From the San Jose Tattletale consumer section:

(aP)Now that it's been discovered that the Trijicon Company inscribed references to Bible verses on the gunsights they sold to the U.S. military, the Taliban has issued a statement that they refuse to be killed by guns with such references and they intend to file a federal lawsuit.
A spokesman for Osama Bin Laden said that, "We have a right to be shot by politically-correct and religion-neutral firearms and we are highly offended by this disregard for our personal sympathies. We are considering shooting ourselves with our own weapons until the United States makes this situation right."

And, I resent being threatened by explosives being made out of non-biodegradable materials. I'm thinking about filing a lawsuit against the Texas Syndicate, the Five-Deuce Hoovers, Mexican Mafia and Al Qaeda for making bombs out of environment-unfriendly plastics. It's no wonder that the globe is warming to unbearable temperatures, for Pete's sake. Go green, terrorists, get on board for crying out loud. It's the 21st century.

Trijicon provides an immediate appeal to a higher authority for anyone who objects to their use of Biblical references.

Well...the military caved...
See: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100122/ap_on_bi_ge/us_military_weapons_bible_references

But it sort of applies to it all:

I was just thinking, back in WWII, when this was OUR country and the USA joined together to fight the eneimies of freedom, there were some pretty wild pictures and sayings put on the noses and fuselages (sp?) of B17s, P51s, B29s & various other weapons of enemy destruction. Nobody whined then. And we won that one. Hmmmmm.

Maybe now Al Quaeda will stop saying such hurtful things about us. Isn't that how this works?

I think when your enemy is accusing you of waging a holy war to crush Islam and replace it with Christianity, it's not wise for your government to buy guns that praise bringing Christ's light into the darkness and use those guns to fight a Muslim enemy.
Let's face it, we're fighting on the battlefield and also to win hearts and minds. Fighting with these guns is like supplying the enemy with ammunition, just on another field of battle.

Enemy wouldn't know it's there unless he stole a gun or pried it from a dead soldier's fingers. Then he wouldn't know what the reference was unless he investigated the numbers on the scope in his free time, and had some basic knowledge of Bible references. I don't know if there's a Taliban Power Point on how to decipher model numbers on rifle scopes, even though I'm sure they're more concerned with what is engraved into machinery than they are anything else.

I'd hate to hurt the feelings of a man who just planted an i.e.d. that resulted in blowing off most of the head, the right arm and shoulder and right leg of a 23-year-old American Marine whose only claim to fame was an impeccable character and a love for his country.

+1 AP, and Rest In Peace, young man.

Thanks, my dear friend and American percussion Idol.

AP,

When I talk about losing the battle for hearts and minds, I'm not talking about convincing the idiot who takes up a gun or straps bombs to himself in the name of Allah. I think we can all agree that those people are imbecilic madmen.

What I'm talking about is that using these guns hurts our arguments to the general populace of the Middle East. The people who don't fight, but who vote. The children who will grow up to lead those countries. When some nut like Ameninajad gets up and talks about the holocaust being a myth, he has nothing to back him up. Eventually, the people over there will figure that out and he won't be in charge anymore.

But when Ameninajad gets up and can show pictures of the guns that Americans are using and can show translations of these bible verses, it gives his arguments a bit more credibility. It plants the seed of an "American Crusade" more firmly in the audience's head. And maybe that is enough to push another 1,000 folks to grow up to be terrorists.

I think viewing this event as a "political correctness gone overboard" story ignores the reality of how we are going to win this war. Guns alone will not win us peace and security from crazy people in the Middle East. How we conduct ourselves, how we speak to middle easterners and how we allow ourselves to be viewed are essential components to winning.

I had to laugh at the notion that an inscription buried in the serial number of a riflescope would be the driving force in turning an otherwise peaceful Muslim into a raving jihadist.

Well these are the same nations where there were death threats and rallies of thousands of people over cartoons showing Mohammed in Denmark. I'm not defending their overreactions, but I do think we should argue our side of the facts wisely and effectively to combat the other side's rhetoric over there. Getting rid of the Jesus guns helps us in that regard. Keeping them gets us where?

Not only does that overworn phrase rank right up there with "take it to the next level" or "webinar" (arrrgh) - it's also never going to happen. At least, not while we're shooting at them. You think they'll respect us more and change their "hearts and minds" if we switch riflescopes before taking aim at them?

To quote Mr. Ziegler from the West Wing, when he was told the White House needed to "be nice to the Arab world," Ziegler said (among other things), "There's a lot of reasons why they [fanaticists] hate us. You know when they're gonna like us? When we win."

The whole speech is much better but I can't find it right now.

JohnW, I know you are sort of being facetious, but I think that your statement is what actually happens. Young, impressionable Muslim people, who would not otherwise hate what we stand for, see some of the things we do as invasion into their religion and their country--or other Muslim countries. And yes, it does bring them into radical behavior.

