Ashura, day of sorrow

"At least 20 people — many of them women and children — were killed in three bomb blasts about 50 miles south of Baghdad, security officials and hospital officials said. Dozens more were injured.

In the capital, another three explosions in heavily Shiite neighborhoods left three people dead and nearly 20 wounded, police officials said.

The attacks came as hundreds of thousands of worshipers flocked to the holy city of Karbala to celebrate Ashura, which commemorates the death of a foundational figure in Shiite Islam more than 1,000 years ago."

Ashura has been attacked before, and not just in Iraq, but Iraqi Shia have been the primary victims of Wahhabi terrorism since 2003.

More on Ashura: "Shia Imams strongly insist that the day of Ashura should not be taken as a day of joy and festivity. According to a hadith which is reported from Ali claiming it was on that day the God forgave Adam, Noah's Ark rested on dry land, The Israelites were saved from Pharaoh's army, etc. The day of Ashura, according to Eighth Shia Imam, Ali al-Rida, must be observed as a day of inactivity, sorrow and total disregard of worldly cares."

Al Jazeera sucks (again)

Hayder al-Khoei: "Arab broadcasting has never been renowned for neutrality but the events of the past week in Saudi Arabia have revealed some interesting – if not surprising – bias.

On 20 November, 19-year-old Nasser al-Mheishi was shot dead in Qatif, Saudi Arabia. When the authorities refused to hand over his body to his family, protests ensued the next day and security forces shot another young man, Ali al-Felfel. In the demonstration that followed on Wednesday, two more protesters, Munib al-Adnan and Ali al-Qarayrees, were killed.

On Thursday, al-Jazeera Arabic did mention those two deaths but it simply echoed the Saudi authorities' claims that the security forces were fired upon and shot back in self-defence. The casualties were merely caught in the crossfire. End of story.

Even Al-Jazeera English, which does better than its Arabic sister station, did not follow up its coverage of deaths at Qatif protests"

Unbearable and Unfathomable

"David Emanuel Hickman, 23, was the 4,483rd American military member killed in Iraq, according to icasualties.org, and just the second in November. He was the 53rd to die this year, by far the lowest annual total of the war and 16 times lower than the peak rate in 2007.

Although combat operations have officially been considered over since September 2010, danger remains. Every death in war is tragic, but the loss of a son or daughter as a war winds down seems all the more unbearable and unfathomable."

Will the fall of Assad throw the Middle East into turmoil?

Patrick Cockburn: "The fall of the government in Syria will not be confined to one country, as happened in Libya. It will throw the whole Middle East into turmoil. Turkish leaders say privately they have been given a free hand by the US and Britain to do what they want. But the Saudis have no wish to see Turkey become the champions of the Muslim world. The battle for Syria is already producing fresh rivalries and the seeds of future conflicts."

Does Israel control America?

Is the man in the video below anti-semitic? I don't think so. He is merely telling the truth, it seems to me. It is an objective assessment, as he says. Israel is our friend and should be our friend in that troubled region, he says. But he says some things that might offend strong supporters of Israel. Is it wrong or anti-Jewish to suggest that Israel controls America?



Is it true that Israel receives $15 billion per year from the American taxpayer? I thought it was $3 billion per year in military aid, and the economic aid ended some time ago. I will have to look more into this.

Police pepper spray nonviolent students at UC Davis

In America! I say that as if America is exceptional, somehow superior to most countries in terms of human rights. Maybe I should not expect such high standards from America. Or should I?

It's one thing for a a police officer to defend himself against a violent criminal by pepper spraying the criminal in the face. It's a very different thing when you see a police officer pepper spraying passive students at a university that is supposed to be all about tolerance and justice. The only explanation that I can think of is that this police officer's superior officer told him to do this, in which case that superior officer must be fired.



This happened on Friday afternoon. Today the media is giving this incident a lot of coverage, thankfully.

If UC Davis wants to maintain its image as a great liberal university, the university must fire the police officers who pepper sprayed the students. Their superior officers should be fired as well. It is not enough that the chief and the pepper sprayers are put on "administrative leave", especially if they are paid while on leave. The schmucks should not be rewarded with a vacation. They should be fired immediately.

"All American Muslim"

'For those constantly fretting about the inability of Muslims to integrate or assimilate into western culture, fret no more!

American Muslims finally have their own reality TV show – the Learning Channel's "All-American Muslim" – focusing on the lives of five American Muslim families in Dearborn, Michigan, who are predominantly Lebanese and Shiite. The show's premiere gave TLC huge ratings and made the show No 2 in its time period. Mainstream critics have embraced the show citing it as "intimate and informative" and a "deeply intriguing, uncharacteristically thoughtful reality series".'

I remember a few people on Angry Arab in 2006 and 2007 who said that I could not be Iraqi and American. I wonder if they know there are hundreds of thousands of Muslims of all backgrounds living in America.