By Dennis Gruending

 Coded biblical inscriptions have been found on the telescopic sights of rifles used by soldiers from several nations, including Canada, who are fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. The company that supplied the inscribed weapons initially defended its actions unapologetically, and the response by the American military spokespersons has been under whelming. The inscriptions, placed where they are, represent a betrayal of the Christian scriptures and their central message of peace and reconciliation, although some obviously see this activity as admirable and patriotic. The incident and responses to it raise deeply troubling questions about elements of the American military.

A group called the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, which seeks to preserve the separation of church and state in the U.S., blew the whistle to ABC News in mid-January, saying it had received a complaint from a U.S. Army infantryman. The gun sights allow soldiers using them to shoot at people with greater accuracy in the dark or in dim light. The inscriptions are in the form of raised lettering and numerals added to the serial numbers along the sights. One of the inscriptions reads: “JN8:12”, a reference to a passage in John where Jesus says, “Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.”  A second inscription reads “2COR4:6” and refers to St. Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians. The passage refers to God’s “[giving] us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”

No apologies

A Michigan-based company called Trijicon, which has a $660 million contract with the U.S. Marine Corps, supplies the rifle sights. Trijicon, when first asked about it, defended its actions saying that, “as part of our faith and our belief in service to our country, Trijicon has put scripture references on our products for more than two decades.” The practice began under its founder, Glyn Bindon, a devout Christian from South Africa, who was killed in a 2003 plane crash. His son, Steven Bindon, is now president of the company and well connected to the leadership of the religious right in the United States. Trijicon states on its website: “We believe that American is great when its people are good. This goodness has been based on biblical standards throughout our history and we will strive to follow those morals.”

Initially, U.S. military officials also defended the use of the inscriptions, saying that they did not violate a constitutional ban on religious proselytizing by American troops. Officials said that the military would not stop using the telescopic sights. On January 20, an Air Force spokesperson named Major John Redfield compared the inscriptions to the use of Biblical language on the U.S. currency. “Are we going to stop using money because the bills have “In God We Trust” on them?” he asked. “As long as the sights meet the combat needs of troops, they’ll continue to be used.”

Barrage of criticism

That position changed within a few days after a barrage of criticism from a variety of groups, including the Military Religious Freedom Foundation and the Muslim Public Affairs Council. They said the implied message is that American soldiers are fighting a holy war against Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq, even though American politicians, including President Obama, have said this is not the case. A second, and perhaps predominant concern among soldiers is that publicity surrounding the inscriptions could put them at added risk if ever they are captured in battle. The defence departments and military officials in New Zealand, Australia and Britain, responded cautiously, saying that they had not known their soldiers were being provided with weapons bearing the biblical inscriptions. Within a few days of the controversy erupting, however, those organizations and the even U.S. military had decided that the inscriptions were not acceptable. By January 22, military spokespersons were saying that they did not approve of them and wanted them removed. Trijicon then announced that it would provide “modification kits” at its own expense for that purpose. Owner Stephen Bindon was now describing his company’s action as “both prudent and appropriate.”

A Canadian military spokesperson admits that Ottawa-based Joint Task Force 2 and a special operations unit from nearby Petawawa use the Trijicon rifle sights in Afghanistan, but Major Don MacNair cites national security reasons in refusing to say how many of the sights are employed. The activities of the joint task force are shrouded in secrecy, but the unit often works behind enemy lines and its members are trained to kill with cold efficiency. MacNair told the Ottawa Citizen that the inscriptions are inappropriate and should be removed.

Christo-fascism

The most disturbing question here is whether these military inscriptions represent a rogue act by a company owned by a right wing Christian businessman, or whether they represent an attitude and practice that is pervasive in the military and therefore more sinister. There has been significant reportage on the religious influence in the American military. Jeff Sharlet, writing in Harper’s magazine (May 2009) reported on a “subtle civil war” that is occurring for the “soul of the military.” He reports on a “small but powerful movement of Christian soldiers concentrated in the officers corps” who are trying to turn the military into a “righteous Christian army”. These officers bully recruits and ordinary soldiers to become involved in mandatory assemblies and prayer groups (open only to Christians), and they appear as speakers on the prayer breakfast circuit and on religious media owned by fundamentalists.

“What men such as these have fomented,” Sharlett writes, “is a quiet coup within the armed forces: not of generals encroaching upon civilian rule but of religious authority replacing the military’s once staunchly secular code … they see themselves not as subversives but as spiritual warriors –‘ambassadors for Christ in uniform,’ according to the Officers’ Christian Fellowship.” Sharlett also writes about how the chaplaincy in the U.S. military, which was once apportioned strictly according to the country’s religious demographic, has come to be dominated by graduates from fundamentalist bible colleges.

