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Kunduz
Conundrum, Fears of High Death Toll
Excerpts
describing the state of flux between desertions, attacks, resistance,
and reactions to the situation in Kunduz, Afghanistan:
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Fears
of a massacre of thousands of foreign fighters trapped in Kunduz,
the last northern stronghold of the Taliban, were raised last
night as the Northern Alliance launched an all-out attack to
capture the besieged town.
The
10-day siege of the Kunduz pocket appeared to be moving towards
a violent and chaotic end after alliance leaders first announced
that a surrender deal had been reached and then said talks had
failed and an assault was underway.
But
amid reports that hundreds of Afghan Taliban fighters were surrendering,
leaving only hardline Arab and other foreign fighters, Downing
Street and Washington faced contradictory worries over the fate
of the enclave.
(click for large size image)
Officials
feared the international repercussions of a massacre by their
unofficial allies, and yet also expressed concern that a large
part of the Taliban force could escape unscathed if unreliable
Northern Alliance leaders made a deal with them. ...
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Source:
What's
Up With Islam?
Excerpts
from an interview with an individual who is critical of the
religion of Islam, originally broadcast in October:
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Lyn
Gallacher: This week on The Religion Report, we’re
devoting the entire program to an exclusive interview with the
secularist Muslim intellectual Ibn Warraq.
Ibn
Warraq is the pseudonym used by this author of two controversial
books, Why I Am not a Muslim and The Quest for the Historical
Muhammad. The name, Ibn Warraq, is one that’s traditionally
been adopted by dissident authors throughout the history of
Islam.
And
in this case, Ibn Warraq uses it because he fears for his safety.
He believes that there are moderate Muslims, but that Islam
itself is not moderate. And, he says it’s time for Western
Muslims and Western politicians like George Bush and Tony Blair
to stop denying Islam’s role in the violence of September
11th.
...
Stephen Crittenden: What do you think has happened? What
do you think happened to Islam on September 11th?
Ibn
Warraq: I of course didn’t think it happened to Islam
on September 11th, I always knew that it was like that in any
case. It just simply underlines what I’ve been trying to
say for the last six years, and other people, more courageous
and more informed than I, have been saying it for even longer.
That is to say that what happened on the 11th is somehow within
Islam, it’s essential to Islam in some sense.
...
I mean it’s quite ironical, both Bush and Tony Blair are
the two leaders who have introduced religion into political
life, and now they’re the ones to refuse to use the word
‘Islam’ when talking about terrorism.
They
just won’t understand what is happening; they will repeat
the same old mistakes. If they cannot analyse the situation
and see that Islam is the motivating factor behind all this,
then how on earth are they going to tackle the problem? It seems
completely incomprehensible to me.
...
Every ill in the world, including the Third World of course,
has been attributed to the wicked West, and there’s been
incredible nonsense written about colonialism and racism and
so on, as though only the West was guilty of this. Of course
slavery and the Muslims were deeply implicated in the slave
trade, Islam was an Imperialist religion which destroyed Christianity
in the Near East, yet nobody mentions those facts.
...
Stephen Crittenden: Is one of the key problems that Islam
faces, its Arabic tribal origins? Christianity was a cosmopolitan
religion from the word go, Judaism was forced to become one.
Is Islam a kind of attempt though at one level, to sort of transform
the whole world into an Arabic tribe?
Ibn
Warraq: Oh yes, that is the agenda of political Islam, if
you like, if you can call it that. But within Islam generally,
there has been this current that says that Islam is the perfect
religion, the prophet was the last of the prophets, and it is
the duty of every Muslim to bring this religion to the whole
of humanity. There is a certain logic in that, it’s not
my logic because I don’t accept their premise.
...
Stephen Crittenden: ... we’ve done interviews on
this program in recent days with Islamic scholars from America
and elsewhere, who are very keen to support Islam and very keen,
as I am, not to offend Muslims ... you are very critical of
the kind of political correctness of those people. You call
them ‘Western apologists’.
Ibn
Warraq: Yes, I find it quite distressing that it’s
implicit in such an attitude by the way is the kind of racism
they think they’re getting away from, there’s a kind
of condescension which says you mustn’t hurt the sensibilities
of these poor Muslims, as though they are children who must
be shielded from the adult world of criticism, which I find
extraordinary.
...
Muslims have not ever been told to examine their faith in a
critical way, so the shock is going to be even greater for them,
as it is for any child who lives in an over-protected environment,
who suddenly has to go out and earn a living and has to stand
up on his own feet.
This
exactly the kind of shock that they will have. But what does
a child do? He has to look reality in the face, and this is
what Muslims have to do. They have to examine their sacred text
and see what is wrong with it, what is in it that drives people
to murder 5,000 people in one go, the suicide attack, and it’s
no good pretending it’s got nothing to do with Islam, they’ve
to examine it and look at reality in the face.
And
I can’t see there’s going to be any soft way out of
this. They’ve just got to wake up, they’ve got to
grow up. And so instead of shouting ‘Oh, you’re insulting
our prophet, you’re insulting our religion’, they’ve
got to take their place along with other people who’ve
had to take knocks....
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Source:
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Skyscrapers
- Sturdier, Safer, Smarter?
Excerpts
from article describing ideas being considered to deal with
the consequences to building design and security concerns due
to the Twin Towers in the September 11th attack:
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... In the aftermath of the recent tragedy, the brightest minds
in architecture and structural engineering are pooling their
expertise to figure out how a building can survive the newest
forms of terrorism.
...
Skyscraper Self-Defense - Builders are exploring new
ways to make office workers feel safe.
Options
include protective steel plating on the building's facade, blastproof
escape routes, safety floors where people can wait out a fire,
and laser-based devices that can identify dangerous chemicals.
...
The Right Stuff - Though the World Trade Center towers
ultimately fell, they each withstood a massive impact and remained
standing for an hour or more -- time that enabled thousands
of people to flee to safety.
... But despite the World Trade Center's solidity under attack,
many engineers believe there's room for improvement.
...
Getting People Out - ... In the event that people are
unable to get out, other measures are being explored.
In
China, "areas of refuge" are popular with many builders.
Every 15 floors or so, a floor or portion thereof is constructed
of concrete slabs and designated as a place where occupants
can go to wait out a fire.
These
areas are equipped with mechanized ventilation systems that
clear the air of smoke. They are also connected to pressurized
stairwells, should people need to escape a potential collapse.
...
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Source:
Pope's
Latest in a Series of Apologies for Church Sins
Excerpt
from article describing the pope's apology to impacted groups
and individuals in the Pacific region, for supporting the forcible
separation of 30,000 Aboriginal children from their parents
and for the sexual abuse by some clergy:
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Pope
John Paul II has sent an apology by e-mail for a string of injustices,
including sexual abuse, committed by Roman Catholic clergy in
the Pacific nations.
The
81-year-old pontiff transmitted the message, his first virtual
apology, in a recent string of statements of contrition, from
a laptop in the Vatican's frescoed Clementine Hall on Wednesday.
...
This is just the latest in a series of papal apologies for the
sins of the Roman Catholic church.
- Last
month, Pope John Paul II apologised to China for the errors
of missionaries in colonial times
- On
controversial visits to both the Ukraine and Greece earlier
this year, he asked Orthodox Christians' forgiveness for wrongs
committed against them by Roman Catholics.
- And
in a trip to Israel last year, he publicly asked God's forgiveness
for the sins of Roman Catholics through the ages, including
wrongs inflicted on Jews, women and minorities.
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Source:
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