Monday, January 28, 2008

Reuters coddles Highjacktrix Khaled

The love-fest for dearly departed arch-murderer George Habash continues with, of course, statements from other terrorist luminaries:
Laila Khaled, who was the PFLP's only female hijacker, said the group wanted to focus attention on its cause.

"Our suffering was long ignored by the world," she told Reuters.

"The main goal behind these operations was to pose a big question to the world: who are the Palestinians? At the time Palestinians were being treated merely as refugees who may need humanitarian aid," she added.
Do you think we will be seeing interviews with Carlos the Jackal soon?

Sunday, January 27, 2008

. . . when progressive humankind found itself in ideological confusion, vacillation and pessimism . . .

. . . due to the collapse of socialism in East European countries at the end of the 20th century, it was Kim Jong Il who tided over the crisis of the world socialist cause . . .
Read more (although I can't imagine why anyone would want to)

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Alan Johnson on "Neoconitis"

At Comment is Free:
[...] We suffer from neoconitis and we badly need a cure. The disease was diagnosed by Roger Cohen, writing in the New York Times. "Neocon", he pointed out, "has morphed into an all-purpose insult for anyone who still believes that American power is inextricable from global stability and still thinks the muscular anti-totalitarian US interventionism that brought down Slobodan Milosevic has a place." [...]

Neoconservatism is no conspiracy. As a school of foreign policy it has roots in the wing of the Democratic party led by Henry "Scoop" Jackson and the Campaign for a Democratic Majority in the 1970s. "Neocon" was an insult coined by the socialist Michael Harrington about those of his comrades who refused to follow George McGovern, Jimmy Carter and the "new politics" crowd in their embrace of détente and abandonment of antitotalitarianism. Undermining cynical and self-defeating "realism" and embracing democracy-promotion are two of the preconditions for a "progressive foreign policy". To the limited degree we have achieved either, Jackson and the neocons can be denied their share of the credit only by doing violence to the historical record. [...]
Once upon a time I voted Democratic. According to this, I could have been a Neo-con in those days.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Mehr News: "Iran says U.S. navy video and audio are fake"

When it is illegal to question the nonsense put out by the government, the government becomes addicted to nonsense:
The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said on Wednesday that the U.S. video of Sunday's incident in the Strait of Hormoz in the Persian Gulf waters involving Iranian patrol boats and the U.S. warships was archive footage and the audio was fake.

"The footage released by the U.S. navy are file pictures and the audio has been fabricated," an IRGC navy commander told Press TV.

Washington earlier claimed that IRGC speedboats harassed three U.S. navy warships in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday.

The U.S. navy later released footage purportedly showing Iranian boats menacing U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf.

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Sacred Drool?

Kamangir once again zeros in Iranian nuttiness. He writes:
Today, Ahmadinejad went to the parliament to present the budget for the next year (the Persian new year is approaching). This was the first time many MPs saw him since his return from the Hajj pilgrimage.
He then continues, translating from Persian blogger Aftab:
A large group of MPs were lined up in order to greet him. Some of the MPs who had not seen him since his return would touch his cloths [because they considered them blessed]. One MP went as far as drinking the remaining water in a glass Ahmadinejad had used. He then splashed the water on his clothes.