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Anti-Education Attack Poisons 150 Afghan Schoolgirls
An anonymous reader writes "The water at a high school in Afghanistan was contaminated today, poisoning roughly 150 girls in attendance. Afghan officials say this was a deliberate attack: 'We are 100 percent sure that the water they drunk inside their classes was poisoned. This is either the work of those who are against girls' education or irresponsible armed individuals.' From the article: 'Some of the 150 girls, who suffered from headaches and vomiting, were in critical condition, while others were able to go home after treatment in hospital, the officials said. They said they knew the water had been poisoned because a larger tank used to fill the affected water jugs was not contaminated. ... None of the officials blamed any particular group for the attack, fearing retribution from anyone named.'"
is what happens when you coddle and religious groups extreme behavior and the myth that they have a right to tell governments what to do.
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And occasionally blowing up a building full of innocent people, but that is the absolute limit.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
None of the officials blamed any particular group for the attack, fearing retribution from anyone named.'"
Bad guys do bad things and people are afraid to even name them for doing the said bad things... I think the bad guys might be winning.
Religion of Peace. We should be tolerant of their views.
Show me in the Koran where it prohibits educating girls?
It's a cultural thing. Traditional (read patriarcal) societies that treat women as second class citiczens or as property all do horrible things like this.
And it's not right at all. Any culture that values males more than females is a backwards culture. In varying degrees, India, China, Japan, the Arab nations, Persians, most of the African countries, you names them - all backwards cultures. And most of them are paying a very heavy price for it. And in just about all cases, religion is used as an excuse for their deplorable behavior - it's not the cause.
Remember that crap like this is carried out by a fundamentalist extremists. Don't start a witch-hunt on religion just because the wack-jobs killing people claim to be religious.
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Oh, like a wandering band of Shinto Priests did this?
Aside from that, its an excellent example of why multiculturalism should not exist. My daughter gains nothing by the existence of that culture. Let american consumerism steamroll it out of existence, no substantial loss.
Right, because the American culture is the One True Culture. Your ridiculous statement implies a false choice: American culture vs. poisoning girls who want to go to school. This is, in fact, a great argument for multiculturalism. If Afghanistan were more of an educated multi-cultural society, these nutjobs would have a harder time getting a following. As it is, when everyone only sees one culture (their own), treating women like this is the only "normal" they know.
I was just watching a talk by NDT on "Intelligent Design". In that, he made an excellent observation about how, for a 300 year period, the Arab world was the center of intellectual progress in the world. 2/3 of all stars with names have Arabic names. They discovered 0, they gave us algebra.
Then... a new religious philosophy arose that taught that mathematics was the work of the Devil. This wasn't Mohamed.... it wasn't there in the beginings of Islam. For many years, these problems didn't exist.
The sobering thought there is... as he points out.... this period of advancement ended with the rise of this anti-scientific ideology. Just think, there are a Billion Muslims, and only a handful of Muslim/Arab nobel prize winners. If they hadn't ended their period of advancement hundreds of years before Europe became the new center of intellectual progress... where would we be today? How much raw talent just went totally unused because of these ideologies.
Honestly.... I have little doubt that there would be people posting comments from Lunar or martian colonies by now if not for this terrible ideology.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Who said that Slashdot was only about technology news? "News for nerds. Stuff that matters." This matters.
No kidding. It's too bad mental retardation runs so rampant in the politically correct.
I hate any cheater, but come on....that is just sick!
Why would you hate someone for doing something that doesn't affect you, for reasons you have no idea of?
It's a conservative thing. Conservatives everywhere attack education. Whether it's literacy for women in Afghanistan, or sex ed and evolution in the United States, conservatives are anti-education.
Why are conservatives anti-education? Because their beliefs cannot be supported by facts, and so the more factual ideas you teach, the less conservative your people will be. There is a positive correlation between education and liberalism for a reason.
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Culture and Religion are very intertwined.
The Catholic Church while a Unified church, operate rather differently cross different cultures. Even with them following the same rules, the importance of the rules they follow are prioritized differently.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Yes, because weekly hundreds of McVeighs gear up for roadside bombings and suicide missions in the name of Christianity and whack job right-wing conspiracy theories. It's every bit as prominent as Muslim terrorism, but it's never, ever, mentioned in the news.
I don't know why the fuck we're in Iraq anymore but it's not due to Christianity.
Why? Its a fucking health service. Why should birth control be special from antibiotics when it comes to healthcare. Its a religious objection, flat out.
Good-bye
How to tell the difference between a peaceful religion and a non-peaceful religion.
A peaceful religion - like Buddhism - is where adherents are invited to attend, learn, discuss, and ultimately choose whether or not to accept the tenets and philosophy of the faith. A member of a peaceful religion may set himself on fire in protest of the mistreatment of others, but will not actively attempt to harm another person.
A non-peaceful religion - like Islam - is where adherents are told to convert or die, have their heads cut off if they don't convert, subjects members of other religions to derogatory and humiliating extra taxes and second-class legal status or worse, sentences people to death for converting away from it, and starts wars of conquest to enlarge the areas in which they can practice barbarism openly. They may also be religions that were founded by hyper-polygynists who may or may not have been pedophiles (remind you of anyone else?)
