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Another attack - in the name of whose Islam?

Irfan Yusuf is writing Once Were Radicals, a book exploring how young Muslims of his generation navigated into and out of political Islam. This piece, first published in The Age  on the 22nd of Sptember,, appears on Webdiary with his permission

Another atttack- in the name of whose Islam?

by Irfan Yusuf

Another deadly terrorist attack in a Pakistani city. This time a truck laden with a tonne of explosives crashed into the entrance of Islamabad's Marriott Hotel on Saturday night, killing at least 60 and injuring hundreds. The timing of the attack - during the last 10 nights of Ramadan - could not have been more sacrilegious. Even pre-Islamic Arabs regarded the month of Ramadan as sacred, a time when tribal wars would cease. Yet for Islamist terrorists, no time is too sacred to pursue their ends through bloodshed.

Pakistan's Aaj TV news network showed one flustered Pakistani politician facing fierce questioning about how such a heavily secured location in the heart of the capital could have been the subject of attack. "You are journalists. You seem to know it all. Why don't you tell me how we can stop these attacks?" he said.

Indeed, it is easy to pretend to know all the answers. In the West, too many self-styled terrorism "experts" want us to forget that this latest attack is yet another reminder that most victims of Islamist terror are themselves ordinary Muslims.

Since the London bombings in July 2005, Australians have feared the possibility of a home-grown terrorist attack. The Howard government spent millions telling people to "be alert but not alarmed". Yet some "experts" want us to be more alarmed than alert.

This month, on the seventh anniversary of the September 11 attacks, James Cook University sociologist Dr Merv Bendle, spoke of "the hijacking of terrorism studies … by the postmodern left" with an agenda of avoiding "alleged 'Islamophobia' … (and) maintaining good relations with representatives of ethnic communities, rather than preventing acts of terrorism".

Yet as the recent terrorism trials in Melbourne illustrated so well, it was Muslim community members whose evidence proved crucial to the prosecution's case. Further, the experience in Australia, Canada and across the Western world has shown that extremists wishing to recruit disaffected youngsters are often most easily recognised by others from the same congregations.

While the verdicts in Australia's largest terrorism trial were being handed down last week, The Australian published an article speaking of a "recorded Muslim terrorism vow" that unnamed "Australian counter-terrorism agencies" had recorded.

Yet the so-called "discovery" turned out to be little more than the wording of a bay'ah, a standard pledge formula used by Islamic religious (and especially Sufi) teachers from aspiring disciples. The pledge is an expansion of the basic shahada or creedal formula recited by those wishing to convert to Islam. Sufism is a huge religious force in Pakistan, and no doubt many of the Marriott Hotel victims would have made such pledges to Pakistani Sufi teachers.

If a recently leaked UK intelligence report is any indication, it seems Muslim extremists drawn to terrorism have as little knowledge of Islam as their non-Muslim - and too frequently anti-Muslim - cultural warrior equivalents.

The report - produced by MI5's behavioural science unit - contradicts many widely held assumptions and confirms less prejudicial assessments on why some young people are attracted to fringe theologies and extremist violence. It looked at several hundred people "involved in or closely associated with violent, extremist activity". Most had a secular upbringing, lacked "religious literacy" and openly engaged in irreligious behaviour including drinking and taking drugs.

The report states: "We cannot make assumptions about involvement in terrorism based on the colour of someone's skin, their ethnic heritage or their nationality." Terror recruits are almost never foreigners or illegal immigrants, rendering much ethnic and ethno-religious profiling ineffective.

Sadly, much broader community discussion is less nuanced, and seems intent on convincing us that any increase in manifest religiosity and/or political activism among Muslims must be dangerous.

Such voices have powerful sponsors. Influential Australian thinktanks often invite speakers who cast negative aspersions on some 1.3 billion Muslims that they would never cast on any other faith or cultural group.

That is not to say that we should ignore religious factors. So much of today's terror happens in the name of Islam. But we must always ask the question, whose Islam? Is it the Islam of the first London bombing victim to be buried, the 20-year-old bank clerk Shahara Islam, who bore the name of the religion in whose misguided service the terrorists killed her and 50 other innocents? Is it the Islam of many of those killed in the weekend's Islamabad bombing who had gathered at the Marriott Hotel to break their Ramadan fast?

Modern political Islam's ideologues occupy the theological fringe, most knowing little of 14 centuries of development in the theological, spiritual and legal sciences that form mainstream Islam. Men like bin Ladin, al-Zawahiri and others on the extreme end of this fringe have virtually no formal university training other than in business administration (in bin Ladin's case) or medicine (in Zawahiri's case).

To claim they represent mainstream Islam is as ridiculous as alleging Christianity is represented by the likes of Radovan Karadzic.

Bombs don't discriminate on the basis of religion. Certainly we should be alert, not alarmed - but we should also be informed.

 

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Eliot - le grande poobah de globule

Fiona, I thought Eliot was ruling the world. It sort of explains a lot. But if he isn’t who am I going to blame?

Glebe, Sunday ,19 October 2008

Fiona: "In that case, Eliot, please be our reporter on the ground and send us the podcast..."

Saxon: "Anyway, the third Family Guy chicken fight scene is pretty well the most incisive piece of post modern cinema since 'Helen Keller, the Musical'  if you ask me."

Thalia: "Here's your chai latte. Say, did you see Counterpunch today? It seems Dick Cheney has finally admitted that the Bali bombing was actually a covert 'false flag' operation carried out by Zionists to discredit Abu Bakar Bashir and to help get John Howard re-elected."

Marieka: "It was so effing obvious."

Saxon: "Well, that's not strictly true. According to the Tehran Times On-line, it was the CIA specifically, not just some random "Zionists". They deployed the same sort of mini nuclear bomb used by Hillsong for the Hilton job."

Thalia: "Judy Davis and Rachel Ward are entering a short film in Tropfest about that."

Saxon: "Should be fantastic. Rachel's great, isn't she?"

Marieka: "Did I tell you I went to Judy's twenty-first birthday party?"

Saxon: "We should do something for Tropfest, you know."

Marieka: "Way ahead of you. I've got a great script. It starts with an Australian out-back shearer driving his ute along a remote country road late one night...."

Fiona: With your capacity for 20/20 foresight, Eliot, how come you aren't out there running the world? Clearly you would be 1000000% more effective than the gilded fools out there now.

Obvious, really...

Abu Bakar Bashir claims 2003 Bali bombings were the result of a nuclear missile fired by the CIA from a ship off the coast:

"It has been mentioned as being a micro-nuclear bomb, not a regular bomb... The bomb was made by the CIA, it could be no one else," he said in his house at the Al-Mukmin Islamic boarding school on Indonesia's Java island.

He said the attack was a conspiracy between "America, Australia and the Jews" and the three convicted bombers -- Amrozi, Imam Samudra and Ali Ghufron -- had been framed.

This will be gospel in half the cafes in Glebe by Sunday, most likely.

Fiona: In that case, Eliot, please be our reporter on the ground and send us the podcast...

Fallible or infallible

Angela, I am conversant with the theology, history, chronology, anthropology and archaeology revolving around the fantasy books of faith of the christian religion and reasonably knowledgeable of the other two factions and offshoots of the yahweh cult. I would be happy to engage you on any aspect of this mythology, if you are prepared to deal in verifiable fact and not apologetics. There is not one piece of evidence supporting the credibility or veracity of either bible.

To claim the OT laws, happenings and outcomes are not relevant and changed, yet to base your belief on the NT, which follows the same infallible perfect god as the OT, is rather contradictory and hypocritical, isn't it?

I think you must have misread the New Testament. It is New because so much of the previous teachings were thrown out. Including the genocidal god of war that one reads about in the legends.

