Veterans for Common Sense

January 13, 2008 – It’s a presidential campaign like no other. The candidates have been falling all over each other in their rush to declare the depth and sincerity of their religious faith. The pundits have been just as eager to raise questions that seem obvious and important: Should we let religious beliefs influence the making of law and public policy? If so, in what way and to what extent? Those questions, however, assume that candidates bring the subject of faith into the political arena largely to justify — or turn up the heat under — their policy positions. In fact, faith talk often has little to do with candidates’ stands on the issues. There’s something else going on here.

Look at the TV ad that brought Mike Huckabee out of obscurity in Iowa, the one that identified him as a “Christian Leader” who proclaims: “Faith doesn’t just influence me. It really defines me.” That ad did indeed mention a couple of actual political issues — the usual suspects, abortion and gay marriage — but only in passing. Then Huckabee followed up with a red sweater-themed Christmas ad that actively encouraged voters to ignore the issues. We’re all tired of politics, the kindly pastor indicated. Let’s just drop all the policy stuff and talk about Christmas — and Christ.

Ads like his aren’t meant to argue policy. They aim to create an image — in this case, of a good Christian with a steady moral compass who sticks to his principles. At a deeper level, faith-talk ads work hard to turn the candidate — whatever candidate — into a bulwark of solidity, a symbol of certainty; their goal is to offer assurance that the basic rules for living remain fixed, objective truths, as true as religion.

In a time when the world seems like a shaky place — whether you have a child in Iraq, a mortgage you may not be able to meet, a pension threatening to head south, a job evaporating under you, a loved one battling drug or alcohol addiction, an ex who just came out as gay or born-again, or a president you just can’t trust — you may begin to wonder whether there is any moral order in the universe. Are the very foundations of society so shaky that they might not hold up for long? Words about faith — nearly any words — speak reassuringly to such fears, which haunt millions of Americans.

These fears and the religious responses to them have been a key to the political success of the religious right in recent decades. Randall Balmer, a leading scholar of evangelical Christianity, points out that it’s offered not so much “issues” to mobilize around as “an unambiguous morality in an age of moral and ethical uncertainty.”

Mitt Romney was courting the evangelical-swinging-toward-Huckabee vote when he, too, went out of his way to link religion with moral absolutes in his big Iowa speech on faith. Our “common creed of moral convictions… the firm ground on which Americans of different faiths meet” turned out, utterly unsurprisingly, to be none other than religious soil: “We believe that every single human being is a child of God… liberty is a gift of God.” No doubts allowed here.

American politicians have regularly wielded religious language and symbolism in their moments of need, and such faith talk has always helped provide a sense of moral certainty in a shape-shifting world. But in the better years of the previous century, candidates used religion mostly as an adjunct to the real meat of the political process, a tool to whip up support for policies.

How times have changed. Think of it, perhaps, as a way to measure the powerful sense of unsettledness that has taken a firm hold on American society. Candidates increasingly keep their talk about religion separate from specific campaign issues. They promote faith as something important and valuable in and of itself in the election process. They invariably avow the deep roots of their religious faith and link it not with issues, but with certitude itself.

Sometimes it seems that Democrats do this with even more grim regularity than Republicans. John Edwards, for example, reassured the nation that “the hand of God today is in every step of what happens with me and every human being that exists on this planet.” In the same forum, Hillary Clinton proclaimed that she “had a grounding in faith that gave me the courage and the strength to do what I thought was right, regardless of what the world thought. And that’s all one can expect or hope for.”

When religious language enters the political arena in this way, as an end in itself, it always sends the same symbolic message: Yes, Virginia (or Iowa or New Hampshire or South Carolina) there are absolute values, universal truths that can never change. You are not adrift in a sea of moral chaos. Elect me and you’re sure to have a fixed mooring to hold you and your community fast forever.

That message does its work in cultural depths that arguments about the separation of church and state can never touch. Even if the candidates themselves don’t always understand what their words are doing, this is the biggest, most overlooked piece in today’s faith and politics puzzle — and once you start looking for it, you find it nearly everywhere on the political landscape.

The Threat to Democracy

So, when it comes to religion and politics, here’s the most critical question: Should we turn the political arena into a stage to dramatize our quest for moral certainty? The simple answer is no — for lots of reasons.

For starters, it’s a direct threat to democracy. The essence of our system is that we, the people, get to choose our values. We don’t discover them inscribed in the cosmos. So everything must be open to question, to debate, and therefore to change. In a democracy, there should be no fixed truth except that everyone has the right to offer a new view — and to change his or her mind. It’s a process whose outcome should never be predictable, a process without end. A claim to absolute truth — any absolute truth — stops that process.

For those of us who see the political arena as the place where the whole community gathers to work for a better world, it’s even more important to insist that politics must be about large-scale change. The politics of moral absolutes sends just the opposite message: Don’t worry, whatever small changes are necessary, it’s only in order to resist the fundamental crumbling that frightens so many. Nothing really important can ever change.

Many liberals and progressives hear that profoundly conservative message even when it’s hidden beneath all the reasonable arguments about church and state. That’s one big reason they are often so quick to sound a shrill alarm at every sign of faith-based politics.

They also know how easy it is to go from “there is a fixed truth” to “I have that fixed truth.” And they’ve seen that the fixed truth in question is all too often about personal behaviors that ought to be matters of free choice in a democracy.

Which brings us to the next danger: Words alone are rarely enough to reassure the uncertain. In fact, the more people rely on faith talk to pursue certainty, the more they may actually reinforce both anxiety and uncertainty. It’s a small step indeed to move beyond the issue of individual self-control to controlling others through the passage of laws.

Campaigns to put the government’s hands on our bodies are not usually missionary efforts meant to make us accept someone else’s religion. They are much more often campaigns to stage symbolic dramas about self-control and moral reassurance.

Controlling the Passions

American culture has always put a spotlight on the question: Can you control your impulses and desires — especially sexual desires — enough to live up to the moral rules? As historian of religion John F. Wilson tells us, the quest for surety has typically focused on a “control of self” that “through discipline” finally becomes self-control. In the 2008 presidential campaign, this still remains true. Listen, for example, to Barack Obama: “My Bible tells me that if we train a child in the way he should go, when he is old he will not turn from it. So I think faith and guidance can help fortify… a sense of reverence that all young people should have for the act of sexual intimacy.”

Mitt Romney fit snugly into the same mold. He started his widely-heralded statement on religion by talking about a time when “our nation faced its greatest peril,” a threat to “the survival of a free land.” Was he talking about terrorism? No. He immediately went on to warn that the real danger comes from “human passions unbridled.” Only morality and religion can do the necessary bridling, he argued, quoting John Adams to make his case: “Our constitution was made for a moral and religious people” — in other words, people who can control themselves. That’s why “freedom requires religion.”

All too often, though, the faith-talk view of freedom ends up taking away freedom. When Romney said he’d be “delighted” to sign “a federal ban on all abortions,” only a minority of Americans approved of that position (if we can believe the polls), but it was a sizeable minority. For them, fear of unbridled passion is stronger than any commitment to personal freedom.

In the end, it may be mostly their own passions that they fear. But since the effort to control oneself is frustrating, it can easily turn into a quest for “control over other selves,” to quote historian Wilson again, “with essentially bipolar frameworks for conceiving of the world: good versus bad, us versus them” — “them” being liberals, secular humanists, wild kids, or whatever label the moment calls for.

