A reporter for Al Jazeera documented meetings among US army personnel during which soldiers were encouraged to be "witnesses" for Jesus Christ to Afghans.  Lieutenant-Colonel Gary Hensley,the US's head chaplain in Afghanistan, told a group of American troops that "The special forces guys - they hunt men basically. We do the same things as Christians, we hunt people for Jesus. We do, we hunt them down."

 In addition, the Al Jazeera reporter observed thousands of Bibles printed in Pashto and Dari for distribution to Afghans.  One chaplain noted that while US personnel could not directly proselytize, they could give the Bibles to locals "as gifts." This appears to be a way for the chaplains to skirt General Order Number One, which forbids US troops from proselytizing.

Apparently, this was just one example of the thriving evangelical community at Bagram and other US bases. Bagram, of course, is also home to one of the infamous "internment centers." I wonder if any of the good Christians so concerned with the souls of the Afghan people are also engaging in some recreational torture on the side.

Former Afghan Prime Minister Ahmed Shah Ahmedzai said that "this is very damaging for diplomatic relations between the two counties ... everyone knows people are very conservative here, very faithful to Islam."

It's this kind of shenanigans that cripples America's ability to operate in the Islamic world.  We can't speak out both sides of our mouth on the religion issue. This plays directly into the hands of religious extremists like the Taliban who can now argue that the US is attempting to proselytize Muslims at gunpoint. It pulls the rug out from under small native Christian minorities in the Arab world by rendering them vulnerable to pogroms by Islamic groups trying to punish apostasy.