Choosing his words very carefully, and revealingly so. It's not just the story reproduced below, but other sources from Reuters to RTTNews, that show he condemns the fact that there was no trial, but stops short of condemning the idea of Sharia punishments (lashes or stoning) for "adultery," and of condemning the cruel, unusual, and barbaric punishment that stoning is. There are, after all, influential clerics to please.
The Taliban are flourishing in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Corruption is omnipresent, Sharia is enshrined in the constitution of Afghanistan, and al-Qaeda's top leadership continues to go about its business while the president of Afghanistan panders to the jihadists and their sympathizers.
But let's all step back, take a deep breath, and remember why this conflict began, and what we're fighting for.
The right to build roads?
No, that can't be it. Surely, there must have been something else... An update on this story. "Stoning deaths by Taliban condemned by Afghan president," by Jill Dougherty and Mati Matiullah for CNN, August 17:
Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the stoning deaths of a young man and woman in northern Afghanistan over the weekend, calling the executions by the Taliban "unforgivable."
"Executing these two young people without trial is a crime, an act of inhumanity, and is counter to Islam," the president said in a statement Tuesday.
Again: Not a word about the idea of stoning, or execution for adultery.
The Taliban stoned to death a man and a woman in northern Afghanistan for allegedly having an affair, officials said Monday.
The stoning took place Sunday in Dasht-e-Archi district, in the village of Mullah Qali -- a village dominated by the Taliban in Kunduz province.
The pair was accused of having an illicit sexual relationship, a spokesman for the Kunduz governor said.
The woman was about 20 years old and the man was about 27, said Mohammed Ayuob, district governor of Amam Sahib, which is also in Kunduz province. The woman was engaged, and the man was married to another woman. The two had been held by the Taliban for about a week, Ayuob said.
"Executing these two young people without trial is a crime, an act of inhumanity, and is counter to Islam"
First and second, true. Third, false.
How 'bout those "trials" raped girls/women get when they furnish the necessary "4 male witnesses?"
Oh, so that's why there are no rape trials in Islamic countries.
And the sad thing is our troops are risking life and limb for these heathens. Not to mention all the national debt we've taken on to do so.
"Executing these two young people without trial is a crime, an act of inhumanity, and is counter to Islam," the president said in a statement Tuesday.
What happens if you schedule a stoning and no one shows up?
The barbarity of these people is beyond evil...But it is the Islamic way...'They have a right to practice their religion like anyone else'...
They're people who live in the "Bronze Age" and are armed with more or less modern weapons. I was in Afghanistan "before Afghanistan was cool" back in the late 1970's not as a hippy, but working for the government.
Afghans don't see themselves as barbaric. They simply see themselves as Afghans. And the jirgas will sit long after the US leaves (as so many others have come and gone). From our perspective, they leave no turn unstoned. But expecting to drag the Afghans kicking and screaming from the Bronze Age into the Information Age is simply too much to ask.
Our mission of nation building will fail, to spite our good intentions.
Our mission of putting ordnance on target will succeed because it's easier to do, but it will not change the massacres, the stoning, etc. Afghans have been proxies in The Great Game for a very long time. They remain so.
We're joined at the hip with Pakistan. Pakistan and the ISI CREATED THE TALIBAN in part to move the Pushtun out of the NWFP and back into Afghanistan. The ISI will not release their grip on the Taliban no matter how much money we pump into that cesspool.
America needs to kill who we need to kill and to leave. Just like the Russians did, and the British, and Alexander the Great and his Macedonians. To presume that we are more effective than our predecessors or that the Afghans will thank us is to presume too much.
(sorry for the rant)
So Karzai says the couple should have been given a trial, and no doubt they would be found guilty, and they should be hanged after that!!!
I thought this Karzai guy was trying to bring democracy and moderation in Afghanistan. So much for our hope for finding a moderate Muslim - just goes to show again there is no "moderate" Muslim. All Muslims in the end will side with murderous teachings of Islam.
Stop wasting US money and lives on these ingrates - just leave them alone, they will kill each other anyway!!
