No, I don’t believe it
There’s a Fox News story percolating out there about one Joe at Fort Hood who claims that some “counter-intelligence agent” told a group of troops at a pre-deployment briefing that if they contribute to or contact Tea Party or evangelical Christians, they’ll be considered a terrorist threat.
Michael Berry, an attorney with the Liberty Institute, is advising the soldier and has launched an investigation into the incident.
“The American public should be outraged that the U.S. Army is teaching our troops that evangelical Christians and Tea Party members are enemies of America, and that they can be punished for supporting or participating in those groups,” said Berry, a former Marine Corps JAG officer.
“These statements about evangelicals being domestic enemies are a serious charge.”
Yeah, no, sorry, I don’t believe it ever happened, based solely on the fact that I know Joe. I think he’s trying to get out of something. The whole incident stems from one soldier’s report, no others have come forward and claimed the same thing. I’ll concede that there probably are people out there who think along those lines, but I’m pretty sure they’re not stupid enough to make it part of a briefing for the troops.
Like I said, it sounds like Joe wanted to be famous or get out of something and made this shit up. I’m pretty sure if it had happened, someone would tell us about it, and I haven’t heard a peep. But lots of people are just so willing to believe things about this administration and the current military leadership that fit their perception, they’ll believe anything.
Hey, I might be wrong, but I’m pretty sure this will fade away quietly. There’s too much real stuff to be outraged about to be outraged based on the report of one rogue Joe.
Category: Military issues
Ex-PH2: you’re conflating at least three different issues above. I’m only discussing the (IMO) manufactured (and IMO misguided) outrage regarding the contract priest work interruption being “religious discrimination”. The bogus designation of various groups as “extremist” is an entirely different issue – one on which I’d agree someone acted stupidly. IMO whether that was by accident or design is yet unproven – though I’d agree it’s looking more like “by design” at this point. The article you cite in comment 47 is not particularly relevant to this discussion. The immediate response to the Boston Marathon bombing was mostly state/local, not Federal. Any beef there is with the state of Massachusetts and the city of Boston. It’s thus hardly a plausible example of religious discrimination by the Federal government – which is what’s alleged in the matter of the contract priests. Regarding Federal civilian priests performing pastoral duties during the shutdown, I’d again suggest you read the link I referenced earlier – which OWB posted above in comment 19. The Catholic Military Archdiocese itself publicly stated that uniformed and Federal civilian priests were NOT affected by the shutdown, and that the only priests affected were those who were hired on contracts whose funding was held up by the shutdown. I’ll take them at their word. The Military Archdiocese would have a vested interest in publicizing any Federal civilian priests who were barred from performing pastoral duties for that reason – and would have indeed done so. Regarding your sister: does your sister have the same ease of maintaining an observant lifestyle as she would in a city with ready access synagogues and Kosher grocery stores? Frankly, I’d guess not. My whole point in bringing up the Orthodox Jewish, Amish, and Mennonite denominations is that lack of access or difficulty in being observant does not automatically equate to discrimination. Your sister voluntarily chose to live where she does. The fact that there are no synagogues or Kosher stores nearby is almost certainly an impediment to her maintaining an observant lifestyle. However, that fact (lack of access) by itself is NOT evidence of… Read more »
OWB: the definitions of “emergency essential” within DoD are pretty set. Essentially, it’s medical, LE, emergency response, and the minimum number of civilian personnel essential to maintain current military operations on an emergency and temporary basis.
Commissaries are arguably at least as essential in CONUS as are those services provided by base/post/camp/station Chaplains. They were closed during the shutdown. Ditto a host of other normal on-post support functions, such as ID card issue, MWR activities, and the like. Purchase of new medicines/supplies/parts/minor equipment was not allowed – you made do with stocks on hand. Essentially, routine actions that could be deferred temporarily without major impact on health, safety, or current military operations were shut down prior to passage of the POMA. And even afterwards, not all people went back to work – some functions were not deemed to be covered by the authority in the POMA to recall employees, and those employees remained on furlough for another few days.
It was by no stretch “business as usual” for DoD during the shutdown. Contract chaplains were hardly the only ones affected.
You are correct that the work performed by a contracted chaplain of any denomination is not directly comparable to that performed by a plumber or electrician working on contract to the Federal government. But if funding is not available to pay them, Federal law says both fall into the same category – and cannot perform their normal duties until funding is restored. There’s no “religious exception” to the Anti-Deficiency Act.
Keep smackin that nail on the head VOV, I agree with you.
I’ve been in trainings that listed “People with Confederate Flags” as an extremist group. Those briefings in PARTICULAR are full of bullshit.