Re: [casi] Iraqis Required to be Baptized before being given food and water

["ppg" <ppg@DELETETHISnyc.rr.com>]

re: US training for the 21st C Inquisition

NYTimes April 6
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/06/national/06GENE.html

Church Event Set for Base Stirs Concern
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN


The Army major general who commands Fort Bragg's training center for special
operations forces has invited a group of predominantly Southern Baptist
pastors to the base this month to participate in a military-themed
motivational program for Christian evangelists.

The unusual collaboration is the result of a friendship between Maj. Gen.
William G. Boykin, commanding general of the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare
Center and School at Fort Bragg, and the Rev. Bobby H. Welch, a Southern
Baptist minister in Daytona Beach, Fla., who has started an evangelistic
campaign called FAITH Force Multipliers.

Hundreds of ministers received an invitation last month from Mr. Welch
saying that participants would observe weapons demonstrations, sleep
overnight on the base and "go with General Boykin and Green Beret
instructors to places where no civilians and few soldiers ever go!"

But the marriage of military and ministry offended one Baptist pastor
invited to attend. That minister, who said he did not want to be identified
for fear of his colleagues' ire, informed Americans United for Separation of
Church and State, an advocacy group in Washington.

Lawyers with the group faxed a letter to General Boykin and the secretary of
the Army on Friday warning that the event, planned for April 22 and 23, is
unconstitutional because it amounts to government promotion of a religious
event.

"It's completely inappropriate to have the Army put on a revival meeting at
a military base, and that is the bottom line of this event," said the Rev.
Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United.

"This is a particularly bad time to have the Army appear to be promoting
Christianity," he continued, "in the middle of a war with a Muslim country."

The American military does not ban religion on bases. It offers chaplains,
chapels and services for people of all faiths.

The difference here, said Americans United, is government sponsorship of
religion. In 1996, Navy chaplains in Norfolk, Va., dropped their sponsorship
of an event by the men's evangelical group Promise Keepers after similar
complaints.

With Fort Bragg on war footing, the problem landed in special operations
headquarters like a stray grenade. Maj. Gary Kolb, spokesman for Army
Special Operations at the base, said that civic groups sometimes visited the
base for tours, but that this event sounded out of the ordinary.

After checking with General Boykin, he said that the general might not be in
town for the event, and that if he were in town he would only greet the
ministers. (The invitation had promised a speech by the general and
"informal time" with him.)

Major Kolb said the group would not be allowed to spend the night on the
base. He said some of the attractions that the invitation promised to the
ministers - like the demonstration of hand-to-hand combat, and trips to the
"Shoot House" and "Snake Room" - might have to be canceled because the
special forces personnel are too busy.

And Major Kolb said that the military lawyers on the base were reviewing the
plans for the event "just to make sure that it's within the guidelines
prescribed by all the military regulations."

Reached at his church in Florida, Mr. Welch, the minister who runs the FAITH
Force program, said he was a Vietnam veteran, who trained at Fort Bragg and
sought to apply military principles to evangelism.

At first, he spoke openly about the coming session at Fort Bragg. Then he
asked not to have it made public because "I'll get in trouble."

"I don't want to do anything that sounds as if we're connected to the
military," he said. "That would be an error." He said the Fort Bragg event,
which had drawn applications from 50 to 70 ministers, was no different from
one he conducted at a race track in Daytona Beach.

He also volunteered that a previous FAITH Force session of 70 pastors was
held at Fort Bragg last year, at General Boykin's invitation.

Pastor Welch has spoken at graduations at the special operations school the
general commands, Major Kolb said. And General Boykin gave a speech in the
pastor's church in Florida in April last year.

