Get ready for some more conservative cognitive dissonance: man finds Jesus and comes to believe that the occupation of Iraq is immoral:
A U.S. soldier who said his Christian beliefs compelled him to love his enemies, not kill them, has been granted conscientious objector status and honorably discharged, a civil liberties group said on Tuesday.Capt. Peter Brown -- who served in Iraq for more than a year and was a graduate of the elite U.S. military academy West Point -- said in a statement issued by the New York Civil Liberties Union that he was relieved the Army had recognized his beliefs made it impossible for him to serve.
"In following Jesus' example, I could not have fired my weapon at another human being, even if he were shooting at me," said Brown, who plans to continue seminary classes he began by correspondence while in Iraq.
While in Iraq, Brown processed insurgents and detainees, the NYCLU said.
Brown said he had no conflict between his faith and military service until after he graduated from West Point in 2004 and began to study scripture and his belief.
During his Iraq deployment he applied for discharge as a conscientious objector but the request was denied, the NYCLU said. In July 2007 the NYCLU and the American Civil Liberties Union asked a federal court in Washington, D.C., to order the honorable discharge.
"Before the court acted, the Army reconsidered the issue, this time granting Brown's request," said the NYCLU, adding it would now withdraw the lawsuit.
The U.S. Army was not immediately available for comment.
Oh, this is going to make their heads explode: a Dirty Fucking Hippie who follows "Jesus' example." They hate it when their symbols get crossed (no pun intended).
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Nah, they'll just label him a 'phony soldier' and keep right on.
This post just makes you seem like a stupid partisan asshole. "Omg, how will the liberals react‽ They hate Christians, but they love surrender monkeys; this guy will give them so much cognitive dissonance!"
*blink*
I suppose anything is capable of being misread exactly opposite of its intended meaning.
Anyway, I can't help wondering to myself how this would have panned out with a humanist conscientious objector. Would the latter have been granted c.o. status at all, even after the legal battle? I would think that, legally, the arguments are the exact same, but I do wonder how much irrelevant things like whether somebody justifies their actions with a "real" religious belief versus an -- ahem -- less accepted belief like atheism or humanism or even Buddhism would factor into a decision.
Christians aren't necessarily a monolithic group. The "peace churches" of the 1980's stood out in the movement against then-current Central American policy and against nukes. You'll find a lot of Catholics are consistently pro-life, ie. against the death penalty and most wars, not just abortion. Then there's the Quakers.
Oddly enough, some of the scariest, nuttiest Christians are against the Iraq war. Dominionists who are also libertarian can be very isolationist. Apparently, the invasion of Iraq was some sort of plot to further the New World Order and has something to do with Jewish control of the media (sic). I can't makes heads or tails of it, but they seem pretty convinced.