Every person in the U.S. military, Sharlet writes, swears an oath to defend the Constitution. But for fundamentalist officers and chaplains, “the Constitution is itself a blueprint for a Christian nation.” These officers and chaplains see the campaign in Afghanistan and Iraq as holy wars, exemplified by an example Sharlet discovered of soldiers in Iraq travelling through neighbourhoods with a bullhorn shouting, “Jesus killed Mohammed” – and shooting people who objected. This faction within the military also sees enemies everywhere at home, and believes it must “wage spiritual warfare against their countrymen” – those “post moderns” who believe in diversity and egalitarianism. Sharlet believes this religious intrusion into the American military is so deeply rooted that President Obama has chosen a hands off policy in exchange for “evangelical peace.”

In 2006, President George Bush began to use the term Islamo-fascism, which neo-conservative pundits Washington had been employing for some time to describe America’s enemies in the Middle East. It was an imprecise description that linked an entire world religion with an extremist political ideology — and moderate Muslims were offended. They might now ask in return if Christo-fascism is emerging within the American military.

By Dennis Gruending

Richard Colvin, a Canadian diplomat who served in Afghanistan, has blown the whistle on our government’s complicity in the torture of Afghans taken prisoner by Canadian soldiers and turned over to the notorious prison authorities. The International Red Cross, Amnesty International and the Dutch military have had similar concerns. The Conservative government responded to Colvin’s allegations, in the words of The Globe and Mail newspaper, with a strategy of “deny, delay, disparage.” Defence Minister Peter McKay has been bobbing and weaving, saying at first that he never saw Colvin’s dispatches from Afghanistan, then admitting he did but that what he saw contained no useful information. The Prime Minister, as is his wont, went into full attack mode, describing Colvin as a dupe of the Taliban. Similarly, three military generals, including Rick Hillier, former chief of defence staff, were trotted out before a parliamentary committee to deny Colvin’s allegations and to dump on his competence – what else would we expect generals to do in a time of war?  Colvin was a trusted civil servant and following his tour in Afghanistan he was placed as an intelligence officer at the Canadian embassy in Washington, but one now wonders for how long.

Canadians have seen through the lies and personal attacks. A poll taken by Harris-Decima as the controversy raged in November indicated that 51% believed Colvin’s claims and only 25% believed the government’s spin that Colvin was not credible. On the other hand, it is disturbing to read letters to the editor and online responses indicating that some Canadians really don’t care what happens to Afghans taken into custody. These letter writers appear to agree with Rick Hillier that our troops are dealing with “scumbags” – although even Hillier would have to acknowledge that this is occurring in their country, far from our shores.

“Illiberal democracy”

The point here is not so much to rail at obfuscation, lies and character assassination accompanying this tawdry affair, but rather to say that when Canada is engaged in a war our habitual democratic practices are inevitably one of the casualties. The eminent British writer John Gray says in his book Black Mass that in the post 9\11 era the United States is an “illiberal democracy in which elections take place against a background of diminished freedom.” The so-called war on terror, which is so broadly conceived that it may well lead to a state of perpetual conflict, provides the excuse for the American government to do almost anything: to invade and occupy other countries; to kill and main civilians as the inevitable collateral damage; to hold prisoners for long periods without trial, as has been the case in the Guantanamo prison; to torture prisoners directly, as the Americans have done, although they won’t admit it; to turn prisoners over to other regimes that specialize in cruelty and torture; to spy on America’s citizens at home; and to trample on their hard won civil liberties. It is not a pretty picture and Canada is deeply involved.

John Gray describes the war on terror as a dangerous delusion. It is used as a pretext by governments, he writes, to “demand freedom from the constraints that have developed over many centuries to curb the exercise of power.” In Canada, the Chretien government passed the Anti-Terrorism Act in December 2001, allowing police to arrest suspects without a warrant and detain them without charges.  The law also allowed a judge to compel a witness to testify in secret in the interest of protecting national security. The legislation was in force for five years and had to be reviewed at the end of that time. The Harper government wanted to extend the bill’s provisions in 2007 but was unable to do so in the face of opposition from other parties in a minority government.

It was the RCMP in Canada, in cooperation with the FBI, that sent Maher Arar to be tortured in Syria, and it took a full public inquiry to get to the bottom of the lies and stonewalling engaged in by our police force, bureaucrats and politicians. The Liberals were in power when Arar and several other Canadians of Arab descent suffered similar, if less serious, ordeals. These people include Abousfian Abdelrazik, a Canadian citizen who travelled back to his native Sudan, was accused of having ties to terrorism, and spent years living at the Canadian embassy because our government would not allow him to come home. Eventually, in 2008 a Federal Court judge ordered Abdelrazik returned within 30 days, saying that the government had breached his constitutional rights by not giving him an emergency passport to fly home.

