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Title: Air Force Pulls Christian-Themed Ethics Training for Nuclear Missile Officers After Publication of Truthout Report
Source:
TRUTHOUT
URL Source: http://www.truth-out.org/air-force- ... ng-missile-officers/1311972789
Published: Jul 31, 2011
Author: Jason Leopold
Post Date: 2011-07-31 14:55:13 by Brian S
Keywords: None
Views: 589
Comments: 2
The Air Force, in response to an exclusive report published by Truthout earlier this week, has withdrawn materials used in a training session that relied upon passages from the New and Old Testament and a quote from an ex-Nazi SS officer to teach missile officers about the morals and ethics of launching nuclear weapons. The Nuclear Ethics and Nuclear Warfare training "has been taken out of the curriculum and is being reviewed," said David Smith, chief of public affairs of Air Education and Training Command at Randolph Air Force Base in Texas. "The commander reviewed it and decided we needed to have a good hard look at it and make sure it reflected views of modern society." Smith said the ethics training has been in place for "20-plus years" and the decision to remove it was made on Wednesday after Truthout's report was published. He added that it will now be "given thorough scrutiny" and "folks will be appointed to look at what we have and determine its utility and if they think its useful to continue having an ethics course they will develop a new course." The course was led by Air Force chaplains and took place during a missile officer's first week in training at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Officers who train to be missileers were required to attend the ethics course, which included a PowerPoint presentation on St. Augustine's "Christian Just War Theory" as well as numerous examples of characters from the New and Old Testament the training materials asserted engaged in warfighting in a "righteous way." St. Augustine's "Qualifications for Just War," according to the way the Air Force characterized it in slides used in the ethics training, are: "to avenge or to avert evil; to protect the innocent and restore moral social order (just cause)" and "to restore moral order; not expand power, not for pride or revenge (just intent)." One of the PowerPoint slides also contained a passage from the Book of Revelation that claims Jesus Christ, as the "mighty warrior," believed some wars to be just. At the conclusion of the ethics training session, missile officers were asked to sign a legal document stating they will not hesitate to launch the nuclear-armed Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) "if lawfully ordered to do so by the President of the United States or his lawful successor." The documents' blatant use of religious imagery and its numerous references to the New and Old Testament would appear to constitute a violation of the First Amendment establishing a wall of separation between church and state. The 43-page PowerPoint was included with more than 500 pages of other documents pertaining to a missile officer's first week in training that was released by the Air Force under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and provided to Truthout by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), a civil rights organization. Another PowerPoint slide quoted Wernher Von Braun, a former member of the Nazi Party and SS officer who is regarded as the father of the US space program. Von Braun was not cited in the PowerPoint as a scientific expert, rather, he was specifically being referenced as a moral authority, which is remarkable considering that the Nazi scientist used Jews imprisoned in concentration camps, captured French anti-Nazi partisans, civilians, and others to help build the V-2, a weapon responsible for the death of thousands of British civilians. MRFF President Mikey Weinstein said more than 30 missile officers contacted his organization over the past week to complain about the Christian imagery and biblical passages in the ethics training. He said the decision by the Air Force to pull the ethics course material is a "great victory for the constitution." [Full disclosure: Weinstein is a member of Truthout's Board of Advisers.] "We are not going to commend the Air Force for doing something they should have done a quarter-century ago," Weinstein said. "It's an outrage and a deliberate attempt to torture and distort our constitution when the US Air Force mandatorily teaches its nuclear missile launch officers that fundamentalist Christian theology is inextricably intertwined with the 'correct' decision to launch nukes."
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#1. To: Brian S, *Yukon neo-Progressive Vermin* (#0)
Baloney, there is no such wall. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Note: Amendment 1 — Freedom of religion, speech, press In my opinion, the First Amendment is the single most important part of the Constitution. It protects some of the most basic human rights and reflects a view of the dangerous places government might tread. The ability to speak your mind is a right that Americans take for granted. Imagine being too frightened by the possible consequences of speaking out to actually do so. Your opinion would not matter — even your vote would be corrupted. Even as important is the right to petition your government — not only can you have an opinion about your government, the government must listen to you (though it need not heed you — but that's what elections are for). Some of the first colonists of the nation for which the Constitution was written had been seeking to escape religious persecution. The constitutions of several of the states prohibited public support of religion (though some did explicitly support or demand adherence to Christianity). Above all, the many varying sects of Christianity in America required that to be fair to all, there could be preference to none. It would have been disgraceful for anyone to wish to leave the United States because of religious persecution. So the authors decided it best to keep the government out of religion. This is not to say that the United States was not or is not a religious nation. Religion plays a big role in the everyday life of Americans, then and now. But what the authors were striving for is tolerance... something I fear contemporary Americans are lacking. As for the press, the authors regarded a free press as almost a fourth branch of government, constantly keeping tabs on the government's activities and actions. Though today's tabloid papers and television might give one pause, this kind of trash is a small price to pay to ensure that any news organization can rest assured that it can report freely on the activities of the government. Many other organizations in other nations have to worry about toeing the state's line or be shut down. How objective do you think a reporter can be when his life could be ended because of a critical story? www.usconstitution.net/const.html#Am1 The state worshipers are in violation of "prohibiting the free exercise thereof".
Obama's watch stopped on 24 May 2008, but he's been too busy smoking crack to notice.
About time.
numerous references to the New and Old Testament would appear to constitute a violation of the First Amendment establishing a wall of separation between church and state
Amendment 1 - Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression. Ratified 12/15/1791.
Nothing about "wall", "separation" or a right to never hear God mentioned in any government institution. It's a figment of the imaginations, of the statist religion. Intolerance leads them to believe that only the State may exist, everything else must be outlawed and crushed. 
"We (government) need to do a lot less, a lot sooner" ~Ron Paul
#2. To: Brian S (#0)
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