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Said Karzai: "Today we are facing a hard fact, that is a Muslim child was sent to madrassa to learn Islamic subjects, but the enemies of Afghanistan misled him towards suicide and prepared him to die and kill." Impressive words. But of course the Islamic scholars in the school Rafiqullah attended used "Islamic subjects" to get this young man to become a suicide bomber in the first place. Most likely they pointed out to him the Qur'an's guarantee of Paradise to those who "kill and are killed" for Allah (9:111). Until Karzai and other Muslims begin to confront this and try to refute it specifically rather than simply adopting the attitude, as Karzai does here, that it is shocking and well-nigh inconceivable that Muslims could learn to kill as part of their Islamic studies, there will be many more Rafiqullahs.
By Jon Hemming for Reuters (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):
KABUL (Reuters) - A 14-year-old would-be suicide bomber from Pakistan, caught while on a mission to blow up an Afghan provincial governor, was pardoned on Sunday by President Hamid Karzai....The first whiskers of a moustache on his top lip, Rafiqullah stood to one side of the Afghan president, his father, with a full beard, stood to the other, at a ceremony in the capital on Sunday.
Rafiqullah's father, a poor tradesman from South Waziristan in Pakistan, had sent his son to a religious school, or madrassa, to learn the Koran. Later, when he asked where his son was, the teachers there brushed him off, he said.
Then last month, the 14-year-old was caught wearing a suicide vest on a motorbike in the eastern Afghan city of Khost.
"Today we are facing a hard fact, that is a Muslim child was sent to madrassa to learn Islamic subjects, but the enemies of Afghanistan misled him towards suicide and prepared him to die and kill," Karzai told reporters, his arm on the boy's shoulder.
The boy and father bowed their heads as Karzai spoke.
"His family thought their child was learning Islamic studies. That is not his fault, nor his father's, the enemies of Islam wanted him to destroy his life and those of other Muslims. I pardon him and wish him a good life," the president said.
"You are now free and forgiven by the people of Afghanistan," he said turning to the boy and smiling....
Asked if he had a message for Pakistan, Karzai said: "I have a message, it is a message of peace, forgiveness, a message pleading for better relationships, not cheating the children and encouraging them into terrorism and suicide."
Posted by Robert at July 15, 2007 6:52 PM
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Not so Mr Karzai, they did teach him islamic studies and a suicide bomber is the result.
Until others face up to these facts, we aren't going to be able to adequately face the enemy.
Posted by: eve_anne_gelical![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at July 15, 2007 7:06 PM
Maybe it's just the particular photo accompanying the article, but the kid doesn't look like the jihadist operative programming has worn off.
Posted by: MarisolJW at July 15, 2007 7:13 PM
Wow. Islam really IS the religion of peace!!!
Karzai's response to an act of war was to send Pakistan "a message of peace, forgiveness, a message pleading for better relationships, not cheating the children and encouraging them into terrorism and suicide."
All this does is validate the use of children from another country as suicide bombers. Was anything required from Pakistan? Was the madrassah closed? Were the teachers arrested? "The enemies of Afghanistan" will continue doing this until one of their children succeeds. They have no reason not to.
Karzai didn't do any favors for this boy or any of the other children from Pakistan.
at July 15, 2007 7:15 PM
LOL, I'll bet security was so tight at this little get togeather, Karzai's trying to appease his own problem now. Will the young lad get another chance?
at July 15, 2007 7:29 PM
While I agree that Karzai's little gesture will probably net him nothing, his statement could have been a Gandhi quote.
I'm sure the Mahatma is smiling somewhere.
Posted by: USBeast at July 15, 2007 8:13 PM
"And," Karzai continued, "the school was shut down permanently and it's staff put in jail for decades to come." The president also promised a thorough overhaul of the entire Afghan school system, to make sure similar incidents would never occur again.
Right? Right?
