On Disengagement - from a Reader

The following is excerpted from an e-mail sent by a reader:

I'm an old lady, so as time passes I learn a lot. And, I've been observing both my president, George W. Bush, and Arik Sharon. And, I've discovered they could care less what the press says. Perhaps, Ronald Reagan was the last of the media giants? But it no longer matters.

With the Disengagement, Arik planned it well. He fired the heads that wouldn't cooperate. And, both the military and the police were trained to perfection. It's as if Arik learned everyone who wants to be on TV will operate like the nuts who show up to be televised on the Jerry Springer Show.

How sad for the Torah, really. It doesn't take much to realize our world has changed. And, only people who refuse to change manage to cling to age-old religions.

Did you know in the Diaspora Judiasm grew branches? Not just the ultra-orthodox; but the men and women who joined the greater society. Philosophers. Like my favorites: Spinoza. And, Martin Buber. And, there's the Conservative movement. And, the Reform movement. ...

Yet, I saw Arik's gifts above all of this. And, the decent way the IDF and the police went about disengaging from the very hostile place called gaza. (I also saw the earthquake that has been set off under the feet of the arabs. Who sat, amazed. Whose TVs also turned to the pictures that flashed out of the ordeal of separating a few from their homes. For the benefits ahead. That will probably include an influx of funds from America. To see the Negev invigorated with building projects. Why not think that in two years some settlers will be showing off new homes? Would they remember to apologize for the violence done in their names? I really don't know.

But I'm so proud of how Arik PLANNED this thing to be as successful as possible. While others thought he could be stopped in his tracks.

The world's changed. ...

Many thanks to Carol Herman in California who sent this in.

Breaking News on Iraqi Constitution

Iraq the Model reports:

National Assembly member Bahaa Al-Aaraji just told Al-Iraqia TV that an agreement has finally been reached among the leaders of political bodies on the final draft of the constitution and that disputes over issues like federalism, distribution of resources and the role of Islam have been solved.

"All we need now is a couple of hours to reprint the document and produce enough copies to submit them to all the members of the National Assembly to get theri approval later this evening…" Al-Aaraji explained.

Till now there has been no announcement from the head of the constitution drafting committee but Al-Iraqia reporter in the green zone is confirming the news.

UPDATE from ITM: "Regarding Islam and the constitution: it was agreed upon that no laws that are against the widely agreed upon values of Islam can be issued and no laws that are against the values of democracy and human rights can be issued."

Whatever that means. Sounds like politicians at work. Anyway, it looks like there's no immediate cause for panic over the prospect of a theocracy in Iraq. I really don't think the Iraqis would go for that.

UPDATE II: Michael Totten is worried: 'There is no silver lining here, no “bright side” to look on. It’s bad news, period.' Read full post at link.

Steyn: Sheehan vs. Sheehan - and the Democrats

Mark Steyn of the Chicago Sun-Times hits one out of the ballpark with this column:

Cindy Sheehan's son Casey died in Sadr City last year, and that fact is supposed to put her beyond reproach. For as the New York Times' Maureen Dowd informed us: ''The moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq is absolute."

Really? Well, what about those other parents who've buried children killed in Iraq? There are, sadly, hundreds of them: They honor their loved ones' service to the nation, and so they don't make the news. There's one Cindy Sheehan, and she's on TV 'round the clock. Because, if you're as heavily invested as Dowd in the notion that those "killed in Iraq" are "children," then Sheehan's status as grieving matriarch is a bonanza.

They're not children in Iraq; they're grown-ups who made their own decision to join the military ...

And it just gets better. Go and read the whole thing.

Help Abolish Slavery

There are things you can do to help make life better for enslaved people around the world. Here are some ideas.

Victoria Brownworth, one of my favorite columnists (even when I don't agree with her), has an important piece in the new print issue of Curve covering the problem of enslaved women and girls.

According to the United Nations and the British-based organization Anti-Slavery International, there are more people living in slavery today than at any other point in history. Almost 30 million adult slaves, including victims of human trafficking, debt bondage, and serfdom, are scattered across the globe. And the overwhelming majority of modern slaves - 75 percent - are women. According to the United Nations, 246 million children also live as slaves or in serfdom through unrestricted child labor, which the United Nations terms "virtual slavery." The majority of these children are girls whose parents have sold them into slavery or indentured servitude.