In short:
- A buddhist will set himself on fire to protest your mistreatment of other people.
- A muslim will set your kids on fire to protest your open practice of another religion if you live in a Muslim country.
Difference not difficult to determine.
Lets keep in mind the whole context. i.e. not teaching women; which has a religious foundation in that part of the world.
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The problem is that we have a religious culture that encourages extremely high levels of obedience, faithfulness and passion. And this is not necessarily going to cause problems, but....
But it's unstable, like a dictatorship. Your first dictator might be a fine Wise Benevolent Leader, and everybody's happy. But then his son takes over, and he's maybe something more on the Cackling Lunatic Leader side of thing. You're trapped in a system that doesn't regulate itself. As long as you're shackled to the ideologies attached to a name, rather than the rationale behind the ideologies themselves, something horrible can go wrong.
And it has.
Would you like a slice of toast?
By this line of reasoning, we need 2 more bills before Congress:
1 - Doctors and hospitals are absolved of blame in refusing to tread non-paying patients, and are permitted to eject them.
2 - We need a public health organization to collect and cremate uncollected bodies found on public property, or upon request uncollected bodies found on private property. This is of course subject to finding that the death was natural and not the result of foul play. This is necessary to safeguard the water supply, and because trained personnel are required to safely handle such bodies.
EITHER !!!
You are going to be compassionate about medical care, in which case you'd better be as efficient about it as possible. In which case paying for birth control is a heck of a lot cheaper than paying for emergency childbirth care.
OR !!!
You have to adopt the, "Go away and die," model. There is very little in-between. Health care as practiced in the US today is one of the lease efficient ways to run it. There is effectively universal emergency care, but no universal preventive care. That pretty much guarantees that some portion of the population will require expensive medical care.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Last sentence: "Education for women was outlawed by the Taliban government from 1996-2001 as un-Islamic."
As opposed to Tennessee, where teaching of science to children of any gender is considered un-Christian.
Oh, wait, you say the Christian fundamentalists are just a bunch of loons who contort and abuse their religion to justify pre-existing cultural and political biases, eh? I wonder, maybe, just maybe, if that could possible apply to fundamentalists in general, Islam included. You think?
I think you simplify this too much. It wasn't the "west's" opportunity after the Soviets were defeated in Afghanistan. Iran, Saudi-Arabia and Pakistan were the major players in Afghanistan in the post Peshawar Accords. If the British (or the US) would have just gone in there (even to "help"), how do you think things would have gone differently? Would the Afghanis have just completely forgotten the first 3 anglo-afgan wars? Not so sure that was the best course of action.
Perhaps, we should have perhaps been rooting for Ahmad Shah Massoud and the United Islamic Front. They weren't saints, but were still anti-Taliban. Instead, the west was lobbying for them to surrendar to the Taliban to stabilize the region as the west was more aligned with Pakistan at the time (and Pakistan was one of the big supporter of the Taliban).
How did history unfold? Well, Mr Massoud was eventually assasinated and then Sept 11th occured. I don't think it was about the west being too cheap, it was more about picking the wrong side.
Help doesn't always help.
If we tried to help, who is to say it would have turned out better or turned out like many African and Latin American countries that did receive help. Symptoms may get treated, but that can make the issues worse.
America is evil for trying to impose it's will on other countries.
America is evil for not trying to impose it's will on other countries.
In a no-win situation doing nothing is often the best course of action.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
Quick question... Which do you think costs more in the long run? Government covering costs of birth control to help reduce unwanted pregnancies, the cost to government and society that result from unwanted parenthood? These unwanted children will incur additional costs in welfare, education, and (statistically speaking) increases in crime.
A party complaining about "welfare mothers" doesn't have a lot of room to complain about making birth control more accessible.
Lets keep in mind the whole context. i.e. not teaching women; which has a political foundation in that part of the world.
There, FTFY.
The Qur'an does not state that women should not be educated (in fact, some would argue that it states the opposite). Certain passages, however, have been interpreted to mean that women are not to receive education, purely for political and societal gains by the 'interpreters' in question.
Islamic teachings are not the problem. Doctrine set by self-serving radical fundamentalists is the problem.
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
You have a point, a. coward; it's right on the top of your head.
While certain Christian idiots have done things like bomb abortion clinics (thereby killing both doctors and those seeking abortions), I ask if you've ever seen one try to poison a school full of children for being taught evolution? I thought not.
Rational people will not excuse the misdeeds Christian fundamentalists, but neither will they excuse the much worse abuses perpetrated by Islamic fundamentalists.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
A peaceful religion - like Buddhism - is where adherents are invited to attend, learn, discuss, and ultimately choose whether or not to accept the tenets and philosophy of the faith. A member of a peaceful religion may set himself on fire in protest of the mistreatment of others, but will not actively attempt to harm another person.
So I guess a largely Buddhist country like Myanmar would be among the most peaceful on Earth, right?
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Maybe they should have thought of that before targeting women with poison.
