April 9, 2008 – 9:04PM

By MARK BARNA

THE GAZETTE

Air Force Academy officials declined to show clips from a documentary critical of Christian proselytizing in the U.S. military at a seminar Wednesday on war and religion.

Footage from “Constantine’s Sword,” a documentary premiering April 19 in New York, was scheduled to be shown to cadets during the panel discussion.

But academy sponsors decided at the last minute against using the film clips because several Catholic organizations nationwide complained that the footage was anti-Catholic, academy spokesmen Johnny Whitaker said.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue said in a statement Wednesday that the documentary is “a propaganda film that trashes Catholicism.”

The seminar, titled “USA’s War on Terror: Not a Battle Between Christianity and Islam,” was delayed 25 minutes while academy representatives debated whether to show the controversial footage, which reportedly included scenes involving alleged religious discrimination at the academy between 2003 and 2005.

The speakers were former U.S. ambassador Joseph Wilson, a critic of the Iraq war; Islamic scholar Reza Aslan; and academy graduate Mikey Weinstein, who sued the Air Force in 2005 for allegedly encouraging Christian evangelicals to proselytize to cadets. The case was dismissed before going to trial.

Wednesday’s event, which was not open to the public, was organized to counter charges of bias from the Muslim community and others after a February seminar at the academy in which cadets heard speakers claiming to be former Islamic terrorists who characterized Islam as a dangerous religion.

Wednesday’s speakers, by contrast, argued that the U.S. military’s embracing of Christianity sends the message to Arabs that the Iraq war is not about freeing Iraqi people but about converting the Muslim world to Christianity.

Panelists showed a five minute film that compiled news stories alleging religious discrimination against non-Christians at military institutions, including the Air Force Academy. Photos showed military personnel holding Bibles, and military leaders were quoted using terms like “holy war” and “crusade” when talking about the Iraq war.

“Al-Qaeda wants to convince Muslims that this war is a crusade against Islam,” Aslan told about 450 cadets and faculty in Fairchild Hall.

And the military, by using Christian rhetoric, “makes the war seem like one between Christianity and Islam,” he said.

This will prolong the war indefinitely, Aslan said. “Religious wars do not end,” he said.

Weinstein, founder and president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, told the cadets that the military’s failure to crack down on religious discrimination breaks down the separation between church and state.

“This is not a left or right issue,” Weinstein said. “This is a constitutional issue.”

Many cadets were unswayed by the speakers’ arguments.

“It’s about a war on terror, not Islam,” Matt Mc-Candless, 20, said

Travis Miller, 20, dismissed the five-minute film as propaganda and not representing the military’s view.

He also said the academy has made progress toward religious tolerance.

“The fact that these speakers are here at all shows the great strides the academy has made,” Miller said.