"Transformation from within"

The bearded mullahs have the reform-repelling qualities of fanatical religious belief, not to mention all of the guns.

They are aided by the incompetent Bush regime, whose atrocities allow repressive brutocracies to posture on the international stage, with some justification, as victims of imperialism.

Consequently I don't see much happening in Iran in the way of rapid transition.

But I think there are two rays of hope. The first is that Iran educates its people reasonably well, resulting in modern-thinking citizens who are well-travelled and/or connected to outside. Godly rule by the bearded ones is an embarassment to many Iranians and creates an appetite for their downfall.

The second is that the bearded ones are also corrupt. The moral advantage they once held over the Shah and his dreaded SAVAK is slipping or gone. Corruption, nepotism, and favouritism were big issues in the last presidential election -- and these are among candidates who are hand-picked to run!

The role of the west, at this point, is to be supportive by embarassing and weakening the regime: by taking refugees and providing humanitarian assistance; and by encouraging trade and other actions that result in more contact with their expatriates, whose generally favourable experiences in the west would rebut the notion of the Great Satan.

Once the mullahs can be openly scoffed at, they can be pushed over.

Home Invasion

Medieval theocracy completely replaces rational thought. Well, it's about time!

The example Habibi uses is based on a false (inappropriate) analogy. Men who kill to protect their homes kill the criminals who attempt to invade them: they don't destroy their homes in order to prevent others from entering them. The logical corollary of this would be that men whose wives have been polluted would kill the men who invaded their wives, not the wives who were invaded.

I recently heard Dinesh DeSouza inform Charles Adler that the reason most women in Afghanistan continue to wear the burqa is because they "embrace" it as part of their "culture." Actually, they wear it because if they don't, they'll be beaten by their husbands or raped by strangers. The ability of social conservatives to twist the truth knows no limits. DeSouza and his fellow slugs should be sentenced to life in an Iranian prison. I'm sure they'd learn to "embrace" it.

On a tangential note, I

On a tangential note, I don't think organizations like NOW realize that they're really acting totally against the interests of real women in the real world when they play these kinds of money games:

NOW Demands Access to Program Geared to Fathers
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/28/AR2007032802065_pf.html

That is pretty tangential

Especially since the grants in question appear to violate Title IX,

"...the law that prevents sex discrimination in federally funded education programs and is best known for forcing universities to offer comparable sports programs for men and women."

I think your complaint is just same old same old my friend and every bit as ridiculous as this other statement of yours:

It's unfortunate that this website is becoming a refuge for cranks and unhinged folks with selective memory;

Funny how an irresponsible remark can so frequently be turned back on its author, isn't it?

Take it elsewhere, Gwest.

Take it elsewhere, Gwest.

Nope

Not a chance my friend - Accountability if very important - even if you don't acknowledge it

It is really interesting

That your tactic of categorizing and lumping a variety of people with diverse views beliefs and interests (like the many people who post here at Tyee) together in an unjust and false way is so central to the 'activity' you always engage in on these threads.

I can find, at this time, at least 3 examples of the same tactic being used concurrently on three different stories.

Not unlike Y/A, you rush in and create havoc and then retire from the field as if what you said or wrote had no impact on others.

You may think that’s legitimate and moral – I know it’s not. And from someone who has such pretensions to ethical and moral behavior, it is quite a disjunction when you continue to fail to be accountable for these actions.

errata

That's: Accountability is very important - even if you don't acknowledge it.

I'm really starting to wish

I'm really starting to wish that you guys would take your 'friend' Gwest in hand. This is getting miserable.

Certainly is miserable to be called a stooge for anti-Semites

There are no 'guys' though just me.

And you have something you need to address.
Do it now and avoid the prolonged pain. You'll find confession is good for the soul.

Quote:And you have something

Is there anything we can do about this creep?

I think we've crossed the line into harassment territory. There does seem to be any end to this.