Why were they changed if they were right, if not because they were wrong? If they needed to be changed, then they had to be wrong or they wouldn't have been changed. How can they be right at one point and wrong at another, when god’s word is truth and he created a perfect world?

So the OT rules and teachings are wrong, which would make the entire book wrong, as you say god is infallible and his word is truth. Which would make the NT which is based on the beliefs of the OT wrong as well, making god fallible and mistake prone.

If god is fallible, then he can't be right, if you say he is not infallible, then the rules and acts of the OT are right and the rules of the NT, whatever they are, are wrong. Because they are not the infallible words of god, but of a lesser fallible human being Make up your mind: either god’s word is infallible or it is changeable and fallible, making it wrong at any point in time. Or is this another apologist attempt to justify the empty truth of god, by confusing yourself with nonsensical statements?

How do you explain Revelations and the intended methods and outcomes god is going to impose? Doesn't this show the god of the OT is alive and well and the loving expressions and positive outcomes of human contact with the mythical Yahweh followers can't be found anywhere in the world, just carnage destruction and suppression in all communities and societies under the control of the followers of Yahweh? Nor can the supposed caring expressions of the mythical jesus be supported by the very facts of NT events many of which were macabre and the rest impossible, by any rational and logical standard.

The true humanist draws its approach from the natural ethics seen throughout the animal and animist kingdoms of the world. Sure they ate people, but they didn't try to turn the world into an unliveable hell hole and enslave or make extinct as many species as they could, to feed the god fuelled gluttony and self-centred greed, they lived in harmony with life for many thousands of year. Whilst it has taken the loving caring yahweh cults less than two thousand years to bring the planet to the point where the window of life is closing rapidly. As for the Australian Indigenous, typically you are trying to put them into the category of being primitive, yet they have evolved out of their barbarities. The followers of god have just improved their weaponry, refined their methods and found many other ways to inflict torture suppression and destruction upon the earth. Provide any verifiable proof to the contrary.

religious apologists

Yep, Alga, and think of all those guilt by association atheistic regimes, hmmm Mao: China-Tibet, cultural. revolution etc how many millions killed, or that wonderful atheistic Stalinist regime: Ukrainian genocide 1930s millions dead, Gulags, totalitarian 1984, or atheistic Pol Pot and his Killing Fields - millions dead or missing.

Angela, whilst I admire your attempt at being a religious apologist, sadly like them all, you fail. All the above debaucheries and despotic regimes were forced upon the majority of people, just like monotheism forces its ideology upon others and destroys their cultures.

The best example is the indigenous of the world, they had no choice. But you and those who follow god today, voluntarily follow, apologise and support the ongoing conflicts between the yahweh cults by your association with them and their viewable outcomes worldwide. You support missionaries who are the biggest cause of cultural destruction and indigenous genocide on the planet, along with the poisonous foods, ways of life and oppressive morals they introduced. Now, the indigenous of the world live in poverty, stricken with introduced illness and disease, have no arable land or forests to survive on, as gods followers have stripped them of all they own and given them nothing but the empty hope of the bible and the law of the gun, instead of the laws if nature.

The new testament, being a plagiarised, false and deceitful folk story, provides adequate evidence that nothing within the yahweh cults has or will change. Just read revelations to see the outcome your god has in store for humanity, it's no different to what you find in the OT.

I am guilty of the support I gave and the acts of my life, before I was able to throw off the ideological programming of my youth. Now I follow nor support any ideology, but work to support sane life on the planet by the way I live and think. Ideologists will continue sticking their heads in the sand and living in forlorn hope, whilst carnage and destruction abounds around them and, they will deny everything but their right to be right against the overwhelming evidence to the opposite. I wish you luck with the unsolvable dilemma you have as long as you follow the mythical war god yahweh.

Legends, myths and teachings are not all the "truth"

Well, Alga, I think you must have misread the New Testament. It is New because so much of the previous teachings were thrown out. Including the genocidal god of war that one reads about in the legends. Now scholars are questioning whether there even was a Kingdom of David or Solomon or perhaps just an acreage. That recent book by Scholomo makes interesting reading, as does Herodotus’s Histories, on the subject. The latter many times gives examples of the pre-Christian religions, and aside from the Amazons there were not many I think I would exchange the gospels for. Those writings, as you say, do indeed have their own limitations and legend component but seem to draw upon the teachings of previous famous leaders in thought like Hillel and the areas in common give clear guidance as to how to live and that certainly does not include war. Whatever writings the later Church hierarchy chose to include and exclude (and perhaps you are aware of this history) and the issues of the Nicean Creed, Arian vs Constantine, these are the political perversions of a very simple message. They are also the product of an age.

I am afraid you have thrown the baby out with the bath water. Humanism itself draws directly upon the tenets of the gospels. If you want to know what ancient humanity did have running then Herodotus is a great start. I think I would rather be Jewish or Christian or Moslem than be eating one's enemies alive or being shared by the entire tribe at whatever time or pleasure etc.

As for proselytising, well, that is a difficult area. I notice that some religions once proselytised aggressively like Torah-based, converting whole nations but now change to more an inheritance codance.

What would you do if the aboriginal culture, over whom you have some technological / financial dominance, still sacrificed children to make it rain or sent people into the desert to die if such was decreed by gods etc? The Noble Savage is a long tossed out theme, and would you really send people back to such?

People make mistakes when they confuse Gospel teachings with evil deeds contrary to such. And these people are in every church so it is little wonder there is so much confusion outside such.

Jesus would turn in his ossuary if he knew what had been done in his name. Alga, may I just suggest to go back and reread what the teachings actually were.

Cheers

Guilt by association

To claim they represent mainstream Islam is as ridiculous as alleging Christianity is represented by the likes of Radovan Karadzic.

I believe they do, as there is nothing else to go by. Religion in all it's guises and at this time, especially the yahweh cults are just as bad as each other. Muslim, christian or jew, they are no different to each other and all have a history of debauchery, suppression and war. When you bring religion into the equation of life, you have chaos, elitism, discrimination, racism and inequality. So why do people follow such primitive infantile superstitions, when all they do is create trouble and destruction world wide. Guilt by association I say, just as it is for any who support despotic ideologies and their factions.

all those pipers, guilty by association

Guilt by association I say, just as it is for any who support despotic ideologies and their factions.

Yep, Alga, and think of all those guilt by association atheistic regimes, hmmm Mao: China-Tibet, cultural. revolution etc how many millions killed, or that wonderful atheistic Stalinist regime: Ukrainian genocide 1930s millions dead, Gulags, totalitarian 1984, or atheistic Pol Pot and his Killing Fields - millions dead or missing.

Is it still collective blame that is appropriate , or perhaps some who use and behave under the cover of religions and political labels in particularly nasty ways that humans are so adept at inventing.  Perhaps you could point out where in the New Testament there is support for

"...debauchery, suppression and war...." and all of "...chaos, elitism, discrimination, racism and inequality..."

In fact there may even be blog writers who have committed crimes - like school shootings etc and, by guilt by association, that means you and I are collectively guilty too of such. Perhaps. Then again, some here do inspire homicidal maniacal behaviour ... or maybe music - certainly pipe playing does it for me.

Cheers

Selective support

Ernest William: "Since 9/11, I have been suspicious of the selective way terrorism has been exploited by the Bush and Howard administrations."

I bet you've barely noticed the selective way terrorism is being exploited by the Ahmadinejad, al-Asad and Chavez administrations, though.

So true Alan, alas. A chicken surprise?

Close to total agreement with you Alan. Consider who supplied so much of the state of the art military equipment, while we even gave Indonesia millions for their Tsunami relief. After the bombing the Congress also lifted their arms embargo (die to killing the American teachers in West Papua) and in came the hardware. Also from Britain, France, Russia and a military naval base for China.

