Afghan Prez Chooses Warlord as Running Mate

While the country of Afghanistan is supposed to be moving forward into modernity we see that our "allies" in Afghanistan have recently enacted a Shiite law that allows men not to feed their wives if they refuse to have sex with them. This laws does not sound very modern to me and to add to it, President Karzai has now chosen a brutal warlord to be one of his vice presidential running mates. So are we moving forwards or backwards here?

Afghan president chooses warlord as running mate
By JASON STRAZIUSO and RAHIM FAIEZ

KABUL – President Hamid Karzai chose a powerful warlord accused of rights abuses as one of his vice presidential running mates on Monday, hours before leaving for meetings in Washington with President Barack Obama and Pakistan's president.

The selection of Mohammad Qasim Fahim, a top commander in the militant group Jamiat-e-Islami during Afghanistan's 1990s civil war, drew immediate criticism from human rights groups.

A 2005 Human Rights Watch report, "Blood-Stained Hands," found "credible and consistent evidence of widespread and systematic human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law" were committed by Jamiat commanders, including Fahim.

Karzai was "insulting the country" with the choice, the New York-based group said Monday.

Fahim served as Karzai's first vice president during the country's interim government put in place after the ouster of the Taliban in the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. During the 2004 election, Karzai dropped Fahim from his ticket in favor of Ahmad Zia Massood — the brother of resistance hero Ahmad Shah Massood, who was assassinated by al-Qaida two days before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Under Afghan law, the president has two vice presidents.

"To see Fahim back in the heart of government would be a terrible step backwards for Afghanistan," said Brad Adams, the group's Asia director. "He is widely believed by many Afghans to be still involved in many illegal activities, including running armed militias, as well as giving cover to criminal gangs and drug traffickers."

The U.S. Embassy would not comment, saying it wasn't helpful for the United States to comment on individual candidates. However, a U.S. statement said, "We believe the election is an opportunity for Afghanistan to move forward with leaders who will strengthen national unity."

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Turkey:45 Killed at Engagement Party

While the Turkish government has holding joint military exercises with Syria on their minds, they obviously have some major problems within Turkey.

45 killed in attack on engagement party in Turkey
By SELCAN HACAOGLU
ANKARA, Turkey – Masked assailants with grenades and automatic weapons attacked an engagement ceremony in southeast Turkey on Monday, killing 45 people. Two girls survived after the bodies of slain friends fell on top of them during the onslaught.

NTV television quoted Deputy Gov. Ferhat Ozen of Mardin province as saying the nighttime attack occurred in Bilge village near the city of Mardin. Some media outlets reported that a "blood feud" among families had led to the killings in a region where tribal ties and rivalries sometimes eclipse the power of the state.

Citing Ozen, NTV said the motive could be an old feud between rival groups of pro-government village guards who fight alongside Turkish troops against Kurdish rebels in the region. If that is the case, the government would come under renewed pressure to rein in the militiamen, some of whom have been linked to drug smuggling and other crimes.

Mehmet Besir Ayanoglu, the mayor of Mardin, told Turkey's Channel 24 that he spoke to two survivors, both girls, who said at least two masked men stormed a house where the ceremony took place. Other reports put the number of assailants at four.

"'They raided the house, we were in two rooms, they opened fire on everyone, they were wearing masks,'" Ayanoglu quoted the girls as saying. The girls said they lay underneath the bodies of friends until the attack was over.

Interior Minister Besir Atalay said 45 people were killed and six were wounded, and ruled out involvement of Kurdish rebels. He said he, along with the justice and agriculture ministers, would travel to the village early Tuesday.

Anatolia news agency said the attack lasted 15 minutes. All initial reports said the assault happened during a wedding, though CNN-Turk television later said it took place during an engagement ceremony.

One survivor, a 19-year-old woman, said the assailants ordered people to huddle in one room and opened fire, NTV reported. Another report said the attack occurred when people were praying at the house. Some guards responded to the attack but the assailants fled, NTV said.

Ahmet Can, a relative who took the body of his nephew to a hospital, said the site of the attack was horrifying.

"You could not believe your eyes, it is unbelievable," he told Channel 24.
The attack occurred during the ceremony for the daughter of Cemil Celebi, a former village official who was among the wounded.

