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Coded references to New Testament Bible passages about Jesus Christ are inscribed on high-powered rifle sights provided to the United States military by a Michigan company, an ABC News investigation has found...
The sights are used by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the training of Iraqi and Afghan soldiers. The maker of the sights, Trijicon, has a $660 million multi-year contract to provide up to 800,000 sights to the Marine Corps, and additional contracts to provide sights to the U.S. Army.
U.S. military rules specifically prohibit the proselytizing of any religion in Iraq or Afghanistan and were drawn up in order to prevent criticism that the U.S. was embarked on a religious "Crusade" in its war against al Qaeda and Iraqi insurgents.
One of the citations on the gun sights, 2COR4:6, is an apparent reference to Second Corinthians 4:6 of the New Testament, which reads: "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."
Other references include citations from the books of Revelation, Matthew and John dealing with Jesus as "the light of the world." John 8:12, referred to on the gun sights as JN8:12, reads, "Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."
"It's wrong, it violates the Constitution, it violates a number of federal laws," said Michael Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, an advocacy group that seeks to preserve the separation of church and state in the military. "It allows the Mujahedeen, the Taliban, al Qaeda and the insurrectionists and jihadists to claim they're being shot by Jesus rifles," he said.
Weinstein, an attorney and former Air Force officer, said many members of his group who currently serve in the military have complained about the markings on the sights. He also claims they've told him that commanders have referred to weapons with the sights as "spiritually transformed firearm[s] of Jesus Christ."
How does one know the result of such inscription but to imagine tattooed flesh and the veiled conscription, young and old, men and women and children?
Sand and wind and rain do not seek out the flesh like man or occupy his shell-torn cities for long or pillage what moves and pilfer what won’t or can’t. Anointed oil-barons with rifle and money and God and son, herding cattle into the chute for slaughter, into freshly made slums, empire, creator and the cross call unto him and imagine his breath a hurried vengeance peering through the sites.
How do we imagine the outcome of this unholy etching that fills up the two rivers with the drip of sacrificial blood, even a beast knows when to end its feast, to begin its journey home full of flesh-rendered treasure. The flattened homes and garish cries of the wounded and the stillness of the dead go unnoticed by war because man cannot distinguish yesterday’s sadness with today’s dripping trophy, he cannot see that power is a vacuum, a miserable emptiness never to be satisfied by the things found in murder.
© 2010 by mark prime
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