People that shoot children and then yell ‘God is Great’ have a serious blind-spot when it comes to public relations. Summary decapitation of adults ain’t that visually pleasing either. It’s the rough self-defeating equivalent of calling the invasion of Muslim nations ‘a crusade’. Sometimes I think the War on Terror is really a battle to see which side can defeat themselves first.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) June 29, 2008 – Pakistani paramilitary forces destroyed a handful of militant centers and uncovered alleged torture cells as they pressed ahead Sunday with an offensive against extremists near the Afghan border.
The operation in the Khyber tribal area is a shift for Pakistan’s new government, which has sought to reduce violence through the peace deals. But with extremists increasingly threatening Peshawar, a major northwest city, and ambushing supply convoys bound for U.S.-led coalition troops in Afghanistan, the government turned to its troops.
DUBAI (AFP) June 20, 2008 – An Iranian Sunni Muslim rebel group claims to have executed two of 16 Iranian border police it says it kidnapped last week, Al-Arabiya television reported.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Sure seems like a PR nightmare. My guess is this behavior isn’t PR on their part. I don’t believe you and I are the target of a PR campaign in this instance (except as this might be used by western media to be reviled at the inhumane nature of our “adversary”). When I read the story, it seemed to me a ruthless tactic by a group to point out that working with Americans has a very certain and bad ending. Kind of like when we used to execute deserters. Or when we hanged or shot spies who were found out.
yup. But it is still short-sighted, just like our use of torture is short-sighted. Sure, it intimidates people and gets them to do some things we want and to stop doing some things we don’t want.
But, in the end, it’s self-defeating.
Maybe not shortsighted. Americans live their lives assured that if they wait, the calvary will come. In Afghanistan, the calvary never shows. Much like Bush’s burgeoning kingship, if he were to go another 2 terms, with Congress remaining cowed, perhaps we wouldn’t be so sure about standing up to him. There’s that element that it worked for Hussein, maybe Putin, certainly Khadafi, and since our calvary/Nat’l Guard is out of the country, I’m feelin a little sensitive about bullies these days.
There’s no reason not to think this kind of thing, in my book. Of course, I don’t believe that you are completely convinced that Chimpy and Cheney will declare martial law, but we have to remain vigilant.
With the flagrant disregard for the Constitution we’ve seen by both the Congress and the Administration, we have every reason to suspect totalitarian motives. I would never hope this to pass, and want to believe that Congress and dissenters in the DOD would stop such madness, so let’s not throw our epithets of “paranoid” or “naive” out there.
We live in desperate times created by these drama queen neocons with their apocolyptic visions of the future.
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KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) Sept. 27, 1996 — Afghanistan’s Taliban militia seized control of Kabul soon after government forces abandoned the shattered Afghan capital. In its first action, the Islamic militant group hanged former President Najibullah and his brother from a tower. One of the Taliban militia’s top leaders in Kabul, Mullah Mohammad Rabbani, said Najibullah deserved his fate.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."first they beat them to death with rocks and then they hanged them in public.
Still cringe when I see white Toyota pickups after seeing the Taliban use them to haul women to the soccer stadium to be murdered.
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The ‘seminaries’ of Islamic teaching in Peshawar, Pakistan.
In April and May 2001 Human Rights Watch sources reported that as many as thirty trucks a day were crossing the Pakistan border; sources inside Afghanistan reported that some of these convoys were carrying artillery shells, tank rounds, and rocket-propelled grenades. Such deliveries are in direct violation of U.N. sanctions. Pakistani landmines have been found in Afghanistan; they include both antipersonnel and antivehicle mines. Pakistan’s army and intelligence services, principally the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), contribute to making the Taliban a highly effective military force. While these Pakistani agencies do not direct the policies of the IEA, senior Pakistani military and intelligence officers help plan and execute major military operations. In addition, private-sector actors in Pakistan provide financial assistance to the Taliban.
US-NATO bombing raids kill too many civilians, therefore the Afghan population turns against the invading forces.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."My friend told me that this sort of stuff was the topic of today’s kutba at her mosque. That her mealy-mouthed imam went on a tear and exhorted everyone to stand up and say, ‘This is not Islam’. Considering the imam and that the mosque is mostly Afghanistani and Pakistani, that’s pretty big. Usually, he goes on about assimilating and ‘acting white’…to 2nd and 3rd generation people. I loathe that man.
Are!
And as for the kids and heads, same goes, only the phrases change.
On the heads one might find pics if searching, some the photogs will never release, and the ones doing weren’t the VC.
If you watch those brave shining Teutonic Knights (the flower of European knighthood with fancy crested helmets and distinguished lineage blazoned across their tunics) making the sign of the cross over the babies before killing them and throwing their tiny bodies on the fires of one ravished city after another, you have to wonder at Christians. The babies’ capital crime was simply to be born into Eastern Orthodox Christianity, whereas the Teutonic Knights were a Catholic military arm. Same incense, same liturgy, same god and pantheon of saints and angels.
Read Gregory of Tours, describing bishops bloody to the elbow and exultant in that blood as they converted by the sword. Or by poison.
The Old Believers died rather than change the number of fingers they used to make the sign of the cross, as Peter the so-called Great marched across Russia.
The Children’s Crusade? What was it, the 10th? 12th? Pitiful… the so-called Holy Father sending children out to wage war. After he blessed them, of course.
So-called Saint Olaf of Norway invaded and made civil war upon his own people, slaughtering them for choosing another as king. He was pagan until the end, but the Catholic Church needed yet another royal saint to secure their patronage. One for each country, because Church and State unite to form an unquestionable authority and wealth extractor.
Wars over religious differences? Or wars for land and resources?
All this talk about truth disguises the lack of honesty.
Is Easter Week or crossing fingers that important to survival as to be worth killing others and taking their property? Killing babies who aren’t even old enough to make a choice as to religious practices? Saving them by slaughtering them to the last dog?
Nothing has changed in thousands of years.
We still claim that a mystical sky deity has blessed our invasion of somebody else’s territory and we still demonize our opponents for daring to protest. Now, we hang rosaries upon the turrets of the tanks and the checkpoint soldiers hand bible verses to residents of the ghetto we created out of Fallujah and the host of C-130 angels-of-death scream that, yes, America is on CRUSADE.
Killing people.
For totally ficticious reasons.
And occupying their land.
The worst sort of bully is the sanctimonious bully, with a gang of preachers telling him he can do no wrong, because their god has blessed his warring.
Decapitating an adult is less heinous to my mind than using willy-pete on a house with women and children. It is less heinous than sending an aerial drone to kill an old man in a wheelchair emerging from prayer services. It is less heinous than bombing hospitals, poisoning wells, and destroying the sewage treatment plants.
What sort of god would bless using depleted uranium against civilians?
A very cowardly god indeed!
What sort of man justifies wholesale murder and displacement of millions of people by saying that god ordered him to destroy, invade, and occupy and steal? A lying coward.
If I was running the PR for our wars, I wouldn’t say that I was a lackey doing the hit for a cowardly god. An all-powerful god ought to be able to handle his own resource allocation and disbursement.
Your monotheism at work for you.