I came across two very great pieces today and I am glad I did. You should read them as well.
***One is a very old article written by Mr. Michael Ledeen in April 1979 about the nature of the Khomeini's revolution. Read it at NY Sun.
Mr. Ledeen, an expert observer back then writes about why Khomeini hated the Shah:
The attacks on the Shah are not complaints about the harshness of his regime or violations of human rights by Savak, the secret police. Rather, Khomeini condemns the Shah's regime for having sapped the fiber of the country by bringing unsuitable people (non-mullahs) to positions of power.
Many saw this tragedy --Islamic Revolution-- coming but the silly Carter and his stupid aides didn't and now we are stuck with the 4th century style government of Iran.
***The other one is by Iranian journalist, Mr. Taheri which you can read here and it is about those people who find the idea of talks with the regime attractive and think pure diplomacy can help change the behavior of the Iranian regime. As Amir Taheri says, talks can not stop the Iranian mullahs from the evil they are doing. The only language they understand is of force and toughness.
Not much of a surprise that Jack Layton today is demanding that Canadian troops cut and run from Afghanistan since, he claims, the nature of the mission has changed. Among other things, he says, "it focuses on counter-insurgency and not peace keeping."
Hmmm. I did notice a suspicious absence of blue helmets. Of course, nothing's changed: that's always been the case. This has always been a combat mission—never a peacekeeping one. Here's a report from over a year ago (when the Liberals were boss), wherein a soldier's wife is perfectly clear on what hubby is headed for: "Usually you're worried about being lonely and how it's going to be, this time they're going into a situation where it's not peacekeeping." And here's another from the same era, in which our top soldier, Rick Hillier, memorably called Taliban terrorists "murderers and scumbags." That's not a peacekeeper talking.
Layton knows full well that this was never a peacekeeping mission, but he's acting like someone pulled the old switcheroo on him. If anything, this act only makes him sound clueless and easily fooled—not the mark of a good leader.
The last time Layton started making anti-war noises, I pointed out in this column that Layton kept quiet about the Liberals' initial plan to send troops to Afghanistan because he'd been bought off with billions in the federal budget. Maybe he thinks that Harper will offer him similar gifts to play along. Little does he know that Canadians stopped putting any faith in anything the NDP had to say about foreign policy quite some time ago.
That the Communist-backedmullahcracy in Iran was arming Hezbollah was no surprise; neither was the rooting interest of Iran's Syrian ally. However, there were a number of foolish pundits and politicians - including one who would be my junior Senator (Ignorant Comment of the Day) - who felt talks with the Syrian regime could lead it to shift away from it's quarter-century alliance with the mullahs.
One would hope the information relayed here (see ninth item) would convince them of their silliness, but I won't hold my breath.
Why has no one (save commentors to this blog, of course) noticed that this "release" came on the same day Iran was supposed to adhere to a UN-imposed deadline (yeah, I'm chuckling at that phrase, too) to stop developing nuclear weapons?
Why has almost no one (kudos to Macleans' Luiza Ch. Savage for making this "almost") noticed that the Iranians also arrested three local pro-democracy activists as part of their bait-and-switch?
...I'm flattered. Last Sunday, I wrote in the Star about the futility of negotiating with Hezbollah:
Were we to engage in such fecklessness, what would we discuss with Hezbollah? Its stated desire is the eradication of the state of Israel, with a promise that Jewish and Western targets be attacked the world over. So would we, say, negotiate a reasonable number of attacks per year? Or, would we talk about allowing Hezbollah to eradicate a certain percentage of Israelis? They are also fans of Islamic law. Would we negotiate an acceptable number of rights women could give up?
Then I discovered the Hezboliberal site, now located here, and saw the following "parody" headline, about a Hezboliberal plan to broker a settlement in the Middle East: Breakthrough Compromise: Half-Destroy Israeli State The best humour always comes from just slightly tweaking the truth.
Dr. Ramin Jahanbegloo was released from the Iranian regime's prison on bail after four months of confinement and reports confirm the news of his release as well.
Dr. Jahanbegloo, 46, was never officially charged, but regime's Intelligence Ministry claimed in July that the Iranian-Canadian professor was involved in U.S. efforts to overthrow the Mullahocratic regime.
This is good news for a change but we shouldn't forget that there are hundreds of political prisoners in Iranian jails who must be freed and many of them are in grave danger of losing their lives.
According to his family, and police, this was no terrorist attack. Popal was experiencing mental stress over an impending arranged marriage and trouble adjusting to American life after immigrating from Afghanistan. The Examiner assures us in the very first words of its report's lead that Popal "appeared not to care about his victims’ race, age or sex."
These sorts of low-level incidents of Muslim violence are common in Israel—including hit and runs, stabbings, shootings, etc.. There, they call them what they are: terrorist attacks. Next week, on the 9/11 anniversary, Americans will comfort themselves with the notion that it's been five years since the homeland has been attacked by terrorists. The only way they can convince themselves of this by pretending that a list of attacks over the last five years—including (but not limited to) a shooting at an El Al check-in counter; a shooting at a Jewish community centre; Omar killing innocent victims in his Honda Pilot—were simply the tantrums of a few Muslim fellas working out some stress.
Canadian Press is reporting this morning that bids on the date with the "one time beauty queen and movie actress" have reached $151.
Perhaps I am a bit of a cynic, but I have to suspect that if someone running for the Conservative leadership sold a date with one of his supporters, he or she would be flayed in the press by the usual suspects.
Some things are only objectionable when conservatives do them.
Mohammed Khatami: "reformer" and friend of hostage takers
Last year's "election" of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the post of Iranian top mouthpiece president led many to wonder if, as a younger man, he had been part of the 444-day "Iranian hostage crisis." Naturally, many Americans were more than disturbed at the possibility that the front man leader had a role in holding over 50 Americans captive for more than a year.
What was not as well-known was the fate of Masumeh Ebtekar, the Iranian women who railed against the U.S. on behalf of her fellow hostage-takers day after day, in fluent English. "Screaming Mary" - as she was known then - was recently appointed Vice President of Iran. Moreover, it was not Ahmadinejad who eleveated her to this post; it was his predecessor: "reformer" Mohammed Khatami.
Khatami will soon visit the United States - he will even meet Jimmy Carter (second item), the man who was President during the hostage ordeal. Will MSM end its deafening silence on "Screaming Mary"? Or the nuclear advances (third item) and Communistarmspurchases under Khatami's eight-year tenure?
It's always been my question: Are those radical muslims trying to kill us criminals or religious terrorists? Which one are they?
Why do most Canadians think these radicals are just bunch of gangs or criminals and why they hesitate to call them for what they are?