Right.
at July 15, 2007 8:30 PM
"His family thought their child was learning Islamic studies. That is not his fault, nor his father's, the enemies of Islam wanted him to destroy his life and those of other Muslims. I pardon him and wish him a good life," the president said."....from headline.
This president is kidding, right? I'm stunned by his immeasurable stupidity for pardoning this potential jihadist, and for the presidents "supposed" ignorance about Islam; and that includes the parents.
This president should face criminal charges for the deaths caused by this young man when he eventually DOES kill himself and others. One day this boy will realize that in order to be a true, devout Muslim, that he needs to put on those explosives and carry out his evil mission.
What kind of an IDIOT pardons a dangerous time bomb? A dangerous president, that's who.
Wake up Muslims! Wake up WORLD!!
at July 15, 2007 8:37 PM
Seem's to me all the presidents of the world are trying to one up the other over islam, that highjacked religion of peace, or is it pieces when you have on a bomb belt.
Posted by: AMartinez at July 15, 2007 8:44 PM
Though I doubt it, let us hope that maybe this symbolic, noble,and peaceful jesture by Karzai may reap some benefit in the long run.
I hope that there was as much of a debriefing of this 14 year old as there was a brainwashing at the madrassa that he attended. Somehow a month does not seem long enough.
Posted by: Mackie at July 15, 2007 9:07 PM
Not to worry my friends. Our president and his state department have already sprung into action to prevent another Rafiqullah from being corrupted through no fault of his own.
As we speak the U.S.A. is spending millions of tax dollars to build 2 "super madrassas" in Afghanistan where young Afhanis will no longer be taught the "hijacked" version of Islam that those evil Pakistani's invented; instead, Aghani children will
be taught a softer, gentler version.
See this story from a few months ago.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/016448.php
at July 15, 2007 9:22 PM
Karzai - from the article: "...the enemies of Islam wanted him to destroy his life and those of other Muslims. I pardon him and wish him a good life,""
The enemies of Islam? What a liar. If this kid was really an enemy of Islam, nobody, let alone Karzai, would have pardoned him so readily, let alone wished him a good life to boot.
Way to sign your own death warrant Karzai. You've admitted that you really are a kafir and and that you deserve a sentence of takfir against you, even by a 14 year old boy. That makes you pathetic. Don't expect anyone in the west to weep for you when you eventually meet your inevitable end at the hands of those whom you've pardoned today.
Posted by: Caroline at July 15, 2007 9:22 PM
I think there's something pathetic about a situation in which the nice guys in Islam are the ones who also tend to be the most ignorant about it. I've seen this in my own experience. A close friend of my daughter, a wonderful young Muslim woman, kindly to a fault, despises terrorists and sincerely believes that Islam teaches kindness. Of course, she is committing the mirror-image fallacy in a good way. If only it was that simple.
Posted by: jewdog at July 15, 2007 9:28 PM
What school is the kid going to next?
What happened to the teachers in the "suicide-for-Islam-is-righteous" school?
What parts of Islam were used to spur this murderous mission?
This leaves more questions than it answers.
Posted by: profitsbeard at July 15, 2007 9:59 PM
I think this is a publicity stunt. Why a ceremoney?
Why not in private, Just Karzai, the boy, and his parents. Instead, they have a ceremoney with an unknown number of spectators, and reporters.
Great photo op...
at July 15, 2007 10:31 PM
Why the anger over this gesture?
This is exactly what we want.
Let the ummah see two camps of Muslims, and choose between them:
One that fights the US, shoots schoolgirls in the back, and sends 14 year old school boys out as homicide bombers;
And one allied with the US, that defends schoolgirls from being shot, and that rescues 14 year old boys from cult-like indoctrination, pardons them, and gives them a good life.
Posted by: vergescue at July 15, 2007 10:51 PM
Oh man, such naivete...
The kid got caught red-handed, the kid played the game...only to be let off to do it all over again.
