Showing posts with label Iran. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iran. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 07, 2020

War is over. (If you want it.)


"The battle is always lost within the castle."

Well, John Lennon got that one right. We elected Donald Trump president -- or at least voters in states comprising a majority in the Electoral College elected Donald Trump -- and what seems to be a nearly inevitable war with Iran already is lost.

It didn't -- doesn't -- have to be fought. The fuse was lit when Trump pulled the United States out of the multinational nuclear agreement with Iran, then ramped up sanctions in an attempt to destroy the Iranian economy.

After a year or so of tit-for-tatting with the mullahs, Trump poured jet fuel on the burning fuse by ordering the (nominally) peacetime, extralegal assassination of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, said to be the second-most powerful member of the Iranian government. The Iranians will strike back -- hard.

When they do, Trump, who has blown up any plausible deniability that he is a madman, has threatened to respond by committing war crimes on an epic scale -- airstrikes against 52 Iranian targets including civilian sites and cultural treasures.

THE IRANIAN regime is not innocent in this, and Suleimani had much blood on his hands, including American blood. Then again, so does North Korea's Kim Jong Un. Trump considers him a friend . . . at least for the time being.

Tomorrow, who the hell knows?

No, Iran is not innocent. But after years of neocon warmongering, Trump's diplomatic duplicity, foreign-policy recklessness and -- now -- an illegal assassination of a foreign official that pretty clearly was an act of war, the United States stands before a global jury guilty as charged.

We are a deeply wrong country set to embark on a clearly illegal and unjust war.

And we are guilty of putting the madman who's about to pull the trigger in just the position to do it. With impunity.

As we say during the Roman Catholic Mass, "Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault."

But . . . perhaps if getting into this catastrophic mess is our fault, maybe we also can get out of it. Somehow, like we eventually did in Vietnam. 

"War is over. (If you want it.)"

Friday, January 03, 2020

Proverbs 16:18


For God's sake . . . as opposed to whom or what evangelicals are worshiping these days.

Just saw this in The New York Times, and my disgust and revulsion know no bounds:
In his first public appearance since the strike that killed Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani of Iran, President Trump rallied his evangelical Christian base of supporters on Friday, portraying himself as the restorer of faith in the public square and claiming that God is “on our side.”

Mr. Trump brought to the stage Cissie Graham Lynch, a granddaughter of Billy Graham, the founder of Christianity Today, to offer an implicit rebuke of the magazine’s recent editorial calling for his removal from the White House.

Ms. Lynch’s appearance underscored how sensitive Mr. Trump was about any signs of fracturing in his base; many evangelical allies denounced the editorial, and Ms. Graham Lynch vowed on Friday to help Mr. Trump win re-election. She then welcomed a supporter to the stage who told attendees that they could not trust what the news media wrote about the president.
REALLY, why worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Joseph when you can go all in for a Golden Calf Orange Ass. Willful delusion is the worst kind of delusion.
Ass, Orange
Outside the rally, supporters said they came to offer their unblinking support for the president. In a city where Hispanics make up 70 percent of the population, many supporters chatted with one another in Spanish as they waited for hours in the blazing Miami sun.

“He’s talking from his heart,” said Michelle Hoff, who came to the rally with two other women from her prayer group. “I can’t remember when we had a president who was honest like he is. Like everyone else, he’s a sinner saved by grace. A lot of people say stuff that they don’t do. He’s doing it.”

Asked if she opposed anything the president said or did, Ms. Hoff said that she only wished he would appoint judges to fully overturn Roe v. Wade and same-sex marriage.

The rally inside the massive church began with energetic Christian rock, with many supporters clad in red M.A.G.A. hats dancing and lifting their hands in prayer.
GOD is not mocked. And if you know anything about the Old Testament -- which Donald Trump doesn't -- you suspect it probably isn't a good idea to f*** with the Persians at this juncture.

Proverbs 16:18, y'all. Proverbs 16:18. And to America's Orange Ass evangelicals . . . good riddance.

Thursday, January 10, 2013

St. Rick and the dragon


There is a dangerous new threat to America out there, and Rick Santorum has picked up his lance and mounted his white horse.

A terrible dragon be afoot, and Our Hero must join the GOP crusade to slay it. Its name? Chuck Hagel. Former U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska.

