Category Archives: Middle East

Canada Joins Running of the Jew at U.N. for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Canukistan*

Anti-Semitism, Barack Obama, Canada, Israel, Media, Middle East, UN

I received this from the Canadian Coalition for Democracies. The information is well good, as Ali G. would say, but the title is even better. Big up to the CCD for the title (and also for standing up for justice).” ILANA

CANADA JOINS RUNNING OF THE JEW AT U.N. FOR MAKE BENEFIT GLORIOUS NATION OF CANUKISTAN*

Toronto, Thursday, November 30, 2006, The Canadian Coalition for Democracies (CCD) is disappointed by the voting of the government of Canada in yesterday’s slew of anti-Israel resolutions at the United Nations.

“Canada has again legitimized the use of UN resolutions to demonize one nation, while ignoring the truly serious human rights violations of other member states,” said Alastair Gordon, president of CCD. “Until resolutions are applied evenhandedly to all UN members, Canada must express its condemnation by voting ‘no’ on all such resolutions.”

In its first 42 years, the UN tabled 370 resolutions condemning Israel and zero resolutions critical of the PLO or any Arab state. When Syria slaughtered 20,000 of its own citizens at Hama in 1982, or when it sponsored the destruction and occupation of Lebanon, or even when Iraq massacred its Kurdish citizens with poison gas, there were no UN resolutions criticizing the perpetrators. In recent years, a handful of resolutions have targeted other Middle Eastern states, but the lion’s share is still reserved for Israel.

In October 2005, former Prime Minister Paul Martin referred to “the annual ritual of politicized anti-Israel resolutions” at the UN. In November 2004, Canada’s then ambassador to the United Nations, Allan Rock, announced to the General Assembly that “resolutions [against Israel] are often divisive and lack balance.” Yet even with this recognition, both our past and present governments’ anti-Israel voting pattern has barely changed.
The Fourth Committee yesterday tabled nine ritualized resolutions targeting Israel for criticism. Canada voted against Israel on seven, and supported Israel on two. The only change from last year’s voting pattern was the change of one abstention to a ‘no’.
“The Stephen Harper government has taken a number of principled foreign policy positions that Canadians can be proud of. Yet it is choosing to continue the despicable bullying of one nation, a travesty that was identified by our former Prime Minister and UN ambassador,” added Gordon. “Until UN resolutions are an unbiased tool applied equally to all member states, Canada’s response to all ritualized anti-Israel resolutions must be NO.”

* With apologies to Borat
Founded in 2003, the Canadian Coalition for Democracies (CCD) is a non-partisan, multi-ethnic, multi-denominational organization of concerned Canadians dedicated to national security and the protection and promotion of democracy at home and abroad. CCD focuses on research, education and media publishing to build a greater understanding of the importance of national security and a pro-democracy foreign policy.

Iraq: The Devil is in the Big Picture, Not the Details

Hillary Clinton, Iraq, Middle East, Republicans, War

Are there any limits to stupidity in politics? Not really.

Hearings on the war in Iraq this week saw Senator John McCain insist on, wait for it…more troops. Gen. John P. Abizaid, top American military commander in the Middle East, disagreed, although his innovation was to suggest that training the Iraqi military be made “more robust.” Yes, that’s right. All the Iraqis need is a bit more of what’s been worse than useless so far.

Lindsey Graham of South Carolina followed McCain’s cues—he always does. And in such undazzling company, the Hildebeest dazzled. “I have heard over and over again, ‘the government must do this, the Iraqi Army must do that’,” warbot Clinton complained to Abizaid. “Can you offer us more than the hope that the Iraqi government and the Iraqi Army will step up to the task?”

When it comes to Iraq, the pols fetishize details, hang hopes on minutia and forfeit a deeper understanding of the place and people. The devil is not in the details—more troops, or better training for Iraqis—but in the big picture. The government of Iraq doesn’t stand apart from the governed; it reflects them.

The divisions that have riven the region for four millenniums are mirrored in the current government, and will continue to hobble every successive government that hunkers down in the Green Zone, where it’ll forever be forced to take cover, incapable of governing Baghdad, much less the rest of the country.

Andrew Salivates

Islam, Media, Middle East, Republicans, The Zeitgeist

On a meta-level—process, not content—Hugh Hewitt’s interview with Andrew Sullivan about his new confused book exposes Sullivan as arrogant and hysterical. His manners are abominable. How Hewitt put up with Sullivan’s strutting, I don’t know. Why would he tolerate such rudeness from a guest? Is Sullivan that important? (Not to me. I have no interest in someone so “discerning” as to claim, as Sullivan did during the interview, that Jesus, Mohamed, and Socrates are part of the same search for truth.)

I’m happy Sullivan has finally come out against Bush’s dastardly doctrines, although it seems to me that he considers the war more of a logistic than a moral nightmare—the war is bad because it’s going badly, not because it’s bad. The fact that he seconded the decision to invade Iraq may have something to do with this qualified condemnation.

Would it be unfair to put Sullivan’s temper tantrum at the Republicans down to their excessive religious meddling and lack of enthusiasm for gay marriage? (There’s nothing wrong with split infinitives, by the way.) You tell me. (Sullivan is a gay-marriage activist–I’m not, as you can glean from “Marriage and the Manufacturing of Rights“–and is himself “engaged to be married.”)

Overall, his views are hardly conservative–but then that applies to the views of very many contemporary conservatives.

Democracy à la Dubya

America, Bush, Democracy, Iraq, Middle East

For someone who is willing to kill for the false idol of democracy, Dubya sure flouts the will of the people.

Polls indicate most Americans want to see troops withdrawn from Iraq; Bush refuses to listen or obey his bosses.

A majority of Americans wants the bleeding on the Southwestern border stopped and immigration levels vastly reduced; Bush doesn’t and won’t hear of abiding by the people’s wishes.