The upholders of virtue want to convince each other that their values are absolutely true. So they stick together and stand firm against those who walk in error. As Romney put it, “Any person who has knelt in prayer to the Almighty has a friend and ally in me.”

That’s the main dynamic driving the movements to ban abortion and gay marriage. But they’re just the latest in a long line of such movements, including those aimed at prohibiting or restricting alcohol, drugs, gambling, birth control, crime, and other behaviors that are, in a given period, styled as immoral.

Since it’s always about getting “them” to control their passions, the target is usually personal behavior. But it doesn’t have to be. Just about any law or policy can become a symbol of eternal moral truth — even foreign policy, one area where liberals, embarked on their own faith-talk campaigns, are more likely to join conservatives.

The bipartisan war on terror has, for instance, been a symbolic drama of “us versus them,” acting out a tale of moral truth. Rudolph Giuliani made the connection clear shortly after the 9/11 attack when he went to the United Nations to whip up support for that “war.” “The era of moral relativism… must end,” he demanded. “Moral relativism does not have a place in this discussion and debate.”

Nor does it have a place in the current campaign debate about foreign policy. Candidate Huckabee, for example, has no hesitation about linking war abroad to the state of morality here at home. He wants to continue fighting in Iraq, he says, because “our way of life, our economic and moral strength, our civilization is at stake… I am determined to look this evil in the eye, confront it, defeat it.” As his anti-gay marriage statement asks, “What’s the point of keeping the terrorists at bay in the Middle East, if we can’t keep decline and decadence at bay here at home?”

On the liberal side, the theme is more muted but still there. Barack Obama, for instance, has affirmed that the U.S. must “lead the world in battling immediate evils and promoting the ultimate good. I still believe that America is the last, best hope of Earth.” Apparently that’s why we need to keep tens of thousands of troops in Iraq indefinitely. Clinton calls for “a bipartisan consensus to ensure our interests, increase our security and advance our values,” acting out “our deeply-held desire to remake the world as it ought to be.” Apparently that’s why, in her words, “we cannot take any option off the table in sending a clear message to the current leadership of Iran.”

When words and policies become symbols of moral absolutes, they are usually about preventing some “evil” deed or turning things back to the way they (supposedly) used to be. So they are likely to have a conservative impact, even when they come from liberals.

The Future of Faith Talk

In itself, faith in politics poses no great danger to democracy as long as the debates are really about policies — and religious values are translated into political values, articulated in ways that can be rationally debated by people who don’t share them. The challenge is not to get religion out of politics. It’s to get the quest for certitude out of politics.

The first step is to ask why that quest seems increasingly central to our politics today. It’s not simply because a right-wing cabal wants to impose its religion on us. The cabal exists, but it’s not powerful enough to shape the political scene on its own. That power lies with millions of voters across the political spectrum. Candidates talk about faith because they want to win votes.

Voters reward faith talk because they want candidates to offer them symbols of immutable moral order. The root of the problem lies in the underlying insecurities of voters, in a sense of powerlessness that makes change seem so frightening, and control — especially of others — so necessary.

The only way to alter that condition is to transform our society so that voters will feel empowered enough to take the risks, and tolerate the freedom that democracy requires. That would be genuine change. It’s a political problem with a political solution. Until that solution begins to emerge, there is no way to take the conservative symbolic message of faith talk out of American politics.

Ira Chernus is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder and author of Monsters To Destroy: The Neoconservative War on Terror and Sin.

January 14, 2008

Interviewee:  Anthony H. Cordesman, Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy, Center for International and Strategic Studies

Interviewer:  Bernard Gwertzman, Consulting Editor

Anthony H. Cordesman, a leading expert on military and security developments in Iraq and Afghanistan, says that despite some gains, the situation in both countries remains tenuous. He says the majority of statements from presidential candidates for both parties have been “essentially pointless posturing for the Republican or Democratic bases.” 

You’ve been watching and commenting on the situations in both Iraq and Afghanistan since the wars began. I was hoping to get your general outlook first on the situation in Iraq, and secondly in Afghanistan. We could start with Iraq. Do you think the surge is now working militarily to the point it can be counted as a success, or is the situation still up in the air?

The most important thing is not what I think, but what General [David H.] Petraeus and people there think. There has been a tendency to claim a level of success that it is quite clear the command is not claiming. There’s no question that we have seen a very significant cut in the number of attacks, major incidents, and casualties. Basically things are down to the level that they were in early 2006. But that obviously doesn’t mean that violence is over; it just means that you’re dealing with a relatively low level of conflict by comparison with the peaks in casualties and incidents in the spring and summer of 2007. There are also almost continuous warnings within the military planning groups and the intelligence community in Iraq about what’s really happening.

What are these about?

We have not resolved the problems between the Arabs, Kurds, and other minorities in the north. Ethnic cleansing continues. There is still a buildup of militias and forces on various sides. The kind of very low level of violence and extortion that takes place when you have these ethnic tensions has not diminished. It sits there and is not necessarily a time bomb, but unless it is resolved, one of the major sources of civil violence has not yet been addressed.

In the south essentially what you have are rival Shiite factions, with only limited ties to the central government Shiites. It’s been a struggle for power, which has not resulted in large-scale violence against civilians, although, for many Sunnis, Christians, and more secular Shiites, there has been violence. They have been driven out of the south. But what you see is a building of militias that seem to be getting ready for a possible power struggle between the Hakim [led by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, chairman of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI)] and Sadr [led by Muqtada al-Sadr, a popular Shiite cleric] factions.

What about the situation in Baghdad?

It’s an astounding achievement to see what U.S commanders have been able to achieve. It is also a city segmented now into security zones, which are Shiite, Sunni, and mixed. You’ve not been able to halt all elements of ethnic cleansing. You’ve not been able to create a climate for people to be able to return to their homes if they are of the wrong sectarian group. The stability of the north, such that it is, is dependent on how long and how well these tribal militias are integrated into the overall power structure. At present, the government has been extremely slow in coopting them. It is obviously afraid of them. It has not really moved forward at anything like the pace necessary to win their loyalty.

Describe whether al-Qaeda has been defeated in Iraq.

Al-Qaeda is not defeated; its basic supply routes and lines of communication are weaker, but they remain. It continues to fight in Diyala [province, in northeast Iraq], it continues to expand its influence in Nineveh province and operate in Salahuddin [province in the north]. What we have is really major progress over the course of the last year. But to describe this as stable or victory or not realize that it could explode in the north or explode in the south or explode in Anbar and possibly do so with little warning is simply dangerous.

You’re saying that General Petraeus is rather sober about this?

He is somebody who always has a very positive attitude but he has warned continuously about going from real progress to the assumption that it’s stable. He has said again and again you need to deal with the militia issue, you need to deal with the problem of political accommodation, and that there can’t be a military solution. This is certainly borne out when you talk to people in intelligence or in the military whether they are in Iraq or the Pentagon. The problem we have, I’m afraid, is the tendency to see Iraq in blacks and whites. It’s a much lighter shade of gray.

How does this translate into American politics right now?

It really doesn’t. You can occasionally find useful statements on the websites of candidates. You see that for Senator [Hillary] Clinton and Senator [John] McCain. The debates have never raised any substantive issues. Most of the talk is essentially pointless posturing for the Republican or Democratic bases. Most of the candidates have frankly been vacuous. Statements have been made about getting out of Iraq which are not practical or meaningful. You have that on the Democratic side and on the Republican side. You’ve had candidates seriously talk about Iraq as if it was the center of terrorist and al-Qaeda activity. What you’re watching is a contest as to who can get a D- or an F+.