An Islamic cleric who was presiding over the marriage died at a hospital, NTV said. The fate of the bride and groom was not immediately known. The attack killed an entire family, including the parents and their six children, aged between three and 12.

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U.S. Denies Letting Troops Convert Afghans

The US military has denied an allegation that it has allowed our soldiers to to try and convert Afghans to Christianity. When circumstances like this come about, does our govt even begin to realize that Islam itself is the problem?

U.S. denies letting troops convert Afghans
By Peter Graff

KABUL, May 4 (Reuters) - The U.S. military denied on Monday it has allowed soldiers to try to convert Afghans to Christianity, after a television network showed pictures of soldiers with bibles translated into local languages.

General Order Number 1 from the U.S. military's Central Command forbids active duty troops -- including all those serving in Iraq and Afghanistan -- from trying to convert people to their religion, considered a crime in many Muslim countries.

Qatar-based Al Jazeera television showed footage filmed last year of a church service at Bagram, the main U.S. base north of the Afghan capital Kabul, and a bible study class where soldiers had a stack of bibles in the local languages, Pashtu and Dari.

A military chaplain was shown delivering a sermon to other soldiers, saying: "The special forces guys -- they hunt men basically. We do the same things as Christians, we hunt people for Jesus. We do, we hunt them down."

A U.S. military spokeswoman, Major Jennifer Willis, said the comments from the sermon were taken out of context and chaplains were told to make clear to soldiers that they could not proselytise while serving.

Former prime minister Ahmad Shah Ahmadzai told Reuters the footage appeared to show "that in a foreign military base inside our country, people work against our religion".

"We consider this act as a direct attack on our religion that will arouse Afghans' emotions to take actions against them."

Violence in Afghanistan this year has reached its highest level since the Islamist Taliban were ousted in 2001, despite increasing numbers of U.S. and other foreign troops.

Willis said the bibles had been mailed to a soldier by a church back home in the United States and were never distributed.

"That specific case involved a soldier who brought in a donation of translated bibles that were sent to his personal address by his home church. He showed them to the group and the chaplain explained that he cannot distribute them," she said.

"The translated bibles were never distributed as far as we know, because the soldier understood that if he distributed them he would be in violation of General Order 1, and he would be subject to punishment."

Willis said she was aware of at least one case of a soldier who had been punished for giving out coins that had biblical inscriptions on them.

Trying to convert Muslims to any other faith is a crime in Afghanistan. An Afghan man who converted to Christianity was sentenced to death for apostasy in 2006 but was allowed to leave the country after an international uproar. (Additional reporting by Hamid Shalizi; Editing by Paul Tait)

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Two American Soldiers Killed by Iraqi Soldier

In the past we have read about US military members who were Muslims that had turned on the USA. Today we see an Iraqi soldier who was also an Imam turn on us and kill two of our brave soldiers.

Two American soldiers shot dead by uniformed Iraqi: US

Two American soldiers were shot dead and three more were wounded on Saturday when an Iraqi wearing army uniform opened fire on them south of the northern town of Mosul, the US military said.

"According to initial reports, an individual dressed in an Iraqi army uniform fired on the Coalition forces and was killed in the incident" around 20 kilometres (12 miles) south of Mosul, the statement said.

It called the incident "a small arms fire attack at a combat outpost."

A Mosul police officer identified the assailant as Hassan al-Dulaimi, a soldier who also served as the imam of a mosque at an Iraqi army training centre south of the city, the capital of Nineveh province.

The latest deaths bring to 4,283 the number of American losses since the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, according to an AFP count based on the independent website icasualties.org.

In February an American soldier was killed and three others wounded when two Iraqi policemen shot at them at a Mosul police station in an attack that also killed an Iraqi translator and wounded another.

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Irate pig Farmers Clash With Police in Egypt

This is a follow up to the "Egypt Orders Slaughter of all Pigs Over Swine flu" story. Even though there has not been one case of swine flu in Egypt and the virus is being spread through humans, the Egyptian government has decided to use the issue to further their oppression of Egypt's Coptic Christians.

Irate pig farmers clash with police in Egypt
By MAGGIE MICHAEL

CAIRO – Egyptian police and armored cars charged into a crowd of a 1,000 irate pig farmers armed with stones and bottles, leaving 12 people injured as residents of a Cairo slum resisted government efforts to slaughter the nation's pigs to guard against swine flu.

