TONY JONES, LATELINE PRESENTER: Well, Robert Fisk is Middle East correspondent for 'The Independent' newspaper and more than 30 years of reporting from the region makes him one of the most acute observers of the Arab world. To discuss the implications of the al-Zarqawi video, he joins us now from Beirut. Thanks for being there, Robert Fisk. Do you have any doubt at all that these really are images of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi?
ROBERT FISK, MOONBAT, AUTHOR AND IDJIT JOURNALIST: They do look like Zarqawi. I think it's pretty clear that he is alive, which I doubted for some time and that he, indeed, made this videotape. It clearly is a blow to the United States in the sense that they have several times claimed that they've killed him, which they obviously haven't done, and the tape is obviously new. But I think it is part of the bestialisation, if you like, of those people we want to hate, in the sense that I think individuals like Zarqawi or bin Laden don't actually matter.
Sure they do. History is driven by individuals: sometimes individuals of outstanding character (George Washington, Madame Curie, Winston Churchill), and sometimes by madmen (Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Napoleon). History is capricious, twists and turns, and bagging an individual like Zarqawi or bin Laden matters a great deal.
It's a bit like, you know, after you make a nuclear bomb, you go around arresting all the nuclear scientists and putting them in prison. It doesn't do any good.
I dunno, can we try it in Pak-land and see?
The nuclear bomb exists. Al-Qaeda exists. The organisation which bin Laden has created exists. So, the individuals per se don't actually matter anymore, but that's something which I think the Americans don't yet grasp.
See above: bagging bin Laden or Zarqawi wouldn't kill off al-Qaeda, but it would demoralize them, hurt them, and make a few of their spawn think seriously about careers as auto mechanics. That would be good.
TONY JONES: The last time we spoke, you did indeed think it very possible that he'd actually been killed and no-one knew where he was. So that's not so surprising.
ROBERT FISK: Yeah.
TONY JONES: You also thought he was a creature invented to fill the narrative gaps. In other words, a creature created, in a sense, by American propaganda. He's much more than that; isn't that evident from this video?
ROBERT FISK: Yeah. It is pretty clear. He does exist.
See, Fiskie is indeed capable of receiving cognitive stimuli!
He is still alive and that was him on the video. I don't think there's any doubt about that. I watched it several times over and am clearly of the mind that this is the man. What we do need to know, of course, is whether he has actually any real status over and above being a name al-Zarqawi. In other words, does he actually have any real status as a militant, as a resistant, as a rebel, whatever you like to use the word, terrorist, other than just being a person who is to be hated and to be bestialised in front of the television screens.
Is he really the man who beheads innocents? Is he really the man who squashes baby ducks?
The issue really is, I think, is this a person who is seriously an enemy of the "West" or is this just another person who is popping up on our screens to say this is the latest mad lunatic, the latest fanatic, the latest terrorist whom we have to be concerned about?
Robert thinks there's a difference between an enemy of the West and the latest mad terrorist. I don't see it, but I'm not as refined as him.
That is the real issue, you see. Over and over again we've had this system where whereby we've had Ayatollah Khomeini and Gaddafi in Libya. We've had these extraordinary figures in the Middle East, like Nasser, for example, in Egypt in 1956 and people whom we are encouraged to loathe, encouraged to hate and who, ultimately, are just figureheads, who in the end are people who we just are encouraged to loathe, encouraged to hate.
We never loathed Nasser, we just figured he was another chuckleheaded thug who made his bed with the Sovs. It's not like he did a lot in the end. Gaddafi is a legend in his own mind, it says so in his little Green Book. You could look it up. The problem with Fiskie is that he doesn't understand that people pop up. It's like in a new football league: the first quarterback to throw three touchdown passes in a game will become a star, even if we never heard of him before. Create any system and someone rises up in it. History, again, is individual, and the individuals who rise up matter, whether they're evil like Khomeini or an overgrown class clown like Qaddafi.
People who, at the end of the day, are not per se people who we need to worry about, people who, indeed --
TONY JONES: Robert Fisk, can I interrupt you there?
ROBERT FISK: Yeah, yeah.
TONY JONES: I'm surprised to hear you say some of these things because isn't it he himself who put these images on the Internet, including make a beast of himself by earlier putting on the Internet images of him with a mask on beheading Nicholas Berg, for example?
ROBERT FISK: Well, no. I mean, we don't know that that was Zarqawi. If indeed it was, then he is obviously the monstrous figure we make him out to be.
There's an admission for Fiskie, that someone other than an American President could be a 'monstrous figure'. Thanks for noting the possibility.
At that time you'll remember the Americans said they believed the voice was that of Zarqawi, but we didn't have any evidence of the voice on the tape. You know, the issue is, are we in fact creating these creatures for ourselves to hate or are they creating themselves?
Fiskie is making this a tad more complicated than it needs to be. The Middle East is a world in which murderous thugs can rise to positions of power. In fact it's hard to be in power there if you aren't a murderous thug. We didn't 'create' Zarqawi, he grew up in a culture where he could grab the brass ring of death, violence and mayhem and become famous doing so.
