I don't know where the DOD gets their Islamic information, but burial at sea is only when someone dies far from land and there is no other choice. Even then, they're put in the sea with the expectation that the body might evntually wash up on shore and be buried correctly (facing Makkah). Taking the body in a helicopter to the sea and then dumping it with weights is in no way following Islamic burial practices.
I'm also curious about the 'words' said over him, which were apparently from a chaplain and then translated into Arabic. If someone is considered a martyr, they're not washed, and there's no funeral prayer said over them. If not, there is a specified funeral prayer. Did some chaplain just make up some words?
The demonstrations in Bahrain, unlike in Tunisia, Libya or Egypt, have involved sectarian issues since the beginning. The Saudis coming in to back up the ruling family of Bahrain (which shouldn't surprise anyone) is not what 'played the sectarian card'. It's the proverbial elephant in the room that the people don't want to address, and won't talk about to outsiders. Many commentators - although I don't include Juan Cole in that list - don't have a clue about it.
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I don't know where the DOD gets their Islamic information, but burial at sea is only when someone dies far from land and there is no other choice. Even then, they're put in the sea with the expectation that the body might evntually wash up on shore and be buried correctly (facing Makkah). Taking the body in a helicopter to the sea and then dumping it with weights is in no way following Islamic burial practices.
I'm also curious about the 'words' said over him, which were apparently from a chaplain and then translated into Arabic. If someone is considered a martyr, they're not washed, and there's no funeral prayer said over them. If not, there is a specified funeral prayer. Did some chaplain just make up some words?
The American official who said that later backtracked.
Everyone's quoting this, but apparently Martin Luther King never said it.
The demonstrations in Bahrain, unlike in Tunisia, Libya or Egypt, have involved sectarian issues since the beginning. The Saudis coming in to back up the ruling family of Bahrain (which shouldn't surprise anyone) is not what 'played the sectarian card'. It's the proverbial elephant in the room that the people don't want to address, and won't talk about to outsiders. Many commentators - although I don't include Juan Cole in that list - don't have a clue about it.