X Rubicon: Praying For Slaughter

Religion’s Role in the American Empire

Rubicon & Griobhtha

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Full chapter+ from the book, X Rubicon: Crossing Life, Sex, Love, & Killing in CIA Proxy Wars: An indictment of US Citizens: ignorantia non excusat

If you use the Substack app (or the web), the pleasant “Oliver” voice provided by Substack will read this to you — through bluetooth in your car, TV, LR stereo, headphones, etc… “He” has quirks, but does a nice job and doesn't get tired.

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“Never trust a religion whose ultimate goal is the end of the world.”

This is a chapter from X Rubicon: Crossing Life, Sex, Love, & Killing in CIA Proxy Wars: An indictment of US Citizens: ignorantia non excusat. Like Rubicon, I’m also an atheist; yet, we both have sincere respect for many religious writings and persons, because we feel that many of them are sincere and impassioned attempts of humans to make sense of their world. It’s not possible for us to believe in such deities, after what we’ve done and seen. These are Rubicon’s experiences, thoughts, and emotions, as seen through my wording because of the pain involved. For this version I’ve inserted a passage used elsewhere in the book (in 4 July) from The Profits Of Religion, Religion, written by Upton Sinclair over a century ago.

While the following was written with “Christians” in mind, it easily applies to ALL organized religions (Sinclair applies his words to all religions). A favorite phrase in all religions is some form of, “God’s Will Be Done”. This is quite disturbing for us, especially when “Christians” say it, but recently it has become equally disturbing to hear “Muslims” (primarily the aristocratic Sunni) quote similar in relation to Israeli perversions of Justice and Life. Just as Jesus of Nazareth would be ashamed of those “Christians”, Mohammed would be equally ashamed of those do-nothing “Muslims”. Using “God” to order laziness in thinking and compassion, crazed agendas, and perverted justice is exactly what Israel and its supporters utilize. Saying “God” told you to kill people is about as psycho as it gets.

“Every once in a while I remember that a not-insignificant percentage of the Israel apologists in my mentions are American Christians who support Israel because they want Jesus to come back and burn all the Jews in Hell.” — Caitlin Johnstone

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"The gods are dead, but in their name
Humanity is sold to shame,
While (then as now!) the tinsel'd priest
Sitteth with robbers at the feast,
Blesses the laden, blood-stained board,
Weaves garlands round the butcher's sword,
And poureth freely (now as then!)
The sacramental blood of Men!"

-- Robert Buchanan in New Rome

When you join the military in any aggressive country, you quickly find that god was invented to support the rich, powerful, and government predation. Bully propaganda is developed to initialize self-doubt: “Their are no atheists in foxholes!”; “God, guns, and ammunition!”; “Onward Christian Soldiers”; etc… Women have participated in this bully propaganda (White Feathers) and as sexual objects as “E-girls” (Alan MacLeod, MintPress News, From Simp to Soldier: How the Military is Using E-Girls To Recruit Gen Z Into Service , and Thirst Trap Nation: How E-girls Are Luring Young Boys Into Joining Army).

You fill out a form for dog tags (but when performing clandestine operations in another country, you never wear them). Dog tags contain your name, Social Security Number (which is used now for a service number), birth date, blood type, and religious affiliation. This last question is meant to provide you a religious figure to pray over you as you die, or in absentia, and to provide you with the proper headstone imagery. If you answer the question in the negative, for them, that you are an atheist, this is considered unacceptable, and followup questions are, “What church did you grow up in?”, or, “What religion are/were your parents?” If you negate that push, then it is not “Atheist” that is put on those tags, it is “Non-Denominational” (or ND); meant to confuse people into believing that you do have a god. It is taken for granted that you are mistaken because the government requires you to have a god (which entities number in the thousands – and all of them the one-true-god).