I've read about how Bin Laden is idolized and that's why the impressionable follow him. THese people use our own actions, even if well intentioned, against us by making us look ruthless and power hungry. Putting Christian inscriptions on weapons that we give our allies who are devoutly not Christain to use for training and to use for their forces is a big deal, and that's why the leaders in the military made such big apologies so quickly--they are worried about our allies and their populations and keeping them as stable as possible, not about the already rabid members of Al Qaeda being offended.

Look at us in Texas, all across the State, our school children did not see our OWN president speak to them about staying in school because there was some fear of "indoctrination" or something.

Now take that same type of fear of unwitting "indoctrination", put it into a society where the government, the schools, and the families all have religious hierarchies--in fact the entire country functions based upon religious ties, and Christian inscriptions would be a big enough deal to make impressionable, unhappy people believe we are invading them for crusader reasons. And take up arms against us. And become jihadists, when otherwise they might not have felt driven to such lengths.

After all, it is written on a gun, not a doily.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. Using your appeasement rationale, we'd have to abandon our entire culture to take away their propaganda material. Our traditions, our values, our religions, literally everything about the American way of life could be used to inflame zealots who had been indoctrinated into hatred since birth. Just for starters, all American women would be relegated to subservient roles, wearing burkas every time they leave the house. Even the French don't do that.

I suppose we could hide quivering in a closet in fear that something we did might upset the murdering savages in that culture. But that kind of defeats the purpose of living in freedom, doesn't it?

Call me a redneck if you will (I'll confess), but after they attacked and killed innocent Americans on our soil I'm more inclined to go with something like this:

Back in a former life we used to say, "Sure am glad I'm fighting for freedom, 'cause it would be a bitch to get up this early and work this hard to fight for communism."

This is a touchy subject, JohnW, and I do not mean to belittle yours or anyone else's patriotism....I like your pic with the tank and I think pictures like that help our solidarity and support for our soldiers. I do not believe we should change a single thing about the way we live, or what words our boys use to motivate themselves and form bonds between soldiers.

I also do not think that believing in American freedoms is a redneck mindset or one that we should shy away from or be ashamed of, or even hide. But that very belief in freedom means that people who disagree with me and my religious beliefs have a right to that, too (not to fight Jihad and attack others, but simply to not carry Christian slogans if they don't want to). And those guns are being given to our allies for use in their forces...that's the whole point. Our allies and the Iraqi and Afghan forces we are helping to train would not appreciate carrying items with Christian quotes, not the enemies we are shooting with the guns.

I'm not talking about not offending the people we are fighting AGAINST, I'm talking about not making the people we are supposed to be fighting FOR hate us and rally even harder against our cause, and join the enemy.

We are on their soil now, and their populations are looking at us, thinking they are the innocents (every Afghani or Iraqi is not a jihadist terrorist), and deciding if they are on the side of us, foreigners, strange religion, carrying weapons in their country....or on the side of people who look like them, have the same religion as them, and are telling them we are going to force our religion on them.

I hope none of our folks on the ground in those countries are carrying U.S. currency with that unspeakable motto emblazoned on the various denominations - oops, "denominations" carries religious connotations for some of us - sorry about that.
And I trust our government will recall the dog tags from every soldier, airman, sailor, Marine, Coast Guard-ian which carry the bearer's religious preference carved into the metal.
I imagine there is truly a better feeling among Iraqis, Afghans, Japanese, Germans, Italians, Vietnamese, Koreans about having their countrysides bombed by unmarked explosives, napalm, nuclear warheads, phosphorous grenades, etc. - collateral damage is more tolerable when done without all that pontificating, I always or never, say.

I was firmly in the "don't care" camp so long as it didn't endanger soldiers in any way or make their job harder. After speaking online with an acquaintance currently serving in Afghanistan, I'm convinced it was a bad idea - he was angry enough to file it off of his own scope with a Dremel. His points:

Our troops there aren't just fighting Afghans, they're fighting alongside them, specifically the Afghan National Army. We supply their commandos with weapons using those very sights. Secret bible verses proclaiming the supremacy of Jesus Christ encoded on the weapons we use to fight alongside them and on the weapons we supply them with undercuts our assurances that we're not there on a holy crusade and leads to bad relations in a situation where cooperation is crucial.

What's more, Johnny Taliban (as he put it) now has our own weapons to use as a recruiting tool against us. Weapons do end up in the hands of the enemy, and they can now point to a "secret Jesus code" as proof that we are the enemies of all Muslims in Afghanistan and bent on eradicating Islam. It may seem like a small thing, but in war we're not willing to risk even the smallest advantage.

Finally, not all of our own soldiers are Christians - one of the soldiers in the squad he leads there is an American Muslim. Asking one of his soldiers to risk his life for his country which respects all religions while shooting a weapon with a bible verse proclaiming that Jesus is Lord is something he was extremely uncomfortable with.

If the Marine Corps is reconsidering using Trijicon scopes over this whole mess, I'm guessing it's for a tactical reason rather than bowing to pressure - my understanding of the Marines is that pressure is something they rarely bow to. Trijicon sights are widespread and hugely important. If they're planning on switching them out over this, it's no small thing.

[This message was edited by Britt on 01-29-10 at .]