Our dear friends north, with their dear friends north, have little to fear from us.

Reality check about those nukes.....Nukes for us are not deterrent with MotherWalmartMao beside them.

Those who screwed the US also have screwed us due to our own complicity and stupidity. Allowing our allies to feed their greed and arm our only regional threat in the name of the "terrorist" bogies (remember the "communist" bogies last time?). A small sacrifice made for a larger gain there, methinks. Have we already forgotten the Australian flags burning in 1999? Too easy.

The question is, perhaps, what penetrance of Cantonese genes are there in Indonesia? Bird flu is on the agenda again and it doesn't smell very good. Poultry rarely does before cooking.

Cheers

Well said Irfan Yusuf

G'day Irfan Yusuf,

Since 9/11, I have been suspicious of the selective way terrorism has been exploited by the Bush and Howard administrations.

There are so many examples of duplicity and inconsistencies in the American led method of deciding what constitutes a terrorist act which is worthy of the lives of many thousands of innocent people. Basically, I think that it requires more than one person to constitute a "terrorist cell" and it only applies to Muslims.

But not Saudi Arabia. Pigeon holing is selective.

IMHO I submit this opinion from memory and reasoning.

At the time of the WTC attack on 9/11, the Saudi Arabian royalty (including Osama's relatives) were guests of the Bush Administration, and although - after the attack - all air traffic had been banned, they were nevertheless allowed to fly out of the US without interference. WHY?

Since the Americans immediately blamed Osama bin Laden - a Saudi Arabian - and his Al Qaeda organisation, why didn't they insist on the invasion of Saudi Arabia? Some 15 of the 18 attackers were Saudi Arabian.

Virtually all of the US departments of security like the FBI and CIA admit that they all had pieces of the puzzle, even to the extent of being warned as to what would happen, when and how. But, probably because they compete for budget allowances, none of them put the pieces together. Unbelievable.

When the Taliban government of Afghanistan (where the Americans still want an oil pipeline) offered to hand over Osama provided he received an independent trial (possibly by the International Criminal Court to which the US is not a signatory) the US refused and took their case to a sympathetic United Nations. The belief of the nations who were so sorry for the US people was that an organised terrorist cell was at work in Afghanistan.

Hence the convenient, costly and I believe, unwinnable invasion of that country. The legitimate government of Afghanistan, namely the Taliban, are now suddenly the terrorists - in their own country. Fair dinkum.

At that time, Iraq was the second highest producer of oil in the world and, although Dictator Saddam had been an American ally in the war with Iran and Osama bin Laden who had been an American ally in the war against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan, were opposed to one another, the Americans claimed that the Al Qaeda organisation was in Iraq and together with Saddam, they were building weapons of mass destruction.

The Bush Administration created a coalition of mostly insignificant puppet governments and tried to give such a motley group an appearance of democracy. The pre-emptive invasion of Iraq destroyed any semblance of the meaning of democracy.

So, the propaganda surrounding the 9/11 attack gave birth to the fear of terrorism (which has been around since the beginning of recorded time) and as I see it, only benefits the American Military/Corporate and its fellow travellers.

Attacks on other participants in this shameful display of stupidity, has been by their own citizens. Why?

Could the Muslims be convenient dupes? And if that seems to fail, then make it extremist Muslims. Or Islamist extremists who seek to take over our democracies - but at all costs, maintain the attack on people who, as far as I can discern before 9/11, were only guilty of defeating the Roman Catholic Crusades.

I would more respect the US and the U.K. if they admitted that their purpose in this charade is to control the oil wealth of the middle east nations.

And the additional tragedy is, when you think about it, those who support this theft are guilty of considering one of the oldest and wisest societies in the world, of being insistent on their own way of life. That's freedom?

I even think that Obama is right when he proposes enormous funds for the creation of alternative energy, more friendly to the environment and less dependent on oil supplies from non-compliant nations.

Whatever happens, and for the worst of all reasons, the Bush administration and their puppets will be in the history books of all nations except the US.

I hope Michael de Angelos is right - we may be seeing the death of another predatory empire - that of the US

Cheers Ern G.

Wrong Ern G

Ernest William: "Hence the convenient, costly and I believe, unwinnable invasion of that country. The legitimate government of Afghanistan, namely the Taliban, are now suddenly the terrorists - in their own country.  Fair dinkum."

Did you hear Obama today when he said "if Pakistan is unable or unwilling to hunt down bin Laden and take him out, then we should"? Sounds like Obama would invade Pakistan, if he becomes President, in his search for Bin Laden. For him to do as he promises he will have use bases in Afghanistan, whether Afghanistan likes it or not.

I cannot believe you wrote this "I hope Michael de Angelos is right - we may be seeing the death of another predatory empire - that of the US."

If as is possible the world goes into depression and there is a shortage of food and resources and our friends to the north decide that Australia would be a good place to live, and instead of coming in leaky boats they come in aircraft carriers and landing craft, who will come to our help? Because we are are defenceless. The USA is the best friend we have. It is time we should be using the Future Fund to buy ourselves some nuclear weapons.

A win for Gitmo prisoners

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/08/washington/08detain.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Hot off the presses. US judges fight back against Bush. This ruling now has shown that the US courts will eventually offer greater protection for the rule of law and habeas corpus against illegal and indefinite detention than Australian law offers refugees and others who end up in our concentration camps.

Good for the US judge.

Obsessive compulsive disorder

Angela Ryan: "....now which country does that? "

Cuba? Syria? China? Perhaps Great Britain when it, too, was at war?

Angela, if you were to cherry pick the history of any country you could come up with a list of "atrocities" to be used in the sorts of tendentious rants that are directed continually against Israel.

It's the obsession with Israel that marks out today's political left, ever eager apologists for reactionary Arab nationalist regimes and Islamist psychos like Hamas and Hizbollah, as so noteworthy even by its weird standards.

Israel's in a state of almost constant war with its neighbours, and even non-neighbour regimes like the Ayranian-supremacist nutters in charge in Tehran. So, of course it's going to have strict border security, walls with gun turrets, etc.

The reason for the obsessive emphasis on Israel is obvious.

The Human Rights Council has now passed 60 per cent of its resolutions on Israel alone and nothing (repeat, nothing) on China or Zimbabwe or Saudi Arabia, for example. How laughable.

The Arab Lobby and huge, cashed -up anti-Israel lobbies like OPEC write the script for that sort of nonsense and bankroll the propaganda.

The endless ranting about Israel is so blatantly a diversionary tactic that it's laughable.

Inside the Arab world they don't even bother to dress it up as 'anti-Zionism' or any of the euphemisms used by the "human rights" imposters. It's "Jews" this, and "Jews that", and "kill Jews" and "hate Jews" and "Jews are pigs and monkeys" the other. On and on and on....

Saudi Arabia, Cuba, China, Russia are dictating human rights policy through the United Nations, and its their propaganda agencies that are writing the script for the anti-Israel lobby in the west, festering in crackpot political fringe movements in the west just as it did in the late 19th Century.

As human rights expert Professor Anne Bayefsky, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, points out:

"And that's how Israel is being used. Does it mean that Israel has no human rights problems? Obviously not, but it's not 60 per cent of the world's problems. When a billion people in China are ignored and the people of Zimbabwe are ignored altogether?"

Well, China and Zimbabwe have Marxist governments. That's why.

But Israel has, what, four million people? And they're mostly Jews.

Therefore the important thing is, and history has shown this, that an obsession with Jews serves to divert from the policies of others.

