Freaking Mondays. Goddamnit all to motherfucking HELL!
I cannot believe this, I cannot believe this, I cannot believe this. Hello! My name is Dorothy, and I need to get back to Kansas.
Ryan Grim is reporting on HuffPo that US soldiers stationed in Afghanistan were planning to pass out Bibles, printed in Pashtu and Dari, to Afghanis and were told by at least one chaplain to "hunt people for Jesus".
No, I am not even remotely kidding. What's really hilarious about this whole thing is not that this might be a widespread and systematic problem in the US military, but that Jesus was motherfucking Middle Eastern! He's from the Afhani 'hood, fools! Plus, there's that whole Afghanistan-Islam connection. Stupid assholes.
There's an accompanying video, which is rather nauseating. Please put your head between your knees if you find breathing becoming difficult, and I will pass out the barf bags to anyone who requires them.
Brian Hughes, a documentary filmmaker, notes that he was disturbed by all of this, especially since preaching your faith to someone else is in direction violation of US military code. In the video, some douchebag tries to play off distributing the Bibles as "giving gifts". Of course, said douchebag doesn't bother learning either Dari or Pashtu to communicate effectively with the Afghani people, but hey! Let's give them Bibles and totally insult them! Right on!
I know this next part is going to come as a complete shock, but a military spokesperson denied that the Bibles were distributed.
A White House spokesman referred questions to the Department of Defense, which did not immediately return a call. A military spokesman did tell Reuters, however, that none of the Bibles were, as far as she knew, ever actually distributed.
"That specific case involved a soldier who brought in a donation of translated Bibles that were sent to his personal address by his home church. He showed them to the group and the chaplain explained that he cannot distribute them," said Major Jennifer Willis.
"The translated Bibles were never distributed as far as we know, because the soldier understood that if he distributed them he would be in violation of general order 1, and he would be subject to punishment."
'K, Major Willis. How's about we get somebody, who actually speaks one of the two languages in Afghanistan, to give us the real deets? I don't trust the doofus who got the Bibles from his church, and I certainly don't trust you.
Ugh. It's not that I hate Christianity (although, today, my hatred runs fairly high, I admit it), but I hate the attitude of evangelicals who think they have to convert other people. That crap was tried on me in a multitude of ways when I lived in Nashville for 3 years, and I have very little tolerance for that bullshit behavior. Sharing and asking questions and trying to understand another person's point of view is one thing, but this is pretty much beyond the pale. Separation of church and state, disrespect for the Afghani people, that whole "hunt people for Jesus" thing, or whatever - this sucks donkey balls any way you play it.
Fucking son of a BITCH!
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P.S. Karen Hedwig Backman also has a diary about this situation here.