Chuck, the Hagel Dragon is insufficiently zealous for the cause of endless war to be secretary of defense, and his nomination by Barack Obama is proof of the president's traitorous intent, no doubt.


That's Santorum's -- and many Republicans' -- fractured fairy tale, by God, and they're sticking by it.

BEFORE venturing onward, the Christian soldier outlined this particular "Grimm" tale to the all-things-politics website, Politico:
In an interview with POLITICO, Santorum outlined his opposition to the choice of Hagel, a decorated Vietnam veteran who has come under fire from conservative and Jewish groups that say he has opposed sanctions on Iran, not supported Israel, and supported engagement with Hamas and Hezbollah. If Hagel is confirmed, he would be "very dangerous" to the security of our country, Santorum said.

"I don't take lightly opposing a nominee of the president. If you go back and look at my history in the Senate, even before and after, I give great deference to the president to choose the people that conform with his point of view. He won the election, so he should have the right to put in the place the people that go forth with his plan," Santorum said. But, Santorum said, if Hagel were confirmed, he would be "a voice in the administration that is to the left of the president."

"I do not agree with the Obama administration's policy on Israel or Iran, and the threat of radical Islam. The problem is that Chuck Hagel's positions in the past are worse than the president's," he said.
ONE COULD be forgiven for thinking contemporary Republican politicians constantly spoil for a fight with some woebegone country or another for the same reason poorly socialized, uneducated inner-city youth are eager to "cap yo' ass." They are so insecure and ill-equipped to face the modern world that agitating for deeply stupid wars against countries they figure we can beat (and sooner or later, that assumption will be catastrophically proven erroneous) that this is the only means they have of asserting their "manhood."

Alternatively, it just could be how powerful men with massive egos deal with their lost youth and the ever-nearing approach of the Grim Reaper. In that case, couldn't they get a sports car and a much-younger girlfriend instead? Find themselves a bevy of appropriately bourgeois baby mamas?

Strike that. These guys are the ones for whom the above will never be enough to scratch their pathological itch. Only more and ever more senseless deaths of young American military personnel and a potential massive hit to the American economy -- or worse -- can do the trick for today's GOP warmongers.

We Nebraskans elected Chuck Hagel to the U.S. Senate twice, and he was a better senator than most of us were citizens -- he ended up being a lot more right about war with Iraq than we were at the time, for which he endured endless insults to his character and courage like "Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-France."

HAGEL PROVED
his manhood the hard way -- in the jungles and rice paddies of Vietnam, and he has a couple of Purple Hearts to prove it. One of them he earned pulling his younger brother out of a burning armored-personnel carrier and carrying him to relative safety through hostile fire.

Certain Republican politicians and other assorted Washington leeches remind me more of thug-rapper Lil' Boosie stylin' to a John Phillip Sousa march.

Color me disgusted. Yet again.



P.S.: America's Jewish soldiers aren't any better than the Christian ones of the Santorum stripe.

Hagel was absolutely right when he once said "I’m not an Israeli senator. I’m a United States senator." Some people seem to be really worried that he'll carry over that same approach to being secretary of defense.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Rick Santorum: Slave of the Most High God


There is nothing Barack Obama can do to the Catholic Church that comes close to the kind of treachery righteously perpetrated by Catholics proclaiming the false gospel of the Most High Santorum.

The followers of Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum worry that the liberal devil they see will kill the church by diminishing freedom of conscience in the name of contraception. In their ardor for a more morally perfect union, these "orthodox" Catholics hold high the banner of the conservative devil they refuse to see.

And who might that devil be? The one whispering into the election-year ear of Rick Santorum: Good Catholic Man.

Some proclaim the Pennsylvania politician as a "traditional" Catholic, while others prefer "orthodox." I prefer other terminology.


But the editors of a right-wing website by the grandiosely presumptuous name of
CatholicVote.org were "proud" to endorse the man:
Catholic voters are looking for a candidate who can successfully combine the principles of the dignity of life and the dignity of work. Senator Santorum understands better than any other candidate the profound link between the moral, cultural and economic principles foundational to the success of America. We are convinced that Rick Santorum is the candidate best equipped to win not only the political arguments, but also the hearts of American voters as he did in Iowa on Tuesday. . . .

Finally, Senator Santorum is a man of honor, integrity, and authenticity. What you see is what you get. He has faithfully served the cause of life and marriage as an elected official and as a husband and father. And while no political candidate, or human being for that matter, is perfect, Rick Santorum’s baggage contains his clothes.