The list goes on. Adil Charkaoui, a Morrocan-born Canadian, was arrested by the Canadian government in 2003 under a security certificate, which prohibited him or his lawyers from examining evidence used to issue that certificate. He was detained without charge or trial but later released from prison. His bail conditions included a curfew and electronic monitoring and 24-hour police access to his home without warrant. The Supreme Court eventually ruled that his charter rights had been violated and he was ordered released from his curfew and electronic monitoring.

War without end

When Canada went to war in 1914 and in 1939, the enemy was clearly defined as Germany and Austria-Hungary in the first case, and Germany, Italy and eventually Japan in the second. Our government issued Draconian wartime measures, including conscription and the internment of Japanese and other citizens. Now we are in a war not against states but against shadowy sub-state actors and it is quite possibly a war without end.

We have been in Afghanistan almost eight years, a period longer than our engagement in either of the world wars, and we are not planning to leave until 2011, if then. Our government even refuses to tell us the cost of the war, citing national security reasons. But an estimate provided in 2008 by the independent budget officer for parliament concluded that the total cost would be between $14 and $18 billion by the planned withdrawal in 2011. To put that in context, the entire budget of the province of Saskatchewan for 2009-10 was $10.2 billion.

Our complicity with torture in Afghanistan is unsavoury at best and contravenes international conventions. Toronto Star columnist Thomas Walkom says the Afghan prisoner scandal, at bottom, is about who Canadians are. “Are we the kind of people who don’t care when people are tortured? Or are we the kind of people who do?” It is entirely possible that our government and its agencies will become even more cynical, manipulative and authoritarian. It’s something for citizens to think about and to oppose. We Canadians talk glibly about our democracy as if it were a perfect system set in place for all time. That is not necessarily the case.

By Dennis Gruending

Although I have attended Remembrance Day ceremonies at the National War Memorial in Ottawa in the past, I decided this year to support a smaller event whose theme was peace and reconciliation rather than war. On November 10th, I was one of about 300 people who heard an agonizingly sad but ultimately hopeful speech by Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish. He is a Palestinian paediatric physician and peace advocate whose house in Gaza was struck by Israeli tank shell on January 16, 2009.

Abuelaish, a widower, was home on that day with his eight children and other family members and was scheduled to give an interview on Israeli television via cell phone. A shell fired from a tank killed three of his daughters, aged 14, 15 and 21, along with a 17-year-old niece. Shada, another daughter, and a second niece were injured. The journalist who called moments after the attack found the doctor sobbing inconsolably. “My girls, O God, They are dead,” he said and pleaded for help. The video clip was broadcast around the world. Abuelaish and his family became the face of the human suffering of Palestinians in Gaza. A ceasefire was declared two days later.

The New York Times describes Abuelaish as “a rarity, a Gazan at home among Israelis.” He told his Ottawa audience that he practiced medicine in both Gaza and Israel and that he has delivered as many Jewish babies as Palestinian ones. His tragedy has not deflected him from the path of peace and reconciliation. “I am Muslim but we have to go beyond that to think about humanity and what brings us, Muslims and Jews, together,” he told his Ottawa audience. “I believe that God is good and even tragedy is good. I assure you I am looking forward. I believe that everything is possible other than having my daughters back.”

Ed Broadbent, former leader of the New Democratic Party and a human rights campaigner, was the evening’s moderator. “As a Canadian, a father and grandfather,” Broadbent said to Abuelaish, “it is almost impossible for me to conceive of losing these children as you have lost your daughters.” Broadbent then said to the audience: “It would be easier to understand if Dr. Abuelaish came through that with dreams of vengeance. He continues to reach out to those who might be considered his enemies but he does not see them as such.” Abuelaish was nominated for the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to bring peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

He was in Ottawa as the guest of Potlucks for Peace, a group of about 30 Jewish and Arab people who gather monthly to share food and talk about peace in the Middle East. The group’s members do not always agree on solutions – whether, for example, there should be one state or two states in the region, or whether Israeli settlements pushed into the Palestinian West Bank are justified in the name of security. I have, at previous of their events, sensed tensions over the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands on the one hand, and anxiety about Israeli security on the other. The potluck group appears to hold it all together through mutual respect and discipline. “We believe that out of the willingness to engage in dialogue, solutions can arise,” the group says on its website. “We hope that our very existence sends a positive message.”

