Photo Credit: APThere are famously no atheists in foxholes, but some conservatives say that the American military is not giving a fair shake to soldiers, sailors and Marines who want to practice their faith and express their beliefs more openly.
The Family Research Council and more than a dozen other conservative and pro-family groups this month announced a renewed push in Congress for stronger legislative protection for religious military personnel to combat what they say is a threat to religious liberty in the nation’s armed forces. A report from the Family Research Council documented a range of events in the military — such as one in which an Air Force officer was told to remove a Bible from his desk — that the group said exposed a “growing hostility to religion.”
Critics say the charges are overblown and are part of a covert move to promote evangelical Christianity within the ranks, but the coalition says it has collected a number of examples of violations of religious liberty and expression inside the military.
“There is a growing list of cases and incidents that point to the fact that religious liberty in our nation’s military is under attack,” said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins.
One event detailed in the report described a soldier who was reprimanded for serving fare from Chick-fil-A — known for its owners’ strong Christian beliefs — and for making statements related to the federal law on same-sex marriage at his promotion party. Religious leaders have had invitations to speak at military events abruptly withdrawn, and military personnel have been ordered to remove religious signs and symbols.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-07-18 02:49:152016-04-11 11:19:01Proponents of Religion Push for More Freedom of Expression in the Military
Photo Credit: APSenate Republicans scrambled for cover Tuesday after Sens. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz partnered with a budding bipartisan coalition pushing the Pentagon to overhaul how it handles military sexual assault cases.
GOP lawmakers said they planned to quickly schedule a closed-door conference meeting to hear out the two tea party firebrands on their decision to cosponsor legislation removing the chain of command from military prosecutions, a measure the Pentagon opposes.
Republican leaders also will give Sen. Kelly Ayotte the floor at the meeting to explain an alternative approach adopted last month by the Armed Services Committee. The alternative also aims to reduce the number of unreported sexual assault cases – estimated around 23,000 last year – without stripping commanders of their authority to convene a court martial.
Several Republican lawmakers, including the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee Sen. Jim Inhofe and the panel’s former chairman, Sen. John McCain, are supporting the bill that passed out of committee…
Paul and Cruz are no strangers in pushing their Republican colleagues into uncomfortable terrain. Just look at what the Kentucky freshman did in March in staging a 13-hour filibuster over drone strikes on U.S. soil.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-07-17 02:34:372016-04-11 11:19:09Rand Paul, Ted Cruz Set Off GOP Scramble on Military Sex Assault
Photo Credit: Doug MillsWhen President Obama proclaimed that those who commit sexual assault in the military should be “prosecuted, stripped of their positions, court-martialed, fired, dishonorably discharged,” it had an effect he did not intend: muddying legal cases across the country.
In at least a dozen sexual assault cases since the president’s remarks at the White House in May, judges and defense lawyers have said that Mr. Obama’s words as commander in chief amounted to “unlawful command influence,” tainting trials as a result. Military law experts said that those cases were only the beginning and that the president’s remarks were certain to complicate almost all prosecutions for sexual assault.
“Unlawful command influence” refers to actions of commanders that could be interpreted by jurors as an attempt to influence a court-martial, in effect ordering a specific outcome. Mr. Obama, as commander in chief of the armed forces, is considered the most powerful person to wield such influence.
The president’s remarks might have seemed innocuous to civilians, but military law experts say defense lawyers will seize on the president’s call for an automatic dishonorable discharge, the most severe discharge available in a court-martial, arguing that his words will affect their cases.
“His remarks were more specific than I’ve ever heard a commander in chief get,” said Thomas J. Romig, a former judge advocate general of the Army and the dean of the Washburn University School of Law in Topeka, Kan. “When the commander in chief says they will be dishonorably discharged, that’s a pretty specific message. Every military defense counsel will make a motion about this.”
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-07-15 01:34:102016-04-11 11:19:15Obama’s Military Ignorance in Full Display: Unlawful Command Influence Taints Numerous DoD Trials
Photo Credit: shadysidelanternA 27-year veteran of the Utah Air National Guard said he was reprimanded after he wrote an email objecting to a gay wedding in the West Point chapel and was later told to prepare for retirement because his personal beliefs about homosexuality were not compatible with the military’s policies.
“The military is trying to make examples of people who have religious beliefs that homosexual conduct in the military is wrong,” said John Wells, an attorney representing TSgt. Layne Wilson. “The end game is to force conservative Christians out of the military.”
Last December Wilson wrote a letter to a person believed to be a chaplain at West Point. He stated his displeasure at news of a same-sex ceremony held in the Cadet Chapel.
“This is wrong on so many levels,” Wilson wrote. “If they wanted to get married in a hotel that is one thing. Our base chapels are a place of worship and this is a mockery to God and our military core values. I have proudly served 27 years and this is a slap in the face to us who have put our lives on the line for this country. I hope sir that you will take appropriate action so this does not happen again.”
