BLOG POSTS

Once in a while, the strain of leading a large group of individuals intent on believing the unbelievable, becomes too much to bear. Mental lethargy and incompetence take over and the mind conjures weird, twisted, ideas better left to slink and suppurate in the dank, dark, cellars of the subconscious.

Britain’s Protestant Christian leader, the “Very Reverend” Archbishop Rowan Williams, known more colloquially as the “Mad Welsh Druid” or “Merlin’s Dad”, has, to put it kindly, recently flipped his lid by proclaiming Sharia law would inevitably become a part of the British judicial system.^[1]

The national furore accompanying this statement has not yet penetrated the bastion of American self-indulgence that efficiently filters out happenings not directly related to matters solely US, but let me assure my American readers such outspoken statements do not ride well on the saddle of English liberalism, let alone within the citadel of conservative indulgence that passes for the Upper House of the British Parliament.

Westminster is not amused.

One result of the Archbish’s folly has been to highlight a little known fact about certain aspects of British justice – it doesn’t apply to Jews. Suddenly, the working people of Britain have for the first time been made aware of Battei Din,^[2] Jewish courts covering civil issues as diverse as business and divorce. They’ve been around for centuries, but until now most Brits had no knowledge of their existence.

What’s good enough for Jews, quoth our good Archbishop, is equally relevant to Muslims.

One would find it hard to disagree with him on that point; the crux being why Jews have been allowed to circumvent the common law of the land for so long, and with apparent impunity. Why are Jewish religious courts operating in a secular kingdom with adequate secular laws and a secular civil and criminal court system established long before the Jewish Beth Din? [lit: “house of judgment”]

A common problem to arise within institutional religious organizations is the idea that somehow the only law we commoners understand is the law of their god. They argue that civil law is based on these divine rulings and as such one god’s law is as sacrosanct as another’s, at least when their officials are speaking to each other and not slitting each other’s throats.

Without a god, they say, we would be as the wild beasts, unable to socialize ourselves and conform to any regulation for the common good. The ten commandments are the pillars of our judicial system.

Of course, this concept is ridiculous. I don’t have a problem not coveting my neighbor’s wife; she’s short, fat, and eighty-two years old. Likewise, without graven images Hollywood would be out of business. And, what would Americans do if they kept the Sabbath holy and couldn’t go shopping on Sundays?

Man is perfectly capable of forming his own laws without any assistance from some mythical divinity, helped along by clerics in long dresses and toting candles. They should confine themselves to churches and leave the law of the land to secular governments.

Archbish Williams has been championing the cause of Islam in Britain of late, attempting in his own good Christian way to bridge the gap between east and west. It does seem, however, that this latest utterance is a perfect example of a bridge too far…….

The media is screaming for his blood; government ministers are muttering the “resignation” word; public opinion is straining at the leash, and – Holy Horrors! – the Church of England synod is planning an early meet to discuss the issue.

Meanwhile, Muslim leaders in Britain can barely disguise mullah-ish joy behind their jilbabs, and the rabbis continue to smirk contentedly into their Judaic whiskers.

^{[1] – Sharia row persists for Williams (BBC report)}

^{[2] – Wikipedia}

Filed under: Holy clerics, Batman!

News today that the US has drafted a new army manual, with emphasis on winning hearts and minds. It’s entitled, “How to Make Your Enemy Love You Once You’ve Bombed The Fuck Out Of Them.”

They just don’t get it, do they?

There is a faction of American society so arrogant, so self-obsessed, that they actually believe its possible the Iraqi people will love them, despite 5,000,000 orphans, God-only-knows how many slaughtered individuals, 7,000,000 displaced, the massacre of Fallujah, the abominations of Abu Ghraib – now known to have been sanctioned at the highest level of the Pentagon – the disgusting antics of Blackwater and other so-called “US contractors”, and the final degradation of Baghdad societies walled off by twelve-foot high concrete barriers.

