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Pud,

The purpose of the planes is to provide a show of force and protect the people on the ground, as needed. Did you not hear the endless observations about how none of them actually dropped any bombs and that this was a good thing, indicating that the show of force was successful? D'oh! Secondly, there are two parts to the religion clause in the First Amendment to the Constitution. The second part is that the government "shall make no law . . . prohibiting the free exercise of religion." It would not be constitutional for the Navy to prohibit people from practicing their particular religion. A lot of the people on the show were rather enthusiastic Christians, freely exercising their Christianity, as well as other religious types also freely exercising their First Amendment rights as well, appropriately with no government interference. No one was being "held captive" or forced to participate in the religious activities. (Though there was one reference to a guy who reportedly got worked up about the announcements for religious services.) Otherwise, the folks who said they were not religious had no issue with other people practicing their religions. They weren't scared or antagonized about it, and you shouldn't be either.
Third, the Muslim god and Christian god is the same god, albeit Christianity and Islam have different traditions of worship. I don't know that the distinctions between Christian and Islamic worship are the main underlying dispute in Iraq (although religious bigotry is certainly exploited on the Islamic side). Some young kid on last night's show said it best, that we're bringing western ideas to the middle east but those ideas have more to do with McDonald's than with Christianity (paraphrasing).