Brownworth's article goes on to cite cases of backbreaking child labor in quarries in India, chained textile laborers in Pakistan, Kenyan coffee workers poisoned by pesticides, and "virtual slaves" in agriculture in the United States. She also points out that the United States has refused to sign UN charters against the slavery of women and children, and has granted MFN status to countries that employ child labor.

One important anti-slavery organization is iAbolish. Go to the link to find out how you can provide humanitarian support to survivors of slavery and help raise international awareness (thanks, Andrej Mucic, for your Tour de Freedom event), and don't miss the chance to send our Secretary of State an e-mail urging her to do the right thing, and to "place the security of the Sudanese people at the top of your agenda, especially in this time of confusion and renewed violence in Sudan."

But wait! There's more. The Bush Administration has courageously invested some $400 billion, the lives of our fighting men and women, and a great deal of political capital in the liberation of Iraq from Saddam's Ba'athist regime. There's still much more to be done, though, and it's up to you and me to help. So here's my plug for Women for Women International, which was founded by an Iraqi woman named Zainab Salbi. There's information about what you can do to help Iraqi women. But it's not just about Iraq - Women for Women has programs in Afghanistan, Bosnia/Herzegovina, Colombia, DR Congo, Kosovo, Nigeria, and Rwanda.

Finally, one more antislavery organization is Free the Slaves, which works in partnership with Anti-Slavery International to pressure governments on the problem of slavery.

I know there's going to be somebody out there whining that "I can't support this or that organization because they're endorsed by right/left -wing nutjobs, and I'm a left/right -wing nutjob." Get over it. This is everybody's problem. Now go do something.

Bambi Sheleg on Disengagement

Who disengaged first? A recent editorial by Bambi Sheleg - which was forwarded to me via e-mail - calls for some soul-searching on the part of the religious Zionist movement. I will quote a few excerpts:

... In the years following the Yom Kippur War we [religious Zionists] came to believe, with true sincerity, that we were the flag-bearers of the Jewish people. After all, we had not forgotten the Torah of Israel and its values; we knew from whence we came and where we were going; we had more humility, we were imbued with faith.

The Yom Kippur War had not badly shaken our world of beliefs, as it did with the leading strata of Israeli society up until then. Just the opposite. That war actually strengthened us. The more mature among us discerned a leadership and ideological vacuum, the need for a new ideal to "uplift the people's spirit" – then at an ebb in wake of the war's tragedy – and charged toward the new and exciting goal: settling Judea, Samaria [i.e., the West Bank] and Gaza. Thus the great internal disengagement of religious Zionism began.

...

All this was done consciously by the leadership out of an internal sense that "our people" were worthy of replacing the old and corrupt elites in power, who lacked the true values, the values that we held.

The combination of an internal sense of power, of knowing the way, and the hatred we felt from the old elites who fought against our dream of settling the entire land caused many of us to stop dealing with the weighty questions on our doorstep. For example: What would we do with three and a half million Palestinians lacking civil rights?

Very few among us related to this weighty question with the proper seriousness. This, perhaps, is the main reason that the helm of power has still not come close to being in religious-Zionist hands.

On the other hand, the seclusion, combined with a deep internal sense of being in the right without asking for or needing external confirmation, caused a deep blindness in many of us.

...
Embarrassing as it is to admit, we fell in love with ourselves. We have strong communities, good schools and devoted teachers. We have a path, we have a destiny. We know how things should progress, and if events don't move the way we think they should, we will volunteer to show reality the way.

DEAR FRIENDS, this is so difficult for me to write: We were wrong, and we misled our society. On the way to redeeming the land of our forefathers, we forgot our people. We looked out for ourselves and our children very well, and we forgot so many children of other people.

We tried to give new life to the Torah of Israel so it would suit the tasks of this generation, but the generation of rabbis that were born to us disappointed. Our Torah is not relevant to the real situation of the great majority of the Jewish people in this generation. Its language is cut off and its thoughts not directed to the simple and basic and existential troubles of our society.

