Foxes find holes

A story doing the rounds in the US press (here) about the erstwhile Iraqi veteran who, in declaring himself to be atheistic, finds himself under attack from his alleged comrades (perhaps not a word you would use in the Amercian military).
Having to be put under protection because of his open atheism, there are huge questions here about what sort of society America actually promotes when it can't even tolerate a modicum of difference amongst its own.
We are not talking here apparently about a couple of fundies from the wild hills of Kentucky..or is that Dakota...or are they Black Hills...but you get the point. But ranking officers who tell an atheist who doesn't want to pray that he is some how threatening the glorious constitution, or that when a couple of them want to meet together to discuss their common plight they are some how threatening the war effort.
It makes the Australian Christian Lobby (here) look positively smart by comparison.
More significantly it suggests how ill-founded this particular Iraqi war is.
In the minds of many in power not about democracy at all, but about some curious religious view which doesn't tolerate difference even amongst its own.
The problem is not that people shoudn't be allowed to hold whacky or inconsistent views; the problem is that when it is officers who hold people's lives in the palms of their hands, and they are manifestly confused about what they are on about.
Here for example

in July, while still in Iraq, Hall organized a meeting of the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers. According to Hall, after things began, Maj. Freddy Welborn disrupted the meeting with threats saying he might bring charges against Hall for conduct detrimental to good order and discipline, and that Hall was disgracing the Constitution. (Err, I think the major has that backward.) Welborn has denied the allegations, but the New York Times reports that another soldier at the meeting said that Hall's account was accurate.

What sort of democracy, freedom, religion, tolerance etc.etc is being promoted?
This stuff, to my mind, is slippery.....and really really scary!