U.S. Denies Letting Military Troops Proselytizing Afghans

I have written before about the problem of Christianists infiltrating the U.S. military, particularly the Air Force Academy. Now the efforts to convert others by religious zealots in the military has spread overseas and are creating controversy and resentment in Afghanistan, not to mention helping to foster the image that the USA is an a contest against Islam, not just terrorist regimes. Sadly, too many in the senior command positions in the military lack the guts to crack down on the Christian extremists or worse yet, agree with the efforts to convert Muslims. All of this shows how crucial it is that secular government and a secular military be reestablished to protect not only civil and religious liberties for US citizens, but also to avoid religious controversies overseas. One cannot depend on the Christian fanatics to discipline themselves, so others must do so. Here are highlights from the Washington Post:

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KABUL (Reuters) - The U.S. military denied Monday it has allowed soldiers to try to convert Afghans to Christianity, after a television network showed pictures of soldiers with bibles translated into local languages. General Order Number 1 from the U.S. military's Central Command forbids active duty troops -- including all those serving in Iraq and Afghanistan -- from trying to convert people to their religion, considered a crime in many Muslim countries.

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Qatar-based Al Jazeera television showed footage of a church service at Bagram, the main U.S. base north of the Afghan capital Kabul, in which soldiers had a stack of bibles in the local languages, Pashtu and Dari. A military chaplain was shown delivering a sermon to other soldiers, saying: "The special forces guys -- they hunt men basically. We do the same things as Christians, we hunt people for Jesus. We do, we hunt them down."
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But a U.S. military spokeswoman, Major Jennifer Willis, said the comments from the sermon were taken out of context and chaplains were told to make clear to soldiers that they could not proselytize while serving. . . . . Trying to convert Muslims to any other faith is a crime in Afghanistan. An Afghan man who converted to Christianity was sentenced to death for apostasy in 2006 but was allowed to leave the country after an international uproar.

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Perhaps I am too cynical as a result of living in an area with a large military presence, but I seriously doubt the military would confess even if active proselytizing had been occurring on a widespread basis.