Idiots.
Religion is defined by it's followers. You could spend a lifetime arguing over what the Koran does or doesn't mean, and a lot of people have done just that - but, even if an answer is possible, it doesn't matter. The important part is what the believers believe it says, and particually that segment of believers that has the conviction to back up their interpretation with political action or even violence.
You could go out there and tell the fundamentalists that their interpretation of their holy text is wrong. Then they'd stone you as a heretic, and anyone else watching would probably be smart enough to keep their own views to themselves.
Islamic teachings? Teachings?
Look, I 100% guarantee you that the attackers were 1) male 2) Muslims 3) were taught that women should not be educated in an Islamic school.
You don't get to stand up on your hind legs here and state what Islamic teachings are, or if they are the problem or not. Just because you interpret the Qur'an that way does not make it "Islamic teaching". Trying to pass it off as a political problem is equally bogus. Define for me where politics ends and religion begins in places where any Religion is the official Religion, and Islamic law is the law of the land.
There is no Central Authority in Islam. No Pope. There is, therefore no central and universally accepted authority on what constitutes Islam or its teachings. Which is precisely why the religion is so abused in so many places. Anyone can appoint themselves an Imam, and begin preaching virtually anything they want. There is really no one to hold them in check.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
As long as nobody tries to take away their boner pills.
It seems they voted THEMSELVES a pretty nice health plan.
Sarcasm detected. Yes, Republicans are a cultural movement, not religious. They cater to both moral and fiscal conservatives despite obvious inconsistencies, such as Jesus helping the poor and budget cutting anything that helps poor people.
That's just wrong. Republicans... conservatives donate a higher percentage of their income to charities than liberals; they also donate more blood and time. Paying taxes and sinking this country into a fiscal debt crisis is not "charity." If you are not making the decision, it's not "charity" and it's not "magnanimous" on your part. If you believe in Jesus then you must believe did NOT support not giving people the choice... you have to be judged on your OWN actions, not what you were forced to do. (for the record, I'm not religious, and I use this very same argument against religious people who want to control my life, too)
Who Gives and Who Doesn't.. Yes, you can call it biased... yet no liberals have ever been able to disprove it, just attack the authors without substantive arguments.
They use religion to back up their opinions where it is supported, and any other useful tidbit when it doesn't. Do you think Jesus would have supported the NRA?
I don't think Jesus would care one way or another about the NRA.
Cutting school budgets to get the latest F-35 bombers that the military doesn't even want?
You're right about one thing, it's not based on religion that they do this... it's based on what's written in the constitution; based on the failure of our educational system despite the wanton amounts of money we throw at it (BTW, Bush increased educational spending more than anyone else in the previous four decades... what did he get for it? The disdain of the left, of course.). As far as military spending - you're right. I'm not a republican, I think they've been terrible leaders since Bush's election... but I also think democrats seem to have been inspired to one-up the terribleness.
Think what you want - I won't change your mind, I realize that the people asking the most for open mindedness are typically the most closed minded of all. But between the way liberals want to destroy this country and the way the republicans want to destroy this country, the republicans are much less "bad," even if they're not good.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Ask a devout Christian or Jew if that's the case and see what he says.
No, I'm not sure a religion is defined by its followers. You could say it's defined by people who do NOT believe in it, too. Mostly though, you could say it's defined by a very small number of elitists at the top who almost certainly have a political/social agenda.
This is one reason why there absolutely should not be tax exemption for religions. None of them. Now, if they want to organize some specific social welfare program, then that could be tax exempt. Muslims want to start a hospital? Tax exempt. Catholics want to start a soup kitchen? Then that should be tax exempt. But there is no compelling interest in society for allowing churches to make money and not pay tax on it. Maybe I'm just thinking about taxes because I just wrote a check a few minutes ago and the Catholic Church doesn't have to pay a nickel on the money they use to hire lawyers to defend guys who rape children - not to mention the money they use for moving expenses for the child rapists to move to a new parish where they will be free to rape children. .
Religious people can have a very positive effect on society. I see it around here every day. Religious institutions, on the other hand, should have to continually prove themselves though. They bear watching. They should not get special privileges just for existing.
Now these sick muslims who would poison girls just for trying to get an education are an example of what can happen when religious extremism, especially in educating the young, is allowed to run wild. But there's no question that it's a spectrum. Before they got to the point where they're poisoning their daughters, they had to get to the point where they had control over the way society educates. And before they had control over the way society educates, they had influence in schools' curricula. And before they had control over schools' curricula, there had to be some holier-than-thou stroke like Rick Santorum, telling people what's right and what's wrong based upon his interpretation of what God wants (and in his case, not even what God wants, but what some extremist convert decades after Christ wrote that he had decided God really really wants despite the fact that Christ didn't mention anything about those things. And apparently, God wants women with entropic pregnancies to die horribly painful deaths).
I'm not saying that Santorum is the same as guys who would poison little girls, but I'm saying that you don't get to guys poisoning little girls except by first having guys like Santorum. And it's fewer steps from one to the other than you might think.
You are welcome on my lawn.