Posted on 11/14/2008 12:08:11 AM PST by nickcarraway
First Lady Laura Bush condemned on Thursday a recent assault on Afghani schoolgirls, describing the act as "cowardly and shameful."
On Wednesday adult male attackers used a water pistol to spray acid at schoolgirls in Afghanistan's southern city of Kandahar, hurting 15 of them, three seriously.
"My heart goes out to the victims and their families as they recover from this cruel attack," said Bush in a statement.
Kandahar and other large Afghan cities have suffered from a surge of assassinations and bombings by the radical Islamist Taliban movement.
Bush commended Afghani women and girls for thriving in a country where just nine years ago, under Taliban rule that lasted between 1996 and 2001, women were denied many basic rights, includingf trading.
The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 6.67 per cent on Thursday as investors looked for bargains after a punishing three-day market sell-off, setting aside more bleak economic and corporate news.
"The rally is just driven by bargain hunting after the sharp dips," said Kazuhiro Takahashi, equity trading information chief at Daiwa Securities SMBC.
There are no high expectations for the talks on the global economic crisis starting in Washington on Friday, he said.
United at the Emirates, and the murmurs of a discontent would have swelled to a fully-fledged roar.
Then, as suddenly as it had erupted, the doubts died down. United were vanquished 2-1 in a breathless, brilliant spectacle which encapsulated all that is great about Wenger's purist philosophy.
The club's largely teenage second string the delivered an encore with the kind of coruscating performance against Wigan in the League Cup which gives the lie to the old adage that youth is wastid.
"We have lost one competition and this is not normal for us. We want to win all competitions and we need to understand this. Now it is time to start to work for Saturday's game."
If Scolari could cherry-pick a match in which to exorcise the memories of Wednesday night, a trip to West Brom might just be it. The West Midlanders are one of the more stylish sides to have emerged from the Championship in recent seasons, but their vibrant attacking play cannot mask their soft centre.
But South Korean midfielder Park Ji-Sung insists that United remain firmly in the hunt for the title, despite the early setbacks.
Park said: "We lost against Arsenal, which was obviously not good, but we're still in the season and there are many matches ahead, so I'm not worried."
Despite an impressive home record this term, Stoke have picked up just two points away from the Britannia Stadium, but Jamaican striker Ricardo Fuller insists that the squad has what it takes to improve on that record.
Fuller said: "We've beaten Arsenal and drawn at Liverpool, so when you're performing in those games it's ideal for building confidence.
"If you take your chances when they come, you can beat anybody. We did it against Arsenal, and Arsenal managed it against United last weekend."
Fuller claims that criticism labelled at Stoke since their victory over Arsenal has been unfair and wide of the mark.
He said: "We're not dirty, we're definitely fair. What has happened in the last few weeks with Arsenal is done and dusted.
"If they had got three points, they wouldn't have spoken about it. But that happens in football, people try to deflect what the real topic should be about."
The most hateful of muslims adhere more closely to the teachings of the Koran.
The Taliban must surely be psychologically damaged goods: who but a psycho would squirt little girls with acid?
And there are people out there, in America and elsewhere, who doubt that we should have invaded Afghanistan?
Well, perhaps Mrs. Bush should have a tallk with her husband about his “peaceful” religion theories.
The people who did this were just being good Muslims - and we can see what that involves.
As for ending this by invading Afghanistan or any place else - forget it. Look at the persecution of Chistians under the new “democratic” government of Iraq.
The porblem lies not with any individual regime, but with the “religion” which gives them legitmacy and controls the mindset of its citiznes - ISLAM.
“The Taliban must surely be psychologically damaged goods: who but a psycho would squirt little girls with acid?”
Muslims. Just read about brutal vicious stonings being carried out in Somalia, Iran and Saudi Arabia - the problem is the “religion” - the cult of Islam.
And from the Office of the First Lady Elect, Michelle 0bama was also quick to condemn these despicab...Michelle?....Michelle?...where are you, Michelle?
I got lost after the soccer reporting started???
I personally think that we should round all muslims up in america and send them back where they came from. thier way of life does not fit in with americas. another honor killing last week. Father didnt like his daughter dating a catholic so he killed her
Oh wait, I guess Obammie the Commie will outlaw all criticism of Islamofascism through executive order AFTER he's sworn in.
I was still trying to figure out the G-20 relevance when it veered into soccer scores. Sheesh.
We need to sit down and talk to these barbarians.
DUH.
Here we go again.
Triple DUH.
The girls themselves and their families who were sending them to school were Muslims, too.
Therefore, prima facia case proven that not all Muslims interpret their religion the same.
In Iraq, our allies are Muslims. They are killing Al Qaida.
No, they’re not like we Americans in their views. But neither are they all the same, despite their false religion and god.
A lot of them we can work with.
Just ask Ambassador Ryan Crocker and General David Petraeus.
Better yet, just open your own eyes and engage your brain.
We are about to go from a real “First Lady” back to another “First Screetcher”. sigh.
I have been saying that since September 2001.
Very few agree with me on that.
TOTALLY AGREE!!!
DUH!!!
