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“He broke from them and then he broke from himself”

All right, allow me one more indulgence and then I will keep quite for a while. I am a pacifist. I am also pragmatic and take responsibility for my actions. I subscribe to the Kurtzian view of war. If you are going to fight a war, fight it to win. War is an act of barbarism. Thus, to have rules such as the Geneva conventions govern the conduct of fighting and treatment of combatants, to me, seems ridiculous. Kurtz in Apocalypse Now argued for the right to drop the bomb on the Chinese and the Vietnamese. He understood the horror…

Now you see them…

So there has been much ado about the arrest of Muslims related to terrorist charges. We all see the headlines. However, how many of them are actually holding up to close scrutiny? John Walker Lindh was plead out of the system. Jose Padilla was declared an enemy combatant once Ashcroft realized the evidence he had wouldn’t fly in the criminal justice system. Yaser Hamdi might be released after two years, with NO charges being brought against him. Brandon Mayfield was the latest Richard Jewel. Anybody know what’s going on with Lackawanna Six? Today’s news stories have to do with Michigan.…

Central Asian Elections

First hat-tip here. The NYT is not allowing perma-links on the issue. Try to check out their coverage. Tajikistan, the country with which I’m most familiar, has a great deal of potential in terms of human capital. It would be a shame if the corruption of the government kept it from realizing its potential. While the initial blush of post-Soviet headiness in the international community has faded, I believe there is enough aid and interest in Tajikistan that it still has a short window in which it could develop a sustainable economy.

3 thoughts on “I hope it isn’t true”

  1. Peace be with you. I am a Christian in the United States, and am grateful for your very accessible site.
    Is there a Q’uranic word that describes the bombers? “Jihadist” does not work, because this word, as I understand it, refers to legitimate expressions of Islam. “Terrorist” is an evocative word, but not theological.
    It might be helpful to have a word that comes from Islam’s sacred writings. This would help to isolate and condemn evil actions, and would be better than some of the terms we come up with in the West, which tend to be broad brushed over Islam, its faithful, and over Arabs.

  2. Dear Timothy, good question. There are a few words that come to mind to describe these individuals, but nothing to describe the movement. In addition, their actions are so barbaric, there is nothing comparable in the Qur’an that would applicable.

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