Proselytizating in Iraq -- the Next Threat to National Security?

[RedLetterRev]

From Talk to Action with credit to the original author, dogemperor.

Now this story has somehow escaped my radar until now, but for the month of June, I've been doing my best to keep the medical profession in business (sigh). All's well that ends well, and I am well now. I did debate with myself just a bit to pick the right category for this post, as it's as appropriate enough for Religion/Theology (or practice thereof), but in this particular report has every bit as much impact on present and future national security because of the actions of not just a few zealots.

Since the very beginning of the invasion into Iraq, there have been reports of carpetbagging proselytizers flooding into Iraq to subdue the population as much by American fundigelical mind-control religions as by the gun. I firmly believe that one cannot "export democracy", democracy cannot be forced on a population at the point of a gun, and no amount external meddling or coercion can produce a free and fair society. Robert Heinlein put it much better than I can:

When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, 'This you may not read, this you may not see, this you are forbidden to know,' the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything--you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.

It seems as if the truth of this is being borne out. Iraqis, relieved of the oppression of Saddam Hussein are loathe to jump right back under the yoke of a set of new masters, starting with the premise that they must throw out their entire religious belief system. Now that, for any human being, is a world-rocking and difficult thing at best and cannot come from the outside. If it is genuine at all, it must come from a revelation within. No amount of coercion has ever once resulted in a true conversion. Neither the rack, nor pressing, nor whips, nor incarceration, nor tortures any sort have ever once elicited anything other that lip-service out of fear.

Having seen the seamy insides of several cults, I am even more wary of the subtle and not-so-subtle techniques they employ to wear down their targets and to hoodwink the unwary. The wary eventually become annoyed. Such is becoming the case in Iraq.

From the article:

As amazing as it sounds, dominionists may in fact be fomenting terrorism--not just the domestic terrorism like bombings of women's clinics we normally associate, but the very "Islamist terror bombings" that the GOP loves to use to frighten America into voting a red ticket.

We detailed yesterday on how Christians in Iraq (including communities literally founded by the apostle Thomas) have been targeted due to aggressive prosyletisation by dominionist "missionary" groups; today, we focus on how our soldiers are targeted and becoming targets due to the actions of dominionists...and how some of the very folks targeting both our nation's fighting folks and Iraqis are essentially dominionist rogue agents in the US military's chaplaincy.

Soldiers targeted--and soldiers playing "God Warrior"

No less than one of the primary groups responsible for targeting Iraqis for conversion is also strongly linked to military steeplejacking--Campus Crusade has been linked to both, and the Patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church specifically has called out Campus Crusade as one of the worst offenders in this regard. Many of the persons most intimately involved with the Abu Ghraib torture scandal are linked with the Assemblies of God, which has increasingly gone not only militaristic in its imagery but has increasingly become virulently anti-Moslem (many in the Assemblies have in fact called for an outright ethnic cleansing of Moslems from the US and have even relied on Holocaust revisionism to support these calls).

And increasingly these actions--and the actions of American dominionist "missionaries"--are doing the equivalent of painting concentric circles on the backs of every man and woman in uniform in Iraq.

Campus Crusade and the Assemblies are by far not the only dominionist groups to be simultaneously targeting the Iraqi people and US soldiers in their own metaphysical wargames. The Southern Baptist Convention--itself fairly recently steeplejacked--is rather aggressively targeting both soldiers and Iraqis by its own admission--and SBC churches themselves are increasingly adopting military imagery and other aspects of "Joel's Army" theology, up to and including imprecatory prayers against critics. Interestingly, the SBC and other "fundamentalist Baptist" groups seem to be particularly targeting the USMC in similar manner to how neopentecostal groups have targeted the Army and Air Force.

There is much more in-depth at the link above.

Now I had a dear friend and neighbor many years back who was a physchologist, whom I questioned at great length about cults and shared my experiences with him. One of his specialties was hypnosis and he was quite accomplished at it. We compared a lot of notes on what hypnosis was, various forms it can take, and we shared the belief that while it can have therapeutic value, can be a hoot at parties, its unethical use in crowd manipulation and the shaping of public policy is nothing short of dangerous and evil. This, I believe, is a very dangerous game being played out in Iraq which is already biting our troops and will come back to haunt us not only worldwide, but here at home.

