Near the end of June, al Jazeera aired a program called “Fault Lines” that again brought up the issue of religion in the US military (see prior discussion).  The episode was hosted by Josh Rushing, a former US Marine turned al Jazeera reporter.

The “Fault Lines” program can be viewed as Part I and Part II. The program begins with a pan out from a US church with Rushing saying

Many on the Christian right describe the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, well, in similar terms as the Taliban and al Qaeda: as spiritual wars of the highest magnitude.

The prejudicial statement, which describes a minority view as if it was a commonly accepted American perspective, sets the tone for the remainder of the video.  Rushing never says who, precisely, these “many” are, nor does he define who he believes make up “the Christian right.”

Though Rushing’s history as a US Marine gives him an air of neutrality with regard to reporting on the American military, al Jazeera’s penchant for creative editing communicates a bias throughout the program.  (In creatively editing a previous program, al Jazeera showed two segments of film of a Chaplain; spliced between the two segments was a cut-away to a similarly-dressed soldier wearing a sidearm.  The intent was to associate the Chaplain, as a religious military member, with the weapon and to imply that he was armed, when in fact he was not.)

For example, an interviewee’s monologue saying “these people want to create a Christian state” is voiced over a slow-motion video of US soldiers singing during a religious event.  The result is an unfair, if implied, association of those soldiers with the indictments of official impropriety.

Several well-known personalities appeared on the program in support of al Jazeera’s assertions of an inappropriate religious influence in the US military:

Chris Hedges is the author of American Fascists, subtitled The Christian Right and the War on America.  Jeff Sharlet is a frequent proxy for the Military Religious Freedom Foundation and authored Harper’s “Jesus killed Mohammed,” an indictment against Christian influence in the military.  Chris Rodda is the author of Liars for Jesus and also works for the MRFF.  All three of those people are outspoken advocates for what is arguably a hostile attitude toward religion (and Christianity in particular).  While they weren’t exactly neutral in their feelings on the subject, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, assuming the piece is either an opinion program or the opposing view is similarly presented.

On the other hand, the only person on the show from the opposing point of view who could speak freely was former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft.  All others were limited by their government positions.  Thus, there were no “advocates” or their organizations represented in the program to argue the other side; that is, that the US military is not a coercing, crusading, proselytizing machine of the government at war with Islam.

Scowcroft didn’t appear to receive either the airtime or questions of the others, but he was incredulous of Rushing’s accusations for two reasons: there is insufficient information to support the accusations coming from the Travel the Road filming (previously noted), and there has been no evidence of an institutional issue of Christianity in the US military.  Might there be errors or even individuals acting with malicious intent?  Certainly.  That doesn’t mean the military as an organization is doing so.

One of the more prominent people on the program was the Air Force Chief of Chaplains, Chaplain (Maj Gen) Cecil Richardson.  al Jazeera belittled his responses with cuts to misleading and discredited news reports.   For example, they showed the intro to al Jazeera’s other coverage in which the anchor said “a group of evangelical Christian soldiers from the US Army had Bibles specially printed…and shipped”—a fact that has been proven to be incorrect.  Rushing summarizes the incident by saying they were “discussing how to hand out Bibles in Dari and Pashtu,” which is not what they were discussing and is a gross misrepresentation of the facts (particularly since he also left out the outcome of that situation, which would have negated the force of his point).

al Jazeera also snowballed Chaplain Richardson by implying that Campus Crusade for Christ was a “bad” organization, then asking him why they would be allowed to interact with the military.  His answer is true for any religiously-themed organization: They asked, and we support free exercise and free speech.

Rushing’s “Fault Lines” also ignored the “walking on eggshells” approach the US military has begun to take with respect to religion.  For example, al Jazeera essentially edited out a part of the video in which a Chaplain was repeating, for a second time, the type of religious service that was about to take place and allowing those who did not want to be there to leave.  The US military is bending over backwards to be “religiously sensitive” while attempting to preserve soldiers’ rights to free exercise.  Will their efforts be perfect?  Absolutely not, but Rushing fails to even acknowledge their efforts, detracting from the report’s neutrality and credibility.

Late in the program, Rushing says he was initially cynical about the subject himself, but seemed to have been won over by the “evidence.”  The problem is that he argued the positive and can’t prove the negative.  How do you refute the claims of those who say there is religious coercion in the US military?  Cite the 2.9 million servicemen and women who haven’t complained of Christian promotion in the US military?  As a Marine, Rushing certainly remembers that in the military those “who care” are the ones who complain–but very few people care.  The vast majority of people in the US military are probably indifferent, having experienced neither persecution nor proselytizing.  The “evidence” he cited was a couple of unrelated and not fully vetted circumstances that aren’t conclusive about anything.

al Jazeera’s creative editing does work both ways in one case, however.  When Rushing voices over a statement that the MRFF has been accused by some Evangelicals of “unfairly targeting Christians,” he segues directly into her answer of “yeah, because…”  The result is the appearance that Rodda is admitting that the MRFF “unfairly targets Christians.”

In the end, there was little new in the “Fault Lines” piece.  Instead, it repeated misleading, unsubstantiated accusations to support an unproven and tired canard: that the US military is not only overtly Christian, but it is also made up of coercive proselytizers intent on a religious crusade around the world.

Critics say that “Christian perception” about the US military endangers our troops abroad.  What they fail to explain is that the “perception” that they insist on repeating is founded on baseless accusations.  They are the ones convincing adversaries around the world that the US military is bent on a Christian crusade, despite all evidence to the contrary.

More about the host, Josh Rushing:

As a Lieutenant in 2003, Rushing was a US Central Command public affairs officer during Operation Iraqi Freedom.  During that stint, he was filmed in what would eventually be a presentation at the Sundance Film Festival: Control Room, which was a short documentary on al Jazeera.  (Control Room can be viewed in four parts here: 1, 2, 3, 4).  Josh Rushing also has his own website and a book, Mission al Jazeera.

Rushing opted to quit his 14 year Marine career after being directed not to publicly comment on the documentary.  Allegedly, he had “criticized the government and media’s collusion in santizing the war.”  He obeyed, though his family apparently continued to respond to inquiries, which also brought a response from the military for him to “call off [his] back-channel media campaign.”  After leaving the Marines, he subsequently took a job with the new al Jazeera English language channel.  The “drama” of a US Marine going to work for what was considered to be an anti-US channel led to his career change being documented even by Time Magazine.