Chavez calls Merkel a Nazi

According to the BBC he has now effectively called German Chancellor Angela Merkel a Nazi saying "She is from the German right.... The same that supported Hitler, that supported fascism. That's the Chancellor of Germany today."

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so there are still people on the left who are sycophants to this lunatic? All she said was that he doesn't speak for Latin America, and unless Venezuela is some great new imperial power, she is right.

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Another thieving leftwing autocratic maniac.

Why liberation from Saddam isn't enough..

Whilst one of the most widely understood mistakes of the invasion of Iraq was to fail to have a comprehensive, well armed strategy to control the country, impose law and order and confront the Islamist insurgency, a less well understood one is the more complicated one, the more delicate one - the need to confront the sexist violent culture than lay underneath. It is this that the Islamist insurgents are taking advantage of.

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Take the case of Rand Abdel-Qader. She's 17 and dead. She used to live in Basra in Iraq.

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As the NZ Herald reports, her father stamped on her, suffocated her and stabbed her to death. He remains free.

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What did she do? She fell in love with a British soldier, who she had had merely conversations with over several months. She dared to talk to him in public, so, it appears under Iraqi culture, it was ok for her father to murder her for the "disgrace she brought".

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The police approved of his actions. After he killed her, her corpse was thrown in a makeshift grave and her uncle spat on her before she was buried.

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"it has been alleged by one senior unnamed official in the Basra governorate that he has received financial support from a local politician to enable him to "disappear" to Jordan for a few weeks, "until the story has been forgotten" - the usual practice in the 30-plus 'honour' killings that have been registered since January. Such treatment seems common in Basra where militias have partial control."

Her mother supported her, but is paying the price. "Rand's mother, 41, remains in hiding after divorcing her husband in the immediate aftermath of the killing, living in fear of retribution from his family. She also still bears the scars of the severe beating he inflicted on her, breaking her arm in the process, when she said she was going."

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So you see that's what the insurgency brings to Iraq, but it is also what appears to be culturally and legally "ok" still. It is unclear if this young woman would be any better off under the secular government, but what is clear is that fundamental values of life, freedom and decency remain absent from many in Iraq. Short of full scale occupation and imposition of a constitution and individual freedom (ala post war West Germany and Japan), this cannot be achieved. The benefits of making Iraq into a liberal democracy that respects individual rights and freedom would be high, but the costs are also very high, and sadly US foreign policy has been obsessed with democracy as the answer - when democracy can often deliver the sad fact that a majority of people in a country may be sexist, racist and want the government to do violence to minorities.

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Under the status quo there is no easy answer. Westerners could help fund and support Arab womens' groups and those fighting for individual rights in Iraq. Western governments could pressure Iraq's government to act against honour killings. However, one of the most important actions is to continue fighting the Islamist insurgents. They are the enemies of the West, but as importantly they are enemies of many ordinary Iraqis.

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Of course, ignorant so-called peace loving anti-Americans who apparently care about women's rights will still support the insurgency. Barack Obama meantime would just sit by and let Iraq go Islamist.

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Hat tip: Jameson's blog on Solopassion

Is it real?

OK, whilst Hillary Clinton has won, as expected, in West Virginia (country roads, take me home, to the place, I belong) large parts of which are the "hicksville" that Obama so deftly insulted. Hillary is claiming that working class white voters are what counts (and with a poll saying 35% of her supporters would vote McCain rather than Obama she might be right, although it may be exactly the same with Obama I suspect).

However, to digress look at this photo. Hillary constantly does this faux "grin of recognition and point" action when on a podium. I know it's petty, but the lying power hungry shrew does it EVERYWHERE, as if she has friends in every state and every town. Is it fake? Or is she laughing at the poor dress sense of her supporters, or their messianic banality to want this compulsive liar run their lives?

The murdering thieving scum in Rangoon

Associated Press is reporting the following:

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"The United Nations said Tuesday that only a tiny portion of international aid needed for Myanmar's cyclone victims is making it into the country, amid reports that the military regime is hoarding good-quality foreign aid for itself and doling out rotten food."

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"A longtime foreign resident in Yangon told the AP in Bangkok that angry government officials have complained to him about the misappropriation of the aid by the military. He said the officials told him that quantities of the high-energy biscuits rushed into Myanmar by the WFP on its first flights were sent to a military warehouse. They were exchanged by what the officials said were "tasteless and low quality" biscuits produced by the Industry Ministry to be handed out to cyclone victims, the foreign resident said."

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There is only one answer - it is direct intervention. If government wont do it, why not let mercenaries? Oh that's right, it was banned by Labour, and supported by the Greens. No doubt because some mercenaries are questionable, but what would be better for Burma now than a private army going in and taking control of the devastated areas in the country, and pointing guns at the kleptocratic dictators to get them to pull back and let these destitute people be saved?

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There is no legitimacy in the Burmese government, it deserves no respect - contrast it even to the communist party led dictatorship in China which DOES care for the people devastated in the recent earthquake. That's why, despite what is bad about China, it has come a very long way in recent decades and nothing compares China to Burma.

What did Peter Brown think before he went there?

According to the NZ Herald when asked about the junket to eastern Europe you paid for and the personal highlight of the trip, he said it was Auschwitz, and of it said:

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"I didn't believe it would be so evil....."

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What does it take Peter? Seriously. How fucking evil does genocide have to be? What did you think it was, a prison camp?

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then to top it off, he just doesn't get it.

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He said "it just reinforced for me the importance of democracy"

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Why, because the Nazis got elected? You honestly think the Nazis would have lost elections in the 1930s? Would it have been ok had the Germans voted to gas the Jews (they voted for anti-semitic policies)? Pick up Daniel Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners... I doubt democracy would have saved the Jews Peter. The word is freedom, but you belong to a nationalist xenophobic party that has been propping up the Clark Labour government, you don't really understand that concept.

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This, ladies and gentlemen, is an example of one of those people you trust to make decisions on your retirement income, your healthcare, your kid's education and how to spend around 40% of your income. It's not his fault, he's just not very bright.