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Contemporary Christian crusaders nowadays don’t come along wearing a suit of armour, riding on a warhorse and holding a sword in their hand.
Today they come from US Disneyland and are called US troops.

He could say so, because – as he had confided to French President Jacques Chirac in an early 2003 phone call – he knew that the Bible’s satanic agents of the Apocalypse…

“Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East…. The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled…. This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.”

And Robert Draper reported in the periodical GQ,

On the morning of Thursday, April 10, 2003, Donald Rumsfeld’s Pentagon prepared a top-secret briefing for George W. Bush. This document, known as the Worldwide Intelligence Update, was a daily digest of critical military intelligence so classified that it circulated among only a handful of Pentagon leaders and the president; Rumsfeld himself often delivered it, by hand, to the White House. The briefing’s cover sheet generally featured triumphant, color images from the previous days’ war efforts: On this particular morning, it showed the statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down in Firdos Square, a grateful Iraqi child kissing an American soldier, and jubilant crowds thronging the streets of newly liberated Baghdad. And above these images, and just below the headline secretary of defense, was a quote that may have raised some eyebrows. It came from the Bible, from the book of Psalms: “Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him…To deliver their soul from death.”

This mixing of Crusades-like messaging with war imagery, which until now has not been revealed, had become routine. On March 31, a U.S. tank roared through the desert beneath a quote from Ephesians: “Therefore put on the full armor 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.” On April 7, Saddam Hussein struck a dictatorial pose, under this passage from the First Epistle of Peter: “It is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men.”

It was US Lieutenant-General William G Boykin, at that time deputy under-secretary of defence for intelligence who told audiences that terrorists hated America because it was a nation of Christian believers: the enemy in the war on terrorism was Satan.

“Well you know what I knew, that my God was bigger than his,” said Lt Gen Boykin, recalling a Muslim fighter in Somalia who said he had the protection of Allah against US forces.

“I knew that my God was a real God, and his was an idol.”

That was in 2003. And this in 2006, with a report from 2008:

Reality or Fiction?
U.S. troops ‘evangelizing’ in combat
WorldNetDaily, December 16, 2008

“U.S. Army Spc. Dustin Chalker, a combat medic, claims videos discovered by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation reveal soldiers and Christian missionaries declaring their faith and saying they would like to spread Christianity to Muslims, the Associated Press reports. The recording allegedly shows embedded missionaries distributing Bibles.”

According to the report, the video was recorded for a Trinity Broadcasting Network program called “Travel the Road” that aired on April 2006. It features missionaries Tim Scott and Will Decker in Afghanistan and also shows members of the Oklahoma National Guard.

But in 2009, Al Jazeera published footage shot at the notorious US Bhagram Air Base showing Lieutenant-Colonel Gary Hensley, the chief of the US military chaplains in Afghanistan, in a recorded sermon, telling soldiers that, as followers of Jesus Christ, they all have a responsibility

“to be witnesses for him:”:

“The special forces guys – they hunt men basically. We do the same things as Christians, we hunt people for Jesus. We do, we hunt them down,” he says.

“Get the hound of heaven after them, so we get them into the kingdom. That’s what we do, that’s our business.”

Questioned about the footage, Greg Julian, a US colonel in Afghanistan, told Al Jazeera:

“Most of this is taken out of context … this is irresponsible and inappropriate journalism.

“This footage was taken a year ago … the Bibles were taken into custody and not distributed.

“There is no effort to go out and proselytise to Afghans.”

One day after the Pentagon accused the network of being ‘irresponsible’ for its initial report, Al Jazeera released extended footage of unedited tapes to show soldiers discussing Afghan conversions of the ‘hunt for Jesus’:

Origin:
AlterNet, May 5, 2009.
By Jeremy Scahill.

Hours after Al Jazeera first broadcast a video showing U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan being instructed by the military’s top chaplain in the country to “hunt people for Jesus” as they spread Christianity to the overwhelmingly Muslim population, the Pentagon shot back. It charged that Al Jazeera had “grossly misrepresent[ed] the truth.” Col. Greg Julian, told Al Jazeera: “Most of this is taken out of context … this is irresponsible and inappropriate journalism.”

