The United States Pentagon Chaplain likes "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" and the religious warfare the game depicts so much that the Chaplain's Office is sponsoring a prayer breakfast in the Pentagon's main executive dining room this Friday morning, where the founder of an apocalyptic fundamentalist "extreme sports" ministry that will distribute the game to US troops in Iraq (thoughtfully included in care packages along with baby wipes) will address top officials of the most powerful military on Earth.

Religious war is way cool. On the smoking battlefields of the religious wars that erupted in Europe in the wake of the Catholic/Protestant rift, victorious armies would entertain themselves by making small incisions in the sides of wounded enemy soldiers and pulling their intestines out to wind those around sticks and so extract entire intestinal tracts, very, very slowly. In Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins' "Left Behind" series, God does that to unbelievers; God pulls their guts out.

That's religious war. Way cool.

image, below: a painting of the 'St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre' depicted the radically badassed nature of religious warfare.

I guess some folks in the Pentagon think apocalyptic religious warfare is pretty badass too, and "Operation Straight Up" (OSU), that will be distributing the religious warfare video game to US troops, boasts that the President of The United States might just be there. OSU says it's waging a "Crusade" too, and that's beyond badass, because the Crusaders, in their singular dedication to furthering Christianity, were willing to impale, barbecue, and eat pagan children and so maybe the Pentagon's endorsement of a ministry that invokes the name of the Crusades will send a strong message, to America's foes, that they'd best think twice before messing with the US of A.

The "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" video game, is set in a "post apocalyptic" New York that looks almost exactly like New York City after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and lets players simulate commanding a paramilitary Christian army that seeks to convert Jews, mainline Christians, Muslims, atheists, Buddhists, and everyone else in New York City to fundamentalist Christianity. All who resist will be killed.

Some, like Mikey Weinstein and his Military Religious Freedom Foundation criticize the game because it promotes apocalyptic religious thnking and an ideology of religious war, and pushes creationism. Others, like Troy Lyndon who thinks it's way cool as a coffee-table book, just miss the point altogether :

"....this tremendous game that has it all; great graphics, strategy, depth and meaningful messages worthwhile of fascinating coffee table discussions." - Troy Lyndon, CEO of "Left Behind Games", describing the new "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" video game.

That's ridiculous. "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" is radical, baddass cool ; like the Crusades and the Crusaders. Jonathan Spinks, founder of Operation Straight Up, wouldn't say such wussy things. Spinks was a badass kick boxing champion.

The game is based on the infinitely cool "Left Behind" book series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. Soak up the coolness:

"The best thing about the Left Behind books is the way the non-Christians get their guts pulled out by God." -- 15-year old fundamentalist fan of the Left Behind series

God pulls out their guts - radical. I bet God makes their heads explode too, just like in that Cronenberg movie. "Left Behind" books are radically cool, and a video game based on the books is cooler still. Here's Max Blumenthal, for the Nation, covering this exciting new development with his usual razor-edged aplomb:

As an official arm of the Defense Department's America Supports You program, OSU plans to mail copies of the controversial apocalyptic video game, Left Behind: Eternal Forces to soldiers serving in Iraq. OSU is also scheduled to embark on a "Military Crusade in Iraq" in the near future.

"We feel the forces of heaven have encouraged us to perform multiple crusades that will sweep through this war torn region," OSU declares on its website about its planned trip to Iraq. "We'll hold the only religious crusade of its size in the dangerous land of Iraq."

Crusades ! How radically cool are those ?

I mean, listen to the radical, crazy stuff the Crusaders did ! They were some badass dudes, impaling heathen children on spits, barbecuing them and eating them like big kebabs. Baddaaaaassss cool. Look at what I found on the Wikipedia. Crazy shit :

"The most infamous event from the city's history dates from late 1098, during the First Crusade. After the Crusaders, led by Raymond de Saint Gilles and Bohemond of Taranto, successfully besieged Antioch they found themselves with insufficient supplies of food. Their raids on the surrounding countryside during the winter months did not help the situation. By December 12 when they reached Ma'arra, many of them were suffering from starvation and malnutrition. They managed to breach the city's walls and massacred about 20,000 inhabitants, as they often did when they captured a city. However, this time, as they could not find enough food, they resorted to cannibalism.

