Military ready to purge Catholics and Protestant Evangelicals?

So now Catholics and Evangelical Protestants are classified as “extremist” religious groups alongside al Qaeda and the Ku Klux Klan.

The military is getting ready for the purge of any servicemen and women who may not be ready to turn on their fellow citizens? Recall first  West Point think tank warns of dangerous conservatives?

The report issued this week by the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., is titled “Challengers from the Sidelines: Understanding America’s Violent Far-Right.” And just who are these “Violent Far-Right” folks?

It says anti-federalists “espouse strong convictions regarding the federal government, believing it to be corrupt and tyrannical, with a natural tendency to intrude on individuals’ civil and constitutional rights. Finally, they support civil activism, individual freedoms, and self government. Extremists in the anti-federalist movement direct most their violence against the federal government and its proxies in law enforcement.”

Now we learn that the DOD is moving on for the purge?

The presentation identified seventeen religious organizations in a slide titled “religious extremism.” They include al Qaeda, Hamas, the Filipino separatist group Abu Sayyaf, and the Ku Klux Klan, which the slide identifies as a Christian organization..

The Defense Department came under fire Thursday for a U.S. Army Reserve presentation that classified Catholics and Evangelical Protestants as “extremist” religious groups alongside al Qaeda and the Ku Klux Klan.

“Men and women of faith who have served the Army faithfully for centuries shouldn’t be likened to those who have regularly threatened the peace and security of the United States,” said Col. Ron Crews, a retired Army chaplain and the executive director of the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty.

“It is dishonorable for any U.S. military entity to allow this type of wrongheaded characterization,” Crews said in a news release.

The Archdiocese for the Military Services, a Catholic organization that trains and endorses military priests and chaplains, said in a release that it was “astounded that Catholics were listed alongside groups that are, by their very mission and nature, violent and extremist.”

“Religious extremism is not limited to any single religion, ethnic group, or region of the world,” the slide explains, in language that closely resembles the text of a Wikipedia page on “extremism.”

While outfits such as al Qaeda and the KKK are explicitly violent, the presentation also lists Catholicism and evangelical Protestantism as extremist groups.

 

 The AMS called on the Pentagon “to review these materials and to ensure that tax-payer funds are never again used to present blatantly anti-religious material to the men and women in uniform.”

H/T: Free Beacon