Posts filed under ‘Middle East’
The Mosque at Ground Zero, Before it Was Ground Zero
Never mind a mosque community center two blocks from Ground Zero — why has it taken nine years for the media to get the word out that there was a mosque inside the Twin Towers?
Muslim Prayer Room Was Part of Life at Twin Towers
Sometime in 1999, a construction electrician received a new work assignment from his union. The man, Sinclair Hejazi Abdus-Salaam, was told to report to 2 World Trade Center, the southern of the twin towers.
In the union locker room on the 51st floor, Mr. Abdus-Salaam went through a construction worker’s version of due diligence. In the case of an emergency in the building, he asked his foreman and crew, where was he supposed to reassemble? The answer was the corner of Broadway and Vesey.
Over the next few days, noticing some fellow Muslims on the job, Mr. Abdus-Salaam voiced an equally essential question: “So where do you pray at?” And so he learned about the Muslim prayer room on the 17th floor of the south tower.
He went there regularly in the months to come, first doing the ablution known as wudu in a washroom fitted for cleansing hands, face and feet, and then facing toward Mecca to intone the salat prayer.
On any given day, Mr. Abdus-Salaam’s companions in the prayer room might include financial analysts, carpenters, receptionists, secretaries and ironworkers. There were American natives, immigrants who had earned citizenship, visitors conducting international business — the whole Muslim spectrum of nationality and race.
President Obama today at his presser:
Come on people!
Say No to Peace!
Here’s another reason to hate the commie Muslim Obama administration — they’re trying to avoid war instead of lying us into one:
Look for Newt and Josh and Rush and Sean, et al. to be all over this tomorrow, warning about the — horror — of coexisting.
The Pakistan Floods — Even the Known Unknowns Are Terrifying
The Effects of the Pakistan Floods, Worst National Disaster in Years:
The floods in Pakistan are now worse than Haiti’s January 2010 earthquake, the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, and the 2005 Kashmir earthquake combined, the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs announced on Monday. The floods have killed 1,600, displaced 1 million from their homes, and affected 15 million in all. The latter number includes many who, because they have lost access to food and clean drinking water, may be at serious risk of starvation or such water-borne diseases as cholera. Here are the effects of this ongoing humanitarian disaster.
Of the five potential disasters with the disaster that are chronicled in the article, this is huge because, don’t forget, Pakistan has a nuclear bomb:
Government Stability Weakened Academic and blogger Juan Cole cautions, “The ruling Pakistan People’s Party is being widely criticized for its failure to respond to the massive needs of the people, generated by this catastrophe. And President Asaf Ali Zardari’s visit to the UK, where he met with British Prime Minister David Cameron, has provoked a firestorm of criticism from Pakistanis who think he should have stayed home and helped manage the crisis. Anything that could pull down the government, as an inept response to the flood could, has security implications in the fight against the Taliban. (The Pakistani Taliban have actually taken advantage of the chaos to launch some attacks).”
Brit Hume Does BP’s Bidding
I think it’s a given that the mysterious chemicals BP is pumping into the Gulf to “disperse” the oil are meant to make the slick disappear (temporarily, at least) so BP’s already catastrophic PR problems are minimized.
Well golly gosh gee. What a shock, yes, a shock that Fox’s Brit Hume turned that corporate PR game into “news” tonight — throwing it into the ether like a bone to CNN and MSNBC — hoping they’ll pick it up, leaving us to wonder whether we saw that slick, or not:
British Petroleum as Victim
Tony Hayward, the CEO of British Petroleum (BP), told The Times of London yesterday that there will be “lots of illegitimate claims” made against BP as a result of the Gulf oil spill, setting the stage for BP to belittle and dismiss potential claimants, and to insinuate it is, in essence, being harassed.
As a former paralegal who worked on lawsuits involving huge corporations, I know it is incredibly expensive and time-consuming to take on a corporation like BP. Corporations have armies of lawyers whose sole purpose is to bombard private attorneys with make-work in an effort to frustrate them into dropping their cases. No lawyer is going to do file suit unless he thinks he can win because BP will make that lawyer’s life hell. Sure, there will probably be a few illegitimate claims, but I’m willing to bet that the vast majority won’t be.
