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Because if it turns out that way, I can stand the embarrassment and blog an apology.
That would be so much easier than just about anything else.
15 Monday Apr 2013
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Because if it turns out that way, I can stand the embarrassment and blog an apology.
That would be so much easier than just about anything else.
15 Monday Apr 2013
Today’s bombing of the Boston Marathon could be attributed to other actors, say a Brevick-type group on the Far Right, or perhaps two or three lunatics with obvious mental health issues and a slew of yellow and red flags scattered through their employment records or rap sheets, but this evening it is not looking good for that.
And forget about whacked-out conspiracy false-flag theorizing.
That’s been done with the 911-Truth brigades and, well, “everyone knows” it was the CIA, the Mossad, and so on.
Sorry.
This one looks like the London bombing of 2005.
How “un-Islamic” the good will castigate the evildoers in the name of Islam.
And yet how perfectly “Islamist” will cry the “Islamophobes”, except the same under that false banner may well, or as well, be comprised of everyone not so hep on the “Islamization” of our one marvel of a blue planet.
“Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.”
Yusuf Ali’s translation of Sura 9:29 (as presented by Wikipedia) would seem hard to parse as peaceful.
“Fight those who believe not . . .” seems a far cry from “One scholar is more powerful against the devil than one thousand worshipers.”
I have seen Muslims baited by Christian zealots with “9:29” precisely because it appears — is it not? — a belligerent and elevating statement for Muslims and a belittling, demeaning, and enslaving piece of work for all who are not Muslim, including (“even if they are the People of the Book”) Jews and by extension Christians . . . ethical humanists, Buddhists, agnostics, Hindus, animists, atheists, and so on.
Here is Wikipedia’s “List of Religions and Spiritual Traditions”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religions_and_spiritual_traditions
Travel down that list.
Populate it.
I don’t know if it’s a complete list.
I hope that it is not, and that the world’s cultural library is even larger than that represented.
Nonetheless, for those who set off bombs today — and I apologize if it turns out a conspiracy on the part of, say, beer guzzling loons who hate these awful, ambitious, health nuts who run in marathons and probably drink carrot juice on the side — most of the world on that list must disappear before they can be . . . acceptable to God?
Qualified for heaven?
Privileged by the awesome accident of their birth?
Three dead, more than 130 injured, and many of the injuries have been horrific.
Lost limbs.
A theft of body parts.
I know my Muslim friends in Pakistan and elsewhere know this suffering as their own because it is or has been closer to their homes in Asia and the Middle East and North Africa than it has to ours in the west, and they condemn it.
Not Islamic.
And yet . . . .
Islamic duplicity — see Raymond Ibrahim’s “How Taqiyya Alters Islam’s Rules of War: Defeating Jihadist Terrorism”. Middle East Forum, Winter, 2010 — has for a while been killing Muslims around the world, and here at the American doorstep, the advocates of the “Religion of Peace” seem unable to call 9:29 the guarantor of misery for generations past and future.
A madman wants to destroy the world, for that is the sort of thing a mad man may wish to witness in the working of his will, and there seem to be ever present small legions, generally, that either cannot conceptualize their own manipulation and armor themselves against it, or, well aware of it, go along with their own duping, buying into the evil, expressing self-righteous outrage against others for what they have been twisted into themselves.
Atlas may not shrug as much as Obama in the presence of this monster that demands among the good and the peaceful from every walk a higher level of cooperation in getting around it, isolating it, and doing away with it.
The monster demands of its intended meal a higher level of honesty and integrity in all matters, such that prettier words are not used to cover over uglier ones.
I don’t know if dissimulation is possible over 9:29, but this seems to be what it has called for:
“In the aftermath of two bomb blasts near the finish line of Monday’s Boston Marathon, Boston police confirm three dead and scores injured, according to Cheryl Fiandaca, head of media relations for the Boston police. Local hospitals report at least 141 patients are being treated for wounds, including at least 17 in critical condition and 25 others in serious condition. At least eight of the injured are children.”
http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/15/us/boston-marathon-things-we-know/index.html
“Fight those who . . .”
Does “fight” mean “speak out against”?
Would that be enough?
Does “fight those” mean “struggle against”? Or “express dislike for those who . . . . ?
After the Boston Marathon Bombing — again, my apologies if all of this turns out the work of the CIA, MI5, and Mossad (we’ll know in about 75 years, I guess) — will the rest of the world expect Americans and others to care about sloppy drone attacks against the mentality-bearing humans that have it in their hearts to do these things themselves?
The many investigative services and the White House don’t want to stoke the fires, — and truth to tell, empirical method may slow things down some, but it’s a tractor in first gear: once it gets going, it will get to and roll over everything in its way — but I’m going to go ahead and call this a “black day for Islam in America” because our early judgment as Americans has been irreversibly trained.