But then whoever becomes the next president, that’s a year from now, will have some tough decisions, right?

It’s not a year from now because it takes months to get your team on board. So we’re really talking about a year and a half. It’s not by any means clear for Iraq and Afghanistan that what is today a lull can continue, that you can take these two wars off the political board or deal with them in the level of clichés. In the case of Afghanistan you can’t even define it in terms of clichés. You have very serious problems in Pakistan. You do not have the resources either in terms of aid, or troops, that you need in Afghanistan. The sheer mindlessness of the American political campaign can come back to haunt everyone if we have a serious set of military offenses and problems in Afghanistanin the spring. This can happen much quicker if the Pakistan election next month is either suspended or triggers a much more serious crisis and essentially leaves the Taliban and al-Qaeda without an active military challenge. It is perhaps understandable that the candidates are dodging these issues, but in some ways so is Congress and the administration. This can frankly blow up in our faces with relatively little warning at any time between the Pakistan election and our election.

Has the situation deteriorated in Afghanistan?

We have seen in Afghanistan more success for the Taliban in 2007 than we saw in 2006. If you look at intelligence maps of the area of Taliban influence in Afghanistan, it has increased by about four times in 2006. It increased arguably, according to UN maps, by somewhere between 50 [percent] and 70 percent in 2007. If you look at the area in Pakistan, the same types of intelligence assessments indicate that areas under Taliban and Islamist influence in the northwest and the south more than doubled. If you look at areas under al-Qaeda and Taliban influence, al-Qaeda’s influence is more indirect but certainly it is much stronger in Pakistan than it was a year ago.

The Taliban has its own organization in Pakistan. These are not things you can map in terms of combat. NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] has decisively defeated the Taliban in virtually ever tactical encounter it has had in the last year. But what you can see if you map something different, which is the area under the Taliban under political and economic influence when NATO is not actively present, these are the areas where the influence has increased.

Let’s assume the Pakistan elections go ahead and there will be a coalition government that more or less supports President Musharraf. That’s probably the best possibility from the U.S. perspective. Do you expect they can get their act together militarily or is the Pakistan army really not up to fighting insurgents?

It is very hard to tell because very often people are reporting that the Pakistan army is engaged and it is actually a mixture of the Frontier Corps [federal paramilitary force stationed in North West Frontier Province and Balochistan] and the police. So far the Pakistani army has scored victories on the periphery on the areas dominated by the Taliban, but the Swat Valley [in North West Frontier Province] is not typical of the problems it faces. It has not done well, according to U.S. observers, on counterinsurgency yet it also has not been heavily committed. There is a lot of Musharraf rhetoric about using the army, but when it comes down to systematic efforts to secure the areas they simply haven’t taken place. Most observers, including many Pakistanis, feel the army does need help in counterinsurgency training and counterinsurgency equipment. But many of the same people question whether the real issue is political guidance and motive rather than military competence. Probably the answer is both.

The majority of statements from presidential candidates for both parties have been “essentially pointless posturing for the Republican or Democratic bases.”

Virtually any army that has focused its history on dealing with one enemy, which in this case is India, or internal security operations where it faces no serious challenges, which is true in most of Pakistan outside the Pashtun areas, is not going to be well equipped and trained for counterinsurgency. There is also, as yet, no clear political strategy on the part of Musharraf as to how to deal with the area, how to win militarily, what level of forces to engage, what kind of government presence and services to leave behind. While “win, hold, and build” tends to be a simplistic solution, historically we know that even if you win, it almost never really matters unless you can hold and build, at least to the point of providing aid and government presence and services.

On the whole, there is a rather tenuous future in both places?

I don’t know if we can describe it as tenuous; that it remains very uncertain. When you talk to people who work this, one of the great problems they face is that it’s going to take years of patient effort. It isn’t something that you can win via political schedule. You can’t be decisive for President Bush in 2008. You can’t tell Congress that it will be all over in 2009 and 2010. Just within the last week, one of Iraq’s most senior security officials said basically the Iraqi army would really be ready, along with the police, to deal with the counterinsurgency threat in 2012, and that working with the United States it could be equipped to act independently to defend its borders against foreign threats by 2015.

When you go to Afghanistan, occasionally people start putting out charts which are not the charts that people want to see but that are the charts that really we need to see. You see dates like 2011 and 2012. That doesn’t mean we’re losing or that we’re not making progress. That doesn’t mean we’re not adapting; if you look at the aid planning in Afghanistan and Iraq, it is far better, far more sophisticated than it used to be. If you look at our military tactics in Iraq, they are far more developed. The scope is much more on the hold and build. If you look at what’s happening in Afghanistan you see a great deal of realism from senior U.S. and NATO commanders. They understand the current rules don’t allow you to use the forces you have and even if they did you haven’t enough forces.

They’ve requested what’s required. The requirement is relatively limited. It’s essentially something like three to four more battalions and to have the stand-aside countries that don’t fight—France, Germany, Italy and Spain—actually commit their troops. These types of problems have got to get resolved. Both in Iraq and Afghanistan we can’t simply sit on our hands and hope that things go well in 2008, or by the time it will take to get a new team in place in 2009.

January 12, 2008 – It is only $2,500 out of the billions of dollars spent on the war in Iraq and benefits for America’s soldiers who have fought the war on terrorism.

But to Sean M. Brown, it is something important, meaningful and bigger than the money itself.

”It is the principle” of it, Brown said.

The 24-year-old Akron war veteran found out recently that he owes the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs about $2,500 because the VA is saying he was not entitled to enhanced GI Bill benefits last semester when he attended the University of Akron.

”It’s kind of wrong for the time we served and now we are getting shafted,” said Brown, who joined the Ohio Army National Guard after graduating from Revere High School in 2001.

Because Brown served a year in Iraq with the National Guard’s 135th Military Police Company from 2003 to 2004, he said he was entitled to a year of added college benefits as well as a year of enhanced GI Bill money, or about $350 extra a month.

Brown, whose enlistment in the National Guard ended in June, signed up for the enhanced GI Bill benefit a few months before leaving the guard and began collecting it in August and during the fall semester at UA, where he is a junior.

Because of his deployment to Iraq, he said, he is receiving an additional year of college benefits.

But last week he received a letter from the VA saying he owes the government $2,500 — the difference between his entitled benefit and the enhanced benefit he was collecting.

”I feel I deserve this money,” he said.

Brown, who is married to high school classmate Erin Tyson, said he can’t afford to pay the government back.

Along with going to school full time, Brown works for FirstMerit Bank in corporate security.

Wendell Fortier, a public affairs officer for the VA in Buffalo, N.Y., said he could not discuss Brown’s case but said, in general, once soldiers leave the National Guard, ”they are no longer entitled” to the enhanced GI Bill benefits.

Brown said he was never told he wasn’t entitled to the benefits and said the VA had not communicated well with him.

”I think this is very unfair for me and all the other soldiers that are in the situation for what we had to sacrifice,” said Brown, who was named Soldier of the Year for his unit in 2004.

Brown said he now realizes he misses the military and his friends in his unit and plans to re-enter the National Guard in the next few months. He will sign up for Officer Candidate School.

”I want to go back as an officer so I can lead,” he said.

