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Early Tuesday morning, an Afghan soldier ran amok and fired a shoulder-mounted grenade launcher into a base control room, killing two British soldiers. Afghan President Hamid Karzai immediately issued an apology statement to the British government and has publicly called for unity and cooperation between Afghan forces and international soldiers who are there to fight the Taliban. In 2008, Afghani policeman turned on American forces in at least two incidents, killing one US soldier in September and another in October, and an Afghani policeman killed five British soldiers last November. These acts from rebels who have infiltrated Afghanistan's armed and civil services demonstrate that, with the hurried growth of security forces in recent months, the Coalition and President Karzai must devote even more time and resources to screening and training personnel to cull out Taliban sympathizers from the police and governing bodies.

With the recent installment of General David Petraeus in Afghanistan, President Karzai and the Coalition will hopefully have an opportunity to reassess and reallocate time and resources to meet the challenges imposed by continuing Taliban assaults. Hamid Karzai has been a strong supporter of the recently chastised General Stanley McChrystal and was hoping to continue working with him in spite of McChrystal's Rolling Stone interview in which he openly criticized the abilities of the Obama Administration. That's not to suggest that Mr. Karzai would not work cordially with Petraeus; they have a common long-term enemy and a history of hard-fought battles against insurgents.

Karzai has maintained close and friendly ties to the US, and has repeatedly solicited further support from the US and its allies to oust insurgents; the US and Great Britain have the highest numbers of troops stationed in Afghanistan. At times, however, the ease of his diplomatic relations with America has been strained in light of accusations from critics and words from Karzai's own mouth. The 2009 Afghan elections were plagued by lack of security, low voter turnout, ballot stuffing, and intimidation, and Karzai was accused of - at the least - not rooting out the corruption in his ranks. His opponent in the November 2009 run-off election dropped out, and 17 of his 24 initial cabinet member picks were rejected by the Afghan parliament for having been picked due to bribes or ethnicity. In April, former UN diplomat Peter Galbraith suggested that drug use (opium, a market cultivated by the Taliban, is one of Afghanistan's highest-earning exports) is to blame for President Karzai's emotional instability and outbursts, though palace spokesmen staunchly deny the claims.

"He's prone to tirades, he can be very emotional, act impulsively," Galbraith said. "In fact some of the palace insiders say that he has a certain fondness for some of Afghanistan's most profitable exports."

Because of the firestorm that began after the opium accusations, the Obama Administration considered canceling the White House's invitation for Karzai to visit in May, though Obama had been in Afghanistan to visit Karzai the month before. The event opened a small floodgate of accusations from Afghani insiders, asserting that Karzai is mentally unstable. In a phone conversation with President Karzai, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attempted to calm the disturbed waters, and Karzai apparently threatened, albeit jokingly, to rejoin with the Taliban if some of the diplomatic pressures didn't lighten up.

A Little Background On Hamid Karzai:
Hamid Karzai was born in Kandahar in 1957 to an influential family of historic lineage. His father, Abdul Ahad Karzai, was a khan, or chief by birthright, of the kingly Popalzai tribe, a statesman in the Afghani parliament, and a strong supporter of Afghan's King Zafir Shah. He grew up in a lifestyle of privilege on the family estate amidst six brothers and one sister. He attended Simla University in India during the 1970‘s, then Himachal University of Himachal Pradesh, India and received his Post-graduate degree in political science there.

He is multi-lingual and speaks several of the native languages of Afghanistan as well as Hindi, English, and French. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, his father lost control of the palace and during the period that followed, many of Hamid's siblings fled to the US. They continue to work here - one as a university professor and others as entrepreneurs of an Afghani-American restaurant chain. Hamid remained in Afghanistan and later Pakistan, gathering friends and acquaintances among those who shared his anger at Soviet occupation. He and his wife Zinat, an obstetrician, married in 1998.

Through the Soviet occupation, Karzai came to thoroughly despise foreign intrusion and interference. He originally supported the Taliban in the 1990's, hoping that their takeover of Afghanistan would form a bulwark against foreign invaders. In fact, he was asked to be their UN ambassador, but he broke ties with the Taliban when he suspected Pakistan's influence upon them to be too powerful. His father was shot and killed in 1999, presumably at the hands of Taliban agents. After his father's assassination, Karzai fought to drive the Taliban from Afghanistan. He became khan of the tribe in his father's place, growing his supporters from a tiny handful of men with meager supplies until he had enough assistance to first bring his father's body back to Kandahar for burial, then to physically drive the Taliban from the city.

What Now?
The May White House conference with Karzai and the Afghan delegation went through after all. The Obama Administration and Karzai's cabinet spent unprecedented long hours together, sharing strategies and policy in the battle against insurgents. Even in May, General Petraeus was helping to develop Operation Hamkari to spread Afghan's governmental control beyond its current stronghold of the Helmand province and into Kandahar.