...
We looked out for ourselves, did we not? The beautiful settlements we built, the huge and ostentatious houses in so many of them, we thought this was something we deserved by right. While our schools flourished – and we made sure our children received more and more hours of schooling – there was no one to look out for the other children.

We strengthened our own small and prestigious state religious schools and national haredi [Orthodox] schools and neglected, even when we held the Education Ministry portfolio, all the other school systems. We acted like any self-interested sector, not as a worthy leadership.

We have no interest in the rights of workers, which are gradually being eroded – not of Jewish workers and certainly not of foreign workers; we have nothing to say about Israel being a world leader in the trading of women, and we of course have nothing to say about the Palestinian issue.

Except for a very few in our society, we don't even notice their existence. The Palestinians are invisible. They are a phenomenon of nature. We only see them when they strike at us.

And to all this it must be added that the institution closest to us, the one our people still control, the rabbinical courts, function like the legal system of a third world country, and we do almost nothing to change this disgrace.

The behavior of so many of us in the last few months shows that we have lost our wits. The hysterical demonstrations, the tacit consent to sending children to block roads and clash with security forces, all this attests to a deep sense of insult – as if society had betrayed us, the best of its sons.

And yes, many of us are indeed the best of its sons; but we betrayed society first. Innocently. Out of genuine idealism. But also out of arrogance. We disengaged first.

I simply can't overstate how important I think Bambi Sheleg's article is - not just for religious Zionists, or for Jews, but for all of us. Not everyone is familiar with the various factional and ideological struggles within Jewish and Israeli society; but many of us have dreamed, in some fashion, of "creating a better world." This dream has its dangers.

"...we fell in love with ourselves. We have strong communities, good schools and devoted teachers. We have a path, we have a destiny. We know how things should progress, and if events don't move the way we think they should, we will volunteer to show reality the way."

For those of us who have been on the political and cultural Left in America for the last 30 years, this article is like looking into a mirror. THIS IS US.

Please read the full article at the link
.

Update: Imshin has translated portions of the article, with her comments. Also follow her link to the Hebrew original in Ma'ariv.

Update II: Welcome Imshin readers!

Update III: And Kesher Talk readers! Thanks, Judith.

Update IV: Welcome Michael Totten readers! Michael's post speaks for me: "The country has - correctly, in my opinion - quietly moved to the left on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That's because the intifada is no longer what it recently was. It has been beaten back, and history is moving on without some people."

A reader in Germany was skeptical of the analogy I drew between the religious Zionists and the American left, so I'll try to explain a little better - because I believe this is essential for our understanding of the political realities of today's world.

Like the religious Zionist movement, the American Left was the only segment of society that was strenghtened, not weakened, by the last war - in our case, Vietnam. Over the next three decades, the liberal movement - that is, the increasingly dogmatic ideology that called itself "liberalism" - consolidated its hold on our media, our educational and cultural institutions. Liberal communities like Berkeley and neighborhoods like, well, the one I live in, ensured that left-leaning Americans could live comfortably without having to rub elbows with "red-staters".

Liberal Americans, guided by a "deep internal sense of being in the right without asking for or needing external confirmation,", built and strengthened their own communities but rarely stopped to ask themselves what they might learn from their conservative neighbors, or how they might address the conservatives' legitimate concerns about social values and national security. Now that "the helm of power" is slipping farther and farther away from liberal-Democratic hands, many of them are losing their minds.

The settlers sought to compel the Israeli government to follow the religious-Zionist ideology in its foreign policy, by holding themselves and their children hostage in land that was not part of the State of Israel. In the end, they lost their bet; and rather than concede defeat gracefully, they forced the Israeli Defense Forces to expend valuable resources in forcibly repatriating them to Israel proper. They had to be dragged, literally, kicking and screaming.

American leftists, too, refused to accept political defeat. But then, the political process was never really the point for them, either. As Michael wrote at Tech Central Station, "they march for themselves". "They were their own audience. Everyone else was a prop. Everyone else's eyes were mere mirrors. If they had any practical effect on the ground it was the alienation of their moderate allies." Go read Michael's piece at TCS, and go back and read Bambi Sheleg again.

