Rudyard Kipling"
“When you're left wounded on Afganistan's plains and
the women come out to cut up what remains, Just roll to your rifle
and blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldier”
General Douglas MacArthur"
“We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.”
“It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.” “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.
“The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and be the deepest wounds and scars of war.”
“May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't .” “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
“Nobody ever defended, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
The Soldier stood and faced God
Which must always come to pass
He hoped his shoes were shining
Just as bright as his brass
"Step forward you Soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?"
"No, Lord, I guess I ain't
Because those of us who carry guns
Can't always be a saint."
I've had to work on Sundays
And at times my talk was tough,
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.
But, I never took a penny
That wasn't mine to keep.
Though I worked a lot of overtime
When the bills got just too steep,
The Soldier squared his shoulders and said
And I never passed a cry for help
Though at times I shook with fear,
And sometimes, God forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.
I know I don't deserve a place
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around
Except to calm their fears.
If you've a place for me here,
Lord, It needn't be so grand,
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand."
There was silence all around the throne
Where the saints had often trod
As the Soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.
"Step forward now, you Soldier,
You've borne your burden well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in Hell."
The Print : Mobs burning down Hindu-owned homes and businesses in Narail’s Sahapara is a sign. It shows what happens to polities which fail to confront communalism.
The men gently floated down the
Rupsa River from the Khulna Launch Dock, past the burning villages of
Laban Chore and Mathabhanja, carried by the tides together with the
bodies of the dead. The great river, Mohander Dhali would tell investigators,
had turned red, dyed by the blood of the victims of the savage
anti-Hindu massacre that tore through Bangladesh in 1964. “For days
afterwards,” he testified, “dead bodies were seen at every bund and
curve of the river, all through its course downwards.”
Last week, mobs burned down Hindu-owned homes
and businesses in Narail’s Sahapara, and vandalised local temples after
a teenager posted content critical of Islam on Facebook. There have
been a string of similar mob assaults in recent months, beginning from Durga Puja last autumn, when seven people were killed.
An independent watchdog, the Ain o Salish Kendra,
estimates that there have been more than 3,600 attacks on Hindus since
2013. That year, Bangladesh’s largest Islamist group, the
Jamaat-e-Islami, unleashed large-scale communal violence to protest the
conviction of its leader, Delwar Hossain Sayeedi, for war crimes he committed in the liberation campaign of 1971.
Even though Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her government have
sought to stamp out the violence, Islamists remain an entrenched part of
Bangladesh’s political landscape. The regime’s authoritarian
policies—driven, in part, by its effort to stamp out jihadism—undermined
its legitimacy, forcing unhappy compromises with competing Islamist
groups.
From its famine-ravaged, blood-soaked birth, Bangladesh has succeeded in transforming itself into one of the region’s most vibrant economies. Fundamentalism, though, remains a powerful force, threatening to undo those hard-won gains.
