Ben Kingsley is/was Muslim

As of August 10, my new kunya is now Abu WOMB@!, but at least in this space, I’ll remain islamoyankee. His name is honor of Umm WOMB@! who is an Australian. Until things settle down, I’ll be posting Eschaton-style for a while. update: Abu means father, as Aunty Doodle-bug pointed out, not everyone knows that. Technorati Tags: wombat

CNN is reporting that al-Zarqawi has released an audio tape that justifies the killing of Muslim civilians based on the teachings of so-called Islamic scholars. Here is the intro from CNN: “A chilling, rambling audio file thought to be from the most-wanted man in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, says religious doctrine justifies the killing of innocent Muslims by insurgents. On the audio, the speaker says in Arabic: ‘The shedding of Muslim blood … is allowed in order to avoid the greater evil of disrupting jihad.’ The speaker defends suicide attacks, saying, ‘killing of infidels by any method including martyrdom operations…

Disclaimer – I am not offering this article as any type of justification for the prison abuses going on. Let me be 100% clear – I think what has happened in the Abu Ghraib prisons, and perhaps elsewhere as well, is atrocious and I am angry about it. It is our fault as a country and we need to fix the problem immediately. Those responsible for overseeing these horrible travesties should be severely punished and things must change immediately. Actual post – In the interests of learning from the situation and trying to understand factors at play, I came across…