On Wednesday, Brown said he was told by Fortier that he could file a waiver listing his household expenses and income for the VA to examine an appeal of the $2,500 bill.

Fortier said the VA looks at waivers filed by veterans on a case-by-case basis, and usually within a few months decides if the amount owed will be reduced or forgiven.

”We get a fair amount of waiver requests,” Fortier said.

Brown said he will file for the waiver but still believes he should not have to repay the money.

January 12, 2008 – The director of the Fayetteville Veterans Affairs Medical Center told hospital employees Friday that he ordered Bibles and crosses removed from the hospital chapel to follow national VA policy.

The director, Bruce Triplett, told the employees that some information published in opinion pieces in The Fayetteville Observer was inaccurate.

Triplett spoke to about 100 employees during a town hall-style forum. A reporter for the Observer was not permitted to attend, but spoke with Triplett after the meeting.

Triplett said he spoke to employees about the chapel policies because, “I wanted them to understand what the issues really are.”

The issues started last year when Triplett ordered the Bible and cross moved from the chapel’s altar to the chaplains’ office, in an effort to follow a federal policy that chapels in VA hospitals be religiously neutral.

He said incorrect information has fueled rumors among hospital employees that have upset some of them.

“A lot of our employees have only been seeing or hearing what was written in the newspaper,” he said, referring to columns published in the Fayetteville Observer’s opinion section. The columns were written by two veterans fighting to have the religious articles returned to the chapel.

The two veterans — Joseph Kinney and Laud Pitt Jr. — have argued that the hospital is suppressing Christians’ freedom of religion by taking the Bible and cross out of the chapel.

Kinney and Pitt have partnered with the Rutherford Institute, a nonprofit conservative legal organization that defends religious liberties and human rights, to fight the decision to remove the religious articles.

A lawyer for the Rutherford Institute wrote Triplett a letter in November implying that if the articles were not replaced, the institute would sue.

Nisha Mohammed, media coordinator for the institute, said earlier this week that the Institute has not decided whether to pursue a lawsuit.

Kinney is a member of the Observer’s Community Advisory Board, a 12-person group that writes opinion pieces and meets with the newspaper’s editorial board to discuss issues.

Triplett said Friday that he told hospital employees he was simply following federal orders and trying to keep the chapel open and inviting to patients of all faiths.

He said Christian symbols could be in place during Christian services.

He said ministers or friends could bring Bibles or other religious articles when visiting patients at the hospital.

Norma Byrd, public affairs officer for the hospital, said that most employees seemed supportive of the hospital and its policies.

Triplett said he wanted the employees to understand the reasons why the Bible and cross were removed.

“I just wanted people to know what the truth is,” he said. “From my perspective.”

January 8, 2008 – Pundits and pols who have been tracking President Bush’s constitutional transgressions can add another to the list: his Dec. 28 “pocket veto” of the massive defense spending bill. Instead of issuing a regular veto, which allows Congress the opportunity to override if it can muster the votes, Bush stated that he needed to pocket veto the bill — a power the Constitution says may only be used when “Congress by their Adjournment prevent [the bill’s] Return.” Bush argued that he was “prevented” from “returning” the bill to Congress because the House had adjourned.

But Bush was being disingenuous. In fact, a pocket veto was neither necessary nor allowed in this case. In misusing his veto power, Bush was attempting to grab a power for himself and his office that the Constitution’s framers emphatically and repeatedly denied to the president: a nearly unlimited, absolute veto.

Let me explain. The Constitution requires the president to sign or veto any bill sent to his desk by Congress. In most cases, when a bill is vetoed, it is sent back to Congress, which then has the option to override the veto if it can achieve a two-thirds vote in both the House and the Senate. Under certain limited circumstances, however, the president may issue a pocket veto, a form of rejection in which he does not sign the bill or return it to Congress — and the bill dies after 10 days. Congress has no opportunity to override the veto.

Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution stipulates the two conditions necessary for a pocket veto. The first is congressional adjournment. The second condition is that bill return is “prevented.” These two linked conditions acknowledge the existence of adjournments when bill return is possible — and the current situation is just such a case.

Although it’s true that the House has adjourned until Jan. 15, it has designated its clerk to receive communications from the White House, including veto messages, meaning that bill return was possible. This little-known but routine mechanism has been used thousands of times for decades by Congress during long weekends, vacations and breaks (just as the White House’s Office of the Executive Clerk receives bills from Congress on behalf of the president when he is absent or indisposed).

The Senate, for its part, has not adjourned at all, technically; a few of its members have been holding brief sessions every two or three days to forestall Bush from making any recess appointments.

Congressional and presidential use of agents to represent their branches has met constitutional muster. As the Supreme Court said in 1938, “The Constitution does not define what shall constitute a return of a bill or deny the use of appropriate agencies in effecting the return.”

The founders inserted the pocket veto in the Constitution to prevent Congress from passing a bill and adjourning to prevent an anticipated veto. But they made it conditional so it would not be abused by the president; they emphatically rejected the idea that the president should have an absolute, monarchical veto that could not be overridden.

In this case, Bush tried to have it both ways. He pocket vetoed the bill as if Congress were entirely out of session — but then he did, in fact, return it to Congress by sending it and an outline of his objections to the House clerk. He did so, according to his veto message, “to leave no doubt that the bill is being vetoed.”

Bush’s dodgy veto gambit mimics similar action by his father, who claimed pocket vetoes of two bills that he also returned to Congress. In both instances, Congress rejected the president’s claims and instead treated the bills as “returned.” Neither was overridden.

In 2000, President Clinton tried the same thing three times, prompting leaders of both parties to object. All three were treated as return vetoes; these weren’t overridden either.

If this all sounds like constitutional arcania, consider the outcome if Bush’s faux pocket veto stands unchallenged: Presidents would have absolute veto power any time Congress is not actually in session, bestowing on the chief executive the very authority the founders sought to deny the office. And why did Bush use this veto gambit now? Maybe because the bill in question passed by veto-proof margins.

Regardless of the motive, the Constitution does not allow presidents to pick the kind of veto they wish to use, and it certainly does not condone a pocket veto just because an override is likely. The existing regular veto is plenty potent, and Congress cannot be denied its constitutional right to review vetoes as long as bill return is possible. Congress should do what it did before: treat Bush’s action as a return veto because the bill was returned. And presidents should curb the impulse to play fast and loose with constitutional powers.

Robert J. Spitzer is a political science professor at SUNY Cortland. His books include “The Presidential Veto.”

January 12, 2008 – A leading military analyst with the Ministry of Defence’s own think tank warned that Nato was on the “precipice of failure” in Afghanistan unless it swaps throwing “money and troops” at the country’s problems for a more coherent approach.

Dr Michael Williams, head of the transatlantic programme at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, said the peacekeeping force’s aims of bringing stability, and in turn prosperity, to the country were achievable, but added its “chaotic and unfocused” approach would end in “strategic loss” in Afghanistan.

Williams criticised the lack of clarity in the West’s approach to the country in an article for the institute’s Newsbrief magazine entitled Security In Afghanistan: More Than A Job For Nato, which was published last year. He said that increases in troop numbers announced by the US and Britain as part of the organisation’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) of 41,700 troops would “not fix the wayward mission to rebuild Afghanistan”.

