Sometimes there are so many important and good articles out there that I can't write a post Diary just one of them. For that reason, I present to you today's
Reading List with brief excerpts:
From
here:
Taleban Rejects U.S. Warning
By AFP (International Herald Tribune)
July 04, 2001
KABUL: KABUL -- The Taleban is not responsible for ensuring the secu- rity of American interests outside Afghanistan, Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Mutawakel said Tuesday.
``We are bound to ensure security within our own country,'' Mr. Mutawakel said. ``We are not responsible for protecting U.S. security outside Afghanistan. The United States has so many enemies world-wide, especially in the Middle East, because of its despotic behavior.''
He added that it would be ``absolutely illogical'' to assume the complicity of Afghanistan or ``somebody residing in Afghanistan'' if American interests were attacked abroad.
The statement followed a warning by the U.S. ambassador in Pakistan on Friday that the Taleban would be blamed if the Saudi militant Osama bin Laden attacked U.S. interests.
From here:
"So far, in the 'war on terror' initiated since 9/11, the USA and its allies have been responsible for over 13,000 civilian deaths, not only the 10,000 in Iraq, but also 3,000-plus civilian deaths in Afghanistan, another death toll that continues to rise long after the world's attention has moved on," reports the Iraq Body Count website. "Elsewhere in the world over the same period, paramilitary forces hostile to the USA have killed 408 civilians in 18 attacks worldwide. Adding the official 9/11 death toll (2,976 on 29 October 2003) brings the total to just under 3,500."
From here:
Ridge met by tough crowd
Audience at homeland security meeting questions Bush administration policies
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge found Seattleites in no mood yesterday to participate in his efforts to engage Americans in preparations for terrorist attacks.
At a town hall meeting billed as a forum for citizens to voice their concerns, Ridge was met with more questions about Bush administration policies that allegedly damage Americans' freedoms at home and their reputation abroad than about homeland security.
From here:
It's hard to believe the country was once different - a lot different. For most of our history Americans paid no income tax; they had no central bank devaluing their money and robbing their savings; they had no overseas wars to die in because back then our government minded its own business; they could ingest whatever they wanted because their bodies belonged to them; they were not forced to pay into a Ponzi scheme sold to them as a retirement fund. Taxes were low, prosperity was real. Citizens of France admired America so much they raised money to give us the Statue of Liberty.
From here:
Marines blockaded and militarized the town, subjecting its residents to vehicle and house to house searches. Many young men were arrested. One citizen told the AP: "If they find more than one adult male in any house, they arrest one of them. Those marines are destroying us. They are leaning very hard on Falluja."
The marines tried to win over the hearts and minds of Falluja's residents by flooding the streets with Arabic leaflets that read, "You can't escape and you can't hide," obviously hoping that their commander in chief's Texas charm would help win Falluja over.
From here:
[In Pakistan] Early in March, the fundamentalist alliance, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) disrupted the National Assembly and staged a walk-out on the grounds that a certain reference to jehad as well as other Quranic verses had been 'excluded' from the new edition of a state prescribed biology textbook. Later, the Punjab Teachers Union announced its decision to launch a protest movement from Gujranwala, commencing April 15, if the verses were not 'reinstated'.
On March 30, 2004, however, Education Minister Zobaida Jalal clarified that no chapter or verses relating to 'jehad' or 'shahadat' (martyrdom) had been deleted from textbooks, stating further that the particular verse referring to jehad had only been 'shifted' from the biology textbook for intermediate students (Classes XI & XII) to the 'matriculation level courses' (Class X). The education ministry in Pakistan has not found it expedient to inquire - as most people familiar with the discipline of biology would - what references to jihad were doing in the biology curriculum in the first place. This is unsurprising, since it is the Ministry of Education, and its subsidiary Curriculum Wing, that put these references there.
From here:
Within sight of the golden minarets of Iraq's holiest shrine Polish troops are hunkered down in the governor's office here, nervous, wary, and barely able to guarantee their own safety.
A week ago the proud hope was that this contingent from the "new" Europe would show the flag by protecting millions of pilgrims who are pouring in on foot and by bus from all corners of Iraq for one of the most important weeks in the Shia calendar.
For the Polish troops the sudden sense of being under siege must be bewildering. Their government agreed to send troops to Iraq after the war in exchange for American reconstruction contracts. The army never expected to be taking offensive action for the first time since it was ordered to enforce martial law against the trade union Solidarity 20 years ago.
Poland is one of the most God-fearing countries in Europe and, like Iraq, a proud land of huge pilgrimages. Hundreds of thousands come to see the Black Madonna of Czestochowa, a Catholic equivalent of the shrine of Imam Hussein. How odd it would be if Poles found Iraqi troops stationed in Czechstowa to help guard their sacred Polish statue. Would it be a shock if they rose up and surrounded the uninvited guests, as the people of Kerbala are doing?
There you go. Would love to know what you think. Post a comment if you would be so kind.
Peace
-Soj