God and Country

PFC Naser Abdo, the Islamic US Soldier turned conscientious objector turned bomb plotter, has been convicted of attempting to bomb a local Fort Hood restaurant and kill his fellow soldiers.

A federal jury Thursday convicted Abdo, a Muslim soldier, on six charges in connection with his failed plot to blow up a Texas restaurant full of Fort Hood troops, his religious mission to get “justice” for the people of Iraq and Afghanistan.

His confessed motivation?  Religion.  Read more…

The Department of Defense recently pulled courses from the Joint Forces Staff College that allegedly disparaged Islam.  Michael Weinstein tilted the irony meter with this response:

“This is simply a small cancer cell that is rapidly metastasizing,” he said. “This is representative of a larger more sinister force which is fundamentalist Christianity.”

To summarize the erroneously but self-described “religious freedom” advocate: Its wrong to paint Islam with a broad, stereotypical brush, but its ok to do the same thing to Christianity.  So says the man who decries characterizations of America being “at war” with Islam, but who himself is at “war” with Christians.

Weinstein’s apparent lack of cognitive dissonance Read more…

Dr. Russell Moore, Dean of the School of Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has an interesting and lengthy response to a chaplain’s letter asking if its ok not to pray in Jesus Name — one of the points of controversy for chaplains in the US military:

Praying in Jesus’ name isn’t simply a cultural addendum at the end of a request…We pray in Jesus’ name because Jesus commanded us to do so (Jn. 14:13)…

Moore notes that men of faith are expected to pray in accordance with their faith.  No one expects a Muslim to pray like an Episcopalian, just Read more…

A group of West Point cadets recently bunked at a mosque and attended Islamic prayers as part of an ongoing course called “Winning the Peace.”  The 23 cadets traveled to Jersey City, where they attended religious events associated with Islam, Coptic Christianity, Judaism, and Hinduism.

During the visit to Jersey City, the 23 cadets in the class stay overnight at a mosque and attend Islamic prayers. They also Read more…

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey has reportedly ordered the entire Department of Defense to review its military education materials for content that might be offensive to Islam.

The order was precipitated by an elective course called “Perspectives on Islam and Islamic Radicalism,” offered Read more…

US Army PFC Naser Abdo, arrested in July 2011 while allegedly collecting supplies to bomb and shoot Fort Hood soldiers, reportedly confessed shortly after he was arrested.  His lawyers unsuccessfully tried to get the confession ruled inadmissible.

[U.S. District Judge Walter Smith] rejected a defense motion to throw out a confession from the soldier accused of planning to bomb a Texas restaurant filled with Fort Hood troops…

Prior to this point, Abdo had been fairly defiant, and he didn’t seem to shy telling the police what his plans were:

“So I’m AWOL … and I was planning an attack here in the Fort Hood community,” Abdo says in the recording…  Read more…

A group of US Army Africa chaplains have been engaging with the Liberian Armed Forces to help their chaplaincy:

Chaplain (Maj.) Allen Staley, and Command Chap. (Col.) Gary Brown …worked with more than 20 Liberian Armed Forces chaplains during a Chaplain Professionalization Seminar in Monrovia, Liberia.

The US military is helping Liberia develop its own chaplaincy, and they’re Read more…

Antonio Martinez attempted to detonate what he thought was a car bomb outside a recruiting center in Baltimore.  He pled guilty in January and has been sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Martinez said in a lengthy apology that he knew little of Islam when he was arrested and “all I had was a religious zeal.” Martinez repeatedly said that he has “renounced the misguidance of terrorism” and that the religion is not one “anyone in this courtroom should be afraid of.”

Martinez’s attempted bombing is one of 12 attempted or successful attacks on the US military by those apparently motivated by their Islamic faith, four of whom were Read more…

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council notes that a US servicemember raised the “rainbow flag” over an American base in Afghanistan, as indicated by the serviceman’s wife’s Facebook post:

The flag is recognizable as the symbol for the homosexual “movement,” though it remains unclear why someone needs a flag to advertise the fact they’re sexually Read more…

Terrence Jeffrey at CNS News asks an interesting question:

Is President Barack Obama more deferential to the religious sensibilities of Afghan Muslims or the religious freedom of American Catholics?

Read his answer.

While stories of political insensitivity or incorrectness sometimes shock the public (or political) conscience, those within the military often find such displays far less offensive — or rare.

A few years ago, US Air Force F-15 pilot 1Lt Ali Jivanjee was killed in an F-15 training accident.  He was a Muslim fighter pilot who took it upon himself to sign his name “Jihad” — apparently because he’d been “teased” (hazed? bullied?) about his first and middle names being “Ali Akbar” (similar to “Allahu akbar,” a phrase often connected to “jihadists,” for those that don’t make the connection).

His F-15 peers eventually named him “Danny Boy,” because he “needed a good Irish name.”

A fighter squadron is definitely not a bastion of political correctness, or cultural sensitivity.

A recent Military.com article notes the same theme throughout much of the rest of the military.  Makers of accoutrements — including unofficial military uniform patches — with variations of “American infidel” on them are doing gangbuster business:  Read more…

The Jewish online magazine Tablet covers the story of US Army Chaplain (LtCol) Larry Bazer, who recently returned from a deployment as the “only Jewish chaplain in Afghanistan.”

The article contains some interesting commentaries on the chaplaincy in general, as well as some specifics related to life as a Jewish chaplain:

The [Camp Phoenix] chapel, said Bazer, “was a cozy little place”: a small, nondescript room built of plywood. During the day it was devoid of any religious symbols, but during the evenings a few crosses would turn it into a Protestant chapel, or some icons into a Catholic church. On Friday nights, candles and challah—sent each month by the “challah lady,” a Long Island Jewish woman—made it a synagogue.

Chaplain Bazer’s congregations varied from none to nearly 20 as he traveled Afghanistan as the only Jewish Read more…

Admiral James A. Lyons (Retired) served as the commander of the US Navy’s Pacific fleet when he retired in 1987.  Since then, he has frequently spoken on the military and foreign policy issues, mincing few words when he has done so.  He is an associate in the production of Sharia: The Threat to America, which includes James Woolsey and LtGen (Ret) Jerry Boykin among its contributors.

Most recently, Adm Lyons took President Obama to task for forcing the US military to submit to Islam:

The recent contrived uproar over the inadvertent burning of the Koran…should be seen for what it is: a power-play tactic to make our military forces more submissive to the dictates of Islam, Read more…

A rebuilt mosque in Afghanistan is now the “centerpiece of the local government” — with the aid of the US Marines.

Marine Capt. Jesse Hills…was the project manager for the refurbishment. He was responsible for finding out what exactly was needed to repair the mosque: the time and resources Read more…

The “training” US troops received on how to handle the Koran in Afghanistan closed with this bold-faced, 48-pt font quote on the last slide:

“We will hold sacred the beliefs held sacred by others.”

That was probably a typo, since under the US Constitution the United States officially holds no beliefs sacred; instead, it protects the rights of each citizen to Read more…