He wrote: “Additional troops are necessary, but more troops alone will not fix the wayward mission to rebuild Afghanistan. Specifically, if additional troops are going to be of use, ISAF must figure of what it is supposed to be doing in Afghanistan; how it should achieve this in conjunction with other actors; increase international responsibility (not just Nato) for Afghanistan; and move to support the Afghan government, rather than supplanting it.

“The current Western strategy is chaotic and unfocused, and it will ultimately lead to a strategic loss in Afghanistan.”

Williams added that countries outside Nato should be shamed by the peacekeeping group for not assisting the joint effort to rebuild the country. He also highlighted a lack of co-ordination between aid agencies, national governments and their foreign offices over their roles. He added: “The international community must accept that it needs to play a greater role and Nato should have no qualms about shaming those outside of Nato who are not helping enough.

“Money is not the only problem; even if Afghanistan was awarded billions upon billions of dollars, without a co-ordinated, comprehensive and concerted approach the funds will go to waste. There is still a stunning lack of co-ordination between the various actors on the ground.

“Different actors must overcome their differences and, at the very least, co-ordinate their actions if the Western mission in Afghanistan is to succeed.”

He highlighted differences that exist between the Germans, criticised for Berlin’s refusal to commit troops to the war against the Taliban and their deployment in the relatively unscathed north of the country, and the UK, US and Canada, which remain convinced of the need for firepower to create an environment for the country to prosper.

Williams, who said failure in the country would “not bode well” for Nato’s future, added: “The confusion is reflected in the fact that most of the public thinks Nato is in Afghanistan to rebuild the entire country, rather than just support security and reconstruction. Importantly, what Nato’s poorly-defined mission has done is focus the minds of international policy makers on the failings of the current approach.”

However, Paul Smyth, the institute’s head of operational studies, dismissed criticism of the Germans, pointing out “we mustn’t forget how far they have come”. He said: “To actually have German forces deployed alongside Allied forces is quite an achievement for them when you consider history.”

He added: “Within Nato there are some frustrations which came out when the US defence secretary last year said it was quite clear the burden of fighting was being done by the Canadians, Americans, British and Australians.”

Smyth believes that Nato’s acceptance that some countries will not be involved in fighting the Taliban is a “price worth paying” to keep the coalition intact. He said that many soldiers were facing “arduous conditions”, particularly during the winter, not helped by the lack of secure military installations across the country.

He added: “Life is extremely difficult at this time of year, not least because of the low temperatures and altitude, but I’ve no reason to disbelieve the army commanders when they say morale remains high.”

Smyth also said that Nato was affected by delays over promises to modify civilian helicopters for use in supporting the forces, but that it was still safer to transport equipment overland despite the risk of attack from the Taliban.

January 14, 2008 – Geography shouldn’t affect disability compensation to U.S. veterans. But it does.

Such disparities have been a longstanding concern of the Disabled American Veterans, DAV spokesman Dave Autry said from Washington, D.C. Geographic inconsistencies in rating veterans’ disabilities predates the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, he said.

However, these disparities are affecting many more veterans as thousands of service members return home and leave the military.

Adam Olivas is one of them. Wounded in July 2003 when a rocket-propelled grenade hit his tank in Iraq, the U.S. Army sergeant and Billings native, returned home to Laurel and a hero’s welcome in December of that year.

It is appalling that four years later, he must struggle against the Veterans Administration bureacracy. Olivas sustained injuries in combat that left him with shrapnel in his body, ringing in his ears and back problems as well as a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Laurel veteran’s story

Olivas’ story was mentioned recently in a national report from McClatchy Newspapers (Jan. 2 Gazette). Another McClatchy report (Dec. 21 Gazette) revealed that veterans in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho are likely to receive lower disability ratings than veterans in other states. On claims involving PTSD, which has affected tens of thousands of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, the Montana VA office tended to be the most conservative in rating disabilities.

It’s not right that a veteran in Montana receives lower compensation than veterans living elsewhere. All VA benefit offices are supposed to apply the same standards. The problem isn’t the high ratings; it’s the low ones. Even veterans who rate 100 percent disability and cannot work to earn a living aren’t getting rich on the maximum.

Churning appeals

Getting an initial disability claim processed usually takes about six months nationwide. Appealing the decision takes a couple of years and often doesn’t resolve the issue, Autry said. The result of an appeal may be to send the case back for further consideration by the same office that made the original determination. Appeals can “churn” like that indefinitely, the DAV spokesman said.

Olivas, Montana state commander of the Military Order of the Purple Heart, has appealed his rating.

This wait-and-churn approach is a terrible way to treat him and other American veterans. The geographic disparities in disability ratings cry out for common sense and consistency. It’s time for Congress to effectively exercise its oversight responsibility. Congress should press the VA to correct these disparities and provide proof they have been corrected. Montana’s Sen. Jon Tester, who has a seat on the veterans affairs committee, ought to take the lead in pressing the case for consistently fair and equal treatment of veterans.

January 14, 2008 – Freshman Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Pa.), the only Iraq war veteran in Congress, is facing a re-election fight against a colonel in the Marine reserves whose son was killed in Iraq last year.

Republican Tom Manion, 53, will be kicking off his campaign against Murphy Tuesday, according to a source familiar with his intentions. His son, Marine 1st Lt. Travis Manion, was killed by a sniper last April during his second tour in Iraq.

Manion appears to be an early frontrunner for the Republican nomination and has secured key support from former GOP Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, who was ousted by Murphy in 2006.

If Manion emerges as the Republican nominee, it appears increasingly likely that the campaign would be defined by the war in Iraq. Murphy highlighted his military service and opposition to the war in his successful campaign against Fitzpatrick.

Manion, on the other hand, has been an outspoken supporter of the war.

Fitzpatrick has helped prepare Manion for the campaign, introducing him to officials at the National Republican Congressional Committee. And Manion’s campaign announcement seems to all but ensure that Fitzpatrick will not be running again to recapture his old seat.

Murphy is one of the best-financed Democratic freshmen, banking over $1.05 million at the end of the third fundraising quarter.

His suburban Philadelphia district leans Democratic, giving President Bush only 48 percent of the vote in 2004.

January 6, 2008 – Chaplain Douglas Fenton is quite matter-of-fact as he tells the story of the severed foot.

He’d been deployed to Baquba, Iraq. Soldiers handed him a cardboard box containing the foot they had just found, a foot belonging to one of their buddies whose body had already been sent home. They didn’t know what else to do with it. “They did the right thing,” he says.

And he did the right thing. He took the box and sat with it on his lap on a helicopter flight as pilots fired flares to deflect potential heat-seeking missiles. That’s the unimaginable, everyday horror of war.

It took its toll on Maj. Fenton. I first met him in May in Baquba, where he was chaplain for the 1st Cavalry Division’s 3rd Brigade. I would go out on clearing operations with soldiers fighting insurgents who had been burying improvised explosive devices so deep in the ground that when they exploded, they could flip over armored vehicles. Exhausted and grief-stricken, the soldiers would come back to the base long enough for showers and too often, memorials, and then go out and fight all over again. As brigade chaplain, Fenton was the one who flew to see the wounded and dead. By the time he left last August, he had prayed over 88 dead soldiers.

I had promised to try to come and see him when I was back in Iraq. Before I could, he sent me a message from Germany saying he’d been flown out — diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

We tend to think of a chaplain’s faith as his armor against the horrors of war. The same way we think the medical training of care providers is their shield. But those who are affected by post-traumatic stress disorder aren’t just the soldiers in battle, they are the people taking care of those troops — the chaplains, the medics and even mental health professionals, military psychiatrists say.

