Religious Freedom Commission Concerned About Religious Rights In Pakistan And Afghanistan

The Associated Press reports the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom will raise alarms about Islamic extremism in Pakistan and rights for non-Muslims in Afghanistan in its annual report. It is also expected to renew its call for tougher measures against Saudi Arabia and China to persuade those countries to work to end religious persecution:

Pakistan is one of Washington's most crucial allies against al-Qaida and its offshoots, but it also suffers from sectarian violence between majority Sunni Muslims and Shiites that's claimed hundreds of lives, including an April 11 bombing that killed 56 people at a Sunni gathering. The country's small Christian communities have also come under attack.

The commission has recommended "particular concern" status for Pakistan since 2002, but no action has been taken by the State Department.

With Afghanistan, the commission has been highly critical of perceived shortcomings in the country's post-Taliban constitution and legal codes that do not guarantee protections for non-Muslims. The calls should be amplified this year following the arrest of the Christian convert Abdul Rahman, who faced a possible death penalty before charges were dropped and he was granted asylum in Italy.

I have supported our strategy of fighting the War Against Terror by bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East because I believe that it is the best way to stop Islamo-fascism. But when fundamental religious freedoms in the countries where we establish democratic reforms can't be guaranteed, then the knee jerk reaction is to question whether we are on the right track. We are. There is no viable alternative. No one has suggested another strategy. We must be patient ant vigilant in this struggle. We can't expect long time Islamic countries to be converted into bastions of religious tolerance and Jeffersonian democracy after dyeing thumbs blue a few times. We are in a long, very long struggle. It will take patience, determination and persistence to prevail. But, as the saying goes, failure is not an option.

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[James Fletcher Baxter]

Consider:
The missing element in every human 'solution' is
accurate definition of the creature.
The wayan we define 'human' determines our view
of self, others, relationships, institutions, life, and
future. Important? Only the Creator who made us
in His own image is qualified to define us accurately.
Choose wisely...there are results.

Many problems in human experience are the result of
false and inaccurate definitions of humankind premised
in man-made religions and humanistic philosophies.

Each individual human being possesses a unique, highly
developed, and sensitive perception of diversity. Thus
aware, man is endowed with a natural capability for enact-
ing internal mental and external physical selectivity.
Quantitative and qualitative choice-making thus lends
itself as the superior basis of an active intelligence.

Human is earth's Choicemaker. His title describes
his definitive and typifying characteristic. Recall
that his other features are but vehicles of experi-
ence intent on the development of perceptive
awareness and the following acts of decision and
choice. Note that the products of man cannot define
him for they are the fruit of the discerning choice-
making process and include the cognition of self,
the utility of experience, the development of value-
measuring systems and language, and the accultur-
ation of civilization.

The arts and the sciences of man, as with his habits,
customs, and traditions, are the creative harvest of
his perceptive and selective powers. Creativity, the
creative process, is a choice-making process. His
articles, constructs, and commodities, however
marvelous to behold, deserve neither awe nor idol-
atry, for man, not his contrivance, is earth's own
highest expression of the creative process.

Human is earth's Choicemaker. The sublime and
significant act of choosing is, itself, the Archimedean
fulcrum upon which man levers and redirects the
forces of cause and effect to an elected level of qual-
ity and diversity. Further, it orients him toward a
natural environmental opportunity, freedom, and
bestows earth's title, The Choicemaker, on his
singular and plural brow.

Human is earth's Choicemaker. Psalm 25:12 He is by
nature and nature's God a creature of Choice - and of
Criteria. Psalm 119:30,173 His unique and definitive
characteristic is, and of Right ought to be, the natural
foundation of his environments, institutions, and re-
spectful relations to his fellow-man. Thus, he is orien-
ted to a Freedom whose roots are in the Order of the
universe.

Let us proclaim it. Behold!
The Season of Generation-Choicemaker Joel 3:14 KJV

- from The HUMAN PARADIGM