Atheists in the army

Freedom of religion in the USA is supposed to include freedom from religion. The Establishment Clause is supposed to apply to all Americans, including the troops. This is a basic right granted by the Constitution.

Ironically, the troops are the people making the greatest sacrifices in the name of freedom. Yet, the army is becoming a place of evangelizing to Jewish and Islamic troops. God forbid one be an atheist!

Last summer, US Army Specialist Jeremy Hall got permission to post fliers at Speicher base in Iraq announcing a meeting for atheists and other nonbelievers. When the meeting got underway, Hall's Army major supervisor disrupted the meeting and threatened to retaliate against Hall, including blocking his reenlistment in the Army. Earlier, he had been publicly berated by a staff sergeant for not agreeing to join in a prayer.

This intolerance in the military is not restricted to the Army and aimed only at atheists. In the 1990s, the Air Force published a Little Blue Book of core values highlighting religious tolerance. Nonetheless, it was discovered in 2004 that some faculty and staff at the Air Force Academy (AFA) in Colorado Springs, Colo., had significant problems with evangelizing cadets. It was reported that Lt. Gen. William Boykin visited churches in uniform and gave inflammatory speeches. Speaking of a Muslim warlord he had pursued, Boykin said, "I knew my God was a real God and his was an idol," and our enemies "will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus."

Among those feeling the heat was the son of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation's (MRFF) founder, Michael Weinstein, a former Air Force judge advocate and assistant counsel in the Reagan White House. His son, a Jew and a cadet at the AFA, was subjected to Christian evangelizing. Another alumnus of the AFA, Col. David Antoon (ret.), took his son to an orientation at the AFA in 2004. His son, Ryan, experienced an overt evangelistic approach during part of the orientation.

So what's a more tenable situation: to be a Jew or a Muslim in the US military? It seems that neither one is. But when it comes to being an atheist in the Army, you'd best follow the policy for gays: 'don't ask, don't tell.'

Islam in the 21st century

My father used to pose two questions about the Jewish sabbath to me for pondering. The sabbath begins Fridays at sunset and end the next day at sunset. If a Jewish person were to live exactly at the South Pole and use the clock to time when to begin and end observing the sabbath, which time zone would he choose? If he were to instead time the sabbath using the actual setting of the sun, a single sabbath would last for months instead of hours in the winter.

Space travel creates a similar dilemma for Muslim astronauts. With the start of Ramadan, Islamic astronauts must fast from sunrise to sunset. That's only ninety minutes in orbit. And the praying postures -- standing, bowing, kneeling, and prostrating -- are a challenge in zero gravity.

To address such issues, the Department of Islamic Development in the Malaysian National Space Agency (MNSA) held a two-day conference in 2006. The conference produced A Guideline of Performing Ibadah at the International Space Station (ISS). The solutions they came up with for Ibadah seem quite arbitrary. It's as if religious symbolism is suddenly irrelevant when it's inconvenient.

For example, if the schedule on the ISS conflicts with the daily prayers, Muslim astronauts could perform them "in Jamak (combined) and Qasar (shortened), without the need to Qadha' (compensate) the prayer." It's as if the Department of Islamic Development prioritizes the ISS mission over Islamic duty. "Using the eye lid as an indicator of the changing of postures in prayer" is their solution to prayer in zero gravity. You can't make this up, folks! Insofar as determining the direction of Qibla (facing Mecca during prayer) is concerned, if you don't choose one of their first three options, you can face "wherever."

The timing of the prayers and fasting are both dealt with the same way. The Muslim astronaut calculates it according to a 24-hour cycle based on the time zone of where they launched off the planet. Although a pragmatic approach, what does this say of the validity of the religious symbolism behind the Earth-based rules?

A Muslim must perform ritual washing before worship. They can't get away with it on the ISS because the only thing more precious than water is oxygen. Instead, they perform tayammum (dry ablution) "by striking both palms of hands on a clean surface such as wall or mirror." Again, I'm not making this up!

Pork and alcohol are prohibited in the Muslim diet. If there's any question as to whether or not the food served on the ISS is halal (anything permissible under Islamic law), the Muslim astronaut is permitted to eat on a "basis of not to starve." That's very thoughtful of the MNSA. Visits to the ISS typically last well over forty days.

We also learn from the Department of Islamic Development that, "according to Islam, traveling to space is encouraged." Apparently, Mohammed had foresight centuries ahead of his time. I'm curious to know on which passages of the Q'uran this edict is based.

So the next time you think the Amish have it tough in contemporary American society, try being faithful to Islam in the 21st century.

Insurgent attacks remain high throughout 'surge'

In his weekly radio address yesterday, president Bush spoke about the briefing he received from General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker regarding the 'surge.' He said, "They told me about the progress they're seeing across Iraq." The primary purpose for the surge was to quell insurgent attacks so that the Iraqi government could make political progress. Apparently Petraeus and Crocker were not debriefed by the Defense Intelligence Agency regarding the incidence of insurgent attacks the past six months in Iraq. The report evidences that insurgent attacks against Iraqis, Iraqi security forces, and Coalition troops remain high.