Fenton hadn’t wanted to leave — hadn’t wanted to ask for help. To those who didn’t know him well, the former JAG officer seemed fine. But his concentration was slipping: He had a hard time writing sermons or even reading. He withdrew; he couldn’t reach out to the soldiers he was supposed to help. He was taking pills to help him sleep. And he would cry uncontrollably.

He had nightmares about the soldiers he buried.

“I used to think that people who died were peaceful. One gentleman drowned and looked peaceful — it’s hard to find a peaceful face because the deaths there are so hard.”

In the weeks before he was evacuated, he says, he felt he was losing his mind.

Fenton and his wife, Christine, sit down with producer Kate Davidson and me at their new home. Divorced parents who met when they served at Arlington National Cemetery, they now live down the street from Fenton’s teenage son and daughter. While Fenton was in Baquba, Christine was working in mortuary affairs at Fort Hood, Texas — receiving the bodies her husband had prayed over.

“I felt relief, but I also felt shame. I still feel shame — we all do,” Fenton says about being evacuated. He says a lot of it was the shame that all soldiers feel at leaving their buddies in danger, and part of it was that he was a caregiver and an officer — one of the people who was supposed to be taking care of others in an Army seriously short of chaplains.

Fenton is now an outpatient at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He plans to eventually retire from the Army but use his ministry to help other PTSD sufferers.

Fenton and his family are relatively lucky: They have each other and a deep faith that things will turn out all right. But Fenton’s son and daughter have been affected in ways he hadn’t even realized. His son Connor, who’s 13, seems at first like a typical, sweet, funny, irreverent teenager — until he reads us an essay he wrote recently at school about the death of a soldier in Iraq whom he considered a brother.

“I will never forget the image that enters my mind every day when I think of Bill,” he reads. “The RPG racing toward his Hummer — he turns his head at the sound of the noise — the red trail following the RPG — then it hits me, then it’s over — no one is alive.”

Connor, sprawled on the sofa leaning against his dad, also speaks poignantly about how his father has changed.

“He’s angrier. He gets angry quicker, which isn’t his fault, of course. He cries a lot … I sit by him, I hug him, I try to show him that I’m still here for him, no matter what happened to him, and even if he lost arms or legs, I’d still love him because he’s my dad,” he says.

He doesn’t talk very much about his father at school: “You can’t really talk to anyone who didn’t experience it.”

As well as trying to care for her husband, Christine worries about her own daughter — currently deployed in Iraq. But she doesn’t show it in front of her husband.

“I have to be very, very careful. I have to think about the words I’m going to use. I have to think about the phrases. I have to think about my facial expressions. … I’ve learned when things aren’t good to smile and say ‘I love you’ and we go on. It doesn’t matter — I could be in the worst of moods, but I smile still and just go on.”

At Walter Reed, chief psychiatrist Col. John Bradley says the number of care providers affected by PTSD seems to mirror that of the general deployed population — between 10 percent and 17 percent.

“One person’s trauma may not be another person’s trauma. It could be something from being engaged in a firefight, which I think we would all agree is a potentially traumatic event, to witnessing death and destruction, dead bodies, injuries, things along those lines. Everyone has a different threshold for what they perceive as traumatic and how they deal with exposure to those traumatic events on a day-to-day basis,” he says.

He shows us around Ward 53, the psychiatric outpatient unit, where a board lists daily activities such as art and group therapy.

For Fenton, one of the issues that continues to come up is the stigma he and other soldiers feel about being labeled mentally ill, rather than wounded in war. He resents being treated on the psychiatric ward with soldiers with other mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, who have never been in combat.

“They need to find a better way for it not to be a stigma … Who wants to have someone say you’re mentally ill when you’re 18? No one. That’s what they’re being told if they have to walk into a ward that’s a psychiatry ward,” he said.

Some psychiatrists agree. Dr. Jonathan Shay, a leading PTSD expert who teaches chaplains, has called for PTSD to be reclassified as an injury rather than a disorder.

“There is a second territory … and that is secondary traumatic stress injury,” says Shay, the author of Odysseus in America and Achilles in Vietnam. “If you have a steady diet of witnessing horrors or hearing narratives that are filled with horror and betrayal and violence and cruelty, then you can get injured by that, even if you are not being attacked or brutalized.”

To avoid possible repercussions in their careers, he says, it’s common for care providers, including chaplains and medics, to seek confidential psychiatric help outside the military system.

Fenton expects a long road ahead, but he and his family believe they are on that road.

“It’s going to take time,” Christine Fenton says. “I have faith that we will eventually get back to where we were.”

Here is an event I have no intention of honoring: American Religious History Week. OK, it’s not official yet. But it is spelled out as Resolution 888 in the bowels of a House committee, sponsored by Republican Congressman Randy Forbes and backed by thirty-one other Representatives. This is an insidious attempt by the radical Christian right to rewrite American history, to turn the founding fathers from deists into Christian fundamentalists, to proclaim us officially to be a Christian nation. If you want to know why Mike Huckabee is dangerous, why his brand of right-wing Christian populism is so frightening, you should read this resolution.

Sent to me by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, the resolution has passages like this: “Whereas political scientists have documented that the most frequently-cited source in the political period known as The Founding Era was the Bible” and “Whereas the United States Supreme Court has declared throughout the course of our Nation’s history that the United States is ‘a Christian country’, ‘a Christian nation’, ‘a Christian people’, ‘a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being’ and that ‘we cannot read into the Bill of Rights a philosophy of hostility to religion….'”

Here is the complete text of House Resolution 888, Introduced December 18, 2007.

Introduced by Mr. FORBES (for himself, Mr. MCINTYRE, Mr. AKIN, Mr. BARRETT of South Carolina, Mr. CULBERSON, Mr. DOOLITTLE, Mr. FEENEY, Mr. GINGREY, Mr. GOHMERT, Mr. HAYES, Mr. HENSARLING, Mr. HERGER, Mr. JONES of North Carolina, Mr. MCHENRY, Mrs. MUSGRAVE, Mr. PEARCE, Mr. PENCE, Mr. PITTS, Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin, Mrs. SCHMIDT, Mr. WALBERG, Mr. WILSON of South Carolina, Mr. WOLF, and Mr. YOUNG of Florida) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

Affirming the rich spiritual and religious history of our Nation’s founding and subsequent history and expressing support for designation of the first week in May as `American Religious History Week’ for the appreciation of and education on America ‘s history of religious faith.