Hypocritical regimes write the scripts, and willing executioners shout the slogans and kill the Jews. See?

the Dorian Grey Nation in our midst, but beware the basement

Ah Eliot, how do you manage to get to your library each day without getting lost? Don’t even those street signs confuse you?

The public information on the world stage is indeed confusing at times and so many seek to influence and manipulate what people read and understand.

One of the easiest methods to test for such is to remove the pronouns and then decide about the regime’s behaviour. Identity cards with ethnicity, limiting jobs and movement, Walling in with gun turrets, head shootings even of children with no accounting, bombing, collective punishment, bulldozing homes, limiting food and medicines, blowing up power generators and cutting water sources, sinking boats, shelling families on beaches, blowing up political threats, removing or poisoning crops, beatings, humiliations, rounding ups, tortures, disappearings, collective punishments, invading neighbouring countries with massive civilian attacks, threatening other nations with weapons of mass destruction … now, which country does that?

Could have been Nazi Germany, could have been the propaganda for war against Saddam, but he wasn't that bad (he didn’t actually HAVE WMD) … any other regime do that kind of thing? Can’t think at the moment of any other than the Israel regime. What irony.

And in the USA the spying lobby group AIPAC has indeed been vilifying the Iranian regime by Hasbara techniques at all levels including their "conference" or hate fest as some call it. It certainly is not Iran that is mirroring the past actions of Nazi Germany. But it takes a strong mind to fend off such clever propaganda. More irony. Perhaps "projection " as psychologists would call it.

Collective punishment and ruthless military bombardment and siege tactics. Just as then, back in Nazi Germany, there is not much journalistic coverage and those who are there tend to get hit by the occupiers in rather nasty ways or kidnapped by their stooges or radicals within. Nice head shots by the IDF, so accurate even with children. Wonder how they train them for such barbarity.

The Refusniks are to be applauded as the brave IDF who refuse to serve in such a cruel and dehumanising occupation. Just as 20 or so of the much esteemed Israeli airmen refused the bombing raids upon the civilians there in Gaza, the new Warsaw Ghetto. Even Desmond Tutu has called upon the world to investigate war crimes there and the Council of Churches has condemned and the Presbyterian church has even divested of all Israeli financial dealings. Hard for a Christian church to do. Academics in Britain have called for a boycott of Israel. Perhaps some do care. Israeli organisations within document and publish what is happening in the hope that it will stop and justice will ensue.

it is against the efforts of these brave Israelis that those who attempt to silence and put down work. I suspect even in Nazi Germany there were Germans who did find out what happened and stood up and condemned it, such as a certain bishop and later Niemoller. No doubt they were shouted down as socialists or supporters of terrorists or unpatriotic and lists made. Sounds familiar again today. Fascism has many forms and faces but by its deeds and supporters it can be seen.

"But it's perfectly okay to link Israel with Nazi Germany. "As Eliot says. If the shoe fits then yes. And the cobbler was not me. Take away the propaganda sugarene and one hardly needs a shoehorn.

Israel now equals Nazi Germany in a far worse way than ever thought possible, while justifying its every evil deed by how the poor Jews of Eastern Europe were indeed treated by the Nazis.

The Dorian Grey of Nations one sees only through the media. Only those at home, on the ground, can see how we really look. Can one see the painting hidden in the basement and bear to look? Some cannot do that. Unless this Israeli regime's behaviour is openly challenged, as Nazi should have been, then the same level can be expected.

Already we see it in the starving ghetto of Gaza. Holocaust survivors have compared what they see there to the Warsaw Ghetto and indeed the similarity is eerie.

Niemoller may have called us to watch and call it out when we see it, but the usual fascist elements in our society continue to protect such behaviour as they always have whether Nazi Germany, Mussolini, Franco's Spain, General Pinochet, and then the "communists" who were really just another spectrum of fascism, same military government control etc, like Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc, all who inflicted terrible harm upon their peoples and those within their reach.

And now the Israeli regime declares they are going to attack Iran, whatever is needed even with nuclear weapons, somehow justifying this by their own "security". Since when is it OK to nuke another nation when they are not even threatening (except as heard in Hasbara stooge voices about maps, idiots) and the IAEI and USA National Security have both declared no nuclear weapons present, nor programs?

Have we been so brainwashed? So it is OK to drop nuclear bombs now when not attacked? Yes if Israel, no if Iran? Neither is ok.

While Eliot continues his support of nuclear threats by Israel against nations he thinks do not have right to defence nor security themselves - ? racist? - then he fails to support those of greater moral courage from within Israel, just as those within Nazi Germany had to have extreme moral courage, to condemn and criticise the policies of their regimes.

Eliot can question anyone's right to exist or defend themselves against a nuclear armed superior air force. He can beat the war drum for whomsoever he wishes and mock those who dare attack the superior ones for their supremist attitudes. Eliot has great wit and is clever with his gab and can use it howsoever he wishes. In previous times no doubt such would be hired and valued for their abilities. And indeed were. Better than stacking books. Our current freedoms are frail and vulnerable and the voices of fascism loud and powerful.

Funny how those who condemn terrorist have no words of criticism for the militaries who blow up families as they sleep. Both are evils. As is the silence.

Until people like Eliot also have the courage to condemn powerful groups like the Israeli regime for their actions there is little hope that the world will ever be free of holocausts. The fascists of the world delight in writings of such as Eliot and his support for behind such smokescreens they are protected. Did you like Franco too Eliot?

I always wonder as I read about past horrors, such as the suffering of Jewish Europeans in WW2, who would have the courage today to stand up and speak out, were it today, knowing such will attract the attacks of the perpetrators’ stooges, just as some brave people did in the past. Who has that courage today? Very very few.

My comment on Toben

I absolutely abhor Toben's beliefs but I will defend his right to  express them (nor was he misquoted out of context) and the possible jailing of the man is completely unjust.

I can understand these laws in Germany - the younger generations of Germans are a remarkable lot and the most eductated about the past injustices of their country (although blame can in no way be attributed to the bulk of the German people - even during WW2).

I have German friends and I've stayed with them. I find their kids terrifically well educated about their own country's injustices of the past. In fact a whole lot better than we Ausssie are about our own indigenous communities which is odd considering how small the population is  and was and the fact they had absolutely no control over Australia's economy as it was claimed the Jews of Germany did.

From a practical point of view (apart form the horrendous Holocaust) the sheer madness of driving out talented and accademically Jews from Germany and Poland and the (now) Czech Republic was an unmitigated practical disaster - those who ended up in the USA and the UK and avoiding being transported to camps gave their respective host countries a huge fillip, Hollywood being the greatest beneficiary of all that superb artistic talent.

Jailing Toben just gives all those awful neo-nazis a fillip.

Probably "mistranslated"

"An Australian man has been arrested at Heathrow Airport in London accused of being a Holocaust denier. Gerald Frederick Toben, 64, was in transit on a flight from the United States to Dubai."

Must have been on his way to an AGM or something.

mistranslated

Well of course you weren't, so I guess that this is an oblique way of saying that you are insincere or untrustworthy.

Funny about the passion, then, Eliot:  reading your posts I have the feeling that they they are all flecked with spittle.

What planet are you from, Angela?

Angela Ryan: "You fell for the AIPAC propaganda / Hasbara trying to link Iran with NAZI Germany."

Oh, I know. It would be totally wrong to link Ahmadinejad's Iran with Nazi Germany 

Angela Ryan: "There are some very brave Israelis trying to tell the world what is really happening there, just as Germans needed to know in the 30s and 40s. "

But it's perfectly okay to link Israel with Nazi Germany.

What planet are you from, Angela?

Spring time for Hitler and Germany

Michael de Angelos: "It helps to know what Adolph Hitler actually said as opposed to inventing what he might have said."

Yes, he was so often "mistranslated" with respect to the "vibrant" Jewish community in the Warsaw ghetto.

