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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…

L’affaire Burqa – in the West

I have always been uncomfortable around Muslim women wearing the full veil or Burqa.  Growing up in Karachi,  I only knew one woman who wore a full veil – "Apaa" my Urdu and Quran teacher.  I just never encountered in my 12 years there many women who wore a veil.  Thus, now, it is so surprising for me to see Muslim women veiled in Western countries. On the one hand – the feminist in me wants to shake them up and say: "Why? Oh Why? are you doing this?" – but then the other feminist says: "Its a free world…

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.…