Double DUH!!!
TRIPLE DUH!!!!!!!
There are so called “Christians” who believe in homosexuality and that maybe Christ didn’t really die on the cross.
Just because you call yourself something doesn’t make you so.
Those Muslims who choose to educate their daughters, etc are an exception to the rule and Islamic scholars have a very different use for females as justified by Mohammad and the Koran and Haddiths. Its NOT a cultural thing - its based on the way Islam views women.
“In Iraq, our allies are Muslims. They are killing Al Qaida.”
They are killing Al Quaida because they view them as a threat to themselves, not because they have the slightest ideological identity with us, or because they have the slightest conception of the word “democracy”. The plight of the Assyrian and Chaldean Christians under our newly converted “allies” vis-a-vis the way they were treated by the Baathists is a case in point.
“No, they’re not like we Americans in their views. But neither are they all the same, despite their false religion and god.”
No they are not all the same, but they have similar beliefs - mainly those centered around their view of the Koran, Mohammad, the Haddiths, Sharia Law, the Umma, Dhimmis, the the war between Dar al Salaam and Dar al Harib, the subordinate status of women, and the disbelief in democracy as that term has always been conceptualized in western society.
“A lot of them we can work with.”
Like we thought we could work with Stalin.
“Just ask Ambassador Ryan Crocker and General David Petraeus.”
They have a limited perspective and an immediate goal and in that sense they are correct. But to dilude ourselves into believing that that makes them civilized in our understaning of the term, or our friends in ANY sense of the term, is a mortal error.
“Better yet, just open your own eyes and engage your brain.”
I have. Before 9-11 I even contemplated converting to Islam. But that was because my knowledge of Islam was superficial. After that I made a study of this cult and it opened my eyes to the inherent evil of this belief system.
Open YOUR eyes!!!
I agree in part with you.
But the war on terror just recently heated up. It actually has been going on since the 600’s.
We can make them fear us, but they will never love us. But, as you point out so well, the Clonwn-in-chief even failed there.
American leaders simply can’t get it through their pointy little heads that foreigners - especially third world foreigners - don’ think like us. The light of Magna Charta, English Common Law, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, etc. never shone on them, and if it did, they were incapable of understanding it.
Right after the invasion of Iraq, the Islamic middle east was quaking in its boots. Our military did a great job.
Khaddafy came clean and told us what he had. Iran stopped calling us the great white satan. Iranian students started rioting in Tehran for the overthow of the Islamic nuts.
And Goerge Bush II blew it. He got sidetracked. He forgot our objective was to destroy the enemy and became embroiled in an idiotic adventure to democratize a country which had know only tyranny for thousands of years and only existed as a nation for less than a century. It distracted us frmo taking out the Al Quaida network worldwide and cost us needless losses in troops and money.
He finished his stupidity when there was no payback to the felons who were holding Fallujah and butchered American contractors and put their bodies on display. They kicked sand in our faces, and insulted us in a part of the world where one is honor bound to avange all personal insults.
His response was measured and controlled by the Iraqis instead of being Biblically catastrophic. He lost all the points he had gained from the initial invasion, and the kidnappings and mutilations of non-Arabs and Muslims who cooperated with us began, along with infiltrations from Iran and Syria.
Fallujah should have been levelled. We should have taken out the governments of Iran and Syria. And then we should have walked away with the warning “We’ll be back if you screw with us again.”
We are at war with Islam. All over the world, in western Europe, and right here.
President Bush isn’t a clown.
Being very right on some things and very wrong on others does not a clown make, in my book.
His tax cut pledge turned our economy around and provided increased revenue to the government.
To suggest that if only he had kept taxes higher, he would have been open to overwhelming force in Iraq is wrong on two counts...you get MORE revenue with proper tax cuts, not less, and we DID...Rumsfeld held great sway with Bush in terms of the number of troops needed, as did Tommy Franks. They apparently thought the Afghanistan approach where we didn’t need a lot of troops but used the Northern Alliance and our CIA and military intel forces to quickly topple the Taliban, was the way to go, militarily...they all seemed to miss-call the Iraq insurgency until it was rolling along like a juggernaut.
I do agree with you that overwhelming force was called for in the early days.
Later, when Petraeus had to come along and save a desperate situation, those who called for levelling Fallujah - to cite one example of many - rather than the Petraeus approach of working with the Sheiks and turning them on Al Qaida - were very wrong.
Petraeus was right.
God bless the General.
The point I made, that we can work with a lot of Muslims despite their false god and religion, to turn the tables on the total whack jobs, is what I want to highlight out of all of this.
We can agree to disagree on some other points.
I get so weary of reminding those who refuse to face reality that this is the case. It has been proven, repeatedly, that Islam is at war from within itself, and that we can work with some of them against the worst of the worst.
In this case, Laura has been over there and encouraged the education of girls. Plenty of Afghans have agreed with her, not the Taliban, and have sent their girls to school. The Taliban have retaliated. This proves the case. There really should not be this constant need to remind that ALL OF THESE ARE MUSLIMS, YET THEY DIFFER.
But alas, I have to keep on reminding.
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