So, my friends, let us examine, ever so briefly, exactly what constitutes "The Greatest Threat Within Our U.S. Military and American Democracy.”
We’ll start at the beginning.
The aftershocks from the January 6, 2021 insurrection riots keep coming.
As well they should.
People in the United States and, frankly, around the world were shocked at the sorry sight of this Trump-inspired and orchestrated chaos attempting to stop the Constitutionally-mandated Electoral College confirmation vote in favor of the landslide winner, Joe Biden.
They were literally gobsmacked at the vast number of repulsive aspects of this violent display of lawlessness.
Indeed, but perhaps nothing was more horrifyingly staggering than the enormous relative numbers of current and former members of the United States military who rapturously participated in this international disgrace.
Analysts are now saying that about 20% of the insurrectionists fall into this current and former U.S. military category.
It has been so utterly shocking that Biden’s new Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, has rightfully ordered our military to “stand down" for a day to concentrate with laser-like precision on the perils of “extremism” in its ranks.
But, in doing so, the Pentagon is TOTALLY missing the key villain in this wretched drama.
And that is why I am writing this brief Opinion Editorial; I was asked to do so by several key, senior Pentagon officials as they feel too intimidated, and justifiably so, to raise the issue themselves.
I have spoken to scores of electronic and print media journalists since that January 6, 2021 date.
They are all asking me the same thing.
They want to know why so many American military Active Duty, Reserve, National Guard, and Veterans were among those illegally storming the storied and sacred halls of our nation’s U.S. Capitol Building.
It is as though the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), which I founded in the early 2000s and currently still lead, was somehow “discovered overnight.”
I could expound for hours, but I shall not go into a such a deep dive in this brief Opinion Editorial.
Suffice it to say that MRFF recognized many years ago what and who the main culprit is here.
And let me be clear here, please; it is NOT the deadly extremism borne from the hideous hated, bigotry, and prejudice of white supremacy, misogyny, antisemitism, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, and related racial and religious antipathies.
On the contrary, it runs much, MUCH derivatively deeper.
It is ONE thing most predominantly, and that “thing" is the Mothership of what is known as "Fundamentalist Christian Nationalism,” which is sometimes referred to as “Christian Dominionism.”
All of the other listed aforementioned evils find their literal genesis in that Mothership of “Other-Hating” fundamentalist Christianity.
Indeed, it is fundamentalist Christian nationalism, and its accompanying immoral and repugnant supremacy, exclusivism, exceptionalism, and triumphalism, which is the filthy engine for all of these other putrid, sub-categories of unconstitutional evils.
Come again, you say?
This twisted and tortured form of Christianity loathes absolutely nothing more than American democracy and wants to replace it with its own sectarian, weaponized version of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
It is well beyond the limited scope of this article to provide the incontrovertible evidence of this fundamentalist Christian disease which is so inextricably intertwined into the very DNA of our Department of Defense.
But the evidence is legion in magnitude.
Please, I beg you, just LOOK at these links below and strive mightily to keep an open mind. The facts are tragically quite indisputable.
“Jesus Loves Nukes” Training
“Jesus Rifles”
Shocking Video: “Government-Paid Missionaries” in the U.S. Military
Lead Like Jesus
Cadets for Christ
Look everyone, before our sizable array of fundamentalist Christian nationalist enemies predictably start in, yet once again, trying to dishonestly defame and attack MRFF as “anti-Christian,” please remember that MRFF presently represents well over 73,000 current and former U.S. military members, DoD civilian personnel, and DoD contractors.
And, about 95% of them ARE practicing Christians.
MRFF has nearly 600 paid and volunteer staffers and well over 80% are ALSO practicing Christians.
Look you guys, here’s the bottom line:
Fundamentalist Christian nationalism/dominionism in our American military is to mainline Christianity as Al Qaeda, ISIS, the Taliban and Boko Haram, are to mainline Islam.
It really IS that simple and THAT dangerous!
President Dwight Eisenhower’s most famous speech was actually his very last one.
In it, he desperately warned Americans and The World about the treacherous pitfalls of the so-called “Military-Industrial-Complex.”
What we fight here, ‘round-the-clock at MRFF, is nothing less than a “Fundamentalist Christian Nationalist, Military-Congressional-Defense Contractor-Parachurch Proselytizing Complex.”
It is enormous in both its national security threat to our precious, and yet always fragile, democracy as well as in the nearly limitless financial resources it enjoys from its like-minded Christian nationalist funders.
When military superiors use their “Super Powers” of insuperable military command authority to force otherwise helpless U.S. service member subordinates to accept this viciously unconstitutional version of the Christian faith, there is just NO way for these lower-ranking folks to effectively fight back.
In actuality, it’s far, FAR worse than when David was matched against Goliath.
So, when they ask us to do so, MRFF fight backs FOR them.
However, this often brutal, lonely, dangerous, and expensive fight against a perverse, fundamentalist Christian extremist evil will NEVER end until the leadership at the White House and the Pentagon recognize and publicly call out its very sinister existence!
As it stands presently, no one in the Pentagon’s or White House’s most senior leadership positions is apparently either knowledgeable enough or willing to do so.
I'm probably not the biggest fan of Ayn Rand, but I’ll readily admit that she hit it on the head with this telling quote:
"We can ignore reality, but we cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality."