Al Jazeera Strikes Back at Pentagon, Releases Unedited Footage of U.S. Soldiers' 'Bible Study'

http://rebelreports.com/post/103831597/al-jazeera-strikes-back-at-pentagon-releases-unedited

Al Jazeera Strikes Back at Pentagon, Releases Unedited Footage of US Soldiers' 'Bible Study' in Afghanistan

A day after the Pentagon accused Al Jazeera of being ‘irresponsible and inappropriate’ for broadcasting the ‘hunt for Jesus’ in Afghanistan footage, the network releases unedited tapes.

By Jeremy Scahill

Hours after Al Jazeera first broadcast a video showing US soldiers in Afghanistan being instructed by the military’s top chaplain in the country to “hunt people for Jesus” as they spread Christianity to the overwhelmingly Muslim population, the Pentagon shot back. It charged that Al Jazeera had “grossly misrepresent the truth.” Col. Greg Julian, told Al Jazeera: “Most of this is taken out of context … this is irresponsible and inappropriate journalism.”

Now, Al Jazeera and the man who filmed the controversial material are striking back. The network has just released unedited and unaltered footage (see below) of US soldiers in ‘bible study’ in Afghanistan. Jazeera describes it as “Extended footage shot by Brian Hughes, a US documentary maker and former member of the US military who spent several days in Bagram near Kabul.”

In Al Jazeera’s original report, Hughes addressed the fact that soldiers had imported bibles translated into Pashto and Dari. “ weren’t talking about learning how to speak Dari or Pashto, by reading the Bible and using that as the tool for language lessons,” Hughes told Al Jazeera. “The only reason they would have these documents there was to distribute them to the Afghan people. And I knew it was wrong, and I knew that filming it … documenting it would be important.”

Regarding allegations that the sermon of the military’s top chaplain in Afghanistan, Lieutenant-Colonel Gary Hensley, where he instructs soldiers to “hunt people for Jesus” was taken out of context, Hughes said in a statment, “Any contention by the military that his words are purposefully taken out of context to alter the tone or meaning of his sermon is absolutely false.”

Hughes is completely standing by the accuracy of Al Jazeera’s report. Here is Hughes’s statement:

SEE LINK

Beeyotches..

uneducated or just plain stupid. If they understood the region, it's people and various cultures, the Pentagram wouldn't have allowed BushCo to drag us into a two front, unwinnable war. So much for the days when the military leaders were all classically educated and could actually even find these places on a map - these lunk-heads must've barely passed PE.

How much longer until we won't have to go through a daily humiliation brought on by the wackdoodleness of one or another branch of our gubmint? If there's one thing our President could do for U.S. (and the world), it would be to begin firing those who commit the stupidest act of the week. But only after a month or two of firing those who commit the stupidest act of the day.

Ok, made that up. But it might be true.

Every soldier in this video should be court martialed.

The rapture, bible prophecy crowd is a danger and anti-Constitution and anti-American.

People have the freedom to their beliefs or worldviews and feedback from the world of ideas.

What we have is a criminal conspiracy of a magical thinking death cult to infiltrate government and military that puts all Citizens and the world at risk.

Not only is this stuff inappropriate and totally unprofessional, it's making us a lot of enemies we might not have had.

While some Afghans might request bibles in their own language if they're interested in comparative theology, this stuff needs to be tracked. Giving them out as unrequested gifts should be forbidden.

It's conversion efforts like this that will harden the Afghans and allow the Taliban back in to rule that country and that would be tragic for everyone.

That chaplain should be court martialed.

Fuck these Fundie crusaders.

then its later found by the taliban?

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When I was over there in the 80's, I got into a discussion with a Pakistani Major about this subject. During our conversation, there was a call to prayer and I mentioned to the Major that perhaps we should put off our discussion until prayers had ended. We did,and he brought up the point that Christians were "People of the Book" and that we faced a common Atheist enemy, but that's as far as the conversation went.

They're fighting each other over which version of Isalm is the 'correct' version. To inject Christianity is just fanning the flames.

wtf is the us military doing having anything to do with something like this? this shit should be a war crime.

the religiously insane have tried to take over and influence the military to their way of thinking.


and that includes the pentagon.

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:kick:

Calling Darth Cheney....

:applause:

has a devastating story dealing with the lock that the Christian Right has on military leadership and how it affects our behavior in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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I watch almost every day via Livestation http://www.livestation.com/ and know that those who are controlled by the US Corporatist media will never have more than a slight fraction of a clue about the real world.

edit to add: I saw the first airing of that video of the utterly braindead fundie idiots who "serve" US in Afghanistan when it first aired. The perfect answer to the question of "How fucking stupid, deluded and venal can a US citizen be?"

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I haven't read too much of them but they did show the realities of war that is shielded in the US. Very good reporting in this instance.

This was on Wednesday's broadcast: The Crusade for a Christian Military.

Their guests were:



http://www.democracynow.org/2009/5/6/the_crusade_for_a_christian_military

I can understand wanting to present the best of Christianity by being a good example, but they don't tolerate preaching other religions.

HOLY FUCK!

It is amazing how brazenly the right wing spew their garbage even though we've been in the era of video tape for a long time now.

I guess they feel secure with right wingers dominating U.S. media ownership. They know their denials will get more TV coverage than the follow ups.