The line to harrassment territory was crossed

The line to harassment territory was crossed several weeks ago when you posted this:

It's unfortunate that this website is becoming a refuge for cranks and unhinged folks with selective memory;

Remember?

You made this bed. That you find it a trifle uncomfortable isn't surprising. Your attitude seems to come from the same place this ad hominen statement originates:

Is there anything we can do about this creep?

The solution is readily available. All you have to do is apply it.

You're ruining yet another

You're ruining yet another thread, and holding everyone else hostage to your petty grudge. As I've told you a hundred times: just drop it.

You go on your way, and I'll go on mine.

Not me friend

I'll keep reminding you and everyone else what YOU think of the people who post here every reasonable opportunity.

Innocent folks have a right to know whom they're dealing with n/bloom.

I'm not holding anyone hostage. You have the ability and the moral obligation to clear this up. If this had happened in a public place it would have been over long before now.

Your continued failure to acknowledge and be accountable for your behavior is the only thing anyone needs to be embarrassed about.

Stay or leave: It makes no difference to the issues at dispute.

From the New York Times

March 6, 2007
Iranian Women Are Arrested After Protests Outside Court
By NAZILA FATHI
Iranian authorities arrested 33 women on Sunday after protests outside a court where five of them were being tried for leading a campaign to gain more legal rights for women, newspapers reported Monday.

The five women were put on trial after they organized a demonstration for women's rights last June, the ILNA news agency reported. The agency said the women had been charged with endangering national security, agitating against the government and taking part in illegal gatherings.

The arrests on Sunday were part of a crackdown against political activity by women and protests in general since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad' came to power in 2005.

Authorities broke up last June's demonstration and arrested 70 people. The five organizers now on trial are Noushin Ahmadi Khorassani, Parvin Aradalan, Shahla Entesari, Soosan Tahmassebi and Fariba Davoudi Mohajer.

The five, who have not been in custody, were arrested Sunday after they left the court. The daily newspaper Etemad Melli reported Monday that all 33 of the women were taken to the notorious Evin prison, which has the largest number of political prisoners in the country and where many prisoners say they have been tortured.

Women have been pursuing two major campaigns since last year. One calls for authorities to change a law that permits stoning women to death if they are convicted of adultery. The other is an ambitious project to collect a million signatures for a petition that calls on authorities to change laws that discriminate against women.

Iran's laws codify traditions that place little value on a woman's life and give only slight credence to women's opinions. For instance, a woman's testimony in court is worth half that of a man and, if a woman is killed, the compensation due her family is also half that required for a man's death. The laws also deny women equal rights in divorce, custody and inheritance.

Both campaigns have been publicized worldwide and have drawn support from some well-known Iranians. Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner, has supported the campaigns. Zahra Eshraghi, the granddaughter of the founder of Iran's revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, has signed the petition on discriminatory laws, the daily newspaper Kayhan wrote Monday.

Human Rights Watch condemned the arrests and called for the women's immediate release.

''By targeting peaceful advocates, the government is demonstrating its intolerance for civil action,'' said Sarah Leah Whitson, the head of the group's Middle East and North Africa division. ''The authorities should listen to women's rights advocates and work with them to reform discriminatory laws, instead of persecuting them and perpetuating a system of discrimination.''

Interesting Read

"An Iranian sage advises: Wait out the 'explosion . . . of fantasies'"

I had to get creative to find the full article on line.

Another ruined thread

Nightbloom, I guess you never had chicken pox! Don't scratch, that only makes it worse. Eventually it stops.

Thanx Yammer - Good advice.

Thanx Yammer - Good advice.

Sorry yammer but NO

Good advice would be for him to admit he had stepped over the line. That's what an adult would do.

You slandered me n/bloom and you're going to wear it until you accept responsibility. Moreover, you slandered Yammer and every other person who posts here. Keep it up and before long everyone will know exactly what you did.

The longer you play this game the worse you'll end up - no lower ranks here to blame it on this time dude - this is your responsibility.