"Executing these two young people without trial is a crime, an act of inhumanity, and is counter to Islam," the president said in a statement Tuesday.
...............
Just look to neighboring Iran to see what these Islamic "trials" look like—confessions where the victims have been tortured and lashed; shown on television with the victim's face pixilated, likely to hide the marks of beating; double jeopardy when, even with such a skewed system, the Mullahs don't get the conviction they want at first; the victim's lawyer finally forced to flee the country and *seek asylum in the West*, his wife and family arrested in Iran.
Is that the sort of proper Islamic trial Karzai has in mind?
More:
Again: Not a word about the idea of stoning, or execution for adultery.
...............
And why would there be? This is a "nation", after all, with death for apostasy, and where a man may *lawfully imprison and starve his wife* if she is not quick enough giving him his 'marital rights'.
This is, after all, equally "Islamic". The "Prophet" Muhammed had 'adulterers' stoned to death, as did the "Rightly Guided" Caliphs. All perfectly "Islamic".
More:
The two had been held by the Taliban for about a week, Ayuob said.
...............
Held by the Taliban *for a week*. Why didn't the 'Afghan Army' ride in to the rescue? They either didn't care to, or have so little control over this part of the country that it is not really under the governance of Kabul at all.
Of course, from Karzai's words, there is no indication that this would have made much of a difference for this pair, in any case.
And this is the situation in Afghanistan while we are still present there. *Nine years* of our civilizing presence there has done nothing to fundamentally change the barbarism of Afghanistan. And how could it have? Afghanistan is as Islamic as it ever was.
For a contrast, consider Germany, Italy and Japan in 1954—all decent democracies in the process of building strong economies. The difference could not be more stark.
Taliban Vermins shoot and kill couple accused of adultery.
(vide)
http://crossmuslims.blogspot.com/2010/07/taliban-vermins.html
“Show me just what Prophet Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman.”
http://crossmuslims.blogspot.com/2010/07/perfect-man.html
As a Christian I believe the Bible (Scriptures) to be the Word of God. When God gave the Law to Israel He declared adultery to be punishable by death. (although there was to be a trial, multiple witnesses & etc..) So the concept of the death penalty as punishment for adultery isn't necessarily unreasonable. The Western world increasingly seems to think that capital punishment for any crime is primitive, unreasonable and outmoded but God doesn't.
I believe that because we feel we have outgrown laws against adultery, fornication, infanticide, homosexuality and even murder ... we are culturally reaping the natural results of that thinking. Although we may not realize it, America has switched gods. We no longer worship the God of the Bible but instead have fabricated another god which appears very much like the image we see in the mirror.
Likewise, I don't believe that our original mission to Afghanistan was to bring democracy to that nation ... it was to kill our enemies who attacked us on 911. Funny how things get blurry as time passes, in religion we switch gods and in war we switch missions.
Afghans don't see themselves as barbaric. They simply see themselves as Afghans.
No, they see themselves as Mahoundians, slaves to Allah, and 'they have a right to practice their religion like anyone else'
"So the concept of the death penalty as punishment for adultery isn't necessarily unreasonable."
That statement disturbs me. Can't sugarcoat it. God's judgment is tempered with grace and forgiveness, here and now, were free will allows us to error, to grow in wisdom and become the spiritual being worthy of his love. To take away that chance, with the draconian hand, is to condemn the soul.
This is Islam. This is Sharia Law. Moslems WANT to be governed by Sharia Law. They want to sacrifice human beings to the teachings of Mohammed and the will of Allah.
Is the no limit to the cruelty of Islam? Where are the mythical "moderate" Muslims? Surely they would condemn this. Silence is compliance.
Adheeb:
Let me get this straight. Are you advocating the death penalty for "fornication," adultery, and homosexuality?
@ Adheeb
If you're not a Muslim troll trying to stir up trouble by purporting to be a Christian bemoaning the fact that the West has lost its way due to the fact that we don't stone people to death anymore, let me put you straight.
When Christ spoke to the woman at the well, he said to her, "Go, and sin no more." He didn't say, "So, you've been an adultress; well, we'll have to stone you to death."
