{"id":358,"date":"2009-07-03T02:05:19","date_gmt":"2009-07-03T09:05:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=358"},"modified":"2015-06-27T19:16:49","modified_gmt":"2015-06-27T22:16:49","slug":"al-jazeera-revisits-us-military-and-christianity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2009\/07\/03\/al-jazeera-revisits-us-military-and-christianity\/","title":{"rendered":"al Jazeera Revisits US Military and Christianity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Near the end of June, al Jazeera aired a program called\u00a0“Fault Lines” that\u00a0again brought up the issue of religion in the US military (see prior discussion<\/a>).\u00a0 The episode was hosted by Josh Rushing, a former US Marine turned al Jazeera reporter.<\/p>\n

The “Fault Lines” program can be viewed as\u00a0Part I<\/a> and Part II<\/a>. The program begins with a pan out from a US church with\u00a0Rushing saying<\/p>\n

Many on the Christian right describe the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, well, in\u00a0similar terms as the Taliban and al Qaeda: as spiritual wars of the highest magnitude.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The prejudicial statement, which describes a\u00a0minority view as if it was a commonly accepted American perspective,\u00a0sets the tone for the remainder of the video.\u00a0\u00a0Rushing never says\u00a0who, precisely, these\u00a0“many” are, nor does he\u00a0define who he believes make up “the Christian right.”<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 (In creatively editing a previous program<\/a>, 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.\u00a0 The intent was to associate the Chaplain, as a religious military member, with the weapon and to imply that\u00a0he was armed, when in fact he was not.)<\/p>\n

For example, an interviewee’s\u00a0monologue saying “these people want to create a Christian state” is voiced over\u00a0a\u00a0slow-motion video of\u00a0US soldiers singing during a religious event.\u00a0 The result is an unfair, if implied,\u00a0association of those\u00a0soldiers with\u00a0the indictments of official impropriety.<\/p>\n

Several well-known personalities appeared on the program in support of\u00a0al Jazeera’s assertions of an inappropriate religious influence in the US military:<\/p>\n

Chris Hedges<\/strong> is the author of American Fascists<\/em>, subtitled The Christian Right and the War on America<\/em>.\u00a0 Jeff\u00a0Sharlet<\/strong> is a frequent proxy for the Military Religious Freedom Foundation and\u00a0authored Harper’s\u00a0“Jesus killed Mohammed,” an indictment against Christian influence in the military.\u00a0 Chris\u00a0Rodda<\/strong> is the author of Liars for Jesus<\/em> and also works for the MRFF.\u00a0 All three of those people are\u00a0outspoken advocates for what is arguably a hostile attitude toward religion (and Christianity in particular).\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

On the other hand,\u00a0the only person on the show\u00a0from the opposing point of view who could speak freely was former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft.\u00a0 All others were limited by their government positions.\u00a0\u00a0Thus, 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.<\/p>\n

Scowcroft\u00a0didn’t appear to receive either the\u00a0airtime or questions of the others, but he was incredulous of Rushing’s accusations\u00a0for two reasons: there is insufficient information to support the accusations coming from the Travel the Road<\/em> filming (previously noted<\/a>), and there has been no evidence of an institutional<\/em> issue of Christianity in the US military.\u00a0 Might there be errors or even individuals acting with malicious intent?\u00a0 Certainly.\u00a0 That doesn’t mean the military as an organization<\/em> is doing so.<\/p>\n

One of the more prominent people on the program was the Air Force Chief of\u00a0Chaplains, Chaplain (Maj Gen) Cecil\u00a0Richardson.\u00a0 al Jazeera belittled his\u00a0responses with cuts to misleading and discredited news reports.\u00a0\u00a0 For example, they showed the intro to al Jazeera’s other\u00a0coverage<\/a> in which the anchor said “a group of evangelical Christian soldiers from the US Army had Bibles specially printed\u2026and shipped”\u2014a fact that has been proven to be incorrect.\u00a0 Rushing summarizes the incident\u00a0by saying\u00a0they were “discussing how to hand out Bibles in Dari and Pashtu,” which is not<\/em> what they were discussing and is a gross misrepresentation of the facts (particularly since he also left out the outcome<\/a> of that situation, which would have negated the force of his point).<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 His answer is true for any religiously-themed organization: They asked, and we support free exercise and free speech.<\/p>\n

