Air Force Pulls Christian-Themed Ethics Training for Nuclear Missile Officers After Publication of T

[ensho]

http://www.truth-out.org/air-force-pulls-christian-themed-ethics-training-missile-officers/1311972789


The Air Force, in response to a report published by Truthout earlier this week, has pulled a Christian-themed training session that used a quote from an ex-Nazi SS officer and numerous passages from the New and Old Testament to teach missile officers about the morals and ethics of launching nuclear weapons.

The Nuclear Ethics and Nuclear Warfare training session "has been taken out of the curriculum and is being reviewed," said David Smith, chief of public affairs of Air Education and Training Command at Randolph Air Force Base in Texas. "The commander reviewed it and decided we needed to have a good hard look at it and make sure it reflected views of modern society."

-snip-

The course was led by Air Force chaplains and took place during a missile officer's first week in training at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Officers who train to be missileers were required to attend the ethics course, which included a PowerPoint presentation on St. Augustine's "Christian Just War Theory" as well as numerous examples of characters from the New and Old Testament who engaged in warfighting in a "righteous way."

At the conclusion of the ethics training, missile officers were asked to sign a legal document stating they will not hesitate to launch the nuclear-armed Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) "if lawfully ordered to do so by the President of the United States or his lawful successor."
-snip-
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thank goodness sanity has prevailed

[xfundy]

1. Anyone who launches a nuclear missile should be required to ride it

in the manner of Slim Pickens in "Dr. Strangelove."

When used as directed, Religion is a virus that will eventually destroy the whole world.

[Cirque du So-What]

4. Somehow, that vision doesn't make me feel any safer

as I figure there'd be no shortage of 'Christian' volunteers to ride a warhead and destroy the heathens.

[femrap]

2. The Air Force is filled

w/ wacko fundies. I'm glad this got pulled, but it could rile the fundies.

[lebkuchen]

3. god, that's more frightening than Japan's on-going nuclear leak

I dated a Special Forces guy during the Clinton administration who told me that after his SERER (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape, and Rescue) training somewhere in the South, the trainees were shown a video "documentary" about Clinton's being involved in drug-running.

And the SF guy believed it because he had seen the video "evidence."

[Ready4Change]

5. What did you expect?

ICBM's are holy weapons, after all.