“Republicans hoping to win back the White House in November must unite behind the candidate most dedicated to the foundational issues of faith, family and freedom. If the GOP hopes to defeat President Obama, it takes a Rick Santorum to get it done.
I SUPPOSE we are to compare the clothes-filled baggage of the former U.S. senator to the Obama-, contraception- and abortion-filled baggage of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, former speaker of the House and Everybody's Favorite Bad, Bad, REALLY Bad Catholic.

People like Pelosi are "cafeteria Catholics," don't you know? They give scandal to Jesus Christ and His church by keeping those of His -- and its -- teachings they like and denouncing the rest as the rantings of a bunch of out-of-touch, celibate men. Who probably are just a bunch of pedophiles, anyway.

This is true, so far as it goes. "Bad" public Catholics like Pelosi, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Vice President Joe Biden, can tolerate anything but the authoritative teaching of Catholicism on social issues like abortion.

Unlike Rick Santorum.

Another of the CatholicVote.org people, "American Papist" blogger Thomas Peters cannot say enough good things about the good things Santorum brings to the presidential election. Then again, that just might have been the "man crush" talking last year:
Catholics, we need to stick together behind good guys like Rick. This includes offering constructive criticism at times, but it also means not missing opportunities to say good things when that’s what’s needed.

As I bring up often when I talk about Catholic identity in politics and the public square, the number one attack those who hate the Church or disagree with her teachings have is the attack of disunity. Those who oppose the Church know the Church is at her weakest when she is internally divided, which means what they are most scared of is a united Church.
INDEED, it is good when Catholics can stop the incessant left-right squabbling and stick together on something. On the other hand, it would be nice if the something -- or someone -- we stuck together for represented something better than the same degree (just different) of cafeteria Catholicism exemplified by Democrat pols Pelosi, Sebelius and Biden.

Catholics of America,
ecce Santorum:


SANTORUM'S eagerness for war with Iran, absent any present or imminent Iranian attack on the United States, may be many things -- moronic, reckless, foolish and catastrophic come to mind -- but it isn't Catholic. The church embraces something called the "just war theory," which it thought enough of to make authoritative . . . and binding on Catholics. It's in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which says:
2308 All citizens and all governments are obliged to work for the avoidance of war.

However, "as long as the danger of war persists and there is no international authority with the necessary competence and power, governments cannot be denied the right of lawful self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed."


2309 The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:

- the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;

- all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;

- there must be serious prospects of success;

- the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the "just war" doctrine.

The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.
WHERE IS the "certain" damage addressed by a preventive war? I'll wait while Santorum's Catholic enthusiasts search in vain for a rationalization to neuter the clear teaching of their own faith.

For instance, where is the "orthodox" Catholicism oozing out of
this statement by the "traditional" Catholic for whom we're supposed to "stick together"?


SORRY, but when I think of "orthodox Catholics for unprovoked, pre-emptive missile strikes and bombing runs," my minds keeps drifting off to the faithful witness of "Catholics for Free Choice." As in the "free choice" to kill your unborn child in the holy name of Personal Autonomy.

On the other hand, you don't want to know what I think of when I hear pious drivel like "the number one attack those who hate the Church or disagree with her teachings have is the attack of disunity" while watching Mr. Real Catholic Guy here:


AND THERE'S this, of course, from a radio interview last year on The Hugh Hewitt Show:
HH: Now did the bin Laden killing cause you to hope that the enhanced interrogation debate returns center stage about whether or not, and when such techniques ought to be used?

RS: Well, not only that, but the first thing that should happen, Hugh, was that the President of the United States should have stepped forward and said we are going to stop this, well, potential prosecution of those within the intelligence community who were involved in the enhanced interrogation program. That should have been step one, going to Eric Holder and saying enough is enough, we’re not doing this anymore. We need to give these guys medals, not prosecute them.

Number two, he should have stepped forward and said look, I was wrong, the enhanced interrogation program did work, it did produce my greatest foreign policy success. And I’m going to admit when I was wrong, and we’re going to look at how we’re going to redeploy this under obviously different rules and regulations, since of course the Obama administration told the enemy what we were doing in the previous enhanced interrogation programs.
HH: Now your former colleague, John McCain, said look, there’s no record, there’s no evidence here that these methods actually led to the capture or the killing of bin Laden. Do you disagree with that? Or do you think he’s got an argument?