We read the Jihad news from Pakistan and other places around the world, and, even if reluctantly, we have come to expect it here, watch for it, and call it too soon, or perhaps too late.
Today will divide and polarize many people but with the broad exception of those who whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or other find themselves naturally and with finality moved on to something like the same page, God fearing or not, believing or not, but knowing if they do not now work together, the beautiful world they share together will come apart — and that, God forbid it comes to pass, won’t be the fault of “the Islamists”.
15 Monday Apr 2013
“American blood isn’t more precious than Muslim blood,” said Mohammad al-Chalabi, who was convicted in an al-Qaida-linked plot to attack U.S. and other Western diplomatic missions in Jordan in 2003.
“Let the Americans feel the pain we endured by their armies occupying Iraq and Afghanistan and killing our people there,” he said early Tuesday.”
The problem with the statement, so my Muslim friends well know, is that Muslims comprise the majority of victims of Islamist terror and sectarian conflict worldwide.
Source of quote: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/jordan-extremist-praises-boston-bombing
15 Monday Apr 2013
In searches on this event, I’m seeing a fair share of 30-minute old (or less) pieces coming up from Big Press.
CBS: “Boston bombing witnesses: In their own words”. April 15, 2013. “And when I turned around I could just see bloody bodies on the street, right near where we were standing. I am sure the woman who was on the ground didn’t make it. There’s no way.” Continue reading
15 Monday Apr 2013
Posted in Uncategorized
USA Today: “BOSTON — At least two people died, including a child, and more than 100 were injured Monday after two blasts ripped through the crowd near the finish line of the Boston Marathon.” http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/04/15/explosions-finish-line-boston-marathon/2085193/
—–
Boston.com: ”
The blast came on Patriots Day, Obama noted, which is a state holiday in Massachusetts that celebrates the beginning of the American Revolution.
Blood and broken glass covered sidewalks in the area where the blasts occurred at about 2:50 p.m. Immediately after the explosions, some of the wounded could be seen to have lost limbs; others lay unconscious.”
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The Washington Times: ”
A Boston Globe reporter on the scene at the TD Garden said players already had begun arriving at the arena but were departing with their equipment even before the official announcement.
The arena is about two miles from the Copley Square site of the afternoon explosions. But there have been several reports of other suspicious packages around the city and Police Commissioner Ed Davis advised everybody in the city to stay home and avoid large crowds.
Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/apr/15/boston-bruins-cancel-nhl-game-vs-ottawa-marathon-b/#ixzz2QZrLVckn
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter
—–
That’s enough.
I know you know how to do a fast web search too.
Today’s event will not disappear from the news so quickly; it will not be consigned to the international pages; it will probably not go the way of reportage on whacked out Jokers and the otherwise tragically confused loner.
You know the formula: major holiday; major event; lots of press; lots of blood.
In fact, it bleeds — it leads.
I know which side Americans are one, but some will not only have to choose, or having chosen, will be asked to speak, to stand, to become visible.
I’m not even going to go through a round of edits or proofs on this.
Maybe somebody just doesn’t like health, fitness, runners, public sports events, or something.
In which case, gosh, I’m sorry.
And in the other case, I’m sorry too, but in a different way.
15 Monday Apr 2013
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I’m stunned watching this.
11 Thursday Apr 2013
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discrimination, history, Islam, Jewish community, Jews, Turkey
When Kemal proclaimed his state in 1923 there were c. 200,000 Jews there. 100,000 lived in Constantinople, 30,000 in Smyrna, 15,000 in Adrianople, some 3,000 in Brusa and Gallipoli and in other towns. Today there are only 23,000 left which is a dramatic decline of 88,5% within two generations. The obvious explanation might be that the emigration of Turkish Jews to Israel after 1949 is responsible for the decline. Yet, this is not the case. According to the population census of 1927, i.e. four years after the establishment of Kemal’s Republic, there were only 81,454 Jews left in Turkey, including 47,035 in Constantinople. So the worst decline happened long before the creation of Israel which Turkey -as we will see- vehemently opposed. Was it “happiness” that drove so many Jews out of Kemal’s Turkey or rather its lack ? Let’s see!
While I ask the zealous of the anti-Jihad whether any have a transition for what they may perceive as 1.2 billion Jihadists, I have also to acknowledge — and encouragement acknowledgement of — uncomfortable truths in the form of factual data, valid and reliable, well analyzed.
A bit Hillelian perhaps, I would like to leave possibility for the greater development and strength of Islamic humanists (of the sort intending to separate mosque and state and pursue a course around compassionate progress. As “no good deed goes unpunished,” I may have to be suspect of my own idealism.
