war « The Accidental Theologist

Rape = Torture

Posted on May 4, 2011 by Lesley Hazleton

Just five hours before President Obama announced Sunday night that Bin Laden was dead, instantly capturing the collective mind of the world, there was something else on American television that I wish would capture the world mind just as effectively. CBS reporter Lara Logan spoke out on the news program ’60 Minutes’ about her extended [...]

Filed under: feminism, ugliness, war | Tagged: Abner Louima, Amnesty International, Darfur, Geneva Conventions, Iraq, Lara Logan, rape, Rwanda, Tahrir Square, torture, Yugoslavia | 6 Comments »

Alice Walker on What Humanity Means

Posted on April 16, 2011 by Lesley Hazleton

Pulitzer prizewinner Alice Walker (‘The Color Purple’) just gave a great talk at TEDxRamallah (God bless livestreaming). She was sharp and true from the beginning: – detained for 9 hours at the Allenby Bridge, she told the Israeli interrogator (yes, she was interrogated): “Do you understand what you’re doing? It’s wrong. Just wrong. And it’s [...]

Filed under: art, existence, Middle East, war | Tagged: Alice Walker, Israel, Palestine, TEDxRamallah | 5 Comments »

Hear No Evil…

Posted on March 25, 2011 by Lesley Hazleton

As Syrian government forces fired again today on protestors in Dara’a, Latakia, and other cities, the NYT’s Nick Kristof posted these two tweets, which are haunting me. The hashtag was #Syrianfear. I backpacked through Hama, Syria, in 1982 after the massacres there. The old city in front was just rubble, but a tourist office remained. [...]

Filed under: Middle East, war | Tagged: Dara'a, Hama, Latakia, massacre, Nick Kristof, Robert Fisk, Syria | 19 Comments »

Weep, and Smile

Posted on December 14, 2010 by Lesley Hazleton

This is from JR, the activist photographer and now film-maker, who has an amazing way of witnessing ugliness and transforming it. Take a deep breath. Then let it out: For more on the project, click here.

Filed under: art, ugliness, war | Tagged: Africa, JR, photography, rape, Women Are Heroes | 4 Comments »

The Real Muslim-Christian Fault Line

Posted on October 5, 2010 by Lesley Hazleton

Huge subject, small space: The Seattle Times asked me to review Eliza Griswold’s ‘The Tenth Parallel’ — in only 600 words. Still, am glad I said yes. The review ran Sunday, but edited further for space, so here’s the full version: “Islam versus the West” is part of the over-heated political rhetoric now sweeping the [...]

Filed under: Christianity, Islam, war | Tagged: 'The Tenth Parallel', Africa, Asia, Eliza Griswold, global war on terror, Indonesia, Malaysia, Muslim-Christian conflict, Nigeria, Philippines, Somalia, Sudan | 2 Comments »

What Obama Really Meant

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Lesley Hazleton

A friend rewrote the Obama “end-of-combat-mission-in-Iraq” email we’d both received. You probably got it too. Here’s the rewrite: From Barack Obama: Lesley – Seven years ago, the US’s Commander-in-Chief led our country into a stupid and unnecessary war. We tried to beat the shit out of the Iraqis, and the Iraqis tried to beat the [...]

Filed under: Middle East, war | Tagged: 'end of combat mission', Barack Obama, Iraq, speech | 2 Comments »

Iraq in Fragments

Posted on August 30, 2010 by Lesley Hazleton

The movie to watch tomorrow after Obama’s speech: James Longley’s documentary Iraq in Fragments, more timely than ever and yet timeless. I saw it when it first came out in 2006, but maybe I was too focused then on the ‘now-ness’ of documentaries, or I was blinded by my own imagined ‘expertise’ on Iraq as [...]

Filed under: art, Middle East, war | Tagged: 'end of combat mission', Baghdad, documentary, Iraq war, James Longley, Kurdistan, Nasariya, President Obama, Shia, Sunni | 2 Comments »

Quran Quotes for Bigots – I

Posted on August 13, 2010 by Lesley Hazleton

Tea Partyers are playing rope-a-quote with the Quran . Not that they’ve read it; they’ve just picked out ‘the good bits.’ So in honor of Ramadan, here’s the first in a series on what the Quran really says. Try this for a start: When God delivers the city into your hands, you shall smite every [...]

Filed under: Christianity, fundamentalism, Islam, Judaism, war | Tagged: Bible, opposition to mosques, peace, Quran, Ramadan, Tea Party | 4 Comments »

Bravo, WikiLeaks

Posted on July 26, 2010 by Lesley Hazleton

Give a thousand Pulitzers to WikiLeaks — one for every American death so far in Afghanistan. Their securing and release of 92,000 reports from inside the US military, spanning six years, is the largest ever of secret documents from an ongoing war. And it’s a devastating confirmation of everything we already knew was wrong with [...]

Filed under: Middle East, war | Tagged: Afghanistan, Julian Assange, Obama, Pakistan, Taliban, WikiLeaks | 1 Comment »

Accidental Theologist v. Gunship Helicopters: 1-0

Posted on July 5, 2010 by Lesley Hazleton

Oh bliss — no gunship helicopter before the July Fourth fireworks last night (see previous post). Using suitably magical thinking, I attribute this entirely to the persuasive power of accidental theology, though under pressure, I might even concede that common sense and rudimentary political awareness may have been involved in the decision to keep the [...]

Filed under: US politics, war | Tagged: fireworks, gunship helicopters, July Fourth | 2 Comments »

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