'Jesus Scopes' in Line of Fire

[Fordzilla]

My next scope will be a Trijicon!

http://www.military.com/news/article...html#community

[turnpike boy]

Unreal. Mikey (? - this is a grown man?) Weinstein either wants to make a name for himself - by muckraking - or is such a zealot that he can't see the forest for the trees.

Pathetic. Equally pathetic that ABC News would consider this worth pursuing to the mfgr. Ultimately pathetic that the military shoud have to consider any of this offal, individuals included.

Got to agree with posters comments on that site that, if you're captured AND a Muslim, your fate doesn't depend on those incredibly obscure markings.....your fate is a foregone conclusion.

[SPF2245]

I think the next artical should have to do with Remington dipping the 223 and .50 cal bullets in pigs blood. Love to hear the reaction from the muslims when they get shot from a Jesus rifle with pork bullets.

[Gunner]

I find this kind of "hidden message" crap offensive on so many levels, and I am always amazed when believers think it's a good thing. So you're, let's say, a truly faithful Christian. Do you REALLY think it's appropriate to put a reference to the words of your savior on an implement designed to enhance the job of killing people? So this week it's killing heathen Muslims... I'm sure it will be drawing a big clear bead on other Christians someday, too. How... Christian of the makers and admirers.

At least when I bought a Buck knife years back it was just a slip of paper in the box that professed their belief that "Jesus was their business partner" - it wasn't engraved on the knife. Or too bad it wasn't - it might have been very comforting to Sharon Tate.

So if the maker was run by a Muslim family and had, say, a little line from the Qu'ran or a crescent-and-star on it, for exactly the equivalent reasons that this maker puts their little scriptural reference on it... would that be okay?

Or let's say some seriously bad-ass types start turning out military hardware, and in support of their faith they put a pentagram or broken cross on every item. Would that be okay?

Nah. I went through this a couple of years ago in the Mustang forums, over my Vintage Wheel Works TTD clones. The makers saw fit to cast a little icthys on the inside lip, which I found inappropriate and offensive on all these same levels. The Mustang crowd, redneck as it gets, called me every name in the book and gave patently stupid answers to questions like the ones above ("If some raghead put his symbol on my wheels I'd go burn down his warehouse!!!")

So I content myself that with every turn of the wheel I drag their precious symbol through the dirt and the mud and brake dust and whatever other crap is on the road. None of them saw anything wrong with that, either - which tells me a lot about their notions of faith.

Believing that the one true god is on your side and in favor of killing those heathens over there is contrary to the expressed spirit of every major religion, and the cause of most conflicts of the last 20 years. Not that any side is capable of learning better...

[Ron61]

One way or the other is no big deal to me. I have a couple of items here that have a Muslim symbol on them and it doesn't bother me. Even have one with the Russian Hammer and Cycle on it. I don't pay any attention to the media as they no longer report news but try to make it up to get higher ratings.

Ron

[Gunner]

Originally Posted by Ron61

One way or the other is no big deal to me. I have a couple of items here that have a Muslim symbol on them

What, and who were the items made for?

I don't pay any attention to the media as they no longer report news but try to make it up to get higher ratings.

I'd be the last to disagree; television news in particular puts ratings first and adherence to journalism principles last. But I'm not sure this isn't news - if we can continually castigate the other side for pressing a war on a religious basis, aren't our own acts that cross that line subject to some scrutiny? This is a minor issue but I've no doubt the Arabic press will point to it as an example that it is indeed a religious war and they are thus right to continue their holy exertions.

In other words, if we object to them using their religion as a basis for war, we need to scrupulously exclude religion from our effort to oppose them, even down to minutiae like this.

[Ron61]

Gunner,

I have no idea. I don't even know where they came from and am not sure if I could even find them. I didn't even know what the two with the Muslim emblems were until a few years ago when some guy looking at them told me. The one with the Russian Flag I believe was some kind of knife and it had the small inset in the handle but even that I can't find. Heck, I may have given them to that guy as he was interested in that type of junk and I didn't care about it at all.

(quote) In other words, if we object to them using their religion as a basis for war, we need to scrupulously exclude religion from our effort to oppose them, even down to minutiae like this. (quote)

If our press wasn't so Anti American they would be doing the same thing. It is going to be don whether you or I like it or not.

Ron

[Gunner]

Originally Posted by Ron61

If our press wasn't so Anti American they would be doing the same thing. It is going to be don whether you or I like it or not.