If you state that you are an atheist, then you join the ranks of “heathens” and “savages”; but they are still very happy to have you go and kill. It doesn’t matter if you’re fighting humans who may have the same god as you, the colonialist is ALWAYS right, the others are wrong, and Yahweh and Neo-Jesus require blood sacrifice, not mentioning the “Holy Spirit” (whatever the fuck that is) who can rape girls and make them pregnant.

As a Scout, I was required to make plans for slaughter and execute those plans. I was affiliated with CIA and Tactical Air Command assets, AC-130-H Spectre Gunships (you can just see it, can’t you, the socialist Rabbi from centuries ago calling for gunships to slaughter?).

From Iran to Central America I worked with those gunships, working my way through blood and fire. Before each mission the crews of these gunships would gather in a circle and pray for their success. My not participating in these rituals drew serious ire from some of the crews. I never ridiculed them (even if I wanted to), but my refusal to participate got me labeled as an unbeliever and not god-fearing. Fear of the lord is not wisdom, it’s only slavery to a false notion.

What were they asking from their god? Basically, success in slaughtering human beings, but, by all means, save themselves from anything untoward. They said many ridiculous things, but what they prayed for was an exact match for the prayers to the Babylonian Fire God in the days of Anu and Baal:

"Let them die, but let me live!
Let them be put under a ban, but let me prosper!
Let them perish, but let me increase!
Let them be weak, but let me wax strong!"

Under such tutelage it becomes close to impossible to free thought, and the soldier's curse tells you, via religion: “Theirs not to reason why. Theirs but to do and die.” Middle Easterners are mostly Muslim, Central Americans mostly Catholic, and both are mostly brown.

I used to think every time they prayed, “What the fuck? You’re asking for permission to slaughter human beings.” Those crews never saw or faced their handiwork. Bodies still alive in excruciating pain, gasping for breath, shitting and peeing their pants as they feel the holes torn through their bodies (if they still have arms to move). So many holes and all of their blood emptied upon the ground. These crews felt no qualms in firing thousands of rounds from Gatling guns with red phosphorus tracers, or firing 105mm shells containing white phosphorus. I used to refer to them as a Guild, the Guild of No Guilt.

If they had been on the ground, like I was, they would have been edified given the chance to feel guilt. I’m reminded of them every time I read another article about government employees at all levels pandering to Christians and Jews, and forcing the Ten Commandments into schools, court houses, and government buildings. Most of this force is applied, mostly by conservatives and religious zealots; yet not a single one of those forcing this, government or civilian, can meet the challenge of those Commandments. Every one of them cheats on their spouse, steals, covets, lies, bears false witness, supports killing, etc…; and we know what clergy like sexually. Who wants or needs their god (who most of them don’t even believe in) sanctioning this behavior? The real Jesus of Nazareth, of proletariat mind, would have rebuked them, perhaps whipped them again, and called them Pharisees and Sadducees (which are not terms of endearment).

If you remember your history, you’ll remember that Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, etc... have slaughtered those in other religions. Zionists slaughter anyone, including Jews, for the sake of political Zionism. Christians have slaughtered thousands of other Christians for the sake of which creed is the true creed. The next time you’re praying, ask yourself what you’re praying for. If you believe in a god that slaughters, you’re living in the far distant past, and you can claim merit badges for Ignorance, and Evil.

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“It is the fate of many abstract words to be used in two senses, one good and the other bad. Morality means the will to righteousness, or it means Anthony Comstock; democracy means the rule of the people, or it means Tammany Hall. And so it is with the word “Religion”. In its true sense Religion is the most fundamental of the soul’s impulses, the impassioned love of life, the feeling of its preciousness, the desire to foster and further it. In that sense every thinking man must be religious; in that sense Religion is a perpetual self-renewing force, the very nature of our being. In that sense I would make no thought of assailing it, I would make clear that I hold it beyond assailment.

