Related Posts

Is he innocent?

According to today’s New York Times, Brandon Mayfield, the American convert to Islam [I’m painfully aware that nationality has nothing to do with religion, but that’s the way it’s being reported], who was detained yesterday for involvement in the Madrid train bombings of March 11, may not in fact be involved. The relevant graf is: The law enforcement officials said they were afraid that Mr. Mayfield, who is originally from Kansas, might become a fugitive if he knew he was under suspicion. So monitoring that was just getting started was abruptly halted. Mr. Mayfield was arrested before investigators had fully…

Abrahamic Call for Peace

Jews, Muslims, Christians Agree on Gaza-Israel Crisis This statement by leaders of the three Abrahamic communities in Boston was issued yesterday and was published in the Boston Globe by a columnist who writes on religion. Its thoughtfulness and the breadth and stature of its signers are extraordinary – representing the best version of our religious traditions and communities. If in your own community, religious leaders are well on the way to adopting your own statement on the Gaza-Israel war and publicizing it, wonderful! — If however you don’t have such a statement ready, the existence of this one could be…

Tripartite Tractae

A friend and mentor pointed out this article from the International Herald Tribune on splitting up Iraq. I thought with the recent capture of Saddam, now might be a good time to talk about the implications of our long-term strategy in Iraq. Broadly speaking we either keep the country whole, or we divide it. If we keep it whole, we have a few different approaches to keeping it together: Impose our rule, like the IGC; let loose a real representative democracy, putting the Shi’ah in charge; set-up a power sharing scheme, like Lebanon; some confederation of autonomous regions.