RS: I don’t, everything I’ve read shows that we would not have gotten this information as to who this man was if it had not been gotten information from people who were subject to enhanced interrogation. And so this idea that we didn’t ask that question while Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was being waterboarded, he doesn’t understand how enhanced interrogation works.

I mean, you break somebody, and after they’re broken, they become cooperative. And that’s when we got this information. And one thing led to another, and led to another, and that’s how we ended up with bin Laden. That seems to be clear from all the information I read. Maybe McCain has better information than I do, but from what I’ve seen, it seems pretty clear that but for these cooperative witnesses who were cooperative as a result of enhanced interrogations, we would not have gotten bin Laden.
WOW. Just wow.

John McCain doesn't understand torture? Maybe this "orthodox" Catholic man who would be leader of The World Formerly Known as Free thinks the "Hanoi Hilton" really was a Hilton. And that the now-senator from Arizona and all the other prisoners of war there really did spend all day playing volleyball, just like in the North Vietnamese propaganda films.

But I digress.

It would seem Santorum -- and those who unconditionally love his candidacy -- may be unfamiliar with the authoritative teaching of not only the catechism, but also of
Gaudium et Spes -- one of the core documents of the Second Vatican Council:
27. Coming down to practical and particularly urgent consequences, this council lays stress on reverence for man; everyone must consider his every neighbor without exception as another self, taking into account first of all His life and the means necessary to living it with dignity, so as not to imitate the rich man who had no concern for the poor man Lazarus.

In our times a special obligation binds us to make ourselves the neighbor of every person without exception and of actively helping him when he comes across our path, whether he be an old person abandoned by all, a foreign laborer unjustly looked down upon, a refugee, a child born of an unlawful union and wrongly suffering for a sin he did not commit, or a hungry person who disturbs our conscience by recalling the voice of the Lord, "As long as you did it for one of these the least of my brethren, you did it for me" (Matt. 25:40).

Furthermore, whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia or willful self-destruction, whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself; whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where men are treated as mere tools for profit, rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others of their like are infamies indeed. They poison human society, but they do more harm to those who practice them than those who suffer from the injury. Moreover, they are supreme dishonor to the Creator.
AS I SAID at the beginning of this post, President Obama can do what he likes to the Catholic Church regarding the "contraceptive mandate," but he can't really hurt it. Catholicism has survived 2,000 years of tyrants and maniacs in high places. It survived the Borgia popes. It survived the Reformation. And it will survive whatever cute, demagogic tricks Obama has in store to help shore up the Democratic base before the election.

What really can hurt the church is us. People like Santorum who tout their "orthodox Catholic" bona fides while standing in the cafeteria line, picking up this doctrine and passing on that one.

Political persecution can make us martyrs, but clowns like you, me, the former senator from Pennsylvania and the "real Catholics" who back him . . . we can make Christ's church look foolish or, worse, evil. All we have to do is put ourselves out there as proclaimers of the Truth while telling a little lie here and another there.

In other words, where is the apostle Paul when we need him? Let us turn to Acts 16:
16
As we were going to the place of prayer, we met a slave girl with an oracular spirit, who used to bring a large profit to her owners through her fortune-telling.
17
She began to follow Paul and us, shouting, "These people are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation."
18
She did this for many days. Paul became annoyed, turned, and said to the spirit, "I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her." Then it came out at that moment.
19
When her owners saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them to the public square before the local authorities.
20
They brought them before the magistrates 7 and said, "These people are Jews and are disturbing our city
21
and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us Romans to adopt or practice."
22
The crowd joined in the attack on them, and the magistrates had them stripped and ordered them to be beaten with rods.
23
After inflicting many blows on them, they threw them into prison and instructed the jailer to guard them securely.
24
When he received these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and secured their feet to a stake.
25
About midnight, while Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God as the prisoners listened,
26
there was suddenly such a severe earthquake that the foundations of the jail shook; all the doors flew open, and the chains of all were pulled loose.
27
When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew (his) sword and was about to kill himself, thinking that the prisoners had escaped.
28
But Paul shouted out in a loud voice, "Do no harm to yourself; we are all here."
29
He asked for a light and rushed in and, trembling with fear, he fell down before Paul and Silas.
30
Then he brought them out and said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"
31
And they said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus and you and your household will be saved."
32
So they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to everyone in his house.
AS THEY SAY, the devil is in the details.

