Wednesday, July 01, 2015

Just following the Saudi lead

Isis militants behead two Syrian women for witchcraft | World news | The Guardian: Islamic State militants have beheaded two women in a province in eastern Syria after accusing them of witchcraft, the first time such an execution has been carried out under the rule of the self-proclaimed caliphate, activists said.
This is terrible, of course.  But I would have thought it could have been mentioned in the article that Saudi Arabia still executes people (including women) for witchcraft and sorcery too.

To go a bit science fiction-y for a moment, this horrible playing out of a centuries long religious war between the two arms of Islam is something that 20th century science fiction writers  might have resolved by using advanced technology to send a peace message that people would perceive as supernatural.  (I dunno - giant holograms in the sky, or something like that.)  I would presume that there is a team in PsyOps in the US who has been thinking about this; certainly they have a target audience primed to believe in the supernatural.   I wish they would try something:  it could hardly hurt.

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