The 411-2 vote by the US House of Representatives to implore the UN Security Council to charge Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with violating the 1948 Genocide Convention represents a significant milestone in the campaign to use the instruments of international law against Teheran. The legislation is nonbinding, but it clearly makes a legal determination that Ahmadinejad has engaged in "incitement to commit genocide" through his call that Israel be "wiped off the map."
The initiative to see the Iranian president indicted under the Genocide Convention began in New York on December 14, when former Canadian justice minister Irwin Cotler and Harvard Law Prof. Alan Dershowitz joined outgoing US ambassador to the UN John Bolton and an Israeli legal team at an event sponsored by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs at the New York Bar Association's offices.
Cotler's involvement was critical because, as Canada's attorney-general, he actually prosecuted Rwandan Hutus in Canada under the Genocide Convention for their involvement in broadcasting repeated calls over the radio for the massacres that led to the deaths of over 800,000 Rwandans, chiefly from the Tutsi tribe. For Cotler, who still serves in the Canadian Parliament, Ahmadinejad's rhetoric was "as direct and public, clear and compelling" case of incitement to genocide as he had ever seen. And what made the Iranian declarations chilling, he explained, was Tehran's ongoing determination to acquire nuclear weapons, at all costs.
The case against Ahmadinejad picked up steam internationally. On January 25, two British MPs, Michael Gove (Conservative) and Gisela Stuart (Labor), invited former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Cotler, and an Israeli legal team from the Jerusalem Center to appear in the House of Commons along with Lord David Trimble, who had won the Nobel Peace Prize for his involvement in Northern Ireland. The event and the lobbying it created had a definite impact. As of Thursday, 69 members of Parliament had signed onto a motion that "urges the British Government to put forward a resolution at the United National Security Council demanding President Ahmadinejad be brought to trial on the charge of incitement to commit genocide."
On March 5, the Australian shadow foreign minister, Robert McClelland, also called on the UN Security Council to initiate legal proceedings at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, against Ahmadinejad for incitement to genocide.
A month later, the Canadian Parliament's Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Human Rights adopted a motion by Cotler to refer Ahmadinejad's genocidal incitement to the Security Council, in order that the International Court of Justice investigate and actually prosecute the Iranian president. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who has characterized Ahmadinejad's rhetoric's as genocidal, will be critical for moving this initiative further in Ottawa.
The international community is not about to see Ahmadinejad in the seat of former Yugoslav and Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic in The Hague next week or next month. But the growing consensus that the Iranian president's statements constitute an actual breach of the Genocide Convention is still significant.
And beginning with Florida, more than a half dozen states across the US have considered adopting legislation requiring state pension funds to divest from companies doing business with Iran. Much of the original momentum behind this idea comes from efforts by individual states to divest from companies doing business in Sudan, because of its campaign of genocide over the last three years against the residents of Darfur.
The effort to divest from companies operating in Sudan due to the Darfur genocide is extremely important, but it should be broadened to divest from genocide, as a principle, wherever it has occurred. The legal determination that Ahmadinejad is indeed violating the Genocide Convention, through his repeated acts of incitement, should now be used to create a global alliance for punishing those who engaged in genocide in the past as well as those declaring their intent to carry it out in the future.
For years, Iran and its allies have tried to systematically delegitimize the State of Israel through fictitious charges about "Israeli war crimes." The time has come for Israel to counter with a campaign of its own, which unlike the accusations of its adversaries, is firmly grounded in international law and a growing consensus of increasingly significant international opinion.
The author, Israel's former ambassador to the UN, is president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
Posted by: ryuge ||
06/22/2007 08:15 ||
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#1
But Cheney first.
