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U.S. Military Calls Al Jazeera ‘Irresponsible and Inappropriate’ After Network Broadcast US Soldiers Being Told to “hunt people for Jesus” in Afghanistan
This line has been used before by the Pentagon to describe Al Jazeera’s exposure of US actions in the ‘war on terror’
By Jeremy Scahill
Hours after Al Jazeera broadcast footage showing US soldiers being told by the senior military chaplain in Afghanistan to “hunt people for Jesus,” the Pentagon has “confiscated copies of the Bible belonging to Christian US soldiers in Afghanistan,” according to Al Jazeera. (Presumably, the confiscated bibles are the ones translated into Pashto and Dari, which were imported by US soldiers to Afghanistan). “Some of the soldiers who appeared in the video have also been reprimanded, US government officials told Al Jazeera’s James Bays.”
At the Pentagon press briefing today, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, “It certainly is, from the United States military’s perspective, not our position to ever push any specific kind of religion, period.”
But that is not the only line coming from the military. A US military spokesperson, Col. Greg Julian, told Al Jazeera: “Most of this is taken out of context … this is irresponsible and inappropriate journalism.”
Col. Julian’s words are a bit reminiscent of the comments of then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and military spokesman Gen. Mark Kimmitt about Al Jazeera during the siege of Fallujah, Iraq in April 2004 when Al Jazeera was broadcasting live feeds of US bombing raids and Iraqi civilian deaths in the city. Mark Kimmitt declared, “The stations that are showing Americans intentionally killing women and children are not legitimate news sources. That is propaganda, and that is lies.” Donald Rumsfeld echoed those remarks, calling Al Jazeera’s reporting “vicious, inaccurate and inexcusable…. It’s disgraceful what that station is doing.”
See my earlier report: US Soldiers in Afghanistan Told to “hunt people for Jesus… so we get them into the kingdom”
