8 posts tagged “iran”

With the recent jailing of the British teacher (and threats of death) in Sudan after having named a teddy bear Muhammad, am I the only person who's left wondering what happened to that old can-do British attitude?

When some American colonists dressed up like Indians and dumped tea into the Boston harbor, did the British stand by wringing their hands while offering to send in a delegation to discuss possible peaceful outcomes?  No, they didn't.  They instituted a pretty nasty series of legislative acts known as the Intolerable Acts - eventually aiding in the instigation of the Revolutionary War.

When Guy Fawkes (and his conspiratory friends) were caught up in a failed attempt to assassinate several members of the aristocracy, including the King, did the British let it play out in the media, hoping that a positive outcome would make itself present?  No, they didn't.  They tortured Fawkes until he gave up the names of a couple of his friends and hunted them down like dogs.  They even turned one of them into an attractive and long-lasting book binding.

What about when London was being bombed to dust by German pilots during the Blitz in World War II?  Did the public sit back silently, keeping their fingers crossed that things would resolve themselves?  Nope again.  They didn't.  The citizens of Great Britain immediately took to joining the Air Raid Precautions Service, or the Home Guard.  They also went on to see the defeat of not only the Germans who had destroyed their homes, but also the German allies in Japan.

You'd think, then, that this same country, after centuries of dealing out swift (and oftentimes overkill) retribution for their enemies, would be a fearsome foe to take up arms against.  The possibility of angering a population of hardy warriors, such as the one in the UK, should be something altogether terrifying and overwhelming for anyone - particularly the brutish types you find running around with knives and clubs in the streets calling for the execution of a British citizen for something that doesn't even make sense to anyone in the outside world.

Then again, why should anyone be afraid of what a country like Britain will do for a civilian volunteer in a foreign country when they can't even be bothered to make a show of force to save their own military personnel?  It's probably better to wait for tyrants and despots to make the call on how, and when, the British people can defend themselves and live their lives, don't you think?

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Ah, my first stab at a Tuesdays With Big Brother post since March 20th.  I suppose you people thought that you'd finally managed to escape the dreadful experience of having me review my choice of current events here.  I suppose you were breathing a sigh of relief over the possibility of never having to follow another link like this off of my blog.
I suppose you were wrong.

If you haven't stopped reading yet, you probably will when you follow that link above - because Anna Nicole's daughter finally has a genetic father to call 'daddy.'  Surprisingly, the news of Smith's ex-boyfriend, Larry Birkhead, being found correct in his assertions that the multi-million dollar toddler was his to begin with got buried under the non-story of Don Imus' unfortunate gaff-turned-fuel-for-race-baiters about the Rutgers womens basketball team.
Kudos to Al Sharpton for, again, proving that the civil rights movement is all-but-dead.

Really, is it any surprise that Al Sharpton might be jealous of Barak Obama for being more popular than him?  Is it any surprise that nobody can relate to a Sharpton-like figure who jumps at the opportunity to pitch a fit about racism while doing his best to stifle everyone's right to free speech but his own?
And, yes, I think that the phrase 'nappy-headed hos' falls under free speech.  Just like calling Anna Nicole a blonde-bimbo slutbag does.

Ultimately, between these two stories, I'm not really directly upset that either of them are happening.  What's upsetting is that the news media is perpetuating both of these.  The cable news stations are feeding themselves these days.  And while that's going on, we're breeding morons who think that the genetics of Dannielynn Smith or how sensitive the womens basketball team at Rutgers is more important than the possibility of Iran having access to nuclear technologies.

I managed to skip out on an official 'Tuesdays With Big Brother' post for the week, but I can't seem to help feeling angry enough about the British hostages in Iran to warrant posting something related to it.  Iran nabbed fifteen British service-members while they were in Iraqi waters, then cited faulty coordinates to justify their abduction, and they are now being treated in pretty much the standard manner for Middle Eastern trophy kidnappings: paraded around, threatened, and coerced on film as a propaganda tool.  Amazingly, I have heard very little complaint about the fact that the Iranian methods are in violation of the Geneva Conventions.  Particularly from those outlets who tend to be so quick to echo any negative sentiment about the American policies regarding our captured terrorist pals.

But I'll stop here, I'm afraid that I'm not in the mood to comment much further.  Fortunately, the people over at Powerline have done a far better job of summing things up than my inarticulate babbling ever could have:

One more thing: these uniformed British servicemen (and woman), unlike captured terrorists, are entitled to be treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention, which Iran has signed. Pretty much every aspect of their treatment has violated the Convention: a video showing them in captivity has been filmed and played on television, they have been "interrogated," in Iran's own description, and are now being held incommunicado in an undisclosed location. Has anyone noticed any outcry from the "world community" about this? Does the Geneva Convention apply to anyone other than the U.S.?

Iran's been pulling this sort of nonsense for decades.  When are we going to finally get the message?

Maybe I'm beating a dead horse here, but I rather enjoyed reading this post over at Independent Sources regarding the Iranians and their distaste for the film '300':

In related news, France announced a plan to freeze-dry a corps of attorneys, who will awaken 2,500 years from now to file defamation suits against anyone describing that country as insufferable or self-important.