Instead of responding to the private email, the Commandant of Cadets notified the Utah Air National Guard – leading to an accusation that he had brought disgrace and discredit upon the Air National Guard and his conduct was inconsistent with the United States Air Force.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00kathleenhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngkathleen2013-07-12 04:41:582016-04-11 11:19:2727-Year Veteran Punished for Objecting to Homosexual Marriage at West Point Chapel
Photo Credit: APWhite House Press Secretary Jay Carney apparently isn’t reading his hometown paper.
The Washington Post carried a fairly explosive story on Wednesday about a $34 million military headquarters in southwestern Afghanistan that probably will never be used by U.S. forces. A scathing inspector general letter was also released Wednesday morning on the war-zone boondoggle.
But asked on Thursday whether President Obama was outraged by the waste, Carney said he hadn’t heard anything about it.
“I would have to take the question. I haven’t seen the report,” Carney said.
He added: “But we’re obviously outraged by wasteful spending in general — again, I’m not aware of this report, or any specifics about the base that you described.”
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-07-12 04:20:232016-04-11 11:19:29What Boondoggle? Carney Unaware of $34M Military HQ Troops Won’t Use
Photo Credit: JTF GuantanamoThere is a clear and present danger to religious liberty within the military, says a coalition of groups who believe the Obama Administration is pushing a secular, anti-religious culture on the nation’s armed forces.
“Christians who choose to live out their faith find themselves incompatible with the secular view of this administration,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council. “We’re establishing a beach head for religious liberty and the evidence points to a very deliberate attack.”
Representatives of 14 groups concerned about religious liberty joined Reps. John Fleming R-La., Jim Bridenstine R-Okla., and Louie Gohmert R-Tex. on Capitol Hill to urge support for Fleming’s military religious freedom amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act.
The amendment protects the rights of servicemembers to not only hold religious beliefs but to act on them and speak about them. Fleming’s amendment has bipartisan support but the Obama Administration issued a statement “strongly objecting” to the legislation.
Photo Credit: APThe Pentagon’s effort to account for tens of thousands of Americans missing in action from foreign wars is so inept, mismanaged and wasteful that it risks descending from “dysfunction to total failure,” according to an internal study suppressed by military officials.
Largely beyond the public spotlight, the decades-old pursuit of bones and other MIA evidence is sluggish, often duplicative and subjected to too little scientific rigor, the report says.
The Associated Press obtained a copy of the internal study after Freedom of Information Act requests for it by others were denied.
The report paints a picture of a Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, a military-run group known as JPAC and headed by a two-star general, as woefully inept and even corrupt. The command is digging up too few clues on former battlefields, relying on inaccurate databases and engaging in expensive “boondoggles” in Europe, the study concludes.
In North Korea, the JPAC was snookered into digging up remains between 1996 and 2000 that the North Koreans apparently had taken out of storage and planted in former American fighting positions, the report said. Washington paid the North Koreans hundreds of thousands of dollars to “support” these excavations.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-07-08 01:31:182016-04-11 11:19:46Study: Pentagon’s MIA Recovery Program “Woefully Inept and Even Corrupt”
Photo Credit: APThe grieving parents of a 19-year-old Idaho woman who died serving her country thousands of miles from home say the U.S. Air Force won’t give them information about the circumstances of her death.
Airman 1st Class Kelsey Sue Anderson of Orofino died June 9, 2011, at Andersen Air Force Base on the island of Guam, a U.S. territory in the Pacific Ocean 3,300 miles west of Hawaii. The military has reported she committed suicide.
But Chris and Adelia Sue Anderson, her parents, filed a lawsuit last month in U.S. District Court to force the Air Force to respond to their Freedom of Information Act request seeking more information about how their daughter died.
The Andersons say their daughter, an avid soccer player and horseback rider who worked in her hometown’s flower shop before joining the military, was unhappy with her job as a security guard on Guam but neither distraught nor depressed in their final contacts days before her death. The arrival of an Air Force colonel at their home, accompanied by local sheriff’s officers from Clearwater County, to relay the terrible news was a bolt from the blue, they say.
“We just want to know what happened,” said Chris Anderson, who with his wife runs a hunting outfitting business in northcentral Idaho’s forests, in an interview Wednesday. “We don’t care if it’s good or bad, we just want closure so we can get on with our lives. It’s been two years with no answers.”
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-07-07 02:14:172016-04-11 11:19:50Grieving Parents Sue Air Force for Answers in Daughter’s Death
Photo Credit: APMore than 1,100 National Guard soldiers and airmen in Hawaii — and thousands in other states — will be living with 20 percent less pay over the next three months as the Defense Department carries out automatic federal budget cuts.
Guard members will be furloughed for one day a week starting Monday, so helicopter pilots and mechanics, pay and finance clerks and others who keep the guard operating will have eight hours less each week to do their jobs.
It’s not clear precisely what effects the unprecedented cuts will have. They could, however, make it more difficult for the guard to fly helicopters to help put out wildfires or rush to the scene of natural disasters in trucks.