Abuelaish’s story has a Canadian twist. He had been invited to the University of Toronto for a three-year medical residency and was making plans to move his eight children to Canada when his home in Gaza was shelled and his three daughters killed. Abuelaish did come to Toronto in March 2009. His 17-year-old daughter, who was injured in the attack, spent four months in hospital and is now studying computer engineering in Canada.

Abuelaish draws many of his peace analogies from his practice of medicine. “As a physician, I am not allowed ever to give up hope on a patient. We must act and we must forgive each other,” he said. “No one is perfect. We make mistakes. Forgiveness allows us to move forward.” He also said: “As a doctor, I know that hatred is a toxin. The path of light in the long run is the more efficient choice than to live with hate and be consumed with revenge”

He is an inspirational speaker in the best sense, but his response to questions indicates that he is not a politician or diplomat and is unlikely to be one those negotiating land for peace or the future of Israeli settlements. When asked during the question period if he is in favour of an economic boycott of Israel similar to that against South Africa in years past, he did not answer that question but spoke about his high hopes for peace initiatives driven by the Obama administration. Asked whether he favours a one state or a two-state solution for the region, he said the question was theoretical and fell back on a medical metaphor. “Survival is most important at the moment. The first action is to stabilize the patient. One state or two states is theoretical. There is a Palestinian nation and an Israeli nation and they must live together in peace.”

I did not attend the Remembrance Day ceremony at the National War Memorial but I watched it on television. It is always moving to see the veterans but less so the fly bys, march bys and the firing of canons. As I watched and heard the television commentary, it was all about us: our freedom, our sacrifice, our families and our heroes. Even the armed forces chaplain who spoke could invoke God’s caring and sympathy only for us. In this ceremony, there was no compassion for the other – the bride and groom and their guests in an Afghan wedding procession, for example, who were bombed to bits in 2008 by an air strike called in by NATO soldiers. No one on Remembrance Day recalls the deadly mess of war that remains for others to clean up after the troops have withdrawn – the unexploded land mines, the buildings and fields in ruins, the shrapnel embedded in flesh and the body burns from white phosphorous.

Potlucks for Peace and Dr. Abuelaish attempt to reach across a divide of fear and hatred to acknowledge and embrace the other. Our officially planned and sanctioned Remembrance Day ceremonies do not.

By Dennis Gruending

Canada’s eight-year war in Afghanistan is losing support no matter how much money and effort our government and military invest in trying to convince us that it is noble and worthwhile. A growing number of people believe either that the war is a tragic waste of lives and money or that it is simply not one that intruders to Afghanistan can win. Let’s start with the family of Private Jonathan Couturier, 23, the 131st Canadian soldier killed in the Afghan war — about 500 more have been wounded, not to mention the deaths of hundreds of Afghan civilians. His family has said publicly that Couturier told his brother that the Canadian mission was “a bit useless” and that young soldiers were simply “wasting their time over there.”

Robert Fowler, much in the news lately, is another person who believes that Canada is wasting lives and coin in Afghanistan. Fowler, a highly respected career diplomat, now retired, was Canada’s former ambassador to the United Nations. He was on a UN mission to Niger in December 2008 when he was kidnapped by operatives of Al-Qaeda and held for 130 days. Thankfully he was released. CBC Television host Peter Mansbridge has interviewed Fowler at length about his ordeal. Mansbridge asked him if being kidnapped and held by Al-Qaeda changed the way in which he sees Canada’s role. Here is some of the exchange:

Fowler:  I cannot object to the objectives in Afghanistan, but I just don’t think in the West that we are prepared to invest the blood or the treasure to get this done.

Mansbridge: Did this reinforce that view?

Fowler: Yes, it did. It’s more than blood and treasure because it’s also…it’s not just commitment and the wasting of our youth and the enormous, enormous cost in difficult financial times, it’s to get it done, we will have to do some unpleasant things, I mean, some deeply hard… This is not a nice war.

Mansbridge: But is it worth doing?

Fowler: That’s the issue. . . I can show you a lot of places in this world where you can put girls in schools without killing people. It’s a noble objective, Afghanistan, but a lot of people have tried it before. I mean, if you, in the abstract, Peter, asked me to define a more complex, challenging mission, I couldn’t do it. Afghanistan is about as far as Canada’s ken as anything I can think of. The culture is as foreign to us as anything you can imagine . . . it strikes me as rather extreme that one goes out and looks for particularly complex misery to fix. There’s lots of things to fix that can be done more efficiently and probably more effectively.

