Somali pirates and Christmas?

Merry “dayafter” Christmas everyone. Hope it was a great time for all. I spoke to a Muslim friend in Nablus, the West Bank, yesterday who said the whole place was just a huge party. (Jesus is important in Islam as well. Just a prophet, not divine. )

Anyway, I was going through my pictures of Lebanon this morning and thought this was worth sharing. It is in a Greek Orthodox community near Tripoli, Lebanon. These Christians have been in the mountains of Tripoli since some caliph in Damascus pushed them there in the 7-8 century.

A man in the church told me that what seems like a scull and crossbones is not, in fact, proof that Somali pirates have taken the place, but rather a symbol of the resurrection--Greek Orthodox style. See what I'm talking about? It's the blood from "His" feet at the bottom.

A not so merry Christmas for Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl of Idaho

I bring up is "not so merry" news because a Taliban-linked group has just released a video of Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl, 23, of Idaho, who was captured late last June in Paktika Province, near Pakistan.

It seems to be clear that this video was timed for Christmas day, as the captures are members of a Islamist group. I don't want to read into this too deaply, but it seems that there is a Christian crusader element that is being provoked here. I don't think a nationalist--thought surely Muslim--Afghan would think to leak this video on Christmas. Just a guess though.

Pfc. Bergdahl is clearly reading a statement, as he says in the video, according to a New York Times translation:

“Even though I am prisoner of war however, I had a chance to rethink a lot of things and to ask myself questions that I never asked myself before,” he says.

“One of the biggest illusions that the Army gives us coming over here as a soldier, as a private in their army, is that we’re coming over here to fight a terrorist group of men.

“We are fighting a country and a people that are well organized and extremely smart of how to fight. I keep bringing up the point of history to people that I talk to. You simply need to look at their history to understand that the Afghan people know how to fight, and they have lived this way since the beginning of their people,” he says.

It is the official stance of Blogging The Casbah that we normally do not give such acts any kind of attention. But since the New York Times broke the story from the Taliban-linked website, we consider this post to be not fueling the propaganda machine of the Taliban, but helping to make sure elected officials make every effort to bring Pfc. Bergdahl home safely.

This Day In History: Christmas Eve 1979-2009

Tonight in San Diego, California, where The Rooster currently resides, it is Christmas Eve. That is, it is still officially December 24th, 2009. So, as I sit by the fire and write this post, I cannot help but think of the men, women and children in Afghanistan, both soldier and civilian, that are spending this starry night in a country that has a long history of violence and conflict.

So, as the title of this post suggests, I would like to take the readers back in time to this day in history, circa 1979. Exactly 30 years ago on this day, a column of Soviet tanks rolled into Afghanistan. That's right, on this day in 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan under the pretext of upholding the Soviet-Afghan Friendship Treaty of 1978.

Fast foward from 1979 by thirty years and the fighting continues in Afghanistan, but it is not between the Soviets and the Mujahadeen of loosely aligned Afghan groups, but mainly the United States Armed Forces and The Taliban and associates.

Also of note, today marks the 3000th day for American troops on the ground in Afghanistan.

Something to think about...


Update: Be sure and watch this Al Jazzera video about a Russian and his time in our favorite Stan. Indeed, Merry Christmas. (Update courtesy of Abu G.)

Jewish or Not Jewish... Tis The Question...

So I'm in the middle of writing the chapter in my book on the Israeli Birthright trip and an interesting question again arose. What makes one Jewish? Is it birth? Is it ritual, or tradition, or ethos? And is this "Jewish" definition stretched for other interests--like recruiting people for a state?

The Birthright people told me--or perhaps moreover, Stand With Us, the sub-contractor told me--that one of my parents had to be Jewish to go on their free trip to Israel. Meaning, it does not have to be your mother who is Jewish. Interesting, indeed. It is like they treat it as a culture, over a religious tradition, because the rabbis would not have gone along with it otherwise.

Anyway, I was doing some research on this issue and found that a British court just issued a ruling on this very issue. They did it not because they wanted to further hassle Tzipi Livni, but to clarify a funding issue for a Jewish school. An Orthodox Rabbi writes:

Judaism is a state of being, it is an existential definition acquired at birth or through the visible sacrifice and commitment of conversion. It is not conferred on the basis of ticking boxes on a form. Nor for that matter does the inability to tick such boxes, due to lack of practice, mean that a born Jew is to lose his or her Jewishness." Simply put, Jews do not need secular jurists to tell them who is Jewish.

Perhaps I should back off the Birthright people for their "we need numbers" policy; for even this Orthodox Rabbi allows for such an "existential definition." Perhaps I am trying to fit "being Jewish" into a category that simply cannot be categorized.

"Anti-Zionism... The New Anti-Semitism"?

Many of you Casbahites remember I went on a Birthright trip to Israel. It is a free trip for American Jews so that they can "reconnect" you with the Jewish state. And if you ask this blogger, the idea of sending impressionable, on-the-fence American Jews to Israel is utter genuis, if your batting for Zionism, that is. In fact, they do such a good job showing you a good time, I've dedicated the first "leg" of my book, Surfing with Nasrallah, to describing what it was like to go on one of these trips. I expect the book to be in the final editing stages around June 2010.

Anyway, the reason I bring this history up is because I received and interesting letter in the mail today from the Birthright people that I want to share with the readership:

Interesting, indeed. They are calling "Anti-Zionism... The New Anti-Semitism." I've shared this with a number American Jews. Most have found this to be offensive in that it tries to DE-legitimize non-Zionist Judaism. Even just the debate.

Of course it is every right of the Taglit Birthright people to send me, a participant of their free trip to Israel, this kind of mailing. But really, I find this kind of campaign to be offensive to my personal beliefs, especially since they so blatantly advertised how they "do not have an agenda" when you sign up for the trip.

I wonder what kind of backlash this tactic shall create with the "Just Jewish" crowd of American Jews....

Sound off with your own thoughts in the comment section.

Update: Brok, a friend of the Casbah, has reviewed this damn place. He writes in:

"Can I subscribe to ur blog? It's like the onion meets npr."

Indeed, brother man. Just click it on the left hand column.

Update II: A Casbahite writes in:

That letter is NOT from "the Birthright people." it is from Stand With Us, a completely separate organization that does advocacy programs which are directed at the same audience as Birthright as well as the general Jewish population.

I stand corrected. Thanks for the catch. General point still stands, however.

Hitchens VS. Wright: Hitchens 1, Wright 0.

Ok, here is a great video that I encourage all the Guerrillas and Casbahites that lurk in the shadows of this Casbah to watch. It is very provacative.

In the video, Robert Wright, on the left, author of "The Evolution of God," and Christopher Hitchens, on the right, author of "God Is Not Great," debate religion's moral effect.

Also, in the video, Hitchens makes a very clear and well defined position on the moral effects of religion on and within society, while Wright tells a lame story about how as a young boy a church song he sang in a sermon service was a revelation. Wright then tries to establish a theory that religion has had a positive moral direction throughout history, and Hitchens effectively demolishes that line of philosophy, at least in my opinion. Wright further defines his position as a "cannot confirm nor deny" philosopher, and Hitchens calls him out as such a buster.

Click here for the video:

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/12/21/opinion/1247466228319/bloggingheads-naughty-or-nice.html

We here at the Casbah often cite Hitchens, so it is only appropriate that we rep his latest video.

If you have already read both of the books, I would love to know what you think in the comments section. If not, watch the video for sure and try and lay an egg of knowledge for others to eat.

Cock-A-Doodle-Doo!

P.S. The Rooster does not think all religion is bad, or has always done bad things to humans and for human kind. The Rooster does have faith.