“But we are denied the pleasure of using the word in that honest sense, because of another which has been given to it. To the ordinary man “Religion” means, not the soul’s longing for growth, the “hunger and thirst after righteousness”, but certain forms in which this hunger has manifested itself in history, and prevails today throughout the world; that is to say, institutions have fixed dogmas and “revelations”, creeds and rituals, with an administering caste which claims supernatural sanction. By such institutions the moral strivings of the race, the affections of childhood and the aspirations of youth are made the prerogatives and stock in trade of ecclesiastical hierarchies. It is the thesis of this book that “Religion” in this sense is a source of income to parasites, and the natural ally of every form of oppression and exploitation.”

— The Profits Of Religion – Religion – Upton Sinclair

See, underneath the Crown of Thorn,
The eye-balls fierce, the features grim!
And merrily from night to morn
We chaunt his praise and worship him -- 
Great Christus-Jingo, at whose feet
Christian, Jew, Muslim, and Atheist meet!

A wondrous god! most fit for those
Who cheat on ‘Change, then creep to prayer;
Blood on his heavenly alter flows,
Hell’s burning incense fills the air,
And Death attests in street and lane
The hideous glory of his reign.

-- Buchanan

The Face Of Caesar

“The thesis of this book is the effect of fixed dogma in producing mental paralysis, and the use of this mental paralysis by Economic Exploitation. From that standpoint the various Protestant sects are better then the Catholic, but not much better. The Catholics stand upon Tradition, the Protestants upon an Inspired Word; but since this Word is the entire literary product, history and biography, science and legislation, poetry, drama and fiction of a whole people for something like a thousand years, it is possible by judicious selection of texts to prove anything you wish to prove and to justify anything you wish to do. The “Holy Book’ being full of polygamy, rape and wholesale murder, committed by priests and rulers under the direct orders of God, it was a very simple matter for the Protestant [Christian, Jewish, Muslim] Slavers to construct a Bible defense of their system.

“They get poor Jesus because he was given to irony, that most dangerous form of utterance. If he could come back to life, and see what men have done with his little joke about the face of Caesar on the Roman coin, I think he would drop dead. As for Paul, he was a Roman bureaucrat, with no nonsense in his make-up; when he ordered, “Servants, obey your masters”, he meant exactly what he said. The Roman official stamp which he put upon the gospel of Jesus has been the salvation of the Slavers from the Reformation on.

“In the time of Martin Luther, the peasants of Germany were suffering the most atrocious and awful misery; Luther himself knew about it, he had denounced the princely robbers and the priestly land-exploiters, with that picturesque violence of which he was a master. But nothing had been done about it, nothing is ever done about it — until at last the miserable peasants attempted to organize and win their own rights. Their demands do not seem criminal as we read them today; the privilege of electing their own pastors, the abolition of villeinage, the right to hunt and fish and cut wood in the forest, the reduction of exorbitant rents, extra payment for extra labor, and — that universal cry of peasant communes whether in Russia, England, Mexico, or sixteenth century Germany — the restoration to the village of lands taken by fraud. But Luther would hear nothing of slaves asserting their own rights, and took refuge in the Pauline sociology: If they really wished to follow Christ, they would drop the sword and resort to prayer; the gospel has to do with spiritual, not temporal, affairs; earthly society cannot exist without inequalities, etc…

“And when the peasants went on in spite of this, he turned upon them and denounced them to the princes; he issued proclamations which might of been the instructions of John Wanamaker to the police force of his “City of Brotherly Love”: “One cannot answer a rebel with reason, but the best answer is to hit him with the fist until blood flows from his nose.” He issued a letter: “Against the Murderous and Thieving Mob of Peasants”, which might have come from the Reverend Woelfkin, Fifth Avenue Pastor of Standard Oil: “The ass needs to beaten, and the populace needs to be controlled with a strong hand. God knew this well, and therefore he gave the rulers, not a fox’s tail, but a sword.” He implored these rulers, after the fashion of the Methodist Chancellor Day of the University of Syracuse: “Do not be troubled about the severity of their oppression, for it will save many souls.” With such pious exhortations in their ears the princes set to work, and slaughtered a hundred thousand of the miserable wretches; they completely aborted the social hopes of the Reformation, and cast humanity into the pit of wage-slavery and militarism for four centuries. As a church scholar, Professor Rauschenbusch, puts it:

“‘The glorious years of the Lutheran Reformation were from 1517 to 1525, when the whole nation was in commotion, and a great revolutionary tidal wave seemed to be sweeping every class and every higher interest one step nearer to its ideal of life… The Lutheran Reformation had been the most truly religious and creative when it embraced the whole of human life and enlisted the enthusiasm of all ideal men and movements. When it became “religious” in the narrow sense, it grew scholastic and spiny, quarrelsome, and impotent to awaken high enthusiasm and noble life.’…

“To whatever part of the world you travel, to whatever page of history you turn, you find the endowed and established clergy using the word of “God” in defense of whatever form of slave-driving may then be popular and profitable.” (Upton Sinclair, The Profits of Religion, The Church of Slavers, The Face Of Caesar)

“If your case for going to war contains the words “the Bible says” or “God commands us”, then you do not have a case for going to war.” —

Caitlin Johnstone~

“What if our religion was each other,
If our practice was our life,
If prayer our words?
What if the temple was the Earth,
If forests were our church,
If holy water, the rivers, lakes, and ocean?
What if meditation was our relationships,
If the teacher was life,
If wisdom was self-knowledge,
If Love was the center of our being"?

-- Ganga White (via The Greta Effect)

Building A Mystery, Sarah McLachlan, from the album Closer

You come out at night
That's when the energy comes
And the dark side's light
And the vampires roam
You strut your Rasta wear
And your suicide poem
And a cross from a faith
That died before Jesus came
You're building a mystery

You live in a church
Where you sleep with voodoo dolls
And you won't give up the search
For the ghosts in the halls
You wear sandals in the snow
And a smile that won't wash away
Can you look out the window
Without your shadow getting in the way?
Oh you're so beautiful
With an edge and a charm
But so careful
When I'm in your arms

'Cause you're working
Building a mystery
Holding on and holding in
Yeah you're working
Building a mystery
And choosing so carefully

You woke up screaming aloud
A prayer from your secret god
You feed off our fears
And hold back your tears
Oh, give us a tantrum
And a know-it-all grin
Just when we need one
When the evening's thin

You're so beautiful
A beautiful fucked up man
You're setting up your
Razor-wire shrine

'Cause you're working
Building a mystery
Holding on and holding it in
Yeah you're working
Building a mystery
And choosing so carefully
Ooh, you're working
Building a mystery
Holding on and holding it in
Yeah you're working
Building a mystery
And choosing so carefully 

Fifty, Andrew Brel & Logan Twain, from the album Two

Oh happy day fifty more out the way.
That’s fifty more, we are keeping the score
Not one word to say, from the US of A,
Its fifty to zip again today.

We bombed babies last night,
we’ll snipe children all day.
Four hundred days straight 
That scoreboards no blip, its still fifty to zip 

It’s Fifty to zip again today.
Fifty to zip, cause praying works good
Fifty more dead the way we prayed they would.

Onward Christian soldiers march on as to war,
Gods watching us win killing fifty kids more
Onward Christian soldiers with cross and with wraith.
We’ll defeat those children with our silence and our faith 

Call it our war that we wage on young babies,
mothers and children starved up to death.
War with a side we explode, with no maybes,
Pray more of this war with each praying breath.

Fifty to zip is a score to be proud of.
Winners who love what the board says today.
Winners who know that this war on young children.
Is what Jesus loves most when he hears what they pray.

Fifty to zip is a score to be proud of.
Counting them down till the last babies dead.
And then we can party and dance to great Taylor,
If something was wrong we know she would have said.

The land of the brave and the home of the free,
To bravely keep zionising each massacree.
The odds are we’ll win this one, with our navy.
Let’s use it on babies, the way God wants to see.