I wonder if he'll be "forgiven" when he actually succeeds?...and he WILL do just that.
at July 15, 2007 11:26 PM
I would think that sparing the life of a 14 year old boy to be humanitarian, but it does send a clear message to the terrorist organizations. I would not be surprised to see many more impressionable children being introduced to the role of suicide bomber in the not too distant future.
Posted by: commander at July 16, 2007 12:00 AM
vergescue... There are not two camps of muslims.
There is only one. As you know, Allah said directly in his book, the Quran, exactly what the rules are.
The one camp of Islam follows those rules. Those who dont/wont follow them are apostates.
The Quran provides the poison, and Mohammad through ahadith, provides the method. While it sounds good to divide muslims up into good muslims, bad muslims, there really is no such division...
at July 16, 2007 12:12 AM
It's so nice of Karzai to pardon the 14 year old boy. But since training a 14 year old to be a combatant is against the Geneva Convention, has he also pardoned the teachers at the madrassa? And they weren't even training him to be a combatant, they were training him to murder unarmed civilians.
In most of the world, these would be prosecutable offenses. In dar al-Islam, training underage children to commit mass murder is just par for the course.
And yet, for some reason, we keep acting as if the jihadists have any right of protection under the Geneva Convention.
Posted by: special_guest at July 16, 2007 12:20 AM
If only all Muslims were this stupid
Posted by: Infidel Pride at July 16, 2007 12:42 AM
Let thee without Jihad throw the first IED .
Posted by: ala-sux at July 16, 2007 1:04 AM
Very magnanamous of Karzai to pardon this young kid. I wonder, though, if he'd pardon an apostate who converted to Christianity from Islam? Somehow, I don't think he'd even consider it.
Posted by: rational
at July 16, 2007 1:15 AM
This kid was fourteen, for heaven's sake. How can anyone in the West think that we should vent our bile and hatred for Islam on a fourteen year old. Turn your anger towards those who robbed this child of his innocence, to those who would have robbed him of his teenage years, and all his adulthood, had this attack succeeded.
How desparate are these people that they can take a fourteen year old's gullibility, his newly pubescent, testosterone fuelled awareness, and turn it to the killing of others at precisely the time in his life that he ought to be, as we in the West are, turned to love by our parents, guardians and all whom we trusted. The boy must be forgiven, for he, at that age, can be nothing more than an out of control hormone factory, but his teachers are damned forever to the eternal fires of hell for the mis-use of this child in his vulnerable, hormone-driven, pubescent state.
Had this crime against this child been discovered in the West then we would have placed this child with responsible foster-parents and taken legal actions against everyone else involved. His Excellency President Dr. Karzai, operating in a different society, is, in highlighting this case in the way detailed in this article, sending a clear message to the Afghan Taliban and the Afghan people - and that message is about childhood, is about fourteen year-old boys and is about the extreme forms of Islam that attempt to abuse and mis-use the deep emotions felt in that most traumatic period of a male's life.
In a sense, His Excellency is telling all the rabid males of Islamic extremism simply to grow up, for it is obvious to most of us in the West, and many, many Muslims, that the problem with radical Islam is that it is a view of the world that has never grown up. The use of this young boy, and it's not the first time that pubescent or pre-pubescent male youths have been used like this, is indicative to everyone of the immaturity of radical Islam. Radical Islam is a hormone fuelled deranged view of the world held by people (mainly, but not exclusively, males) who have had a serious problem in growing up.
The problem may be chemical or chemical/psychological, but that it is a problem - a clinical problem - is fairly obvious to any dispassionate observer. Extreme belief and an extreme belief in victimhood - the two characteristics of radical Islam - are identical to the second phase of male puberty. It is probable that radical Islam, as exercised by the people who are drawn to it, is nothing more than a peristent, and very dangerous, hormonal imbalance - given the rather strange voice, facial and hair characteristics of the current Al-Quiada leadership it seems probable that this is the case. What we are facing is, most likely, nothing more than a chemically and/or hormonally imbalanced working of the human mind.