I am really getting frustrated at this ignorance among many people who don't want to believe that this country, like any other western nation, is at risk and that's the risk of Islamic Terrorism.
The Waterloo Tamil Students’ Association
(WATSA) describes itself as a cultural organization and their website
contains many images of innocent events like bowling or other little
socialables. Somebody must have forgotten to post pictures of this:
Martyrdom celebrations that praised Tamil Tiger soldiers
and suicide bombers were held openly in the student centre of the
University of Waterloo, where the FBI alleges a ‘’procurement cell'’
for the terrorist organization was located.
The event where a large flag of the Tamil Tigers, picturing AK-47
assault rifles and a roaring tiger, makeshift tombstones and posters
celebrating ‘’Our Fallen Heroes'’ were all displayed was held last
November in the Student Life Centre despite the club being under
suspension by the school at the time.
The university had suspended the Waterloo Tamil Students Association
(WATSA) after a similar ceremony was held in 2004, one in which large
cutouts of armed men were featured and the Tiger flag also prominently
displayed.(CanWest h/t PTBC)
Galleries containing photographs of Maaveerar Naal or Hero’s Day have also been removed from the site and the CanWest article suggests that they express deep support and sympathy for the Tamil Tigers.
Since they have been removed I imagine it is because they didn’t want
anyone to see them especially with the recent media attention. They do
exist in the google public domain and with some creative digging I
found a few interesting ones. I don’t know what they are doing but it
looks to be some sort of play:
The small image can be found for the time being in google cache.
I wasn’t able to flesh out the larger image. If this is part of
celebrating a culture, I personally find it kind of eerie especially
noting the children in the background. Last week we had people
describing themselves as Tamils post comments on my own personal blog and I have invited them
to possibly provide some insight into these images. An excellent source of
what has been happening lately is available at Lanka Libertarian. C/p DustMyBroom
Hezboliberal.com is now www.westernstandard.ca/liberal
Update: Welcome, Instapundit readers. Feel free to look around!
I saw the satirical website www.HezboLiberal.com and laughed pretty hard (my favourite line: "MP searches Middle-East for terrorism, finds Israel). But they weren't laughing over at Liberal headquarters. The party's in a bit of a snit right now over the issue of Israel and terrorism and they've lost their sense of humour.
The grown-up answer to a satirical website like that is to laugh it off. But the Liberal party is hurting right now, so it lashed out against the pranksters -- pressuring their internet service provider (ISP) to censor the site. Here's the Liberals' demand letter:
To whom it may concern,
Please be advised that the use of the Liberal Party of Canada's logo and the link to the Liberal Party's website, through the website http://www.hezboliberal.com/ hosted by your company, is a breach of Canadian Copyright and Trademarks laws. The references on that website are also slanderous and libelous.
Please ask your client to remove any reference to the Liberal Party of Canada using any sign, logo or other identification owned by the Liberal Party of Canada.
I trust you will govern yourself accordingly.
Guy Régimbald Director of Legal Affairs and Legal Counsel Directeur des affaires juridiques et avocat-conseil Liberal Party of Canada/Parti Libéral du Canada Tel: 613-783-8405 Cell: 613-294-3372 Fax: 613-235-7208 Email/Courriel: [email protected] www.liberal.ca
I'm a defamation lawyer, and there's nothing defamatory about that website that isn't protected by the defence of fair comment (let alone truth, which is an absolute defence). I don't think Mr. Régimbald is a defamation lawyer, because his taxonomy -- calling the website slanderous, which is typically a term of art reserved for spoken defamation -- shows an unfamiliarity with the law. But this is all treating the letter too seriously. It is not a legitimate legal complaint: there is no defamation here. And the claims of copyright and trademark violations are ridiculous, too -- this website is clearly a parody, not an attempt to actually pass itself off as the real Liberal Party.
So enough with the unnecessary legal analysis. This is not a legal action by the Liberals. This is called bullying -- where the once-mighty "natural governing party", now flailing around in impotence, rage and debt, tries to lash out at some little guys and, worse, their ISP.
I happen to agree with the sentiments of the HezboLiberal pranksters -- I think the Liberal party deserves a shellacking over their pro-terrorist temporizing. But that's not what really makes me mad here, and it's not what makes our magazine come to the aid of the website. What makes me mad is that the Liberals are bullying critics on the internet, and getting away with it.
This is exactly the sort of precedent that all media should join forces to oppose -- whether they are pro- or anti-Liberal. If the Liberals have a real complaint, they should take it to court, not bully an ISP into censorship against a political dissident.
I'm not exactly holding my breath for the rest of Canada's media to take a stand here; these are the same folks who enforced the fatwa against publication of the Danish cartoons of Mohammed in February. And earlier this spring, the Liberals used similar threats to shut down the Youth for Volpe satirical site.
So, we're going to do at the Western Standard what we've become accustomed to doing: having a little bit more guts than our competitors. We're going to host that Hezboliberal.com website. Not because we agree with it but because the Liberals think they can bully their opponents into submission.
Well, try bullying us. We weren't afraid of defying rioting mobs, and we sure as hell won't be afraid of taking on some Liberal lawyers. (Mr. Régimbald, our address for service of any writs can be found here.)
You can see the revived Hezboliberal.com website here, hosted on our server. Whether you agree with the content or not isn't the point. This is about stopping a bully. And about having some fun with some thin-skinned pols who can dish it out pretty good, but can't take it.
That’s tux-clad Conan O’Brien’s smug retort to a flight attendant as she passes him a flute of champagne and asks if he’s nervous about hosting the Emmys for the second time.
The answer: plenty.
NBC spent Monday barraged by intense criticism over their airing of that skit—which follows with O’Brien’s plane crashing into the sea—on the same day that a real plane crash in Kentucky that killed 49 people. The network issued anapology yesterday.
Talk show hosts and websites are fuming. (I think Larry Elder, who I normally enjoy, spent a good hour last night railing against the “insensitivity” of the network.) But isn’t this a bit much? Who, exactly, was the network supposedly being insensitive to? Presumably the families and loved ones of the Comair crash victims weren’t watching the Emmys that night. Yes, I’m sure that many Americans were saddened to hear about 49 people dying in a plane crash that day. But dozens more people die everyday in the U.S. in far less public ways: car accidents, cancer, murder and even smaller plane crashes (like this one, this one, this one, this one, etc.). So, should a fatal shooting in Denver on a Wednesday require that NBC pull that night’s Law and Order episode? And if so, how long before it’s no longer considered “insensitive” to broadcast the show? And who decides? (Read on, below)
NBC has a business to look after, so it’s apology was probably
advisable from a PR perspective. But it was entirely unnecessary. It’s
clear that the network had prepared its skit long before the show aired
on Sunday night. The crash was a parody on the show “Lost”—which
featured a plane crash scene in the opening episode—and had nothing to
do with the Kentucky accident. (Question: Had Lost actually aired that
night instead of a parody, would anyone have complained?) The plane was
never actually shown crashing. And the scene was just a part of a long
string of television send-ups that also included 24, House MD, The
Office, South Park (the controversial Tom Cruise in the closet episode,
no less) and Dateline. On a side note, the plane scene, which involved
O’Brien crawling into an overhead bin for safety, was actually sorta
funny. (You can watch the whole intro here).