The next parliamentary election is scheduled for September 2010, and as a condition for political funding, the international community demanded that Karzai remove both the head and the deputy head of the election committee. Karzai has done so and must find suitable, well-screened individuals to replace them. We will see whom he chooses and whether Karzai remains a faithful partner with Coalition forces, or whether he allows corruption to sabotage the future of his country.  

In the mid-1800s, it became popular to measure brains and cranial capacity in order to prove the higher intelligence of certain groups of humanity. Humans had bigger brains than apes. The bigger the brain, the argument went, the greater the intelligence, and those humans with brains closer to the size of apes must be less highly evolved and therefore less intelligent. Of course, the European male scientists doing the studies "proved" that Caucasian brains were the biggest and African brains were the smallest, with Indians and Asians in between. In reality, though, these men only proved how far they would go to distort science to support their own prejudices and preconceived ideas.

In his 1981 book The Mismeasure of Man, Stephen Jay Gould systematically examines the acrobatics that these 19th century scientists went through to prove that whites were smarter than blacks, that men were smarter than women, and that society's undesirables were more ape-like. Gould, an evolutionist himself, shows that even those scientists who prided themselves on their commitment to the data had a tendency to make the data say what they wanted the data to say.

In his introduction, Gould says, "In reanalyzing these classical data sets, I have continually located a priori prejudice, leading scientists to invalid conclusions from adequate data, or distorting the gathering of data itself."

That's a problem. Science is supposed to be the collection of pure data which leads to conclusions that we can all trust. Scientists, though, no matter how impartial they claim or try to be, still bring their personal beliefs and biases to the table. This is certainly true in areas of study open to wide interpretation, but even in studies that appear to be objective, the way a study is set up or the interpretation of its data can be subject to the scientist's often unconscious preconceived ideas.

Bias and Brain-Sizes:
For instance,19th Century physician Samuel George Morton sought to rank the races through brain size.  He collected over a thousand skulls during his lifetime, but – likely unconsciously – selected skulls and measured their cranial capacity in a way that supported what he already believed.  For instance, he chose the largest Caucasian skulls to measure, but had no problem including the small Inca Peruvians in the Indian category, thus reducing the average brain size of Indians compared to Caucasians.

Paul Broca, the famous professor of clinical surgery after whom the Broca's convolution in the brain is named, considered himself the objective scientist on the issue. He attacked the egalitarians of his day for allowing their hopes for the equality of mankind to cloud their judgment. He collected tremendous amounts of data to demonstrate that white people were more intelligent than "lowly races" and that men were more intelligent than women. When the evidence didn't fit his expectations, though, he found ways to explain it away.

For instance, he willingly corrected for the body sizes of small men when measuring their brain sizes, but did not feel obliged to do so for women. After all, he said, we all know that men are smarter than women. He said, "We might ask if the small size of the female brain depends exclusively upon the small size of her body. But we must not forget that women are, on the average, a little less intelligent than men, a difference which we should not exaggerate but which is, nonetheless, real."

As the old saying goes, "If I hadn't believed it, I wouldn't have seen it." 

In fact, there was no consistent differences between the brain sizes of blacks and whites or Asians or Australians or men and women that could not be accounted for by the differences in body size, age, or health.

Brain size doesn't have much to do with intelligence anyway, contrary to what most people think. Even in Broca's day, he noted that certain eminent scientists had unexpectedly small brains, and recent studies have failed to show a correlation between brain size and intelligence.

Brain Size Studies Today:
A University of Minnesota study recently published in the journal Psychological Science demonstrates a link between the size of certain parts of the brain and specific personalities. People with a larger lateral prefrontal cortex are more likely to be conscientious, while extroverted people tended to have a bigger medial orbitofrontal cortex. However, no particular part of the brain appears to be larger in conjunction with intelligence or creativity. The scientists involved also noted that various parts of the brain may grow larger by exercising them through life experiences and are not necessarily genetically predetermined. A wide variety of factors can influence a person's personality, and the brain changes as it grows.

A recent study published July 12th in the journal Neurology concludes that people with larger brains are able to weather Alzheimer's better than people with smaller brains, possibly because there is more "back-up" space to use. However, while genetics may have an influence, nurture does a lot to determine the health of a person's brain. The brain does the majority of its development prior to age six, and children's brains develop better if the kids are actively cared for and have lots of opportunity for their minds to be stimulated. The brains of older people tend to be smaller than those of younger people, and keeping the brain active, exercising, and eating a healthy diet will also discourage the atrophy of the brain as seen in Alzheimer's.

