US drone 'kills five in Pakistan'

[Jan Klimkowski]

The US military has been embarrassed by footage broadcast on al-Jazeera television which shows soldiers and a chaplain discussing how to convert Afghans to Christianity.

This brought a predictable reaction in Afghanistan, where former prime minister Ahmad Shah Ahmadzai told Reuters news agency: "We consider this act as a direct attack on our religion that will arouse Afghans' emotions to take actions against them."

The US miltary claims the footage was shown out of context and al-Jazeera insists it was not. The troops in the video seem aware that Centcom's General Order Number 1 forbids them from proselytising while on active duty but one says there are ways around this – for example, by presenting people with Bibles as "gifts".

It is not the first time the US military has got into hot water over religion. Lt Gen William Boykin, an evangelical Christian and warrior against Satan, caused a stir by recalling how a Muslim fighter in Somalia had claimed to have the protection of Allah against US forces.

"Well you know what I knew, that my God was bigger than his," Boykin said. "I knew that my God was a real God, and his was an idol."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/...ristianity

Or the battlecry of the religiously-driven general through the ages:

Kill them all. God will know His own.

Of course, Spanish dogs of war and men of god had their own twist, as the Sapa Inka from Atahualpa to Tupac Amaru discovered. Baptize the Inka into the one true faith, then execute him in front of his people and his children.

God is Great?