The extreme right-wing Israeli settlers and the extreme left-wing American liberals may not have much in common politically, but they share the same pathology. As a lifelong liberal, and also a person with personal ties to the Orthodox world, I have great respect for both communities. We must learn the difficult lessons that these difficult times come to teach us.

What A Pr*ck

This is repulsive:

CRAWFORD, Texas - A pickup truck ran over wooden crosses erected at antiwar protester Cindy Sheehan's campsite on Monday night in the latest sign of tension over the peace vigil outside vacationing President Bush's Texas ranch.

Larry Northern, 46, of nearby Waco, Texas, was arrested and charged with criminal mischief in connection with the incident, Crawford Police Chief Donnie Tidmore said.
...

Read it all at the link. Evidently this jackass didn't get the memo: In a civilized society, there are civilized ways to express your opinion. This isn't one of them. What a sick POS.

Worth Reading

A few posts from around the blogosphere:

Alas, a Blog takes a look at feminists for life. I don't often post on abortion, but this is well worth reading. Follow the links to the article at The Nation and the FFL homepage.

For no particular reason, I've failed to link Jack Bog's Blog. For every reason in the world, I'm linking it now. Go pay Bojack a visit.

Just when you thought you'd heard it all, Kesher Talk posts on a breathtakingly ludicrous comparison. And follow her link to the latest from Hitch.

Also in the outrageous comparisons department, PETA are getting lots of mileage out of that permission slip, says Baldilocks.

And speaking of grieving parents, Neo-Neocon wants you to know about Kathe Kollwitz.

Sherri has a heartwarming post on the hardest job in the world.

Update

Due to various activities and obligations both blogospheric and personal, I will be taking a posting break through the end of the month. Light posting, or none, at Dreams Into Lightning until September.

I'm looking forward to a visit from The Next Generation who is rapidly approaching his tenth birthday and will be visiting next week from San Francisco.

Also I'm going to be updating some of my side projects, including Morning Report Archives (no link 'cuz it's not finished yet) and several other entities in the Dreams Into Lightning universe.

Morning Report: August 15, 2005

"All frozen." Investigators are still trying to determine the cause of a tragic airplane crash near Athens, Greece that killed all 121 people aboard - including many children - on Sunday. The plane apparently suffered a loss of air pressure, and many of the bodies were frozen. CNN reports: 'All but two of the bodies have been recovered, a Greek government spokesman said Monday, and officials hope autopsies and cockpit recorders will hold clues to Sunday's crash of Helios Airways Flight 522. The autopsies were ordered to determine if the 115 passengers and six crew were already dead or oxygen-starved before the crash, the spokesman said. ... Akrivos Tsolakis, head of the Greek airline safety committee, said the plane's data and voice recorders were being sent to French air safety investigators for further examination, but that the voice recorder was badly damaged. "It's in a bad state and, possibly, it won't give us the information we need," The Associated Press quoted him as saying. "Both boxes will be sent to Paris where a French committee will help us and the foreign experts that are here to decode (it)." ... The Boeing 737, en route from Larnaca, Cyprus to Athens, crashed north of the Greek capital shortly after 12 p.m. (5 a.m. ET). The plane had been scheduled to continue from Athens to Prague, Czech Republic. A Cyprus government spokesman said all the passengers were Cypriots.' Debka says: 'Helios Airways grounds all its planes. Two flight recorders sent to Paris for analysis. Athens defense ministry source says bodies recovered from Cypriot airline crash were frozen solid. Investigators seek clues to cause of Helios Boeing 737 crash north of Athens killing all 121 people aboard, 49 of them children bound from Larnaca to Prague. One pilot and the passenger were reported unconscious, the second pilot absent, by the Greek air force F-16 jets sent up when the plane failed to respond to signals from Athens control tower. The two flight recorders have been recovered. They may answer some puzzling questions which explain why a terrorist hijacking was not ruled out by the Greek army chief and which sent Mediterranean airports on hijack alert. Early indications that sudden decompression caused the crash do not disclose how this breakdown occurred on an aircraft less than two years old. Where was the missing pilot, an experienced British flyer, minutes before touchdown at Athens? Why did he fail to signal Athens about a decompression problem? The fragmentation of the plane into small bits of widely scattered debris suggests a possible explosion. ...' (CNN, Debka)

