Posted on 10/25/2013 3:16:59 AM PDT by markomalley
Don’t donate to the tea party or to evangelical Christian groups — that was the message soldiers at a pre-deployment briefing at Fort Hood said they received from a counter-intelligence agent who headed up the meeting.
If you do, you could face punishment — that was the other half of the message, as reported by Fox News.
The briefing was Oct. 17, and about a half-hour of it was devoted to discussion about how perceived radical groups — like tea party organizations and the Christian-based American Family Association — were "tearing the country apart," one unnamed soldier said, to Fox News.
Among the remarks the agent allegedly made: Military members who donate to these groups would be subject to discipline under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the soldier reported.
Liberty Institute has stepped in to investigate. Michael Berry, one of the nonprofit's attorneys, said he has been advising the soldier about his options — but that in the meanwhile, he said the American public should be on guard.
"The American public should be outraged that the U.S. Army is teaching our troops that evangelical Christians and tea party members are enemies of America and that they can be punished for supporting or participating in those groups," Mr. Berry said, in Fox News. "These statements about evangelicals being domestic enemies are a serious charge."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
AFAIK, no tea party event has required litter cleanup at all.
Well I guess that settles it. It’s right in their training material.
Sounds like the only people who AREN’T on this list are those who don’t believe anything. Or maybe just don’t seek to convert others to their belief. I don’t think the orthodox Jews seek to convert others though, so why would they be listed? Atheist groups seek to convert others to their belief so why are they not listed?
And the homosexual lobby seeks to convert EVERYBODY to their religious views that contradict the Bible, which makes it religious extremism as well. Why are they not listed - especially since they have actually carried out violent physical attacks against churches, organizations, and individuals?
Yes, we have lost a lot of ground. A lot of that, I think, is because we are not political organizations and don’t want to become political organizations. Satan has his 2 beasts and is attacking us through both - the religious beast and the political beast. We are trying to live our lives keeping the focus on God and what He says. It’s difficult to do that AND fight the political battles. The more time and energy you spend doing the one, the less time you spend on the other. So do we focus on serving our families and communities and teaching them the Word of God, or do we focus on publicly confronting the lies flying all around us? It’s a tough call.
It looks like there are training manuals that list Christian evangelicals and Catholics as religious extremists. In the posts shortly after yours somebody posted a page from a training guide and a photo of soldiers looking at a screen about the AFA. So it sure seems like this is happening with the approval of the military.
Re-read my comment. They left the mall cleaner than when they found it.
But it didn't come from on top, and that was my principle objection. That is the part of curriculum development I'm familiar with. In order for that to happen, a skill or behaviour from the US Army training manual has to be stripped out, analyzed, and condensed its bare bones so that a lesson can be developed to produce the skill or behaviour. It gets seen by a lot of people: and I guarantee you that if that happened, you would have seen reporting much earlier, and it would have been reporting attributed to specific people and documents from TRADOC out in Ft Leavenworth.
That is how the Army works. All the services work that way.
It didn’t come from the top?
You think this is the first time this has come up?
Whether it be military or federal law enforcement, this has become quite common.
So the natural, logical, next course is: identifying those belief systems that are contrary to the socially accepted norm. Once that is done, it will become easy to define Christians as "contrary to shared core values". That is when you know it comes from up top.
Right now, we are just witnessing more and more manifestations of unbelievers (of a much more unrepentent ilk) moving up in the ranks and making decisions, when they can get away with it. And that happens to be at the isolated, local level.
I'm on a FOB in Afghanistan. No one is stopping the faithful from congregating and praising the Lord, or even mentioning that Christians are an insider threat. It isn't coming from up top.
The source for the Army's materials came from the Jewish run SPLC.
Hey, I probably support this CI guy's IT requirements!
Does the military’s formal curriculum - that’s gone through the process you describe - tell the individual presenters to present information on which specific groups are extremist? Is that one of the skills that military members are supposed to have?
The military has curriculum developers stationed in Afghanistan? That seems like kind of a dangerous place to be doing something that could be done someplace in safety. Unless the curriculum you’re developing is dependent on knowing conditions on the ground there, or something. In any event, keep safe.
One of the projects we’ve supported is getting Bible sticks (audio Bibles on MP3 players, basically) for our troops. Do you know if our guys are using those much over there?
Best to use sarcasm tags, some idiots will take you seriously.
But it wasn’t sarcasm, and nobody was an idiot. I didn’t phrase quip quite clearly enough. I’m sure you’ve heard the comment that goes something like “an earthquake hit downtown Detroit and caused $10 million dollars’ worth of improvements.” I was trying to do the same by saying the tea partiers did several thousands of dollars of litter cleanup.
However, instead I had an epic fail. Par for my course.
I have been to the school, but that isn’t what I do here.
Depends on the objective and target audience of the course. Some are generally for everyone, some are specialized for specific occupations. But I can tell you as a fact, that none exist on US entities, much less Christians.
There are a lot of churches involved in sending material over hear. Usually it goes to the chaplains that make them available at the chapel, or they push them down to battalion level where their offices are. As to if they are used, I assume so; but it is something that depends on the individual: it is not forced on anyone. They have to take the initiative to acquire whatever the item is. With that said, I have not specifically seen them, but that doesn't mean anything. It could be they are available at another FOB. Or they have run out. I'll make it a point to ask.
None of what exist?
Does the military tell instructors to warn the troops about extremist groups in general and/or specific groups? Does the military have a definition for what makes a group “extremist”?
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