February 18, 2015
KABUL, Afghanistan — The number of civilians killed or wounded (click here) in fighting in Afghanistan climbed by 22 percent in 2014 to reach the highest level in five years as foreign troops concluded their combat mission, the U.N. said in an annual report released Wednesday.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan documented 10,548 civilian casualties in 2014, the highest number in a single year since 2009. They include 3,699 civilian deaths, up 25 percent from 2013.
The U.N. says the Taliban and other insurgents were responsible for 72 percent of all civilian casualties, with government forces and foreign troops responsible for just 14 percent....
The Afghanistan government needs to work toward a resistance to this problem. The Taliban is not an ethnicity. It is a militia. There doesn't have to be any acceptance of a return to violence among the people of Afghanistan.
Inflaming the problems in the Middle East is not helping. The religious leaders have published a letter to end the faux images Daesh portrays as righteous examples of the Muslim faith. It is obvious The West needs a few Muslim scholars of it's own.
February 17, 2015
By Tony Ortega
In September, Nihad Awad, (click here) the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), held a press conference in Washington and, flanked by other Muslim figures, announced that 120 Muslim scholars had produced an 18-page open letter, written in Arabic, to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
An English translation of the document is a tough slog. As Awad said at the time, “This letter is not meant for a liberal audience.” He even admitted that mainstream Muslims might find it difficult to read.
The letter is an extended exegesis, heavily salted with quotes from the Koran and the Hadith, arguing point by point about the nature of jihad, the slaughtering of innocents, the taking of slaves, and other not-so-savory elements of the distant past — and in the past they should remain, the text argues. It makes the case not only that ISIS was wrong to commit horrific acts of violence in modern times, but that it was interpreting Islamic law incorrectly to justify such acts....
The Boston Globe gets it. Will the Obama Administration?
October 9, 2014
By Zeba Kahn
The militants who are killing civilians, (click here) raping and forcing captured women into sexual slavery, and beheading foreigners in Iraq and Syria are known by several names: the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS; the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL; and, more recently, the Islamic State, or IS. French officials recently declared that that country would stop using any of those names and instead refer to the group as “Daesh.”
The Obama Administration should switch to this nomenclature, too, because how we talk about this group is central to defeating them....
KABUL, Afghanistan — The number of civilians killed or wounded (click here) in fighting in Afghanistan climbed by 22 percent in 2014 to reach the highest level in five years as foreign troops concluded their combat mission, the U.N. said in an annual report released Wednesday.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan documented 10,548 civilian casualties in 2014, the highest number in a single year since 2009. They include 3,699 civilian deaths, up 25 percent from 2013.
The U.N. says the Taliban and other insurgents were responsible for 72 percent of all civilian casualties, with government forces and foreign troops responsible for just 14 percent....
The Afghanistan government needs to work toward a resistance to this problem. The Taliban is not an ethnicity. It is a militia. There doesn't have to be any acceptance of a return to violence among the people of Afghanistan.
Inflaming the problems in the Middle East is not helping. The religious leaders have published a letter to end the faux images Daesh portrays as righteous examples of the Muslim faith. It is obvious The West needs a few Muslim scholars of it's own.
February 17, 2015
By Tony Ortega
In September, Nihad Awad, (click here) the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), held a press conference in Washington and, flanked by other Muslim figures, announced that 120 Muslim scholars had produced an 18-page open letter, written in Arabic, to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
An English translation of the document is a tough slog. As Awad said at the time, “This letter is not meant for a liberal audience.” He even admitted that mainstream Muslims might find it difficult to read.
The letter is an extended exegesis, heavily salted with quotes from the Koran and the Hadith, arguing point by point about the nature of jihad, the slaughtering of innocents, the taking of slaves, and other not-so-savory elements of the distant past — and in the past they should remain, the text argues. It makes the case not only that ISIS was wrong to commit horrific acts of violence in modern times, but that it was interpreting Islamic law incorrectly to justify such acts....
The Boston Globe gets it. Will the Obama Administration?
October 9, 2014
By Zeba Kahn
The militants who are killing civilians, (click here) raping and forcing captured women into sexual slavery, and beheading foreigners in Iraq and Syria are known by several names: the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS; the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL; and, more recently, the Islamic State, or IS. French officials recently declared that that country would stop using any of those names and instead refer to the group as “Daesh.”
The Obama Administration should switch to this nomenclature, too, because how we talk about this group is central to defeating them....