Whereas religious faith was not only important in official American life during the periods of discovery, exploration, colonization, and growth but has also been acknowledged and incorporated into all 3 branches of American Federal government from their very beginning;

Whereas the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed this self-evident fact in a unanimous ruling declaring `This is a religious people … From the discovery of this continent to the present hour, there is a single voice making this affirmation’;

Whereas political scientists have documented that the most frequently-cited source in the political period known as The Founding Era was the Bible;

Whereas the first act of America ‘s first Congress in 1774 was to ask a minister to open with prayer and to lead Congress in the reading of 4 chapters of the Bible;

Whereas Congress regularly attended church and Divine service together en masse;

Whereas throughout the American Founding, Congress frequently appropriated money for missionaries and for religious instruction, a practice that Congress repeated for decades after the passage of the Constitution and the First Amendment;

Whereas in 1776, Congress approved the Declaration of Independence with its 4 direct religious acknowledgments referring to God as the Creator (`All people are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’), the Lawgiver (`the laws of nature and nature’s God’), the Judge (`appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world’), and the Protector (`with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence’);

Whereas upon approving the Declaration of Independence, John Adams declared that the Fourth of July `ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty’;

Whereas 4 days after approving the Declaration, the Liberty Bell was rung;

Whereas the Liberty Bell was named for the Biblical inscription from Leviticus 25:10 emblazoned around it: `Proclaim liberty throughout the land, to all the inhabitants thereof’;

Whereas in 1777, Congress, facing a National shortage of `Bibles for our schools, and families, and for the public worship of God in our churches,’ announced that they `desired to have a Bible printed under their care & by their encouragement’ and therefore ordered 20,000 copies of the Bible to be imported `into the different ports of the States of the Union’;

Whereas in 1782, Congress pursued a plan to print a Bible that would be `a neat edition of the Holy Scriptures for the use of schools’ and therefore approved the production of the first English language Bible printed in America that contained the congressional endorsement that `the United States in Congress assembled … recommend this edition of the Bible to the inhabitants of the United States’;

Whereas in 1782, Congress adopted (and has reaffirmed on numerous subsequent occasions) the National Seal with its Latin motto `Annuit Coeptis,’ meaning `God has favored our undertakings,’ along with the eye of Providence in a triangle over a pyramid, the eye and the motto `allude to the many signal interpositions of Providence in favor of the American cause’;

Whereas the 1783 Treaty of Paris that officially endied the Revolution and established America as an independent begins with the appellation `In the name of the most holy and undivided Trinity’;

Whereas in 1787 at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia , Benjamin Franklin declared, `God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? … Without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel ‘;

Whereas the delegates to the Constitutional Convention concluded their work by in effect placing a religious punctuation mark at the end of the Constitution in the Attestation Clause, noting not only that they had completed the work with `the unanimous consent of the States present’ but they had done so `in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven’;

Whereas James Madison declared that he saw the finished Constitution as a product of `the finger of that Almighty Hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the Revolution,’ and George Washington viewed it as `little short of a miracle,’ and Benjamin Franklin believed that its writing had been `influenced, guided, and governed by that omnipotent, omnipresent, and beneficent Ruler, in Whom all inferior spirits live, and move, and have their being’;

Whereas from 1787 to 1788, State conventions to ratify the United States Constitution not only began with prayer but even met in church buildings;

Whereas in 1795 during construction of the Capitol, a practice was instituted whereby `public worship is now regularly administered at the Capitol, every Sunday morning, at 11 o’clock’;

Whereas in 1789, the first Federal Congress, the Congress that framed the Bill of Rights, including the First Amendment, appropriated Federal funds to pay chaplains to pray at the opening of all sessions, a practice that has continued to this day, with Congress not only funding its congressional chaplains but also the salaries and operations of more than 4,500 military chaplains;

Whereas in 1789, Congress, in the midst of framing the Bill of Rights and the First Amendment, passed the first Federal law touching education, declaring that `Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged’;

Whereas in 1789, on the same day that Congress finished drafting the First Amendment, it requested President Washington to declare a National day of prayer and thanksgiving, resulting in the first Federal official Thanksgiving proclamation that declared `it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor’;

Whereas in 1800, Congress enacted naval regulations requiring that Divine service be performed twice every day aboard `all ships and vessels in the navy,’ with a sermon preached each Sunday;

Whereas in 1800, Congress approved the use of the just-completed Capitol structure as a church building, with Divine services to be held each Sunday in the Hall of the House, alternately administered by the House and Senate chaplains;

Whereas in 1853 Congress declared that congressional chaplains have a `duty … to conduct religious services weekly in the Hall of the House of Representatives’;

Whereas by 1867, the church at the Capitol was the largest church in Washington , DC , with up to 2,000 people a week attending Sunday service in the Hall of the House;

Whereas by 1815, over 2,000 official governmental calls to prayer had been issued at both the State and the Federal levels, with thousands more issued since 1815;

Whereas in 1853 the United States Senate declared that the Founding Fathers `had no fear or jealousy of religion itself, nor did they wish to see us an irreligious people … they did not intend to spread over all the public authorities and the whole public action of the nation the dead and revolting spectacle of atheistical apathy’;

Whereas in 1854 the United States House of Representatives declared `It [religion] must be considered as the foundation on which the whole structure rests … Christianity; in its general principles, is the great conservative element on which we must rely for the purity and permanence of free institutions’;

Whereas, in 1864, by law Congress added `In God We Trust’ to American coinage;

Whereas in 1864, Congress passed an act authorizing each State to display statues of 2 of its heroes in the United States Capitol, resulting in numerous statues of noted Christian clergymen and leaders at the Capitol, including Gospel ministers such as the Revs. James A. Garfield, John Peter Muhlenberg, Jonathan Trumbull, Roger Williams, Jason Lee, Marcus Whitman, and Martin Luther King Jr.; Gospel theologians such as Roger Sherman; Catholic priests such as Father Damien, Jacques Marquette, Eusebio Kino, and Junipero Serra; Catholic nuns such as Mother Joseph; and numerous other religious leaders;

Whereas in 1870, the Federal government made Christmas (a recognition of the birth of Christ, an event described by the U.S. Supreme Court as `acknowledged in the Western World for 20 centuries, and in this country by the people, the Executive Branch, Congress, and the courts for 2 centuries’) and Thanksgiving as official holidays;

Whereas beginning in 1904 and continuing for the next half-century, the Federal government printed and distributed The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth for the use of Members of Congress because of the important teachings it contained;

Whereas in 1931, Congress by law adopted the Star-Spangled Banner as the official National Anthem, with its phrases such as `may the Heav’n-rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation,’ and `this be our motto, `In God is our trust!’;

Whereas in 1954, Congress by law added the phrase `one nation under God’ to the Pledge of Allegiance;

Whereas in 1954 a special Congressional Prayer Room was added to the Capitol with a kneeling bench, an altar, an open Bible, an inspiring stained-glass window with George Washington kneeling in prayer, the declaration of Psalm 16:1: `Preserve me, O God, for in Thee do I put my trust,’ and the phrase `This Nation Under God’ displayed above the kneeling, prayerful Washington;

Whereas in 1956, Congress by law made `In God We Trust’ the National Motto, and added the phrase to American currency;

Whereas the constitutions of each of the 50 states, either in the preamble or body, explicitly recognize or express gratitude to God;

Whereas America ‘s first Presidential Inauguration incorporated 7 specific religious activities, including–

(1) the use of the Bible to administer the oath;

(2) affirming the religious nature of the oath by the adding the prayer `So help me God!’ to the oath;

(3) inaugural prayers offered by the President;

(4) religious content in the inaugural address;

(5) civil leaders calling the people to prayer or acknowledgement of God;

(6) inaugural worship services attended en masse by Congress as an official part of congressional activities; and

(7) clergy-led inaugural prayers, activities which have been replicated in whole or part by every subsequent President;

Whereas President George Washington declared `Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports’;

Whereas President John Adams, one of only 2 signers of the Bill of Rights and First Amendment, declared `As the safety and prosperity of nations ultimately and essentially depend on the protection and the blessing of Almighty God, and the national acknowledgment of this truth is not only an indispensable duty which the people owe to Him’;

