When I first heard about drone strikes, I was a little bit concerned and I definitely shared an anti-US government sentiment regarding them.
Why? Because the prospect of another country using "bots" to bomb people out of nowhere is downright scary. And for Pakistanis, drone strikes are just a part of everyday life. How unfortunate they must be, how terrified, they must feel.
Only... apparently it only happens in the tribal areas. In fact the more I read about it, the more apathetic I feel towards the issue. Wikipedia seems to think that drone strikes are ok; they seem to be only hitting military (ie taliban) targets and civilian targets who spend a suspiciously large amount of time with said military targets.
And so far they have only killed a couple of thousand people (so the estimates say), which is nothing in the grand scheme of wars and such.
The counter argument to this is that whoever wrote or contributed to this wikipedia article has a strong bias. That may indeed be the case.
Nevertheless, I must congratulate the US on the ingenuity of using UAV's. It certainly keeps their own casualties down...
Showing posts with label middle east. Show all posts
Showing posts with label middle east. Show all posts
Thursday, 14 April 2011
Tuesday, 12 April 2011
Honour Killing
So I was watching the last half of a documentary tonight. "Forbidden Lies" tells the story of a writer who wrote a book about an honor killing in Jordan, but as it turns out is a complete fraud.
Which I find sad really. Because these honor killings do occur, and all a fraudulent story serves to do is discredit all those true accounts out there. It is a very real problem.
Before I get too in depth with it though, I should explain what honor killing is. Put simply it is the killing of a family member in order to protect the family's honor. An example might be that a woman in the family committed adultery, if the girl knew she was found out then she might save her honor and her family's honor by suicide bombing some Israelis, if not then the family might kill her to save their honor. That might be an overgeneralisation but that is the gist of what happens.
It is wrong. Unfortunately I don't know how the problem can be solved. On one hand the problem seems rooted into the islamic belief system but if that is the case then why is the figure only 5000-20000 a year? If All muslims were that fundamentalist then presumably the figure would be higher. Then again, maybe the women of islam are just that good at following the laws and customs of their faith.
I'm somewhat inclined to side with Richard Dawkins on this one. If the Muslim faith is causing all these killings then this religion is dangerous.
Before I end this post on such a note however, I would like to add that women are not the only sufferers of honor killing. Fratricide is not as common but it does happen too. And let's not forgot those poor blokes out there who readily kill themselves because they feel they have let Allah and their family down.
As I said before, I can offer no solutions to this problem. But that is no reason to turn a blind eye to it. We all need to be aware of this travesty.
Which I find sad really. Because these honor killings do occur, and all a fraudulent story serves to do is discredit all those true accounts out there. It is a very real problem.
Before I get too in depth with it though, I should explain what honor killing is. Put simply it is the killing of a family member in order to protect the family's honor. An example might be that a woman in the family committed adultery, if the girl knew she was found out then she might save her honor and her family's honor by suicide bombing some Israelis, if not then the family might kill her to save their honor. That might be an overgeneralisation but that is the gist of what happens.
It is wrong. Unfortunately I don't know how the problem can be solved. On one hand the problem seems rooted into the islamic belief system but if that is the case then why is the figure only 5000-20000 a year? If All muslims were that fundamentalist then presumably the figure would be higher. Then again, maybe the women of islam are just that good at following the laws and customs of their faith.
I'm somewhat inclined to side with Richard Dawkins on this one. If the Muslim faith is causing all these killings then this religion is dangerous.
Before I end this post on such a note however, I would like to add that women are not the only sufferers of honor killing. Fratricide is not as common but it does happen too. And let's not forgot those poor blokes out there who readily kill themselves because they feel they have let Allah and their family down.
As I said before, I can offer no solutions to this problem. But that is no reason to turn a blind eye to it. We all need to be aware of this travesty.
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