Posted by: Gary and the Samoyeds ||
06/22/2007 8:52 Comments ||
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#2
The 411-2 vote by the US House of Representatives represents a significant milestone
Bullshit! Its just another symbolic gesture presented from one increasingly impotent institution to another. For the people (And yes I mean Jewish lawyers and Diplomats) who are the most exceptionally skilled at parsing semantics to contend that Ahmadinejads carefully crafted statements legally constitute anything more then a secondary threat is at best quixotic and at worst disingenuous. The quotes that are cited were consciously penned to incite a rebuttal in order to obfuscate the real threat. Clearly, the bait was taken. And at the end of the day they are, in legal terms, tantamount to saying We would be better off if you werent around. Indeed, when his statements are presented in conjunction with his deeds there is validity in the contention; We know what he really means. However, to condemn the isolated comments as a vehicle to alter the man or his governments actions are counterproductive. Not only does it take attention off the existent dangers it adds fuel to the ignorant Jewish Cabal and pretext-for-war conspiracy theories. Yeah the threats against Israel are for real. But consider this. Tehran is a longtime state sponsor of terrorist groups, has acquired technology for nuclear weapons, and is currently in production for their materials. Isnt that enough for alarm without all these meaningless gesticulations?
#3
And if the United States acts against this Persian criminal we can expect to be treated to years of Clintonesque explanations of how a vote to indict him is less of a "war crime" than acting to prevent him carrying out genocide. The dhimmus will not be happy until we are all either dead or raped or cowering beneath a scimitar.
#5
How in the he$$ can the United Nations expect "international law" to mean anything to a craven, lawless, and totally corrupt individual? Laws only mean things to law-abiding people. That excludes muzzies, whose "god" has given them the "right" to use any lies, deceptions, and outright criminal acts against all "nonbelievers". This is just another "feel-good" measure to make the left look like it's actually accomplishing something, when the truth is the direct opposite. The only thing that's going to get Ahmadinnerjacket's attention is a US or Israeli nuke exploding in Qom.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
06/22/2007 20:23 Comments ||
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#6
JEWISH lawyers, in particular Depot Guy?
Just wondering if you really meant the way that came across.
So here are questions to ponder as reactionaries yearn for a pre-Bush past. Imagine: One of the various foiled terrorist plots a Fort Dix slaughter, a JFK airport attack, or the suicide teams ABC news claims are headed our way from Afghanistan succeed after 2008. Thousands of Americans die.
What does President Clinton or Obama do? Draft a tough federal indictment? Ask for a U.N. resolution condemning such violence? Count on a unified response with NATO, battle-seasoned after its heroic offensives in Afghanistan? Hope for help from the EU rapid-response force? Bomb the source where the jihadists trained (Gaza?, Pakistan? Syria? Iran?) but only from 30,000 feet, and, as in 1998, without U.N. or congressional approval? Work with the Saudis and Egyptians and Mr. Abbas to curb such atypical zealots? Have John Edwards globe-trot the globe to use his courtroom flair to win over allies?
Or imagine that Iran announces that it is going to set off a bomb in its desert. Do we resurrect the EU3? Ask Hans Blix to return as nuclear inspector with Mr. El-Baradei and others to assure us the test was genuine? Send Jimmy Carter to Teheran (or better, find an aged Ramsey Clark to return as a special envoy as in 1979?). Or maybe beseech the new U.N. head, Mr. Ki-Moon who just enlightened us that global warming (read the U.S.) not Islamic Jihadism and age-old sub-Saharan thuggery caused Darfur?
Or imagine the very real possibility of an Islamic takeover of Pakistan, in which a theocratic nuclear jihadist government becomes a Sunni version of Iran and begins to send tens of thousands of jihadists into Afghanistan. What to do? Put our eye back on the ball? Bomb whom and what?
The point is twofold. Our present policy, however poorly managed in postbellum Iraq, arose as a reaction both to the do-nothingism of past administrations, which, by general consensus, had emboldened al Qaeda to up its ante on 9/11, and the decades of amoral realism that propped up thugs and dictators who ruined their societies but blamed the ensuing mess on Americans and Jews.
. . .