No one forced you to write those words, they were hateful, shameful, personal and they were blatant lies. As I said, if you’d said them to my face this would have been settled long before now.

Hired Goon

G West

Are you Tyee's hired goon or the journalistic equivalent thereof? Either that or you are one of the biggest whiners on the planet.

How would you like to be accused

in the presence of a a Holocaust denying NAZI wannabe as someone who had encouraged that sort of character to come and post at this place?

THAT is precisely and exactly what Nightbloom did - and he will neither acknowledge that to have been hateful and beyond the pale behavior as well as being a blatant lie nor will he apologize.

What would you do in similar circumstances?

I'm not whining about it. In fact, quite the contrary, I'm confronting him with it in the most direct possible way.

If I met him on the street, I'd be more direct.

Live by the gun....

die by the gun, I guess. You bring it on yourself.

Hardly, nightbloom's the military man - not me

Never lied.
Always been accountable.
Never dodged. Period.
Adults step up.

Kids don't.

Nightbloom doesn't.

Draw your own conclusion.

And further

I have been, as much or more than anyone else who posts to this place, the one individual who has NEVER encouraged or hinted or written a single thing that could possibly have been called anti-Semitic. In fact, quite the contrary.

Why do you think I'm upset? And why do you think n/bloom's behavior is so despicable under the circumstances?

Garth, please give us a break

Garth is the thought police. Forever patrolling this site like he owns it. Forever trying to make out like he is the smartest person posting here.
It's boring. It's one of the reasons I don't visit this site much anymore.
It's all G West, G West, G west, G West, G West, Coyote, oops he's gone.
Ed Deak, Ed Deak , Ed Deak, G West, G West.
What a pair of bores.
The real enemy is Jimmy Carter, who empowered the Mullah's in the first place.
It's going to end soon.
I predict an attack on the infrastructure of Iran next week.
NOW we are getting somewhere.

Must have been hyperbole.

Must have been hyperbole. No sense of ha ha, eh.

NONE at all. No sense of ha ha.

Not then, and certainly not since.

Once more a thread ruined by

Once more a thread ruined by people who want to pick on GW rather than talk about something substantial. I would like to go back to the as point that Yammer touched on and that is the role of the USA in preserving the Iranian clerical regime. I believe that without the US continual harassment of Iran, there might well be a revolution there. People are fed up with the Mullahs and an underground left-communist/feminist movement has put down roots. See http://www.wpiran.org/English/english.htm

Good point anarcho

The article snert linked from the Globe is worth reading too.

If you missed it, try this:
http://www.rbcinvest.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/PEstory/LAC/20070324/DOUG24/Headlines/headdex/headdexComment/4/4/17/

Problems in Iran

The tactic of blaming the irrational behavior of Iran, who are threatening to build nuclear missiles, trying to wipe Israel off the map, deny the holocaust. Filter the Internet, kill women , kill kids, kill everyone who they consider an internal enemy.
How is that, Jimmy Carter friends?
There is far less human rights in Iran, than would have occurred under the natural progressive initiatives that the Shah was implementing.
It will all end soon, this Iran disaster state.
The people will welcome the inevitable change.

these threads are sad

Here I thought I would hear some insite into the status of women in Iran and I get a bunch of babies who are too caught up in their own agendas to even consider anyone elses' conditions but their. SHAME
I think it's time for you all to take a trip to someone else's reality, another country perhaps. BROADEN your horizons. You all are frankly quite boring.
What has become of the former Tyee discussion threads where yes there are a few blowhards but somewhere in it is the truth. What happened to Ed's tell it like it is\was missiles of experience. SO SAD

tonib

Ed's still here. And there are some decent links and discussion of the Iran situation too. Just look a little harder and ignore what you're not interested in.

Not so difficult really.