That certain verses in the Koran are the scriptures of choice for such disfunctional adults is probably an unfortunate concatenation of circumstances. Moslems, in general, are no less capable of rejecting the inhumane than any other belief adherents but the hormonally challenged adult, in any belief system, seems, empirically, to be drawn to violence and victimhood. In Western belief systems this draw has been modified by complex differentiating social factors but in the Muslim world (the ummah) a certain monolithic mindset and societal imperative has crept in over the last fifteen-hundred years and made differentiation much more difficult than in the West thus leading to a more extreme interpretation of the prevalent belief system that would be possible in the West for all but the most tiny minority.
In other words: for various reasons it is easier for the chemically/hormonally challenged person in the Middle East to pervert his or her faith than it is for a similar person in the West to do so. It is also possible that social breeding imperatives in the Muslim world are re-inforcing this trend. It could be that delayed final stage puberty is viewed in the Muslim world as desirable and so such people are more sought after as potential mates than those who are prepared to be rational about the various states of mankind - 'the perceived powerful as desirable' syndrome.
Posted by: Jonathan Ralbrooke at July 16, 2007 1:47 AM
How sweet of the puppet of afganistan!
You angered your masters Karzai, you should have confered with Condi first. Now you are going to look like an idiot(oh, you are one already) and will apologize for your action later. Now that's presidential.
Ex-lover of jesus and no lover of Judeo-Nazis.
at July 16, 2007 2:25 AM
"Ex-lover"...."no lover".....you sound like a hate filled individual, progressive. Oh, that's right, you're a Muslim.
Posted by: champ at July 16, 2007 3:56 AM
OT
BBC are reporting that UN peacekeepers have been hit by an explosion.
No link yet.
at July 16, 2007 4:57 AM
Whoops I forgot to say in Lebanon
Posted by: km at July 16, 2007 5:00 AM
" but the enemies of Afghanistan misled him towards suicide and prepared him to die and kill."
enimies of Afghanistan, not Islam , so its not complete BS, whoops never mind.
at July 16, 2007 5:56 AM
" no lover of Judeo-Nazis.
Posted by: progressive "
HMMMMM...
Muslim extremists and Nazis have always been united by a common group of beliefs and goals: hatred of Judaism (and conventional Christianity), hatred of democracy, and a desire for the destruction of Israel and the United States.
...are an uneducated black Muslim, a closet Jew hater, or just a fool who listens to crazed bearded, finger pointing Islamic clerics?...
There is no such thing as a Judeo-Nazi.....you must believe in someone who is lying to you...must be another Muslim...
Islam is for losers....
at July 16, 2007 6:51 AM
We will be hearing from this lad sometime in the future.
Posted by: Crusader at July 16, 2007 7:52 AM
"We will be hearing from this lad sometime in the future.
Posted by: Crusader"
...i agree...near future....
Posted by: exsgtbrown at July 16, 2007 8:06 AM
Jonathan, Very eloquent and insightful, but I think there are too many human variables to apply a blanket concept although "progressive" seems to be a perfect example of your theory.
Posted by: imamerican at July 16, 2007 8:36 AM
Islam is for losers. It is a heresy founded by an illiterate jigolo/pedophile, able to amass followers who are the same, or others by the sword. Of course, death to apostates.
Judaism is the foundation of all truths and Christianity fulfills all Judaic prophecies. islam only copies and twists the Torah and the Book of Luke. There is nothing original about islam.
The black shrine of kabaa was a pagan site, and still is...When the Torah speaks of a great nation founded by Ishmael, just remember the same Aramaic word was used to describe the Flood. "Great" meaning large, not wonderful. You have a great wart on your nose...it's big, not lovely.
Posted by: CapitalistGig at July 16, 2007 9:50 PM
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