Posted on 05/25/2009 10:18:20 AM PDT by CARepublicans
Actually, the military has ALWAYS kept members from handing out Bibles in muslim countries. Sorry, but evangelizing isn’t a proper activity for the military in Afghanistan.
He is right. Unless you are a special forces unit(whos job is to become friends with the locals) you aren’t getting free time off base to go chat it up with the locals.
No, they shouldn’t have burned them ... I would imagine the costs were pretty steep to get a good translation, to print/bind, and then ship halfway around the world. Terrible loss. They could have offered the Chaplain(s) the option to return to sender or store, whatever (at sender’s cost).
The military just isn’t in the business of handling this type of situation. They DO have a war to fight, troops to protect. Burning was probably just the most expedient way of getting rid of them. No packing/shipping/storing time and costs. I suppose burning/destroying is how the military handles unsolicited and/or inappropriate gifts.
Oh my South Speak was showing there.
I was in total agreement with him.
Sorry ‘bout that.
Time to riot and burn some mosques I guess </s>
My bad. It is hard to tell when a joke is present in a thread like this.
I still am curious as to from whence csme the order. Burning implies disdain and derision. Let’s put it another way — would they have burned the Koran under similar circumstances?
Are you forgetting that the appropriate way to dispose of a U.S. flag is burning ? The official U.S. flag retirement is a ceremony that ends with its being burned. Not the hippie flag burnings.
I don’t think it means necessarily disdain or derision. It sure as hell means final ;)
I’m glad to see that some sanity reigns.
Right you are Sir.
In fact, The American Legion will take worn out Flags and store them for their Flag Ceremonies. It’s a great Ceremony to take the kids/grandkids to.
But I’m willing to bet it all that there was no rite or ceremony attendant to this Bible burning, and you didn’t answer as to whether or not you believed that the Koran would have received the same treatment. It is not a moot issue; it is a question of preferential policy.
Threads labeled “SHOCKER” rarely are. They are most often misstated and out of context...like this one.
Lets find out how many bibles were destroyed and then organize a Koran burning of the same number...
See how that goes down...
If they distributed those bibles to the locals it would be very damaging to our war effort and a death sentence to the person who accepted it and maybe the US troops (distribution to the locals is why they were sent). It’s not like the US troops could read them in Pashtoon and Darhi. They shouldn’t have burned them they should have hauled them out of the country.
Burning on the other hand was a big mistake too from a local PR standpoint. It tells the locals that the Koran is more important than the Bible and we don’t respect our holy books like they do the Koran. The officer who ordered them burned should be reprimanded as should the chain of command that knew about the burning and did nothing to stop it.
These weren’t for the soldiers personal use to read and study. They were distributed for proselytizing the Muslims by the group who provided them (bringing the Good Word to the heathen). Most of our troops don’t read the languages these bibles were printed in. The problem is it’s a death sentence for someone to convert to Christianity and for someone to proselytize a Muslim. Even the threat of prioritization by US troops will inflame the entire countryside against us. The bibles should have been hauled out of the county and either returned to those who gave them or warehoused.
Read the article I posted at #15.
Your question doesn’t fit within the context of the case in point. I am not a JAG ... BUT ... the military operates under pretty strict rules and regulations.
The local-language Bibles were sent for US troops to distribute while evangelizing local peoples in a land we are trying to free (not occupy), most of whom one presumes are Muslims. They were sent clearly for conversion purposes. Who’s going to send the Koran to US troops to convert Muslims to Islam ?
Taking a hypothetical: If there were a Christian-dominated country that US troops were fighting in and a CAIR-like entity sent copies of the Koran to Muslim troops who would go out and try to convert Christians to Islam, would the US military burn those Korans? I’m thinking their regulations might require it, but again, I am not a JAG or even garden-variety lawyer. IF that is the military’s normal procedure for disposing of unsolicited materials, they should and probably would be burned, as were the Bibles, without ceremony.
We all know that Muslim mobs burned and killed just because some Danish cartoonist dared poke at Mohammed, and went on further rampages because Newsweek published what turned out to be a false rumor about flushing a Koran down a toilet. We all know that the US Armed Forces provides copies of the Koran to its Muslim prisoners; we also know that Koran is a real ‘best seller’ in US prisons. None of that falls under the jurisdiction of the US military that has a job to do in Afghanistan, and doesn’t need an independent group to come in and advance evangelizing by US troops which is, regardless of the religion, a needlessly provocative act that is counter to US military interests.
Appalling. Have they no concern for Global Warming? The Bibles should have been pulped.
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