Experts say the likely reaction in 4500 will be surprise that western Switzerland was once an independent nation.

No word on whether the cryo-lawyers will be equipped with French-Mandarin dictionaries.

I'd like to thank Tim for pointing out this article over at Salon.  Having gone to see '300' over the weekend, I think it's safe to say that some people are taking themselves way too seriously (Dana Stevens over at Salon, I'm looking at you).

Yes, the film was horribly inaccurate about the historical facts surrounding the battle on which it is based.  Yes, the production chooses to ignore a myriad of negative realities that governed life as a citizen of the Spartan state.  Yes, this movie glorifies war.
No, there is no political agenda.  This isn't 'V for Vendetta.'

But, seriously, when you have people out there, such as Dana Stevens, elaborating on a film and echoing the sentiments of the Art Advisor for Iran, then you're probably safe to assume that dear Dana might be stretching it a bit.  All things considered, wasn't that same Art Advisor involved in the WeDon'tBelieveInTheHolocaust-a-thon over there recently?

And that's about as political as I'm going to get today.  Hope you don't mind.

While the 2004 Presidential Election provided the public with a whole slew of new Bushisms and Kerry-flops, we were never really exposed to anything from Kerry's running mate, John Edwards.  As I recall, he was marked as being too inexperienced to possibly handle the office of the President.  Now that he's back in the spotlight, though, it appears that he'll have plenty of time to illustrate that label to be well deserved:

"The aggressively photogenic John Edwards was cruising along, detailing his litany of liberal causes last week until, during question time, he invoked the "I" word -- Israel. Perhaps the greatest short-term threat to world peace, Edwards remarked, was the possibility that Israel would bomb Iran's nuclear facilities. As a chill descended on the gathering, the Edwards event was brought to a polite close."

Just what, exactly, does he mean by that?  That if Israel bombs Iran's potential nuclear ambitions out of the water, it will be Israel's fault?  That to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities would be an act of war, but their mere existance is not?  I suppose, then, that we are to just accept that Iran has the right to begin development of a nuclear arsenal - despite their blatantly hostile attitudes towards anyone not directly aligned with them.
He must be joking.  Maybe he has the same speech writers as Kerry?

But there are more important things going on in the world beyond the next potential President of the United States of America - there's the fact that Anna Nicole Smith is dead!

I've tried to avoid mentioning her since she died almost two weeks ago - but the fact that this story has somehow managed to survive the news cycle this long is driving me mad.  While it's certainly subsided a bit in the last few days, I just don't understand what all the fuss is about.  The woman was kind of a slut.  And by 'kind of' I mean 'definitely.'  Why is that making (inter)national news?  Is it because she's left an innocent child behind to deal with all of this later on?  Is all of this focus really helping the child in any way?

And, no, she's not 'our generation's Marilyn Monroe.'  So knock it off, already.

On a sidenote: Lebanon's Industry Minister has been assassinated by what is looking to be Iranian and Syrian-backed militants.  I guess I forgot to include Lebanon in the round of Russian Roulette I wrote about in yesterday's installment of Tuesdays with Big Brother.

I don't know how much you've been following recent events in Iraq, but things are starting to get pretty damned interesting.  It's looking like Iran and it's favorite pet, Syria, may end up taking Tony Blair's advice and are proposing a summit meeting with Iraq.  Sure, it sounds like a bed of roses, a country seeking nuclearization offering it's aid to a neighbor country steeped in chaos, but what does this mean about the future of Iraq?

I think Christopher Hitchens put it best in his recent piece blasting James Baker:

The summa of wisdom in these circles is the need for consultation with Iraq's immediate neighbors in Syria and Iran. Given that these two regimes have recently succeeded in destroying the other most hopeful democratic experiment in the region—the brief emergence of a self-determined Lebanon that was free of foreign occupation—and are busily engaged in promoting their own version of sectarian mayhem there, through the trusty medium of Hezbollah.

Mr. Hitchens has a legitimate point - after the recent debacle that was, essentially, a race to the bottom between Hamas and Hezbollah for media attention and Israeli bombs - how could anyone trust a nation that sacrificed hundreds of Lebanese civilians by putting them on the front lines via proxy?

Iran is the still-unspent bullet in this near-perpetual Middle East round of Russian Roulette.  Israel has somehow managed to narrowly escape biting the bullet, and now it's Iraq's turn to take a shot.  Ultimately, if Iraq were to begin working hand-in-hand with Iran and Syria, we may actually get to see a curbing in violence there.  Maybe it might actually settle down some of the Shi'a who find it necessary to kill fellow citizens for the discrepancies between a different version of Islam and their own.
But what if it emboldens them?

Really, I can't make up my mind on the matter.  If anything, I suspect that Ahmadinejad (and, no, I don't have to look up how to spell his name, folks) sees this as another way to both test the US and to make us look weak.  Not that we need much help in the latter, strengthening the perception that we're weak is one of our greatest pasttimes.

I guess I'll have to leave this political posting for the week at that.  Call me a cynic, but I haven't seen much happen in the Middle East over the last three years to really bolster my faith in the peoples there to sort out their own messes.  For that matter, I haven't seen much over the last two years here in America, either.