Comments for The Quaker Agitator

Comment on Remember. by kaitlyn marie

kaitlyn marie — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:53:28 +0000

This is so sad. my class and i are now studying this topic and i hope i dont cry. I hate seeing people like this, its horrible. =.(…….

Comment on Get well soon, Holiness. by sally in the valley

sally in the valley — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 02:49:40 +0000

What a fun discovery! Why hadn’t I heard of this? Likely haven’t spent enough time with my Meeting, now moved to a worship location closer to me, … so no more excuses! I need to stay connected to this, tho. I have a music gig in a choir/steeple house most First Days……….. Who are you? Which Yearly Meetings?

Comment on Genocidal killer is “at peace with” himself. by empower darfur

empower darfur — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 20:13:45 +0000

this is terrible, and things need to happen. we need to stop sitting back and doing nothing while they die every day

Comment on “Reading a book – an act of sedition?” by BadGirl23

BadGirl23 — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 10:50:45 +0000

In the end, he stole away in the middle of the night to somewhere else he judged to be safer. ,

Comment on Genocidal killer is “at peace with” himself. by destiny

destiny — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:11:07 +0000

i feel so bad! how could someone do something like this? it makes me want to cry!

Comment on “A Few Good Kids?” by Laurynda Williams

Laurynda Williams — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 23:56:41 +0000

I’m finding this all very interesting and disturbing. I jumped up and down and got help from the local Peace Coalition to get opt our forms at our local high school six years ago. (My oldest child graduated in 2008.) Now my daughter is getting mail from the Marine, the Army and the Navy. She will graduate next spring. I have been wondering how and when they got her information. Thanks for the enlightening article. I knew NCLB was a boondoggle, I just had now idea it was feeding our kids info to the recruiters.

Comment on Where empires go to die. by ZAC D.

ZAC D. — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 08:11:14 +0000

The invasion of Afghanistand was undertaken full in the knowledge that the country’s terrain made it legendarily difficult to govern. Foreigners has attempted it since the reign of Alexander the Great in the fourth century BC. Even Alexander’s hold had been fleeting, records the historian Ben McIntyre. Macedonian, Mogul, Persian, RUssian, British and Soviet armies had all tried, and failed, to control the Afghan tribes. What made it any more likely that the English-Speaking peoples expeditionary force – including contingents from America, Britian and Canada – would succeed where so many others had failed? Of the five royal descendants of the Dost Mohammed Khan’s tribe to rule Afghanistan in the twentieth century, relates McIntyre, three were assassinated and two were forced into exlie. The last was Zahir Shah, who had become king aged eighteen after he had witnessed his father’s assassination in 1933. (He ruled wisely and introduced freedom of speech and voting rights for women, before being ousted in 1973 when he was on holifay in Italy.) As notorious as Afghanistan’s political instability was the viciousness of her power struggles. When the USSR had been forced by the US-backed Mujaheen to quit Afghanistan in 1990 – after 50,000 Russians and one million Afghans had been killed – their puppet ruler Mohammed Najibullah unwisely stayed on in Kabul to continue to fight. After taking sanctuary in the United Nations’ compound as the enemy closed in on the capital in 1995, he was captured, castrated, and his body was dragged around the city behind a truck and then exhibited upside down in Kabul bazaar.
The Stars and Stripes had flown over part of Afghanistan once before in history, in 1839 when the chester county, Pennsylvania-born Josiah Harlan had unfurled it at the start of his short-lived personal rule there. Relying on an alloy of the brass neck and steely self-confidence, the Quaker-born adventurer braved bandits, quicksand and sixteen-foot crocodiles to carve out an impressive fiefdom there. He put his success down to his nationality. Over the principal tent, a few feet above the apex, Harlin recalled many years later: “The American flag displayed its stars and stripes, flickering in the quietly drifting breeze. … In the midst of that wild landscape, the flag of America seemed a dreamy illusion of the imagination, but it was the harbinger of enterprise which distance, space and time had not appalled, for the indaunted sons of Columbia are second to no people in the pursuit of adventure wherever the word is trodden by man.” The 2001 campaign in Afghanistan was sucessful; American, British and Australian special forces, aided by dominant American air-power and the enlistment of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance of Afghans, quickly over-threw the Kbaul Government and expelled AL-Queda from their terrorist bases and training camps in that country. It was a impressive victory by the English-Speaking peoples and their allies in some of the toughest terrain in the world. However, Osama bin laden managed to escape, most probably into Northern Pakistan. Nonetheless, The continued failure to capture him did at least concentrate Western minds on the fact that the War against Terror was far from over. In may 2006, the British Soldier Lieutenant-General David Richards took command of the international focres in Afghanistan, in charge of significant numbers of American troops, thereby exploding another myth about US insistence on exercising military control at all times. The Frist Muslim middle Eastern country in history to replace its government through a free election was Turkey in 1950. Unfortunately, it was also one of the last. Yet on Sunday, 18 September 2005, millions of Afghans braved Taliban threats in order to vote in the country’s first parliamentary elections in over thirty years. The polling for Provincial councils as well as the Wolesi Jirga (lower house) in Kabul was hailed by President Hamid Karzai, who said: “We are proud of this day; we are rpoud of our people, even though the election strengthended the opposition parties.” Although twenty-two people were killed by the Taliban in the forty-eight hours prior to the elections, turnout was high. As Ahmed Rashid, the author of the book Taliban, wrote the next day, “Stories of the electoral heroism are as moving as the sacrifices made by the Afghans while fighting the USSR and the Taliban. Hundreds of women defied custom to stand and campaign in a predominantly male environment.” No fewer than 5,800 women put themselves forward for the Wolesi Jirga, a quarter of the seats of which were reserved for them. The return of democracy to Afghanistan after three decades was fine achievement of the english-speaking peoples, protectionf that country from Al-Queda’s re-infestation.

