fidell is right — this is playing with fire. The stakes are too high for such matters to be treated lightly by the Pentagon.
Ellie
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Posted : September 10, 2007
A charitable group that enjoys at least tacit official support from the Pentagon is embroiled in a controversy that is proving too hot for defense officials.
Operation Straight Up, one of 250 groups that have massed under the Pentagon’s “America Supports You” charity banner, planned to send care packages to U.S. troops in Iraq.
Along with the usual stuff — baby wipes, snacks — were to be two unusual items: a video game based on the “Left Behind” novels that tell of the End of Days, Armageddon and the Rapture; and a book, “More Than A Carpenter,” by Josh McDowell, in both English and Arabic.
Those two items, critics say, inappropriately use the care packages to convey a religious, specifically Christian, message.
Less than 24 hours after a liberal periodical, The Nation, raised questions about that plan, a Pentagon spokesman, speaking only on condition that his name be withheld, said the group would not send care packages to Iraq.
OSU still plans to take a Christian-themed entertainment troupe to Iraq, but the Pentagon spokesman was vague about the level of support the group would receive from the military.
He referred all further inquiries to OSU, which didn’t respond.
However well-meaning OSU’s efforts to proselytize among troops in Iraq may be, it is an inappropriate violation of military regulations that were created to protect the religious freedoms of all service members.
“This kind of thing can be playing with fire,” said attorney Gene Fidell, head of the National Institute of Military Justice.
Given the intense religious passions at play in Iraq — and the violence inflicted on Christian missionaries in that part of the world — this posed a serious potential hazard both to U.S. troops and also to the American mission in Iraq.
Fidell is right — this is playing with fire. The stakes are too high for such matters to be treated lightly by the Pentagon.
Ellie