FOR MEMORIAL WEEKEND

I’ve been aware of various news reports concerning Fundamentalist Christians making increasing efforts to turn the US Military into a “Christian” fighting force, but other things, some epic, some trivia, have been absorbing my attention, but when activists and Air Force veterans like Michael Weinstein make statements like the one below I kinda think it’s time to take notice. I mean, I don’t feel exactly comfortable with the idea that megaton loaded nuclear bombers are flying around with crews who believe the Book of Revelation is going become reality anytime.

“The Christian Taliban is running the Department of Defense, It inundates everything. Can you imagine a contingent of religious zealots, with their contempt for secular values (and such manifestations of secular order as the U.S. Constitution) — and with their zest for holy war — in control of the most potent fighting force and weaponry in human history? Is this possible? Well, said Weinstein, consider the 523rd Fighter Squadron, based at Cannon Air Force Base, N.M., which calls itself The Crusaders, and whose emblem consists of a sword, four crosses and a medieval knight’s helmet. They fly F-16s with payloads consisting of “a wide variety of conventional, precision guided and nuclear weapons.” And listen once again to Commander-in-Chief Bush, speaking in 2003 to Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz: “God told me to strike at al-Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If this is a religious war — a “clash of civilizations,” waged by competing agents of God’s will — victory may be indistinguishable from Armageddon. God help the human race.”

The secret word is Duck