“Our general sense is that short-term, it’s going to be a terrible hardship for those soldiers, airmen and their families. But if it goes on for any length of time, that may have a negative impact on our readiness and our ability to respond,” said Hawaii National Guard spokesman Lt. Col. Chuck Anthony.
The military’s furloughs were only supposed to involve civilians, but large numbers of National Guard members who wear Army and Air Force uniforms full-time will experience them as well. The National Guard added military technicians to the furlough list in May, after Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel gave official notice to begin furloughs for civilians.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-07-05 02:29:412016-04-11 11:19:58National Guard Troops and Staff to be Furloughed
Supporters of Egyptian president say military coup is underway
By Richard Engel, Charlene Gubash and Erin McClam. Armored cars, tanks and troops deployed in the Egyptian capital on Wednesday, and advisers said they had lost contact with President Mohammed Morsi in what they described as a military coup.
In a scene reminiscent of the earliest days of the Arab Spring, tens of thousands of Egyptians who had demanded the president’s ouster staged a jubilant celebration in Tahrir Square — dancing, cheering and setting off fireworks.
Earlier in the day, the president and the military each swore to fight to the death for control of the country, and a military deadline for Morsi to step aside came and went with no statement from the president.
“We swear to God to sacrifice with our blood for Egypt and its people against any terrorist, extremist or ignoramus,” the military said in a statement. “Long live Egypt and its proud people.”
The army took control of state television and sent troops to parts of Cairo where crowds sympathetic to Morsi had gathered. Supporters of the president said democracy was being subverted by a military intervention, and the Muslim Brotherhood, which backs Morsi, said some of its leaders had been arrested. Read more from this story HERE.
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23 Killed in Protests; Morsi Teeters…
By Fox News. Egypt teetered on the brink of overthrow late Tuesday after a defiant Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi rejected an ultimatum issued by the military and at least 23 people were reported killed in clashes between his supporters and opponents.
Defense officials have pledged to intervene if the government does not address public demands and end the political turmoil engulfing Cairo.
In a speech to the nation broadcast live late Tuesday, Morsi said he would not step down and would protect his “constitutional legitimacy” with his life.
The deadly clashes came just one day before the deadline set by the military for Morsi and his opponents to work out their differences.
The Associated Press reported that at least 23 people were killed in Cairo Tuesday and more than 200 injured, according to hospital and security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. Most of the killings took place outside Cairo University located at Cairo’s twin city of Giza. The official Al-Ahram website reported that the armed forces deployed armored vehicles to the area.
By Reem Abdellatif and Matt Bradley. Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi rejected protesters’ calls for him to step down, telling Egyptians in a late-night address that he is willing to give his life “to protect the legitimacy” of the country’s ballot box and Islamist-drafted constitution.
Without elaborating, he mentioned the possibility of parliamentary elections in six months, part of a list of proposals he said he would consider during talks with the opposition.
Moments later, antigovernment protesters in four provinces across Egypt chanted against the president, calling for him and his Muslim Brotherhood-backed party to leave, according to live footage. Antigovernment protests again swelled on Egypt’s streets, reaching millions, according to local media estimates, just hours ahead of the military’s Wednesday deadline for Mr. Morsi to patch relations with the country’s opposition.
Morsi supporters and antigovernment protesters clashed near Cairo University in the suburb of Giza late Tuesday, leaving at least four people dead, according to the Ministry of Health. The groups traded fire of rubber bullets and pellets in Cairo’s Kit Kat district, according to residents and local media.
The Obama administration has used U.S. diplomatic and military channels to deliver quiet messages and warnings to Mr. Morsi and Egyptian commanders to try to head off the crisis and avert any military coup, according to current and former officials. Read more from this story HERE.
‘All of you infidels will die’: Christians battle radical islamists in deadly Egypt clashes
By Billy Hallowell. The southern Egyptian city of Assiut has long been a haven for radical Islamists, and its Christian minority has largely kept a low profile. That all changed this weekend. These believers, who have been relegated and silenced for so long, have spoken up in the past few days — and with force.
An estimated crowd of 50,000 packed the streets this weekend to join protests calling for President Mohammed Morsi’s ouster, prompting a violent response that left three people dead.
The show of defiance can only be fairly measured in view of the city’s bloody history and the shifts in the local centers of power when Morsi became president a year ago, empowering many of the hard-line Islamist groups around the country, including those in Assiut.
The bloody end of the protest — 32 people were also injured — points to the high risks that Assiut residents, particularly Christians, face if they were to join the wave of opposition to Morsi’s rule that culminated Sunday when millions of Egyptians came out across the country to demand his ouster.
“I, my kids Mariam and Remon and my husband, Nabil, came out because we miss the Egypt we know and we want it back,” Assiut resident Mary Demian said. “These people (militant Muslims) say we are infidels and they terrorize us, but we are not scared. This is our nation and we have always lived with Muslims in peace.” Read more from this story HERE.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-07-03 03:38:282013-07-03 03:38:28Egypt Teeters on Brink of Overthrow, 23 Reported Killed in Protests; Update: Coup Now Underway (+video)