Even Ronald Reagan Wanted Us to Become Energy Self-Sufficient
Look at this Ronald Reagan presidential campaign ad from 1980. In it, he says:
This is a great country, but it’s not being run like a great country. Look at these heating bills. Many families pay hundreds of dollars a month. Others go without heat. We must eliminate restrictive controls and use more of our domestic oil and natural gas. And we must use all our technology to become self-sufficient in energy so no one can blackmail us. This is a great country. It’s time to start running it like a great country.
Yes, I know, Reagan would probably be a drill-baby-driller today but at least he recognized the need to become energy self-sufficient and who knows, over time, he may even have embraced wind and/or solar.
“Congress Failed to Pass Extension of Unemployment Benefits?” (UPDATED)
The headline today on the cable “news” shows, including the “liberal” ones, is that unemployment benefits run out today for thousands of Americans because congress failed to pass an extension before it left for Easter recess.
Technically that’s true but there is a more accurate and informative way of reporting the story: Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma Blocks Unemployment Bill.
UPDATE: And don’t forget — unemployment “benefits” are better referred to as unemployment “insurance” (my bad on that). Money is deducted from our paychecks for unemployment “insurance,” so Coburn’s concern about how the “benefits” will be paid for is BS. The money’s already in the bank. And it’s our money.
UPDATE #2 (4-7-10): Now Republicans are boasting about screwing people. Check it out.
Seven Years
Today is the seventh anniversary of Shock and Awe.
I don’t know how George W. Bush (and a lot of other people, actually) can live with himself.
Americans Want to Bomb Iran
Americans seem to be ready to start a third war:
Seven in 10 Americans believe that Iran currently has nuclear weapons, according to a new national poll.
“But if economic and diplomatic efforts fail, support for military action rises to 59 percent, with only 39 percent opposing military action under those circumstances,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.
This is deja vu all over again: Half of Americans believe Saddam Hussein had WMD, and we know where that got us.
Americans still think that the US is so strong and so endlessly wealthy that going to war has no consequences. The overriding emotions seem to be machismo and fear, not caution and a sense that we need to do everything possible to avoid war.
Why is Bin Laden’s Escape from Tora Bora Such Shocking News?
Tomorrow the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will formally release a report asserting that in December, 2001,
Osama bin Laden was unquestionably within reach of U.S. troops in the mountains of Tora Bora when American military leaders made the crucial and costly decision not to pursue the terrorist leader with massive force.
In other words, if we’d captured Bin Laden then, the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq would have been pointless but since the Bush administration wanted to wage both of those wars, they let him escape.
But why, eight years on, is this news? For those of us who have been paying attention, it isn’t. Take this for example, from March, 2002: How bin Laden Got Away.
So why is the media feigning shock about this report? It isn’t news. The news is that the media didn’t do its job. Were we a nation that was honest about its past, we would have put to bed as a national embarrassment by now.
Fred Thompson — Another Flaming Hypocrite
Fred Thompson declares the war in Afghanistan ‘has been lost.” But in 2007 when Harry Reid said the Iraq war was lost, Thompson ripped into him for “encouraging our enemies.”
Neda
Here’s a heads up about tonight’s Frontline on PBS. They’re doing a show titled, “A Death in Tehran.” It’s about Neda Agha Soltan — the woman who was gunned down in Iran last summer — and the events surrounding her murder. Here’s the trailer:
I’ll be watching.
Listen Up McChrystal
Regarding General Stanley McChrystal leaking that report about troops in Afghanistan and blasting the Vice President during a speech he gave “on foreign soil” (in London): A new USAToday poll shows that: “By 2 to 1, those surveyed say military commanders should state their positions privately to the president and others in the chain of command, not make them known publicly, as McChrystal did.”
Good. The guy was getting too big for his britches.
Blackwater Rakes it In — Change We Can’t Believe In
The State Department extends Blackwater’s “security contract.” Oh, and by the way, contractors now outnumber our troops in Afghanistan.