Rushing’s “Fault Lines” also\u00a0ignored the “walking on eggshells” approach the US military has begun to take with respect to religion.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The US military is bending over backwards to be “religiously sensitive” while attempting to preserve\u00a0soldiers’ rights to free exercise.\u00a0 Will their efforts be perfect?\u00a0 Absolutely not, but Rushing fails to even\u00a0acknowledge their efforts, detracting from\u00a0the report’s neutrality and\u00a0credibility.<\/p>\n

Late in the program, Rushing says\u00a0he was initially cynical about the subject himself, but\u00a0seemed to have been won over by the “evidence.”\u00a0 The problem is that he argued the positive and can’t prove the negative.\u00a0 How do you refute the claims of those who say there is religious coercion in the US military?\u00a0 Cite the 2.9 million servicemen and women who haven’t<\/em> complained of Christian promotion in the US military?\u00a0 As a Marine, Rushing\u00a0certainly remembers that in the military those “who care” are the ones who complain–but very few people care.\u00a0 The vast majority of people in the US military are probably indifferent, having experienced neither persecution nor proselytizing.\u00a0 The “evidence” he cited was a couple of unrelated and not fully vetted circumstances that aren’t conclusive about anything.<\/p>\n

al Jazeera’s creative editing does work both ways in one case, however.\u00a0 When\u00a0Rushing voices over a statement that\u00a0the MRFF has been accused by some\u00a0Evangelicals of “unfairly targeting Christians,” he\u00a0segues directly\u00a0into her answer of “yeah, because\u2026”\u00a0 The result is the appearance that\u00a0Rodda is\u00a0admitting that the MRFF “unfairly targets Christians.”<\/p>\n

In the end, there was little new in the “Fault Lines” piece.\u00a0 Instead, it repeated misleading, unsubstantiated accusations to support an unproven\u00a0and 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.<\/p>\n

Critics say that “Christian perception” about the US military endangers our troops abroad.\u00a0 What they fail to explain is that the “perception” that they insist on repeating is founded on baseless accusations.\u00a0 They<\/em> are the ones convincing adversaries around the world that the US military is bent on a Christian crusade, despite all evidence to the contrary.<\/p>\n

More about the host, Josh Rushing:<\/em><\/p>\n

As a Lieutenant in 2003, Rushing was a US Central Command public affairs officer during Operation Iraqi Freedom.\u00a0 During that stint, he was filmed in what would eventually be a presentation at the Sundance Film Festival: Control Room<\/em>, which was a short documentary on\u00a0al Jazeera.\u00a0 (Control Room<\/em> can be viewed in four parts here: 1<\/a>, 2<\/a>, 3<\/a>, 4<\/a>).\u00a0 Josh Rushing also has his own website<\/a> and a book, Mission al Jazeera<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

Rushing opted to quit his 14 year Marine career after being directed<\/a> not to publicly comment on the documentary.\u00a0 Allegedly, he had<\/a> “criticized<\/a> the government and media’s collusion in santizing the war.”\u00a0 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.”\u00a0 After leaving the Marines, he subsequently took a job with the new al Jazeera English language channel<\/a>.\u00a0 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Near the end of June, al Jazeera aired a program called\u00a0“Fault Lines” that\u00a0again brought up the issue of religion in the US military (see prior discussion).\u00a0 The episode was hosted by Josh Rushing, a former US Marine turned al Jazeera reporter. The “Fault Lines” program can be viewed as\u00a0Part I and Part II. The program begins with a pan out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,3],"tags":[4,2,5218,7,10],"class_list":["post-358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chaplain","category-culture","tag-churchandstate","tag-military","tag-military-religious-freedom-foundation","tag-mrff","tag-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}