nuking it & paving it

so i was reading my email this morning and i came upon a link to an article entitled "marines learn how to fight for allah [sic]" from the times of london, wherein a US marine was interviewed about his experiences in iraq. here's how the article opened:

American marines and military intelligence analysts are studying the tactics of insurgents in Iraq — staging mock hostage takings, roadside bombings and suicide missions, as well as studying the Koran [sic], praying to Allah [sic] and learning to think like jihadists.

The Pentagon is struggling to adapt to an enemy that has just claimed the life of the 1,000th combat soldier in Iraq.

“The department simply has to be more agile,” Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, admitted last week. “We have got to focus more on the post-conflict phase.”

we now take a giant leap to the conclusion of the article, wherein a US marine was interviewed.

One marine had returned only six weeks ago from a seven-month posting in Iraq. He will be going back soon. “It’s what I do,” he said. Had the course taught him anything he had not learnt in the field? “It’s helped me to know how the enemy thinks and appreciate how sophisticated they are.”

If he were in charge, how would he deal with the Iraqis? “I’d kill them all,” he replied. “They don’t know what democracy is.”

There may be more to learn.

yeah, i suspect there might. especially since the times, as sophisticated as it is, continues to use the tired term "allah" when it is the term used by all arabic speakers to refer to god, whether they are jews, christians or muslims. i mean, i understand the use in the title for clarity, but couldn't they have said "learnt to pray in arabic as muslims do" instead of "pray to Allah [sic]"?

just for clarity: allâh cognate to the hebrew word found throughout the hebrew bible (i.e. christian "old testament") as elôhîm: both the arabic and the hebrew come from *ilâh, the ancient boreafrasian ('semitic') word for 'god, star' (*il) with an intensive suffix. arabic added the article al-, hence al-ilâh. in fact, in the qur'an, there is an incident involving pagans who worship a goddess simply called "the goddess", or "allat", which is the same proto-form *il with the feminine ending -at-.

in comparison, the so-called "canaanite vowel shift" changed the form *ilâh to elôh (quite regularly) with the additional intensive/respectful addition of the plural -îm. the simple hebrew form el appears as well, particularly in proper names: ishmael, israel, and all the other names ending in -el.

next time a newspaper writes about judaism, see if they say "jews pray to elohim". or even "catholics pray to deus", since the Bible forms we use are in Latin. i don't think so, darling.

and nevermind the incredibly archaic "koran" - it's qur'an, the same as we call muslims "muslims" and not "musulmen" anymore.

so for all their high-horsery, i fail to see how much progress we are seeing even in the supposedly sophisticated world of the intellectual press. i mean, this ain't a tabloid, this is the frelling times, people.

via CAIR.