Now, Al Jazeera and the man who filmed the controversial material are striking back. The network has just released unedited and unaltered footage of U.S. soldiers in ‘bible study’ in Afghanistan. Jazeera describes it as “Extended footage shot by Brian Hughes, a U.S. documentary maker and former member of the U.S. military who spent several days in Bagram near Kabul.”

In Al Jazeera’s original report, Hughes addressed the fact that soldiers had imported bibles translated into Pashto and Dari. “[U.S. soldiers] weren’t talking about learning how to speak Dari or Pashto, by reading the Bible and using that as the tool for language lessons,” Hughes told Al Jazeera. “The only reason they would have these documents there was to distribute them to the Afghan people. And I knew it was wrong, and I knew that filming it … documenting it would be important.”

Regarding allegations that the sermon of the military’s top chaplain in Afghanistan, Lieutenant-Colonel Gary Hensley, where he instructs soldiers to “hunt people for Jesus” was taken out of context, Hughes said in a statment, “Any contention by the military that his words are purposefully taken out of context to alter the tone or meaning of his sermon is absolutely false.”

Hughes is completely standing by the accuracy of Al Jazeera’s report. Here is Hughes’s statement:

“On Sunday, May 3, the Al Jazeera English network and I made an agreement to produce a broadcast segment from a rough cut of my documentary film. This opportunity came after a May 2009 Harper’s magazine cover story called “Jesus Killed Mohammed.” While he researched and prepared that article, I allowed the author Jeff Sharlet to view the work-in-progress documentary. Sharlet’s article brought the film to Al Jazeera English’s attention.

My documentary, titled The Word and the Warriors, is inspired by a personal experience I had while serving as a combat flight crew member during the first Gulf War. During a very difficult and emotional time at war, an Army chaplain provided me comfort and counsel. I will never forget the important advice or the man who – without questioning my own faith – helped me at a time of need.

For two-and-a-half years, I have been researching and producing this film. I have traveled the world, interviewing both military servicemembers and civilians about the important role of these religious leaders/military officers.

During April/May 2008, I went to Afghanistan. With the assistance and full cooperation of the U.S. Army, I was allowed to film at Bagram Air Field. During that time, I was always wearing press credentials, and I was always accompanied by a media liaison while filming. The media liaison staff knew everything I filmed and – as I was told by them – they filed reports every evening about what I had filmed. It was my primary media liaison, an Army NCO, who – on my first day – invited me to meet LTC Gary Hensley. Hensley, the ranking chaplain in Afghanistan talked to me off camera expressing a concern he had about allowing me to film his chaplains. At the conclusion of the discussion, he agreed that I would be allowed to embed with his chaplains and invited me to film several hours of religious services.

Those hours at the Enduring Faith Chapel included his own sermon at a service called Chapel Next. With the exception of a few minutes I could not film because I was reloading my camera or moving to position for another shot, I videotaped Hensley’s entire sermon.

Any contention by the military that his words are purposefully taken out of context to alter the tone or meaning of his sermon is absolutely false.

In recent press statements, the military also contends that – in the footage depicting the Afghan-language (Dari and Pashto) bibles – a cut was made before “it would have shown that the chaplain instructed that the Bibles not be distributed.” This is a false statement. The chaplain – as seen in the footage before the cut – instructs the group to be careful and reiterates the definition of General Order #1. After this cut he begins to organize the group for the evening’s bible study lessons.

Finally, and in my opinion most important, is the fact that EVERY FRAME of the rough cut from Bagram was provided to the U.S. Army Public Affairs Office in advance of this release. On Thursday, April 30 at approximately 1 pm EST, the Army took possession of a DVD with this footage by accepting a FedEx from me. Since Al Jazeera English first aired the piece Sunday, May 3 at 10pm EST, the Army had every frame of this rough cut for more than 80 hours.”

Following Fault Lines, we know how the US is turning soldiers into crusaders:

“The United States is a deeply religious country, over 90% believe in god and 80% believe in miracles. For the US military, dealing with its own religious identity has become an internal battle. Growing evidence points towards a rising influence of evangelical Christianity, and with two wars still raging in Muslim countries with significant religious overtones, there could be serious consequences for the US mission.”

Watch Part 2: