As noted at the Huffington Post, al Jazeera has posted a news article and segment (video on YouTube) showing military Chaplains in the Middle East with Bibles in the local language and preaching “conversion.”

While seemingly inflammatory on its face (as evidenced by the outrage in subsequent comments on the websites), the newsreel is actually an “exercise in context.”  For example, it highlights this quote, also re-posted in both the al Jazeera and Huffington Post articles:

[T]he chaplains appear to have found a way around the regulation known as General Order Number One.

“Do we know what it means to proselytise?” Captain Emmit Furner, a military chaplain, says to the gathering.

“It is General Order Number One,” an unidentified soldier replies.

But [another soldier] says “you can’t proselytise but you can give gifts.”

The voiceover then continues, and the Huffington article goes on to emphasize the crime of conversion in Afghanistan.

Both ignore the significance of the very next statement by the Chaplain, which is almost obscured by the al Jazeera narrator.  The Chaplain, who forcefully agrees with the soldier who references “General Order number one,” steps on the statement about “gifts” and holds his hand out (to regain control of the conversation); he says to the group (at 1:29 in the video):

Ok, let’s talk about it, what do you think?

The edited video is then obscured by narration.  The available video never shows a Chaplain who has “found a way around General Order number one,” as the articles claim, nor does it show what the group (nevermind the Chaplain) said about the distribution of the Bibles.  A second al Jazeera article even calls for an investigation

after military chaplains stationed in the US air base at Bagram were filmed discussing how to distribute copies of the Bible 

which is patently untrue, based on the video included in the al Jazeera presentation.  The video doesn’t even indicate what happened to the Bibles.  Even the al Jazeera article stipulates that “it is not clear that the Bibles were distributed to Afghans,” a fact the American article omits.

One would think that the articles and video would contain the most condemning quotes; if that is the case, there is no evidence that a Chaplain suggested circumventing GO1 or that the Bibles in the Afghani languages were distributed, contrary to the assertions of al Jazeera and the Huffington Post.

The second part of the video and substantial part of the al Jazeera article is about a Chaplain in a Protestant service who talks about “hunting people for Jesus.”  Taken together with the first clips, it appears to show military support for evangelizing Afghanis.  Even the title of the Huffington article presumes this is inappropriate:

US Soldiers in Afghanistan Told to “Hunt People for Jesus… So We Get Them into the Kingdom”

as does that of the al Jazeera article:

‘Witness for Jesus’ in Afghanistan 

The al Jazeera article specifically lumps the Chaplain’s exhortations to be a “witness for Jesus” in with the Bibles as an apparent violation of US military regulations.  However, the newsreel ignores the actual context, instead aligning the sermon with the prior clips of Afghani Bibles.  Notably, the Chaplain was speaking in a religious service and never once mentions the local population.  (Absent the narration, it is impossible to tell where the sermon takes place.)  His statements are creative descriptions of beliefs in the Christian faith, and he does not direct anyone to proselytize or violate military regulations, contrary to the article’s unsupported assertion that

US military forces in Afghanistan have been instructed by the military’s top chaplain in the country to “hunt people for Jesus” as they spread Christianity to the overwhelmingly Muslim population. (emphasis added)

Nowhere in any video did any Chaplain do that.

The US military responded by saying that “the translated bibles were never distributed as far as we know” and, unsurprisingly, that the sermon was taken out of context.  Another report quotes the military calling it “irresponsible and inappropriate journalism.”  The Bibles “were taken into custody and not distributed.” [Updated: The Bibles “were destroyed.”]

al Jazeera now claims that “the US military has confiscated Bibles…intended [for] local Muslims” and that “some of the soldiers who appeared in the video have also been reprimanded.”  This seems to be a misinterpretation of the military statements about the Bibles and the fact the soldier who received them was told he would be subject to punishment if he distributed them.

The Huffington Post article notes:

[This] is likely to add more credence to the perception that the US is engaging in a war on Islam with neo-crusader forces invading Muslim lands.

It is true that this al Jazeera story may stir anti-American sentiment, just as any inaccurate propaganda piece might.  Its inflammatory nature doesn’t make it true, though it is apparently sufficient for other internet sources to repeat it without critique.

This comment is also in line with other Military Religious Freedom Foundation comments that any publicized expressions of Christian faith associated with the military are “recruiting tools” for al Qaeda.  The implication is that the US must restrict any action, or any right, liberty, or perception, that might confuse or offend the rest of the world.  This belief continues to be accepted as truth, as internet posts attest to the fact that some agree that a Chaplain telling Christians to live as witnesses for Christ deserves to be court-martialed for his sermon.

In a comment on the post, the MRFF noted that it has been consulting with al Jazeera “over the last few weeks” about this video.  This may be the reason that the articles repeat tired and debunked MRFF talking points: A Christian Chaplain in a Christian religious service, encouraging his congregants in beliefs consistent with their Christian faith, is accused of violating military law and the Constitution.

Though they are cleverly edited and misrepresent the truth, these reports may very well be effective anti-American propaganda pieces to be used by adversaries of the US military.  It would appear that the MRFF can take credit for helping produce them.