In other words, are we being promoted by these people? Are these people being put before us as caricatures, if you like, to hate or are they people who are there to be hated by us in order to make the, you know, them and us, evil/good caricatures, which George W. Bush has laid out before us?
Again, this isn't hard: the personas of good and evil, as exemplified respectively by Dubya and Zaraqawi, aren't caricatures. One of these men is good (however flawed you wish to think of him) and one is demonstrably evil. One doesn't necessarily have to hate a caricature of evil, though the progressive left seems to find this easy to do these days (go type 'Cheney' over at Daily Kos for a slobbering demonstration). One can and should hate evil itself and the people who demonstrate themselves to be evil. In fact, that's one of the requirements of being good, as I was taught long ago in Sunday school.
TONY JONES: But I mean -
ROBERT FISK: The real problem you know is - well, hold on a second, hold on a second, hold on a second. The issue is whether we accept the issue of them and us - hatred and good, good and evil. Is this actually what the world is about or is it about something different? Is it about injustice and justice and cruelty and goodness in the Middle East, for example?
This is actually what the world is about, and the Middle East is just one place where you can find it laid out for you in starkly clear terms.
TONY JONES: Well, here's the problem. I mean, Osama bin Laden is clearly a man who -
ROBERT FISK: Yes, it is a problem for you, isn't it?
TONY JONES: It certainly is a problem for me. Osama bin Laden is a problem for me and, I imagine, the rest of the world.
ROBERT FISK: And for me, too, by the way. Yes, he's a problem for all of us.
Reeeeeaally? For you too Bob? That's mighty white of you to admit it.
TONY JONES: Musab al-Zarqawi seems to be in the same category. In fact, he's been adopted by Osama bin Laden in a famous communiqué he released on Al-Jazeera at the end of 2004. So they are at least connecting up with each other. They see in themselves kindred spirits, you know, one terrorist to another. I mean, shouldn't we be concerned about the fact that this man may well have blown up the UN building in 2003 and sent a truckload of bombs into a mosque in Baghdad? These figures are creating themselves. We're not creating them.
One gets the sense that perhaps Tony Jones has a clue; whether he did before 9/11 I don't know, but there are plenty who didn't then and do today. Welcome aboard.
ROBERT FISK: No, that's absolutely correct and they want to create themselves and we help them create themselves. We help them do that. We help them do that. Every time we hold a press conference of the occupation powers, for example, in Iraq and say, "Mr Al-Zarqawi is to blame" , we help to do this. This is what we are doing and this is a big problem because we are helping to create the creatures of "evil".
We didn't create Zarqawi as a creature of evil. He went and did evil things, like beheading innocent hostages and bombing innocent civilians. We didn't help him create an image of himself as the evil baddest boy of the region, he did that all on his own.
TONY JONES: Robert Fisk, you wouldn't like us to ignore them, would you? We're journalists, we have to acknowledge their existence and dreadful things they have done. We can't just ignore the fact that they exist?
ROBERT FISK: No. Absolutely not. You're right.
So then, what's your point?
TONY JONES: So, what do you conclude from that and in fact what do you conclude from whether this man has any influence within the insurgency?
ROBERT FISK: Look, look, look, look. Here 's what I conclude. I think these people are bad guys. OK, they are. There's no doubt about it. They are bad guys.
And now that Robert Fisk says so, we can book it.
But I also think that they register in the Arab world, in the Muslim world, they register a line that says, in effect, there is injustice in the Muslim world and I am speaking about that injustice and as long as we, the West, go along with that injustice, so these people will have a claim on the ideas and the minds of the people who listen to them.
Then again, it may be that in their minds, it isn't about injustice as we in the West define it, as in a lack of freedom or material goods. In their minds, injustice may be defined in terms of their religion: it's that old Dar-al-Harb problem, where the 'injustice' is that infidels consume oxygen, and indeed, manage to be successful in life.
In other words, we, as Westerners, give them some credibility by not being fair in the Middle East and that is the problem.
In other words, it doesn't matter what we do in the Middle East, we'll be 'unfair' by refusing to submit to Allan.
We're not fair, we are not just in the Middle East and as long as we're not going to be just, as long as we're not going to be fair, so unfortunately will these people have a say and a mind in the Middle Eastern people.
These people will have a say and a mind in the Middle East, and the rest of the Islamic world, until Islam redefines itself away from demanding mastery of the world and all the people therein. There's another solution but it's far more bloody-minded.
TONY JONES: OK, Robert Fisk. We thank you very much for taking the time to come in and talk to us again tonight.
#1
I think individuals like Zarqawi or bin Laden don't actually matter.
Cos thats what Marx said.
Otherwise, when I read this I thought Fisk has become throroughly Arabicised, by immersing himself in the Arab blame the 'other' thinking, where everything is somebody elses fault and can always be proved to be someone elses fault through enough convoluted 'logic' and sufficiently deep conspiracies.
