Afghanistan Blog

This blog has great comments and photos from Afghanistan:
http://www.beloblog.com/KGW_Blogs/afghanistan/.

War and Hope

"I have had both the privilege and the angst of serving as a combatant in Afghanistan. I have also had the privilege and tension of serving as an ordained Christian minister at home," write John Krenson. "I have been caught in the literal and spiritual crossfire of contradictory questions: What is peace; what is war? Is peace simply the absence of war; is war a tool of love to protect human dignity from an immoral peace? How moral are we when we go to war; how moral are we when we don’t go to war?"

Read more at: http://donaldsensing.com/

Good Peacekeepers "Hard to Find"

"Although there are something like 75,000 peacekeepers on active duty today, already an all-time high, the demand is rising," reports Strategy Page. "But finding countries with troops suitable to peacekeeping is not easy."

Link:
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htun/articles/20060929.aspx

5,000 Year History of the Middle East...in 90 seconds:

This link takes you to an interesting map showing the history of the Middle East: http://www.mapsofwar.com/ind/imperial-history.html

Christianity During Wartime

During the recent Israel-Lebanon conflict, Lebanese Christians "realized the bloody conflict had renewed their deep commitment to the displaced," reports Christianity Today. For more information about how these Christians lived out their faith during wartime, see http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/010/13.130.html.

Military Chaplains' Prayer Meddled With?

"Let us pray that Congress stops meddling with military chaplains," opines one writer at the Washington Post about a provision in the House version of a bill that would permit military chaplains to offer explicitly sectarian prayers at public events.

Link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/20/AR2006092001798.html

Kamikaze Diaries

"What does a devout Christian do when his country’s authorities force him to become a suicide bomber?" writes Martin Roth. "If you’re World War II kamikaze pilot Ichizo Hayashi you write a final letter to your mother stating that 'for to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain' and you vow to 'be sure to sink an enemy vessel.' Then you fly off on your deadly mission with your Bible and hymn book.

"Hayashi’s tale is recounted in a remarkable book, Kamikaze Diaries ... It tells the stories of seven young men who were compelled to become kamikaze pilots – essentially airborne suicide bombers, flying into Allied warships (the Wikipedia entry on kamikaze is here) – by the Japanese military. Most of the seven had been students at elite universities, and they kept diaries, which form the basis of the book."

Link: http://www.martinrothonline.com/Christians&War/Christian_suicide_bomber.htm

USING TORTURE

World Magazine, a conservative evangelical mag, interviews a liberal evangelical professor, Randall Balmer, on a variety of topics. Here's what he had to say on the use of torture:

WORLD: You complain that "the torture of human beings, God's creatures—some guilty of crimes, others not—has been justified by the Bush administration. . . . The use of torture under any circumstances is a moral issue." ... if by applying some kind of physical pressure to a terrorist you could gain information that would lead to its location and disarming, would you do it?

BALMER: No, absolutely not, and I'm surprised that you would even suggest such a thing! I was under the impression that conservatives were allergic to utilitarian arguments; certainly that is what I learned from Paul Ramsey in graduate school. No Christian, he insisted, ever made an ethical decision solely on utilitarian grounds—what is the greatest good for the greatest number of people—especially if it compromises the worth and dignity of an individual. These are people who claim to be pro-life, who profess to hear a "fetal scream," yet they turn a deaf ear to the very real screams of human beings who are being tortured in our name.

Read the whole article at http://www.worldmag.com/articles/12240.

Religious Freedom

The U.S. State Department released its 2006 report on religious freedom around the world.

Here is the annual report: http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/72131.htm

Here is the country-by-country listing: http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2006/

An Astonishing Story
About an Astonishing Father-Son Team

Dick Hoyt is a retired military officer and father who completes marathons with his son Rick, who can't walk or talk. Their website states, "For the past twenty five years or more Dick, who is 65, has pushed and pulled his son across the country and over hundreds of finish lines."

For more on this remarkable story, see the Hoyts' website -- http://www.teamhoyt.com/ and a remarkable video clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryCTIigaloQ .

Muslim Leader: Forgive the Pope

A Muslim leader in Indonesia has "called on Indonesian Muslims on Monday to accept Pope Benedict XVI's apology for offending Muslims...
Hasyim said the regret was 'enough' and further resentment from the Muslims would only justify the pope's statement. 'If the rage continues, perhaps what the pope said is true,' he said."

Link: http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailheadlines.asp?fileid=20060919.@01&irec=0

Obsession: the Movie

Check out this documentary video on radical Islam's war against the West:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1211228663574416724&q=obsession+the+movie&hl=en

Muslim Reactions to Pope's Comments

Muslims around the world are protesting comments made by the Pope about Mohammed, and one influential scholar called for a "day of anger" on Friday. The Pope's controversial comments were quotations from a medieval text.

Links:

BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5356820.stm

Full Text of Pope's Comments: http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=46474

Other Opinions:
Islam, Like Christianity, Isn't Above Criticism:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml;jsessionid=KOGTH0YU3RVHVQFIQMGCFFOAVCBQUIV0?xml=/opinion/2006/09/18/dl1801.xml

14,000 Detainees

U.S. secret prisons may be holding as many as 14,000 detainees, according to http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/4193239.html.

Success Only Comes By Working Together

A British journalist writes, "Instead of pointing fingers, the fifth anniversary of 9/11 might be a good time to reverse course. If 'war on terrorism' has become an unpopular term, then call it something else...For whatever it's called, it won't succeed without both American and European support, without American and European mutual sympathy. And whatever it's called, if it fails, the consequences will be felt on both sides of the Atlantic."

Link:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/09/12/do1202.xml

Remembering 9-11

The victims: http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/memorial/

Winds of Change has a 9/11 info compilation: http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/009022.php

Theology for an Age of Terror: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/009/1.78.html

International opinions on 9-11 and the subsequent war on terror:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/5321414.stm

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As we remember the hatred that was showered on the U.S. on 9/11/2001, and the hatred of other acts of terror around the world, let us choose to be instruments of God's peace, even as we pursue justice:

Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace
Saint Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love,
Where there is injury, pardon
Where there is doubt, faith,
Where there is despair, hope,
Where there is darkness, light,
Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I
may not so much seek to be consoled
as to console,
not so much to be understood as to understand,
not so much to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
it is in dying that we awake to eternal life.

U.S. Detainees to get Geneva Convention Rights

Guantanamo detainees will be transferred and, "will get rights under the Geneva Convention once transferred to Pentagon custody", CNN reports. Additionally, President Bush acknowledges that the CIA has used secret prisons outside U.S. borders to hold terrorism suspects.

Link:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/09/06/bush.speech/index.html

Military-Related Videos

1. This video of a MiG-29 taking off and doing a few tricks shows clearly why little kids want to grow up to be pilots! http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1349697433246487433&q=mig-29

2. A soldier takes on a ram...and I think the ram won:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7873314177109677533

Why 9/11 Conspiracy Theories are Popular

One reason: "we need grand theories to make sense of grand events, or the world just seems too random."

Link:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1531304-1,00.html