Israeli army evicts Gaza settlers. In a dramatic and historic confrontation, the Israeli army began the sometimes forcible evacuation of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip, under the provisions of the Bush/Sharon disengagement plan. The conflict between the "orange" (pro-settler) and "blue" (pro-government) factions is singular in Israel's modern history. The deadline for the settlers to leave the area coincided with the Jewish fast day of Tisha b'Av, a solemn commemoration of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman Empire in the year 70 CE. The settlers' motivations are both political and religious: like many right-of-center Israelis, they see Israel's withdrawal from the occupied territories as tactically disastrous for the Jewish state; many also envision an Israel whose borders more closely match the boundaries of the ancient Jewish homeland ("Eretz Israel") than do the current 1948/1967 borders. The Jerusalem Post: 'IDF [Israel Defence Forces] Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz declared Monday that since the Disengagement Implementation Law went into effect at midnight Sunday, everything was going as expected. By 2:00 p.m. soldiers finished distributing eviction notices in Dugit, Nisanit and Pe'at Sadeh. In the Gaza settlements of Atzmona, Katif and Netzer Hazani, the army reached an agreement with the settlers by which notices were given to the settlements' secretariat to distribute. At 3:30, Morag and Gan Or had also received the decrees. Police said that by the end of the day Monday, they expected the northern Gaza settlements of Elei Sinai, Nisanit and Dugit and the southern Gaza settlement of Pe'at Sadeh to have emptied. Altogether, roughly 1,850 live in those four settlements. In those settlements, soldiers will spend the afternoon aiding the families in doing their final packing and transporting their belongings to their new homes and destinations. ...' Arutz Sheva: 'A woman in Morag threatens to employ violence against herself and her children -and Noga Cohen of Kfar Darom, three of whose children lost their legs in a terrorist attack, attempted to mollify her. The woman, named Ofrah, a 17-year veteran of Morag in southern Gush Katif, screamed at an army officer who arrived to deliver the expulsion notices: "By what right do you come and throw me out of my house? Did I hurt anyone? Did I do something? You're coming in the name of the law, in the name of the government - I'd like to see Ariel Sharon come here himself! He came here once and shook my hand and encouraged me to keep living here; I even have one child named Ariel and one named Sharon... In a chilling ending to the exchange, in which the army officer was barely able to respond, the woman then said, "I never hurt anyone, but I want to stay in my home. If I have to shoot myself and my children, I will." She then turned around and walked to the house.' Also from Arutz Sheva: 'Tense and charged stand-offs between soldiers/police and residents outside Chomesh, in the Shomron, as well as outside Gan-Or, Gadid, and Ganei Tal. Just south of N'vei Dekalim, the main Gush Katif road leads to a turnoff to the twin communities of Gan-Or and Gadid. At 7 AM this morning, the residents blocked the main gate leading to the two, and held a large prayer service. At around 9 AM, the local brigade commander, Col. Hagi Yehezkel, arrived. One eyewitness said, "Behind him was a long line of black-uniformed forces, which could not help but leave very unpleasant associations with Jewish history of several decades ago. The officer kept saying, 'We are coming in peace,' but many of the residents attacked him [verbally] very strongly. ...' Debka: 'Half a dozen Gaza and two West Bank communities bar soldiers handing out individual 48-hour eviction orders Monday amid heated verbal exchanges. Troops are not forcing their way in. No arms on either side. Neve Dekalim blocked 30 container trucks for removing belongings for hours. Israeli cabinet majority approves Stage B of evacuation operation – all of Gush Katif bloc communities - by sixteen ministers to 4 Likud dissenters.' MSNBC (AP story): 'Defiant and tearful Jewish settlers locked their communities’ gates and formed human chains to block troops from delivering eviction notices Monday, as Israel began its historic pullout from the Gaza Strip after 38 years of occupation. Police and soldiers waited patiently in the sweltering sun and avoided confrontation at the behest of their commanders. One sobbing settler pleaded with a brigadier general not to evict him before the two men embraced. “It’s a painful and difficult day, but it’s a historic day,” said Israel’s defense minister, Shaul Mofaz. ...' NOTE: For an excellent round-up of the disengagement debate, please see Kesher Talk. (various)