Only today, the BBC reports a family gunned down by US troops. A 55 year old man and his 40 year old wife were killed in their home, together with their son who was a member of the US-backed anti-al Qaeda militia. Two daughters were also hit, one of whom died in hospital. The other is seriously injured.

Rest assured, America, if she survives she’ll love you all for the rest of her life.

It’s not what any American wants to hear, but the plain, ungarnished, truth – verified over and over by any and every nation’s military who’ve ever served with them – is that the US military are a bunch of badly trained, undisciplined, arrogant, trigger-happy louts who consider themselves cock-of-the-roost wherever they are stationed.

Of course, that is a generalization. There are certainly some soldiers who are a credit to the uniform they wear, but they are in the minority. Hardly a day goes by that innocent civilians are not killed, either in Iraq or Afghanistan, by the antics of US forces only trained in bully-boy tactics and “Terminator” movies.

A new documentary highlights the disgrace that is the American military, at all levels of command.

“Taxi to the Dark Side” lays bare to the world atrocities that in any nation less powerful than the United States, would have seen its Commander-in-Chief and associates locked away for a very long time.

An Afghan taxi driver, known only as Dilowar, was brutally murdered in the notorious Bagram Airbase, Afghanistan, in 2002. He had committed no crime. The film documents his fate, and that of others throughout Afghanistan and Iraq.

The New York Times edition, May 22, 2005, reported:

” On the day of his death, Dilawar had been chained by the wrists to the top of his cell for much of the previous four days.

“A guard tried to force the young man to his knees. But his legs, which had been pummeled by guards for several days, could no longer bend. An interrogator told Mr. Dilawar that he could see a doctor after they finished with him. When he was finally sent back to his cell, though, the guards were instructed only to chain the prisoner back to the ceiling.

“Leave him up,” one of the guards quoted Specialist Claus as saying. Several hours passed before an emergency room doctor finally saw Mr. Dilawar. By then he was dead, his body beginning to stiffen.

It would be many months before Army investigators learned a final horrific detail: Most of the interrogators had believed Mr. Dilawar was an innocent man who simply drove his taxi past the American base at the wrong time.”

It is a documentary worthy of compulsive viewing for every American citizen. The reason: because many in this nation refuse to accept the behavior of a military heavy on shortcomings and encouraged to mindless violence by its topmost officials.

A sketch showing how Dilawar was chained to the ceiling of his cell by Thomas V. Curtis, a former sergeant in the Reserve United States Army Military Police Corps

The atrocities of Bagram airbase, the heinous crimes committed at Abu Ghraib, were not only tolerated, but sanctioned right through the military command structure. And yet, it doesn’t stop there.

Every day, in Afghanistan and Iraq, innocent victims fall prey to the callous indifference of a nation requiring military victory for political gain. While the people of America entertain themselves with immature pseudo-democratic games – caucuses and primaries – that will make little or no difference to the militaristic course this country is steadily carving for itself, their fellow human beings suffer degradation, torture, and death at the hands of their own countrymen, who are hailed as “Heroes”.

And for what purpose? No more than to satisfy the great American ego, so badly bruised by the terrorists who perpetrated 9/11.

Those in charge of the American military machine probably consider themselves Christian. They fail in one of the basic tenets of Christianity: the charge to love thine enemy.

Yet they have the gall and audacity to expect their enemies to love them.

Filed under: One way street

My apologies to those of you desperate(!) for your fix of Sparrow Chat who have met with only a bland “Maintenance Mode” banner for the last twenty-four hours.

With the re-recording of “Yarns of a Professional Gongoozler” finally complete, it became necessary to update webpages inline with marketing processes. While doing so it seemed commonsense to use complimentary colors for the blog.

Most of the work is now complete, and the few minor tweaks still outstanding can be adjusted without resorting to further downtime.

“Yarns of a Professional Gongoozler” (see sidebar) is now available for download in two formats: 240Mb stereo-interleaved, and for those with slower connections, a 120Mb mono version. Both offer good sound quality, and are a vast improvement on the original.

Once again, apologies for the delay.