Just as the demon-possessed oracle told everyone that Paul and his company were
slaves (not children) of the Most High God and proclaimed a way (not the way) of salvation, Santorum conflates his ham-handed -- yet basically correct -- pronouncements on abortion, birth control and sexuality with Satan's social teaching on torture and war. The effect -- once we Catholics and the secular media have finished making Santorum into the exemplar of the true church -- is to make the true church look like a damned lie.

Good job --
not.

Now at the risk of being horribly presumptuous (but tired of waiting for someone more qualified to do it), I feel it somehow necessary to trade my inner Jeremiah for my inner Paul in the case of Rick Santorum and His True Catholics for Chaos.

So, with apologies in advance to St. Paul . . .
"I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of them."

Now.

Tuesday, February 01, 2011

It all makes sense if you're nuts


Punxsutawney, Pa., is all snowed in, and Phil, being a sensible groundhog, refuses to come out and see (or not see) anything, so America has been forced to go to Plan B.

So . . . Glenn Beck has come out from under the rock where he keeps his survivalist provisions, only to see the shadow of
THE COMING INSURRECTION.

It works something like this. Hang on to something.

Tunisia is in flames because the Muslins are unhappy. That spread to Egypt, which is going down. That's spreading to Jordan, where there are riots, and it's going down. Libya's in flames, too, which the lamestream media isn't going to tell you about, because it's run by the Muslins, or communists, or Nazis or something.

Yemen's in flames, and so is Pakistan, but he's run out of little flamey magnet thingies to put on the chalkboard, so trust us on this. Iran's in flames, and that means they're going to come after Saudi Arabia, another of our "frenemies," because them Saudi royals are hardcore scumbags, who you know have to be shaking in their sandals while their camels are scared spitless.

And then you got Lebanon . . . in flames. The Gaza strip . . . in flames. But the Muslin Brotherhood Muslins hate the Hezbollah Muslins who are just like the Iranian Shiite Muslins, so they're canceling one another out or something . . . but they all have it in for the Jews in Israel.


SO YOU GOT the Shiites pushing on Israel one way and the Sunnis pushing on Israel the other, and the Chinamen is thinkin' . . . "WHOA! KNOCK THAT STUFF OFF, MAHMOUD!"

And then the Chinamen go
"Ching chong ching chong chang bing bong sham-a-lama-ding-dong. . . ." Oh, wait, that's what Rush Limbaugh said the Chinese said, so never mind. . . .

Anyway, you got China pushing one way, and then the flames spread to Spain, which is on fire, and come to think of it, so is Great Britain and Ireland . . . FIRE! . . . and you don't think the radical Islamists in England and France are going to sit on their hands with all that fire all over the chalkboard, do you?

SEE, you got flamey chaos in the Middle East, and China's pushing west. And then you got abject flames on the chalkboard that is Europe --
no, look, there's Europe on a chalkboard -- and Russia's gonna start moving on Europe thataway, because the Muslins blowed s*** up in Moscow, and what that shows us is that what Tunisia really is is Sarajevo 1914, when Archduke Franz Ferdinand got offed by Gavrilo Princip, which started World War I, because everybody's pushing on Israel, and the Jews got the Bomb now.

We'll have more on how
This Is All Gonna Blow Up Good right after these messages from Goldline and Food Insurance.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

The Revolution will not be tweeted


Ultimately, the Revolution will not be tweeted.

That's because even though much has been made of the use of Twitter -- and Facebook -- as a means of communication and organization in the ongoing Iranian election uprising, it's Twitter's same ubiquitous and open nature that can allow the Empire to strike back. Or the theocracy of goons, as the case may be.

IN OTHER WORDS, if I'm looking in and the American media is looking in, you know that the Iranian government is looking in, too. And it is, as reported on MSNBC:
Social media’s short messages aren’t as comprehensive as an Associated Press report, and the photos aren’t magazine quality. And while much of the material could not be independently verified, at least it was real-time — for many incidents, it was the only news available.

Tuesday afternoon, messages from people claiming to be witnesses to the demonstrations flowed into Twitter at the rate of hundreds a minute. Posts would flood in, only to slow to a trickle for a minute or two as Iranian censors sought to stanch the flow of information. Then posts would resume in a torrent as users found ways around the censorship.


