Monday, April 14, 2008
Iran's exploding mosque: The jokes write themselves
So, a mosque explodes in Iran with tragic loss of life and limb, and the government -- while not ruling out terrorism -- says that it might have been an accident.
The death toll from a powerful explosion at a mosque in the southern Iranian city of Shiraz on Saturday evening rose to 12, the state news media reported Sunday. The number of those wounded had reached 202. A terrorist attack has not been ruled out, but officials said the blast could have been an accident.
Officials said Sunday that ammunition kept at the Shohada mosque for the past five years for an exhibition commemorating the 1980-88 war with Iraq could have caused the explosion.
Seriously? The demands for verisimilitude were such that the exhibition's curators needed live ammunition?
If all that you know about the Muslim world comes from newspapers, then you might conclude that mosques are incredibly dangerous places. Al Qaeda blows them up, guerrillas flee there to hide from the United States Marines, and they are occasionally used to store 20 year-old live ammunition. Before you go to a mosque in that part of the world you really need to do some due diligence.
7 Comments:
By 
, at
Mon Apr 14, 08:42:00 AM:
Substituting "The U.S." for "Iran", "Fox News" for "IRNA" and "church" for "mosque", we'd be left with the biggest story in years.
Geraldo would be absolutely living next door to this church for a month in full investigation mode, and Greta would be interviewing everyone from the construction crew who built the place to the janitor's sister in law.
This is a huge story, but just as soon as the cognoscenti of the news business find a way to ignore it it will go away as if it never happened. Nevertheless, the implicit contrast between religion, general life and what constitutes news in a free democracy and in a totalitarian theocracy has been made in the most emphatic way possible.
By 
antithaca, at
Mon Apr 14, 10:07:00 AM:
just another example of why an invasion of iran will never, ever happen.
suppose every mosque were full of enough ammo to blow it up? why would that be? to celebrate every year? really? or, "just in case"? you know, they needed it?
but more to the point, I agree this is a big story, in Iran. if anyone ever finds our the truth about what happened.
By Yishai, at
Mon Apr 14, 10:37:00 AM:
Don't forget that according to the well-touted Geneva Convention, it is a war crime to store ammunition in a mosque.
By , at
Mon Apr 14, 11:25:00 AM:
Hah! It's also a war-crime to enlist legions of young teenagers whose sole military purpose is to run at the enemy and expend his ordinance. Also, launching missile attacks at population centers. Torturing prisoners. Summary executions. The list goes on.
But I don't expect to see any international lawyers lined up to charge any Iranians, do you? I imagine they're all much too busy wringing their hands about the US and Israel.
But if they keep this kind of stuff up long enough, maybe they'll be graced by a visit from Pelosi.
By Ray, at
Mon Apr 14, 01:45:00 PM:
I suppose it's possible it's an accident. One shudders at the level of stupidity, governmental and otherwise, that would allow a bunch of explosives to sit in a mosque. And be blown up.
If this was closer to the border with Afghanistan, I'd suspect drug smugglers/Talibs had used the mosque as a munitions storage depot for their war with the Iranian border police/Americans. But Shiraz is in central Iran ...
By CW, at
Mon Apr 14, 03:11:00 PM:
The Israelis call similar occurences "work accidents." However, as this happened in a mosque, perhaps this is a "prayer accident."
CW
By , at
Wed Apr 16, 09:57:00 AM:
The difference between a church fire and a mosque fire?
The secondary explosions.