Removing the Taliban and Saddam, and promoting constitutional governments in their places, were not the only options after 9/11, but they were good choices if the desire was to address comprehensively a quarter-century of terrorism that was insidiously escalating both in frequency and vehemence.
If both governments can be stabilized even at this late date, the landscape in the Middle East from Lebanon to the West Bank will be much improved; if not, much worse. For those who wish to give up the struggle in Iraq, go home, and stay clear of the Middle East, a final question: What would Mr. Assad in Syria, al Qaeda in Iraq, President Ahmadinejad in Iran, or Hamas and Hezbollah wish us to do and why?
And what in turn would Mr. Karzai, Mr. Maliki, the women educators of Iraq, the Lebanese democrats, the Syrian exiles, and the Iranian dissidents prefer? And which group should we in turn enlist as friends and which accept are our enemies?
Posted by: Mike ||
06/22/2007 10:41 ||
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#1
"What does President Clinton or Obama do?"
Exactly what they've done the last 7 years, blame Bush.
There are two ways to think about the operation as a whole. The standard framework, one echoed by the New York Times and other outlets, is that past offensives have failed because the enemy was always left with some place to regroup. This time, the NYT suggests, the US military is spread out so much that the enemy will have no place to regroup.
Bill Roggio's post has an interesting characterization which suggests that one objective is to get the enemy to transition and hit him while he is transitioning.
Bill's framework is subtly richer than the standard "give them nowhere to run" line. Because obviously Iraq is so big that the US cannot literally be everywhere and give them "nowhere to run". The more apt description, probably, is that the US won't let the enemy run anywhere for long. That is to say, you can conceive of the campaign as a series of evictions with the AQI leaking a little more each time. If you can increase the tempo of the evictions quickly enough, then what happens is that the AQI gets pursued to pieces.
Most of the pieces of information the public needs to understand what the military intends is probably already known to the public, but it has explained in ways to camouflage the true purpose. We know that the forces have been deployed closer to the ground; that they are operating in coordination with the Iraqi Forces; that new command groups have been set up; and -- if you have been following the deployments a little closely -- a certain amount of unspecified logistical and hardware capability has been added. One item which should be mentioned separately is the existence and battlefield use of biometric database systems, something which was also explained away in connection with a largely defensive Surge.
My own guess -- and it is entirely speculation -- is that Petraeus has attempted to shape his battlefield for the offense while masking it as defensive preparation. I remember distinctly hearing at a round table or someplace where his first item of business in the morning was what was captured in the previous day's raids. Iraq is unique in that it is the first war in history where prisoners vastly outnumber the enemy KIA. I think the number is 10 EPWs to every 1 enemy KIA. Hence, it is above all a war of intelligence prosecution. And many of the pieces needed to accomplish that task are precisely the pieces Petraeus has put in place, except they advertised as being something else.
Beyond that, we should wait and see what happens.
One of his commenters adds (I love this part)
Now what happens if any of these guys try to flee across the border into Iran with us in hot pursuit?
Michael Yon's latest piece was from the Brits patrolling along the Iranian border. He describes them as being energetic and capable ... just the sort of folks you might want to have waiting if you were chasing a bunch of bad guys in their direction in hot pursuit.
Wonder why the Beeb is so interested in wanting to know where the British forces in Iraq are right now, too.
#1
My theory is that Iraqi soldiers are lukewarm on participating on specific assaults because of the possibility of family retaliation. However, if the enemy is isolated into pockets, then the ease of rendering same will yield greater enthusiasm.
#2
Petraeus has attempted to shape his battlefield for the offense while masking it as defensive preparation.
He tricked me! How can we leak it to the world if he tricked me? Pinch! It's not my fault!
Posted by: New York Times Mole ||
06/22/2007 7:19 Comments ||
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#3
We'd all be better off reading Yon and Roggio than the NY Slimes because Petraeus' intentions seem far beyond the Sulzbergers' level of sophistication.
#4
"I think the number is 10 EPWs to every 1 enemy KIA."
