Article by Steven D. Greydanus Monday, February 27, 2012
Official response to the February 22 burning of copies of the Koran at Bagram Airfield by NATO troops has been a breathtakingly thorough exercise in damage control.
The profusion of apologies from government and military officials, including but not limited to President Obama, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Gen. John Allen, who is commanding NATO forces in Afghanistan, are only the beginning. According to the New York Times:
Within a few hours of learning about the episode, General Allen ordered an investigation, and by day’s end he issued an order for every coalition soldier in Afghanistan to complete training in the next 10 days in “the proper handling of religious materials.”Well, all I can say is it’s good to know that administration and military leadership are concerned about armed forces understanding “the proper handling of religious materials.” One could easily have gotten a very different idea from that earlier incident in which military personnel at Bagram Airfield—the very same location—burned stacks of confiscated Bibles.
Military personnel threw away, and ultimately burned, confiscated Bibles that were printed in the two most common Afghan languages amid concern they would be used to try to convert Afghans, a Defense Department spokesman said Tuesday.You can see where military personnel at Bagram Airfield might have been confused about the propriety of burning religious materials after that, can’t you? I mean, it was okay when it was burning Bibles in 2009. Now suddenly in 2012 it’s not okay to burn Korans? How were the poor troops meant to know the difference?
The unsolicited Bibles sent by a church in the United States were confiscated about a year ago at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan because military rules forbid troops of any religion from proselytizing while deployed there, Lt. Col. Mark Wright said.
Such religious outreach can endanger American troops and civilians in the devoutly Muslim nation, Wright said.
“The decision was made that it was a ‘force protection’ measure to throw them away, because, if they did get out, it could be perceived by Afghans that the U.S. government or the U.S. military was trying to convert Muslims,” Wright told CNN on Tuesday.
Troops at posts in war zones are required to burn their trash, Wright said.
At least, I assume President Obama had no problem with the 2009 Bible burnings at Bagram Airfield. I sure don’t remember him and other government and military falling over themselves to apologize for that.
The reality is that the Obama administration couldn’t care less about “the proper handling of religious materials.” Their sole concern is what will or won’t offend potentially violent Muslims—not because of any exaggerated respect for Islam in particular (looney “Obama is a secret Muslim” conspiracy theorists to the contrary notwithstanding), but because angry Muslims equals violence. Who cares about burning Christian holy books? What are Christians going to do about it?
In practice, “the proper handling of religious materials” means: If religious objects offend Muslims, burn them. But if the burning of religious objects offends Muslims, apologize for burning them. Whatever it takes not to offend Muslims, because, again, they’re the ones who get violent when offended.
As a postscript: Some American Christians feel, not entirely wrongly, that Muslim veneration of the Koran exceeds Christian veneration of the Bible, and therefore desecrating Korans is a bigger deal to Muslims than desecrating the Bible is to Christians. That’s not entirely incorrect. For Muslims, the Koran is the supreme self-revelation of God, while for Christians the supreme self-revelation of God is not the Bible, but Jesus Christ himself.
Still, surely no one thinks the government or military should be in the business of assigning degrees of holiness to religious articles, and according respect only to objects of maximum sacredness (say, the Blessed Sacrament, but not a cross or a rosary). If “the proper handling of religious materials” is an issue at all, it should apply as much to Bibles as to Korans.
It should also be noted that the perception that Muslim veneration of the Koran exceeds Christian veneration of the Bible is somewhat exaggerated in the minds of Western Christians, and especially Western Protestants, among whom the whole categories of sacred objects, veneration and desecration are significantly atrophied.
To the Afghani Christians for whom the burned Bibles were intended, as well as Christians throughout the Middle East and in the global South, desecration of the Bible is a much bigger deal than it would be to most American Protestants.
As a case in point, consider the outraged response of Malaysian Christians not long ago when the Malay government refused to release Bibles referring to God as Allah unless they were stamped with the words “For Christian Use Only.” Malay Christians strongly objected to this as a descration of their holy book in a way that many American Christians would not understand.
What do you think?
Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/steven-greydanus/where-were-apologies-when-armed-forces-burned-bibles#ixzz1nhhAabat
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That said, I suspect the Koran burning was just a religiously justifiable excuse for Afghans to demonstrate their burning resentment at ten plus years of American occupation and upheaval that still is resulting in numerous civilian casualties. Apologies and troop training in handling religious objects aren’t going to mitigate those grievances, and may have no effect at all on protests and rioting. I guess Obama and the military just aren’t willing to take that risk with their soldiers’ lives. It is easy to imagine what most of the soldiers are thinking about this training, and how much actual respect for Islam it will engender.
Are you saying that the government and military should only be concerned about not desecrating what is venerated by children, not what is venerated by grown-ups?
I’m saying the government is only concerned about doing what it can to protect the troops. The apology and the training are tactics meant to prevent troops from getting killed. So was the burning of the bibles written in Afghan languages. If Christians start threatening violence I suppose they will start getting apologies and promises to train troops too. None of it will influence what the troops really think about religious objects or what will happen to them out of the public eye. Adults put human life above inanimate objects, and Christians mostly are adults, so they don’t demand to be placated like children over what happens to inanimate objects in chaotic circumstances.
I suspect the ire of the Malaysian Christians, like that of the Afghans, is not really about the religious objects. It’s really about their second-class treatment by their government, rather than a few words printed on the bibles.
In other words, you basically agree with my thesis that the blah about “the proper handling of religious materials” is rank hypocrisy—that it’s not about ordinary human decency or respect for the religious feelings of others—and all they really mean is “how to placate Muslim thugs.”
By this sheerly pragmatic standard, armed forces desecrating churches or even the Blessed Sacrament itself would not be cause for administration or military apologies or remedial action, as long as Christians continue their “grown-up” nonviolent behavior.
Incidentally, if by “grown-up” you mean “not getting violent,” then I agree with your assessment. But if you mean that Christians should embrace a post-Enlightenment, desacrilized worldview in which “inanimate objects” are never more than clouds of atoms, and veneration and sacrilege are childish superstitions that mean nothing to adults, then you’re really saying that Christians should cease being fully Christian.
www.nationalreview.com/articles/291925/why-apologize-afghanistan-andrew-c-mccarthy
Thought this would be of interest to readers here!
When I was in the military, I can’t imagine doing that.
Anyone know why?
Should we honestly be surprised that this President, time after time has attacked religious identity and freedom in America?
What does Obama stand to lose by pushing his socialistic agenda down our throats, because he knows the modern American is far too complacent to give a drop of water in Hades about that evil word of ‘politics’.
When it comes to morally upright leadership based on ethics has never appeared in the current Presidential Administration.
Why should we be surprised that he doesn’t give a rat’s derrière what we think? I just hope people have the good sense to send Mr. Obama to an early retirement and let a real man of integrity take that office. Because clearly integrity is a very rare commodity coming from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue lately.
God bless you, Steven for speaking plainly.
He speaks fluent Arabic; raised in his formative years in a Muslim country; out of his own mouth has said the Muslim morning call to prayer “is the most beautiful sound” on earth; again out of his own mouth said to ABC “my Muslim faith”, twice. Bowed to the Saudi king.
So if I claimed to be Muslim but believed in the Ressurrection; ate pork; refused to perform cliterectomies on women or engage in pederesty; didn’t stone women to death for alleged infidelity; and on everal occasions referred to my Christian faith, you’d still believe anything that came out of my mouth? Seriously?
We will be assaulted from the left and extreme right of the Islamists.
The extreme irony of this whole situation is that the books were consigned to the rubish heap because they had been desecrated by the terrorists who were using them to pass notes back and forth to each other will detained. Yep, they had already been ruined…by Muslims.
Sir, as we’ve been cathechised, only God knows what is in the heart of a person. Therefore, only God can dtermine if one is faithful or not.
2. Perhaps you are overplaying your hand. Many here, I suspect, would be more sympathetic to you when you espouse protecting a religious institution (namely Catholicism), but when you write to support the acts of those who 1.are often hostile to our Catholic men and women serving in forward theaters of operation, and 2. promote their misquided form of christianity with their version of the bible, which is substantially less than the one inspired by the Holy Spirit in His working through our church, you seem to be favoring just another public policy agenda.
1. “Out of the fullness of his heart a man speaks,” and “By their fruits you shall know them.” God will judge us all according to His wisdom; in the meantime we all “construe according to [our] wits” (A Man for All Seasons).
2. Perhaps you can be a bit clearer about your meaning, friend. I’m not sure what acts you think I’m supporting. I think respect for religion and for religious sensibilities should be applied across the board.
What has not been said is why the Koran’s were burnt. It was because the prisoners were writting in them to pass on instructions to other prisoners who would get the Koran next. An Iman on TV said that to write on or in the Koran is a sacrilige. The Koran’s in question were confiscated. What was the military to do with them? They were already desecrated accoring to Sharia law so they should have been destroyed.
Let’s get real here people. The Taliban is using this to bring about MORE hate for Americans who are there to help them establish some semblence of a society—on that gives women a right to work and come outside without a man (a basic human right one would think).
For our President to appologize to these completely irrational people is a disgrace. And in the same month, he attacks the Catholic Church head on with his HHS mandate that the Church pay for abortion pills. This is the same President that told a crowd in Chiro that the US is NOT a Christian nation. It is clear to any thinking American that Barack Hussein Obama is more friendly to Moslems than he is to Christians.