Bush on Iran: "All options on table." President Bush has refused to rule out military action on Iran. Via Free Iran: 'US President George W Bush refused to rule out the use of force against Iran over the Islamic republic's resumption of nuclear activities, in an interview with Israeli television. When asked if the use of force was an alternative to faltering diplomatic efforts, Bush said: "All options are on the table." "The use of force is the last option for any president. You know we have used force in the recent past to secure our country," he said in a clear reference to Iraq. "I have been willing to do so as a last resort in order to secure the country and provide the opportunity for people to live in free societies," he added. Bush was speaking from his ranch in Crawford, Texas to a reporter from Israeli public television. The Jewish state has accused Iran of seeking to acquire nuclear weapons and believes it is the prime target of the alleged arms program. ...' Also in the same thread: 'President George W. Bush yesterday raised the possibility of a U.S. military response to Iran's decision to restart its nuclear energy program. ``All options are on the table,'' Bush said in an Israeli television interview from his ranch in Crawford, Texas, according to a transcript provided by his staff today. He said military force would be a last resort. ``We've used force in the recent past to secure our country,'' Bush added, when asked to elaborate. ``It's difficult for the commander-in-chef to put kids in harm's way. Nevertheless, I have been willing to do so as a last resort in order to secure this country and to provide the opportunity for people to live in free societies.'' Iran reopened uranium conversion facilities at its Isfahan plant on Aug. 8, restarting a uranium enrichment program the oil- rich nation claims is needed for energy purposes. Material produced by the process, which Iran hopes to export, can fuel a nuclear power plant or a nuclear bomb. ...' (varous, via Free Iran)

Khamis Mushayt Girl

"Saudi executions are invariably grisly. This one promises to exceed all previous records. ..." A 26-year-old rape victim faces execution in Saudi Arabia. Go read the rest of this post on the Khamis Mushayt Girl at The Religious Policeman.

Mohammed: A Response to Cindy Sheehan

Mohammed Fadhil at Iraq the Model writes this message to Cindy Sheehan:

I realize how tragic your loss is and I know how much pain there is crushing your heart and I know the darkness that suddenly came to wrap your life and wipe away your dreams and I do feel the heat of your tears that won't dry until you find the answers to your question; why you lost your loved one?

I have heard your story and I understand that you have the full right to ask people to stand by your side and support your cause. At the beginning I told myself, this is yet another woman who lost a piece of her heart and the questions of war, peace and why are killing her everyday. To be frank to you the first thing I thought of was like "why should I listen or care to answer when there are thousands of other women in America, Iraq and Afghanistan who lost a son or a husband or a brother…”

But today I was looking at your picture and I saw in your eyes a persistence, a great pain and a torturing question; why?

I know how you feel Cindy, I lived among the same pains for 35 years but worse than that was the fear from losing our loved ones at any moment. Even while I'm writing these words to you there are feelings of fear, stress, and sadness that interrupt our lives all the time but in spite of all that I'm sticking hard to hope which if I didn't have I would have died years ago.

Ma'am, we asked for your nation's help and we asked you to stand with us in our war and your nation's act was (and still is) an act of ultimate courage and unmatched sense of humanity.
Our request is justified, death was our daily bread and a million Iraqi mothers were expecting death to knock on their doors at any second to claim someone from their families.
Your face doesn't look strange to me at all; I see it everyday on endless numbers of Iraqi women who were struck by losses like yours.

Our fellow country men and women were buried alive, cut to pieces and thrown in acid pools and some were fed to the wild dogs while those who were lucky enough ran away to live like strangers and the Iraqi mother was left to grieve one son buried in an unfound grave and another one living far away who she might not get to see again.

We did nothing to deserve all that suffering, well except for a dream we had; a dream of living like normal people do.

We cried out of joy the day your son and his comrades freed us from the hands of the devil and we went to the streets not believing that the nightmare is over.
We practiced our freedom first by kicking and burning the statues and portraits of the hateful idol who stole 35 years from the life of a nation.
For the first time air smelled that beautiful, that was the smell of freedom.

