I just ran across a very disturbing bit of news. According to Max Blumenthal at TheNation.com, the Pentagon, through its America Supports You program, is promoting a video game based on the Left Behind series of books by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins called Left Behind: Eternal Forces to its troops. If this is true, the Pentagon and the Bush administration are making a huge mistake.
Citizens become soldiers for a variety of reasons. Some choose to
enlist for economic reasons or as an expression of patriotism. Some
will enlist to be a part of something larger than themselves, others to
find direction and meaning for their lives, or the desire for adventure
may be the driving influence. Whatever the case, the soldier, airman,
seaman or marine had enough motivation to join the military, but the
Pentagon is trying to bolster that motivation by adding a religious
cause to the case. I have no problem with the military trying to
bolster troop morale, but the use of a video game that promotes a
message of religious message equivalent to the Islamic fascists they
are fighting will likely have the opposite effect.
Apparently the video game in question operates on the premise of the
Christian soldier fighting a physical battle against the forces of
Antichrist, the UN. The moral of the game is that the U.S. military is
on the side of God. The brand of Christianity that this game is
promoting is really no different than the fundamentalist Muslim faction
that are trying to take hold in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Pakistan and
Afghanistan. By promoting one view of God over another, it won't take
long for the troops in the field to ask themselves, "If I am fighting
for God and my enemy is fighting for God, then why are we fighting each
other?" The only justification for continuing to fight is an absurdity;
God likes my country and my people better - or - our side is more
righteous in the eyes of God. Eventually, any thinking soldier will
understand the absurdity of the message being promoted through this arm
of the Pentagon and will have a demoralizing effect on our forces.
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The CommonMan Commentaries