A demonstration has been held in south- east Afghanistan accusing US troops of insulting Islam after they distributed footballs bearing the name of Allah.
The balls showed the Saudi Arabian flag which features the Koranic declaration of faith.
The US military said the idea had been to give something for Afghan children to enjoy and they did not realise it would cause offence.
The footballs were dropped from a helicopter in Khost province.
Some displayed flags from countries all over the world, including Saudi Arabia, which features the shahada, one of the five pillars of Islam - the declaration of faith.
The words, which include the name of Allah, are revered, and Muslims are very sensitive about where and how they can be used.
Saudi Arabia has complained to the World Cup's ruling body in the past about the use of its flag on footballs.
5 comments:
Who is the genius who came up with the idea of putting the name of Allah on a sports ball? There must be a Faux Pas Hall of Fame somewhere.
"they did not realise it would cause offence."
A short, benignly worded summary of US foreign policy.
-Blueberry
Hopefully a rookie - but you can't be sure of such things these days.
-thebhc
"Did not realize": this seems to be excuse enough these days. Little wonder conspiracy theories flourish when incompetence seems so ubiquitous in matters of great import.
Who can believe so much systemic and systematic retardation isn't actually the work of evil genius.
These days it takes a truly convoluted imagination to accept that our brightest are not necessarily our heralded best.
Rather, who is the genius who thought that dropping pigskin playthings onto Muslim populations
would not give offense? Or perhaps they didn't really want to avoid offense?
Hi Anon
The article is from a British rag, ergo its usage of the word football which means means soccer ball in our American English. Soccer balls, as far as I know, are made out of cowhide, not pigskin as is the case with many a Yankee football. If all of the above wasn't indeed the case at hand then sure, I'd also be grasping for the more conspiratorial approach to explaining this f*ck up. (Now of course, I'm assuming they dropped soccer balls and not American footballs, American football being a sport completely alien to the various folks of Afghanistan.
BTW, ain't there a Paris in Texas? ;)
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