So, why do I care? I suppose I’m worried about this proliferating
attitude that media organizations must be “sensitive” to peoples’
feelings. I await to be persuaded otherwise, but to me, this seems like
a piece of the same sort of thinking that dominated during the cartoon controversy.
If it’s improper to air an unrelated satire of a TV show featuring an
airplane accident because some people are feeling down about the deaths
of 49 people they’ve never met, then it’s certainly improper to show
satirical drawings that fundamentally offend the faith of Muslim
viewers. The more “sensitive” that media outlets become, the more
they’ll start to resemble all those other hypersensitive institutions
we’ve created: police afraid of offending the black community,
governments authorities afraid to offend Muslims, universities
petrified of offending anyone, anywhere, ever.A political cartoonist
for a Gannett-owned U.S. paper
recently admitted to the Western Standard that his bosses insist that
there is a quota in place to ensure sufficient photos of racial
minorities appear the front page of every newspaper. The actual news
value comes second.
I don't think this is a direction we want our media to go. But maybe I’m just being overly sensitive.
Olivia Chow's riding to push for funding for Hamas
Stephen Taylor has a leaked document
listing all the foreign policy resolutions to be presented at the
upcoming NDP policy convention in the fall. It is a document that is
filled with all the requisite anti-Bush, anti-US, anti-business,
anti-military stuff we expect from the NDP. Of course, these are
resolutions coming from the grassroots, so you'd expect the worst of it
to be filtered out just before or during the convention.
But I'm surprised at the harsh resolutions coming from the
Trinity-Spadina riding association. That's Olivia Chow's riding. Olivia
Chow is the wife of Jack Layton, the NDP leader. I would think that
those resolutions would cleave closely to mainstream NDP thinking. If
so, Canada's third party is entering a radical and thrill stage.
"WHEREAS there can be no lasting peace in Palestine/Israel, or the surrounding region, without social justice,
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the NDP supports the Right of Return for
all refugees, an end to the Israeli settlements and Israeli occupation
of Palestinian lands, a halt to the armed aggression, the bulldozing of
homes, destruction of olive groves and farms, and the assassination of
political leaders and activists by the Israeli state, and the NDP
demands the removal of the barrier, still under construction across the
West Bank; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the NDP calls for restoration of aid to the
Palestinian Authority, demands a halt to military aid and economic
trade with Israel until all the above demands are met, and that the NDP
campaign for an end to the rule of apartheid laws that make
Palestinians and Israeli Arabs second and third class citizens under
occupation;
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the NDP make it clear its opposition to the use of suicide bombings against civilian targets;
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the NDP calls for restoration of aid to the
Palestinian Authority, demands a halt to military aid and economic
trade with Israel until all the above demands are met, and that the NDP
campaign for an end to the rule of apartheid laws that make
Palestinians and Israeli Arabs second and third class citizens under
occupation;"
Trinity-Spadina NDP
There is so much wrong here that I'm not going to bother going
through it. But I will pause on two points -- funding for the
Palestinian Authority instead of Israel, and the NDP's "firm" stand against suicide bombers.
This is a tough square to circle. Recall that the Palestinian Authority is in fact Hamas, defender of suicide bombers:
The Palestinian armed group Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for
Monday's attack in a Tel Aviv café, which killed nine civilians in
addition to the bomber. After the attack Sami Abu Zuhri, a long-time
official spokesman for Hamas, was widely quoted as saying that "the
operation is a natural reaction to continued Israeli crimes against our
people," and that "the Palestinian people are in a state of self
defense and have every right to use all means to defend themselves."
So the NDP gives money to these people, and chokes off Israel. Doesn't that put them on the same side as countries like Iran?
Again, not so much surprising for the NDP. But to come out of the Trinity-Spadina riding association? Is Olivia Chow planning to support these resolutions from her riding? Is Jack Layton going to stand against them?
But because of Hamas' ongoing support of suicide bombers, there was the obligatory denunciation of suicide bombers (well, "opposition" is the word used, not "denunciation", but I don't want to nitpick on what some people would see as a very weak stand against terrorism). Consider the specifics of the statement for a moment. Olivia
Chow's riding association of Trinity-Spadina wants the NDP to work towards restoring all
funding to Hamas. But at the same time make it "clear" that the NDP is "opposed" to suicide bombings.
"Clear" is their word, not mine. So is "opposition".
There is no clarity when you scold with one hand and offer support
with the other. Just what carrot or stick is the NDP planning to use if
they are going to restore all funding? Clearly, NDP funding is not
dependent on Hamas support for suicide bombers. The resolution makes no linkage between the two.
A second, more disturbing point. The bombing of "civilian" targets
is all that Olivia Chow's riding is worried about. Presumably, the
bombing of military targets by terrorists dressed as civilians is fine.
Put aside the ease with which the NDP dismisses the deaths of soldiers,
as if no civilians are affected when their sons and daughters are blown
up. Consider instead these two points:
How does a suicide bomber get close to a military target? If a
lone civilian makes a run for a checkpoint across an otherwise empty
street, the soldiers will cut him down in an instant. No, a suicide
bomber depends on civilian cover to get close to soldiers who are not
willing to slaughter civilians wholesale. That is why with most reports
of suicide bomb attacks against military targets, there are one or two
soldiers killed or wounded for every 10 or 20 civilians.
As we've heard, many Palestinians see all Israelis as valid military targets. To them, there are no Israeli civilians.
That NDP funding will help pay for bomb belts and benefits for the widows of bombers.
Iran is threatening to kick a Japanese firm out of a huge oil field in Azadegan in favor of Communist China or Russia (fifth item). Zhongnanhai (or the Kremlin) thus has one more reason to standwith the mullahcracy against the weak-kneed West as the Security Council-imposed deadline of August 31 approaches. Meanwhile, Washington remains silent about stopping the mullahs from becoming a nuclear power (to say nothing of helping the Iranian people take their country back).