I think so too. And quite a few of the EWPs are on their second or third turn at being captured - and released - by now. You want to capture instead of kill, because you need the intel, and you want to leave the door open for the enemy to voluntarily quit the battle, but KIA are never fought twice.
#6
The same catch-and-release problem for "sanctuary cities" and border crossers whose only penalty for trying to enter the United States illegally is waiting until later that day to try again.
This is the same thought-pathology in action in two contexts. The answer is the same in both cases: Shoot them and be done with it.
#8
Excalibur, were you born stupid or are you just working really hard at it?
Shoot to kill is not the answer on our border. We're better than that. Armchair rabble rousers and Morons like you who have never pulled the trigger are always talking shit.
Fatah's Abbas is reorganizing his cabinet, sacking the thug in charge of Fatah's Gaza security. You think? The PLO is also offering to hold elections once the situation in Gaza settles down. As I noted yesterday, Fatah would likely lose those elections given the dissatisfaction most Palestinians have with the kleptocrats in charge.
The Israelis may have to parachute food into Gaza because the situation really is that bad. And if someone gets injured in the airdrop? That would be Israel's fault as well. No good deed goes unpunished.
Iran admits that it has been backing Hamas, but it denies providing weapons and then makes the absurd claim that NATO is providing weapons to the Taliban in Afghanistan. This should be a surprise to absolutely no one. Iran has been pushing its agenda for the region more aggressively since it sees the US and Israel hamstrung by domestic opposition and is exploiting both a media that opposes the war in Iraq and taking the fight to the entities that are behind much of the fighting in the region - Iran and Syria.
Al Qaeda may also be taking advantage of the situation in Gaza, as this editorial suggests...
Posted by: Omineck Clanter7729 ||
06/22/2007 15:50 ||
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#1
When Gaza was cut lose, Israelis claimed that Fatah had numerous times more weapons than Hamas. Hamas could only have gained predominance with Egyptian support.
Egypt has called on Jordan, Israel, and the PA to meet for a summit in Egypt. Egypt wants to retain its leadership role in the Middle East among Arab countries, where its main competitor among Sunni countries is Saudi Arabia. The last time that the Palestinians met to discuss matters, they claimed to reach an agreement on a unity government. Within hours that devolved into the civil war that resulted in Fatah being ousted from Gaza and Hamas firmly in charge there.
The diplomats are doing what they always do; they are talking. Expect the usual from this - demands that Israel make concessions for the sake of peace. No where do I expect concessions to be demanded of Fatah although they're not exactly in a position to give up much of anything....
#4
(1) Remove the Presidential order on assassination. (2) Selectively target the leadership, if possible (3) Support rebellious groups openly. (4) Be prepared to support a coup.
#5
(5) If they announce that they will test a nuke we pull a Lileks and nuke the test site prematurely and then claim that it was theres that went of prematurely.
#6
Ed,
Are you referring to the tactic of building a pyramid of the skulls of all (but one) of a 'resistant' community, as an example to encourage the cooperation of the rest of the communities? While it might be effective, it would pretty clearly be a war crime. And remember, the Monghol Empire didn't last but two generations in it's expanded state.
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/22/2007 13:12 Comments ||
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#9
Is There a Viable Military Strategy for Disarming Iran?
All of this hand-wringing bullshit continues to ignore the simple fact that the only thing worse than a military conflict with Iran is a nuclear armed Iran. The options are so limited and the consequences of inaction so great that even extreme haste or minor political miscalculation is more than permissible.
The Iranian Islamic State was born in an act of war against Americathe seizure of the American embassy in 1979and has chanted Death to America ever since. Even Muslims at odds with Iran for sectarian reasons, such as many followers of Osama Bin Laden, draw inspiration from it as they engage in their own jihads against the West. Bin Ladens most important effect in this regard has been to energize and empower radical Muslims to rise above the petty squabbles between Persian and Arab, and between Sunni and Shiite, to join Iran against the Great Satan: America. Hezbollah, Hamas, and company are dependent on Iran for ideological, political, and economic strength. It is Iran that addresses the U.N. as a world leader; it is Iran that is openly committed to acquiring the weapons needed to take control of the Middle East; it is Iran that poses as the defender of Muslims against the West (for instance, through loyal clerics in Iraq); and it is Iran that has gained power since the U.S. removed its strongest regional opponent in Iraq.
