And Like a Good Neighbor...

This may come as a surprise to you, but I've been thinking lately that what the world truly needs is for its leaders, meaning the leaders of our countries (for the most part) is to move out of armed camps and actually be prepared to sit down and talk to each other. With the exception of some radical states that worry me greatly, most countries want the same. Peace and prosperity. Some countries may go about that in different ways, and a fault of the democratic system is that sometimes less-than-qualified, or less-than-honest people find their way into power. But democracies tend to have cheques and balances built in, guaranteeing that no lone person can do irrepairable damage. So again, we are all basically the same, and yet, we tend not to be identified by our similarities, but rather by our differences. Is it because the healthy idea of competition has made the world stage a horse race, where we feel compelled to come out on top regardless of the effect on the world wide culture? Or is it because we fail to realize that just as we are economically and ecologically interdependent, we are also culturally interdependent? Can we truly say that our neighbors behavior does not affect us, or vice-versa? I think we all recognize that cultural, behavioral interdependence. Otherwise New Zealand wouldn't care much what America does, and nobody would care that what was the KGB would seem to be back in control of Russia, and Smiert Spionem (death to spies) is back in fashion over there. No, we do care. We have to care. Because, (and I'm adapting the old saying for the sake of political correctness and gender neutrality), we all are our neighbor's keeper. And yet, if our neighbor says or does something we find disagreeable, do we ring them up and sort it out over tea and scones? No. Suddenly we're an armed camp, and we shout our neighbor down until they give up or we've satisfied our righteous indignation, and we can just quietly grumble about 'what they're doing over there, and someday, I'll...'. Folks, if you really care, don't shout in protest. people generally cover their ears to get away from the noise. Talk. Discuss. Be a good neighbor.

Censorship!

I was having what I considered to be an abstract discussion of censorship
and infringement of freedom of speech rights with a rather liberal sparring
partner I'll call Mister X when I was suddenly slapped in the face by
censorship myself. The Dannevirke News, a small supplement to the Hawkes Bay
Today, has decided that I need to stop talking about the war. I need to
concentrate on local things. Well, is a street in Palmerston North local
enough? Because radical and threatening Islam is there. Do we need a suicide
bomber to tear apart a few shops on High Street before this becomes local?
And what war exactly was I talking about? I didn't mention Iraq. Not
recently anyway. And while I know that New Zealand media (which answers to
their government) has no love of America, and has predictably marched in
lockstep with the United Nations for years (mostly under the gone,
unlamented criminal Kofi Annan), this issue of censorship isn't about the
war in Iraq. It's about the liberal PC threat that I mentioned in my last
rant. You don't want to hear the word Nazi?? It's all well and good to bury
your head in the sand. You can pretend that bad things don't exist. You can
forget that sixty years ago you were on the verge of becoming a small part
of the Japanese Empire, (who would have been eventually conquered by the
Nazis anyway). You can even forget that terrorists are killing people in the
south pacific and that Ahmadenijad has promised to KILL YOU. But remember
this. When you ignore evil, it comes back. When you turn your back on evil,
it tends to bite you in the ass. Now... censor that.

Iran Declares War

The following come from AP wire reports, available on the internet to anyone who cares to look:

 

8:44 p.m. PT Oct 20, 2006

TEHRAN, Iran - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday threatened any country that supports Israel, and said the United States and its allies had "imposed a group of terrorists" on the region with their support of Israel.

 

The Iranian leader also called the U.N. Security Council "illegitimate," ahead of the planned circulation of a draft resolution on Iran next week.

 

Diplomats have said they would seek limited sanctions on Tehran for its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment  a key process that can produce either fuel for a nuclear reactor or the material for a warhead.

 

Ahmadinejad's comments came a day after Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's strongest words to date about Iranian threats. Olmert warned that Iran would have "a price to pay" if it does not back down from its nuclear ambitions  hinting broadly that Israel might be forced to take action.

 

'This is an ultimatum'

Speaking to tens of thousands of supporters at a pro-Palestinian rally in the capital, Tehran, the Iranian leader addressed Israel's allies: "It is in your own interest to distance yourself from these criminals... This is an ultimatum. Don't complain tomorrow."

 

Dozens of rallies were held across Iran for "Al-Quds Day," the Arabic name for Jerusalem. Many became anti-American protests as well, criticizing U.S. support for Israel.

 

"We have advised the Europeans that the Americans are far away, but you are the neighbors of the nations in this region. We inform you that the nations are like an ocean that is welling up, and if a storm begins, the dimensions will not stay limited to Palestine, and you may get hurt," he said.

 

In 1981, the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini declared the last Friday of the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan as "Al-Quds Day," a day of protest to show the importance of Jerusalem to Muslims. Jerusalem is the third holiest site in Islam after the Saudi Arabian cities of Mecca and Medina.

 

A banner in Tehran carried a quote from the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini: "Quds is part of Islam's body."

 

Protests also were planned in Egypt and Lebanon.

 

Ahmadinejad, who has a history of similarly fiery rhetoric, said Israel no longer had any reason to exist and would soon disappear.

 

"This regime, thanks to God, has lost the reason for its existence," he said.

 

"Efforts to stabilize this fake (Israeli) regime, by the grace of God, have completely failed... You should believe that this regime is disappearing," he said.

 

Since Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took office in 2005, he has caused outrage in the West with his provocative statements about Israel. Here is a sampling of his more memorable words.

 

Oct. 2006

"The Zionist regime is counterfeit and illegitimate and cannot survive."

 

May 2006

Israel is "a regime based on evil that cannot continue and one day will vanish."

 

April 2006

"The Zionist regime is an injustice and by its very nature a permanent threat. Whether you like it or not, the Zionist regime is heading toward annihilation. The Zionist regime is a rotten, dried tree that will be eliminated by one storm."

 

April 2006

"We say that this fake regime (Israel) cannot not logically continue to live. Open the doors (of Europe) and let the Jews go back to their own countries."

 

Dec. 2005

"They have invented a myth that Jews were massacred... If you have burned the Jews, why don't you give a piece of Europe, the United States, Canada or Alaska to Israel... Why should the innocent nation of Palestine pay for this crime?"

 

Oct. 2005

"Israel must be wiped off the map... The establishment of a Zionist regime was a move by the world oppressor against the Islamic world."

 

Anyone who insists that the Iranian regime is not a declared threat to the rest of the world is living in a cave, or has their head very firmly buried in the sand. Or do they simply believe that Iran has spent more than thirty years pursuing nuclear technology, including weaponry, but won't use it on neighbor that it has vowed to destroy? They used chemical weapons on Iraq during the Iran/Iraq war, and they'll stop at nothing in the war they've declared on Israel and the west. And if you don't they've declared war on the west, I'll repeat this quote:

 

"We have advised the Europeans that the Americans are far away, but you are the neighbors of the nations in this region. We inform you that the nations are like an ocean that is welling up, and if a storm begins, the dimensions will not stay limited to Palestine, and you may get hurt,"

 

One note to Bob, "Mister X". I've read through your links in great detail, and while I admire the effort you've expended in researching your subject, I think that the very fact you found this information demonstrates that the lack of freedom of speech that you attribute to the current Bush administration is either non existent or ineffective. Hitler was much better at it. The best comparison that the western world has to Nazi-type suppression of free speech is the liberal PC crowd that tells us not only what we can or can't say, but what we can or can't think.