#2
ASIANEWS has an article describing the general steady, negative decline of Arab and Muslim nations, Arabism and Islamism, such that [like the Commies-Secular SOcialists], the only choices Arabists and Muslims have is either to continue unto self-oblivion or else wage regional-global wars for conquest. Radical Muslims are God/Faith-based Lefties-Anarchists-Bolsheviks-Maxists-COmmunists, etc. As good Lefties and God/Faith-based Socialists, "the Few" soeak for the Many/Masses. As here in America, everyone is innocent or everyone is guilty, no in-betweens, which is why one or a few Lefties speaks or decides for 300+ Milyuhn, and why eight years of Clintonian anti-Republicanism/Rightism Republicanism-Rightism absolutely and undeniably verified and justified Leftism-Socialism includ Communism-Totalitarianism once, before, and forever, ergo America was attacked on 9-11 in a WOT = also WAR TO SAVE, PROMOTE, and ENTRENCH SOCIALISM-COMMUNISM ON AMERICA + WEST + ALL THE WORLD. For the PC Radical Islamist, to be PC means to be anti-American in the defense of Ilsam, for US-Internat Secular Lefties, it means being so-called "ANTI-FASCISTS", i.e. anti-Rightist Socialists SOCIALISTS, i.e. Commies-Leftist Totalitarianists.
#3
Its always ironic when an erudite wordsmith like the Chomskyite Fisk critiques the vehicles of perception. They never shy away from advancing a theory difficult to disprove yet when asked for corroboration they practice the same deceptive double-talk they profess to loath.
Recently when asked to elaborate on his inference that external forces, presumably the West, actually desire the sectarian conflict in Iraq to devolve into full-blown civil war Fisk replied;
"You know, if I could give you the answer to that story, it would be on the front page of my newspaper tomorrow morning, and I don't know the answer. And its very difficult to say, Look, I dont think its this. I think its something else without telling you what the other is."
The public attack on Rumsfeld by retired officers flies in the face of this tradition. Should active-duty and retired officers of the Army and Navy in 1941 publicly have debated the lend-lease program, the occupation of Iceland, or the Europe-first strategy? Should generals in 1861 have discussed in public their opinions of Lincoln's plan to re-provision Fort Sumter, aired their views regarding the right of the South to secede from the Union, or argued the pros and cons of issuing the Emancipation Proclamation?
Many of Rumsfeld's critics have invoked the very important book by H. R. McMaster, Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam, the subject of which is how the Joint Chiefs failed to challenge Defense Secretary Robert McNamara adequately during the Vietnam War. Many serving officers believe the book effectively makes the case that the Joint Chiefs of Staff should have more openly voiced their opposition to the Johnson administration's strategy of gradualism, and then resigned rather than carry out the policy.
But as Richard Kohn an expert on U.S. civil-military relations and McMaster's academic adviser for the dissertation that became Dereliction of Duty has observed, the book "neither says nor implies that the chiefs should have obstructed U.S. policy in Vietnam in any other way than by presenting their views frankly and forcefully to their civilian superiors, and speaking honestly to Congress when asked for their views. It neither states nor suggests that the chiefs should have opposed President Lyndon Johnson's orders and policies by leaks, public statements, or by resignation, unless an officer personally and professionally could not stand, morally and ethically, to carry out the chosen policy."
The misreading of Dereliction of Duty reinforces the increasingly widespread belief among officers that they should be advocates of particular policies rather than simply serving in their traditional advisory role. Kohn writes that a survey of officer and civilian attitudes and opinions undertaken by the Triangle Institute for Security Studies in 1998-99 discovered that "many officers believe that they have the duty to force their own views on civilian decision makers when the United States is contemplating committing American forces abroad." When "asked whether military leaders should be neutral, advise, advocate, or insist on having their way in the decision process" to use military force, 50 percent or more of the up-and-coming active-duty officers answered "insist," on the following issues: "setting rules of engagement, ensuring that clear political and military goals exist, developing an 'exit strategy,'" and "deciding what kinds of military units will be used to accomplish all tasks." In the context of the questionnaire, "insist" definitely implied that officers should try to compel acceptance of the military's recommendations.
There is, as well, a practical political problem resulting from such actions on the part of retired officers: a loss of confidence and trust in the military institution by the American people. Although Americans hold today's military in high regard, this will change if they come to view the military as just another special-interest group vying for more resources as it seeks to restrict how the civilian authorities use it, or if retired soldiers are perceived to be no different than the sort of political appointee who just left the administration and is now peddling a "tell all" book intended to settle scores with his adversaries.
The view of the soldier, no matter how experienced in military affairs he may be, is still restricted to the conduct of operations and military strategy. Civilian control of the military means at a minimum that it is the role of the statesman to take the broader view, deciding when political considerations take precedence over even the most pressing military matters. The soldier is a fighter and an adviser, not a policymaker.
Had immigration laws been so picky when my ancestors came over here (aside from the involuntary ones and ones that were already here), I'd not be here as I am today.