The conclusion is inescapable. The road to the defeat of Islamic Totalitarianism begins in Tehran. America, acting alone and with overwhelming force, must destroy the Iranian Islamic State now. It must do so openly, and indeed spectacularly, for the entire world to see, for this is the only way to demonstrate the spectacular failure and incompetence of the Islamic fundamentalist movement as a whole.
[snip]
It is vital that Americans take this action for the right moral reasons, openly stated. We must not seek legitimacy for the removal of the Iranian Islamic State beyond the principle of our right to defend ourselves. To pretend that something more than this principle is needed would be to deny the sufficiency of the principle. To base our reasons on the alleged good of others, especially on any alleged benefits to the people of the Middle East, would be to accept a position of moral dhimmitude: the moral subordination of our right to life and self-defense to an allegedly higher principle. It would be to subordinate our lives to the lives of the ayatollahswho would become our masters. If we cannot stand on the principle of our right to life and liberty against the Islamic Totalitarians claim that we must submit to the will of Allah, then we cannot claim the right to exist. Americas weakness of will is the jihadists great hopeas it was the hope of Japanese warriorsbut it is something they cannot impose on us. Their only prayer is that we will accept it voluntarily. The price for doing so is our lives and the lives of our children. We must not submit.
To remove this cancerous Islamic State loudly and forthrightly will have immediate benefits. We would avenge the thousands of American terror victims since the 1960s. We would reverse the pitiful image we projected when Iranians stormed our embassy in 1979, and when we fled from Mogadishu and from Lebanonactions that the Islamic Totalitarians claimed as evidence of our weakness. We could even reverse a tremendous injustice by un-nationalizing the oil companies in Iranstolen from their owners in 1951and placing them back into private hands, under government protection. Certainly guarding those facilities from a surrounding civil wara legitimate protection of private property, backed by a credible threat of crushing forcewould be a far better use of our troops than guarding a few blocks in downtown Baghdad from its own residents. The pipeline of money into Islamic jihad would be cut.
Most importantly, by ousting the regime in Iran, we would send a clear message to the world: Political Islam is finished. Weaker states and groups would cringe in terroras they did briefly after 9/11and would literally retreat into holes in the ground. Anti-totalitarian forces across the world would be emboldened by the sight of a real defense of life and liberty. Allies we never knew existed would raise their heads with confidence and join the cause of freedom. The land of the freerejuvenated as the home of the bravewould rejoice as the nation of the secure. We would truly be on the road to victory, freedom, and peace. By affirming the efficacy of reason and individual rights over incompetent dark-age theocracy, America could once again claim its place as a real world leader, and become a beacon for those who understand, and value, freedom.
[emphasis added]
The foregoing is all the justification we need for eliminating Iran's theocratic government. Nuclear weapons are mere window dressing in comparison to how vital it is that Islamic rule be thwarted at every turn. Theocratic Islam must go!
Posted by: Timur Lang ||
06/22/2007 16:29 Comments ||
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#11
There should be no further talk of disarming Iran. Iran and Pakland need to be used as examples. Millions should be wiped out in milliseconds. And, certainly, Riyadh should be targeted at the same time. You can't deal logically with Muzz. Bush-Cheney thought that surely if one got rid of the overlord and torturer and provided new, free infrastructure, and handed out goodies to each separate sect in turn, then logic would dictate that US oil could go in, develop the fields, pump for 30 years, spread some more goodies as things went along and everything would turn out hunkie-dorie. So very wrong. Not at all what Muzz respect and appreciate. So bigtime failure for Bush-Cheney. Don't expect them to do anything w.r.t. Iran. Just bluster. The irony is that the tough task will probably fall to the Dhimmicrat POTUS inbound in 2008. But, you never know, maybe this unfortunate soul will respond with some brass ones when required after all. Recall that poor ol' Harry Truman didn't even know a single thing about the huge effort behind the atom bomb until the day after FDR died. Yet, he did know what to do when called upon. Just some good horse sense . No high and mighty political BS required.
