The US military confirmed yesterday that a marine in Fallujah passed out coins with Gospel verses on them to Sunni Muslims, a military spokesman in the Iraqi city said. The man was immediately removed from duty and reassigned.
The coins angered residents who said they felt that the American troops, whom they consider occupiers, were also acting as Christian missionaries in a predominantly Muslim nation.
“It did happen,” said Mike Isho, a spokesman for Multi-National Force West. “It’s one guy and we’re investigating.”
The marine was passing out silver coins to residents of the Sunni Anbar province with Arabic translations of Bible verses on them. On one side, the coin read, “Where will you spend eternity?” and on the other, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16”.
Not only do we try to ram democracy down their throats but Christianity as well. And we wonder why they hate us.
I missed the part where the soldier rammed the coins down someone’s throat, that would have made the story more interesting.
He got off easy. It is impossible to achieve the political solution that we so desperately need in Iraq if we are alienating the Iraqis.
That said, I think that this is a command failure. They should have made is crystal clear to the soldiers that proselytizing is unacceptable.
In case you’re wondering, I’m not a big supporter of the war, but I think that we’ve got to deal with the situation as it is now and do the best we can.