(snip)

One Twitter user called the communications battle “cyberwarfare at its best,” and there were unconfirmed reports that Iranian security forces were fighting back by creating their own Twitter accounts to spread their version of events.
I'D BE SURPRISED if public relations -- to put it mildly -- were the only use Iranian security forces were making of Twitter and Facebook.

If ordinary Iranians can spread information via tweets, the government likewise can spread misinformation the same way. It can tweet to meet at such and so place for a demonstration, thus leading people into an ambush and making evil use of sites such as
Anonymous in Iran to disguise its efforts.

The site says it's screening out tweets from Iranian government IP addresses, but do you really think the Ahmadinejad regime is dumb enough to be using official IP addresses?

If the Iranians want to throw themselves a proper revolution -- or run a proper resistance -- I imagine they're just going to have to do it the old-fashioned way. They'll have to organize in cells, devise a proper code for secret communications via open sources . . . then hit the bloody bastards where they ain't expecting it.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Their god is a frightened god


In London, The Telegraph tells the story of an Iranian family suffering for its Christian faith because the god of Islam -- as understood by that country's civil and religious leaders -- is a frightened god to whom free will is a mortal threat.

Or should I say an immortal threat?

A month ago, the Iranian parliament voted in favour of a draft bill, entitled "Islamic Penal Code", which would codify the death penalty for any male Iranian who leaves his Islamic faith. Women would get life imprisonment. The majority in favour of the new law was overwhelming: 196 votes for, with just seven against.

Imposing the death penalty for changing religion blatantly violates one of the most fundamental of all human rights. The right to freedom of religion is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and in the European Convention of Human Rights. It is even enshrined as Article 23 of Iran's own constitution, which states that no one may be molested simply for his beliefs.

And yet few politicians or clerics in Iran see any contradiction between a law mandating the death penalty for changing religion and Iran's constitution. There has been no public protest in Iran against it.

David Miliband, Britain's Foreign Secretary, stands out as one of the few politicians from any Western country who has put on record his opposition to making apostasy a crime punishable by death. The protest from the EU has been distinctly muted; meanwhile, Germany, Iran's largest foreign trading partner, has just increased its business deals with Iran by more than half. Characteristically, the United Nations has said nothing.

It is a sign of how little interest there is in Iran's intention to launch a campaign of religious persecution that its parliamentary vote has still not been reported in the mainstream media.

For one woman living in London, however, the Iranian parliamentary vote cannot be brushed aside. Rashin Soodmand is a 29-year-old Iranian Christian. Her father, Hossein Soodmand, was the last man to be executed in Iran for apostasy, the "crime" of abandoning one's religion. He had converted from Islam to Christianity in 1960, when he was 13 years old. Thirty years later, he was hanged by the Iranian authorities for that decision.

Today, Rashin's brother, Ramtin, is also held in a prison cell in Mashad, Iran's holiest city. He was arrested on August 21. He has not been charged but he is a Christian. And Rashin fears that, just as her father was the last man to be executed for apostasy in Iran, her brother may become one of the first to be killed under Iran's new law.

Not surprisingly, Rashin is desperately worried. "I am terribly anxious about him," she explains. "Even though my brother is not an apostate, because he has never been a Muslim – my father raised us all as Christians – I don't think he is safe. They assume that if you are Iranian, you must be Muslim."

OBVIOUSLY, Iranian Muslims and their leaders have their deity all figured out. And we know what Flannery O'Connor said about such -- "remember that these things are mysteries and that if they were such that we could understand them, they wouldn’t be worth understanding. A God you understood would be less than yourself."

And this is apparently what's understood about Allah in Iran -- that the Muslim deity is a puppetmaster and mankind is a puppet. That Allah fears that man would not, could not love him freely, so man must be forced to do so. That Islam is not so much about knowing, loving and serving Allah as it is being a "soldier" in a Mafia of a billion-plus souls.

Once in, there's only one way to get out -- be rubbed out.

IF JESUS is the good shepherd, the ayatollahs' Allah must be Michael Corleone. And Muhammad is what? Al Neri?

That makes Ramtin Soodmand the Iranian version of Fredo, I'm afraid.

Nice conception of deity you have there, guys.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Iran's stopped clock has right time

You know you are really and truly screwed when clowns like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad start to make a lot of sense when he's upbraiding your country.

