YOU probably won’t be surprised to learn that daily intelligence briefings to the “born-again” imbecile they once called the President G W Bush bore biblical quotes on the cover page.
This barminess came to light when GQ Magazine broke the story in its June issue – and yesterday the Pentagon announced that it had ditched the practice, introduced during Bush’s tenure in the White House.
According to this report, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said he did not know how long the Worldwide Intelligence Update cover sheets quoted from the Bible.
Air Force Maj Gen Glen Shaffer, who was responsible for including them, retired in August 2003.
For a period in 2003, at least, the daily reports prepared for Bush carried quotes from the books of Psalms and Ephesians and the epistles of Peter. At the time, the reports focused largely on the war in Iraq.
The Bible quotes apparently aimed to support Bush at a time when soldiers’ deaths in Iraq were on the rise. But they offended at least one Muslim analyst at the Pentagon and worried other employees that the passages were inappropriate.
On Thursday, April 10, 2003, for example, the report quoted the book of Psalms:
Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him. … To deliver their soul from death.
It featured pictures of the statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down and celebrating crowds in Baghdad.
The cover quote two weeks earlier, on March 31, above a picture of a US tank driving through the desert, was:
Therefore put on the full armour of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.
Bet this one (Jer. 20-7) never saw the light of day, though:
Oh Lord, thou hast deceived me; and I was deceived. Thou art stronger than I and hast prevailed: I am in derision daily, everyone mocketh me.
The Rev Barry W Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said US soldiers
Are not Christian crusaders, and they ought not be depicted as such.
He added:
Depicting the Iraq conflict as some sort of holy war is completely outrageous. It’s contrary to the constitutional separation of religion and government, and it’s tremendously damaging to America’s reputation in the world.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
May 19th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
My blood boils sometimes it really does.
Arse holes.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
"You probably won`t be surprised…"? I was absolutely shocked! I first read about this at http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com/ and like others there simply couldn`t believe it. In fact, I still have a niggling feeling that we are going to learn that it was all a wind-up in the first place. Surely this can`t be true – please, someone, tell me it`s a joke!!
May 20th, 2009 at 12:23 am
Gimme a break!!! The indocrination of soldiers in the holy right to mercilessly massacre is as old as history. Older!!!! Throughout every war ever fought on the planet. Throughout every empire and dynasty that ever existed.
That was Montezuma's mistake when Cortez and his hoarde arrived. He thought they were gods and did not defend his kingdom.
Anyone who thinks that there was ever a war in which some holy man wasn't telling the warriors that god was on their side and that the dead would be handsomely rewarded in the afterlife, needs to hit the books again.
NL
May 20th, 2009 at 8:05 am
I`m quite well aware that to the simple mind of George Bush the Iraq War was a "holy crusade"; but these "covers"? It`s the type of thing that Junior School children produce to present their topics! I can still hardly believe that people in The Pentagon and The White House are so infantile!!
May 20th, 2009 at 8:52 am
Not matter how much Obama messes up, at least he isn't that grinning, war mongering, unevolved, born again imbecile.
May 20th, 2009 at 9:08 am
BTW Norman, you`re running the risk of being accused of contradicting yourself there! You have said elsewhere that, because of "the human condition", even if you removed religious belief from the equation, there would still be as much conflict and mindless slaughter in the world. You were right in both cases really, of course; not all wars have religious justification, but the leaders do use ideology and nationalism to inspire their followers, which amounts to much the same thing. I get really annoyed with the religionists who keep asking, "What about the likes of Pol Pot, Stalin, and Hitler?", as if they have come up with a very clever argument indeed, to which we rationalists have no answer! All these megalomaniacs did, actually, was to replace religious belief with an ideology which aped it – they were hardly leaders of a humanistic bent!! For a truly rationalist philosophy I always quote Thomas Paine: "My country is the world, and my religion is to do good." I haven`t come across a better one, and what a far better place the world would be if more people adhered to it!
May 20th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Repeating the Big Lie of religionists that Hitler was an atheist, and offering no rebuttal, is tantamount to agreeing that the religionist are right. Nazism was militaristic Catholicism. Hitler was a committed Catholic who believed that fighting an opposition religion constituted "doing the lord's work."
May 21st, 2009 at 6:21 am
Whatever Hitler`s personal views, and those of many Germans, Nazism was a nationalistic ideology, and didn`t require that its followers be practising Catholics. He certainly courted the Catholics – but then when have they NOT supported fascist dictatorships? From his reported views on religion, and particularly his belief in fate and "providence", I would hardly view Hitler as a practising Christian.