Interesting Article

Thanks for the link GW. If somehow we can prevent the US and its English lap dog from attacking Iran, maybe the reign of the Mullahs will eventually be pushed aside/overthrown, something, which the article points out, would have a negative effect upon fundamentalism throughout the Middle East. Imagine an Iran that had separated church and state and had socially and economically moved to the left, not necesarily libertarian communism (too much to ask for!) but say, an Iranian version of the populist leftism of Latin America. Wouldn't that rot the socks of both the Islamic Fundies and the US Empire, those twin evils joined at the hip!

Quote:Once more a thread

anarcho, you're living in alternate reality if you actually think that's what is going on here and on other threads. It's a chronic pattern now.

Am I the only one who notices the same group people continually fronting for each other irrespective of the actual content and context of a given scenario?

Just a thank you

Another fine article from a wonderful author. Deb Campbell never disappoints.

No nightbloom

You are the one living in the alternate reality - all the evidence needed is another post of your own words:

It's unfortunate that this website is becoming a refuge for cranks and unhinged folks with selective memory;

Which becomes more and more true of your own pathology every time you force me to remind the readers what YOU think of them.

Imagine

In 1951, Mohammed Mossadegh rose to prominence in Iran and was elected Prime Minister. He became enormously popular by nationalizing the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (later British Petroleum, BP) which controlled Iran's oil reserves. In response, Britain embargoed Iranian oil and began plotting to depose Mossadegh. Members of the British Intelligence Service invited the United States to join them, convincing U.S. President Eisenhower that Mossadegh was reliant on the Tudeh (Communist) Party to stay in power. In 1953, President Eisenhower authorized Operation Ajax, and the CIA took the lead in overthrowing Mossadegh and supporting a US-friendly monarch. Guess who that was?

An underground leftist/feminist movement has been active in Iran for decades, much of it inspired by the work of Ali Shariati, who was probably poisoned by SAVAK, the Iranian state police under the direction of the CIA.

The situation now is that the regional instability promoted by the U.S. and the U.K. has come back to bite them in the ass. As soon as I'd heard about the arrest of the American soldiers by the Iranian regime, I thought it must have been a provocation intended to bait the Iranian government. Ahmadinejad and his cronies took the bait. Now we wait for the declaration of war. The world is run by sociopaths. Is any of this surprising?

Bluenose

I've been thinking along those lines too.

The parallelism with the Gulf of Tonkin incident off the coast of Vietnam is almost too apparent. It seems hardly possible that such a blatant provocation could once again have been resorted to by the same parties - with only the substitution of Britain as a handy intermediary to provide a little verisimilitude. The Bush administration is clearly desperate - the question of course is whether or not Blair has knowingly permitted himself to be sucked in.

For anyone who doesn't believe the British are capable of playing such a role, simply cast your minds back to the David Kelly - 45 minutes incident from a few short years back. The past is always prologue.

Of course most current commentators have not made the connection with Britain's complicity in the deposition of Mossadegh. As the New York price of oil escalates the pressure for British Special Ops to act will increase.

Ahmadinejad, being his own worst enemy, seems to be playing the convenient stooge.

What do you suppose they'll call this one - the war I mean? These are very stupid people; and they play the public for being even stupider.

I see you're still pasting

I see you're still pasting that quote totally out of context, Gwest.

How many times have you done so? Have you hit 200 yet?

When you made the remark

It was in context and everyone needs to know what you said; and what you think of the people who post here at Tyee and their attitudes.

Now, if you really want to ruin this thread I'll post the whole sordid thing all over again.

I'd rather you just owned up to your lies and cut your losses though so I'll let you think about it for awhile first. I'm actually a lot more interested in the plight of Iranian women than playing up to your narcissism.

You want this to go away. You know exactly what it’s going to take my friend.

The Name of the War

The Ahmadinejad Iditarod ;-)

Iran isn't Iraq. It's not a desert. It's not flat. It won't be a cakewalk for any coalition ground forces. If there is an invasion, it could be a bloodbath. For the coalition, for a change.