Read
this Associated Press account of Doctor Whack's address to the United Nations General Assembly and know the United States is well and truly up a fragrant creek. Without a paddle. In a leaky rowboat:

Iran's president addressed the U.N. General Assembly Tuesday declaring that "the American empire" is nearing collapse and should end its military involvement in other countries.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said terrorism is spreading quickly in Afghanistan while "the occupiers" are still in Iraq nearly six years after Saddam Hussein was ousted from power in Iraq.

"American empire in the world is reaching the end of its road, and its next rulers must limit their interference to their own borders," Ahmadinejad said.

He accused the U.S. of starting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to win votes in elections and blamed a "few bullying powers" for trying to undermine Iran's nuclear program.
ANYBODY WANT to look at the headlines and argue where, exactly, Iran's stopped clock hasn't indicated the correct -- and late -- time of day in Empire America?

Saturday, August 23, 2008

What we've come to


If you click on this Drudge Report ad, it takes you here, to an "urgent" survey by the NewsMax magazine and website.

OF COURSE, NewsMax doesn't really give a damn what you think about blowing a country to Kingdom Come just because we can. No, NewsMax is all about the marketing, baby:
I understand that as a voter in this poll I will be signed up for FREE breaking news alerts. I can unsubscribe at any time. Votes with invalid emails will not be counted. Poll results will be provided in a future email to you.
I THINK I PREFER the Sun's cheap ploy for attention among Great Britain's knuckle-draggers . . . large, uncovered female breasts on Page 3. Yes, bodacious tatas in your morning newspaper might well be a near occasion of sin, but at least they're not playing on nationalistic tendencies to bloodlust.

But hooters aren't something the conservative chattering classes would see as fit viewing for Bubba in Bentonville. No, no . . . let's stick to figuring out the next Middle Eastern nation to blow up good.

It's kind of like what Americans do nowadays instead of cockfighting. Or pit-bull fights . . . especially since Michael Vick's in the federal pen.

That's us Americans. Staying classy all the way to Armageddon.

Monday, May 19, 2008

Bushies taking their cues from Fox?


It's a Bill O'Reilly world at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., where the White House is upset over how NBC -- the waterboard right's fourth point along the "Axis of Evil" -- edited an interview with President Bush.

In a letter to the head of NBC News as rich with irony as it was lacking in self-awareness, a Bush aide complained the network edited Bush's answers to correspondent Richard Engel's questions with the intent to deceive. Says the administration that "edited" intelligence with the intent to suck the American people into an unjust and foolhardy war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

The story's in The Hill:
The White House on Monday sent a scathing letter to NBC News, accusing the news network of “deceptively” editing an interview with President Bush on the issue of appeasement and Iran.

At issue were remarks Bush made in front of Israel's parliament earlier this week.

Specifically, White House counselor Ed Gillespie laments that the network edited the interview in a way that “is clearly intended to give viewers the impression that [Bush] agreed with [correspondent Richard Engel's] characterization of his remarks when he explicitly challenged it.

“This deceitful editing to further a media-manufactured storyline is utterly misleading and irresponsible and I hereby request in the interest of fairness and accuracy that the network air the President’s responses to both initial questions in full on the two programs that used the excerpts,” said Gillespie in the letter to NBC News President Steve Capus.

BRIAN WILLIAMS NOTED the letter on tonight's NBC Nightly News, adding that the entire unedited interview was available on the program's website. And above. The edited version is here -- and, no, the president didn't need someone in an NBC editing booth to make him look like a delusional moron.

Finally, it's interesting that Bush likened his opponents to advocates of the "beehive theory" -- that you leave the beehive alone in hopes that the bees stay inside.

Q The war on terrorism has been the centerpiece of your presidency. Many people say that it has not made the world safer, that it has created more radicals, that there are more people in this part of the world who want to attack the United States.

THE PRESIDENT: That theory says by confronting the people that killed us, therefore there's going to be more -- therefore we shouldn't confront them?

Q Or confronting -- creating more people who want to kill us, one could also say.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, you can say that, but the truth of the matter is there's fewer al Qaeda leaders, the people are on the run; they're having more trouble recruiting in the Middle East; Saudi Arabia, our partner, has gone after al Qaeda; people now see al Qaeda for what it is, which is a group of extremists and radicals who preach nothing but hate. And no, I just -- it's just the beehive theory -- we should have just let the beehive sit there and hope the bees don't come out of the hive?