"Bin Laden is not the enemy," General Boykin told the packed sanctuary,
according to an account on the church's Web site. "No mortal is the enemy.
It's the enemy you can't see. It's a war against the forces of darkness. The
battle won't be won with guns. It will be won on our knees."
The end.

pg, nyc




----- Original Message -----
From: "H Sutter" <citext@chebucto.ns.ca>
To: <casi-discuss@lists.casi.org.uk>
Sent: Monday, April 07, 2003 5:30 AM
Subject: Re: [casi] Iraqis Required to be Baptized before being given food
and water


>
> Noasalira,
>
> If you click on the truthout link, you'll find a
> disclaimer but I don't understand it:
>
>      "Many of our readers have pointed out to us that
>      the article originally published on this page did
>      not match the headline put forth in the newsletter..."
>
> Do you think there could be a mistake that these
> "soldiers" are Iraqis? If they were POWs, some
> international agency would have to be informed. This
> is blackmail what this maniac chaplain is doing - and
> takes us back to the Inquisition!
>
> But from the article it doesn't sound as if they were
> POWs. They could of course be US 'green-card soldiers'
> of any nationality, including Iraqi, in which case they
> are US residents.
>
> If you know more about who these soldiers are, could
> you please post it. - I tried google but couldn't find
> anything.
>
> I would write to the Red Cross Committee at the UN, if
> they are Iraqi POWs (RedCrossCommittee@un.int).
>
> Elga
>
>
> ------------Original Message------------
> From: Noasalira@aol.com
> Subject: [casi] Iraqis Required to be Baptized before being given
> food and water
> Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2003 18:42:56 EDT
>
>
> [12] http://truthout.org/docs_03/040703A.shtml
>
> (*Editor's Note: In all of the stories that have come and gone in recent
> months, this could well be the most offensive of them all. ''It's simple,"
> says Evangelical Christian Army chaplain Josh Llano. "They want water. I
> have it, as long as they agree to get baptized." In so many ways, this
> represents the true mindset of the individuals who have pushed this war.
> It
> is right down the line with the actions of this administration over the
> past three years; recall that, when our airmen were being held in China
> back in 2001, Mr. Bush was only concerned with whether or not they had
> Bibles. - wrp)
>
> Army Chaplain Offers Baptisms, Baths
> By Meg Laughlin
> Miami Herald
>
> Saturday 05 April 2003
>
> CAMP BUSHMASTER, Iraq - In this dry desert world near Najaf, where the
> Army
> V Corps combat support system sprawls across miles of scabrous dust,
> there's an oasis of sorts: a 500-gallon pool of pristine, cool water.
>
> It belongs to Army chaplain Josh Llano of Houston, who sees the water
> shortage, which has kept thousands of filthy soldiers from bathing for
> weeks, as an opportunity.
>
> ''It's simple. They want water. I have it, as long as they agree to get
> baptized,'' he said.
>
> And agree they do. Every day, soldiers take the plunge for the Lord and
> come up clean for the first time in weeks.
>
> ''They do appear physically and spiritually cleansed,'' Llano said.
>
> First, though, the soldiers have to go to one of Llano's hour-and-a-half
> sermons in his dirt-floor tent. Then the baptism takes an hour of quoting
> from the Bible.
>
> ''Regardless of their motives,'' Llano said, ``I get the chance to take
> them closer to the Lord.''
>
> A blue-eyed 32-year-old with an abundance of energy, Llano goes out every
> day to drum up grimy soldiers for his pool.
>
> He talks to truck drivers, tank drivers, computer specialists -- anyone
> and
> everyone. He goes out to the combat zone to the fighting soldiers and the
> combat support soldiers who keep them in supplies.
>
> ''You have to be aggressive to help people find themselves in God,'' he
> said.
>
> He calls himself a ''Southern Baptist evangelist,'' and justifies the war
> and killing with a verse from the Gospel of Matthew, which he often
> recites: ``Give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the
> things that are God's.
>
> ''This means we are called upon by our government to fight and that is
> giving unto Caesar, as the Bible tells us,'' he said.
>
> Earlier this week, word went out that portable showers might be installed
> here soon, but Llano was undaunted.
>
> ''There is no fruit out here, and I have a stash of raisins, juice boxes
> and fruit rolls to pull out,'' the chaplain said optimistically.
>
>
>
>
>
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