Um. Wonder how the troops feel — getting paid a pittance — while the “contractors” rake it in, paid by your tax dollars. And given the billions your tax dollars go to the defense budget, why do we need to hire “contractors” in the first place? Maybe it’s because they give a whole lot of money to the people who decide these things? Ya think?
Chicken Shit Neocon Quote of the Day
John Bolten, the guy who cheered us into Iraq and who was, sort of, Bush’s ambassador to the U.N., wrote an op-ed today in the Washington Post urging Israel — somebody, anybody! — to bomb Iran. Never mind that there are a handful of Mullahs over there controlling a population that desperately wants change, so exactly how Bolton suggests killing just those people without harming innocent citizens is beyond me. And why he isn’t embracing the movement that’s happening there now, rather than urging that we bomb, which would undoubtedly bring the entire country together against, ah, us, is also beyond me. I mean, you know, no matter how fractured the population, people just don’t like it when another country bombs their own.
But, then again, these cracko neonuts don’t and apparently can’t think beyond their own macho desire to imagine very loud bangs and to think of people being blown up and terrorized and — they fantasize — cowering in homage to the cons — the wise risk-takers that they imagine themselves to be.
So really, how brave and macho is John Bolton in real life? The brat was ensconced at Yale while 50,000+ of his peers died in Vietnam but as for him? He “confesses” that “I had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy.” As if all those poor American boys and girls did?
And what about the Iranians?
Michael Jackson Was a Muslim
Jermaine Jackson just read a statement about the death of his brother, Michael Jackson. At the end he said, “May Allah be with you always.”
What? Was Michael Jackson a Muslim? I recalled something about that way back in the recesses of my mind but nothing specific. But it’s true. Google it. Here’s what I found at the top of the heap a few seconds ago: “Michael Jackson Converts to Islam and Changes Name to Mikaeel.“
Fascinating, isn’t it, that this wasn’t more widely publicized (or maybe I’m just out of it)? I mean, horrors of all horrors that a U.S. pop icon would become a terrorist, if you know what I mean. (The powers that were — namely the Bush administration and its enablers the “liberal media” — did everything they could to brainwash people here in the U.S. into believing that all Muslims are terrorists. So, what to do about Michael Jackson becoming one? Ignore it. It didn’t fit the meme.)
Florida Senate Candidate Says What Iran Needs is More Guns
Hey, yeah! Elect Marco Rubio, another guy who can’t comprehend complex situations and who consults the winger playbook and pulls out one of the eight or nine pat answers designed to fit every conceivable situation: cut taxes, bomb/invade, more guns, abstinence, free markets, etc.
(Let’s ask Neda’s family what they think.)
The Oppressors in Iran Take a Cue from Bush
Nico Pitney at the Huffington Post is live-blogging the evens in Iran. Today (@10:35 a.m) he reports that there has been “another shift in state TV” – they’re “calling the protesters terrorists.”
Green Iran: You Are in My Heart
Green is the color of the opposition in Iran.
Follow what’s happening here, here, here and here (to name but a few of the best).
I’m worried about tomorrow.
Amazing Word Cloud
Here is a word cloud of tweets coming out of Iran. Amazing and wonderful. Click on any word and read the tweets that contain it. Notice how many times the words help and please, or pls, or plz appear.
(h/t Andrew Sullivan)
Taliban U.S.A.
A group in Wisconsin is suing to be allowed to hold a book burning.
Compare and contrast: The Pakistani Taliban: Where they burn books, they will end in burning human beings.
Wear Green
Green is the color of the revolution in Iran. This is what the people are up against:
Schizoid – “Black Rice Platinum” and a Revolution
Part of me is “watching” the Home Shopping Network (aiming for flat brainwaves) while they push a 3-piece “Black Rice Platinum” kit (whatever the hell that is) for $44.50. Meanwhile I’m clicking the refresh button like a crazy person on Andrew Sullivan’s blog for more info on what’s going on in Iran.
Wish I could take my head off and set it down for a while.
