In the name of men, their gods and guns comes made-in-the-USA violent extremism. A military company’s Bible weaponry infiltrates U.S. foreign policy and practice, undermines domestic law.
Re-reporting, commentary by Carolyn Bennett
This is what happens when a constitutionally civilian government turns over governance of the United States of America to militarists, military contractors, and religious Bible thumbing bigots.
“We believe that America is great when its people are good,” preaches the website of a Bible-verses-on-killer weapons company founded by a native South African in Michigan USA. “This goodness has been based on biblical standards throughout our history and we will strive to follow those morals,” says this proselytizer embedded in the U.S. military.
The United States Government, according to statements by the Marine Corps (ref ABC News' breaking story), has handed out to gunsight maker Trijicon Inc “a $660 million” multi-year contract to make “800,000 units” of their Bible-imprinted products. Under contracts with the U.S. army and Marine Corps, Trijicon gun sights have been affixed to “weapons used during the training of Afghan and Iraqi soldiers.”
For more than two decades, Trijicon, effectively established within U. S. foreign policy and practice, has pulled down hundreds of millions of dollars from U.S. taxpayers and their government. The U.S. government has in effect promoted religion and religious bigots and proselytizers through the private military industry. All the while United States and other governments (New Zealand, Britain) were using these instruments of war (Trijicon’s Advanced Combat Optical Gun sights), they were maintaining deniability.
Denials abound.
New Zealand’s defense ministry, with orders for 260 gun sights since 2004, says, “We were unaware of it [Bible verse-imprinted weapons] and we’re unhappy that the manufacturer didn’t give us any indication that these were on there.”
Britain’s defense ministry, with orders for 400 of the gun sights, says they “had not been aware of the significance of the inscriptions.”
NATO Training Command in Afghanistan Colonel Gregory Breazile tells Al Jazeera, “We were told about it last night [Wednesday, January 20] and when we looked into it we noticed it was true.… We gave the Afghan military these weapons. … We are very disappointed.
Pentagon representative Commander Darryn James tells Agence France Presse the religious imprints, if found to exist, are “clearly inappropriate and we are looking into possible remedies.”
These Bible-imprinted guns “violate the basic ideals and values our country was founded upon,” said Haris Tarin, a representative of the U.S.-based Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC). However, the situation is worse than that. It is added evidence of an insidious erosion of the U.S. Constitution and international laws; and the dangerous obliviousness of government officials and non-government Americans to this erosion of rights under law and the overthrow of their civilian form of government enshrined in law.
Tarin went on to say that this subliminal proselytizing “provides propaganda ammo to extremists who claim the existence of a U.S. ‘Crusader war against Islam’”
More than that: this infraction ─ this State-religion-corporation collusion evidenced in this latest exposed global private/religious enterprise and the U.S. government ─ is itself an act of violent “extremism.”
Attributing wire services, Al Jazeera reports today,“The Advanced Combat Optical Gun sight rifle sights used by New Zealand troops carries references to Bible verses that appear in raised lettering at the end of the sight stock number. Markings include ‘JN8:12’ (referencing a King James Bible version of John 8:12: ‘Then spake [spoke] Jesus again unto them saying ‘I am the light of the world: he that followeth [follows] me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.’
“The Trijicon Reflex sight is stamped with 2COR4:6 (referencing a King James Bible version of Corinthians text ‘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.’”
The deep, circular harm here is not merely the incitement of other sects’ violence. It is that the violent enterprise that provokes and forecasts retaliation, and labels “extremists,” uses the pretext of others’ violence to get more contracts to destroy that which the original enterprise has provoked. This is another instance of rabid capitalism at its most violent in both the incitement of world violence and the overthrow of the U.S. Government and its constitutional principles and institutions.
This is what happens when Government (through elected officials sworn to uphold the Constitution) relinquishes its civilian character and its fundamental responsibility to the welfare of the people.
Sources and notes
“Bible codes in Afghan army guns.” Al Jazeera January 21, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/01/20101211239216652.html
Trijicon , Inc., 49385 Shafer Avenue, P.O. Box 930059, Wixom, Michigan 48393, http://www.zoominfo.com/Search/CompanyDetail.aspx?CompanyID=38896082&cs=QGCUYHSkw&pc=indeed
Wixom, Michigan, http://www.city-data.com/city/Wixom-Michigan.html#ixzz0dHM76jad
“Gunmaker criticized for Biblical references on military rifles (Associated Press), January 20, 2010, http://www.mlive.com/news/us-world/index.ssf/2010/01/michigan_defense_contractor_ha.html
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