We need to control the borders first.
Then we need to make an open and fair way for ANYONE that wants work and become a citizen to do so legally.
Note that this excludes the "guest workers" who jsut want to send money back to Mexico and go back there, cultural seperatists like La Raza, reconquista types like the Aztlan morons, and Al Qaeuda.
This would include a didication to becoming culturally American - i.e. speaking English, repecting individuality and constitutional rights, and staying out of trouble with the law, and staying gainfully employed during the process.
And I beleive this would require reporting in monthly to Immigration (showing a paycheck stub and rent reciept) as part of their RESPONSIBILITY in exchange for the PRIVELEGE of becoming a citizen.
As for the illegals already here - they'd have a choice: Apply for the program to become a citizen and start playing by the rules or face deportation when caught. And anyone employing them shoudl be fined and have jail time if they are repeat offenders - and make the law so that it the contracting compnay, not the subs, on who the burden falls.
As for immigrants now pending that have played by the rules, accelerate thier applications, as long as security is not compromised.
#2
Then we need to make an open and fair way for ANYONE that wants work and become a citizen to do so legally.
I wouldn't go that far. We need to decide how many of what people we want to come into the country. The current system is a mess and I certainly don't think we want to open our doors to anyone who wants to become a citizen, even if they will jump through all the hoops, because we couldn't assimilate them all at once.
How many people can we absorb and assimilate without having them overwhelm our culture? What education should they have? What service should they perform? What financial resources should they bring? How important should family ties be?
I am not suggesting that I have a "right" anwers to these questions, but I am suggesting that they are the types of questions we should be prepared to debate and decide, because if we open the gates broadly to all comers, we'll be overwhelmed. And if we set up policies without addressing them, they will still be answered, only we will have no control over the answers.
Osama Bin Laden's ratings are falling. His latest pronouncement was a yawn. His scripts could use a rewrite. "Infidels" this, "crusaders" that. Blah, blah, blah. We've heard it all before.
However, one new wrinkle in Bin Laden's diatribe deserves more attention, as it illuminates the nature of the West's struggle against radical Islam. "I call on the mujahedin and their supporters in Sudan and the Arabian Peninsula to prepare all that is necessary to wage a long-term war against the crusaders in western Sudan," Bin Laden declared. The crusaders in question are United Nations peacekeepers, who aren't even in Sudan yet but who are going to stop genocide there we hope. Bin Laden suspects a Western plot to install U.S. bases and destroy Islam in Sudan, and he wants to fend off the U.N., which he calls an "infidel body" and "a tool of crusader-Zionist resolutions." If he thinks the U.N. is a tool of the Zionists, clearly, he needs to get out of his cave more.
Nonetheless, Bin Laden's call to open a new front in Sudan highlights some underappreciated aspects of the jihadist mission. First, most people being slaughtered by Sudan's Arab-controlled government are Muslims. Bin Laden wants his holy warriors to fight for a Sudanese right to exterminate indigenous Muslim tribes. In this, Bin Ladenism represents a perverse form of globalization.
In the West, we tend to talk about globalization as if it's a euphemism for Americanization. But there are many competing forms of globalization. Even anti-globalization activists favor the "right" kind of globalization, one driven by the U.N. and "progressives" instead of corporations and markets.
Radical Islam is globalization for losers. It appeals to those left out of modernization, industrialization and prosperity, particularly to young men desperate for order, meaning and pride amid the chaos of globalization. Radical Islam provides it, but at a terrible price.
The Wall Street Journal recently reported the sad tale of the demise of Mak Yong, an ancient form of dance and theater in Southeast Asia drawn from pre-Islamic faiths, including Hinduism. But such traditional cultural influences are now considered "un-Islamic."
"Many Southeast Asian Muslims now navigate by guideposts from the Arab world," the Journal reported. "Young men in Indonesia are starting to wear turbans and grow beards. In Malaysia, Malays have adopted the Arab word for prayer, salat, to replace the Malay word, sembahyang, which literally means 'offer homage to the primal ancestor.' "
This is merely an extension of trends that have already transformed the Middle East. As Fareed Zakaria writes in "The Future of Freedom," until the 1970s most Middle Easterners "practiced a kind of village Islam that adapted itself to local cultures and to normal human desires. Pluralistic and tolerant, these villages often worshipped saints, went to shrines, sang religious hymns and cherished art all technically disallowed in Islam." This indigenous form of Islam was bulldozed by urbanization and radicalization. The Iranian Revolution was a harbinger of the transformation toward a more "universal" Islam that was also more doctrinaire; "Islam of the high church as opposed to Islam of the street fair," Zakaria writes.
Reihan Salam, a coauthor of one of the smartest blogs going right now theamericanscene.com is an American of Bengali descent who argues that the death of Mak Yong represents "globalization at its worst." He rightly notes that if the choice is between the globalization of "crass Arabization" and the globalization of "crass Westernization," then it's no choice at all.