Why are Canadians in Kandahar?

The esteemed journalist Robert Fisk is even more blunt. He was in Ottawa last winter promoting a new book and he spoke to a packed house. Fisk has lived and worked in the Middle East for decades and is as much an historian as he is a journalist. “Why are Canadians in Kandahar? You will say, to build bridges and roads but your soldiers are coming home dead.”

Fisk chastised Canadian politicians and journalists who promote the war as a romantic adventure. “This is lethal. None of your leaders has been in a war. You have got to leave Afghanistan. It does not belong to you. As long as you fight in Muslim countries you are no longer safe at home. If we send more troops anywhere in the Middle East we are mad.”  Fisk added that he has never been an “embedded” journalist – one who lives and travels with the military and submits to censorship. All of the mainstream Canadian journalists in Afghanistan are embedded, a practice that many of them used to criticize.

A grim assessment

While the Canadian military and politicians continue in their attempts to sell the war as a success, General Stanley McChrystal, the top American military commander in Afghanistan, provided a grim assessment to his superiors in August and it was leaked to the media in September. “The situation in Afghanistan is serious; neither success nor failure can be taken for granted,” the general wrote. “Although considerable effort and sacrifice have resulted in some progress, many indicators suggest the overall situation is deteriorating.” His solution? He wants more troops (generals always do) to add to the 68,000 soldiers on the ground now.

“Murderers and scumbags”

The war began in October 2001 when a U.S. and British military operation was launched in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks in the U.S. The stated purpose was to capture Osama bin Laden, destroy Al-Qaeda, and remove the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Bin Laden remains free and is almost certain no longer in Afghanistan. Canada’s combat role began early in 2002 with 140 soldiers sent by the Liberal government and it escalated after General Rick Hillier became chief of defence staff in February 2004. Hillier used Afghanistan as his lever to win an increase in military spending and to shift the culture and reality of Canada’s armed forces from peacekeeping to an army bent on killing. He described the Taliban as “detestable murderers and scumbags.” A new military recruiting campaign featured another Hillier quote: “We are the Canadian forces and our job is to kill people.”

Stephen Harper was elected with a minority government early in 2006 and was keen, as he saw it, to enhance Canada’s clout in the world by projecting hard power. Our involvement in Afghanistan, he said, was “raising Canada’s leadership role, once again, in the United Nations and in the world community where we used to have an important leadership role.” That assertion is debatable to begin with and even less appealing with each Canadian roadside death in Afghanistan, but nonetheless Parliament voted in 2008 to extend our fighting presence there from 2009 to 2011. There will now be increasing pressure from the Americans and from some within Canada for us to extend again, but the war has become increasingly unpopular with citizens.
Overwhelming opposition

The polling company EKOS reported on July 16, 2009 that 54% of Canadians oppose participation in the military mission in Afghanistan, while 34% support and 12% have no opinion.  “We have been polling on this question since the mission began,” said EKOS president Frank Graves. “The public outlook on Afghanistan has undergone a steady and radical transformation. From overwhelming public support at the outset of the mission we have seen an inexorable reversal to overwhelming public opposition. Opposition has grown from a trivial mid-teen level to nearly well over 50 percent.”

This opposition by ordinary Canadians is remarkable given the elite and media consensus that supports, and even celebrates the war. The Conservative and Liberal parties, and even the NDP have voted in favour of having soldiers fight in Afghanistan until 2011. Newspaper and broadcast pundits are mainly in favour. Hockey Night in Canada has featured the continuing spectacle of commentator Don Cherry shilling for the war. On one Grey Cup Sunday, the trophy was ferried from Hamilton to Toronto aboard a military boat then taken to the stadium riding on an army tank. The Stanley Cup was sent to Afghanistan. Hockey star Sidney Crosby toured a battleship in Halifax harbour when he took the Cup back to his home province of Nova Scotia this past summer. Recently, CBC Television featured Peter MacKay, the defence minister, participating for two days in a military boot camp — but it wasn’t for real. As Robert Fisk reminds us, “None of your leaders has ever been in a war.”

The frame that has been created by the political and military elite with the complicity of most media is that Canada’s war is heroic and necessary to make the world safer and help eliminate terrorism. News anchors report on red shirt days and in Ottawa city buses carry decals that say: “Support our troops.” The inference, indeed the frequent allegation, is that if one does not support the war as our political leaders have conceived it and our commanders are fighting it, one is against the men and women in the military. This is a false and crude frame but it has been used with some success. Instinctively, however, a growing majority of Canadians understand that it is a hoax, despite the best efforts of slick people to convince us otherwise.