if I wanted to really dig deeper into a religion (and I have dug pretty deep already BTW... I am sure most assume Atheists are the least knowledgeable about it, but that is not true), I would not go to an Imam or a priest or an orthodox rabbi. Talk about getting biased and defensive answers. They are the ones who are in charge of religious brainwashing for crying out loud. Of course those true to the faith are going to try and make it sound as good and benign as possible. I don't want tainted info coming from someone who is trying to sell me a good line or defend something (like you guys are trying g to do).
:corn:
Uh, yeah, you conveniently cut out the part when I said "not that I wouldn't want to talk to one, but not for that kind of information". Wtf. So misleading to only partially quote me.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy. ~ Desiderata
Worth a read if you can stomach it. The actions of the terrorists will sicken you. The disorganized response from police and military, complete with looting of the mall and drinking, will infuriate you. Sickening and heartbreaking.
At 12.30pm on Saturday 21 September, Frank Musungu, a sergeant major in the Kenyan navy, was sitting out on the balcony of the Artcaffe in Nairobi’s Westgate mall, next to its main pedestrian entrance. Military personnel had been advised against visiting the Kenyan capital’s high-profile shopping malls, in case they were targeted by terrorists. He went anyway but took his handgun as a precaution. Like many in the country’s poorly paid armed services he had hopes of a job at the nearby UN headquarters and was meeting a friend in the diplomatic police to look over his CV. Their discussion was abruptly interrupted by rapid bursts of automatic fire only a few metres away.
Musungu looked down and saw four men striding towards the entrance to the mall, firing at the cars around them as they went. Before he could stand up the first grenade detonated. About 150 metres away at the vehicle entrance a second group of attackers had driven their car through one of the barriers, scattering the unarmed security guards. They jumped out of the vehicle and began firing and throwing grenades at passers-by.
Footage filmed by a shopper in the Westgate mall as gunshots are heard
As Musungu and the policeman took cover, a bullet ripped through a woman dressed in black jeans and a T-shirt standing next to them. She had tried to run away and been shot through the back.
The woman in black was one of the first victims of a co-ordinated slaughter that had been planned for months; a small band of jihadi fighters, perhaps as few as eight, killed at least 67 people in what became an 80-hour siege. Building on detailed interviews with survivors, their relatives and members of the security forces, as well as insights from officials involved in the operation, it is now possible to give the most complete account so far of what happened at Westgate.
The picture that emerges is of a woefully disorganised response from authorities, where infighting and a clash of egos left a handful of Kenyan officers, an off-duty British soldier and an Israeli security agent, backed by Kenyan-Indian vigilantes, to fight heavily armed militants in a bid to rescue hundreds of shoppers. A friendly-fire killing in the early hours of the siege led to the withdrawal of security services, allowing the attackers to regroup, rearm from a weapons cache inside the mall, and hunt down desperate people hiding inside.
Five minutes after the assault began in the rooftop car park at the rear of Westgate, radio DJ Sadia Ahmed was getting ready to judge a children’s cooking competition.
When she heard the first blast she thought it was a gas cylinder. Two more blasts followed and people started to run from the food court through the second floor entrance/exit.
They ran straight into the firing line of two militants who came up the vehicle ramp into the parking area. As Ahmed ran for cover, her fellow judge and radio presenter Ruhila Adatia-Sood, left, was shot dead. She was six months pregnant.
Karani Nyamu, a software engineer who was shopping with his two daughters, emerged into the gunmen's line of fire, but miraculously survived. As he ran towards his car he saw two men throwing grenades “like maize to chickens” and shooting indiscriminately. After 20 minutes, with bodies everywhere, they went inside the mall.
Inside the shopping centre after the start of the siege.
12.40pm
Meanwhile, in a section of the basement car park underneath the mall, the attackers set up what an intelligence source described as a "command and control centre" in an unidentified vehicle. The vehicle is thought to have been driven to the car park some time in advance of the attack.
One or more of the militants is believed to have been in mobile phone contact with the others from here, while intelligence intercepts suggest that some of the Twitter statements that al-Shabaab started to release later in the day originated from here. The death of Ghanaian poet Kofi Awoonor, who was shot in his car as he was preparing to leave, confirms the presence of armed gunmen in the basement from the beginning of the assault.
12.50pm
Joshua Hakim, an accounts clerk, had stopped at the mall on his way to a rugby match. He left his three American friends at the second-floor Java coffee shop and headed to the giant Nakumatt supermarket that took up a third of Westgate’s floor space to buy some beer. He was on the interior balcony of the first floor when he heard shots from below. As he took cover on the floor under a table, repeating the mantra “Jesus is lord”, he heard shots from above as well. Then two armed men appeared on his level. After firing several rounds they called out in English: “Muslims, get out of here!”
Scahill says the Bush administration’s decision to back Ethiopia’s overthrow of Somalia’s Islamic Courts Union in 2006 helped fuel al-Shabab’s growth into the dominant militant group that it is today: "Al-Shabab was largely a non-player in Somalia and al-Qaeda had almost no presence there. The U.S., by backing [Somali] warlords and overthrowing the Islamic Courts Union, made the very force they claimed to be trying to fight."