My attitude is the United States must stay on the offense against al Qaeda -- two ways. One from --

Q Smash the bees --

THE PRESIDENT: -- two ways --

Q -- in the hive and let them spread?

THE PRESIDENT: Excuse me for a minute, Richard. Two ways. One, find them and bring them to justice -- what we're doing. And two, offer freedom as an alternative for their vision. And somehow to suggest the bees would stay in the hive is naïve -- they didn't stay in the hive when they came and killed 3,000 of our citizens.

UHHHHHHH . . . the killer bees, as it were, swarmed in Afghanistan and are now hiding in our supposed ally, Pakistan. A great many of those bees were bred by our other supposed ally, Saudi Arabia. And, no, a sane person does not go around smashing beehives to keep the bees from going on a rampage. You smoke the buggers out.

George Bush thought he was smashing a beehive in Iraq, and he thought that actually would work. Thing is, Iraq turned out not to be a beehive at all, and there was no al Qaida presence in Iraq -- at least before we invaded.

What Iraq turned out to be was a hornet's nest. Or Pandora's Box -- take your pick.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Why do we fight?


Got 99 minutes? Then watch this and be enlightened . . . or at least, if not enlightened, be caused to think really hard about some things.

THE AWARD-WINNING 2005 documentary Why We Fight is what "this" is, and its premise is why we're in Iraq -- and all of the historical reasons that made it inevitable that we would be in Iraq, and fighting in the Middle East for God knows how long -- has a hell of a lot more to do with profit than "freedom."

The bottom line is that we had a republic, but didn't heed Ben Franklin's warning, when a group of citizens asked him at the close of the Constitutional Convention what kind of government the framers had devised.

The founder's reply from 1787 today convicts us: "A republic, if you can keep it."

It's apparent that what we have today is an empire. Empires don't fight for "freedom." Empires fight for empire.

AND WE PAY THE PRICE with our dollars and with squandered opportunities for social justice at home. We pay the price in integrity and ask "What is truth?"

We pay the price with the lives of our young men and women. Or if not our own, other people's.

We have paid the price for empire with our republic. Which we couldn't keep.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Maybe Mother McCain coulda fielded that one


Remember the pathetic spectacle of Ronald Reagan, in videotaped depositions, trying to keep straight exactly what the hell had gone on in the Iran-Contra affair?

Well, at least the poor old man knew that it involved a) the Iranians and b) the Contras in Nicaragua. This gives the late president a leg up on presidential wannabe Sen. John McCain, who has demonstrated he has absolutely, positively no idea what the hell is going on in our latest Middle Eastern mess.

The New York Times
reports on why we ought to be very, very afraid:

Senator John McCain’s trip overseas was supposed to highlight his foreign policy acumen, and his supporters hoped that it would showcase him in a series of statesmanlike meetings with world leaders throughout the Middle East and Europe while the Democratic candidates continued to squabble back home.

But all did not go according to plan on Tuesday in Amman, Jordan, when Mr. McCain, fresh from a visit to Iraq, misidentified some of the main players in the Iraq war.

Mr. McCain said several times in his visit to Jordan — in a news conference and in a radio interview — that he was concerned that Iran was training Al Qaeda in Iraq. The United States believes that Iran, a Shiite country, has been training and financing Shiite extremists in Iraq, but not Al Qaeda, which is a Sunni insurgent group.

Mr. McCain said at a news conference in Amman that he continued to be concerned about Iranians “taking Al Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back.” Asked about that statement, Mr. McCain said: “Well, it’s common knowledge and has been reported in the media that Al Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran. That’s well known. And it’s unfortunate.”

It was not until he got a quiet word of correction in his ear from Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, who was traveling with Mr. McCain as part of a Congressional delegation on a nearly weeklong trip, that Mr. McCain corrected himself.

“I’m sorry,” Mr. McCain said, “the Iranians are training extremists, not Al Qaeda.”

Mr. McCain has based his campaign in large part on his assertion that he is the candidate best prepared to deal with Iraq, and the Democrats wasted little time in jumping on his misstatement to question his knowledge and judgment.
I KNOW THE GOP wants to be taken seriously -- despite its track record of corruption, cronyism, horndoggedness and staggering incompetence in governance.

Putting forth a presidential nominee that leaves thinking voters unsure of whether to start laughing hysterically or start thinking seriously about emigration is not the way to recover lost respect.