Related Posts

Torture is Terror

The passage below is a problem I have been struggling to articulate. From Aziz: What is needed is a generalized principle under which both opposition to terrorism and opposition to torture can be articulated. From a religious perspective, muslims have been arguing (usually defensively) that terrorism (ie, hirabah) goes against Islamic teachings for quite some time – see my own ongoing articles on hirabah here on beliefnet and my earlier hirabah posts. Recently, several muslim organizations issued a joint statement against torture (to which I also signed). Many of the same religious arguments that are made can be applied equally…

A Terror Trials Pep Talk

There are two reasons I am utterly baffled by the possible reversal of the decision to try terrorists in federal court. First, it comes at a time when efforts to find, kill, and capture terrorists are having significant success. The key, it turns out, is to be dogged and professional, rather than going to “the dark side.” And that’s the other puzzling thing — that arguments based on fear-mongering and emphasizing the appearance of toughness still carry weight long after they were shown to do more harm than good. … We’ve got this totally backwards; this is a chance for…

Onward Christian Soldiers [update]

From TPM. If you haven’t heard, Donald Rumsfeld was using Bible quotations to justify what was going on in Iraq. No doubt, the big story starting off the week. In GQ, Robert Draper does a first look back at Don Rumsfeld’s tenure at the DOD, with a focus on internal briefing documents which wrapped the day’s military events out of Iraq with smoteful biblical quotations about the righteous conquering the wicked and the infidel. Here’s the slideshow. [From Onward Christian Soldiers] Dan Varisco from Tabsir shares his thoughts as well: The Bible is a big book with plenty of quotations…