Name Ideas

Operation Gillette Shaver
Operation Enduring Deficit
Operation Letterman Monologue
Operation Mission Accomplished II
Operation Imminent Rapture
Operation Republican Hubris
Operation Halliburton Dividend

If I were an Iranian woman

I'd rather wear a headscarf
than have my house and children
blown up so that I didn't have to wear one.

Thanks Bluenose, for

Thanks Bluenose, for bringing our attention to Mossadehg. It is quite true, that had his government been left in peace and allowed to modernize Iran, there would have been no Mullah regime and therefore probably no vast fundi movement elsewhere. The US and its stooge, the UK, spent most of their time in the Middle East in the 1950's and 60's attacking the forces of secularism, and now they are paying for it, big time.

Quote:Now, if you really

Oh, great. I'm sure everyone here is holding their breath in anticipation.

Bluenose - You're right about Iran, but the real issue is demographics. Do you know how many young Iranian 20- and 30-somethings have been educated in Western universities over the past little while? These are secular, westernized, cosmopolitan, metrosexual young people caught between worlds. The biggest mistake the West could do now is go in there with guns. The last thing we should do is drive this generation (their demographics are reversed relative to ours....the bulk of their population is under 35) into the arms of the Ayatollahs. Given time, a cosmopolitan, polyglot, confident, secularized and open-minded Iran will emerge...or should I say re-emerge. They will rediscover their past. They are so much bigger, so much more sophisticated, than the current Islamist model allows them to be.

I'll just post this

You are the one living in the alternate reality - all the evidence needed is another post of your own words:

It's unfortunate that this website is becoming a refuge for cranks and unhinged folks with selective memory;

Which becomes more and more true of your own pathology every time you force me to remind the readers what YOU think of them.

You are not a very fast learner

Quote:Which becomes more and

Cripes. Don't talk to me about pathology.

Paste that decontextualized quote again, jackass....we didn't quite get the message.

Well done nightbloom

You are the one living in the alternate reality - all the evidence needed is another post of your own words:

It's unfortunate that this website is becoming a refuge for cranks and unhinged folks with selective memory;

Which becomes more and more true of your own pathology every time you force me to remind the readers what YOU think of them.

You are not a very fast learner

The only thing that's decontextualized is you.

And you're incapable of not resorting to ad hominem characterizations as well.

"Defining the problem"

Not infrequently, some of the problems that arise from religious traditional points of view can be explained through textual analysis and problems of definition.

Some aspects of certain fundamentalist readings relative to the role of women in Iran and elsewhere may arise from such confusions in the Koran.

A recent new translation of the Koran may begin to address some of these difficulties. At least there is a possibility that might be the case.

Laleh Bakhtiar, a Chicago scholar and Iranian- American, has been addressing these issues in a new translation.

The Times covered one of these areas of contention in an article on March 25.

This link should open the piece:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/25/us/25koran.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

BORING

Or is that the effect being striven for??

In the meantime,

"Russian intelligence has information that the U.S. Armed Forces stationed in the Persian Gulf have nearly completed preparations for a missile strike against Iranian territory," the source said.

American commanders will be ready to carry out the attack in early April, but it will be up to the country's political leadership to decide if and when to attack, the source said.

http://www.rense.com/general76/hit.htm

Boring....Oh, I dunno

Sometimes boring is not such a bad idea when you're trying to understand complex prroblems that have multiple causes - among them religion and misunderstanding.

Here's an interesting opinion about the situation in Iran written by an Iranian after the elections that gave the country it's current government:

Democracy's Double Standard
By HOSSEIN DERAKHSHAN
THE day before Iran's ninth presidential elections last June, President Bush sent a discouraging message to potential voters. Iran's electoral process ''ignores the basic requirements of democracy,'' Mr. Bush declared, and these elections would be ''sadly consistent'' with the country's ''oppressive record.'' For Iranians, there was no mistaking the American president's point: he was tacitly sanctioning the call that some Iranian exiles and activists had issued for an election boycott, based on exactly this logic.