And since Ernst Rohm was a gay, Hitler was probably "mistranslated" when he had him shot.

Why so scared of the truth?

Telling you what a man actually says isn't agreeing with him.

It helps to know what Adolph Hitler actually said as opposed to inventing what he might have said. Doesn't mean we endorse his actions.

History repeats, the very worst of it

Wow, Geoff, usual form and accurate:

"It gives their "side" an undeserved dignity."

followed up by Geoff's later:

"I don't care so much about the man being wardrobe-disadvantaged. But I'd bet the next wheat crop for a slice of Wonder Soft white thick that the dirty bugger has halitosis that would knock over a train of donkeys at fifty metres.."

That certainly raises the dignity of "your and Eliot's side", hmmm, about doubles it I think.

And of course the final little twerpy paranoia that we so love Geoff for and can rely upon from him and so typifies a Geoff response: "...who keeps on saying he will destroy Israel and finish off the Jews.."

Dear me , Geoff, do you ever come out from under your bed? What a scary world it must be for you.

Again therapy does wonders. Or is there a justifiable threat?

Or do you have one actual properly translated quote for "finish off the Jews"? Sounds more like a cheap Hollywood script.

You fell for the AIPAC propaganda / Hasbara trying to link Iran with NAZI Germany.

Read more widely Geoff, it will open your eyes. Try what really happened for a start. Or Information Clearing Channel. Or Desert Peace. There are some very brave Israelis trying to tell the world what is really happening there, just as Germans needed to know in the 30s and 40s. Funny "security" is used again as justification. It seems history repeats because of people like Geoff.

Cheers

I was mistranslated

F Kendall: "Your words and phrases, eg, "a more abject display of ... awful ... disgraceful ... bile ... lickspittle ... toadying ... staggering display of complicity"  etc etc ..."

I was "mistranslated", obviously.

Thank you Eliot

Your words and phrases, eg, "a more abject display of ... awful ... disgraceful ... bile ... lickspittle ... toadying ... staggering display of complicity"  etc etc - was "nauseated" in there somewhere? perfectly illustrate your other phrase, "hate filled diatribe".

Money ...

Money positioned in close proximity to mouth?

Eliot Ramsey, as you seem fond of using terms such as "apologists" and "lickspittles", would you name them so we can all know who you are referring to?

Equivalence curve

Ian MacDougall: "But your change of position is noted."

I don't care which translation of Ahmadinejad's hate filled diatribe his apologists prefer. Each is as bad as the other. The pathetic thing is, they don't seem to realise it.

Iran's vibrant gay community

Ian MacDougall: "I would assume that settlement of the ‘rational debate’ would involve getting an accurate English translation of what Ahmadinejad actually said."

Oh, I'm fine with the preferred "politically correct" translation about eliminating "this disgraceful stain from the Islamic world". That anyone imagines such bile is more acceptable than the earlier translation is a staggering admission of complicity with Ahmadinejad junta.

The only question is, when will Ahmadinejad's lickspittles start denying that version, too? Doubtless at the precise moment it's deemed expedient by Tehran.

What about the "thriving" Persian Jewish community, and Iran's vibrant gay scene? Are you okay with that, too?

Fiona: "Eliot, we would be delighted to publish an analysis by you of Fanonist-Leninist thinking as a thread-starter. How about it? Don't be coy now."

It's a fascinating, if very disturbing idea, isn't it? I'll give it some thought.

Precision, Eliot, precision

Eliot: "Oh, I'm fine with the preferred "politically correct" translation about eliminating "this disgraceful stain from the Islamic world". That anyone imagines such bile is more acceptable than the earlier translation is a staggering admission of complicity with Ahmadinejad junta."

No. However staggering, it is not an endorsement of Ahmadinejad, just a matter of precision. But your change of position is noted.

What about the "thriving" Persian Jewish community, and Iran's vibrant gay scene? Are you okay with that, too?

I have already answered that, though you appear not to have noticed, and am disinclined to waste further time on this matter. I need to spend today watching how my portfolio is weathering it.

Fanonist delusionary thinking

I'm glad this thread has developed in the way it did.

It will be a constant source of reference every time when, elsewhere, I find myself discussing the weird contemporary tendency on the so-called Left to kowtow to Islamist extremists like Ahmadinejad.

I have never seen a more abject display in my life.

It is particularly awful, and would be funny were it not so awful, the extent and depth of denial affected in the face of the obvious facts regarding the refugee flight if Iran's Jewish population since the advent of the Islamist regime, quite apart from everything else.

To simply deny that it is happening or to dress it up as something else. Nauseating.

I'm not sure where this constant toadying on the Left to the likes of Ahmadinejad comes from. Perhaps some perverted, deformed by-product of Fanonist-Leninist thinking.

Disgraceful.

Fiona: Eliot, we would be delighted to publish an analysis by you of Fanonist-Leninist thinking as a thread-starter. How about it? Don't be coy now.

Your problem Ian

Ian MacDougall: "Mohammed Mossadeq "was a major figure in modern Iranian history who served as the Prime Minister of Iran from 1951 to 1953 when he was removed from power by a coup d'état. From an aristocratic background, Mosaddeq was passionately opposed to foreign intervention in Iran. An author, administrator, lawyer, prominent parliamentarian, and statesman, he is most famous as the architect of the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry, which had been under British control through the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, today known as British Petroleum.""

Firstly let me say that most people alive today had not been born by 1953. Including me. This sounds like a terrible affair. but most people are innocent. Including Brits and Americans. Seeking to attribute moral culpability to historical figures and regimes is one thing. Atttempting to visit the blame to unborn generations is something else entirely.

Then the US sided with Saddam Hussein in his war of aggression against Iran from 1980-88, giving the Iranian people little cause to respect it. 

A dreadful mistake I grant you, and I said so at the time. But the Americans had their own fish to fry with Iran following the disaster of the Carter presidency.

Israel, understandably, is seen by the Iranians as a proxy for the US; nuclear armed and in their region.

Israel strenuously opposed the West's policy of "tilting" in favour of Iraq.

Despite all that, on my visit to Iran 10 years ago, I did not encounter any hostility against Americans on the part of the Iranian people.

Big of them. I too have no hostility against Iranian people.

I have followed Michael de Angelos' link, and have found it persuasive. I am now of the opinion that Ahmadinejad neither called for Israel to be 'wiped off the map' nor did he deny the historical reality of the Holocaust. 

I am sorry to hear this for your sake. But this is entirely your problem. Please do not mistake me for someone who gives a damn.

Your link however, is no counter: merely (understandable) Israeli propaganda.

It is not Israeli propaganda. It is pro-Israeli propaganda sourced I think in the US or  Canada. I linked it for a reason. The message is these issues are now beyond discussion. I have no interest in hearing the mistranslation "meme" again. In fact I thought Margo had banned it. It was always marginal and spun out of orbit of rational debate long ago.

I do not expect to see an end to the ongoing crisis in the Middle East in my lifetime. It will still be going 500 years from now.

Why so pessimistic? Israel has formal peace treaties and diplomatic relations with Egypt and Jordan, and a number of other Arab countries, and has been in semi secret direct negotiations with Syria for months. Israel and Fatah are more or less allies. 

Graeme Watson  I did attempt a reply to your comment but the Post button ate it. I'll try again later.

Kowtowing to memes and extremists

Eliot Ramsey, [This thread] will be a constant source of reference every time when, elsewhere, I find myself discussing the weird contemporary tendency on the so-called Left to kowtow to Islamist extremists like Ahmadinejad.