And when He came across a stoning about to begin, he said, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." That got the pious murderers thinking.
And then you haven't taken into account the event called 'The Enlightenment' which placed religious belief within the context of a secular society governed by man made laws.
This, above all, is what Islam has missed out on, so far. Consequently, the Taliban can stone two individuals to death after a 'confession' and justify it on the basis that it's Sunna - the Islamic prophet Muhammed did it.
All of this 7th. Century barbarity is one of the reasons why people are leaving Islam in droves.
As a Christian, you don't seem to grasp, Adheeb, the New Covenant. Jesus fulfilled the Old Covenant which applied exclusively to the Israelites until his redemption.
Jesus interrupted the stoning of an adulteress by saying, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."
Jesus summed up the first 3 commandments-Loving God- and the last seven--Love your Neighbor--in the Greatest Commandment. The Mosaic Law was fulfilled by Jesus Christ.
Westerners, meaning Christians, no matter how depraved, cannot sanction stoning accused adulterers on a religious basis. It's never been part of our creed.
People, Adheeb is not a Christian. Adheeb is a Muslim troll "trying to stir up trouble" like Buraq said. Pay no heed.
"Bronze age?"
Surely you mean the Stone age, pardon the pun.
I think it likely that "Adheeb" is indeed a Muslim troll, with a message of moral equivalence between Islam and the (supposedly) "true" Christianity.
Another important point here is that much of what is punished—and punished in the most horrific manner—under the rubric of "adultery" in Dar-al-Islam is nothing of the kind.
It is applied to consensual pre-marital relationships, homosexual liaisons, and *even the victims of rape*.
Remember that the little 13-year-old stoned to death recently in Somalia was "guilty" of nothing more than *being the victim of gang rape*.
"Adheeb" may relish this sort of savage spectacle, but I doubt many of his fellow Christians would. Unfortunately, all too many Muslims are clamoring for just such barbarity with the push everywhere to impose Shari'ah.
I have gotten several responses to my comments made above regarding the death penalty being not 'necessarily unreasonable' in the case of adultery. In the Old Testament this was prescribed as the just penalty by God. As Christians we know that God is perfect in every way and would not prescribe this penalty if it were unjust, would He? Now we may not like that, in many cases because we are guilty of it ... but that's the way it is.
Even Jesus, when they brought the adulterous woman before Him, didn't say, "Hey I'm changing the rules", rather He said, "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone". Check it out, you probably need to read your Bible a little more often.
The fact is, God does not change. What He said deserved the death penalty 3,000 years ago - still deserves the death penalty. We all deserve the death penalty and that is why Christ came to die for us. The rules haven't changed.
God is absolutely righteous and just -AND- that's the problem... we aren't. Unless we see that and repent ... God does send the guilty to eternal hell. That may seem harsh too ... but that's because we worship a false god.
"God does not change" - "God is absolutely righteous" - "we all deserve the death penalty".
Well, apparently God did not create man in this case. Man (Adheeb) created God
"But I say unto you":
If you support and defend these inhumane practices, you are no ally of ours.
Adheeb, Adheeb, Adheeb, that's all folks!
Thanks.
In the Old Testament this was prescribed as the just penalty by God. Wrong.
Both Leviticus and Deuteronomy are traditionally ascribed to Moses - not to God. Over the ages Jews differed in their understanding how faitfully Moses, who was only a human, conveyed God's word and will. Therefore the most radical aricles of Moses'law -like stoning adulterers were extremely seldom (some doubt if ever) applied. There is no existing record of Jews stoning sinners in historical times. And if ever there was a case of Christians killing an adulterer it was never endorsed by the Church.
This is from Vikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporal_punishment_(Judaism)
...The harshness of the death penalty indicated the seriousness of the crime. Jewish philosophers argue that the whole point of corporal punishment was to serve as a reminder to the community of the severe nature of certain acts. This is why, in Jewish law, the death penalty is more of a principle than a practice. The numerous references to a death penalty in the Torah underscore the severity of the sin rather than the expectation of death. This is bolstered by the standards of proof required for application of the death penalty, which has always been extremely stringent (Babylonian Talmud Makkoth 7b). Because the standards of proof were so high, it was well-nigh impossible to inflict the death penalty.