An American administration that had called on other Middle Eastern populaces to vote in flawed elections greeted the Iranian electoral process with nothing but open disdain. It is worth revisiting this odd judgment call at a time when Hamas's victory in the Palestinian elections has raised even more questions about Washington's confused strategy of democracy promotion.

In Iran last June, the call for a boycott resonated with frustrated and apathetic voters. Many, if not most, moderates and reform advocates stayed home from the polls. And we all know what followed: the philosophy-loving moderate, Mohammad Khatami, was replaced as president by a radical militant, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- a former military commander who presides over one of the most extreme governments post-revolutionary Iran has yet had.

That's right: with what appeared to be the endorsement of President Bush and dozens of American-backed satellite television channels that broadcast in Farsi, the disillusioned young people of Iran effectively took one of the world's most closely watched nuclear programs out of the hands of a reformer and placed it into the hands of a hard-line reactionary.

And here's the rest of it.

Can anyone now doubt that Iranian elections, however flawed, really do matter? When Mr. Khatami came to power, his declared goals were to establish the rule of law, demand equal rights for all citizens and reconcile Iran with the world. He may not have succeeded in all of those endeavors, but Mr. Ahmadinejad has entered government with manifestly opposite priorities.

The new president's allies in Parliament recently concluded that nearly 80 percent of the books published under President Khatami violated revolutionary values and should be placed under restrictions. Films that promote feminism, secularism and liberalism are to be banned. And while President Khatami built his international reputation on his call for a ''dialogue among civilizations,'' President Ahmadinejad has reached out to racists and anti-Semites instead.

It's true that Iranian elections are not quite democratic, because the unelected Guardian Council reserves the right to bar candidates. But the real problem here is that boycotting semi-democratic elections ultimately will not make such a system more democratic.

The rise of Mr. Ahmadinejad, and the threat he poses to the stability of a volatile region, demonstrates that promoting apathy in a semi-democratic system can only strengthen the radical anti-democracy forces. And it raises a question as to whether that is what hawks in Washington actually wanted.

Contrast the ''don't vote'' message that President Bush sent to Iranians to the one delivered to Iraqis through a major media campaign and other costly means: ''Your destiny is in your own hands. Disappoint the anti-democracy radicals and go out and vote.''

If the United States is serious about promoting democratic change in Iran, it needs to try the same approach that brought Iraqis to the polls despite mortal danger. Mr. Bush and his supporters should encourage the people of Iran to participate in the next election. And they should urge Iranians to vote for someone who will make their country more open and democratic, rather than more threatening, as Iran under President Ahmadinejad has become.

Hossein Derakhshan writes the Farsi-English blog ''Editor: Myself.''

The interesting thing

Is that the article I quoted above appeared in the New York Times on January 28, 2006.

Do you suppose anyone in either Washington or Whitehall remembers it today?

It's you I refer to

G.West, not the subject. Your tiffs with whoever get really tiresome
If your object to drive away other contributors, I think you are suceeding.

Check out the background mopled

As someone who has criticized Israel from time to time, mopled, you are one of the chief people that n/bloom is referring to in his remarks.

Go back to this thread if you need to refresh your memory:

http://thetyee.ca/Views/2007/02/26/FreeSpeech/

You may like being categorized as soft on Holocaust - denying pro Nazi thugs - I don't.

People have been kicked off this website permanently for being less inflamatory tha Nightbloom was at the end of that thread.

I'm not trying to drive anyone away. I'm trying to get people to be accountable and to follow the rules here.

If I could find another way to do it I would.

West you've gone nuts

Here. From your own fingers on that thread:
My italics.
G West
4 weeks ago

And thanks to anyone else who spoke up, including you nightbloom - I know others would have if they'd known

And thanks to David or whoever ended this. It was long past time.

Nightbloom also said this

The fact that no one else in Coyote's hoary clique of anti-Semitic acolytes is willing to call you on it speaks for itself.

