Hello there, Internet traveler

I am writing because my internship hasn't yet started, and because I am bored. However, I still strive for quality in my work. Feedback is ever welcome. -- Chris

Last week, US Army personnel in Afghanistan burned Bibles obtained via an unsolicited donation made by an American church. The Bibles were written in Dari and Pashto, Afghanistan's two official languages.

Army code forbids proselytizing, so instead of distributing the Bibles, the Army destroyed them, which, if arguably sacrilegious and undeniably disappointing to the Christ-bearing donators, is the best solution.

Afghanistan is still strictly Islamic country, technically democratic, but still beholden to the Taliban's conservative beliefs. Extremists have recently thrown acid in the faces of schoolgirls. On a lighter note, the government quarantined its one and only pig -- housed in a Kabul zoo -- to guard against swine flu. In this Muslim country, ownership of the animal, and consumption of pork products, is forbidden.

This is what US Armed Forces are up against. This war, now the un-War On Terror, is a PR-game as much as it is military exercise. Uncle Sam handing out New Testaments would only further radicalize Islamists, and further endanger American Troops. Even the Grahams would agree that the circumstances in the country are less than plum for an altar call.

But when I first heard about this story last Friday, I didn't think of its impact on troops on the ground. I thought about punditry. I thought about politics, of how the Religious Right would go berserk. I told a friend of mine that, though I do not usually watch cable news, I would watch CNN and Fox News all of Saturday to get my fill of the controversy (better described as a "controversy").

This is the challenge of my generation: separating issues from their politics. They are both important, but they are different. As I write, I will try to distill the two, or at least admit when I fail (or do not care) to do so.