Nonetheless, whatever the evil, the injustice, the buried and shameful history, and so on, drag it out into the sun.
Bring light to it.
Let’s have a look together.
With regard to the Jews of the Spanish Expulsion, I informally recall seeing numbers above 250,000 migrating to Turkey. That the 15th Century figure diminished to fewer than 100,000 in IAUUS’s account of 20th Century history tells of the program in force and the necessity today of either rejecting its ruthlessly discriminating features out of hand or continuing with the suffering inspired by them, a situation in which the so-called “believers” would seem as damned as those “submitting” to their impositions by way of intimidation and violence.
08 Monday Apr 2013
With the Shiite vs. Sunni schism, I feel like I am watching two wasps, one black, one yellow, trapped in a bell jar, each striving to kill the other.
Some Shiites exult in their political and military triumph. But others wonder whether their new world is that much better than the one left behind. Are the leaders from their own sect consigning them to a future of chronic political violence, corruption and lack of freedom?
Shi’ites say they are living in a state of siege, and some call it genocide. Fear has driven some families abroad while others have taken up arms against groups backed by al-Qaida.
Some artists have taken to expressing their anger at the carnage through their work.
Reuters. “Pakistan’s Sectarian Violence Creeps into Art Scene.” Voice of America, April 5, 2013.
How large does the mirror have to be for the narcissist to comprehend how ugly he has become in the pursuit of his own grandiose phantom?
* * *
I had a good conversation with a Native American at a sun dance at what today seems thousands of years ago.
He said as the sun burned dew of the grass, “Good morning.”
“Every day is a good morning,” I said in return.
Why don’t others say that?
* * *
Residents said the violence broke out on Friday when a group of Christian children were drawing on a wall of a Muslim religious institute.
A Reuters reporter saw what looked like a swastika drawn on the wall. Muslim residents said it had offended them because it looked like a cross.
So Egyptian Muslims find the cross offensive but not the swastika?
With reference to violence against Christians in Muslim-majority states, I supposed I’ve added another wasp to that bell jar.
People in Iraq were displaced up to 2003 by campaigns by the government of Saddam Hussein which considered them opponents; between 2003 and 2005 by the fighting which followed the country’s invasion; and from 2006 by sectarian violence between Sunni and Shi’a militias which led to massive civilian casualties and around 1.6 million new IDPs.
With NATO having made its statement, Iraqi institutions today attend to the displaced and poor. Nonetheless, the above quoted source also notes that ” . . . by the end of 2011, more than half of Iraq’s 1.4 million Christians had fled their places of origin.”
From a voice dissenting over the characterization of the Islamic Small Wars as sectarian:
Recent reports from the International Crisis Group, for example, describe the complex dynamics of the war in Syria, including numerous actions by individuals and groups that defy presumably rigid sectarian lines of affiliation. The ICG reports tell story after story of courageous individuals from differing ethnic and religious backgrounds attempting to meet the everyday humanitarian needs of fellow citizens in extraordinarily difficult circumstances.
Perhaps in disagreement with Elizabeth Hurd’s thesis, albeit without confrontation, there is this from fellow WordPress blogger Avi Melamed:
Accumulating information indicates a growing rage among Iraqi Sunnis for a variety of reasons including:
- The support of the current Iraqi government for the Assad regime due to pressure from Iran on the Iraqi government to do so
- The fact that Iranian arms and military reinforcements to support Assad make their way through Iraq
- The involvement of the Iranian backed Iraqi Shiite Militia called the “Al Mahdi Army” in the war in Syria
- Growing feelings of being discriminated against by the predominantly Shiite Iraqi government
This rage was most recently expressed in stormy demonstrations of Sunnis that swept the Al- Anbar area. Reportedly, following the demonstrations, the Iraqi government ordered the arrest of Ali Al-Hatim Suleiman, the Leader of the Al-Dalim Sunni Tribes.
Melamed, Avi. “Iraq on the Verge of a Violent Sunni-Shiite Confrontation.” March 20, 2013.
Toss that black-and-white thinking into the air and let it disappear in the winds: every Islamic Small Wars battle space, from Afghanistan to Somalia has its unique cultural, economic, environmental, political, and social variables in play, and yet I feel there’s one thing I feel we may be certain about: in the manner in which Shiite and Sunni communities and militants compete, whichever inherits the earth will be only as locusts “inheriting” a cornfield.
ASTORE, Pakistan — The caravan pulled away, leaving behind 19 bullet-riddled bodies in a muddy ditch. Inside the three buses, those spared quietly wept.
The remaining Shiite Muslims had just survived a massacre by Sunni Muslim militants. And the Sunnis aboard had just helped save as many of the Shiites as they could.
With that last piece cited, Alex Rodriguez has published a headline and article you don’t see every day but should.
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