I suggest you copy it to file and show it to your grandchildren, including this bit: Eliot, you missed your both your time and your vocation. You would have made an excellent prosecutor in the trials of the Middle Ages, specializing in witchcraft and heresy. I can see you now, telling the court: ”Let us not ask what the accused actually said. Let’s content ourselves with what suits us to believe he said.”

I’ll give you this, that is certainly not ‘kowtowing’ to anything, save perhaps ideological convenience. You could certainly not be accused of ‘kowtowing’ to the truth.
 
It is particularly awful, and would be funny were it not so awful, the extent and depth of denial affected in the face of the obvious facts regarding the refugee flight if Iran's Jewish population since the advent of the Islamist regime, quite apart from everything else.

To simply deny that it is happening or to dress it up as something else. Nauseating.

Have I done that? Where exactly? I have never even raised the issue, nor denied a considerable percentage that Iran’s Jews have quit the country, and no prizes for guessing why. What is even more obvious is that throughout the Arab world, despite Geoff Pahoff’s cited agreements between Israel and Arab governments, the once thriving Jewish communities have everywhere been reduced close to zero in population. Look here ( http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/jewpop.html) if you don’t believe me.

Geoff Pahoff: "Seeking to attribute moral culpability to historical figures and regimes is one thing. Atttempting to visit the blame to unborn generations is something else entirely."

Which of course, I never did. But as in the case of the Holocaust and the Jews of today, the past has a way of steering the present. The attitude of modern Iranians to the US is only understandable in the light of the actions of past US governments.

"Then the US sided with Saddam Hussein in his war of aggression against Iran from 1980-88, giving the Iranian people little cause to respect it."

A dreadful mistake I grant you, and I said so at the time. But the Americans had their own fish to fry with Iran following the disaster of the Carter presidency.

Actually what happened was that after fleeing Iran the Shah sought refuge (for cancer treatment as well) in the US –  home of the brave, and sadly a haven for many a bloodstained despot. So the dominoes continued to fall and the boxcars to bang. Students raided the US Embassy in Tehran in November 1979 and took the 52 of the staff hostage, offering to trade them for the Shah. (Khomeini first opposed them, but given the widespread popular support for the students in Iran, finished up supporting it.) Thus the botched US military rescue attempt, which sank the Carter administration. One thing leads to another when you go down the Road of No Principle.

The message is these issues are now beyond discussion. I have no interest in hearing the mistranslation "meme" again. In fact I thought Margo had banned it. It was always marginal and spun out of orbit of rational debate long ago.

My understanding is that what was banned, and for very sound, practical reasons, is Holocaust Denial. While some may think that the Ahmadinejad issue can be airbrushed into irrelevance by calling it the ‘mistranslation meme’ that does not settle the question:  was he actuallty mistranslated? Yes or no?

I would assume that settlement of the ‘rational debate’ would involve getting an accurate English translation of what Ahmadinejad actually said. We know what his enemies say he said, but is that the truth? It’s surely no big deal to ask such a question. A rational debate remains open as long as reasonable questions like that remain, whether one likes it or not. And easily settled, I would have thought.

I gave up

There is no point to it, Ian MacDougall.

I gave up when dear Eliot began to suggest that Iran wasn't really in the Middle East but in Asia, which is fairly similar to saying Israel is more a part of East Europe.

Mind you, it would be easier if both were.

At last, Eliot!

I do admire your capacity to eliminate whole words from sentences.

When you quote Ahmadinejad:

"will eliminate this disgraceful stain from the Islamic world."

he was quoting the Ayatollah who was in turn referring to the "occupying regime" ie a  Zionist government.. No amount of fiddling with the edges changes the sentence.

And I'm pleased to see that you finally admit the obvious as I quote you "Eliot Ramsey :"Israel, understandably, is seen by the Iranians as a proxy for the US"

Thank God you finally came to your senses.

Desperate needs

Ian MacDougall:  "Israel, understandably, is seen by the Iranians as a proxy for the US; nuclear armed and in their region."

In their region? Israel and Iran are not neighbours, and Iran, a non-Arabic country, is not even in the Middle East region strictly speaking but in Central Asia.

And what has Israel ever done to Iran? Nothing I can see.

Then why the constant ranting by the Aryanian Supremo, his western apologists and his strapping jackbooted stormtroopers about the perfidious influence of the, cough, cough, "International Zionists"?

Why the desperate need by his foreign claquers to reach back even into the Truman/Churchill era to find excuses, any excuses, to justify Ahmadinejad's bizarre antics?

Ian MacDougall: "I am now of the opinion that Ahmadinejad neither called for Israel to be 'wiped off the map' nor did he deny the historical reality of the Holocaust."

Of course, we have a new line now. Instead of saying Israel is to be 'wiped off the map' we now say Ahmadinejad said he "will eliminate this disgraceful stain from the Islamic world."

There, that's much better.

Next week, of course, we'll have to deny he said that, too. But, hey, we're really getting the hang of this denial thing now, having to do it so often.

The long chain

Eliot, in your tempered and well-reasoned piece 'Desperate needs' you asked "Why the desperate need by his foreign claquers to reach back even into the Truman/Churchill era to find excuses, any excuses, to justify Ahmadinejad's bizarre antics?"

Not that I have done so, but I will venture a reason as to why others may have. For a start, the Holocaust occurred in the Truman-Churchill era, and that was the trigger for the setting up of Israel, which is now perceived by all and sundry as the main bone of contention in the Middle East. It is hardly not relevant.

Israel grew out of the Holocaust, which grew out of Nazism, which grew out of the Central Powers' defeat in WW1, which grew out of WW1, which grew out of the preceding European arms race. So we can follow a chain of historic origins and causes back at least to 1500 AD, with complete application to today. Time does not erase causality, perception of grievance, or historical relevance.

As for 'Middle Eastern country': to get to Iran from Australia, you first fly to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, the Singapore of the Middle East.  Then you fly north for about an hour, with the mountain chain that separates Iran from Iraq out the window there on your left. To my knowledge, Iran has never fought a war with its eastern neighbour, Afghanistan. But it had a particularly brutal one with that notable Middle Eastern country, Iraq, right next door.

The Middle East, as the name suggests, is part of Asia. In my atlas, it is 25 cm from Jerusalem to Tehran, and 20 cm from Tehran to Dubai. Not much difference at all by air.

Finally, I think you misread my post. As a western liberal, I hold no brief for the Iranian theocracy. But at the same time I think I have showed the considerable role of the US in bringing it into power. It is an awful regime, which cheerfully hangs gays, and women (but not men) who commit the crime of engaging in sex outside of marriage. It (just) tolerates about four religions beside Islam, including Judaism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism. But not Ba'hai for some reason.

The story of the US overthrow of Mossadeq I maintain is highly pertinent to understanding the situation today.

A final reminder: I was addressing the issue of precisely what Ahmadinejad had said about 'wiping Israel off the map'. So far, you have not given me any reason to revise my position.

Eliot my dear

You are chasing fairies at the bottom of the garden.

Twist this way, twist that way, twist any way for Ahmadinejad

The frank revelations shown here of complicity in the racist, homophobic agenda of Iran's President Ahmadinejad by western "leftist" apologists puts me in mind of those left wing representatives who in the 1950s and 1960s put themselves just as eagerly and as disgracefully at the service of the Soviet Union, North Korea, East Germany and Communist China for anti-Western propaganda purposes.

But at least back then they could pretend, according to the nonsensical dogmas of Marxism at any rate, that they were abnegating themselves to foreign dictators in the name of "progress".

But the Islamic Republic of Iran? You have to be kidding!!

This from the politically correct Information Clearinghouse/ New York Times, translation of President Ahmadinejad's speech as preferred by Michael de Angelos and other Ahmadinejad apologists on this thread:

Our dear Imam targeted the heart of the world oppressor in his struggle, meaning the occupying regime. I have no doubt that the new wave that has started in Palestine, and we witness it in the Islamic world too, will eliminate this disgraceful stain from the Islamic world.