Whereas President Jefferson not only attended Divine services at the Capitol throughout his presidency and had the Marine Band play at the services, but during his administration church services were also begun in the War Department and the Treasury Department, thus allowing worshippers on any given Sunday the choice to attend church at either the United States Capitol, the War Department, or the Treasury Department if they so desired;

Whereas Thomas Jefferson urged local governments to make land available specifically for Christian purposes, provided Federal funding for missionary work among Indian tribes, and declared that religious schools would receive `the patronage of the government’;

Whereas President Andrew Jackson declared that the Bible `is the rock on which our Republic rests’;

Whereas President Abraham Lincoln declared that the Bible `is the best gift God has given to men … But for it, we could not know right from wrong’

Whereas President William McKinley declared that `Our faith teaches us that there is no safer reliance than upon the God of our fathers, Who has so singularly favored the American people in every national trial and Who will not forsake us so long as we obey His commandments and walk humbly in His footsteps’;

Whereas President Teddy Roosevelt declared `The Decalogue and the Golden Rule must stand as the foundation of every successful effort to better either our social or our political life’;

Whereas President Woodrow Wilson declared that ` America was born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of Holy Scripture’;

Whereas President Herbert Hoover declared that `American life is builded, and can alone survive, upon … [the] fundamental philosophy announced by the Savior nineteen centuries ago’;

Whereas President Franklin D. Roosevelt not only led the Nation in a 6 minute prayer during D-Day on June 6, 1944, but he also declared that `If we will not prepare to give all that we have and all that we are to preserve Christian civilization in our land, we shall go to destruction’;

Whereas President Harry S. Truman declared that `The fundamental basis of this Nation’s law was given to Moses on the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teachings which we get from Exodus and St. Matthew, from Isaiah and St. Paul ‘;

Whereas President Harry S. Truman told a group touring Washington , DC , that `You will see, as you make your rounds, that this Nation was established by men who believed in God. … You will see the evidence of this deep religious faith on every hand’;

Whereas President Dwight D. Eisenhower declared that `Without God there could be no American form of government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first,the most basic, expression of Americanism. Thus, the founding fathers of America saw it, and thus with God’s help, it will continue to be’ in a declaration later repeated with approval by President Gerald Ford;

Whereas President John F. Kennedy declared that `The rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God’;

Whereas President Ronald Reagan, after noting `The Congress of the United States, in recognition of the unique contribution of the Bible in shaping the history and character of this Nation and so many of its citizens, has … requested the President to designate the year 1983 as the `Year of the Bible’,’ officially declared 1983 as `The Year of the Bible’;

Whereas every other President has similarly recognized the role of God and religious faith in the public life of America ;

Whereas all sessions of the United States Supreme Court begin with the Court’s Marshal announcing, `God save the United States and this honorable court’;

Whereas a regular and integral part of official activities in the Federal courts, including the United States Supreme Court, was the inclusion of prayer by a minister of the Gospel;

Whereas the United States Supreme Court has declared throughout the course of our Nation’s history that the United States is `a Christian country’, `a Christian nation’, `a Christian people’, `a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being’, and that `we cannot read into the Bill of Rights a philosophy of hostility to religion’;

Whereas Justice John Jay, an author of the Federalist Papers and original Justice of the United States Supreme Court, urged `The most effectual means of securing the continuance of our civil and religious liberties is always to remember with reverence and gratitude the Source from which they flow’;

Whereas Justice James Wilson, a signer of the Constitution, declared that `Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is Divine … Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistants’;

Whereas Justice William Paterson, a signer of the Constitution, declared that `Religion and morality … [are] necessary to good government, good order, and good laws’;

Whereas President George Washington, who passed into law the first legal acts organizing the Federal judiciary, asked, `where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths in the courts of justice?’;

Whereas some of the most important monuments, buildings, and landmarks in Washington , DC , include religious words, symbols, and imagery;

Whereas in the United States Capitol the declaration `In God We Trust’ is prominently displayed in both the United States House and Senate Chambers;

Whereas around the top of the walls in the House Chamber appear images of 23 great lawgivers from across the centuries, but Moses (the lawgiver, who–according to the Bible–originally received the law from God,) is the only lawgiver honored with a full face view, looking down on the proceedings of the House;

Whereas religious artwork is found throughout the United States Capitol, including in the Rotunda where the prayer service of Christopher Columbus, the Baptism of Pocahontas, and the prayer and Bible study of the Pilgrims are all prominently displayed; in the Cox Corridor of the Capitol where the words `America! God shed His grace on thee’ are inscribed; at the east Senate entrance with the words `Annuit Coeptis’ which is Latin for `God has favored our undertakings’; and in numerous other locations;

Whereas images of the Ten Commandments are found in many Federal buildings across Washington, DC, including in bronze in the floor of the National Archives; in a bronze statue of Moses in the Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress; in numerous locations at the U.S. Supreme Court, including in the frieze above the Justices, the oak door at the rear of the Chamber, the gable apex, and in dozens of locations on the bronze latticework surrounding the Supreme Court Bar seating;

Whereas in the Washington Monument not only are numerous Bible verses and religious acknowledgements carved on memorial blocks in the walls, including the phrases: `Holiness to the Lord’ (Exodus 28:26, 30:30, Isaiah 23:18, Zechariah 14:20), `Search the Scriptures’ (John 5:39), `The memory of the just is blessed’ (Proverbs 10:7), `May Heaven to this Union continue its beneficence’, and `In God We Trust’, but the Latin inscription Laus Deo meaning `Praise be to God’ is engraved on the monument’s capstone;

Whereas of the 5 areas inside the Jefferson Memorial into which Jefferson’s words have been carved, 4 are God-centered, including Jefferson ‘s declaration that `God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever’;

Whereas the Lincoln Memorial contains numerous acknowledgments of God and citations of Bible verses, including the declarations that `we here highly resolve that … this nation under God … shall not perish from the earth’; `The Almighty has His own purposes. `Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh’ (Matthew 18:7); `as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said `the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether’ (Psalms 19:9); `one day every valley shall be exalted and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh see it together’ (Dr. Martin Luther King’s speech, based on Isaiah 40:4-5);

Whereas in the Library of Congress, The Giant Bible of Mainz, and The Gutenberg Bible are on prominent permanent display and etched on the walls are Bible verses, including: `The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not’ (John 1:5); `Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore, get wisdom and with all thy getting, get understanding’ (Proverbs 4:7); `What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God’ (Micah 6:8); and `The heavens declare the Glory of God, and the firmament showeth His handiwork’ (Psalm 19:1);

Whereas numerous other of the most important American government leaders, institutions, monuments, buildings, and landmarks both openly acknowledge and incorporate religious words, symbols, and imagery into official venues;

Whereas such acknowledgments are even more frequent at the State and local level than at the Federal level, where thousands of such acknowledgments exist; and

Whereas the first week in May each year would be an appropriate week to designate as `American Religious History Week’: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the United States House of Representatives—-

(1) affirms the rich spiritual and diverse religious history of our Nation’s founding and subsequent history, including up to the current day;

(2) recognizes that the religious foundations of faith on which America was built are critical underpinnings of our Nation’s most valuable institutions and form the inseparable foundation for America’s representative processes, legal systems, and societal structures;

(3) rejects, in the strongest possible terms, any effort to remove, obscure, or purposely omit such history from our Nation’s public buildings and educational resources; and

(4) expresses support for designation of a `American Religious History Week’ every year for the appreciation of and education on America ‘s history of religious faith.