Sorry, you lost me on that turn. I don't see this as being about the press; the New York Times didn't cast that inscription on the scopes. Is it ABC's fault for pointing it out?

[SPF2245]

Gunner, it isn't the medias fault for pointing it out, it's their negative spin that gets old and creates problems when there wasn't any. So what if the S/N for a product has a bible verse in it, because it may offend someone we should take it off? Call it silly, but I liked my ACOG for many reasons, it functioned everytime, never lost zero, didn't crap out in the sand and it had a small reminder that hopefully God will make my shot true. The muslims do the same thing (and good for them), marking their weapons, so what?! In the field, it's the small things that keep people going...and if the manufacture sticks something on a weapon system that doesn't hurt me, but in fact might remind me of better times, so be it. And this won't result in further violence, because terrorists will just create another justification for killing us if we remove the scripture from our rifle scopes.

Can't wait for the media to catch on that in cases of MREs there are BIBLES...and we drop them into muslim nations all the time. Wanna bet a starving muslim could care less that the bible was sitting next to his first meal in a week?! However, I bet the media would make this out to be some evil thing.

[Gunner]

Originally Posted by SPF2245

Gunner, it isn't the medias fault for pointing it out, it's their negative spin that gets old and creates problems when there wasn't any.

See, I disagree that "there wasn't any problem until the media created it."

The media didn't cast that inscription on the scope. When some Iraqi militant gets ahold of one of them and passes the info back up the chain and to the Arabic press (conservative and radical), it makes us look like hypocritical @$$holes to the entire Muslim world and beyond. Telling the world we're stomping out religious tyranny while bearing symbols of our own is counterproductive. The military not just permitting this but officially sanctioning it is incredibly inappropriate - and better our news making an issue of it and pointing out that it's not representative of the US official position than al-Jazeera making into something else.

You need to be able to distinguish between the media reporting things you find unpleasant and uncomfortable and their "creating problems." The media didn't create Watergate or Iran-Contra, either. Or the Bay of Pigs. Nor did they "create a problem" by following up on the nonexistent WMDs that got us into the larger part of this intractable mess.

[SPF2245]

Gunner, fair argument. Let’s consider that al-Jazeera does report such a thing. So what?! Again, if this is the best they have to throw at us, so be it. You have to grasp one important concept, our very existence fuels their desire to kill more of us, the rest is just crap excuses.
If it wasn’t the S/N for the scope, then it would be the Psalm 23 on the stock of my weapon, or maybe it would be the red cross on my shoulder, I have paper in my pockets with “In God We Trust”, the fact I’m a Christian or I’m an American for why they justify killing me (or you).

I’m not saying for the media to stop reporting news, but instead how ‘bout reporting the news needing to be reported. And if the best you have is a report about S/Ns on weapons…then you need to get a new job, because there are more important stories to report on in the middle east.
I included this picture for a reason, it shows the only part of the trijicon ACOG that matters, the view looking forward. The rest is just silly details.

[Scott S]

One of these scopes?

Encoded serial #s or what anything that keeps our troops out of harms way is fine by me.



Scott S

[Gunner]

More than any war before it in modern times, this multi-front effort is about more than military might. We absolutely dwarf the military capabilities of every opponent in this fray, and have since the conclusion of the first round of strikes in Iraq.

Our massive superiority in equipment has basically gotten us nowhere and there is no sign that it - super-scopes and all - ever will. You DO remember Viet Nam, right? That was a difference in political ideologies and we had our techno-marvel asses sawed off and handed to us and never had any chance of any other conclusion. (Note that the Russians, with none of our "media problems" and no wussy shortage of determination, had exactly the same experience and outcome in Afghanistan.)

This is a war based on religious ideology, which makes one based on political ideology look like a high-school debate. If you don't grasp that we have to "win" on many levels other than how much lead and HE we can deliver, then I can see how you think the media is the enemy here.

[SP01715]

The politicians lost the war in Vietnam. We never lost a major battle in Vietnam, and after Tet the NVA was decimated.

