Blackwater (Xe) and More Christianity for All

Fucking Christians.

Now, before you get all up in my grill for pissing on christianity, I'm not. Although I find it irritating that part of the Christian Agenda is to force feed non-believers without their invitation and then shun them if they don't buy, that's not at all my beef with them.

My problem is the constant hypocrisy from this group. It's never ending. I grew up christian, and it didn't take me long to find the hypocrisy everywhere in my own church and its sermons. This is way before the spotlight turned to the Grand Adulterer Jimmy Swaggart, the adultery and thieving of shitloads of parish monies by Jim Bakker, the illegal funding sent to the Contras in Nicaragua by Pat Roberts, or the christian citings of David Duke. Of course those are just the contemporary hypocrisies. Never mind the Crusades or the Inquisition or thousands of other bloody disasters in defending the unprovable notions of a righteous few.

Christian Hypocrisy isn't exactly new, let alone news. Hypocrisy is so deeply ingrained within their practice, the contradictions are evident at the very start within the Bible itself (I had the pleasure of reading and studying the entire Bible in high school).

Well, mark another one down for the Hypocritical Bible Thumper Crowd. Yesterday, Right-Wing Evangelical Christian Crazy, Erik Prince (shown right), founder of Blackwater (renamed Xe) was outed for the true christian practices we've come to know and love from the religious right. His company was buying illegal ammunition from an American company named Lemas, as well as AK-47s and other illegal guns from arms dealers, transporting it all to Iraq, and using it so him and his racist crew could kill them-there "rag heads" (Blackwater contractors' words, not mine). Tues, Erikkk was quoted as believing himself "a "christian crusader, tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe."

How Christian is racism again? Or genocide? Oh yeah, it's not. Yet having grown up in the cornfielded flat-nowhere of Indiana, I've determined it can't possibly be a coincidence that most every racist I've stumbled upon has been either raised Christian or claims to be a practicing one. Whether they're the drunken, bi-toothal, confederate-flag-waving racist or the more dangerous, shady but always subtle, anti-Semitic "Secret Racist" who publicly denounces prejudice at every turn, they seem to always have Christ in common.

Of course I'm not saying all Christians are racists. (If you thought I'd made that point in the last paragraph, it's possible you took the same community college logic class as loony Michele Bachman (R-Minnesota).) But I am saying it's alarming how many racists in this country do consider themselves Christians.

Anyway, back to "Cleric of the Week" Erik Prince: his company provided child prostitutes to his Blackwater/Xe Executives, and had a top level wife-swap operating in his North Carolina division. In the Blackwater 'Man Camp', which Prince personally oversaw and participated in, he provided very young local Iraqi girls to give top Executives oral sex and paid the girls one American dollar for their services. Very Christ-like indeed. Yet another self-proclaimed Devout Christian doing the Lord's good work.

Apparently he was also transporting firearms illegally into Iraq via the Blackwater company jet and selling them there. So not only was his crappy company involved in many illegal and unwarranted civilian deaths (a few complaints even made it to court), but to add insult to injury, he sold weapons in Iraq for a quick buck without regard for whose hands they'd end up in. Just whose side is this dick on?? His own, I'm afraid. And of course, God's. Irk.

As far as I'm concerned, that highlights one of the godzillion problems with outsourcing military operations of any sort. Although Blackwater/Xe is an American company that the U.S. is employing in Iraq, they're still a corporation with corporate values. And who does the corporations pledge allegiance to at the end of the day? Answer: Their bottom line, and only the bottom line. Not the U.S., and not Jesus Christ, but instead, the almighty dollar bill. There's a name for people who act in accordance with the highest paid dollar, specifically such soldiers: they're called mercenaries. Mercenaries are like the last goddamned thing we need in the middle of a primarily religious battle whilst attempting to gain the trust of Iraqis and win back the Taliban regions in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Especially a fucking religious "crusader" who believes genocide is God's mission for him.

By the way, as I see it, by definition a mercenary cannot be a Christian. I supposed a mercenary could believe that Christ died for his sins, believe in God, etc. But there are few things less Christ-like than selling ones ethics for cash -- especially when it involves picking a side and killing the people on the other.

The last bit of fun involving Blackwater, and its founder Erikkk the "Prince of Genocide", is that the illegal ammunition they were bringing over consisted of exploding bullets that the US Military itself found to be inhumane and wouldn't use. A Blackwater employee had bragged that he shot an Iraqi with one of these bullets in the ass and was ecstatic to find that it exploded the entire left side of the Iraqi's body, killing him -- an Iraqi not in battle at the time, who I can only imagine was considered simply worthless in the killer's eyes since he wasn't Christian, or white, or because he didn't have any information they could exploit for their Almighty-driven purposes. Hey guys, go ahead and test those babies out on just anyone. BTW, wouldn't the person have to be running away from gunfire in order to get shot in the butt in the first place. Anyway you spin this, it still sucks.

I wonder what Jesus Christ would say about any of this? I'm pretty sure nothing too good.

Then again, I'm sure there's some right-wing christian faker out there who could somehow spin it all in Jesus' name.