Although Western-style globalization may force certain technological and economic changes on indigenous cultures, it also provides those cultures with the tools and flexibility to keep much of their culture. The hard Islam coming out of Riyadh and Tehran offers no such freedom. Recall that Afghanistan was a Muslim country for centuries, but it wasn't until the jihadi thugs of the Taliban took over that the historic Bamiyan Buddhas were deemed an offense to Islam and destroyed.
Bin Laden's call to kill U.N. peacekeepers is consistent with the Islamist desire to impose a harsh, "one true Islam" across the Muslim world (and, someday, they hope, the non-Muslim world too.)
Too many intellectuals and commentators take the ignorant and condescending view that because jihadism is exotic, it is also "authentic." On the right, this often translates into the view that all strains of Islam are alike and equally dangerous. And on the left, we get the usual knee-jerk defense of any seemingly "indigenous" foreign movement that casts America as a global villain. The reality is that in the war on terrorism, America is on the side of freedom and diversity. Bin Laden & Co. are the real crusaders.
#1
Odd, isn't it, how easily the various forms of "village" Islam are abandoned in favor of the Wahabbist version. Almost like one is based on the Koran and the other isn't.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
04/27/2006 12:18 Comments ||
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#2
RC: Like killer bees taking over the old swarms.
by David Beamer (father of Todd Beamer)Wall Street journalEFL
Paul Greengrass and Universal set out to tell the story of United Flight 93 on that terrible day in our nation's history. They set about the task of telling this story with a genuine intent to get it right--the actions of those on board and honor their memory. Their extensive research included reaching out to all the families who had lost loved ones on United Flight 93 as the first casualties of this war. And Paul and his team got it right.
There are those who question the timing of this project and the painful memories it evokes. Clearly, the film portrays the reality of the attack on our homeland and its terrible consequences. Often we attend movies to escape reality and fantasize a bit. In this case and at this time, it is appropriate to get a dose of reality about this war and the real enemy we face. It is not too soon for this story to be told, seen and heard. But it is too soon for us to become complacent. It is too soon for us to think of this war in only national terms. We need to be mindful that this enemy, who made those holes in our landscape and caused the deaths of some 3,000 of our fellow free people, has a vision to personally kill or convert each and every one of us. This film reminds us that this war is personal. This enemy is on a fanatical mission to take away our lives and liberty--the liberty that has been secured for us by those whose names are on those walls in Battery Park and so many other walls and stones throughout this nation. This enemy seeks to take away the free will that our Creator has endowed in us. Patrick Henry got it right some 231 years ago. Living without liberty is not living at all.
The passengers and crew of United 93 had the blessed opportunity to understand the nature of the attack and to launch a counterattack against the enemy. This was our first successful counterattack in our homeland in this new global war--World War III.
This film further reminds us of the nature of the enemy we face. An enemy who will stop at nothing to achieve world domination and force a life devoid of freedom upon all. Their methods are inhumane and their targets are the innocent and unsuspecting. We call this conflict the "War on Terror." This film is a wake-up call. And although we abhor terrorism as a tactic, we are at war with a real enemy and it is personal.
. . .
I encourage my fellow Americans and free people everywhere to see "United 93."
Be reminded of our very real enemy. Be inspired by a true story of heroic actions taken by ordinary people with victorious consequences. Be thankful for each precious day of life with a loved one and make the most of it. Resolve to take the right action in the situations of life, whatever they may be. Resolve to give thanks and support to those men, women, leaders and commanders who to this day (1,687 days since Sept. 11, 2001) continue the counterattacks on our enemy and in so doing keep us safe and our freedoms intact.
Posted by: Mike ||
04/27/2006 06:42 ||
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#2
We need to be mindful that this enemy, who made those holes in our landscape and caused the deaths of some 3,000 of our fellow free people, has a vision to personally kill or convert each and every one of us.
By Sidney D. Drell
Sidney D. Drell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and professor emeritus of theoretical physics at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford University. This article is adapted from The Gravest Danger: Nuclear Weapons, coauthored with James E. Goodby (Hoover Institution Press).
It starts out good and gets better:
A Cold War success
During the darkest days of the Cold War, we were successful in limiting the spread of nuclear weapons to no more than a handful of nations. A norm of nonpossession of these weapons was established, as was a norm of their nonuse in military combat that has extended over 60 turbulent years. This record belies a view frequently expressed by those who disparage the value of international cooperation and arms-control treaties and who consider continuing negotiating efforts against nuclear proliferation to be futile.
Today only eight nations are confirmed nuclear-weapon states: the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, China, France, India, Pakistan, and Israel, a nondeclared nuclear-weapon state (see Figure 1). The evidence is unclear in the case of North Korea, though its government has the fuel for nuclear bombs and wishes the world to worry that it has them. Iran has been aggressively building a nuclear infrastructure. This number of eight nuclear weapons states is much smaller than was anticipated in the early 1960s; President Kennedy predicted 16 by the end of that decade. And the number hasnt grown over the past two decades.