The Mishnah (tractate Makkoth 1:11) outlines the views of several prominent first-century Rabbis on the subject:
A Sanhedrin that puts a man to death once in seven years is called destructive. Rabbi Eliezer ben Azariah says: a Sanhedrin that puts a man to death even once in seventy years. ....
According to the Talmud forty years before the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE (i.e. in 30 CE) the Sanhedrin effectively abolished capital punishment.
Sanhedrin simply codified what has been understood and followed age before its decision.
It took the evil psychopath Muhamet to dig out what Jews had rejected 600 years before his birth and adorn his kuran with the refuse.
So much for similarities in the holy texts of Islam and Judaism.
Adheeb, I believe Jesus Christ brought us a new covenant. To the adulterous woman who was facing death by stoning, Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more." That's not to say that we don't control and punish wickedness, but humans are fallible, even when attempting to implement God's law. I think the Inquisitions and other persecutions of the church are evidence of that. In the end, we must believe the Lord when He says, "vengeance is mine; I will repay."
Just because Old Testament law prescribed it, that doesn't mean we in the 21st century are to apply it.
Adheeb, as you Christian you should know that an eye for an eye came about because people of Old Testament times were executed for lesser crimes, such as stealing a piece of bread. The punishment needs to fit the crime. Sodomy and adultery hardly fit the criteria for capital punishment, do they?
Every practicing Christian knows that Jesus came to show us a new way of living, one of love and peace for our fellow man. Come on now.
And may I say, excellent post, Thomas.
Adheeb has a 'right to practice his religion like anyone else', even if he is screwed up...
"Adheeb, Adheeb, Adheeb, that's all folks!"
****
Thanks for the chuckle!
"The Taliban stoned to death a man and a woman in northern Afghanistan for allegedly having an affair, officials said Monday."
There you go again!...executions based on allegation...much like Christians being tormented and executed for allegations of those thumped up charges of blasphmy....or those public executions of young men alledged to be gay...
Islam is a thrill kill religion wanting to kill ....based on allegations....heck....any old reason will suffice...just as long as someone dies....
I was glad to see that both Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity had segments on the barbarity of Shari'ah law on their shows today—I'm not sure either of these pundits would have had even the haziest idea of what Shari'ah law was, let alone thought it a good topic for their shows.
Nice to see anyone in the MSM covering this.
President Barack Obama has an opinion on everything. Why has he not concemned this barbaric act??
The Cycling Tuscan
(Hilarious screen name you have). . . our country is not risking life and limb for the heathens just to be nice. The US is in various countries for strategic reasons, I now have belatedly realized at the ripe old age of (well over 21). I WISH we did things only for moral reasons, but it seems not. Your thoughts mirror mine, such as with the floods in Pakistan: I want to help with money because they need help, and I don't want to help because Pakistanis hate me and my country.
I feel emotional at times and just want us to withdraw aid from all hateful countries. If they won't play nice, we'll take our toys and go home.
Obama won't comment on a trivial event such as the stoning deaths of a young couple in one of our distant theatres of engagement because it's a "local issue" - like the mosque on Ground Zero. Other atrocities of the Islamic world similarly go unremarked upon, unbefitting the POTUS's comment, in accordance with respect for local sovereignty. Hussein Obama makes an exception with respect to (I misspeak: with disrespect to) Israel and its housing issues, weighing in forcefully on that internal matter, thus making open season on Israel for the world's eager denunciations. Somehow Israel's local issues never fail to engage his gaze . . .
Our Prez has a highly selective radar screen. PR-radar, moral radar. This is why he is a poor leader about whose reign I am mainly unhappy. With the incredible influence of his office, he sways and swirls around, reveling in his wordpower, thinking that seduction by speech equals accomplishment. Hey, BHO! The campaign's over, you're married to the American people now, so cuteness is out. I'd like some substance.