8/7/2019 High Ranking Members of US Military Part of Knights of Malta and Opus Dei

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High ranking members of US military part of Knights of Malta and OpusDei - reporter claims

By Stephen C. Webster Friday, January 21st, 2011 -- 12:28 pm

Veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh hasbroken some massive stories in his day, butuncovering secret societies within the highestechelons of America's military would probably be thebiggest of his career.

Well, get ready for the media storm, because that'sessentially what Hersh told an audience in Doha,Qatar recently, according to a report published earlier 

this week by Foreign Policy .

Speaking at a campus operated by Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, Hersh said he was working on a new book that details "howeight or nine neoconservative, radicals if you will, overthrew the Americangovernment."

"It's not only that the neocons took it over but how easily they did it -- howCongress disappeared, how the press became part of it, how the public

acquiesced," he continued, according to the published quotes.

Hersh also lamented President Obama's continuance of the Bushadministration's worst abuses.

"Just when we needed an angry black man, we didn't get one," hereportedly said.

The Foreign Policy report added that in 2003, those "in the Cheney shop"were not concerned about the havoc the invasion of Iraq was destined to

cause.

"[The] attitude was, 'What's this? What are they all worried about, thepoliticians and the press, they're all worried about some looting?" Hersh wasquoted as saying. "Don't they get it? We're gonna change moseques intocathedrals. And when we get all the oil, nobody's gonna give a damn.' That'sthe attitude. We're gonna change mosques into cathedrals. That's an attitudethat pervades, I'm here to say, a large percentage of the Joint SpecialOperations Command [JSOC]."

8/7/2019 High Ranking Members of US Military Part of Knights of Malta and Opus Dei

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However, one source close to Hersh who spoke to Raw Story off the record,suggested that Foreign Policy 's report was indeed correct.

Raw Story followed-up on the quotes due to a widely-reported false claimattributed to Hersh in May 2009, where he'd allegedly said former Vice

President Dick Cheney ordered the assassination of former Pakistani PrimeMinister Benazir Bhutto.

The report, which appeared to have originated in Pakistan, was picked up byThe Wall Street Journal and the conservative-leaning American Spectator,but both removed the links after Raw Story published a denial from Hersh. Alink to Raw Story's original report was unavailable due to a databasemalfunction.

Hersh, a Pulitzer-winning author and reporter, has previously reported that

the JSOC was set up by former Vice President Cheney as something of an"executive assassination squad" that operated outside of congressionalauthority.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who resigned after Rolling Stone reporter MichaelHastings quoted him mocking the US civilian command, led JSOC beforetaking command of America's war effort in Afghanistan.

In an email to the military's Stars and Stripes publication, McChrystal's

spokesman, David Bolger, panned Hersh's claim.

“The allegations recently made by Seymour Hersh relating to GeneralMcChrystal’s involvement with an organization called The Knights of Maltaare completely false and without basis in fact,” he reportedly wrote. “GeneralMcChrystal is not and has never been a member of that organization.”

The religious indoctrination of US soldiers has been in headlines in recentweeks as soldiers who "failed" the "spiritual fitness" portion of the"comprehensive soldier fitness" test claimed they were forced to attend

Christian ceremonies and become "born again" by professing love for theChristian deity.

Similarly, GQ magazine uncovered last year a series of top-secret militarybriefings prepared by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeldthat included passages from the Bible.

Trijicon Inc., a defense contractor, was also discovered last January to havebeen for years placing scriptural references on gun sights used by the US

military in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Their actions revealed Trijicon was forced to provide the Pentagon with kits toremove the codes.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/01/highranking-members-military-part-knights-malta-opus-dei-reporter-claims/

Firm to Remove Bible References From Gun Sights

By ERIK ECKHOLMPublished: January 21, 2010

Bowing to Pentagon concerns and an international outcry, a Michigan armscompany said Thursday that it would immediately stop embossing referencesto New Testament Scriptures on rifle sights it sells the military.