One of the crusader commanders wrote to Pope Urban II: "A terrible famine racked the army in Ma'arra, and placed it in the cruel necessity of feeding itself upon the bodies of the Saracens."

Radulph of Caen, another chronicler, wrote: "In Ma'arra our troops boiled pagan adults alive in cooking-pots; they impaled children on spits and devoured them grilled."

Those events had a strong impact on the local inhabitants of Middle East"

"Had a strong effect on the local inhabitants" ! Damn right. Barbecue and eat people's kids, they'll remember that for a long time. A thousand years, maybe, its so badass !

Makes todays' military look mamby-pamby by comparison. Geneva Conventions ? Hellooooooo - the Crusaders knew how to get the job done, and it's refreshingly, radically badass cool that the Pentagon and the Pentagon Chaplain's Office is endorsing that kickboxing minister guy, Jonathan Spinks, and his ministry, because Spinks invokes the noble military enterprise of the Crusades, and the Crusaders who were innovative enough to think of cooking and eating people's kids and courageous enough to do so. Was that pleasant for them ? I doubt it. But, they had the courage to do that, in the furtherance of their Crusade, and their courageous acts of Christian cannibalism sent a message of strength that let their foes know better than to mess with Crusaders.

So, it's a refreshing change of pace that the Pentagon Chaplain's Office is bold enough to stand behind Jonathan Spinks' invocation of the Crusades, because it might make Iraq insurgents in Baghdad think twice before taking on America troops to know that those troops are playing a video game that's sort of like a Crusade, in which they're waging war against their fellow Americans ! If the Iraqis can be made aware that US troops, some of them anyway - the ones who are tough like the Crusaders were tough - can be taught to wage war against their fellow Americans or pursue victory with the single mindedness of Crusaders, those Iraqis might just smarten up and stand down.

***

US troops will surely benefit from the "wholesome family" values imparted by this information packed Christian religious war video game that includes helpful creationist refutations of the Theory Of Evolution in the screens between play levels.

Major Christian leaders such as Promise Keepers co-founder coach Bill McCartney, who told a LA Times reporter that in the End-Times "The Jews will be toast", have endorsed the game. Tim LaHaye, co-author of the book series the "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" game is derived from, has stated that atheistic Jews have committed some of the worst evil the world has ever seen. So as US troops playing the game manage their paramilitary Christian armies fighting to conquer NYC, which many believe to be the world capital of Jewish atheism, they can learn Christian values of ethnic and religious tolerance while they practice ridding the world of what may be, per Tim LaHaye, the locus of the greatest force for evil on Earth.

Beyond teaching US troops how to combat Jewish atheism, the game will serve to relax US soldiers fighting in Iraq to protect America from the terrorist threat there that seems to grow worse daily ; tired from bloody combat in hot, dusty Iraqi cities and towns, they can retreat to the soothing tranquility of simulated warfare from which all the mess of urban combat - the bloodshed, and the mess of dismembered, disemboweled, and burnt bodies, decapitated children and rotting dog carcasses that US troops see littering the Iraqi streets, have been thoughtfully and soothingly expurgated. In the tranquil, simulated "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" world of warfare there is none of the smell, trauma, or mess.

Some, like this cranky guy on a political website called the "Daily Kos seem dead set against bringing this fine game to troops in the field.

But, if US troops in Iraq get to wield modern high tech weaponry, the best Uncle Sam can provide, to fight and kill insurgents on the streets and alleys of Baghdad, why shouldn't they get a free game that lets them practice doing a very similar thing in New York City ? What's the harm in that ? I'm sure US troops are homesick for the good 'ol USA and if "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" can help out a bit with that, why not ? Some of those troops will be from New York, so they can revisit all the spots they know and love !

The "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" game has it all - total war, tanks, helicopters, snipers, satanic 'UN Peacekeeping Troops", goat-footed demons, Creationism smacking down Evolution, satanic atheists and rock musicians....

The Pentagon Chaplain's endorsement of distributing the game to troops, and invoking the name of the badass Crusaders to strike fear into the hearts of America's foes, is radically cool.

You go, Pentagon Chaplain. The only thing cooler would be if you had the the strength to personally send brave symbolic messages, to America's enemies, the way the Crusaders did.

But you're a chaplain, not a crusader, and so I guess your coolness only goes so far.