On The Third Hand

Tuesday, 15 Jan 2002

How shocking. The Marines seem to have shaved the heads and beards (and probably mustaches too) of the prisoners before bringing them to Guantanamo Bay. The American Muslim Council says this is "humiliating" to conservative Muslims, but the Pentagon spokesman said they were lousy, and that was the only way to delouse them in Afghanistan. Both sides are completely ignoring the true victims of this travesty.

The lice. How dare they remove the poor innocent lice from a warm and food-rich environment and leave them to face the harsh Afghan winter! It's silent genocide, I tell you. Those poor creatures now must face the brutal Afghan winter with no shelter. How will they survive? With their food source removed they will slowly starve even if they don't freeze. Have our Marines no pity for these poor beings? Our hearts should go out to them. I call for volunteers from our wonderful animal protection agencies to immediately fly over there and save these innocent victims from the unforgiving Afghan winter. Surely the Animal Liberation Front or PETA will take the time to rescue these sufferers before it is too late!

As for the prisoners, it seems are being fed a breakfast of bagels and cream cheese, which is certainly not culturally appropriate food. Arabs generally will eat beans, don't even try to tell me that a military base has no beans; that I will never believe. As for the Aussie, we can give him bread and vegemite. The Brits can have bread and marmite. There are plenty of snails crawling all over Cuba, I'm sure we can cook up something for any French. That will all be nice culturally appropriate food (and serves 'em right). They can send the bagels and cream cheese to me.

I've added these to my useful links, and I thought I'd introduce them here. These are all sites run by and for Islamist Muslims, but in English. Browsing around these can give you some insight as to how Islamists view the world. Keep in mind that while Islam is not as fragmented as Christianity, it is by no means all of a kind. These are Islamist viewpoints, so don't judge all Muslims by these sites.

• Ummah.com bills itself as the 'Muslim Directory Online'. It has an interesting discussion area, and some very interesting articles.
• Azzam Publications This is a site with information on various jihads; take your blood pressure pills before reading it.
• Khilafah "Under the Khilafah, the entire breadth of the Islamic system (be it social, economic, educational, foreign policy, etc.) is implemented. The Khilafah is also responsible for spreading the message of Islam to the world." [No thank you!]

First there were the bellicose women

Do you remember the e-mail that went around a while back, (author was Nancy Alton)? It started out:

Take all American women who are within five years of menopause - train us for a few weeks, outfit us with automatic weapons, grenades, gas masks, moisturizer with SPF15, Prozac, hormones, chocolate, and canned spam - drop us (parachuted, preferably) across the landscape of Afghanistan, and let us do what comes naturally.

The creed of the Bellicose Woman (middle-age division), I called it. Well, seems the men of our age have a similar attitude. Meet the WOOF army. All right, you government types, you wouldn't send us to Afghanistan. How about Somalia, or Iraq, or -- better still -- Saudi Arabia? We may be laughing, people, but we ain't joking!

• An entirely appropriate rant on Pseudo-Feminist Weenies by the Inappropriate Moira Breen.
• The United States said it was investigating reports that an American citizen had been kidnapped in Afghanistan [link via Fred Pruitt]. Well? Why am I not hearing updates on this today?
• If you get an e-mail notice to update your MS Outlook, don't do it.
• I've hung around expat enclaves too; though in a different part of the world. Aside from the fact that I also knew some who were anti-American from the conservative side, Matt's got it right. He's also correct about the fact that we all need to rigorously challenge our own assumptions. And about.... oh, heck... just go read it.
• Saudi royals better to work with than alternative. This guy does have a point, but I think we need to find another alternative.