ABC News

At the end of this gun scope's model number is a Biblical reference, “JN8:12,”for the Book of John, Chapter 8, Verse 12.

The company, Trijicon Inc., has multimillion-dollar contracts with thePentagon for advanced telescopic sights that are widely used in Iraq andAfghanistan. Trijicon also said it would provide the Pentagon with 100 freekits to use for removing the lettering on existing weapons.

For years, the company acknowledged, it has put small scriptural referencesnear the model numbers on some products, a practice started by its founder,who was a Christian.

The references, like JN8:12 and 2COR4:6, referring to passages in theGospel of John and in Second Corinthians, had not been widely noticed or debated until an ABC News report this week. Scopes with biblical referenceswere also sold to the Australian, New Zealand and British militaries.

Neither the company nor the Pentagon released estimates of how manycurrent military weapons carried Trijicon gun sights.

The Marine Corps has a $660 million contract with Trijicon for more than200,000 of the high-tech rifle sights, said Capt. Geraldine Carey, a Marinespokeswoman. The Army said it had bought just under 200,000 of the sights.

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A Trijicon spokesman said the company started adding the biblical referencesto products well before it received its first military contract, in 1995, and haddone so until now.

As word of the practice spread, it was condemned by civil liberties groups and

some religious groups in the United States and abroad.

Michael L. Weinstein, president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation,said that several of the group’s members, including active-duty militarypersonnel, had contacted him in recent weeks to complain about the subtlereligious references on their weapons and that he had alerted ABC.

“The Constitution won today,” Mr. Weinstein said of the company’s decision.

After the television news report, Pentagon spokesmen called the inscriptions

inappropriate and said they were looking into the matter.

Some religious groups were more strident in their condemnations.

The Muslim Public Affairs Council in Washington said the biblical referencesviolated the nation’s values and would stoke the fires of extremists whoaccuse the United States of carrying out a religious crusade in Asia and theMiddle East.

In a letter early Thursday to President Obama, the Rev. C. Welton Gaddy,president of the Interfaith Alliance, said the gun sights “clearly violate agovernment rule prohibiting proselytizing” and called the practice “only thelatest in a long line of violations of the boundaries between religion andgovernment within the military.”

In Afghanistan, the Al Jazeera news service reported that sights with theChristian references had been distributed to some Afghan soldiers and thatthis would provide the Taliban with a propaganda coup.

In its statement on Thursday, Trijicon said it would immediately “stop puttingreferences to Scripture on all products manufactured for the U.S. military” andwould provide kits for removing lettering on existing weapons. The companysaid it would follow the same policy for purchases by other national militaries.

“Our decision to voluntarily remove these references is both prudent andappropriate,” said the statement by Stephen Bindon, the company’spresident.

The Army said in a statement on Thursday afternoon that it “was unaware of these coded biblical references until several days ago.” The statement added,

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“It is not the policy of the Army or the Department of Defense to put religiousreferences of any kind on its equipment.”

The Marine Corps also issued a statement saying that it did not know aboutthe biblical references, adding, “We are making every effort to remove these

markings from all of our scopes and will ensure that all future procurement of these scopes will not have these types of markings.”

Trijicon specializes in advanced telescopic rifle sights that provide enhancedvision in low light, and it sells products to hunters and law enforcementagencies as well as to the military.

The company makes no secret of its Christian roots; the statement of corporate values on its Web site says: “We believe that America is greatwhen its people are good. This goodness has been based on biblical

standards throughout our history and we will strive to follow those morals.”

Among the passages referred to on gun sights was John 8:12, which, in theNew Standard Revised edition of the Bible quotes Jesus as saying: “I am thelight of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but willhave the light of life.”

Another, Second Corinthians 4:6, reads: “For it is the God who said, ‘Let lightshine out of darkness,’ who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the

knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/us/22guns.html?_r=1

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