Christmas in Afghanistan, Presidential Message on Jesus’ Birth

FoxNews had a headline article on Christmas highlighting “Christmas in Afghanistan.”  One of the more interesting parts of the article:

Afghans who support the coalition troops respect the holiday, [US Marine Chaplain (Capt) William] Kennedy said.

“We’re in a Muslim country, but the Muslims venerate Jesus as a prophet and the people I’ve met, whether it’s the locals or ANA (Afghan army), the mullahs, they respect the fact that we’re a religious people,” Kennedy told AFP.

(In a contrast to the Chaplain’s supportive perceptions of the local population, an activist group once tried to claim public American military celebrations of Easter were “convinc[ing] the Muslims we’re on a crusade.”) 

While Americans celebrated freely in Afghanistan, local Iraqi Christians “toned down” their Christmas celebrations in Iraq over fear of attacks.  It appears American military Read more

Commander Requests to be Relieved over Homosexual Policy

The WorldNetDaily is a right-leaning website that is most often hyperbolic and sensationalist.  It has a few bright spots, but even they can be clouded over by the overhyped presentation.

If one can look past the adjectives, however, they may be accurately reporting the request for relief of an Army Lieutenant Colonel over the recent repeal of the combined policy/law known as Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

The text of the commander’s letter to his superiors asking that he be relieved of command is included on the site.  It says in part  Read more

USAFA, Cadets for Christ Victims of Weinstein’s Hypocrisy

Chris Rodda, research assistant for Michael Weinstein’s Military Religious Freedom Foundation, recently guest-posted the MRFF’s latest salvo against “Cadets for Christ,” an Air Force Academy Christian cadet group Weinstein wants banned.  The self-described Research Director can’t even get basic facts correct.

The MRFF apparently has copies of emails sent from Don and Anna Warrick asking the recipients to send letters of support for Cadets for Christ to the Chaplains at USAFA.  The USAFA Chaplains had indicated they had received letters both supporting and criticizing the group.  Rodda summarizes:  Read more

Study: Fighter Pilots are Smarter

The University College London conducted a study comparing the brains of Royal Air Force fighter pilots with non-fighter pilots of “similar intelligence.”

The study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, found the pilots’ brains were more likely than the controls to have enhanced responses to both relevant and irrelevant stimuli…

Senior author Masud Husain said…”We were interested in the pilots because they’re often operating at the limits of human cognitive capability — they are an expert group making precision choices at high speed.”

So fighter pilots are smart.  Science proves it.

And they have the egos to match…

Join the Navy, See the World: Cricket

One of the oft-cited reasons for joining the US military is that it allows a person to see parts of the world they never would have otherwise.  They get to experience cultures and see sights few Americans do.  Such motivations have driven tours of Biblical lands by Soldiers deployed to the Middle East, trips to the Black Madonna in the Balkans, and even a paid hajj in the US Navy.

With all that culture in mind, Reuters recently published this:  Read more

Christian Values, Civic Conduct, and Hate

Chuck Colson recently wrote Playing the Hate Card, in which he made a quick reference to a point often made here:

Foremost on my list [of things to be thankful for] was the freedom we as Americans still enjoy to practice our religion. This includes the right to promote laws and leaders who uphold our values. (emphasis added)

Again, Christians are not obligated to allow those whose values are in opposition to their own to prevail simply because Christians have a religious foundation.  Even in a secular society, every citizen acts from their own moral foundation in their attempts to influence the social morality by promoting their own beliefs in the governance of society.  The fact that one person’s foundation may be “religious” and another’s “religious” in another form does not negate the value of the position itself.

Colson was speaking in reference to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Read more

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