I await the next dose of "free speech" directed in my direction with breathless anticipation. Good for you, guys & gals

Which is the whole point - and something you have completely missed apparently - you're far more likely to be considered a part of Coyote's hoary clique than most people who post here mopled - on the basis of your comments on the Clavin/Cohen thread among others. You may like being called an anti-Semitic acolyte - I don't!

I agree David was absolutely right to remove Y/A's remarks - I sent him the email to notify him what was going on.

And ever since nightbloom has refused to acknowledge that those statements were irresponsible.

That's the issue. Not the 'mess' that Y/A made my friend.

As to my giving nightbloom credit at the time

mopled: You might want to note this, also from me, directed to nightbloom just a few comments back up that same thread - in the middle of the incident:

There has been a reasoned response to anti-Semitic remarks on this site all along. Not by everyone, perhaps, but certainly by some. Your contribution in condemning what this creature is doing here today is welcomed and courageous - your attempt to turn it into an opportunity for personal gloating isn't.

I hope if there are others out there who, in the absence of some action from the editors - which is by now long overdue, are holding back their condemnation of this guy that they'll come forward now and register their disgust as well.

Your self-respect and honesty require it.

Free speech does not subsume hate speech

I'd have been happy to leave the situation as it was 4 weeks ago. Other actions by n/bloom intervened. If you take the trouble to look, you'll find out exactly how this situation came to be as it is.

You've gone bananas!

I really don't know what you are talking about, and I don't care. Let's get back to Iran...how about it's treatment of the Brits as compared to Guantanamo in a wonderful piece in the Guardian.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2047128,00.html

Yeah - I saw that earlier

Interesting comparison.

About the other issue - I could care less if you care - you weren't the person at the center of it - n/bloom harassed me for days about another issue and he was the one who should have been owning up and being accountable. I'd hardly expect you to care, but, since you brought it up - I explained.

Let's move on.

The latest news I heard was that there were signs that a diplomatic solution was in the works and the sailors would be released soon – which is a hell of a lot better treatment than the prisoners at Guantanamo have received, as you point out.

This: Doesn't sound like much of a provocation to me

Britain Adopts Conciliatory Tone With Iran
By ALAN COWELL

LONDON, March 31 — After more than a week of mounting confrontation over its 15 captured sailors and marines held in Iran, Britain sounded a more conciliatory tone on Saturday, saying it had responded to a diplomatic message from Tehran and was ready to peacefully resolve the issue.

The British foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, also indicated for the first time that Britain regretted the incident.

“The message I want to send is I think everyone regrets that this position has arisen,” she said after a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Germany. “What we want is a way out of it.”
(snip)

Interesting, provacative

Interesting, provacative article:

Islam in the West
http://dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=752

Excerpt:

Hardly

In fact, I believe she compared the practice to another extremely foolish and dangerous activity that enjoys quite wide acceptance in the West - female breast augmentation.

I'm sure, if vaginal sculpting
[read about it here - http://thetyee.ca/Life/2005/06/10/Genitailor/] had been au courant at the time Greer made her statements about female genital mutilation, she'd have cited it as another foolish western contextual parallel.

The idea that the west and its practices are the sine qua non of moral behavior is just laughable, frankly.

That was just one example in

That was just one example in the article. I think you missed the point of the article.

not at all

That's not just my verdict on Hari's indictment of Feminism, but on the exceedingly narrow and prejudiced impact of most everything he writes.

We've been over this before. Any journalist who starts an essay with this:

and ignores the kind of accommodations and alliances and commonalities that are and have been made by the kind of multiculturalism that we have here in Canada has lost me from the start.

This is just another example of Terry Glavin style polemics masquerading as fair comment. It's one-sided clap trap for the most part imputing motives and actions to a demonized 'other' while ignoring the myriad examples of fundamental compromises with the 'values' the West is supposedly meant to represent.

Spare me. You like this stuff because it happens to coincide with your own jaundiced and largely uninformed views of history. It made no more sense when Spengler wrote about it and it was subsequently absorbed and reified by the Nazis in their own deification of the ‘German’ race as the least corrupt of Western agglomerations.