I never thought I would be as ashamed of my country as I am at this moment. This is positively disgraceful.

Bibles in Afghan languages sent to a U.S. soldier at a base in Afghanistan were confiscated and destroyed to ensure that troops did not breach regulations which forbid proselytizing, a military spokeswoman said.

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Military officials have said the bibles were sent through private mail to an evangelical Christian soldier by his church back home. The soldier brought them to the bible study class where they were filmed.

Confiscated and destroyed? Why not simply returned to the sender? Why resort to book burning in order to suppress the free exercise of religion on the part of both American soldiers and the citizens of Afghanistan?

There’s another country that destroys contraband Bibles in order to protect Islam by guaranteeing that Muslims do not hear the Gospel and are therefore not tempted to exercise their human right to freely change their religion. That country is Saudi Arabia – I wrote about that a couple of years ago.

I’m curious – will there be riots in the streets over this? Will there be an investigation of who gave the order, and apologies to offended Christians like happened when it was falsely reported that a Koran may have been desecrated at Gitmo? Or since Christians don't riot or issue fatwas, willthe US government simply ignore the offense given? And will the liberals who expressed outrage that soldiers might share the Gospel with Muslims express their revulsion at this act of official desecration of Christian religious texts by the US government?

I wonder -- in the next report of countries that suppress the religious liberty of their people, will the US State Department now include the United States as an offender rather than a champion of religious liberty?