Margaret Somerville, the McGill ethicist who was booed at Ryerson over her professional opinion regarding gay marriage/child rearing, has pronounced that the closure of safe injection sites would be unethical.
"In my view it would not be acceptable simply to say 'we don't agree with drug abuse,' " Somerville said Monday.
"It can't be simply, 'We have a political platform and our platform is nobody is going to be helped in any way in terms of drug addiction behaviour or illness.' That would be wrong in my view."
The site, called Insite, has an annual operating cost of $2 million that is paid for by the provincial government.
It will close Sept. 12 unless the Conservative government renews an exemption under Canada's drug laws that allows it to operate legally.
I neither agree nor disagree with the concept of a safe injection site. I have no shame in admitting to being a NIMBY where such things are concerned, but I also believe that if junkies want to off themselves, they should be given every opportunity to do so, with as little risk to you and I as possible.
My interest in blogging this story is my curiosity about the way the left will react. Will they suddenly decide they love Somerville because she is standing up for one of their pet causes? Or do druggies rank lower than homosexuals on the caring activist scale?
It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the next two weeks.
Here is the late Mr. Sauvageau's biography as it appears on the House of Commons's web site. Mr. Sauvageau leaves four young daughters fatherless. If you pray, pray for his family and, especially, for his children.
According to the latest from the London Telegraph (see fifth item), the Israeli government picked a commander for the "Iran front;" the Communist-backedmullahcracy has until Thursday to end its nuclear weapons program under the United Nations deadline - a deadline Israel may enforce on behalf of a deeply skittish Turtle Bay.
Personally, I would prefer helping the Iranian people take their country back, but that should have begun months - if not years - ago. One can hardly blame the Israelis for deciding the clock has run out.
I only hope that this is not a repeat of the Israeli attack on Iraq's Osirak nuclear facility; i.e., an attack that keeps the offending regime in place. None other than the grandson of the late Ayatollah Khomeini himself has asked for the West to liberate his country - by military means if necessary. If Israel is to take up arms against Iran, I would hope my country (the U.S.) would take the opportunity to remove the mullahs from power. Otherwise, we will at most push back the mullahs' plans for a decade.
To update a phrase made (in)famous by the National Rifle Association: Nukes don't kill people; terrorists kill people.
The point to watch here was the direct resort to war by Hezbollah, at the behest of its Iranian masters, the day the European powers found that Iran was not in compliance with some part of the process of diplomatic discussion about nuclear weapons development. Boom. Immediate outbreak of hostilities. Their recourse to war was immediate and unconditional.
[...]
So it was a refreshing dose of reality to read how Hitler's personality, ideology and decisions led Europe ineluctably into World War II. Kershaw's masterly treatment of the rise and rule of Hitler places the blame squarely where it belongs, on Hitler and the forces he unleashed. I am not saying that the Iranian leadership is on all fours with Hitler's - though I am saying that, in the perspective of history, we may be living in the equivalent of the 1930s, the years of buildup to a world war.
The other thought that occurred to me, as I was watching the stars the
other night, was how precisely the Islamic threat is aimed along the
lines of cultural weakness that have been relentlessly developed at all
levels in western society by the political left. Though their great god
Marxism failed, the left's animus against western civilization has not
abated.
[...]
Turning back to reflect on the Thirties, millions marched for
communism, supported the Hitler-Stalin Pact, and worked tirelessly
against western rearmament. The folly of the Left then was the stated
belief that the greater danger came from Churchill and the
conservatives.
When you organize around what you hate rather than what you love, you will always get it wrong.
Actually, no. An IDF guy rescued an injured Lebanese kitten. So who's cuter? The soldier, or the kitten? Let's call it a draw. And let us concede they are cute in very different ways.
I have to disagree with conservatives for giving ink to the pretend news story about Jason Kenney's five-minute, off-the-cuff speech at a rally on the Hill that turned out to be organized by a terrorist front.
The differences between this and the Borys Wrzesnewskyj situation are so obvious, it's absurd that the conservative blogosphere has treated it as anything more than the transparent distraction that it is.
Wrzesnewskyj deliberately travelled to Lebanon; he deliberately met with Hezbollah; he deliberately called for negotiations with them; and he deliberately called for their legalization (though he later recanted, under great pressure). This was a thoughtful act on his part, over a long period of time. It wasn't a gaffe or a mis-step or an accident. It was really him.
Kenney, by contrast, popped by a rally on Parliament Hill between meetings, and gave his boilerplate speech on freeing Iran. That the rally was actually organized by a terrorist front, unbeknownst to Kenney, is embarrassing only in that it is a snafu. But that's the point: it's a snafu, not a thoughtful, pre-meditated act on the part of Kenney. It's clearly not his policy to support Iranian terrorists.
Kenney never endorsed the group; never mentioned its name (he didn't know it was behind the rally); he never called for dialogue with it, nor for its legalization. When informed of the identity of the rally organizers, he immediately repudiated them.
There is no comparison here whatsoever. Wrzesnewskyj engaged in a thoughtful, meaningful, planned, sustained moral apology for terrorists. Kenney was tricked into speaking somewhere -- though he still delivered his party line.
I'm rather embarrassed that I've just given this subject so much time, but it's to point out the absurdity that much of the conservative blogosphere has treated this as anything more than the obvious attempt to shift attention off of Wrzesnewskyj. It's akin to treating Joe Volpe credibly when he complained that our Libranos poster was anti-Italian. Uh, nice try, but the public wasn't so easily distracted from Adscam.
Isn't this obviously a desperate attempt to change the subject by a Liberal party clearly at war with itself over foreign affairs?
I've posted an extensive discussion of the Jason Kenney situation with regards to the MEK/PMOI, the Iranian dissident group listed as a terrorist group.
Now I've done more thinking, and more research, and I wonder if both sides have been too quick to blame the other for dealing with terrorists, inasmuch as the MEK/PMOI is concerned.
From the Dudley Knox Library at the Naval Postgraduate School, a report on the MEK/PMOI:
The MEK philosophy mixes Marxism and Islam. Formed in the 1960s, the
organization was expelled from Iran after the Islamic Revolution in
1979, and its primary support came from the former Iraqi regime of
Saddam Hussein starting in the late 1980s. The MEK conducted
anti-West-ern attacks prior to the Islamic Revolution. Since then, it
has conducted terrorist attacks against the interests of the clerical
regime in Iran and abroad.
Clearly the MEK/PMOI is not a friend of the West, but an enemy of
the Mullahs. Allies of convenience. Enemy of my enemy and all that.
