In all the hubbub of the past day, I didn’t get around to posting on this story.
On September 22 85 people were killed in Pakistan for no other reason than they are Christian.
But the National Catholic Reporter wants you to know that these Christians had it coming because the Islamonazis oppose drones or something.
On hearing this news, most Americans might interpret this act as one of violent religious discrimination, of anti-Christian killing. But my lead guest on “Interfaith Voices” this week says that misinterprets the message.
That guest was Dr. Akbar Ahmed, a native of Pakistan who once administered the frontier area in which the bombing took place. He is also a devout Muslim, an anthropologist, a professor of Islamic studies at American University in Washington, D.C., and an internationally recognized leader in interfaith relations. He is now a U.S. citizen.
He first characterized the bombing as a “horrific act” without a shred of justification. He praised the Christian community in Pakistan, now more fearful than ever, and noted that he himself was educated by Catholic priests and later by Presbyterians. He counts many Christians as friends.
So I asked him point-blank, “Was this bombing an act of religious discrimination?” Was it religiously motivated? Without hesitation, he said, “No.” He pointed to a statement from the Taliban themselves saying it was a response to the United States’ frequent and continuing drone attacks in the tribal areas of Pakistan. He said the Pakistani government’s protests to the United States have been unable to stop the drones, so the frontier tribes have resorted to their ancient “eye for an eye” response to perceived injustice.
Seriously, the National Catholic Reporter is peddling the idea that a Christian community in Pakistan was targeted because the Islamonazis have a legitimate beef against drone attacks.
Seriously.
85 Christians murdered for no other reason than they are Christian and the NC Reported tries to justify it as legitimate anti-drone violence against other Pakistanis that have nothing to do with drones but are Christian.
I am vehemently opposed to the despicable reporting that goes on at the NC Reporter. In response, I think I will go and kill a bunch of people that have nothing to do with the NC Reporter that I conveniently hated to begin with.
Morons. Evil morons.
October 2, 2013 at 4:56 pm
Seriously, I am so over reading any commentary from untrustworthy sources (99% of media) but appreciate your intrepid calling out these evil peddlers.
October 2, 2013 at 6:52 pm
The truth appears to be somewhere in between. He is saying that they were killed because of the drone attacks, not just becasue they were Christian. But, they were singled out because of their religion. So if it had not been for the drone attacks, they would not have been killed. They also would not have been killed if they had been Muslim.
October 2, 2013 at 9:13 pm
The actual perpetrators disagree: "They are the enemies of Islam, therefore we target them," said the group's spokesman, Ahmed Marwat. "We will continue our attacks on non-Muslims on Pakistani land." (Of course they also oppose drone strikes.)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/22/pakistan-blast-idUSL3N0HI07I20130922
October 3, 2013 at 2:03 am
Good point. Apparently the media and the national distorter know better than the people who committed the murders. So I'm not sure what to add to that except they are acting as (to use a gw bush term) 'preemptive' apologists to what essentially amounts to mere PR. When th murderers say they killed due to religion and the reporters say, no you didn't. It was because I..I mean, you don't like drone attacks, I think the truth is pretty obvious.
October 3, 2013 at 5:43 am
How dhaaaare those uppity Christians practice their faith in the face of those pure-as-snow Islamists.
Thanks, National anti-Catholic Reporter for your dispatches from the front lines of Christian persecution.
October 3, 2013 at 2:26 pm
Bravo to Patrick. The ultra liberal must excuse radical evil. Jean Paul Sartre, an existentialist atheist, wrote against his gay/thief friend Jean Genet and unmasked this tendency to whitewash his evil: " You will make excuses out of his suffering in order to hide yourselves from his will to evil."