Worth a read if you can stomach it. The actions of the terrorists will sicken you. The disorganized response from police and military, complete with looting of the mall and drinking, will infuriate you. Sickening and heartbreaking.
Sickening and heartbreaking, but there's also some amazing stories of courage and compassion in there. Unfortunately, not many from the people they were supposed to come from.
Worth a read if you can stomach it. The actions of the terrorists will sicken you. The disorganized response from police and military, complete with looting of the mall and drinking, will infuriate you. Sickening and heartbreaking.
Sickening and heartbreaking, but there's also some amazing stories of courage and compassion in there. Unfortunately, not many from the people they were supposed to come from.
Comments
http://www.theguardian.com/world/intera ... #undefined
At 12.30pm on Saturday 21 September, Frank Musungu, a sergeant major in the Kenyan navy, was sitting out on the balcony of the Artcaffe in Nairobi’s Westgate mall, next to its main pedestrian entrance. Military personnel had been advised against visiting the Kenyan capital’s high-profile shopping malls, in case they were targeted by terrorists. He went anyway but took his handgun as a precaution. Like many in the country’s poorly paid armed services he had hopes of a job at the nearby UN headquarters and was meeting a friend in the diplomatic police to look over his CV. Their discussion was abruptly interrupted by rapid bursts of automatic fire only a few metres away.
Musungu looked down and saw four men striding towards the entrance to the mall, firing at the cars around them as they went. Before he could stand up the first grenade detonated. About 150 metres away at the vehicle entrance a second group of attackers had driven their car through one of the barriers, scattering the unarmed security guards. They jumped out of the vehicle and began firing and throwing grenades at passers-by.
Footage filmed by a shopper in the Westgate mall as gunshots are heard
As Musungu and the policeman took cover, a bullet ripped through a woman dressed in black jeans and a T-shirt standing next to them. She had tried to run away and been shot through the back.
The woman in black was one of the first victims of a co-ordinated slaughter that had been planned for months; a small band of jihadi fighters, perhaps as few as eight, killed at least 67 people in what became an 80-hour siege. Building on detailed interviews with survivors, their relatives and members of the security forces, as well as insights from officials involved in the operation, it is now possible to give the most complete account so far of what happened at Westgate.
The picture that emerges is of a woefully disorganised response from authorities, where infighting and a clash of egos left a handful of Kenyan officers, an off-duty British soldier and an Israeli security agent, backed by Kenyan-Indian vigilantes, to fight heavily armed militants in a bid to rescue hundreds of shoppers. A friendly-fire killing in the early hours of the siege led to the withdrawal of security services, allowing the attackers to regroup, rearm from a weapons cache inside the mall, and hunt down desperate people hiding inside.
Five minutes after the assault began in the rooftop car park at the rear of Westgate, radio DJ Sadia Ahmed was getting ready to judge a children’s cooking competition.
When she heard the first blast she thought it was a gas cylinder. Two more blasts followed and people started to run from the food court through the second floor entrance/exit.
They ran straight into the firing line of two militants who came up the vehicle ramp into the parking area. As Ahmed ran for cover, her fellow judge and radio presenter Ruhila Adatia-Sood, left, was shot dead. She was six months pregnant.
Karani Nyamu, a software engineer who was shopping with his two daughters, emerged into the gunmen's line of fire, but miraculously survived. As he ran towards his car he saw two men throwing grenades “like maize to chickens” and shooting indiscriminately. After 20 minutes, with bodies everywhere, they went inside the mall.
Inside the shopping centre after the start of the siege.
12.40pm
Meanwhile, in a section of the basement car park underneath the mall, the attackers set up what an intelligence source described as a "command and control centre" in an unidentified vehicle. The vehicle is thought to have been driven to the car park some time in advance of the attack.
One or more of the militants is believed to have been in mobile phone contact with the others from here, while intelligence intercepts suggest that some of the Twitter statements that al-Shabaab started to release later in the day originated from here. The death of Ghanaian poet Kofi Awoonor, who was shot in his car as he was preparing to leave, confirms the presence of armed gunmen in the basement from the beginning of the assault.
12.50pm
Joshua Hakim, an accounts clerk, had stopped at the mall on his way to a rugby match. He left his three American friends at the second-floor Java coffee shop and headed to the giant Nakumatt supermarket that took up a third of Westgate’s floor space to buy some beer. He was on the interior balcony of the first floor when he heard shots from below. As he took cover on the floor under a table, repeating the mantra “Jesus is lord”, he heard shots from above as well. Then two armed men appeared on his level. After firing several rounds they called out in English: “Muslims, get out of here!”
"...I changed by not changing at all..."
Scahill says the Bush administration’s decision to back Ethiopia’s overthrow of Somalia’s Islamic Courts Union in 2006 helped fuel al-Shabab’s growth into the dominant militant group that it is today: "Al-Shabab was largely a non-player in Somalia and al-Qaeda had almost no presence there. The U.S., by backing [Somali] warlords and overthrowing the Islamic Courts Union, made the very force they claimed to be trying to fight."
Bush's administration? What..... the..... ?
Sickening and heartbreaking, but there's also some amazing stories of courage and compassion in there. Unfortunately, not many from the people they were supposed to come from.
True.
"...I changed by not changing at all..."