The group’s worldwide campaign against the Iranian Government
stresses propaganda and occasionally uses terrorism. During the 1970s,
the MEK killed US military personnel and US civilians working on
defense projects in Tehran and supported the takeover in 1979 of the US
Embassy in Tehran. In 1981, the MEK detonated bombs in the head office
of the Islamic Republic Party and the Premier’s office, killing some 70
high-ranking Iranian officials, including Chief Justice Ayatollah
Mohammad Beheshti, President Mohammad-Ali Rajaei, and Premier
Mohammad-Javad Bahonar. Near the end of the 1980-1988 war with Iran,
Baghdad armed the MEK with military equipment and sent it into action
against Iranian forces.
It is alleged that the theocratic Iranian regime attacked the
pipelines in order to disrupt the Water supply of an internationally
recognized and protected Iranian resistance group known as the People's
Mojahedin Organization of Iran. The PMOI, currently seeking refuge in
Iraq, have long been advocates for democratic reforms in Iran.
Members of the PMOI are sheltered by international conventions and
should be respected by lawful governments. I would urge you to
intervene in this matter.
Here's the meaning of that reference:
Over 3,000 MEK members are currently confined to Camp Ashraf, the
MEK’s main compound north of Baghdad, where they remain under the
Geneva Convention’s "protected person" status and Coalition control. As
a condition of the cease-fire agreement, the group relinquished its
weapons, including tanks, armored vehicles, and heavy artillery. A
significant number of MEK personnel have "defected" from the Ashraf
group, and several dozen of them have been voluntarily repatriated to
Iran.
Article 4 defines who is a Protected person Persons protected by the
Convention are those who, at a given moment and in any manner
whatsoever, find themselves, in case of a conflict or occupation, in
the hands of a Party to the conflict or Occupying Power of which they
are not nationals. But it explicitly excludes Nationals of a State
which is not bound by the Convention and the citizens of a neutral
state or an allied state.
Article 32. A protected person/s shall not have anything done to
them of such a character as to cause physical suffering or
extermination ... the physical suffering or extermination of protected
persons in their hands. This prohibition applies not only to murder,
torture, corporal punishments, mutilation and medical or scientific
experiments not necessitated by the medical treatment.
So on the one hand, we have a Conservative MP essentially tricked into
appearing in front of a PMOI rally. But either by luck or good
political instincts, all Jason Kenney said was that Canada supports
democracy in Iran.
On the other hand, we have two letters from Liberal MPs urging the
Canadian government to do what it can to make sure that PMOI members in
Ashraf are being treated as protected persons. The ones in Ashraf are protected
persons, they have disarmed, Canada is a signatory to the Geneva
Conventions, and it would appear that Iran might have tried to cut off
their water supply.
The Liberal MPs did not suggest that the PMOI be taken off the
terrorist list, or that direct contacts be made with the PMOI, at least
not at the political level. I do think they give the MEK/PMOI too much credit as being champions of
democracy, but then the only way we'll ever know for sure is if they
actually replaced the theocracy in Iran.
I think that the anger and frustration of the Boris Wrzesnewskyj
situation has made both sides of the issue a bit too quick on the draw.
I fully expect people on the right to call me a coward, and people
on the left to continue to demand Jason Kenney's head. I don't care,
really, since I think I'm correct on this.
Liberal MPs continue to express support for terrorist group
Jason Kenney, Conservative MP, has been called a hypocrite for
criticizing Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj who spoke in support of Hezbollah this past week, but who himself appeared at a rally for
yet another terrorist organization in April 2006. That group was listed
as a terrorist group, under a different name, in May 2005.
Jason Kenney's appearance at this rally has caused some grief:
The Liberals accused Jason Kenney of hypocrisy on Thursday, after it
was revealed the Conservative MP had appeared at a rally earlier this
year for an Iranian group with terrorist links.
A photo of Kenney, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's parliamentary
secretary, at the April rally appears on a website for the National
Council of Resistance of Iran, the political wing of the People's
Mujahedin Organization of Iran.
The PMOI is one of the names used by Mujahedin-e-Khalq, an Iranian
rebel group put on Canada's official terror list in May 2005. The U.S.
and Britain have also designated it a terrorist organization.
The NCRI website says the April rally that Kenney attended was organized by "the Committee in Defence of Human Rights in Iran."
In an interview with the Star, Kenney said he did not remember
attending the rally, then recalled an invitation from "something called
the Committee for Human Rights in Iran."
The invitation came from a man Kenney said he met at the foreign affairs sub-committee on human rights.
Kenney, MP for Calgary Southeast, said he "would be shocked" to hear
his picture was posted on the group's political wing website.
For this, the Liberals are tearing into him:
Liberal interim leader Bill Graham, who accepted [Borys] Wrzesnewskyj's resignation, condemned Kenney's actions on Thursday.
"I think it's so hypocritical when you heard the words that came out
of his mouth a couple of days ago about the observations made about one
of our members and then you find he himself is standing there embracing
a terrorist group."
Liberal Denis Coderre, who was criticized for marching in a peace
rally in Montreal earlier this month where Hezbollah flags were
present, said Kenney should apologize and denounce the group.
"Jason Kenney, who likes to play politics and is as subtle as Barney Rubble in politics, should know better," Coderre said.
I suppose that Liberal MPs Alan Tonks and Derek Lee can expect to be at the receiving end of similar abuse. Why? Because each wrote letters to Peter Mackay, Minister of Foreign Affairs, demanding that the government support the PMOI.
The letters were written sometime after mid-July.
And unlike Jason Kenney's situation, no one was changing names to obscure their identities. The Liberal MPs call for help for PMOI, explicitily:
In a letter addressed to the Honorable Peter MacKay, Minister of
Canada's Foreign Affairs, Mr. Alan Tonks, M.P. of the House Commons
asked the foreign ministry to put its weight behind an investigation in
to the water pipeline explosion which left Ashraf residents and other
surrounding villages without water for over a week during Iraq's hot
summer days.
It is alleged that the theocratic Iranian regime attacked the
pipelines in order to disrupt the Water supply of an internationally
recognized and protected Iranian resistance group known as the People's
Mojahedin Organization of Iran. The PMOI, currently seeking refuge in
Iraq, have long been advocates for democratic reforms in Iran.
Members of the PMOI are sheltered by international conventions and
should be respected by lawful governments. I would urge you to
intervene in this matter.
Canada's Member of Parliament, Derek Lee in his letter addressed to
the Hon. Peter MacKay, Minister of Foreign affairs in Canada wrote:
Questions have been raised about the PMOI's longer run asylum status
protected by Iraq and the UNHCR and water supply which has been
sabotaged twice recently.
Other members of House [of Commons] have also written to you about
this and I want to indicate my support for Canadian efforts to assure
status quo safety and treatment to these displaced persons.