The mothers went to break the bars of cells looking for the ones they lost 5, 12 or 20 years ago and other women went to dig the land with their bare hand searching for a few bones they can hold in their arms after they couldn't hold them when they belonged to a living person.

I recall seeing a woman on TV two years ago, she was digging through the dirt with her hands. There was no definite grave in there as the whole place was one large grave but she seemed willing to dig the whole place looking for her two brothers who disappeared from earth 24 years ago when they were dragged from their colleges to a chamber of hell.

Her tears mixed with the dirt of the grave and there were journalists asking her about what her brothers did wrong and she was screaming "I don't know, I don't know. They were only college students. They didn't murder anyone, they didn't steal, and they didn't hurt anyone in their lives. All I want to know is the place of their grave".

Why was this woman chosen to lose her dear ones? Why you? Why did a million women have to go through the same pain? ...

Read the rest here.

The Arabs are coming! The Arabs are coming!

Here's a roundup of recent posts from the Arab blogosphere.

I'm going to devote a separate post to The Religious Policeman, but it would be a sin not to mention his blog here. Go read what this Saudi expat has to say - and why he calls himself the Religious Policeman.

Karfan of Syria Exposed fears he may be suffering delusions of adequacy as he explodes Myth No. 11:

Two months ago, it became obvious that King Lion the 2nd and his entourage grew weary of people barking at them from all sides. Being completely hopeless towards the big strong harmful dogs barking from the safe heaven of outside, they decided to start beating the dogs that they can beat: the tiny little harmless poodles inside the country. So they started a charitable campaign of filling some empty cells with people who dared to speak out loud demanding reforms and democracy. Some of the names they took are famous or became famous after the rides, like the Atassi seven and their snow-white princess. Some were never mentioned in media and they were known by word of mouth only. Some were released and some were not. So Karfan and I, being lawful disciples of chicken-citizenship conditioning, decided to keep a low profile for a while.

After taking a month and a half vacation from this virtual ranting duty, we realized that there is really nothing for us to fear from. We were fooling our selves by thinking that we are actually so important that a security service apparatus would waist their brilliant informants time to track us down ....

Karfan doesn't ask much of his government ... just one little thing. Read the post to find out what it is.

Syrian heretic Amarji has the latest on a conference in Venice:

The words and addresses if the conference organizers and participants, in contrast, were thankfully much more humble, albeit, at times, they could still be too apologetic.

“Modernization is not synonymous with westernization.” Said one of the speakers. Oh really. Can anyone name one thing that is modern but not Western? Whenever I ask this question, people are often tempted to refer to Japanese ingenuity. Obviously they haven’t heard of Commodore Perry and gunboat diplomacy.

Will gunboat diplomacy work with a certain country I wonder? It might be worth considering.

The problem with reform in the region, the reason why we don’t have enlightened despots at work, is simply the total corruption of our political and economic elite. We have thieves and thugs for decision-makers, avaricious morons for policy advisors and dreamy nincompoops for technocrats. How on earth can we modernize with this lot?

Big Pharaoh has this to say about the Iraqi women who demonstrated the other day:

And please don't tell me that the unveiled jeans wearing ladies are less Muslim than the women who are clad in black. Please don't try to convince me that Allah or God who created Mars, Venus, Jupiter, the rivers, the roses, and the water falls had a bad day today because a group of Iraqi women dressed in jeans decided to braze the terrorists and a terrible weather to demand equal rights and a better life.

Read it all at the link. And did you hear about the two stoners going into the one dude's apartment? No? Well, better go here: Osama who?

Also from Egypt, Sandmonkey is breaking out the bubbly:

'Omar Bakri has been living in Britian for 20 years now as a refuge after Saudi
declared him to be an "islamic extremist"- imagine how bad you have to be for
that to happen- and kicked him out of Saudi. The fact that he wasn't arrested
for all of those years of hate incitement and support for terrorism was pissing
me off, and the fact that he came under fire finally after the London bombings
is the one good thing I consider to ever come out of this tragic event. Altough
to be fair ,the fact that he didn't keep his mouth shut after it either and
calling the 7/7 bombers the "fabolous four" , kind of helped.

