Oh, where do I begin with this one?

[Note: THIS is exactly why moderate non-religious people standing by the sidelines (YOU) need to get involved with secular groups like the MRRF, CFI, Seattle Atheists, the FFRF and others. The stakes are too high, and people are getting away with anything they want to when it comes to mixing religion and policy.]

Rummy, how have you screwed us? Let me count the ways: Newly released top-secret documents from the Rumsfeld White House that slathered religion all over the war.

Followed up by:

Soldiers in a prayer group exhorted to “hunt people for Jesus.” (Proselytizing is an expressly prohibited practice in the U.S. military, but they seem to be thinking up ways to weasel out of that.)

“Do we know what it means to proselytise?” Captain Emmit Furner, a military chaplain, says to the gathering.

“It is General Order Number One,” an unidentified soldier replies.

But Watt says “you can’t proselytise but you can give gifts.”

And this, Harper’s cover story for May, about a group of soldiers who painted “Jesus Kill Mohammed [sic]” on their Bradley Fighting Vehicle, and drove around with an interpreter blaring out the phrase over the loudspeaker.

“Jesus kill Mohammed!” chanted the interpreter. “Jesus kill Mohammed!”

A head emerged from a window to answer, somebody fired on the roof, and the Special Forces man directed a response from an MK-19 grenade launcher. “Boom,” remembers Humphrey. The head and the window and the wall around it disappeared.

“Jesus kill Mohammed!” Another head, another shot. Boom. “Jesus kill Mohammed!” Boom. In the distance, Humphrey heard the static of AK fire and the thud of RPGs. He saw a rolling rattle of light that looked like a firefight on wheels. “Each time I go into combat I get closer to God,” DeGiulio would later say.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation works to expose and litigate these kinds of fundamentalist violations in the U.S. military. If you care about this issue, now is the time to give. They have a matching program going on how until the end of May.