Point being if we can do all that where as others failed then there is no reason why we shouldn’t increase troop levels and purge the remaining Jihadist once and for all. Obama must first define victory then accomplish it. The only way we lose is
if the Jihadist break our will to fight. We can worry about cleaning up Karzai’s corrupt government afterwards.

Comment on Hate goes back to school. by David M

David M — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 04:59:29 +0000

Gosh it is they type of hate mongering in this story that drives me crazy.more people have died over what so called Religious fanatics this is just a right in there own eyes than anything else.Can’t these people see that if they spread hate it will spread to them selves?I am not saying that we all need to hold hands and sing com-by-ya or anything,but seriously,someone should take those children away from them for Child endangerment,it is actions like these that will spill out as hate crimes against the very children that perpetrate this kind of filth.then it wont be those people are Evil or there of the Devil in this case it will be “those people are terrorist “! Sorry to answer so harshly,but I am a father and I cannot ever imagine sending my Child in harms way over a stupid Terror Provoking Tee Shirt! Someone should call Homeland Security on them for being Terrorist! ter⋅ror⋅ist/ˈtɛrərɪst/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [ter-er-ist] Show IPA
Use terrorist in a Sentence
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–noun
1. a person, usually a member of a group, who uses or advocates terrorism.
2. a person who terrorizes or frightens others.

Lets Just see how they feel about it when the shoe is on the other foot.

Comment on “Nazi Medicine.” by purplehunt

purplehunt — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 22:12:31 +0000

Do you not remember when Bush was pres? people called him every name in the book and said that he should die. I don’t think that they should have said those things either. We should not have a double-standard. What does it look like to other countries when people are so vile towards their own president. If you have a valid arguement, that is one thing, but hatespeak is just sad.

Comment on Poem. by Carol Ann

Carol Ann — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 15:10:35 +0000

Lovely, hopeful, happy. Found out yesterday was my last chemo (after 6 months of being in the trenches) and got good news about my tumor response, so I’m celebrating happy today! Discovered your blog by accident (or not — as some believe, there are no coincidences). The poem is perfect. And your blog fits in with my own spiritual quest and desire to live a peaceful and compassionate life. Thank you.