Omar Bakri sparked outrage last week when he said he would not inform police if he knew Muslims were planning a bomb attack on a train in Britain and supported Muslims who attacked British troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.

So faced with the threat of going to jail for hate-incitement, our boy Bakri had to escape London and went to Lebanon, after overstaying his welcome and abusing the kindness of people who took him into their country, which is something that I am kind of glad about. And i am not the only one who thinks so it seems:

Omar Bakri's departure, however, was welcomed by Sir Iqbal Sacranie, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain. "There can be a bit of a celebration. That is something which I think will bring a bit of real joy and happiness to the community," he said.

Well, Sir Iqbal, I am happy to report that the good news just keeps on coming, and by good news I mean bad news for Bakri: They arrested him in Lebanon...'

Read it all at the link.

Nadz, one of our favorite members of Dreams Into Lightning's Axis of Estrogen, admits to being a little spooked by beards:

'One thing we can learn from all of these attacks is this - religious nuts with beards are trouble. I'm not out to dis all of you bearded readers, but my experience is that regardless of your faith, the ones with beards are the scariest.

Case in point: Jewish settler nutcases goes on a shooting spree, killing 4 palestinian-israeli citizens. Following the example of previous asshole Baruch Goldstein, it seems. Look, it's just as evil when Hamas does it as well. I don't care if you're palestinian or israeli or tibetan, this is terrorism, pure and simple. My heart goes out to the victims' families and loved ones.

Another angry beardie won't shut up - Ayman Zawahiri is back in the news with a new videotape. And here's the shocker - he still wants to wage his jihad against infidel imperialist crusader zionist invaders. What a twist! And because it's fun, I'll examine his "logic".

"Blair has brought to you destruction in central London, and he will bring more of that, God willing,"
al-Zawahri said in the broadcast excerpts.

Of course! Don't blame the guys who actually blew up the train, blame Tony Blair! And Karl Rove, if you can manage it. It's just like the rapist who blames his victim by saying that she provoked him.
...

He warned the Palestinians against what he called attempts to drag them into the election game in order to extract legitimacy for the Palestinian Authority

(source: AlJazeera)

That's right, my fellow Palestinians: ignore the "game" of elections, democracy and reform, and instead use the tactic of blowing up buses full of civilians. That's the way to change things! Because it has worked well in the past and it's the "correct" thing to do, you see. Idiot.

"In Palestine, we are not only facing the Jews but also the anti-Islam international alliance headed by the US crusaders."
And international alliance? I wonder where their secret headquarters are? And
another thing - the crusades happened several CENTURIES ago! Get over it, you
touchy whiner.

Nadz also suspects there are a lot of closeted moderates out there:

... In case you haven't noticed, many of the Middle Eastern bloggers have
opinions that may surprise the average news-watching American. Sure, you have
your Raeds and Riverbends, but you also have your Iraq the Models and countless
others. Maybe it's because we are truly a minority that we use the internet to
speak to like-minded thinkers. Maybe it's because we are a frustrated silent
majority that needs a safer, more anonymous way to talk. Either way, blogs have
allowed people like my friend and passing drivers to say things that others
don't want to hear. And that can only be a good thing...

Mahmoud, who will NOT be registering his blog with the Bahraini government, thank you very much, offers some voices from the Bahraini blogosphere:

The first that cought my attention this morning was Silly Bahraini Girl where
she tells us in no uncertain terms that there is no connection between our blogs
and the oppossition, I know what prompted that one, or at least think I do, but
in any case it is absolutely true: as far as I know and observed there is
absolutely no connection between any of the blogs (currently alive) and the
government or the opposition, we are an independent bunch and hope that this
situation will continue.

emoodz once again has a thought provoking post
asking the simple question about patriotism, and more importantly to me is his
observation that

Ever since the opposition movement was lead by the
turban, sugarcoated with the sweet and drugging ideologies of Islam, people
followed without question, without doubt and with a lot of trust, to a dead end.
It is as I write this that people around me are awakening, realizing that this
is not the way to go. ...

Also, Mahmoud runs out of patience with some inept attempts at the English language.

And if you haven't been following Kuwaiti Girl's astronautical aspirations, go visit her site.