This is all the more impressive when one recalls the many nations that flirted with the idea of going nuclear and those that, in fact, started down the path to nuclear weapons and turned back. These include Argentina, Brazil, Taiwan, South Korea, and Sweden; and South Africa, Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan, which gave them up. But we are reminded daily by events in North Korea, Iran, and Pakistan with its precarious arsenal and the extensive nuclear-supplier network created by Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan that the nuclear-restraint regime is facing tough challenges.
According to The World Encyclopaedia, cultural genocide is a term used to describe the deliberate destruction of the cultural heritage of a people or nation for political or military reasons. Since its inception twenty-six years ago, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been in constant war with the Iranian people as well as the Iranian heritage.
Over its life span, the Islamic Republic zealots have tried many times to cleanse the pre-Islamic Persian heritage in the name of Islam. First, they declared war against the Persian New Year or Nowruz, and then, they attacked other Persian traditions and customs. At the beginning of the revolution, the Islamic zealots rushed to the site of the Persepolis, the magnificent palace of the Achaemenid kings, to demolish it. Fortunately, the total bulldozing of the relics of the Palace was averted by Iranian patriots who wished to preserve their heritage. Who literally stood in front of the bulldozers and did not allow the destruction of this heritage of humanity.
Recently, the Islamic Republic of Iran has renewed its war of construction and destruction with Persian antiquities. Its intention is to build up an Islamic empire and to change the whole face of Iran into a backward Islamic nation. The Islamic Republic sees Persian heritage as a formidable enemy of its conquest of turning Iran into a pure form of an Islamic nation. Hence, they have waged a war on Persian antiquities in the hope of suppressing Persian pride and nationalism.
In their latest attempt in the war of destruction, the Islamic Republic has been insidiously planning to obliterate some of the most cherished places in Persian history. They intend to eradicate the Pasargad, the Bolaghi gorge and the Persepolis.
In Pasargad lays the tomb of Cyrus the Great, the King of Kings and the founding father of Persia. Cyrus the Great, who has been mentioned twenty-five times in the Bible, is known for his compassion and his unprecedented tolerance. Cyruss Charter of Human Rights is known to be the first such charter written which refers to the concept of humans as having universal rights, regardless of legal jurisdiction, ethnicity, nationality or religion.
Cyrus's most notable reputation of a great leader stands high as a Persian king who freed the Jews from captivity by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. Cyrus the Great, not only allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem to rebuild their temple, but also assisted the Jews in this endeavour, something which was followed by his heirs.
Cyrus proclaimed more than 2500 years ago, "Today, I announce that everyone is free to choose a religion and free to live in all regions and take up a job provided that they never violate other's rights." Cyrus was not a conqueror, but a liberator.
It has been said that Alexander the Great set the torch to Persepolis in a drunken rage, regretting it the following day. Alexander the Great plundered Persia. He destroyed and burned Persepolis, the magnificent palace complex of the Achaemenid kings. Yet, Alexander the Great paid tribute to Cyrus the Great at his tomb. This shows how much the king of kings was respected, even in the eyes of his fierce enemies. What Alexander set on fire more than 2200 years ago, the Islamic Republic intends to submerge today.
In its war of construction and destruction, the Islamic Republic has been building "Sivand Dam" near the Persian antiquities. The construction of the Sivand Dam on the Polvar River began in 1992 without consultation with or the knowledge of the Cultural Heritage Organization officials. The dam's opening was planned in March 2005, but the Iranian energy ministry has delayed it to early 2006 to give the archaeologists more time to examine the sites.
This dam will flood the entire Tang-e Bolaghi (Bolaghi Gorge) mountain pass and the surrounding region. That would lead to some 8 kilometres of the Bolaghi Gorge being submerged and lost forever. Thus, experts of ICHCTO and the Pars-e Pasargad Research Foundation quickly undertook a project to study the area. So far they have identified more than 100 archaeological sites there,
The Islamic Republic's ulterior motive in building "Sivand Dam" so close to the archeological sites was to intentionally flood the vast archeological area of Pasargad, including the tomb of Cyrus the Great, Bolaghi Gorge, the King's path and the main historical road of Persia which was constructed by the order of Darius of the Achaemenids and the relics of the magnificent palace of Persepolis.
Although the Islamic Republics records speak dismally for itself, there are numerous reasons for this cultural genocide. Last but not least, the Islamic regime's decision to destroy Cyrus the Great's tomb is due to their inner fear of the personification of Cyrus the Great in the heart of every Persian. Since Cyrus the Great released the Jews from captivity some 2500 years ago, the Islamic Republic's intense hatred of the Jews has fuelled their mission of destruction. Also, fear of Persian nationalism is so immense that it stands in their way of creating an Islamic Utopia. These fears are justified, especially following the news on the future release of a British movie on the life of Cyrus the Great.
Today, we are up against a truly malignant force in radical Islamism that is breeding, sheltering and financing its terrorist armoury. This new enemy of humanity and world heritage is far more radical and dangerous than the Nazi Germany or the old Soviet Russia. The Islamic Republics ultimate objective is the destruction of everything in the world that is good and to leave behind a network of Islamic terror around the free world.