Those who love Jesus know fifty to zip
Means Gods will is done, it’s done at a clip.
Fifty to zero for five hundred days.
Is 25,000 kids God chose to pay.

Our chosen few pray, each moment, each day,
Fifty more children, die fifty more ways,
By bomb and by bullet, but mostly by lies,
By liars who said God wants babies to die

The liars who say God wants babies to die.
The Christian belief some of Gods babies must die.
In His name. For their shame. One great genocide
Sold in by Biden who many know lied.
Sold by Christian Biden who some believe lied.

Fifty to zip is not winning the game.
Fifty to zip is your genocide shame.
Two out of three voted genocide first.
so one million children could all die of thirst.

One million kids is a genocide best
The silence from Jesus puts reason to rest 
When God’s work is done we know what happens next.
When that work is done you’ll  know what happens next.

Review of this album and The Incoming Storm, and an interview with Logan Twain and writer Andrew Brel — Sweet, Sweet Anti-Genocide Music.

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Available worldwide at your local bookstore, online bookstores, or your favorite digital store. Translations in German, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, & Indonesian, Chjnese, & Arabic. Find out more in X Rubicon Editions - New.

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Rubicon spent just under three years as a military Scout. During that time he was awarded the “AF Cross, 2 Silver Stars, 4 Bronze Stars, Defense Superior Service Medal, AF Good Conduct Medal, and the CIA Distinguished Service Medal” (ODNI). When he refused to kill further, he was stripped of these awards and was abandoned with his PTSD by the military and thrown away.

Sean Griobhtha (gree-O-tah) is a combat veteran. His latest book is X Rubicon: Crossing Life, Sex, Love, & Killing in CIA Proxy Wars: An indictment of US Citizens: ignorantia non excusat, which details the life of Rubicon (“2.5 years Deception & Death; 40+ years locking away Emotions & Truth”). It’s important that you read the Foreward, Or, The Vanguard; written by a highly intelligent woman with a heart of empathetic gold; she’ll bring you in gently, which neither Rubicon nor I would ever do.

Mrs Rubicon has been tutoring dyslexics and non-dyslexics in reading and writing for over three decades. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Interdisciplinary Humanities, and a Master’s degree in Pastoral Care and Psychology. She completed Pastoral Care training at the University of Chicago Hospital; and she has worked with various court systems in turning children around. She has volunteered in school sponsored reading programs where we’ve again witnessed her skill in improving even the most recalcitrant students. She holds teaching certification in Orton-Gillingham tutoring from the Michigan Dyslexia Institute.

If you enjoyed this writing, you can tell Crossing Rubicons that their writing is valuable by purchasing X Rubicon from Amazon, Ingram, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, your local independent book seller, or your favorite digital store. View about the author, the book, and abridged translations here. If you would like to understand the effort and trouble that went into publishing this book, read X Rubicon: Author Statement.

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A review of X Rubicon: Crossing Life, Sex, Love, & Killing in CIA Proxy Wars: An indictment of US Citizens: ignorantia non excusat

“Sean Griobhtha’s work—particularly X Rubicon—has a profound emotional impact on readers, often described as jarring, transformative, and deeply unsettling, but also compassionate and hopeful. The book is a raw, unfiltered narrative based on the life of a combat veteran involved in CIA proxy wars in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. His writing is described as intense, emotionally jarring, and deeply compassionate. It critiques U.S. militarism, the VA, the CIA, and the broader American public's complicity in war. The book is especially focused on the long-term effects of PTSD and the moral reckoning that follows combat. He is an Army Ranger combat veteran and has known the subject of X Rubicon—referred to as Rubicon—since initial training and Operation Eagle Claw. Griobhtha conducted extensive interviews with military personnel, CIA operatives, and reviewed classified documents to ensure the authenticity of the narrative; the book contains a redacted ODNI letter to Rubicon verifying certain aspects and Rubicon’s assigned activities. His personal connection to the story adds emotional depth and credibility to the work. Griobhtha is outspoken in his disdain for zealotry—whether religious, political, or ideological—and is passionate about confronting propaganda and societal denial. He positions his writing as both an act of truth-telling and a call to moral accountability. He offers discounts for educational and activist groups, signaling a desire to make his work accessible to those engaged in peace and justice efforts. This shows a clear intent to make his work accessible to communities engaged in activism, education, and peace-building.