Lovely, that. And that's the "good" translation. That's the latest preferred translation.

Michael de Angelos: "And in all my travels, and having an extensive list of gay friends around the world, there is one thing I have discovered - there is no homosexual community like there is in America."

But that's not what Ahmadinejad said, is it?

He didn't say, "Our gay scene is different to your gay scene," or that, "In Iran, we have homosexuals but they live differently to your homosexuals."

He said, "In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals like in your country. We don’t have that in our country."

He's denying that in Iran there are homosexuals at all.

"We don’t have that in our country."

Why don't you tell your gay friends, Michael, that you approve of so fulsomely of the gay scene under President Ahmadinejad!!

Then there's the absurd suggestion that Iran's Jewish population is "thriving" because, while most of them have actually fled the country since the racist Islamist regime in Teheran commenced its systematic oppression of religious minorities, have not yet all gone! From the country in which they have lived for centuries!

They shall be deemed "thriving" until their elimination from Iran is complete and total!

It is even suggested the tens of thousands of Persian Jews who have fled Iran have done so because of the "alarming threats against Iran".

So, not only is Ahmadinejad not threatening the Jews, the Jews are fleeing the safe haven of Iran because, being more cowardly than other Iranians of course, they are being "threatened" from abroad by, whom? The USA? Israel?

So much for any genuine concern for refugees. It all depends on whether they can be exploited for Party propaganda purposes.

Otherwise, stony silence from our resident "refugee advocates" alternating with twisting and turning the words of President Ahmadinejad in order to protect his reputation.

Puh-lease! Pass me a brown paper bag...

But in a sense I understand. The political Left, especially the marxisant variant, is compelled by the logic of its own degraded, intellectually and morally bankrupt cultus to put itself in obsequious service to whoever or whatever happens at any moment to be opposed in principle and fact to open, western-style, liberal society.

Even if it's a scumbag like Ahmadinejad! No choice!

For God's sake. For your own sakes. Get it right this time.

Michael de Angelos: "Courtesy of that bastion of leftism, the New York Times (the newspaper that brought you Judith Miller, cheerleader for the Iraq invasion) you can read President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech in full and the manner in which his words have been changed to distort his meaning."

For those who have no interest in any distortions of the meaning of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s words, go here and press play. And lend a hand. Before it is too late.

For God's sake, Geoff, get it in perspective

Geoff Pahoff, Mohammed Mossadeq "was a major figure in modern Iranian history who served as the Prime Minister of Iran from 1951 to 1953 when he was removed from power by a coup d'état. From an aristocratic background, Mosaddeq was passionately opposed to foreign intervention in Iran. An author, administrator, lawyer, prominent parliamentarian, and statesman, he is most famous as the architect of the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry, which had been under British control through the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, today known as British Petroleum.

Mosaddeq was removed from power on August 19, 1953, in a coup d'état, supported and funded by the British and U.S. governments and led by General Fazlollah Zahedi. The American operation came to be known as Operation Ajax in America, after its CIA cryptonym, and as the '28 Mordad 1332' coup in Iran, after its date on the Iranian calendar. Mosaddeq was imprisoned for three years and subsequently put under house arrest until his death.

Thus the US played a big role in the destruction of the only democracy Iran ever had. The brutal Shah regime ruled Iran from 1953 to 1979, when it was overthrown, to be replaced by the present theocracy. Then the US sided with Saddam Hussein in his war of aggression against Iran from 1980-88, giving the Iranian people little cause to respect it.  Israel, understandably, is seen by the Iranians as a proxy for the US; nuclear armed and in their region.

Despite all that, on my visit to Iran 10 years ago, I did not encounter any hostility against Americans on the part of the Iranian people, though of course the US government is another matter again, and the mullahs won't let you into the country if they even think you have been to Israel.

I have followed Michael de Angelos' link, and have found it persuasive. I am now of the opinion that Ahmadinejad neither called for Israel to be 'wiped off the map' nor did he deny the historical reality of the Holocaust. I am of course always happy  to see a convincing case to the contrary, because the truth  always comes first in my book. Your link however, is no counter: merely (understandable) Israeli propaganda.

The US was first to get the bomb. So the USSR had to get it. So China; so India; so Pakistan in a neat causal chain. Facing the hostility of the Islamic world, Israel had to get it. So, understandably, some nearby Islamic state had to get it. An Iranian bomb will raise the stakes to mutually assured destruction, at least for the time being.

If Israel attacks Iran, it may buy Israel a bit of time, but it will also stimulate a wider push in the Middle East for nuclear armament. Israel's problem is that while the Muslims can lose over and over again, Israel cannot afford a single loss in a war.

I do not expect to see an end to the ongoing crisis in the Middle East in my lifetime. It will still be going 500 years from now.

It is well conceivable that if the US had left the Mossadeq government alone in 1953, it would not be calling Iran a 'rogue state' today. Actually, the most 'pragmatic' course is to adopt a set of defensible principles, and to stick by them.

Assuming ...

Geoff Pahoff, as you did not answer my question I am assuming from your latest comment that you were referring to President Ahmadinejad when you wrote " ... who runs Iran ...".  It is far from new information, and easily verifiable, that he does not run Iran.

Assuming what? The truth?

It is not news that after exhausting every other stale worthless argument, eg the man has been "mistranslated", or he is "misunderstood" and just wants to see peace in the Middle East and justice for the Palestinians, the appeasers of this monster always resort to the last refuge. 

"Ahmadinejad doesn't call the shots in Iran anyway."

Just like appeasers of genocidal lunatics have always done.

It's bullshit of course.

WHAT does Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, really think of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, his bellicose, populist president? After Mr Ahmadinejad was elected in 2005, to the surprise of almost all the pundits, it was widely assumed he would be a meek figurehead. Yet he has been given much leeway, and his reckless economic and risky foreign policies have dragged Iran into a state of near-constant crisis.

...

Yet Mr Khamenei wields his power lightly, to the extent that he often seems aloof. He is thought not to have left Iran since 1989. He rarely meets journalists or visiting Western officials. Whether intentionally or not, he has been overshadowed by Iran’s presidents, even before Mr Ahmadinejad. The reform-minded Muhammad Khatami, who presided from 1997-2005, upstaged him from the left with hopeful calls for a “dialogue of civilisations”, while Mr Ahmadinejad seems to outflank him from the right with diatribes against Israel and denials of the Holocaust. Moreover, Mr Ahmadinejad gives the impression across the world that he is Iran’s main man. For instance, the Republican presidential candidate, John McCain, has argued that Mr Ahmadinejad, not Mr Khamenei, has ultimate authority in Iran.

...

But just as Mr Ahmadinejad seemed to have fallen out of favour with the leader, Mr Khamenei came to his defence. “The responsible party for advancing the nuclear issue is the Supreme National Security Council headed by the honourable president,” he declared. “What is said by the president and authorities is shared by all authorities of the country…” "

It's Ahmadinejad who keeps on saying he will destroy Israel and finish off the Jews. There is no reasonable doubt he has, or soon will have, the power to carry out his threats.

I hear him loud and clear. That's the end of this issue as far as I'm concerned.

Filling a gap

Geoff Pahoff, I would like to highlight a paragraph from the article you linked:

A counter-attack against Mr Ahmadinejad then continued. An influential former foreign minister and confidant of Mr Khamenei, Ali Akbar Velayati, called the president’s policies “illogical” and took the unusual step of writing an editorial in a French newspaper, Libération, reportedly with Mr Khamenei’s blessing, to state explicitly that the supreme leader was Iran’s ultimate decision-maker. The usually combative Mr Ahmadinejad stayed silent. According to a former senior Iranian official who is related to Mr Khamenei and occasionally meets him: “If the leader were to withdraw his support, Ahmadinejad’s political future would be finished…He is scared of [Khamenei], like a dog”.