#12
Recall that poor ol' Harry Truman didn't even know a single thing about the huge effort behind the atom bomb until the day after FDR died. Yet, he did know what to do when called upon. Just some good horse sense . No high and mighty political BS required.
Woozle, why am I so afraid that the vast majority of our politicians do not have even a fraction of Truman's IQ?
In fact, President Bashar Assad never hid his intentions that if Syria were to leave Lebanon, he would burn down the country.
It has been now way over 2 years after the murder of Lebanese ex-prime Minister Rafik Hariri and Syria is still free to create havoc in Lebanon, killing left and right, supporting Fatah Al Islam's attacks on the Lebanese Army, propping up the FPLP-GC, Fatah Intifada, Hamas, Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
All this happening under the nose of the international community, the UN, the UNIFIL forces and despite a united front against Syria at the UN with the French and the Americans leading the charge.
Regarding Syria's latest maneuvers, from The Croissant, comes this story:
"According to Syrian sources close to the regime, Syrian president Bashar Assad went berserk when his foreign minister Walid Al Moallem handed him his report on the Saturday Cairo meeting of Arab foreign ministers.
In fact, Al Moallem explained that Saudi Arabia and Egypt had firmly denounced the Syrian interference in Lebanon and Syrian's support to Palestinian terror groups looking to destabilize Lebanon.
Assad allegedly said: They will see how I am going to plow Lebanon.
Also the Katushya rockets fired from Lebanon into Northern Israel on Sunday evening were only the sign that Assad was acting on his threats.
The FPLP-GC terrorists of Ahmed Jibril (based in Damascus) are behind the bombing of Israel and used rockets modified in Iran. The FPLP-GC has allegedly prepared more than 80 rockets of this type to bomb Israel and open a new front while the Lebanese army is on the verge of finishing off Fatah Al Islam in Nahr El Bared.
Last, the Syrian Army is on high alert at the Lebanese border as are the Palestinian groups (FPLP-GC and Fatah Intifada) in the same area. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmerts refusal to retaliate has set back the Syrian plan."
Posted by: Sherry ||
06/22/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Why does Syria want Lebanon so badly????
They think they are a bigger power than what they are.It must be an ego thing knowing that Saudi,Israel and Even Iran are more powerful on the world scene hurts them!!!!
Posted by: Paul ||
06/22/2007 6:00 Comments ||
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#2
Lebanon is an artificial construct, Paul, wrested from the Ottoman empire's Syria province. Just as Saddam Hussein's Iraq considered Kuwait to be carved out from their stolen seacoast, so too Syria considers Lebanon to have been carved out of theirs by French and English connivance after World War I. (see map for details -- it's from the CIA website, so it's probably pretty accurate)
So why were Lebanon and Kuwait created at all? A look at the map suggests they were enclaves of some sort...
Posted by: Mohammad Khatami ||
06/22/2007 8:36 Comments ||
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#6
I think it would be better to ask why Iraq and Syria were created; Lebanon and Kuwait both predate them, in Lebanon's case by millennia. This Wikipedia entry on subdivisions of the Ottoman Empire should shed some light on the issue:
It is my impression, however, that Syria was created largely to hand something worthless to the France once the British realized a mandate in Iraq would include oil, then replacing coal as the power of the Royal Navy.
the next war is already here; Islamists are waging it in every corner of the globe and the moderate Muslims are either actively supporting them, placing the blame on the West, or simply looking the other way.
