The Americans are not the only ones torturing their prisoners. CBS 60 Minutes had a glimpse of “Saudi Justice”:http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/06/60minutes/main615986.shtml this week.
bq. Why did the Government of Saudi Arabia frame seven westerners for a series of car bombings they didn’t commit? Those car bombings, which began in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, in November 2000, killed three members of the expatriate community and severely injured several others. To Western observers, they were clearly the work of Islamic fundamentalists. But the Saudis were not about to admit that. So five Britons, a Canadian and a Belgian found themselves arrested, systematically tortured into false confessions and eventually convicted of those bombings.
Moral Outrage Mr. Koffi Annan ?
State Department and Pakistan
The U.S Department of State has released its reports on terrorism called Patterns of Global Terrorism – 2003. In the section for India it is mentioned that
In the states of Jammu and Kashmir, killings of civilians by foreign-based and Kashmiri militant groups continued and included the murder of numerous political leaders and party workers. The Indian Government asserted that Lashkar-i-Tayyiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed were behind a number of high-profile attacks in the state, which included the massacre of 24 Hindu civilians in southern Kashmir in March and an attack on 17 October outside the Chief Minister?s residence compound in Srinagar.
If you read the whole report, you will find that the foreign land from where militant groups enter Kashmir is never named. The state department is oogling over Musharraf and for them Pakistan continues to be the most important ally in the US war on terror aka Finding Osama. The ally is so trustworthy that US forces are now going in and out as they please
The section on Pakistan is all about how well they are doing in their war on terror with absolutely no word about how they are supporting terrorists, who are creating problems in India and Afghanistan. Even if the Americans in the field suspect the Pakistani sincerity or if the ISI is inviting journalists to their meetings with terrorists, where it is declared that, “Nobody can deviate us from our goal of liberating Kashmir.”, the State Department is turning a blind eye to it.
Religious Principles
“Few days back”:https://varnam.org/archives/000372.html we saw how “The Da Vinci Code”:https://varnam.org/archives/000340.html united Protestants and Catholics. Now according to this report, Shias and Sunnis have united in certain regions of Iraq to fight the “the coalition forces”:http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=519245.
bq. Extraordinary scenes as Iraqi Shia were invited to pray in Sunni mosques yesterday were evidence of how deeply the Americans have misunderstood Iraqi society. Only months ago, the US was issuing dire warnings of civil war between Iraq’s Sunni and Shia. Instead, the two communities have united against the occupiers.
But then when the world goes one way, Pakistanis “go the other way”:http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1083180354708.
bq. Pakistan’s paramilitary and security services were on high alert on Friday night after a suicide bomber attacked a Shia mosque in Karachi, the southern port city, leaving at least 15 dead and more than 125 injured. That attack was widely believed to be the work of members of hardline Sunni groups including factions that have campaigned for years for Shia muslims to be officially declared heretics. Some groups are believed to be linked to militant outsiders such as al-Qaeda, according to intelligence officials.
If Shias and Sunnis are confused, the “Christians and Muslims of Nigeria are not”:http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/world/story/0,4386,249819,00.html.
Religion! What a wonderful thing.
Northern Qi Buddhas
This is one of the 35 extraordinary 6th-century Chinese Buddhist statues that were accidentally unearthed in 1996 by workers leveling a school sports field in Qingzhou, a small city in Shandong Province on China’s northeast coast.
bq. Created during a 50-year period straddling the Northern Wei (386 – 534), Eastern Wei (534 – 550) and the Northern Qi (550 – 577) dynasties, the sculptures illustrate dramatic stylistic changes that occurred during that time. The unusual quantity of remaining gilding and vibrant red and green pigments on their surfaces provide a chance for the viewer to experience the impact of brightly decorated sculpture-the norm in ancient China. Many faces are gilded and some retain the remnants of painted mustaches, while the stone mandorlas-or backgrounds of the high relief sculptures-still display vibrant red pigments representing flames of light emanating from the Buddha.
