Posted on 10/11/2011 12:36:04 PM PDT by marshmallow
(CNSNews.com) -- There is not a single, public Christian church left in Afghanistan, according to the U.S. State Department.
This reflects the state of religious freedom in that country ten years after the United States first invaded it and overthrew its Islamist Taliban regime.
In the intervening decade, U.S. taxpayers have spent $440 billion to support Afghanistan's new government and more than 1,700 U.S. military personnel have died serving in that country.
The last public Christian church in Afghanistan was razed in March 2010, according to the State Department's latest International Religious Freedom Report. The report, which was released last month and covers the period of July 1, 2010 through December 31, 2010, also states that “there were no Christian schools in the country.”
“There is no longer a public Christian church; the courts have not upheld the church's claim to its 99-year lease, and the landowner destroyed the building in March [2010],” reads the State Department report on religious freedom. “[Private] chapels and churches for the international community of various faiths are located on several military bases, PRTs [Provincial Reconstruction Teams], and at the Italian embassy. Some citizens who converted to Christianity as refugees have returned.”
In recent times, freedom of religion has declined in Afghanistan, according to the State Department.
“The government’s level of respect for religious freedom in law and in practice declined during the reporting period, particularly for Christian groups and individuals,” reads the State Department report.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnsnews.com ...
Just as the State Department wants...
Obummer must be thrilled that his brothers-in-faith now have the country to themselves.
>>While the new constitution states that Islam is the “religion of the state” and that “no law can be contrary to the beliefs and provisions of the sacred religion of Islam,” it also proclaims that “followers of other religions are free to exercise their faith and perform their religious rites within the limits of the provisions of the law.”
This could be a future amendment to our own Constitution if we don’t bring the US back to God and Jesus.
The US Gov’t runs a hard-line madrassa at GITMO.
Why would we expect that they would make Af-Pak safe for Christians?
Hillary and obama probably high-fived after this was announced, with obama saying : “I love it when a plan comes together”.
It seems like Christians have to go underground and have small home worship like in the old roman days...could it be that God is saying to be christian is not centered in a building....just a thought...
Is this what Billary will tout as one of their great accomplishments of U.S. foreign policy during their tenure?
Though not on the scale of the Khmer Rouge during Carter’s time, or Rwanda on Billary’s first watch, it can be seen as worse, in terms of U.S. foreign policy because unlike Cambodia and Rwanda, where we were not actively invested there, nor actively believing we were making a difference, we have been fully invested in Afghanistan, fully engaged and fully believing (policy wise) we were making a difference.
Maybe the difference we are making is in how the facts on the ground are being presented, and not the facts on the ground themselves.
Maybe our entire time invested in Afghanistan has been a period, from beginning to now, where without our engagement the facts are reported as a glass that needs filling, and with our engagement the facts are reported as a glass being filled, while the facts:
Level of Freedom/Liberty/Security; number of villages not under control or subject to assaults from Taliban; numbers of Taliban active in the field; numbers of Taliban safe areas, in and out of Afghanistan; local and national corruption; opium trade; etc., etc., etc.
are all maybe only a matter of reporting them as a glass half empty or glass half full, depending on whose opinion or support you are trying to sway; but maybe not much different in the aggregate, ten years later.
Maybe not much has really changed there - in the daily life of 95% of the people living in Afghanistan since 2001?
The ramifications of such an assessment are horrendous.
How many Churches were there 10 years ago? 20?
When I saw this headline the first thing I thought of was Ann Coulter’s first column after 9/11 when she wrote of if I remember correctly we should ‘invade their country, kill their leaders and convert them to christianity’.
Thanks marshmallow. Imagine that — Afghanistan, which has been close to 100% Moslem for a long time now, has been in a state of civil war for 35 years, and there’s no churches left.
I believe that there still be a small Romanian Orthodox church in Kandahar. It was build by the Romanian military for their soldiers.
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