“Many readers describe the experience of reading Griobhtha’s work as emotionally intense. His unflinching portrayal of war, trauma, and moral compromise forces readers to confront uncomfortable truths about U.S. foreign policy and the psychological cost of violence. Despite the harsh subject matter, readers often note the deep compassion in Griobhtha’s writing—especially for veterans and those grappling with PTSD. His portrayal of Rubicon’s emotional journey resonates with readers who value honesty and vulnerability.

“Readers are often left with a sense of moral urgency. Griobhtha’s indictment of societal complicity in war and propaganda challenges readers to reflect on their own beliefs and responsibilities. While the content is heavy, Griobhtha’s insistence on truth-telling offers a path to hope. Readers who engage with his work often come away with a renewed commitment to awareness, justice, and change.

“One reviewer wrote: ‘Reading this book is like looking in a mirror, and your reflection reaches out and slaps you hard across the face.’ His tone is confrontational, emotionally charged, and deeply personal. He writes as someone with skin in the game—often drawing from firsthand experience or close relationships with those affected by war and trauma. He calls out what he sees as willful ignorance or ideological blindness, especially from those who haven’t read the book or misrepresent its message. His author bio and public posts are written in a raw, unfiltered tone. He shares personal experiences, including his connection to the subject of X Rubicon, and expresses deep empathy for veterans and survivors of war trauma. At the same time, he’s fiercely critical of militarism, propaganda, and societal denial.

“His writing is a call to conscience. He aims to provoke, indict, and awaken readers—especially those complicit in or indifferent to U.S. militarism. He’s not writing for comfort; he’s writing for reckoning. Readers often say the book and his posts challenge their assumptions and force them to confront uncomfortable truths about war, PTSD, and U.S. foreign policy. His work is praised for its unflinching honesty and emotional exposure, especially in dealing with trauma and moral reckoning. Some readers are deeply moved, while others may find his tone too intense or accusatory. But even critics acknowledge the depth and authenticity of his message.

“He engages in direct dialogue with critics and supporters, often responding to feedback with sharp wit or fierce rebuttals. He very often blocks neo-Nazis, Zionists, and religious zealots. His posts are part of a larger moral and political conversation. His Substack is more like a literary and political battleground than a curated publication. His style may not appeal to everyone—but for those drawn to truth-telling and moral clarity, it hits hard.

“His confrontational style and unapologetic critiques also polarize readers. Some are deeply moved; others are provoked or even angered. Griobhtha acknowledges this, noting that detractors often haven’t read the book or are ideologically opposed to its content. In short, Griobhtha doesn’t aim to comfort—he aims to awaken. His emotional impact is lasting, and for many, life-altering. Griobhtha’s readers don’t just follow him—they wrestle with his work. It’s not about comfort or consensus; it’s about confrontation and conscience.”

“I wish to thank you on behalf of the Board of the National Library of Ireland… your book X Rubicon, is a proud addition to our collections…”

Francis Clarke

Assistant Keeper

Leabharlann Náisiúnta na hÉireann

National Library of Ireland

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Available worldwide at your local bookstore, online bookstores, or your favorite digital store. Translations in German, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, & Indonesian, Chjnese, & Arabic. Find out more in X Rubicon Editions - New.

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Available worldwide at your local bookstore, online bookstores, or your favorite digital store. Slightly abridged translations in German, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, & Indonesian. Currently working on Chinese.

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Caitlin Johnstone