Posted on 05/19/2009 10:56:19 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon said Monday it no longer includes a Bible quote on the cover page of daily intelligence briefings it sends to the White House as was practice during the Bush administration.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said he did not know how long the Worldwide Intelligence Update cover sheets quoted from the Bible. Air Force Maj. Gen. Glen Shaffer, who was responsible for including them, retired in August 2003, according to his biography.
For a period in 2003, at least, the daily reports prepared for President George W. Bush carried quotes from the books of Psalms and Ephesians and the epistles of Peter. At the time, the reports focused largely on the war in Iraq.
The Bible quotes apparently aimed to support Bush at a time when soldiers' deaths in Iraq were on the rise, according to the June issue of GQ magazine. But they offended at least one Muslim analyst at the Pentagon and worried other employees that the passages were inappropriate.
On Thursday, April 10, 2003, for example, the report quoted the book of Psalms - "Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him. ... To deliver their soul from death." - and featured pictures of the statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down and celebrating crowds in Baghdad.
"Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand," read the cover quote two weeks earlier, on March 31, above a picture of a U.S. tank driving through the desert, according to the magazine, which obtained copies of the documents.
The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, on Monday said
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
....The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, on Monday said U.S. soldiers "are not Christian crusaders, and they ought not be depicted as such."
I guess they don’t pay any attention to the briefings that Obama gets with the Quotes from Jeramiah Wright Sermons on them...
No, No, No, Not God Bless America....
Barry,
One day you will be toast.
I'm sure there are plenty of appropriate quotes that could be lifted from the Koran.
Yo, Barry,
What about the separation of Mosque and State?
The separation of church and state proponents don’t even really understand that saying do they?
How about no religious quotes on intelligence briefings from now on?
However, the acronym, OMG will still be allowed.
Count me with Maj. Gen. Shaffer.
I suspect Patton asking for clear weather from the Chaplain offended these people too.
MSNBC spent all day yesterday screaming about this. They hardly had time to trash Rumsfeld, call for Bush/Cheney trials or find a way to keep Miss California in the news.
The report I heard on FOX said these reports never made it to Bush and weren’t designed for him. He was always briefed separately and alone.
I do think the "reverend" Barry Lynn is an idiot, and that Obama is anything but a Christian. But the quotes on the Pentagon briefings are beside the point.
No birth certificate giving the address of the place of birth, birth weight, attending physician, etc. gives rise to questions.
There are no college transcripts with country of origin given and no certificate of baptismal as well.
If Obama has renounced Islam, why is there no fatwah?
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