Soothsayer Cheney

Just before president Bush ordered an invasion of Iraq, Tim Russert interviewed vice president Dick Cheney on Meet the Press. Russert stated, "The army's top general said that we would have to have several hundred thousand troops there for several years in order to maintain stability." Cheney responded:

I disagree. We need, obviously, a large force and we've deployed a large force. To prevail, from a military standpoint, to achieve our objectives, we will need a significant presence there until such time as we can turn things over to the Iraqis themselves. But to suggest that we need several hundred thousand troops there after military operations cease, after the conflict ends, I don't think is accurate. I think that's an overstatement.

Four and a half years have passed since Bush declared "major combat operations in Iraq have ended." Bush has 'surged' over 150,000 troops into Iraq, and there's no indication that he'll be withdrawing them any time soon. This is yet another of Cheney's expert prognostications on the war.

With his track record at foretelling the results of invading Iraq, Cheney is a shoo-in as a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom Award from Bush.

Governor Mike Huckabee claims knowledge that America has used torture for interrogation

Alan Colmes, with Sean Hannity, was interviewing Governor Mike Huckabee on FOX News following the Presidential Debate. At 8:30, Colmes asked Huckabee if he, as President, would use torture to extract intelligence about an imminent terrorist attack on America. In the process, he made the point that John McCain says that accurate information cannot be extracted by torture. Huckabee countered that point by claiming, "we have received good solid information from individuals from doing things of the nature you're describing, and saved American lives because of it." The nature of things Colmes was talking about was torture. If Huckabee is not lying, he would be able to provide evidence that we have interrogated people using torture. Regardless of who he's referring to as "we," if such evidence exists, I think Huckabee's supporters, not to mention any other voting American, would be very interested in seeing it.

Bush abolishes Amendment IV of the Constitution

Last week, president Bush issued another Executive Order: Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq. It sounds harmless enough by its title. After all, doesn't everyone want Iraq to be stabilized? When you understand what Bush wants Americans to sacrifice, it doesn't sound so good anymore.

The order unilaterally gives the Bush administration the power to prevent Americans from "transferring, paying, exporting, withdrawing, or otherwise dealing in" their own "property and interests in property." Of course, this does not apply to any American, only those who the administration has determined:

1. to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence that have the purpose or effect of threatening stabilization efforts in Iraq,
2. to have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, logistical, or technical support for, or goods or services in support of, such an act or acts, or
3. to be owned or controlled by, or to have acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order.

No law abiding American would do such a thing. However, it is not a court of law that determines whether or not someone is threatening stabilization efforts in Iraq; the Bush administration arbitrarily does, and their track record for decision-making is abysmal. Furthermore, "there need be no prior notice of a listing or determination made pursuant to ... this order."

The devil is in the details. The administration does not need to determine that someone has committed such acts, only that they "pose a significant risk of committing" them. How could someone objectively determine this? Or the administration can decide that someone has "provided financial, material, logistical, or technical support" for such acts. What if someone were contracted to, for example, provide technical support for computer systems to be used to destabilize Iraq without knowing they would be used that way? Someone could even be subjected to this order if they're "controlled by ... directly or indirectly" someone else subject to it. That means, hypothetically, an employee of someone who the administration determined is threatening stabilization efforts in Iraq could have their property seized, even if they had no knowledge of their employer's activity.

This executive order is very broad reaching and replete with ambiguity. It effectively makes it very easy for the Bush administration to completely block an American's control over all of their own property without a judgment in a court of law. The criteria the administration applies are highly subjective and completely evaluated according to Bush's standards, so they could easily subject someone to this order who has no knowledge whatsoever of any kind of activities intended to destabilize Iraq.

Bush has established yet another executive order which contradicts the Bill of Rights. This one conflicts directly with Amendment IV, which says:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Al Qaeda's incredible comeback

Al Qaeda has seemingly managed an overwhelming turnaround. The Pentagon reported earlier this year that its attempts before going to war in Iraq to establish links between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda were contrary to the findings of the intelligence community. In 2005, a CSIS study found that 90% to 96% of the insurgents in Iraq were Iraqi nationals, not foreign elements. Iraq was the location where al Qaeda was having the greatest difficulty establishing a significant presence, even a couple of years after invading it.

Before deserting Afghanistan to invade Iraq, the Bush administration claimed to have decimated al Qaeda leadership, frozen all of its foreign-held assets, and destroyed its bases of operations. Now the latest news is that, in the heat of America's troop surge into Iraq, there are still too few men hunting al Qaeda. It's widely reported that al Qaeda is entrenched in Pakistan, established a stronghold in Iraq, resurged in Afghanistan, and infiltrated England. Could "al Qaeda" have truly mastered such an amazing comeback?