Perhaps the situation is not as clear as you would like. 

The full Ahmadinejad speech

Courtesy of that bastion of leftism, the New York Times ( the newspaper that brought you Judith Miller, cheerleader for the Iraq invasion) you can read President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech in full and the manner in which his words have been changed to distort his meaning.

But other distortions become clear to me for the first time.

And In his Columbia University speech Ahmadinejad re-asserts that he does not deny the Holocaust, but believes it should be a matter that can be discussed openly, mainly because he believes the Palestinians are being persecuted by the former persecuted.

He also points out the finality on discussion on the matter. And in saying that he does point out an interesting factor - that this terrible event is about the only subject on this planet where discussion on it is treated as a "closed book", with some countries like Germany and Austria having jail sentences for stating certain things ( hardly democratic!).

It's either accept their way or shut up! And that includes Webdiary. This is undemocratic and denies freedom of speech.

To me the heavy concentration on this subject - and I'm no denier and accept the versions told (and had family members on my mother's side disappear at the time) - in itself lessens other great calamities of WW2 such as the deaths of 20 million Chinese or most importantly, the 27 million Russians, of which nearly 11 million were soldiers who helped vanquish the German army.

Do we have a memorial or museum to the Russians who were decimated whilst saving us from the Nazis?

And now to the Columbia University speech, where Ahmadinejad was introduced in a bizarre and ill-mannered fashion by the Chancellor before he heard Ahmadinejad 's speech.

At that speech he answered a question about sexual preference and women and received laughter and world-wide ridicule for saying:

"In Iran, we don't have homosexuals."

Indeed, these were his words. Or were they?

Let's look again at what he actually said: Ahmadinejad (through translator)

"In Iran, we don't have homosexuals, like in your country. ".

I've travelled extensively throughout the Middle East and every country has homosexuals and in each one, there is a different attitude.

I've worked and lived in three for long periods and experienced their attitudes towards gays.

In Morocco where gay sex is illegal it's tolerated and they adopt a "don't ask, don't tell" attitude. In Oman it's similar but is often openly discussed especially since the sister of the ruler, bachelor Sultan Qaboos, criticised him for his disinterest in women which meant the Royal family bloodline was in risk of petering out.

And the recently deceased Brigadier Langdon, a lifelong friend of the Sultans from their days at Sandhurst Royal Military Academy in the UK, lived in the Sultan's palace and helped Qaboos overthrow his own father in a coup and for the next 50 years was rewarded with a million pounds in cash each birthday.

Muscat , the capital port city, was a favourite stopping point for pirates and buccaneers in the 18th Century and famed for it's male bordellos.

In the US ally of Egypt, gays risk imprisonment and beatings and then rape by their jailers..

And in all my travels, and having an extensive list of gay friends around the world, there is one thing I have discovered - there is no homosexual community like there is in America.

In New York during the 70's or 80's I participated in a ritual that became a popular after grand, uptown dinner parties where guests in black tie would visit establishments like the infamous Mineshaft down by the docks - where one could wander in safety on a bridgeway around the club and safely observe activities below where you witnessed sights undreamt of and truly thought you had walked into a living Hieronymus Bosch painting.

It still happens and it wasn't unique to that club. The US gay scene is, to use an American phrase, "in your face" and makes our Oxford Street look like a quaint afternoon tea party by comparison.

Ahmadinejad was speaking the truth and it's common for the media to take part of a sentence out of context and I can still be caught out.

None of this may diminish anything else Ahmadinejad actually does, but distorting a person's speech or statements is veering toward Goebbels-style propaganda.

Refugees

Michael de Angelos: "And as the remaining Jews in Iran would be welcomed with open arms in Israel, one should really be asking why they haven't up stakes and fled there (or for that matter why the strident Likud government suporters in the US and Australia choose not to live in Israel)."

Because they have lived in Iran for centuries, I suppose. And so one might ask why half of them have fled since 1979? 

Perhaps in future, whenever we are talking about refugee populations, particularly those fleeing a regime as thoroughly odious as that of  President Ahmadinejad's Iran, we should distinguish between those populations which are "thriving", like the Persian Jewish population of whom half have left Iran "voluntarily" since 1979, and those who are not "thriving" quite so well, such as those of Somalia, or Sudan, or Tibet, or Burma where considerably fewer than half have fled "voluntarily" in the last thirty years, so great their love for the governments of Somalia, Sudan, Tibet, Burma, etc.

Marilyn, you're deeply concerned with the welfare of refugees? Why do you think Iran's Jewish population has not yet entirely fled their homeland? I'd be interested to hear your opinion. Is the fact that there are still some Jews left in Iran a "vote of confidence" in President Ahmadinejad by the Jews of Iran?

Not quite, Geoff

Perhaps you and Eliot speak as one, but I and Marilyn Shepherd are two different people.

Nor have I defended  in any post " that murderous, half mad, genocidal, Holocaust denying, woman hating, religious lunatic, fascist (you forgot badly dressed) butcher  who runs Iran, yet again " .

The only sect I belong to is South Sydney Juniors.

Quite

Michael, I don't care so much about  the man being wardrobe-disadvantaged. But I'd bet the next wheat crop for a slice of Wonder Soft white thick that the dirty bugger has halitosis that would knock over a train of donkeys at fifty metres.

Cool up and belt it

Ian M (Ed): "Both sides have now said to belt up. I suggest now that both sides from here on cool it."

I resent the inference that I belong to an opposing "side"  to a "side" occupied by Marilyn Shepherd et al, on this or any other issue. It gives their "side" an undeserved dignity.

Bloody tedious

Michael de Angelos :"Go off and get some proof of a repressed Iranian Jewish community or belt up about this non-story and get back on track on Irfan Yusuf's essay. This is just tedious."

First of all, I am going to suggest that you should try to muster the honesty for once to admit that it was you and Marilyn Shepherd who first raised the issue of the condition of Iran's terrorised Jewish community on this thread. Not Eliot. You could not restrain yourselves from grasping with both hands a chance to whitewash and support that murderous, half mad, genocidal, Holocaust denying, woman hating, religious lunatic, fascist butcher who runs Iran, yet again.

Yet again, you have exposed the utter moral bankruptcy of your sliver of politics. I would not dignify your sect by calling it a "side" of politics. As you have a hundred times before.

Talk about tedious. Perhaps it is you who should belt up.

Ian M (Ed): Both sides have now said to belt up. I suggest now that both sides from here on cool it.

Who?

Geoff Pahoff, in your comment which included "... who runs Iran ...", to whom were you referring?

Wrong answer

No, the Iranian Jewish population hasn't been "cut in half", Eliot. A lot chose to leave, just as many Jews in the USA, Russia, the UK and Australia chose to go and live in Israel.

And as the remaining Jews in Iran would be welcomed with open arms in Israel, one should really be asking why they haven't up stakes and fled there (or for that matter why the strident Likud government supporters in the US and Australia choose not to live in Israel). Nor does Iran have any sort of quota system on how many Jews may emigrate, as the USSR had (unless you of course know differently).

This isn't a "leftist" or "rightist" matter - it's just reality. Just as Germany now has a small Jewish population when it once had a very large one and most have chosen not to return there even though the younger German generations know more of the evils of the Nazis than anyone on the planet.

Go off and get some proof of a repressed Iranian Jewish community or belt up about this non-story and get back on track on Irfan Yusuf's essay. This is just  tedious.

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