bq. Northern Qi sculptors adopted a different style more akin to the Indian Gupta style. Free-standing figures were modeled wearing light, close-fitting monastic garments revealing the body contours of the wearer. Carved in the round, but with less-detail on the rear, these three-dimensional Northern Qi figures had downcast eyes- encouraging a compassionate exchange between the Buddha and the viewer below. Their low ushnishas furthered the impression that these Buddhas were more “human” and approachable. Iron hooks remaining on some sculptures indicate that independent mandorlas were attached to the statues. [From “Indian Archeology Mailing List”:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndiaArchaeology/]
The Apology
“Tom Friedman”:http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/06/opinion/06FRIE.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists%2fThomas%20L%20Friedman in NY Times
bq. Mr. Bush needs to invite to Camp David the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, the heads of both NATO and the U.N., and the leaders of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Syria. There, he needs to eat crow, apologize for his mistakes and make clear that he is turning a new page.
Followed by “Little Green Footballs”:http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=10946_Friedman-_Were_All_Doomed_Unless_Bush_Grovels
bq. Thomas Friedman demands that Donald Rumsfeld be fired, and maybe the entire Pentagon along with him. He says it?s the only way to restore our honor. After laying waste to our military command, Friedman proposes that President Bush invite to Camp David the UN Security Council, and the leaders of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Syria, and grovel before them in abject shame, wearing sackcloth, rubbing ashes into his hair, and weeping.
but at the “end of the day”:http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/07/politics/07RUMS.html?hp
bq. President Bush said on Thursday that he was sorry for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers, but vowed that the man in charge of the United States military, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, would remain in his job. Mr. Bush expressed his regrets in the White House Rose Garden at the side of King Abdullah II of Jordan after they met in the Oval Office. The president, who had deplored the abuse but stopped short of an apology in Arab television interviews on Wednesday, appeared to direct his words to the king as the leader of an Arab nation.
Prisoner Abuse & Accountability
The Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal is getting murkier
bq. For one thing, the scandal is not just limited to six people – as House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter repeatedly insisted on Capital Report last night. His “six” doesn’t seem to include the soldier who, according to the one report, had sex with a female prisoner. Nor does it seem to include the two people cited in General Taguba’s report who work for two private companies – CACI and Titan – and apparently participated in interrogations.
bq. Moreover, the whole issue of contractor involvement in interrogations has stirred up a hornet’s nest on Capitol Hill. These contractors are not subject to the military justice system. They cannot be subject to court martial. So how exactly, some members of Congress want to know, will they be held accountable for their actions? [From CNBC Capitol Report Mailing List]
But will Donald Rumsfeld quit over this ? The answer is: “No”:http://www.utusan.com.my/utusan/content.asp?y=2004&dt=0506&pub=Utusan_Express&sec=World&pg=wo_06.htm.
Peace ? Just wait and see
For those of you who think that love is flowing across the border from Pakistan to India, here is a “grim report”:http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?pt=rEp8HSWcbZi3u%2FG6rbayBx%3D%3D.
bq. Good luck. For now, the militants have gone quiet, temporarily refraining from larger-scale terrorist attacks in Kashmir. But Pakistan’s army and intelligence apparatus has grown so close to Kashmir militants that it is almost impossible for the government to genuinely crack down. And, even if the government does try, the jihadis won’t go quietly into the night. Infuriated, they stormed out of the meeting with the representative from the ISI. “After betraying the Islamic government in Afghanistan [i.e, the Taliban], General Musharraf is now trying to let down Kashmiris,” said one of the militants who attended the meeting with the ISI man. “Nobody can deviate us from our goal of liberating Kashmir.”
Ban The Movie
So far we have been hearing only the accusation of anti-Semitism for Mel Gibson’s Passion of Christ. But now one Christian group has asked for a “ban on the film”:http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IER20040504024758&Page=R&Title=Kerala&Topic=0&
bq. Eliyas told reporters here that the movie seems to have a hidden agenda to dispute Christian beliefs and historical facts centered around the Bible. The resurrection of Christ has been portrayed in a purely mythical light and though the language used in the movie is said to be Aramaic, the language used by Christ, in fact it is only a mixture of Arabic and ArabiSyriac. So are many facts which go against traditional beliefs and history. One should also take note of the fact that a controversy is already raging in the West that the movie is a product of an international conspiracy to distort Christian beliefs, he noted.
