Our military does to little in teaching religious tolerance. We have had a string of losses in dealing with Islamic countries from Viet Nahm to Iraq and Afghanistan. Although we claim victory in those countries, we only won the opportunity to provide monetary support after we left. There was no political or human rights change won in any of those countries.
The biggest drag on our ability to win in Islamic countries is our ingrained belief that Christianity is the only true religion coupled with the fact that most Christians are ignorant as to what Christianity is. Christians seem to think that if they read the Koran that some monster would envelope them and steal their religion when in fact the major difference between the two religions is the manner in which they pray and the importance that they ascribe certain aspects which both religions have in common.
Just as you have John, Luke and Mathew describing Jesus in the New Testament, you have The Tora, The Bible and The Koran describing a common religion.
We will always have those that hate just because someone is different, but our military can head off some of these events (U.S. soldier kills 16 Afghan civilians) by teaching and making religious tolerance classes mandatory before deployment to Islamic countries. Maybe then we could win enough to make the sacrifice worth the cost in American lives.
