Taheri Responds

He doesn’t retract the story he sourced. Money quote:

As far as my article is concerned I stand by it.
Judebadge_1 The law has been passed by the Islamic Majlis and will now be submitted to the Council of Guardians. A committee has been appointed to work out the modalities of implementation.
Many ideas are being discussed with regard to implementation, including special markers, known as zonnars, for followers of Judaism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism, the only faiths other than Islam that are recognized as such. The zonnar was in use throughout the Muslim world until the early 20th century and marked out the dhimmis, or protected religious minorities. ( In Iran it was formally abolished in 1908). I have been informed of the ideas under discussion thanks to my sources in Tehran, including three members of the Majlis who had tried to block the bill since it was first drafted in 2004.
I do not know which of these ideas or any will be eventually adopted. We will know once the committee appointed to discuss them presents its report, perhaps in September.

He claims vindication because the Tehran mullahs have not publicly stated that they reject the notion of dhimmitude, and the need to mark out religious minorities in public. I guess we’ll soon see whether he is correct or whether, as we now say, he got way ahead of the news cycle.

Thanks

I’ve now received scores of photos from across the country and planet for the "View From Your Window" project. I’ll be posting a selection throughout the week, through the days and nights. Keep ’em coming, although the volume is a little heavier than I anticipated, and I may not be able to scan and sort them all. My apologies for that. But they are eye-opening to me, at least. In the last words of M. de Cinq-Mars: "Mon Dieu! qu’est-ce monde."

Gnostics and Jesus

There’s a useful debunking of some of the historical crapulence in the Da Vinci Code over at Slate. An important point:

In Brown’s scheme, the Gnostics are also the suppressed source of the true account of Jesus’ marriage to Mary Magdalene. In reality, the Gnostics’ negativity about the body includes a dim view of procreation and the sexual activity that went with it. Usually in their writings Jesus is the ideal ascetic who models for his followers a disdain for bodily appetites. So, the marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene isn’t just antithetical to Orthodox accounts. It goes against the Gnostic grain, too ‚Äî if anything more so.

I still think that if the DVC gets more people curious about the early church, and increases awareness of the Gnostic Gospels, the good may outdo the bad. Speaking of which, I just read an excellent review of the Gospel of Judas in the New York Review of Books. The authors argue that the Gospel was inspired in part by early Christian divisions over the practice of martyrdom. Money quote:

If the twelve disciples do indeed stand for the bishops who claimed apostolic authority, what could the text mean by suggesting that they were leading the crowd astray like sacrificial animals upon an altar? It seems likely that this is a criticism of the bishops’ endorsement of martyrdom, and the consequent acceptance by early Christians of execution by the Roman authorities. The author of the Gospel of Judas apparently views martyrdom as a vain sacrifice, and blames the church leaders for leading their sheep-like congregations to the slaughter. The editors miss this aspect of the Gospel of Judas, translating the text as saying: "This is the crowd whom you are leading astray before that altar." However, the Coptic literally says "upon."

What interests me is the picture of roiling dispute and dissent in the early church. Uniformity was not the norm.

Justice and Torture

We may finally be getting somewhere. Buried in the Washington Post today is an important story that may help us hold the real culprits responsible for Abu Ghraib. For the first time, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller will testify. He has insisted that he had nothing to do with the abuse at Abu Ghraib, specifically the use of dogs, but many, many others have said otherwise. Money quote:

Cardona’s lawyers plan to call as witnesses both officers whose testimony conflicted with Miller’s statements: Col. Thomas M. Pappas and Maj. David DiNenna. They will also ask Miller about the use of dogs and the instructions he received from Defense Department policymakers.

Harvey Volzer, the lead civilian lawyer, said he expects evidence at the trial to show that Miller "strongly recommended the use of military working dogs [at Abu Ghraib] based upon their efficacious use" at Guantanamo Bay. "It is a tragic miscarriage of justice for my client to face charges for actions that were ordered and approved," Volzer said he will tell the military panel.

Warmer. The "migration" of torture from Gitmo to Iraq closely tracks Miller’s transfer from Gitmo to Abu Ghraib, a transfer ordered by Rumsfeld. More interesting, there may be records of Rumsfeld’s and Cambone’s interaction with Miller:

According to statements to investigators by officers in Iraq, Miller’s visit to Abu Ghraib caught the interest of Rumsfeld and his top intelligence adviser, Stephen A. Cambone. Before he left, it was discussed in a teleconference by Miller; Sanchez’s top intelligence adviser, Maj. Gen. Barbara G. Fast; and Cambone’s deputy, Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin.

Before departing from Iraq, Miller reported his findings to Rumsfeld via a secure video link, according to Pappas. Other secure video-teleconferences (VTCs) between Rumsfeld and senior defense officials in Iraq about interrogation matters were held in November and December 2003, the period when abuse occurred. According to a recent court filing by Cardona’s attorneys, "on 3 May 2006, [the] government sent the defense an e-mail stating that they are attempting to find these VTCs."

So far, the military has protected its key figures from real scrutiny. Maybe that’s beginning to crack. Maybe we’ll find out eventually who really ordered the abuse at Abu Ghraib, and at dozens of other facilities throughout the war on terror. Justice deferred is still justice.