Torture: brought to you by white evangelicals

White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified — more than six in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only four in 10 of them did.

—a Pew Forum study reported by CNN.com

Egad.

Aren’t the torturers the bad guys in the stories of Jesus?  And weren’t there religious patriots cheering them on, calling out, “We have no god but Caesar?”

Why have evangelicals traded the imitation of Christ for the ruthlessness of Rome?

Iranian reformers unite; seek ouster of Ahmadinejad

Ahmadinejad may be losing support. Is it a new day for Iran?

clipped from www.nytimes.com Mohammad Khatami, the reformist former president, has decided to withdraw from the June presidential race to support a political ally [...] Mohammad Khatami “The most important goal is to prevent Mr. Ahmadinejad from re-election, not to get Mr. Khatami elected,” [...] Mr. Mousavi [the candidate Khatami will support], who is also a painter and architect, stayed out of politics for the past two decades and had turned down calls to run as presidential candidate in previous elections. His wife, Zahra Rahnavard, was the dean of the prestigious women’s university, Al Zahra, from 1998 to 2006 and is close ally of Mr. Khatami.[...] President Ahmadinejad is supported by the conservative Iranian establishment, but his economic policies have unleashed economic inflation of over 25 percent, and two major setbacks last week suggested that he might be losing support ahead of elections.[...]

Could be a breakthrough.  The election is June 12.

---

Tags: Ahmadinejad, Khatami, Mousavi, Iranian+elections, Iranian+reform, Monte Asbury

Iran’s enriched uranium ready for bombs? Not by a long shot.

Iran does not have the capability of making weapons-grade enriched uranium.

I know, you heard that there was more enriched uranium there than previously thought. But there are, apparently, many grades of enriched uranium, and bomb material is far cry from what Iran has.

Here’s U of Michigan Prof. Juan Cole:

clipped from www.juancole.com Image via Wikipedia Iran Nuclear Program Hyped again Note to mainstream media: Iran cannot construct nuclear bombs with uranium enriched only to less than 4%. It needs to be enriched to something like 90% to make a bomb. Iran is not known even to have that capability, and no it cannot be done in 2 months (try a decade), assuming they were trying to do it, which our $40 bn. a year intelligence agencies say they are not. So all the silly articles on Friday about how iran now has enough enriched uranium to make a bomb are just illiterate. Moreover, the report in question actually says that Iran is slowing its enrichment activities. h/t Jay McDonough.

Reason for panic? Threat to world peace? Justification for a strike from Israel?

Hardly.

Why is it “reasons for war” stories are so rarely true?

---

Tags: Iran, nuclear+weapons, Iran+nuclear+bomb, Iran+uranium, Iran+enrichment, Iran+nuclear+capability, Monte Asbury

Palestinian Loss of Land and American Manifest Destiny

If it were, say, Iowa, and Century Farmers had been evicted at gunpoint since WWII by more recent immigrants, things would look mighty different. (h/t Clipmarks friend Jimbo1000)

clipped from www.ifamericansknew.org Palestinian Loss of Land 1946-2005

Image via Wikipedia

Tragically, Israelis may owe much to an American model. Their expansion so reminds me of the American doctrine called Manifest Destiny. It assumed all the territory that would become the USA was divinely given to white people. MD was used to justify the moving, killing, containment and lasting impoverishment of Native Americans. Indeed, westward expansion’s completion and total dominance of the indigenous people of the contiguous United States (not to mention Hawaii and Alaska) was only thirty years old at Israel’s birth in 1946: about as recent in American memory as the Vietnam conflict is today.

I would guess that the writings of the Hebrew Bible were used to encourage westward expansion in the USA; they are still, of course, the claim some Zionists stake (and some evangelicals support) to all the territory in and around Israel.

Such dominance—in either American or Israeli history—is starkly at odds with the ways of Jesus Christ, of course.

---

Israeli+expansion, Gaza, Palestinians, Hamas, maps, middle+east, Zionism, Indian+wars, native+Americans, imperialism, colonialism, Jesus+Christ, Christianity, Bible, Old+Testament, Torah, westward+expansion, American+Indian, Indian+wars, Monte Asbury

Related articles by Zemanta

• Native Rights News: Recent Legal Victories Uphold Indigenous Land Rights
• Israel vs Gaza: 985 to 13 and Counting

“They are bombing 1.5 million people in a cage”

A Norwegian doctor in Gaza describes serving 2500 wounded, 50% of them women and children (naturally:  half the Palestinian population is under 15 ).  He has seen only one military casualty. Surgery goes on around the clock.

clipped from www.juancole.com “It’s Hell in Here” “They are Bombing 1.5 million People in a Cage” CBS News broadcasts an interview with a Norwegian physician on the scene in Gaza. He says he has seen one military casualty come into the hospital. Of 2500 wounded, 50% are women and children. Doing surgery around the clock. There are injuries you do not want to see– children coming in with open abdomens, with injured legs, we had to amputate both of them. This is a war on the civilian population of Gaza. It is a very young population. They cannot flee. They are fenced in. They are bombing one and a half million people in a cage. Please write CBS News and thank them for their journalistic integrity in running this piece. Casualty toll in Gaza as of Monday morning from the Mizan Center for Human Rights. Also please write your representative and senator, send this link, and demand that the US intervene diplomatically to stop this atrocity.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

FAR FROM IT: Rather than working on a plan for intervention, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is planning a resolution of support for Israel.

---

Tags: Gaza, Palestinians, atrocity, war+crimes, bombing, Zionism, Israel+USA, Monte Asbury

Related articles by Zemanta

• Democrats ‘scrambling to push out’ pro-Israel resolution.
• Red Cross: Humanitarian Crisis In Gaza
• Shortages put hospitals on the brink of collapse
• UN Calls For Gaza School Shelling Probe