Category: Current Affairs

It’s a view of torture. I suspect that those who think the wording of the Geneva Convention is vague are in no rush to participate as a receiver of the activities at Gitmo. Technorati Tags: torture

Read “Five years after 9/11“ by Shahid Javed Burki, an editorial in The Dawn newspaper in Pakistan. Too bad so many Pakistanis are illiterate or do not read English. More editorials like this one in the Muslim world would be welcome. Shahed Amanullah posted Still Caught Between Two Hells on altmuslim.com.

The New Yorker has a very good article entitled “The Moderate Martyr: A radically peaceful vision of Islam”, by George Packer. The article is about Mahmoud Muhammad Taha, a, Sudanese scholar who put forward a vision of Islam in its original, uncorrupted form, in which women and people of other faiths were accorded equal status and which the Quranic concepts of compassion, mercy, justice, and beauty, supersede some of the less tolerant passages of the Sunna. The Pope’s statements on Islam . The statement provoked the usual reaction of: How dare he call us intolerant. We must kill him. “Anyone…

Recently there have been a couple of incidents reflecting the hazards of being and Islamic traveller.  First Jarrar is told to change his shirt because of its Arabic script.  Second a Northwest Airlines flight is diverted because of 12 "unruly" Muslim passengers. I quite liked this analysis in Salon about this situation.  May Allah help us all and may our fellow non-Muslim passengars have compassion and mercy on us: GO-AROUNDS Re: Passenger vigilantism The Raed Jarrar case is especially troubling because it makes so little sense. Not only did security at JFK assume that Jarrar was potentially dangerous because of…

The Boston Globe is running an editorial about the recent Khatami visit to Boston.  They were there when he met with members of the MIT Faculty members.  Some choice quotations: As the people around his table at the MIT Faculty Club laughed, Khatami added: “And Bush and Ahmadinejad are cut from the same cloth. …… Demonstrating his reputed interest in the Western Enlightenment, Khatami at one point cited the British philosopher John Locke, observing that Locke’s reason for separating religion from the state was to protect religion. He invoked Locke to make the point that many Iranians who favor more…

NY Times is running a wonderful audio/photo essay about recent Muslim immigrants to US.  I am always blown away by the courage of immigrants.  Enjoy it here.

Never in my darkest days did I ever think that I would be agreeing soooo much with Patrick Buchanan.  The clairty of his arguement in this case is simply stunning.  He takes on the term "Islamo-facism" as used by Bush et al and digs a 6 feet grave for it (RIP).  Here are some tasty quotes: Unsurprisingly, it is neoconservatives, whose roots are in the Trotskyist-social Democratic left, who are promoting use of the term. Their goal is to have Bush stuff al-Qaida, Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran into the same “Islamo-fascist” kill box, then let Strategic Air Command do…

They are needed to fly. I don’t discount the whole plot, but there is something not right with the announcement happening a day after Lieberman (Republican in Democrat’s clothing – Connecticut) losing the primary. Here’s a piece on the chemistry involved. Technorati Tags: London, terrorism

They are needed to fly. I don’t discount the whole plot, but there is something not right with the announcement happening a day after Lieberman (Republican in Democrat’s clothing – Connecticut) losing the primary. Here’s a piece on the chemistry involved. Technorati Tags: London, terrorism