I eagerly await Bill Graham's pronouncements on the issue of hypocrisy with regards to Tonks and Lee.
Today's News of the Day has more on the Communists' attempt at Shakespeare (i.e., go after the lawyers), the democratic world's willingness to be fools about North Korea, the antics of the Iranian mullahcracy, and a major oil deal between Zhongnanhai and its recent acquisition - Hugo Chavez.
In what has become a classic maneuver for the evil Zionist cabal behind historic injustices such as the Crucifixion of Christ, the violent oppression of the Palestinians, and the rise in popularity of the bagel over Wonder Bread, the filthy Jooos controlling the universe have succeeded in once again, marginalizing an entire race -- Plutonians.
A pernicious group of imperialistic Astronomers (probably Jooos) unanimously decided to deny innocent Plutonians their right to status as a planet of the solar system because...
Pluto failed to dominate its orbit around the Sun in the same way as the other planets.
...so in typical punitive form, the Zionists voted to demote Plutonians for their lack of conformity to the forces of evil and henceforth, Pluto will be referred to as The Plutonian Authority.
The United Nations has issued a statement condemning the action and declaring that 'temporary' refugees camps, for displaced Plutonians, will be set up while they investigate the Astronomers for human rights violations.
The Plutonian leader -- a rapidly decomposing Yasser Arafat -- was reached at his summer home under Bill Clinton's desk, and was quoted as saying...
Those filthy Zionist pigs seek to exterminate us and seize our territory! Even in death I cannot escape their meddling. We will wage war on all fronts to force back the Zionist oppressors. Could someone please pass the Altoids?
When asked to comment on whether America supported the stance of the Jooo Astronomers, President George W. Bush indicated he was unsure whether the solar system even had other planets, but that Pluto was a funny yellow dog in Mickey Mouse cartoons. Otherwise, he referred all questions to his Zionist puppet masters.
I really wish freedom could come to Iran so every one of us would be safer and less exposed to the threat of Iranian mullahs' terrorism. While this is not wishful thinking and I believe, some time soon, this will happen but there are obstacles preventing this from happening.
I have written a long note on how some one like Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi of Iran might be able to do it by leading a legitimate coalition of opposition forces in exile and also inside of Iran.
All I can say is that time is not passing by in our favor and we have to get to rid of the clerical establishment of Iran before it is too late.
I'd like to have your feedback and appreciate you helping me learn more and more every day.
I'm not sure who this fellow is, but he claims to tell the story of an "atheist, leftist gay activist" that he met in Canada and ended up as a Hizb'Allah terrorist recently wounded in southern Lebanon.
Whoever he is, let's hope CSIS knows who this "Dan" is so he doesn't come back to Canada.
Israel calls my friend a terrorist. But he - his name is Dan (but now goes by another name) - is one of the most caring people I have met. I met him in Canada a few years ago, and eventually we both made our way to Lebanon;
And the story of his heroics against the Zionist entity is here:
I thought about what it was like for him being in the south, in the places that made it to the headlines, clashes erupting here and there between HezbAllah fighters and the IDF. I kept wondering how it was that he got injured, how he was helped, and actually how it was that he, of all people, had made his way into HezbAllah.
Ellen Knickmeyer has a profile in the Washington Post on Moqtada al-Sadr (eighth item), one of the most powerful anti-American Shi'ite clerics in Iraq today. Yet during her entire profile on his movement, the social services it runs, and its eagerness to take over the country after American troops leave, Ms. Knickmeyer leaves her readers oblivious to a major factor in al-Sadr's rise - support from CommunistChina'sallies in Iran. With incompetence like this, willful or otherwise, mainstream media's sense of superiority over the blogosphere becomes more and more laughable.
The trip was sponsored by a group with an obvious agenda, it consisted of a visit to only one front in the conflict, and only one side of the ideological spectrum participated...when you have Peggy Nash as a traveling buddy, you just know your life has taken a very wrong turn.
So the Liberals stuck their finger in the wind, took a gamble that the Canadian populace had signed up en masse for that lobotomy, and came out firmly on the wrong side of moral conscience -- again.
Try as they might to relegate poor Borys to the status of 'crazy aunt in the attic' it's fairly obvious that Borys said what many in the Liberal Party think and the reason they took so long to react is they were waiting for the rest of us to fall in line -- so in tune with the pulse of Canadian values, are they.
Except they couldn't have been more wrong, and once the stalwart confederates of Liberal sympathies (the media) started to publish unfavorable reviews of this stance and public opinion showed we were none too pleased with this blatant capitulation, only then did the mouthpieces issue statements chiding Borys' unfortunate choice of phrasing.
So they bullied him into silence once they realized that popular opinion wasn't coming along for the ride.
Anyone who thinks this is a good thing should carefully consider what we would do if the Liberal party got good at hiding its true face. If they manage to silence the Borys' of the party how will we, the poor shlubs of the voting public, ever see through the thick facade they have built to mask their distasteful ideological inclinations -- or lack thereof?
Having Borys spout off about what he really thinks, and watching his compatriots wait to gauge public reaction before picking a side has given us a rare glimpse at just how far down the rabbit hole the Liberal Party of Canada has gone. Having the Liberals exposed for what they really are makes the choice on election day that much easier. If the Liberal party manages to purge their ranks of all the loose-lipped morons, we may never know what they're really thinking. Lucky for us, they are so far gone, that may never happen.
Fellow blogger Hugh Hewitt interviews CENTCOM Commander Gen. John Abizaid as he gives us an update on the global war on terror.
General Abizaid talks about the situation in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and the rest of the broader mideast. And let's not forget that more than 2300 Canadian troops are fighting the good fight under the NATO Command and doing what is necessary to win the war, therefore this includes us too and the fact that Canada is also engaged in this war makes it necessary to listen to what General has to say on this.
Brian Neale, who runs Nealenews, the excellent news-aggregator website, announced today that he's turning out the lights. Brian had a great nose for the stories that other websites and media were missing, including those that broke on the blogosphere (a resource that other media are still behind in exploiting).
Sorry to see you go Nealenews. And thanks for four great years.
Communist China: We would never send weapons to terrorists (we leave that for our allies).
Communist China's point man in the Middle East made good use of the cover his Iranian allies give his regime on the issue of Beijing-made missiles in Hezbollah's hands (fourth item). He insisted the Communists don't export weapons to Hezbollah, but he "could not rule out that the weapons may have been transferred by a third party" (emphasis added).
Communist China used the same "third party" line when its weapons were transmitted to the Taliban and al Qaeda via Pakistan - a ChiCom ally for over half a century.
