Piers Morgan in Tweet
Moeen Ali is a perfect example of the many decent, talented muslims who make England a better place. Great seeing him in an England shirt.
SEE http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/video_audio/755351.html1,844 Retweets
Moeen Ali, 108 not out — Pix by Getty Images
Filed under cricket for amity, cultural transmission, tolerance
from Udeshi Amarasinghe: at “Modus Operandi: Tamil Diaspora and LTTE Organisations” …. in http://www.defence.lk/new.asp?fname=Modus_Operandi_Tamil_Diaspora_and_LTTE_Organisations_20140605_05
Two suspects involved in LTTE propaganda activity was taken into custody while distributing posters in Jaffna in March 2014. Following investigations conducted by law enforcement officers, they trailed a known ex-LTTE cadre by the name of Gobi who had escaped the Vavuniya Welfare Centre after the end of the conflict. The suspect was hiding in a house in Kilinochchi and when the team went to arrest him, he opened fire on the team and an officer was injured. The house he was hiding in was searched and an F-3 type metal detector was found. Investigations further revealed that they were to use this metal detector to find arms and explosives dumped by the LTTE. This metal detector had been stolen from an NGO involved in demining operations in the east of Vavuniya. 
Thevihan, Gobi and Appan Continue reading
Michael Roberts
Adele Balasingham and a LTTE fighter — BBC, 1991
Apropos of the misleading interpretations of suicide attacks by Western commentators such as the political scientist, Robert Pape, it is important to note that the act of suicide was initially adopted by the LTTE as a defensive tool to protect the organisation from the leaking of information after capture. It was also a mark of their dedication to the Tamil liberation cause and thus a method of drawing popular admiration. It was not till 5 July 1987 that it was deployed as a low cost precision weapon when Miller (a nom de guerre) drove a truck bomb into an SL Army encampment at Nelliyadi. This was but one instance of uyirayutham — life as weapon.
As training was formalised, like all armies the LTTE had a passing out ceremony for their fighters. The induction of a batch of female fighters is graphically depicted in a BBC documentary filmed in the LTTE territories in 1991 where one sees/hears them chant in unison in response to their female commander’s initial prompt:
“Our revolutionary organisation’s purified aim
is for a free society to achieve Tamil Eelam
My life and soul and all this I sacrifice to
our organisation’s leader, our brother, Mr Prabhakaran
We fully accept that for him we will be very faithful and trustworthy
The aim of the Tigers – Tamils’ freedom.” Continue reading
Courtesy of The Poor Man’s Smart Bomb at http://pmsmartbomb.wordpress.com/suicide-attacks%C2%A0bibliography/
I thought it might be useful to share this list of articles and books relating to suicide attacks. This is an ongoing effort and is by no means comprehensive and is fairly narrowly focused – I have no intention of trying to catalogue all materials related to terrorism and insurgency. I’ll be updating the bibliography as I go along. If you notice any glaring omissions or have suggestions for new material, please comment below or email me at pmsmartbomb at gmail dot com.
Black Tigers marching
Izeth Hussain, courtesy of The Island, where it appeared in a four-part series recently in May-June 2014
PART I 
My last two articles in the Island were under the title Making sense of the Bodu Bala Sena, focusing in both of them on the anti-Muslim campaign of the BBS. There is now a view, still at the incipient stage but which can soon gain wide currency, that the BBS is on the way out. The argument is that extremist movements such as the BBS have no staying power in Sri Lanka, and that the forces of Buddhist moderation are now working to bring about the quick demise of the BBS and related extremist groups. But I began the first of my last two articles by pointing out that the conventional wisdom for well over a year – shared by the President himself – had it that if the BBS were ignored it would evaporate after some time. It did not, and in recent times it showed a renewed virulence.
Filed under accountability, Buddhism, cultural transmission, disparagement, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, life stories, Muslims in Lanka, politIcal discourse, power politics, Rajapaksa regime, security, self-reflexivity, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, truth as casualty of war, world events & processes
C. A. Chandraprema, in The Island, 21 June 2014
When this writer logged onto the Colombo US Embassy website at 8.30pm on Friday June 20, we found a statement issued on 16 June 2014 which went as follows: “The U.S. Embassy condemns the violence that has spread over the weekend in Alutgama and Beruwela. We urge the government to ensure that order is preserved and the lives of all citizens, places of worship, and property are protected. We urge the authorities to investigate these attacks and bring those responsible to justice. We also urge all sides to refrain from violence, exercise restraint, and respect the rule of law.”
Right below that statement on the web page was a photograph reproduced on this page, of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa with Galagodaatte Gnanasara and other BBS monks. The photograph was captioned “President Mahindha Rajapaksha’s brother Gotabhaya Rajapaksha with Sri Lankan terrorist Bodu Bala Sena” (See: http://srilanka.usembassy.gov/pr-16june14.html)
Filed under american imperialism, cultural transmission, disparagement, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, life stories, Muslims in Lanka, news fabrication, politIcal discourse, power politics, Rajapaksa regime, reconciliation, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, vengeance, violence of language, world affairs, zealotry
Chris Kenny, in The Weekend Australian, 21 June 2014, where the title is “The diabolical struggle all modern nations face at home and abroad” … with the editorial alteration highlighting the self-serving certitude that the “international community” resides within the Atlantic States of the north
EVERYONE has an opinion on Iraq, but no one has a solution. And in the end only the Iraqi people can own a solution, although after all the meddling the West ought to help. Yet the same rationale that drove the Iraq war from 2003 (and less obliquely the Afghanistan war from 2001) provides the West’s self-interest in finding a settlement now — that mortal danger can be exported abroad from a failed or terrorist state. This is part of the reason the scheduled exit of international troops from Afghanistan is such a worry, why Syria is so troubling, and why we should focus more intently on Somalia, Sudan, Nigeria and a host of other countries where extremists are determined to thwart progress.
If we were without heart or empathy, we might be able to ignore the slaughter of innocents in these countries. But, as 9/11 and a series of other attacks have taught us, from Bali to Boston, Madrid to Moscow and Lagos to London, the extremists will hurt us and our interests so long as they have a base from which to operate. Continue reading
Filed under accountability, Afghanistan, american imperialism, arab regimes, British imperialism, centre-periphery relations, fundamentalism, governance, jihad, military strategy, nationalism, politIcal discourse, power politics, terrorism, the imaginary and the real, truth as casualty of war, world events & processes, zealotry
Greg Sheridan, in The Weekend Australian, 21 June 2012, where the title is “Danger lies in tribal loyalties”
SO President Barack Obama will send 300 US military advisers into Iraq after all. Is this the start of something bigger, as military advisers so often are? Probably not, given Obama’s determination to get out of Iraq and his promise that there will be no US troops involved fighting on the ground. Is it then a shrewd way of maintaining US influence in Iraq and bolstering the feeble Iraqi army? Or is it a lowest common denominator political compromise, seeking to get the symbolism of US power to do the work that the substance of US power once did? Continue reading
thuppahi
