More Weapons for the Crusade.

From lezgetreal a horrifying story about the inclusion of biblical citations on munitions manufactured for the US army.

Mikey Weinstein, the slightly crazy, ever-entertaining, absolutely driven founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation is quoted in the article.

01/18/09-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
Coded Biblical messages in our military’s rifle sights? This might seem like an oddity, but ABC News has discovered that one of the prime manufacturers of military rifle sights, Trijicon, has placed coded references to Jesus and other Biblical passages on rifle sights sold to the Marines. Often the messages are cryptic and would require one to either be well versed in the Bible or be able to look them up. Often they are written in a manner such as “2COR4:6″ so that they may seem innocuous. Instead, this one is a reference to Second Corinthians 4:6 and that passage is specifically “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Another one is JN8:12 or John 8:12 and reads “Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” Other citations come from Revelations, Matthew, and other parts of the Bible.

Such a practice is not denied by Trijicon. In fact, their director of sales and marketing, Tom Munson, told ABC news that the passages had always been there, and blamed the issue being raised on a group who were “not Christian.” Of course, the fact that these sites are potentially being used by soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq never seemed to fit into their equation. Many Muslims still vilify the West for the atrocities committed by the Crusaders in the Middle Ages, and the images of Americans as Crusaders come to take Muslim lands has been a prime selling point for the bin Laden corruption of jihad.

The practice of inscribing these sites began under Trijicon’s founder Glyn Bindon, a devout Christian from South Africa. Bindon died in a plane crash in 2003. The company is centered in Wixom, Michigan. According to Trijicon’s website “Guided by our values, we endeavor to have our products used wherever precision aiming solutions are required to protect individual freedom. We believe that America is great when its people are good. This goodness has been based on Biblical standards throughout our history, and we will strive to follow those morals.”

The coded references are on the military’s Advanced Combat Optical Guides or ACOG’s, and that the military was not aware of the problem until it was brought to their attention recently. The references are in the same font and size as the sights’ serial numbers.

According to Michael Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, “It’s wrong, it violates the Constitution, it violates a number of federal laws.” Trijicon, of course, claims that they are not violating the law. The MRFF is dedicated to preserving the separation of Church and State within the military. According to Weinstein, a former soldier and current attorney, people have complained about commanders commenting that these guns have been “spiritually transformed [into] firearm[s] of Jesus Christ.” He is also on record as saying “this is probably the best example of violation of the separation of church and state in this country. It’s literally pushing fundamentalist Christianity at the point of a gun against the people that we’re fighting. We’re emboldening an enemy.”

Whether or not the inscriptions violate the Constitution or the law, the wisdom of including them is highly suspect. “It allows the Mujahedeen, the Taliban, al Qaeda and the insurrectionists and jihadists to claim they’re being shot by Jesus rifles,” according to Weinstein. It also means that the hostile environment that created people such as Major Hasan, the Ft. Hood shooter, is reinforced within the very weapons that these men and women are being asked to carry into combat. Additionally, it does give a major propaganda weapon for the Taliban and Al-Qaida to use to claim that the United States is at war with Islam rather than being at war with just the extremists.

Trijicon received around $100 million in contracts in 2008, and in 2009, got an additional $31 million for a new weapons sight.