News & Comment
Was Osama bin Laden an anti-smoker?
Thursday 5th May 2011, posted by forest
"Osama bin Laden's hatred of western decadence is well-documented," says the Daily Telegraph, "but according to villagers close to where he was shot dead earlier this week, it seems he included smoking as one of its vices."
Shopkeepers where two of his close lieutenants did the bin Laden family shopping said they regularly bought one or two single cigarettes and smoked them immediately because they could not smoke them in their compound.The apparent ban on smoking is in line with a Taliban ruling that while taking snuff is permissible, smoking tobacco is "haram" or forbidden by Islam.
Grocer Mohammad Usman, 18, said the two brothers would often buy single cigarettes and smoke them outside his shop on the dusty road."They preferred not to take the cigarettes back to the compound, they finished them here and did not take the pack home," he said.
Source: Daily Telegraph (5 May 2011)
Comments:
Posted on May 5th, 2011
"Their list of what is illegal grows daily: music, movies and
television, picnics, wedding parties, New Year celebrations, any kind of
mixedÄsex gathering. They've also banned children's toys, including dolls
and kites; card and board games; cameras; photographs and paintings of
people and animals; pet parakeets; cigarettes and alcohol; magazines and
newspapers, and most books. They've even forbidden applause, a
moot point, since there's nothing left to applaud.
Under the regime, cigarette smoking is severely punished, yet in every
Taliban office I entered in Kabul, even that of the head of the department
of Virtue and Vice, Mullah QalamÄadÄDin, from whom most of the
restrictions originate, used ashtrays were always in evidence"
(Jan Goodwin, editor of On The Issues)
Hypocritical politicians, glad we don't have them in the UK/EU. :)
Posted on May 5th, 2011
Posted on May 9th, 2011
Correction.
Should read:
"according to villagers close to where THE CIA CLAIMS he was shot dead earlier this week."
Uncritically repeating a palpable absurdity in this fashion is tantamount to endorsing a lie ("Secondhand Smoke Kills!").
My decision two years ago not to buy or read any more 'newspapers' was clearly one of my better ones, it seems. And probably accounts for my being infinitely better- informed these days.
Posted on May 23rd, 2011
Posted on May 30th, 2011
