Muslim anger over military 'Jesus' scopes

[sabra]

Source: AFP

WASHINGTON — Muslim groups reacted angrily Wednesday after it emerged that the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan were using rifle sights inscribed with coded Biblical references.

The company producing the sights, which are also used to train Afghan and Iraqi soldiers under contracts with the US Army and the Marine Corps, said it has inscribed references to the New Testament on the metal casings for over two decades.

The British Ministry of Defense meanwhile announced it had placed an order for 400 of the gunsights with Trijicon but added it had not been aware of the significance of the inscriptions, in a decision criticized by the opposition Liberal Democrat party.

The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) called on US Defense Secretary Robert Gates to immediately withdraw from combat use equipment found to have inscriptions of Biblical references after it emerged that Trijicon has contracts to supply over 800,000 of the sights to the US military.

...

"Having Biblical references on military equipment violates the basic ideals and values our country was founded upon," MPAC Washington director Haris Tarin said in a statement.

"Worse still, it provides propaganda ammo to extremists who claim there is a 'Crusader war against Islam' by the United States," he added.

Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ho3anccC0foaHz1VJGm7ikB5G8Bw

[Rebubula]

1. I am pissed as well...

...this is one of the dumbest things that I have even seen. And I am from North Georgia!

[Xipe Totec]

2. I bet the scopes sights aim to the left as well n/t

[rfranklin]

4. Actually they have a bias to the righteous...

I can cite Bible and verse on that one...

[Zoeisright]

3. And they should be angry.

I myself am furious about this.

[JackintheGreen]

5. Funnily enough, during the Indian Mutiny of 1857

one of the purported causes was a rumor among Muslim soldiers that their cartridges were greased with pig fat, and a rumor among the Hindus that it was beef fat. True or not, there is no question that armies by their very nature are religiously tone-deaf.

[Hubert Flottz]

6. K&R

Those people who run that company should lose their contracts. They knew it was wrong to do that.

[yava]

7. and with the backlash, how many lives will be lost for this stupid joke?

[Festivito]

8. 1st goes the report, 2nd then goes the "anger", 3rd tax dollars go.

Oddly, the report came first, then came the anger, except the anger is a letter from Washington DC group. A group I see is awful busy for 8 years until a year ago. Hmm.

The next thing is that we'll have to replace things at great expense.

Oh, I realize they're saying it could incite the idea of Crusade, but I don't buy it. This is not Bush using the word Crusade -- twice. The letters are in a different language to the ignorants it would have to convince, it has to be explained to anyone trying to understand it. And, it refers to an accepted prophet, Jesus as being the light, which is just fine since prophets usually do light something about which they prophesied. They like prophets. Mohammed was a prophet.

I still think they are trying to get tax dollars, realized they did not have any outrage to show so they got a group to write a letter AFTER the report.