The US military has to be a secular organization. Your religion has to be your own personal business or our country's motives begin to look suspect. It is also toxic for a leader at any level to advertise his/her religious views as it will invariably cause discomfort for his/her subordinates who do not subscribe to those same views. In an organization like the US military, soldiers, airmen etc need to know that their leaders/supervisors could care less what their religious preference is, and instead care soley about their duty performance. I believe our country is great because there are many religious people, but it is even greater becuase we have the FREEDOM to choose whichever one we like (or none) without feeling any pressure from supervisors, peers, etc.

Officials reject allegations of proselytizing in Afghanistan

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by Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

5/5/2009 - WASHINGTON (AFNS) -- A report broadcast by the Arab news network Al Jazeera about U.S. servicemembers proselytizing in Afghanistan is just plain wrong, Pentagon officials said May 4.

The Al Jazeera story showed an evangelical religious service on Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan and a discussion about distributing Bibles that had been translated into Dari and Pashtu -- the two major languages of Afghanistan.

"American servicemembers are allowed to hold religious services," said a Defense Department official speaking on background. "The clip shows one of those services with an American chaplain leading a religious service for American servicemembers. In it, he spoke generically about the evangelical faith. That's all there was to it."

The chaplain did not urge servicemembers to go among the Afghan people and attempt to gain converts to Christianity, the official said.

In the second instance, a young sergeant received a shipment of Bibles translated into Dari and Pashtu from his church in the United States. The film showed a discussion about the Bibles.

"What it did not show was the chaplain counseling the young sergeant that distributing the Bibles was against U.S. Central Command's General Order No. 1," the official said. The chaplain confiscated the Bibles. "As far as we know, none ever got off base."

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Navy Adm. Mike Mullen was asked about the incident -- which happened in May 2008 -- during a Pentagon news conference May 4.

"It certainly is -- from the United States military's perspective -- not our position to ever push any specific kind of religion, period," Admiral Mullen said.

There is no indication disciplinary action was taken against the young servicemember. "The counseling sufficed," the official said.

General Order No. 1 specifically forbids "proselytizing of any faith, religion or practice."

Comment on this story (comments may be published on Air Force Link)

Anybody read the cover story of this month's Harper's Magazine entitled "Jesus Killed Mohammed?" Very interesting article.

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/05/0082488

General Order No. 1 specifically forbids "proselytizing of any faith, religion or practice." Webster defines proselytizing as

intransitive verb
1 : to induce someone to convert to one's faith
2 : to recruit someone to join one's party, institution, or cause
transitive verb
: to recruit or convert especially to a new faith, institution, or cause

I don't care about being politically correct at all, but this stuff needs to stop. I have the same issues in my workplace when someone leaves a Bible or a pamphlet saying how I can be "saved". I throw them away, or if I know who put it there, I give it back to them. I am religious, but my beliefs are between myself and the one I call God. I do not tell others that they are wrong or going to hell. The transitive verb here says it all. The fundamentalists are trying to "recruit" everyone to their cause, and this includes the people we are fighting. There is no "fine line" at all, and I can't wait until stuff like this is no longer allowed.

Here's a story showing how this religious crusade message came from the very very top.  This story from GQ magazine online includes once classified slide inserts briefed at the Pentagon and the White House according to the story.

http://men.style.com/gq/features/la...ntent_9217

Wow. That is absolutely unbelievable. Anybody who hasn't read this article, I suggest you do so. It's long, but it's a very interesting read that will probably open your eyes to more than one thing.

I'm mostly surprised that cover sheets with classification identifiers like that were leaked. At least a couple of the slides had redacted classification levels.

It's the dang Pentagon... they couldn't get a better designed coversheet? I agree that it makes us look as though we're fighting a holy war and is inappropriate. But good on the guy that found verses to match up with those pictures, especially the aircraft carrier photo, good find.

Yeah good on the moron that was able to match up the silly religious bullshit he learned from Sunday School with photos of a complex military operation that we're losing in part because of morons that spent too much time learning silly religious bullshit in Sunday School and have never grown up past the Santa stage.

You're right. There really is a silver lining to irrational "I believe in what I hope to be true" people in senior positions of a nuclear establishment making decisions while we fight a war against irrational "I believe in what I hope to be true" people in caves. I guess I'm just in a bad mood. Maybe Mr. Grumpy needs to read some more history of religion and war to cheer him up right?

Sorry to be such a downer.

Debbie Downer.