The only elected official to pay his respects to Zhao Ziyang's family at his home in Beijing (seventh item) shines again with these comments on Hezbollah and its would-be enablers (Canadian Press): "There was another political party in the past . . . which played an important role in the political life of Germany in the 1930s, which was also dedicated to violence against the Jewish people. The world was wrong to negotiate with that party then, and it would be wrong to negotiate with Hezbollah today."
Parents hear it over and over again: "Pick your battles." Apparently the Bush Administration has tried the same thing with the Iranian mullahcracy, i.e., let punches be pulled against Hezbollah and the Iranian operations in Iraq to cobble together more support from the "international community" to keep Tehran from going nuclear.
As a result, Iran is seizing momentum from the Lebanon denouement to thumb its nose at said "international community" (fourth item). This is what happens when you try to pick your battles with terrorist-sponsoring regimes, instead of battling to help the people oppressed by said regimes to take back their homelands. Given that the Iranian regime in particular is now gleefully engaged in the killing of American soldiers in Iraq without consequence, the weakness of the Administration has gone from maddening to outrageous.
Update: Thomas Hubert has resigned and his blog has been taken down. But serious mud-slinging has begun between factions of the Liberal Party -- on the one side those who believe there is no room for anti-Semitism in the party, and on the other, those who indulge in the almost casual anti-Semitism that seems to pervade so much of the left wing of the political spectrum.
From the LongWalk[ed note: the site has been taken down with Hubert's resignation], a site that supports the Liberal Party of Canada:
Thomas Hubert is TLW’s founder and editor-in-chief. He is a resident
of the Vancouver area and a student of political science at Kwantlen
University College. Thomas joined the New Democratic Party at 14 and
was active with the NDP for a number of years, primarily as president
of the Delta-Richmond East federal riding association. Thomas left the
NDP and joined the Liberal Party of Canada in May of 2006, and is now
VP of Communications for the Young Liberals of Canada in BC. He is a
big supporter of leadership candidate Gerard Kennedy.
As a VP of Communications, you would think Thomas Hubert would know
better than most how to best communicate clearly and concisely.
How do you explain this?
At 12:44 PM, Thomas said...
The Liberal Party is stronger without these violent Zionists in our
party. I am glad for them to cease influencing our foreign policy so we
are free to promote Canadian values of peace. It amazes me that this
community is so absurdly selfish. The only issue that matters to them
is the defence of a "state" that survives on the blood of innocent
people. Shameful.
Thomas @ thelongwalk.ca
That appears on Jason Cherniak's blog, in response to an examination by Jason of a Toronto Star piece
on how many long time supporters of the Liberal Party in the Jewish
community were switching their loyalty to the Conservatives in response
to Stephen Harper's unequivocal support of Israel.
But for Thomas Hubert, this was a great opportunity to purge the
party of those insidious Zionists! With their tendrils of influence
extending through Liberal foreign policy, agitating for war where there
otherwise would be peace (because we all know that the Zionists are to
blame for violence in the Middle East, what with their existing and
such). Surviving on the blood of others -- Hubert is a hair away from
dusting off the old blood libel.
Hubert is now apologizing profusely[ed note: the site has been taken down with Hubert's resignation], but he is a small fish. Offering him up as a sacrifice to appease
offended Jewish Liberals, and the rest of us for that matter, is going
to seem miserly, as long as MPs like Boris Wrzesnewskyj are allowed to act as
cheerleaders for terrorist groups who launch rockets loaded with
ball-bearings into towns and villages.
I'm always a little reticent about protesters' complaining about the consequences of their civil disobedience -- ergo, "How dare the police jail me for breaking city ordinances about lawful assembly!" and the like. My view is, if you're going to engage in civil disobedience (emphasis on "civil"), then part of that is accepting the consequences.
But then, there are those instances where "protesters" have gone to great pains NOT to engage in civil disobedience, to stay well within the law, and to respect law enforcement, and they still receive what appears to be unreasonable, biased, and, even, egregious treatment by the law.
What the Ottawa Sun columnist Licia Corbella describes, here, seems to fall into the latter category. According to Corbella, Artur Pawlowski, a former homebuilder and a refugee from formerly Communist Poland, gave up his lucrative business to devote his life to turning streetpeople and others away from lives of drug abuse and what else goes with life on the street. Pawlowski had the temerity to talk to "Fringe Festival" participants about the occult. When asked to stay well away, he did, but went to the fringes of where the Fringe Festival was set up to pray for the participants, out of earshot.
Even so, members of the Calgary Police Service responded to a complaint made by a participant in the Fringe Festival and arrested Pawlowski.
"Ah, yes," you may be thinking, "but how do we know Pawlowski and Co. didn't engage in UNcivil behaviour?"
According to Corbella, it was caught on video that showed the facts as she reported them.
But here's my question for the occultists: "Assuming they really believe this stuff, why didn't they just call on the 'gods' of the occult instead of the Calgary coppers?"
As I post this, we are less than one hour away from midnight on August 22 in Tehran. The combination of the Islamic calendar and the recent statements of mullahcrat mouthpiece Mahmoud Ahmedinejad have led many to wonder (Wall Street Journal included) if the 22nd is A-Day, as in Apocalypse (fourth item).
This may lead many to wonder if CommunistChina is really that supportive of the Khomeinist regime - given Ahmedinejad's possible willingness to start a nuclear war. Lest anyone forget, from the time of Mao, the Communist military has always seen a nuclear conflict as not only survivable, but winnable.
Via Atheist Jew, I have signed on to participate in an online tribute to victims of 9-11. I will be writing about Barbara A. Shaw, a 57-year-old woman from New Jersey. Any other bloggers reading this should consider helping out. The fifth anniversary is less than a month away, and not every victim has been assigned to a blog...yet. For more information, or to join, check it out here.
Liberals think that we have been able to negotiate with our enemies before, we can negotiate with jihadists now. No, you can't argue with people who want to kill you and they don't stop until they achieve their bloody goals of mass murdering every one of non-believers.
No,Jihad is a non-negotiable positionas Melanie Phillips, author of Londonistan, puts it in herinterviewwith Fox News.
Two weeks ago, Damian Brooks identified what he called a "gargantuan, fly-a-Herc-through-it hole in the war reporting from Lebanon," namely, any news whatsoever of how Israel was making out in its military objectives. I didn't notice that situation improve in the days that followed, but there was plenty of anecdotal evidence to rely on. On the last day before the ceasefire, for instance, Hezbollah launched some 250 rockets into Israel. No one is suggesting those were its last. The multinational force about to take control of southern Lebanon, assuming it can even be cobbled together from countries that recognize Israel, will have no firm mandate to disarm Hezbollah.