Today, peer-review and lively discussion between scientists help uncover biases and keep scientists honest. Ultimately, whether performed in the 1800s or today, scientific studies are still done by human beings, and with them comes the ever-present "human" element.  Especially when controversial issues are the subject of a study, it is important that researchers be aware of their own and others' intellectual baggage.  For instance, Donald Johanson and the rest of the world can still see in the australopithecines a distant evolutionary relative, while those without an evolutionary viewpoint would say, "Lucy's just an ape." Geologists who assume the great age of a volcanic eruption will use Potassium-Argon dating to age-date volcanic rocks and, because K-Ar dating doesn't work accurately for recent events, will get an age of millions of years even if the volcanic eruption occurred 4000 years ago.

Christians are not free from guilt in this area, either. The problem cuts both ways. As we pursue scientific investigations, it is vital to be aware of our own biases and presuppositions. The true answer to any investigation is out there, and God is a God of Truth. Our job is to be honest, and do our best to diligently study and find out what it is. (And exercise our brains to ever-healthier sizes in the process.)

While prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah are well-known, many Christians know little about the shorter prophetic books of the Old Testament.  The books written by Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, and Malachi may be infrequently read, but are nonethless powerful voices from men through whom the Spirit of God breathed.  The following overviews of each of these books will hopefully inspire further study.  

Habakkuk:
Habakkuk was probably a priest before he was called as a prophet - at about the same time as Jeremiah. He thus was also a contemporary of Daniel and wrote in the declining days just prior to the Babylonian captivity.  He asked a question that most of us ask at some point: Why do bad things happen to good people? In fact, this is one of Habakkuk's main themes. (This involves what is called "theodicy": a defense of God's goodness and omnipotence in a world of evil.) One of his most pivotal passages is:

"The Just shall live by faith." - Habakkuk 2:4

This verse became the primary prompting of Martin Luther which led to the Reformation and which also appears as a unifying quotation in a "Trilogy" of Paul's epistles:

1. Who are "the Just"?  Paul answers that in Romans1:17.  
2. How shall they "live"?  Paul answers this in Galations 3:11.
3. "By faith!"  Habakkuk declares. Paul focuses on this in Hebrews 10:38.

In fact, this quote immediately precedes the famous "Hall of Faith" of Hebrews 11! (This also is one of the reasons we believe Paul was the author of this unsigned epistle.) 

Habakkuk's book is not about being initiated by God into the ministry, but rather he is initiating a dialog with God about the ministry: he is the initiator and God is the responder. He starts out by wrestling with God and ends up worshiping Him.

Zephaniah:
Zephaniah was born in the latter reign of Manasseh (686-642 BC) (2 Kings 21:16), and had the honor of being the great-great-grandson of King Hezekiah. His name means, "whom the Lord hides (or protects)." While he was almost a contemporary of Habakkuk, Zephaniah's focus, like Joel's, is more distant as he deals with the Day of the Lord.

There are many fascinating hints in this tiny but remarkable book.  Zephaniah describes the facts that in the end times, when Israel would be regathered in the land, there would be a return to pure Hebrew (Zeph 3:9), and that Ethiopia would ultimately bring the Messiah a special gift on Mt. Zion(Zeph 3:10; Isaiah 18). Zephaniah even hints at the Rapture in verse 2:3! (Cf. Isaiah 26:19-21.)

Haggai:
Haggai was the first of the post-exile prophets, and focuses on the rebuilding of the Temple after the return from Babylon. (As does Zechariah on a more visionary level; Haggai is more practical.) His focus is that work is the measure of life (Hag 1:8, 14; 1 Cor 15:58).

His audience was the believing remnant. They were the right people, living in the right place, wanting to do the right work, and for the right reasons. (Does that sound like us?) But their priorities were not right. They were caught up in their own pursuits, living for themselves rather than for God's glory. (Ouch! Does that also sound like us?)

Malachi:
We sometimes jokingly call this the "Italian prophet" (by mispronouncing his name, accenting the second syllable), but this last book of the Old Testament also features a post-exile prophet. This book, among other things, includes one of the most fascinating personal challenges found in the Bible.

Several times in the Scriptures, Jesus emphasizes that we are not to "test" God (Deut 6:16). In fact, this issue is included among the famed "temptations" of Christ (Matt 4:7; Luke 4:12).  Yet, here we find an astonishing exception, where God actually dares us to put Him to a test!

"Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it." -Malachi 3:10

Here the Divine Ruler of the Universe puts Himself "into a box" of commitment and dares us to "prove Him now herewith" by accepting His challenge! It is the answer to all financial problems, if we will but take advantage of this audacious promise. This book closes the Old Testament record with a prophecy of a return "in the spirit of Elijah," and ushers in the 400-year period that scholars call the "silent years" between the testaments. The New Testament opens with John the Baptist, the person that ends the Old Testament (Matt 11:13; Luke 16:16.)

In addition to the various topical excursions encountered within these pithy books, our commentaries also include a number of discursive addenda: The Myth of "the Ten Lost Tribes;"  Ezekiel's Mysterious 430 Years; and Rapture Models in the Old Testament, and more. The Holy Spirit always rewards the diligent. Good hunting!