The story of Canada’s complicity in the abuse of some Afghan detainees has just gotten interesting if for no other reason than that the Globe’s scoop of getting what appears to all of Mr. Colvin’s Afghan emails has set off a cat fight(see the CBC’s Kady O’Malley bitching and casting doubt about the scoop here) in the incestuous little world of Canadian journalism.
The Globe’s Christine Blatchford seems to think that it is Mr. Colvin that has some explaining to do. The fact that this directly flies in the face of the evil, evil Tories condoning torture meme that the MSM has been selling to date is certainly going to raise hackles of the rest of the Canada’s intelligensia.Â
Not unsurprisingly, the Liberal and “progressive” bloggers have been all over this story. Some commentators would have our political and military elites in the dock for war crimes already. Jim Travesty blithers on about the “stain” on our reputation complete the usual turgid prose about how a country that produced Lester Pearson can have fallen so far under these evil, evil Tories.
I don’t like torture but we’re dealing with Afghanistan here folks.Â
Kipling had it right when he penned the Young British Soldier:
When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.
The word barbaric describes the situation and the people there quite well I think. It is a culture that thinks nothing of blowing up priceless historical antiquities in the name of religion,
where boy rape is institutionalized,
There’s a boy across the river with a bottom like a peach, but alas, I cannot swim
from the Afghan love song, “Wounded Heart”. (“Zekhmi Dill’)
where woman are vitual slaves and girls having the temerity to want an education get their faces burned off  by acid instead(and their teachers exectuted.
The entire culture is immoral and barbaric. No amount of Western cultural relativism is going to cover that up.
Worrying about possible prisoner abuse in this situation is not to see the forest for the trees.
Perhaps we should adopt the famous adage of General Sir Charles Napier in our dealings with Afghanistan:
You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours
Most of us are locked into a highschool version of history. Dry date follows  dry date. All the emotion and life were sucked out of what were very real people. We forget the people behind those dates.
Then along comes some like this. One of these artisans? slaves? had the same size footprint as me.Â
The ancient footprints of the artisans who built a 1,700-year-old mosaic floor in the city of Lod was discovered recently by the Israel Antiquities Authority.
The mosaic floor is one of the biggest and most remarkable mosaics to be discovered in Israel. The mosaic, spanning 180 square meters, is composed of colorful and detailed depictions of animals, plants and boats.
The impressive mosaic, discovered in 1996, is believed to have decorated the home of a wealthy man during the Roman period.
Following the discovery of the mosaic, it was covered back up due to lack of the resources required to preserve and display it. It was recently uncovered again, with the aim of opening the site to the public, after the Antiquities Authority and the Lod municipality were able to raise the funds required for the endeavor.
While working on detaching the mosaic from the ground, Antiquities Authority workers discovered the footprints and sandal prints on the plaster bedding below. Experts believe the prints belong to the builders of the mosaic, and further speculate that they had used their feet to pack the plaster.
Sandal prints in sizes 34, 37, 42 and 44 were discovered.
“We were very excited,” said Jacques Neguer, head of the IAA Art Conservation Branch. “It is fascinating to find 1,700-year-old personal evidence of people who, just like us, worked on this very mosaic. You can really feel the generational continuity.”
It looks like it’s going to be a slow news day so I thought I would post something about one of my interests beyond Canadian politics.
I love biblical archeology. I find it fascinating that there is still so much to be found in a country of a few thousand square kilometres. Archeologists have been combing Israel since the late 19th century and there is still much to be found.
I especially love it when something turns up that reminds us that it was people just like us who did all this.
Like this recent discovery in the coastal city of Lod. Footprints of the mosaic makers have been found. One of the makers even had my size feet.
The ancient footprints of the artisans who built a 1,700-year-old mosaic floor in the city of Lod was discovered recently by the Israel Antiquities Authority.
The mosaic floor is one of the biggest and most remarkable mosaics to be discovered in Israel. The mosaic, spanning 180 square meters, is composed of colorful and detailed depictions of animals, plants and boats.
The impressive mosaic, discovered in 1996, is believed to have decorated the home of a wealthy man during the Roman period.
Following the discovery of the mosaic, it was covered back up due to lack of the resources required to preserve and display it. It was recently uncovered again, with the aim of opening the site to the public, after the Antiquities Authority and the Lod municipality were able to raise the funds required for the endeavor.
While working on detaching the mosaic from the ground, Antiquities Authority workers discovered the footprints and sandal prints on the plaster bedding below. Experts believe the prints belong to the builders of the mosaic, and further speculate that they had used their feet to pack the plaster.
Sandal prints in sizes 34, 37, 42 and 44 were discovered.
“We were very excited,” said Jacques Neguer, head of the IAA Art Conservation Branch. “It is fascinating to find 1,700-year-old personal evidence of people who, just like us, worked on this very mosaic. You can really feel the generational continuity.”
