'Bible codes' on Afghan army guns

Al Jazeera's David Chater reports on the implications of the religious gun sights US-made rifles inscribed with Bible codes are being used by US forces and Afghans to fight the Taliban. The weapons come from Trijicon, a manufacturer based in Wixom, Michigan, that supplies the US military. The company's now deceased founder, Glyn Bandon, started the practice which continues today. David Chater, Al Jazeera's correspondent in the Afghan capital Kabul, said: "It is a rallying cry for the Taliban. It gives them a propaganda tool. "They've always tried to paint the US efforts in Afghanistan as a Christian campaign." 'Disturbing' General David Petraeus, the chief of the US Central Command, which oversees US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, called the inscriptions, which he said he only learnt about on Wednesday, "disturbing". The inscriptions do not include actual text from the Bible but refer numerically to passages "This is a serious concern to me and the other commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan because it indeed conveys a perception that is absolutely contrary to what we have sought to do," he said at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington on Thursday. A Nato spokesman in Afghanistan acknowledged that the inscriptions were inappropriate but said the guns would .... Source: Al Jazeera and agencies for more Visit : http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/01/20101211239216652.html