Let us hope that people of the earth become united against the forces of evil and evildoers of radical Islamism. Let us hope that the free world applies pressure to the Islamic Republic to prevent them from purging the Persian heritage.
#1
Today, we are up against a truly malignant force in radical Islamism that is breeding, sheltering and financing its terrorist armoury. This new enemy of humanity and world heritage is far more radical and dangerous than the Nazi Germany or the old Soviet Russia. The Islamic Republics ultimate objective is the destruction of everything in the world that is good and to leave behind a network of Islamic terror around the free world.
Couldn't have said it better myself. Especially seeing as how I've been ranting about Global Cultural Genocide for quite some time now.
#3
Thank you, a5089. If Iran has set about expunging its own cultural heritage, just like the Afghan Taleban, imagine what awaits non-Islamic cultures under sharia rule. If you have any doubts, please consider this.
The Saudi Wahabbists are so stringent in their own interpretation of idolatry that they would just as soon chisel off every single bit of ornamentation and any of the beautiful flowing script from the shrines at Mecca and Medina. They would like nothing better than for these ancient monuments to be whitewashed a stark, faceless white without the least decoration.
We are dealing with madmen whose austere and ascetic vision has so starved their sensibilities that they now view such impoverishment as the hallmark of purity. There is no arguing against such monomania, especially when it is backed by the most detestible forms of ultra-violence. The sooner we rid this world of those who would glorify such a skeletal and destitute existence, the better off we all shall be.
All of our libraries, museums and monuments would become nothing more than pyres to their own memories.
ON SEPTEMBER 18, 2001, ABC News president David Westin decided that his network would no longer air footage of the attacks on the World Trade Center only a week before. The constant repetition of the images of the planes crashing into the buildings had become "gratuitous," a spokesman said.
Almost immediately, all other networks and news channels adopted the same policy, and ever since, it is only on rare occasions that Americans have been exposed to those indelible images. . . . One gets the impression that the video footage is kept largely under wraps because of the emotions it might provoke. Someone is trying to protect us from the neurochemical cocktail of grief and rage, sorrow and anger, trauma and vengefulness that even a few minutes' conversation about 9/11 can cause.
Or, perhaps, some in
the media might feel as though the imagery is almost too politicized. Perhaps because George W. Bush invokes the attacks and their meaning so frequently, leading figures in the media believe the imagery will tend to buttress Bush's arguments, and serve as unpaid advertising for the president's policies.
Thus, while the events of 9/11 remain the most important and devastating in recent American history, they have achieved a peculiar invisibility. In New York, where I live, there are ferocious arguments about the way the rebuilding at Ground Zero has been mishandled--about the designs of the buildings and the street grid and the look, placement, and size of the memorials. Somehow, these discussions have become weirdly divorced from the reason that Ground Zero even exists. . . .
The masterful new film United 93, the first major Hollywood release about September 11, is reticent as well when it comes to the depictions of the attacks in New York. American Airlines Flight 11 is shown only as a computerized glyph on an air-traffic controller's screen. The controller knows the plane has been hijacked and is tracking it as it enters the airspace over New York. Suddenly, the glyph just vanishes from his screen.
"It's gone," the controller says. "It was there and then it's just gone." Flight 11 has just crashed into the North Tower.
Sixteen minutes elapse on screen between that moment and the one in which writer-director Paul Greengrass shows us the fate of United Airlines Flight 175, following precisely the span of time on the real September 11. Greengrass brings us into the control tower at Newark Airport, which has a direct view of South Manhattan ten miles to the East. The people working there are asked if they can see Flight 175 just as, in the distance, the jet sails without hesitation into the South Tower. The men in the control room react without reacting, expressionless, unable to process what they've just witnessed.
Greengrass's handling of these historic horrors is pitch-perfect, in part because we are so unused to seeing them close-up. By starting first with the little glyph and then moving on to the plane in the distance, he brings us back to that morning as most of us experienced it: a shocked phone call, a report on a car radio, worried whispers of a terrorist strike, a hurried move to a television, then the unimaginable news of a second plane hitting the second building, followed a few minutes later by a clear-as-day image of that seminal event.
Greengrass is presenting the events of that morning in documentary fashion, a cinematic version of what journalists call a "tick-tock"--a minute-by-minute re-creation in narrative form. Everything we see is staged, written by Greengrass and performed by actors. But among the actors are Ben Sliney, who was running the Federal Aviation Administration's operations room in Herndon, Va., on the morning of September 11, and Major James Fox, who was in charge of the Northeast Air Defense Sector at Otis Air Force Base on Cape Cod.
As the movie jumps from Boston Air Traffic Control to the FAA to Newark Airport to Herndon to Otis, Greengrass achieves a staggering level of verisimilitude. The atmosphere is thick with confusion. Nobody has the same information at the same time, planes are routinely confused and misidentified, and key personnel are on vacation.
