A good deed goes wrong when US soldiers provide blasphemous soccer balls to Afghani youth.
I'd imagine life in Afghanistan must be tough - especially for young people. There's really no way to put into words what it must be like growing up in a war torn country compared to the US, UK, Australia, or wherever you're reading this from. (although some would argue that it's pretty similar here in Detroit where I'm writing this)
Somehow it always makes me feel better when I read of the positive things our troops are doing for the citizens of the countries we're invading. It's the little things that remind both us and them that we're still human.
One such story is the recent program the US military launched to
deliver soccer balls to the Afghani youth. It's heartwarming all around.
The only problem is that somebody, somewhere, decided it would be a better idea to imprint an image of the Saudi Arabian flag complete with the Islamic declaration of faith and the words of Allah and Muhammad.
While it seems a noble gesture, it's usually not a good idea to bring religion into something if you don't understand that religion.
It didn't occur to anybody that Muslims might find the idea of kicking a ball with their god's name on it just a bit offensive. Guess what? They did!
That's why sickens me about this country. We fucked up a great chance to do something good by involving religion in it. It clearly wasn't called for here. A regular soccer ball would have done the trick.
When it comes to Muslims though, we're still not sure how to handle that religion. We go out of the way trying to please them when all they most likely want is to be treated equal - not special.
There's no need to say things like "Muslim terrorist" or "Muslim suspect." We didn't go around saying Protestant Terrorist when we arrested Timothy McVeigh, there's no reason to do it here.
We don't pass out things with Jesus on them in the deep south, there was no reason to involve Allah in Afghanistan either.
By involving religion, the US has managed to turn even a good deed into another reason for people to not like us.