Jesus goes to the Army

Christian Right writer Stephen Mansfield has a new book out, The Faith of the American Soldier (2005).  In it, he argues that the US armed services need a "faith-based warrior code."  More specifically, a Christian religious warrior code.

In a chapter called "Anvil of the Warrior Code", Mansfield praises the (in)famous Gen. Wiliam "my-God-is-bigger-than-his-God" Boykin:

What Boykin had unintentionally accomplished was the fashioning of a warrior code, or at least the closest thing to a faith-based code as has been presented to the new generation at war.  He first offered himself as a model of the Christian officer, a man of prayer, piety, miracles [!?!], and a distinctly Christian vision for his profession.  Then he articlulated the nation in spiritual terms.  "America is a Christian nation," he said, "with a calling under the hand of God.  Her battles, then, are spiritual and should be fought by men and women who comprise a 'Christian army.'"

I guess that means he would exempt Jews, Muslims, , Buddhists and other non-Christians from any draft?  Yeah, right.

In discussing the Abu Ghuraib torture scandal in a separate chapter, he articulates the position for his generic Christian warrior to take on the scandal in public.  (In private and among other white folks, they can speak more freely.)

Mansfield in the introductory paragraphs of the Abu Ghuraib chapter describes a conversation he had with an unnnamed soldier after the scandal broke:

In a tent at Camp Bucca some one hundred fifty miles away [from Abu Ghuraib], a group of soldiers saw the Abu Ghraib pictures for the first time.  The grief that filled their souls was painfully etched into each face.  "I suppose now this is how we are going to be remembered," on of them said sadly.  "They spit on my father when he came home from Vietnam, and all because of what a few soldiers did at My Lai.  Now, no mattter what we do here, Abu Ghraib is always going to be stamped over our lives."

It's not clear where Mansfield got such clear impressions of the fellings in these soldiers' souls.  He doesn't indicate in that passage that he was there personally, and it is not footnoted.

He then proceeds for several pages to explain all the extenuating circumstances that led soldiers in the prison to torture their victims.  Apparently the food the soldiers were being served wasn't very tasty, for example.  He then recites the obligatory disclaimer, and sets up the general alibi:

It was a collapse of command, a failure of individual character, and a violation of American values.  It may indeed, as the young soldier at Camp Bucca sadly predicted, mark the new generation at war in the eyes of history.

Perhpas a greater misfortune, though, would be a refusal to learn the lessons of Abu Ghraib and thus allow such scandals to reoccur.  It is too easy to see this tragedy [sic] in isolation.  To blame only that particular group of soldiers and that particular chain of command, though, misses the point that men and women under dire stress - without moral leadership, without core values held before them, and without a noble sense of mission - may well descend into barbarism.  There is too much evidence through human history to conclude otherwise.

He proceeds from there to talk approvingly about a chaplain who reached out to comfort the torturers.  And he stresses the need for Christian values to oppose Muslim fanaticism.