For the central story Greengrass is trying to tell, the reticence and confusion are both essential. For United 93 is about the plane that was brought down in a Pennsylvania field because the 33 passengers on board figured out that they were being taken on a suicide mission and chose to take matters into their own hands. The scenes on board United 93 are, of course, mostly speculative. All we know about the flight comes from the phone calls made by passengers and some bits of discussion in the cockpit that were either transmitted to an air-traffic control center in Cleveland or were recorded by the plane's black box.
We see the passengers, pilots, and flight crew board the plane, eat breakfast, make chit-chat. The plane is delayed on the ground for 47 minutes before takeoff, and we watch as lead hijacker Ziad Jarrah sits alone in seat 1A in first class while his compatriots sit behind him, waiting for him to act. It is Greengrass's speculation that a panicky Jarrah froze, which delayed the hijacking long enough for the passengers to discover from cellphone and AirFone calls that the Twin Towers had been hit and that there were other hijacked planes in the sky.
Because the flight was delayed, and the hijacking itself did not take place for another half-hour, Greengrass manages the near-impossible. He makes us hope. He makes us think that, perhaps, the hijacking we know happened will not, that the panicky Jarrah and his evil crew will fail, that the attempt to take over the plane and land it safely might succeed.
And because Greengrass chose circumspection in his portrayal of the Twin Tower attacks, the sudden and shocking violence of the hijacking of United 93 hits us hard. Four people were killed in the takeover of the plane, which would have seemed like small potatoes next to the devastation in New York. But because of Greengrass's brilliance, the horror of those murders is given its full weight.
In the film's final 32 minutes, the passengers and crew become, as Greengrass has said, "the first people to live in the post-9/11 world." They gather information quickly, including word that a third plane has struck the Pentagon. The men who choose to storm the cockpit don't give speeches about their intentions. They simply decide they must do something, and they know there is a pilot among the passengers who might be able to land the plane. They don't intend to die. They intend to win.
And in world-historical terms, they do win. . . .
Because the movie reminds us of this, and because it does not seek to wring tears but wants us to have some sense of what might have happened on that plane as it was happening in real time, Greengrass has succeeded in making a movie about September 11 that is both appropriately heartbreaking and quietly triumphant. United 93 is a masterpiece of a kind; but it's hard to say what kind of masterpiece it is, because there's never been a movie like it before, and there may never be one to compare to it again.
There's a lot of talk about whether Americans are "ready" to see a movie about 9/11. Some of that talk is doubtless due to the same attitude that says Americans can't possibly stomach seeing footage of the crashes, or the buildings falling. Such infantilization is an insult both to Americans, who are perfectly capable of handling such things, and to the memories of those who perished in the attacks, whose public murders are being treated as though they had been quiet and private deaths.
There's no reason to fear United 93. It is a riveting examination of an unbearable moment. Not only can we take it, we can also rise to the challenge it presents--both to us, and to those who would treat Americans as though they were hothouse flowers incapable of feeling the "right way" about September 11. . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
04/27/2006 06:49 ||
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#1
Now if only Mel Gibson would only make the Rick Rescorla movie...
#2
I, for one, am SICK of the MSM's blacking out of the video of the WTC being hit. Looking back, I guess I remember it so vividly in my mind that I didn't NEED to see it on TV. But, to recognize the MSM pulled it just 1 week later is horrendous. Like "Have you forgotten", I think it should be shown over and over again to remind us WHY we're in this "long war." And, I don't like being treated like a child because I may not be "able to handle it." Good grief, everything else on TV is put out there, and if I don't like it, I'm told to "turn the channel." Why not this (I know we all know the answer to that question) footage as well?
Posted by: BA ||
04/27/2006 10:50 Comments ||
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#3
NS, not sure if Mel Gibson wants to make movies without subtitles anymore.
#4
BA - the MSM is not hiding it to protect *you*. But to protect their allies in this war (the terrorists).
Just like they refused (and still refuse) to call the Beslan School islamists 'terrorsts'. Instead referring to them as a 'gang' or 'hostage-takers', anything but the T-word.
Just like they refuse to call the Palistians who deliberately target and murder (in cold blood) innocent civilians (woman and children) 'terrorists' but instead call them 'militants' or 'palistinian patriots' or 'freedom fighters'.
#5
When I saw what was happening I threw an 8 hour blank tape in the VCR and let it record until it ran out, I figured that either the event was historic (Right) or likely to be "Interpreted" to death (Also right)
It's safe in a drawer, proof against historical alteration and interpretation.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/27/2006 20:31 Comments ||
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#6
I still have a poster of teh second tower being hit and a "Never Forget" banner on teh bottom on my office wall. I've refused to take it down and it'll be a cold day in hell when they can force me to. There's been complaints from some of my more "swarthy" coworkers. My answer is: it's history, don't like it? Too Fucking Bad. Never Again
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/27/2006 22:01 Comments ||
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#7
You go, Frank!
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/27/2006 23:31 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Zarqawi tape authentic, says Fisk