But where are all the peace-loving moderate Muslims that supposedly are in great majority? The Muslims who are neither jihadists themselves, nor do they support them? I and others, time and again, have been calling upon them to stand up and show the world that they oppose the fanatical Islamists. It is small comfort even if the vast majority of Muslims are not fanatic radicals, when they do nothing to demonstrate their position. It is instructive to recall that it is invariably a minority, and more often than not a very small minority, that launches a campaign of death and destruction.
Except in this case there are untold millions of these moderate Muslims directly financing Islams campaign against the West through tithing.
All extreme systems operate outside of the constraints of checks-and-balances and according to the principle of negative feedback loop. That is, once it starts, the extreme becomes more and more extreme until self-destructs and takes the larger system down with it.
The author accurately realizes that any consequences that Islam faces are wrought by their own hand, no matter who ends up applying them.
Dozens of Islamist shooting wars of lesser and greater bloodletting are presently raging in the world, aided and abetted by the moderate Muslim majority. The so called moderate Muslims, even if they exist, are complicit in the crimes of the radicals either by providing them with funds, logistics, and new recruits or by simply failing to actively confront and unequivocally renounce them.
After a while, silence is no longer consent, eventually silence becomes a lie.
The Egyptian-based Muslim Brotherhood poses a clear threat in Egypt with its large block of representatives in the parliament, but also wages its deadly campaign through its hundreds of well-established and functioning branches all over the world.
I hope that youre reading this, Liberalhawk. Egypts Muslim Brotherhood is the enemy. Treating with them will only embolden this foe and give them greater stature in the eyes of our other Islamic enemies.
#3
It is a sad state of affairs when our semi-literate ancestors could diagnose and address the problem - the solution is called a Crusade - while we post-industrial sophisticates offer our daughters for rapine and our necks for the knife.
This is rather timely for me: my 15-year-old son has a page on deviant-art.com where he posts his artwork (often quite good). Anyway, he drew a picture of a winged demon with a beard and wearing a turban (looks like the iconic OBL photo) hovering over an oil derrick and some burqa-clad women who look quite frightened, all with flames as a backdrop. Above the demon he wrote "Islam" and "submission" in Arabic script. [He's obviously paid attention to my not-infrequent rants.]
Well, it only took a couple of days for the raft of sh*t to unload on his comments section. Most were just drive-by insults ("hate-filled racist" and the like) or patronizing kumbaya swill, but one girl took it very personally and decided she needed to "educate" him since he was so obviously "ignorant of Islam." While asserting she didn't follow any religion, she spewed all the typical "moderate muslim" cant: the Crusades, tiny majority of extremists, all religions are open to abuse, hatred of an entire population, racist, Islam is a religion of love [I LOLed at that one], Sikhs are most likely to wear turbans, yadda3. He responded that he was speaking from knowledge, not ignorance, which just invited more crap.
The only time she actually answered a specific point he made (to find koranic verses enjoining love of your fellow man) she replied that the word love appeared 69 times in the koran. Well, she's right - but the vast majority of those have nothing to do with agape love. Most are love as in strong attachment (love of warfare being one example) or allah loves the righteous or allah does NOT love the sinners (a LOT of those), or love in the context of marriage and family. I honestly could not find a single unambiguous example of agape love. She finally decided to report his picture as inciting hate in an effort to get it removed.
Before he shut down the comments he posted one final thought: that there are at least half a dozen countries in the world where he could be legally sentenced to death for that picture: QED.
All-in-all it was quite an educational experience for him.
#6
xbalanke, please give my sincere regards and heartfelt encouragement to your son. Even if I did not agree with him, I would still be obliged to commend his own attempts at critical analysis. It is something that's sorely missing in today's youth. I'm confident that you understand how I mean this only as the highest praise.
#7
Thanks, zenster. I'll pass that along. And he does enjoy being politically provocative at school, but I try to make sure he always gets his facts straight.