This is surprising considering the fact that Mel Gibson is a firm believer and he made the movie after “meditating on the Gospels”:http://www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=85092&command=displayContent&sourceNode=85091&contentPK=9727036. The movie was adapted from the four Biblical Gospels of Matthew, Luke, Mark and John and so if a Christian is saying that a movie adapted from the Gospels is an international conspiracy, then it must be.
Now if Eliyas has finished attacking this movie, then he should pay attention to the book, “The Da Vinci Code”:https://varnam.org/archives/000340.html which has Christians all wild, and has “united both Protestants and Catholics”:http://www.iht.com/articles/517522.html.
bq. Among “The Da Vinci Code” critics are evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics who regard the novel – which is laced with passages celebrating feminism, anticlericalism and pagan forms of worship – as another infiltration by liberal cultural warriors. They also say the book exploits distrust of the Catholic Church in the aftermath of the clergy sexual abuse scandal.
More On The Ship Wreck
There is “some more information”:http://www.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?id=36992&cat=India about the 1000 year old shipwrreck “that was found”:https://varnam.org/archives/000288.html in the sleepy hamlet of Kadakkarapally of Thykkal village in Alappuzha district of Kerala.
bq. Archeologists say the boat is a product of fantastic workmanship. It is a double- hulled, double mast boat, divided into 11 compartments. The masts are no longer present. One mast step is in the center of the boat and the other is in the bow end. The boat has a pointed bow. The boat measures about 18.70 metres in length and its width is 4.05 metres. The original length of the boat could be around 21 metres.
bq. According to the historical records available, Thykkal was once a busy port. The Kerala Coastal Gazette, published by a local church says Thykkal and nearby areas had settlement of Jews and Arabs.The Gazette adds that the area where the ship was found could have been either a broad canal leading to the sea or part of the Arabian Sea itself. Thykkal is only two kilometers away from the Arabian sea coast in Alappuzha district.
While the older article mentioned that this wreck was 1000 years old, the new one says it is about 600-800 years old.
This brings up the question, what makes a hamlet sleepy ?
Christianity and EU
Now that more nations have joined the EU, the Pope thinks he has more souls to harvest
“Only a Europe that does not remove, but rediscovers its Christian roots will reach the stature needed for the great challenges of the third millennium: peace, dialogue between cultures and religions, the safeguarding of creation,” he said. He has repeatedly called for bloc to enshrine Christianity in its constitution, but this has been resisted by secular politicians. Earlier, in a sign of his growing concern with the secularization of society, the pope warned 26 new priests it would be hard to convince people God was still important in a materialistic world.
The Pope has a reason to get concerned as the religion is on the decline in Europe
Church attendance has dwindled by more than 30% in Britain since 1980. Over the same period, the percentage of the population claiming membership in a religious denomination has dropped more than 20% in Belgium, 18% in the Netherlands and 16% in France. Christianity remains Europe’s main religion, with about 550 million adherents. But the number of Europeans who identify as Catholic ? by far the biggest denomination on the Continent ? has fallen by more than a third since 1978.
Most European countries no longer have state religions, and there’s pressure to disestablish in Britain and Norway, two that still do. The crucifix has long since been taken down from public schoolhouse walls; today’s argument is about whether teachers ? or students ? should be allowed to wear the Muslim veil. That’s a reminder that Europe has good reasons to make the Christian God a little harder to find. In a pluralist society that takes pains not to exclude any religion or culture ? and now includes more than 37 million Muslims ? the days of Christianity as the “official” religion should be over.
The new EU Constitution is still being trashed out behind closed doors and one of issues that is being discussed is: Should the constitution have a reference to God ? Or should it just talk about Christian values ?
With many countries having large muslim population and Turkey thinking about joining the EU, any reference to Christianity explicitly may cause problems.