Saturday, July 16, 2005
How the cycle begins, how it is perpetuatedI came across this wire story today
on Salon about southern Thailand and the ongoing Muslim separatist
movement there. The Muslim minority kills Buddhists; the government
kills Muslims in return. And now, Buddhists are being armed and trained
by the government so they can "protect themselves": 2:46:53 PM | Customers
no longer come to Kaboh Sulong's tea shop -- not since two gunmen
walked in at noon, coldly shot a Buddhist cloth vendor, cut off his
head and left it in a sack outside.
Ten days later Sulong was still terrified as he pointed to a wooden table where Lek Pongpla was relaxing when the attackers killed him. And all around him, Buddhists were packing and fleeing the worsening violence in Thailand's Muslim-majority south. Beheadings and bombings are pushing tensions to boiling point since a long-simmering Muslim separatist movement launched an armed struggle early last year that has left more than 860 people dead. [...] Fear has engulfed the southern provinces, with Buddhist monks slashed to death and temples bombed. Vendors have received flyers threatening them for selling pork in Muslim areas. "I am very scared and don't want to go anywhere, especially at night. Women are now being attacked," said Piyathida Thongchuay, 34, a Buddhist living in the district where Lek was killed. A few days earlier a school headmistress and two other Buddhist women had been murdered -- the latter two beheaded. [...] Since October, authorities have trained and armed about 10,000 Buddhists, raising fears that an "eye-for-an-eye" mentality will take root. "I feel vengeful because they killed my husband. I want to protect myself, because there is no one who can protect me now," said 51-year-old Sa-ngeam Boontho. Unknown assailants killed her husband, a policeman, in September. Sa-ngeam and about 40 other villagers -- some who had never touched a weapon and were afraid to do so -- were being taught how to aim rifles. "We have no intention of harming anyone," Gen. Napol Boonthap told the trainees on the grounds of a Buddhist temple in Pattani province. "But we will not let anyone behead us." I spent six weeks in Thailand in 1994. I traveled with journalist Harold Stephens, who has worked and lived in southeast Asia for forty years. We took the second-class train through southern Thailand into Malaysia. Our train ride was delayed half-way through our trip because Muslim separatists had bombed the tracks ahead of us. This conflict is not new. According to the Thai authorities, it is being fueled in part by the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Probably. I don't recall stories of beheadings when I was there. I think that is new. But the discrimination against Muslims in the south is not. The desire for revenge takes hold so easily. Another life taken for another life lost. How can it ever end? 
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Speak truth to power? You must be out of your mind...So today I got to talk to my hubby for the first time in six weeks.
Wow!! And we got to talk for fifteen minutes. Happy happy joy joy!!!
All is right in the little Kate and S world. At least for this very moment. 12:14:01 PM | He's back in Kabul with his entire team. They got back this afternoon (it's night there now). He will be there for about a week then will go to Qatar for a much-needed break. In between now and then, he will be evaluated by a psychiatrist because his commander thinks he has "battle fatigue." He might, given that he's been out in the field for three weeks with hardly any break at all. But what prompted his commander's diagnosis? Had S seen horrible battles? Had his life been put in imminent danger? Was he acting as if his nerves were shattered? Was he suffering from nightmares and panic attacks? Nope, nope, nope, nope. The "diagnosis" came after S went in to talk to the commanding officer about what they'd been doing the past five months. He had the balls to question the priorities of the mission and ask for more support for ANA troops and their Forward Operating Bases (FOBs). His commander's answer? "You need to be evaluated by a psychiatrist." The ANA ETT teams are given so little money, and have been given so little money the past four years, that the bases are barely operational. S's team had to dig mortar pits. After four years! My uncle-in-law sent dozens of radios for the ANA troops because the military won't supply them. S questioned our commitment to building a viable Afghan army, one that we could hand over control to in the near future, and in return he was told he must be crazy. Either our government has no interest in making Afghanistan an independent state or they are incomepetent and rife with corruption, making the mission impossible. If we had any interest at all, we would be putting our resources into the ANA, building them up into an actual army. Instead, we are abandoning them and treating them as an afterthought, while we simultaneously spend millions on our American bases in Kabul. S said they are installing marble flag poles at the base there. While the ANA soldiers don't have radios. Does this make sense? Of course it does make sense in Bush World, where fiction is "fact" and reality is "created". The problem is their "created" reality, a world based on "faith," does not obliterate actual reality where actual facts exist. All of the other ETT leaders have told S that if he has "battle fatigue" then they must too, since they've seen what he's seen and they feel the same as he does about our abandonment of the ANA. It's no wonder they've kept their mouths shut. Acknowledging reality is a dangerous business these days. S is the type of man who is compelled to tell the truth. He can't help himself. He also has an anti-authority streak in him (which is one of the many reasons I fell in love with him), which served him well in his unit (they're all a bunch of mavericks), but has never served him well on active duty. The people in power rarely want to hear the truth. It disrupts the system, especially when the system is based on lies as ours is today. In the military, accusing someone of having "battle fatigue" is often a way to discredit them and brand them. This is horrible. It leads to soldiers being afraid to seek help when they really are suffering from PTSD and need help. It makes our military less likely to fund PTSD programs and to give medical care to soldiers suffering from PTSD. It also leads to the military using the "battle fatigue" classification as a way to quiet their critics. They have a reputation for taking revenge on whistleblowers, which I suppose explains why both Afghanistan and Iraq are a mess and why so many soldiers feel abandoned by the country and military they swore allegiance to. S is completely stressed out over this and feeling depressed. My worry for him never ends. It's of a compounding nature, just like his stress. Perhaps now he really does have "battle fatigue," though the battle that's left him fatigued wasn't waged against Taliban or al Qaeda, but his own commanders. What a mess. I'll keep you posted. He plans to call me again tomorrow. My honey. How I love him!