Posted by: BrerRabbit ||
06/22/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
And, as a reminder, both Iran + Radic Islamist officios had already basically stated that any attack by Israel can and will be interpreted as an attack by the US of A, requiring a retaliatory response agz US-Allied interests anywhere in the ME + World.
#3
With their meddling in the Iraq, Lebanon, and Paleoland, the mullah theocracy is dangerous and destabilizing to the mideast. We must never disregard or take lightly what some meglomanic wanna-be in Iran says in regards to destroying Israel. Moreover, all the islamic countries would like to see Israel destroyed. Democracy is a threat to their 7th century paradise.
#5
It is likely that the Iranian Army is receiving many secret entreaties to minimize its involvement in any defense effort, and to simply let the IRGC and Basij be wiped out.
Quite likely. In fact, there may be a strategy to allow the Iranian military to 'save face' and perhaps even boost their standing with the populace.
Methinks that, at this point, the campaign to destablize the current power structure is going to be quiet and non-conventional.
#6
Until they get the bomb, the Persians best weapon against the West is our traitor media, academic and entertainment establishment. Deal with them and we can deal with Xerxes.
The Chronicle's announcement earlier this month that 100 newsroom jobs will be slashed in the coming weeks in the face of mounting financial woes represents just the latest chapter in a tragic story of traditional journalism's decline. Oh, the humanity! Reportedly losing an estimated $1 million a week, the paper's owner, the Hearst Corp., concluded it had no recourse but to trim costs by laying off reporters, editors and other skilled professionals, or offering buyouts to the most seasoned journalists in order to induce them to leave. The cuts reportedly will amount to a quarter of The Chronicle's editorial staff. "You're right, I did lose a million dollars last year. I expect to lose a million dollars this year. I expect to lose a million dollars *next* year. You know, Mr. Thatcher, at the rate of a million dollars a year, I'll have to close this place in... 60 years." William Randolph Hearst Charles Foster Kane
In the age of "new" media, this rollback in "old" media may be among the most drastic in recent memory, but it is nothing new to the public. Indeed, across the country newspapers have suffered enormous financial losses over the past decade, with far fewer professionals today covering the news locally, nationally and internationally as a result of the industry's contraction. The factors behind this shrinkage are sadly familiar: The rise of the Internet has produced sharp declines in traditional advertising revenues in the printed press. Free online advertising competitors such as Craigslist.com have sharply undermined classified advertising as a traditional source of revenue. While this may be true, the money saved by people and businesses placing online ads can be spent on other items advertised in the newspaper. It is merely a matter of retargeting ones marketing. Email has yet to put the post office out of business.
Some of the best investigative reporting is happening online. Annie Jacobsen's Terror in the Skies series was terrific.
This is disintermediation at work. We need news gathers. We need informed analysis or even the kind of half-assed analysis we specialize in here at the Burg. We don't need journalists. They insinuated themselves into the process when the MSM were the gatekeepers of news. Good riddance to them.
#2
"If all the newspapers in America did not allow Google to steal their content, how profitable would Google be?"
Since most of the content Google links to comes from AP, Reuters, etc. -- the same companies that provide most of the items in all the newspapers in America, except the local stuff -- who are the exceedingly well-paid newspaper journalists to complain?
who indirectly benefit so enormously from the expensive labor of journalists
Clearly it hasn't occurred to the good professor that his graduates might be more than a tad overpaid for the work they do.
And you guys used to be responsible for it. Didn't y'all make a choice to turn the 'public trust' into a profit center?
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/22/2007 6:44 Comments ||
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#4
Hallelujah! The liberal media monopoly on news and entertainment is finally getting shredded by the free market.
Posted by: Glusotch, Avenger of the Wombats7546 ||
06/22/2007 7:15 Comments ||
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#5
"It is a public trust vital to a free society."
So all news media jobs should be 'protected' and subsidized by the government - like the BBC does. No layoffs! No pay cuts! No accountability!
(sarcasm, I hope.)
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.