So the question remains: If Ehud Olmert is happy with the current situation, why did he wait so long before entertaining the idea of a ceasefire? I can't say whether or not Hezbollah would have been interested, but what conditions existed on August 14 that wouldn't have permitted negotiating for a ceasefire on August 7 or before? Hundreds of Lebanese civilians died in the intervening days, and no one with any power was fighting for them. Hezbollah's artillery positions set 'em up; Israel's missiles knocked 'em down. Civilians in southern Lebanon have ample cause to be enraged at both parties, but we all know who lost this PR war. Hezbollah is now in the process of cutting cheques to Lebanon's dispossessed. Olmert seems to be claiming victory based simply on his brand new pound of flesh.
These were not the grounds on which the United States, Canada and other nations supported Israel's offensive in Lebanon. This was supposed to be in pursuit of a long-term solution, as Yossi Klein Halevi lamented in The New Republic:
Israeli towns were exposed to the worst attacks since the nation's founding, a million residents of the Galilee fled or sat in shelters for a month, more than 150 Israeli civilians and soldiers were killed along with nearly a thousand Lebanese -- all in order to ensure the return of UN peacekeepers to southern Lebanon. … We forfeited the public relations battle that was, in part, Israel's to lose. How is it possible that we failed to explain the justness of a war fought against a genocidal enemy who attacked us across our UN-sanctioned international border? It's hard to remember now, but we began this war with the sympathy of a large part of the international community. Some Arab leaders, for the first time in the history of the Middle East conflict, actually blamed other Arabs for initiating hostilities with Israel. That response came when Israel seemed determined to defeat Hezbollah; but, as the weeks dragged on and Hezbollah appeared to be winning, moderate Arabs adjusted accordingly. They didn't switch sides because we were fighting too assertively but because we weren't fighting assertively enough.
…if all that happens is the air campaign, the result will be failure. Hezbollah will remain in place, Israel will remain under the gun, Lebanon will remain divided and unfree. And this war will start again at a time of Hezbollah and Iran's choosing.
Just as in Kuwait 1991, what must follow the air campaign is a land invasion to clear the ground and expel the occupier. Israel must retake south Lebanon and expel Hezbollah. It would then declare the obvious: that it has no claim to Lebanese territory and is prepared to withdraw and hand south Lebanon over to the Lebanese army (augmented perhaps by an international force), thus finally bringing about what the world has demanded -- implementation of Resolution 1559 and restoration of south Lebanon to Lebanese sovereignty.
Easier said than done, obviously, but at a time when the Israelis were uncommonly united, it appears it was their leaders who lacked nerve. Israel might never get that much rope again from the United States and its other key allies, and Olmert basically hanged himself with it. Conrad Black's piece in yesterday's National Post sums it up:
Israel acted on the Kosovo model of a war worth killing for but not worth dying for. Instead of going to where Hezbollah was, rooting them out, killing them, tearing up their bunkers and weapons stores and destroying them as a fighting force, as the Americans did at Iwo Jima and Okinawa, Israel made belligerent noises and ensured that Hezbollah would survive, shrieking from the house tops and the minarets of the Middle East that 5,000 brave Islamist warriors had stopped the Army of Israel.
So they should. They are brave and they did humiliate Israel. They have destroyed the mystique of Israeli invincibility, and eliminated a good deal of the perception of Israel's deterrent strength. Israel smashed up the internationally popular city of Beirut at no risk to its own airmen, and inflicted terrible hardship on hundreds of thousands of Lebanese civilians, after kindly dropping leaflets on them first. The Americans and even the French held the door open at the United Nations for the Israelis to finish the job with Hezbollah, and instead Israel essentially attacked civilians instead of their true enemy.
Of course, things today are better in northern Israel and southern Lebanon than they were two weeks ago. It's good that civilians will stop dying. But again, the assumption — my assumption, anyway — was that this horrible death toll was a means to a more secure, more sustainable end. I don't think anyone could claim that's where Israel is now.
Video taken at last weekend’s anti-war protest
in Calgary showing a women wrapped in a Hezbollah flag leading the
parade to the cenotaph in Central Memorial Park where she was one of
the key speakers. It should be noted that the Royal Canadian Legion held a wreath laying ceremony at the same place this June. I wonder what they would think of this?
It isn't often that you get a case of media biased distilled into one sentence, let alone the opening sentence of a story. Yet the Washington Postgives us a perfect example on the news that two parties in the United Iraqi Alliance (the pan-Shiite bloc that holds a near-majority of seats in the Parliament) publicly ripped Iran's interference in their country.
One would think anti-Iranian Shiites raising their voices would be a good thing, unless one reads the Post: "Two Shiite Muslim parties on Friday accused Iran of instigating violence in Iraq and attempting to destabilize the country, exposing a growing rift within Iraq's largest sect that many fear will exacerbate the nation's slide into full-scale civil war" (emphasis added).
I was just watching on CNN how terrorist hezbollahis were handing cash money to Lebanese people and the money was in US Dollar. It wasn't even changed to local money. Reuters has more, and then I began writing this post while wondering where that money came from and well, since the cash they are distributing among hezbollahis come directly from Iran, it made me very angry at couple of things...
Want to know why I hate the Mullahs and am angry at them and their terrorist cronies, then you got to read more here
Back on July 17, 3,000 elders converge on Port Alberni in British Columbia for the Elders Gathering. It is in part a means of sharing and transmitting wisdom to the next generation.
A new bit of wisdom for the modern world might be the concept of "separate cheques":
A Vancouver Island native community has been forced to close its
band office and lay off most of its staff because of a $60,000 dinner
it hosted last month.
The problem was caused by a dinner the band provided for about 3,000
people during the 30th annually B.C. Elders Gathering in Port Alberni,
July 18-20.
Maybe the wise thing to have done would have been to cancel the event, or at least cancel the dinner:
Pulling out of the event was not an option, said [chief councillor Moses] Martin.
“It's something we had to do that our tribe was committed to do,” he said. “It's upholding the status of our hereditary chiefs.”
Well, if it was about status, then going broke and suspending community services is better than looking foolish:
“We've had to shut down our office and lay off the staff to try to
deal with the problems we are having financially,” Mr. Martin said
Thursday.
Essential workers handling social and legal assistance, patient
travel and water and sewer now are working four hours a day, three days
a week. The temporary cuts include community health, education, drug
and alcohol counselling and security.
There will be another gathering next year hosted by the Squamish First Nation in Vancouver. Maybe the elder participating from Mr Martin's tribe can bring the twenty bucks to defray the cost of his dinner. I'm not sure it would be wise, and it certainly would not enhance the status of the Squamish, but it sure would be considerate.
