The Rev. Joseph Fuiten of Cedar Park Assembly of God

Joseph Fuiten

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Fuiten, 54, who is also president of Washington Evangelicals for Responsible Government, a lobbying group, has thought from the outset that the war was the right thing to do. The abuses at Abu Ghraib prison have done nothing to change his mind.

"The Iraq war, in my view, is part of a much larger war," says Fuiten, who in sermons early last year framed the struggle in terms of Christianity versus Islam. "Really, it should be called the war against radical Islam, or against those who want to destroy us."

The prison abuses, he says, were evil but uncharacteristic of the U.S. military. "Generally we're disciplined and orderly. We had a problem with training and supervision there."

The war, Fuiten says, is about Americans — and Christians — "just trying to defend ourselves. Why did we go to war? It's part of the attack of 9-11. It's part of the attack against the USS Cole, against the embassies in Africa. It's been going on for 20 years that they've been systematically attacking us. Now we're just responding."

"Our way of life, which is a democratic way of life — it values human life, values personal freedom, all of those things you think of as good. They value none of those things and wish to eradicate them. So their desire to eradicate our way of life is genuinely evil."

The photos of the abuses, he says, have the unfortunate effect of reinforcing views of Western decadence among "people who want to eliminate Christianity and Western civilization ... ."

Fuiten also describes the beheading of an American last week by Islamic militants as evil, but says "that's ordinary for them. ... That's their style. That's why we're fighting our war over there — over that kind of thing."

"I'm personally praying for our success there, not because everything we do is right but because the general course of what we're doing is right."

— Janet I. Tu

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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