[SPF2245]

Gunner, I agree to a point. We do have to win this war on more then one level (the rest is garbage, Vietnam, which I do recall was lost due to the same thing your asking for…politics in war. Politicians don’t win wars, soldiers with guns do. Remove or limit the fight and we loose the war.)
The problem with some of this watered down Christianity and not offending them with our “ways” has also backfired. Muslim Fundamentalist will never support us, regardless of what we do to try and pacify them. As long as we exist, we will be targets because of who we are.
Now, having said that, I will tell you that after the first Gulf war, many Muslims mocked us for our beliefs and then more importantly lost respect for us when we lowered our personal beliefs as to not offend them (that is their opinion when we hid our religion, as viewed from soldier to soldier). Think about it this way, they do everything under the flag of religion. They respect the enemy (us) when we are strong. They challenge us when we our weak, and hiding our religion is actually viewed more callously then if we just left the damn S/N on our weapon alone
Finally, there will be no “win” in this war. They view us and always will, as outsiders. They’ve tolerated us for their benefit, but rest assured, we will never win a war there. The good news is if we can put a puppet gov’t in place, we might be able to leave for another decade or two.

[Gunner]

It's not any matter of not offending them, it's a matter of keeping our religious ideology out of the fight. We don't fight for religious reasons and we are there because we object, on a national level, to them imposing their religious wills on each of those nations. If we're to support that stance, we can't drag our own religious position into the fray. "Offending" them has nothing to do with it.

Neither does any notion of winning them over or converting them or "getting them to like us" - this isn't kindergarten and we don't all have to like each other. It's about giving the moderate masses something to turn to and lead them besides the firebrand radicals who promise a better world when the Great Satan is destroyed. It doesn't mean they'll become our buddies, but it would mean peace between nations and some rational input into getting them to uphold a world-class level of human rights instead of a late Iron Age mythology. (Note the two-edged sword there...)

[Gunner]

It's a complete side issue, but Vietnam was not winnable on any terms. It was not a matter of the politicians refusing the grunts three more rounds for their sixteens. It was a matter of using a European castle-to-castle military style to fight a totally decentralized opponent. No matter how many rice paddies we bombed into mud, Charlie always had more right nearby.

And had we actually started to enter and control North Vietnam, we would have had a repeat of Korea on our hands: no longer facing little brown guerrillas, but the Russian and/or Chinese armies. The North Korean army was almost insignificant in Korea; we kicked their butts quite thoroughly once we had the support infrastructure in place... but then there was no way we were ever going to win against China.

This isn't my opinion - this is the consensus opinion of most modern historians, many of whom have revised their position from a "we coulda won" stand a few years ago. Even McNamara conceded none of their planned tactics would have worked, politicians or no. And the Russians exactly repeated our experience ten years later, in different terrain but the same kind of unequal but unwinnable conflict.

[SPF2245]

Gunner, that is the problem with historians...most have never spent a day outside a classroom. I define win as beat the enemy on the battle field, remove the former Gov't which had caused the conflict and put in power a new Gov't. Then you get the heck out of dodge. We seem to have forgot how to do the last two items, maybe because the precedent was set with Pres. Johnson to not allow a strong "Eisenhower" type to control the conflict which would have made a new national hero to replace the idiot Democrates in power at that time. But wait, no one want's to talk about that in history...'cause it's not written in any book, but the feelings of soldiers then and now. Last time I checked, McNamara thought you could win a battle by controlling "X" number of bullets fired, used math formulas of body counts to figure out how to win, gave soldiers an untested weapon to use in combat (and then required it and it's ammo changed to control costs), yep...classic book smart kid put in a place he had no business being in. Result, one lost war. Next example?

[Gunner]

Originally Posted by SPF2245

Gunner, that is the problem with historians...most have never spent a day outside a classroom.

A great number of current historians of the era were in the sh*t.

You perhaps need to do some reading on the era in material written since the crybaby Carter administration.

[turnpike boy]

Gunner, where do we begin?

It isn't the Muslims who have a problem with the verse on the ACOG - it's folks like Mr. Weinstein and, apparently, you too. It isn't the grunts who see this as catastrophic to the cause - it's doubtful most ever knew what it was until this was pointed out to them. And the military didn't "officially sanction" that inclusion; if the scope met the RFP parameters and was priced right, or had the manufacturer's congressman on their doorstep, then it was purchased, mark and all.

Jihadists don't care what's on your weapon - only that they kill you before you kill them. Finding that mark on a scope wouldn't drive them into a more-murderous rage, nor would it serve to inflame local perceptions - most non-combatants just want to stay alive and out of the fight. COULD it piss some off? - possibly. WOULD it serve as a rally point? - incredibly improbable. Bullets whizzing past and explosives are far more position-forming than some totally obscure mark on the base of a scope.

Religion is politics too - same objective in the end. And while WMDs may well have been a supportive argument for the action, Beirut/USS Cole/The World Trade Centers are justification for the action and, quite frankly, are reason enough.