My friend's take on most of these manipulations is that it is actually quite easy to take in a crowd. From a rock concert to a th'ow-down pseudo-religious show, the techniques are the same: find a way to energize a crowd, get them hooked on their own endorphines, get that rush going full-blast, and an unethical showman can pour anything into a readied and receptive mind. It's not difficult at all and the unwary will fall for it every time. Think back to the last really good concert you went to when you left with a really great feeling. That's the endorphines working. Pseudoreligion takes it that one unethical step further.

We're already seeing mass manipulations from the likes of the Dobson/late Fallwell/D. James Kennedy/et al crowd, and now even some Johnny-come-lately imports who are likely in it for the obscene amounts of tax-free and nearly-untraceable cash they cash they can bilk from those who are willing to give their minds over for a little endorphine rush.

As a southerner, I have seen the inside of many a charismatic and fringe-y no-name/no-denomination hellfire-and-damnation preaching church. I've seen the effects of fear, endorphines, adrenaline and call-and-return chanting. The inside of a Moonie church is little different and the way they wear people down and suck them in is very, very little different. As a gay man, I've felt the venom of both. As much as they mouth about a god of love, they've yet to meet Hir. If they knew the least bit about love, they wouldn't be doing what they're doing -- which is to suck the life and soul out of another human being for love of power and money. I speak with some experience as a recipient of some of their ministrations and have recovered quite nicely, thanks.

In the case of Iraq, though, most of the crowd aren't as willing and the proselytizers, rather than eliciting the rush they're used to generating in a gullible and willing American crowd, are engendering a deep resentment from challenging and even outright attacking a generations-deep belief system. That's really the wrong way to go about winning hearts and minds, if that was ever the goal to start with. (IMHO, BushCo couldn't have given the first continental damn about hearts and minds -- it was oil, first, last and always.) The upshot, I think, will be the secondary goal of BushCo, which is perpetual war. Since the Civil War, the Bush family has made a generational business of the arms trade and the invasion of Iraq is simply another furtherance of their nefarious enterprise. Halliburton, which had one foot in receivership and the other on a banana-peel before the invasion, is now wildly profitable and Cheney now has more money than his six-greats grandkids will ever be able to piss away.

Remarkable coincidence, idnit. :sarcasm:

It does amaze me, though, that this sort of story has been reported repeatedly and squashed repeatedly since the start of the invasion of Iraq. One of the first stories out was the immediate follow-on of proselytizers with stacks of Bibles carpetbagging their way into Iraq right behind the first wave of troops. Contracts were favored to "Christian" contractors. Aid was handed out to civilians with tracts or Bibles attached. One insult after another; many reported, few ever followed up on, reports surfaced then quickly vanished.

According to this latest article above, the trend is only getting worse and the resentment is only getting worse. It is most certainly time for us to examine the type of snake-oil and snake venom being handed out domestically; how much is being used directly as a proselytizing arm of the GOP; how much suppression of Progressive churches by means of the IRS and other government arms is taking place; how much winking does the IRS do at overt lawbreaking in extreme right-wing churches and these over-abundant tent-meetings raking in tax-free cash whilst bending and twisting minds; how much of this overseas prosylitizers are black-ops posing as Christians; and just how big a danger does all this pseudo-religion pose domestically and abroad?

[pansypoo53219]

1. georgee did say

crusade.

[Karl_Bonner_1982]

2. We could do good to remember Karl Popper's warning

"Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.

In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols.

We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant."

-from THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS ENEMIES

====

I would warn people that when an intolerant movement begins to gain too much power, we may not be able to rely on democracy, majority will and nonviolence to stop it. Probably the only thing that would have stopped the Nazis once they got their foot in the door was a violent resistance.

With regard to dominionists, they may have already reached their zenith of power, in which case they will now begin a decline. But should their political and legal power continue to grow, advocates of a free society will be faced with three choices. The first and cleanest method of retribution is to simply use politics and the media to run an ideological attack against their agenda. The second requires us to get our hands dirty: we must sabotage "the system" to drive them out of power, whether through election fraud, hacking, blacklisting, or repressive legislation. The third and most drastic option is to pick up a gun, which should only serve as an absolute last resort against tyranny.

The sad thing is that far too often, the will to take action comes too late for a given form of action to be effective, and society decays into despotism.