Cairo security chief Maj. Gen. Ismail Shaer said 14 people were arrested. Seven police were among the injured in the clashes with largely Christian garbage collectors who raise pigs on the refuse and live in the teeming slums of Manishyet Nasr outside the capital.

The farmers blocked the road leading to their pig pens and hurled rocks and bottles at police, who responded by charging them with armored cars and firing tear gas. Some 200 policemen then surrounded the neighborhood backed by a half dozen police trucks.

Egypt last week ordered the slaughter of all the country's 300,000 pigs even though no cases of swine flu have been reported here. The World Health Organization has said the move was unnecessary because the virus is being spread through humans.

Authorities have now expanded the rationale for the slaughter beyond swine flu to a larger campaign against unsanitary pig farming conditions, particularly in the Cairo slums where the garbage collectors live.

The campaign has been met from the start by protests and resistance from pig owners. The consumption and raising of pigs is largely restricted to the country's Christian minority, estimated at 10 percent of the population. Muslims consider pork unclean and generally do not eat it.

"We were surprised by the tremendous objection by the garbage collectors. They fired guns, and they threw stones and bottles," Maj. Gen. Mohammed Nabawi, head of the Cairo Beautification Authority, told The Associated Press. He said that healthy pigs are being slaughtered for their meat while the pregnant and babies are being destroyed.

Cairo's predominantly Christian population of garbage collectors, known as the zabaleen, roam the streets of the sprawling city's wealthier neighborhoods collecting its garbage. They bring the refuse back to their homes and dump it in their courtyards, sorting through it for matter to recycle. Pigs and other animals feed off the organic matter while the reusable material is reprocessed in crude workshops nearby.

Isaac Mikhail, the head of the garbage collectors association, said 65,000 pigs live in the slum of Manishyet Nasr. The area has the city of 18 million's largest concentration of garbage collectors, providing a livelihood for some 55,000 people.

He said farmers were enraged when the government slaughtered 600 of their pigs and then only paid them half of the going market rate of about 55 cents a pound ($1.20 a kilogram).

"If the government wants to slaughter (the pigs), they should pay a just price. How can people live?" he asked, estimating that a quarter of a million people in Cairo are involved in pig farming.

Another pig farmer said the government came early Sunday to take the pigs without paying any compensation up front.

"This is my bread and butter. My family, my sons and I all live off it. How can I give up easily?" said Isaac Rafib, 45.

"We bring the garbage here and sort it and we feed the pigs," said Marzouqa Moussa, a middle aged woman dressed in a dark robe, surrounded by dozens of pigs. "We were born here and we live here," she added, gesturing toward her simple living area adorned with a picture of Jesus Christ next to a room piled high with reeking garbage bags. A third room of the house was given over to the pigs.

The introduction of modern garbage services in many parts of the city over the last five years has already cost the zabaleen some of their livelihood.

In 2008, President Hosni Mubarak ordered all animal rearing, particularly pigs and chickens, to be moved out of populated areas for hygienic reasons. The order was never implemented, however, and authorities say the current crisis is a perfect opportunity.

Pig raising will be restarted in two years at specially constructed farms in the countryside using newly imported animals, officials from the Ministry of Agriculture told Egyptian media.

"Everything Egypt has decided to do — despite the noise it caused here and there — first and foremost aims at protecting human health, and the health of the Egyptian people which is worth all the efforts and the measures taken," presidential spokesman Suleiman Awwad said Sunday.

He added that the measures had the full support of the leaders of Egypt's Christian community.

The Egyptian government has come under criticism in past years for being caught flat-footed by crises.

Egypt was severely affected by the outbreak of bird flu in 2006 with more than two dozen fatalities in the past two years. Some 25 million birds were slaughtered and the rearing of poultry in households largely ended.

With the new flu scare, the government moved proactively, even in the absence of any cases.

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Israeli Made South Park Like Cartoon of Islamic Terrorists~Video 3

Recently I had posted about an Israeli made South Park like cartoon about an Islamic terrorist family. While there is very strong language in the videos, many people have enjoyed them. So today I am posting episode 3.

WARNING VERY STRONG LANGUAGE

I Wonder if There are Enough Virgins to Meet Demand in Islamic Heaven?

Hat tip to Paul from Christians in Action.