Religion Dispatches
…proved herself to be a sexual puritan, but the masturbation clip shouldn’t be re-told with too much glee about discovering “the crazy.” But does she still think women serving in Iraq or Afghanistan endanger our national security? That seems like, uh, fertile ground for determining just how far her views on sex and sexuality go. …
Read More…ut that’s just it. Barring an announcement that the US is withdrawing from Afghanistan, or that Obama has decided to nationalize JPMorgan Chase, there’s literally not a thing I can think of that would surprise me in this speech. I am 99% confident that the president will not say anything that will change my life in any kind of ultimate sense. Sure, he may put forward some noble challenge to inspire the nation—after Kennedy, all the presidents thin…
Read More
…talk of China, Russia, Venezuela, Mexico, Israel, Iran, Germany, Ukraine, Afghanistan, the Middle East, Yemen, and those faceless “migrants” coming from countries where, according to Trump, violence is actually down (due, we’re left to assume, to their departure). You see, Harris touted that there were no “American military boots on the ground around the world,” as though the US doesn’t have a whopping 750 military bases in at least 80 countries…
Read More
…lity. . . . Every day we are moving further in,” but also calling Ukraine “Afghanistan,” and “the land of nobody.” Afterwards, Dreher caved to the pressure, changing his account of the meeting yet claiming he had only “clarified” the quotes to reflect the fact that Orbán “was clearly joking.” According to The Bulwark, there were two other accounts of the meeting—both in German. The first links to a right-wing German blog called Tichy’s Einblick (T…
Read More
…companied by a full black garment. The burqa is specific to the regions of Afghanistan, but sometimes the term gets called in for any extreme forms of covering outside of the countries in which it is culturally prevalent. There are three angles to consider with this issue. For one thing, there is the perspective of the French authorities, the ones taking the matter to court, eyeballing photos or drawings of the offensive garments. Then there is th…
Read More
…s on all of their sights being sold to the US military for use in Iraq and Afghanistan. The company’s website still says, “We believe that America is great when its people are good. This goodness has been based on Biblical standards throughout our history and we will strive to follow those morals.” This idea is everywhere—guns and God, hand in hand. It is not harmless, though. This is the level of Christian nationalism the United States has decide…
Read More…ves. One blogger even called him prophetic. But Ron Paul has made a career promoting positions that, while internally consistent, sooner or later infuriate those on both the left and the right. Focusing on how he infuriates the right: Paul’s views on foreign policy are consistently non-interventionist. He holds that the Constitution prohibits US involvement anywhere in the world unless America is directly threatened. That goes for Iraq, Afghanista…
Read More
…i ideology—or rather the world view of cosmic war that the jihadi rhetoric promoted—is a different matter. This view of the world as a tangle of sacred warfare has been an exciting and alluring image among a large number of mostly young and largely male Muslims around the world for over a decade. It is an image that was brought to dramatic attention by the September 11, 2001 attacks, and stimulated by the perception that US military actions in Afg…
Read More…s and/or Muslims are demographic majorities—including Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. Comments during this meeting in Cairo showed that there are many in Europe who choose to ignore that—and they do so at their own peril. The second, and perhaps most important problem considering the new openness spreading across the Arab world, is that the West tends to act before it listens. This is a new day, in a new world, and it’s not entirely c…
Read More…other critics predicted if the ban was lifted. Amos was visiting troops in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province when President Barack Obama signed the repeal in late December. He said he addressed some 12,000 Marines about the change and “everyone said, ‘Sir, we got it. We’re going to do this thing.’” Military chaplains also went ballistic over the repeal, saying their “religious freedom” would be violated by having to care for gay and lesbian soldiers….
Read More