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Preach it, Sister VowellSarah Vowell on the Ten Commandments, the Texas State Capitol, and Alabama's former judge/christian conservative hero, Roy Moore. 10:45:48 AM | Ha!
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A few links to follow up on the Christian Fascism thing....First, here is an article I read in Harper's back in 2003
that is, happily, available online for free. It's about The Family, a
powerful conservative Christian organization whose compound is smack
dab in the middle of DC's Embassy Row. These people have been
influencing world politics in a major way since 1941. They brought us
the Prayer Breakfast, have infiltrated governments with "secret cells",
and have propped up tyrannical dictators of all stripes who promise a
simple acceptance of Jesus into their hearts. They scare the bejesus
out of me! 9:44:58 AM | Next, a site I found through Killing the Buddha, an online magazine about religion run by the author of the Harper's article, Jeffrey Sharlet. Losing My Religion is a site run by former Southern Baptists and dedicated to showing conservative, fundamentalist Christianity for what it is: a hateful, powerful religion based on irrational, fictional stories. Make sure to check out their FAQs and letters they've received. Check out The Revealer, too, "a daily review of religion and the press." They're on hiatus for the rest of July, but there are plenty of archives to review. I know there are countless people of faith who follow an ethical system of kindness to others. But the reality is the fundamentalists have taken over. They have influenced politics deeply and hold positions of power from the White House to the Supreme Court to the halls of Congress. These people have an agenda. They have the power and the money to exact their agenda. This is why it's important that we look at them and fight them as best we can.
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"Not in the Name of Islam"From Reuters: 1:51:40 AM |
The 30-second public service spot, called "Not in the Name of Islam," features two American Muslim women and religious leader Imam Johari Abdul-Malik. "We often hear claims Muslims don't condemn terrorism and that Islam condones violence," they say. "As Muslims, we want to state clearly that those who commit acts of terror in the name of Islam are betraying the teachings of the Koran and the Prophet Mohammed. We reject anyone -- of any faith -- who commits such brutal acts and will not allow our faith to be hijacked by criminals. Islam is not about hatred and violence. It's about peace and justice." Good job, brothers!Now if only mainstream, moderate American Christians would come out against Fred Phelps, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Bob Jones, Oral Roberts, Randall Terry, Jerry Falwell, Tim LaHaye, etc. etc. If they did, maybe then we could prevent Christian Fascism from taking over here at home, and then moderate Christians won't have to air their own commercials a few years from now separating themselves from their out-of-control sisters and brothers. Fred Phelps has protested outside the funerals of OIF and OEF soldiers because he claims our soldiers "deserved to die" because of our nation's tolerance of homosexuality. Randall Terry's ideas about abortion have inspired people to kill doctors and bomb clinics. We have the opportunity to stop them now. Please, moderate Christians, speak up! Challenge them! Tell them they don't speak for you! Help us battle them, please!
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Doc's thoughtful question and a couple of other readsDr. Omed asked a tough question on Thursday: "What's it worth to ya?" 12:03:37 AM | Check it out and then ponder. I'll do the same. Perhaps we can talk about it in the comments. Why not? While you're out roaming around, check out The Heretik's take on our illustrious leader's Fly Paper Theory. I gave my two cents about his tragically flawed strategy last month. The Heretik's take is right on. And if you missed it, check out Jean-Claude Shanda Tonme's editorial about Live 8. What do you know -- an African intellectual given a voice in the NY Times to talk about Africa. How novel!
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Last update: 8/3/05; 12:28:37 AM .
