Knights of Malta

[lollardfish]

Seymour Hersh went to Qatar and accused the US Military of being crusaders.

It got my attention. Here's the FP article. Here's a HuffPo reaction.

I find it not entirely credible and quite dangerous. Evangelical, especially eschatological, Christianity definitely has found common cause with American neoconservatism. But anti-Western and anti-Israeli voices use Crusader rhetoric constantly in the Islamic world, so to see Hersh come up with this conspiracy is troubling. He's been right, of course, many times, and it wouldn't shock me to hear that there's a cabal of conservative Catholic officers who sometimes use that language. But I'm having trouble believing in this particular conspiracy theory.

Comments

[neogrammarian]

fwiw a military "spiritual fitness" test is currently under investigation. USMil says it's an optional test and the taker's scores are only available to promotion review committees if the taker voluntarily submits them w/his or her file. The plaintiffs claim that it is not so 'voluntary' as that and commanders can and do use it to reinforce a Christian (and a specific kind of Christian) military.

There are other more anecdotal bits of info I could share. While it's a long leap from pushing xianity to calling a Crusade, for some commanders I have no difficulty believing that rhetoric has been used.