Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion

Al-Jazeera, which has served as a continuous conduit for al-Qaeda videos, has released a hit-piece on American troops in Afghanistan.

The highly edited, and ominously narrated, few minutes of tape purport to reveal a plot a year ago by a group of Christian evangelical American soldiers to distribute Bibles in Afghanistan. The report, which plays only snippets of a group meeting of soldiers, does not actually state that Bibles were distributed, even though al-Jazeera has had a full year to investigate.

And the editing leaves the clear impression that al-Jazeera meant to create a false impression. For example, the editing includes a sentence by a soldier asking whether the Bibles could be given as gifts, but the editors left out where the discussion went after that comment. Was the result that the soldier was told that the Bibles could not be given as gifts? We don't know, because of the severe editing which served al-Jazeera's propaganda purposes.

Nonetheless, the left-wing blogosphere ran with the story. The Huffington Post could barely contain its joy at the chance to expose our soldiers to ridicule. HuffPo later updated its post with the following:

A defense official tells the Huffington Post that the preacher did not mean that soldiers should hunt for Afghani souls, but was speaking in general terms. He also said that the Pashtun and Dari Bibles were confiscated so that they could not be distributed to the population.

In other words, there was no story here. But rather than criticizing al-Jazeera for attempting to foment hatred of our soldiers, the nutroots, FireDogLake, Crooks and Liars, and others reserved their criticism for our own soldiers.

While the nutroots were making bed with al-Jazeera, our soldiers were continuing to fight in Afghanistan against al-Jazeera's allies.