Green's ignore the vileness of Iran

Think of South Africa some years ago, when under apartheid it tortured political prisoners, suppressed free speech, shot unarmed civilians on the street, and was developing its own nuclear weapons programme. Think also of how you could pretty much guarantee all those in the Green party would have protested loudly against all of this, with pretty good justification.

Now of course we have Iran. Iran has a nuclear programme that it has consistently refused to allow inspections at the level of transparency required by the International Atomic Energy Agency under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The Green Party believes in the abolition of nuclear weapons, so you’d think it would regard as a priority stopping new countries acquiring them – well apparently not. I haven’t seen a single protest or call by any Green MPs or letter to the Iranian embassy requesting that Iran fully comply with IAEA requirements, given that 183 other non-nuclear weapons states seem to be able to do so. No, well apparently its not important.

Iran’s President repeatedly calls for the abolition of the state of Israel, using rhetoric of annihilation. Iran funds and trains Hamas and Hizbollah, which have both repeatedly attacked Israel and are both committed to wiping Israel off the map. Iran also funds, trains and arms part of the insurgency in Iraq, committed to installing an Islamist regime there. However, the Green party isn’t too concerned about warmongering against Israel, or fighting secular and US led coalition forces in Iraq, is it now?

So what does an Iranian Islamist regime look like? Well Iran executes teenage girls who admit they have been raped. By no measure of civilisation can this be seen as anything less than vile and immoral. It also executes teenage boys for having consensual sexual relations with unmarried legal age girls. It used underage soldiers for mine clearing during its war with Iraq. Iran imprisons though who “insult Islam”, and who call for a secular liberal democratic state – you know, like the one the Green party likes to support, or indeed like the United States.

So when the USA confronts Iran, because it has failed for some time to meet its international obligations to the IAEA, including failing to fulfill conditions laid out in relevant UN Security Council resolutions, and notes that Iran through military means is promoting its own vile form of Islamist tyranny, what does the Green Party say?

Frogblog asks John Key “Would he agree that Iran was “the world’s leading state sponsor of terror”? Many would say that the US was, citing their financial and technical support for Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein prior to turning against them."

At best, this is dredging back to the 1980s, during the Cold War, when not this US President, nor the previous one, nor the one before that (but the one before that) started providing support for Hizbollah’s campaign against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (not quite Osama Bin Laden but certainly Islamists). This was Jimmy Carter that started this!! The US also provided support to Saddam Hussein against Islamist Iran, which is difficult to defend except on the “enemy’s enemy is your friend doctrine”. However let’s note that the US has consistently opposed the Iranian Islamist regime from day one. It has been some Presidents ago since the US supported Saddam Hussein.

Of course, Green MP Keith Locke was one of those cheerleading the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan at the time (hey they like to blame the USA today for something that happened over 20 years ago, why not blame them for supporting murderers then?). This was a brutal imperialistic occupation, but somehow the Greens DON'T say that Russia was a leading sponsor of terror - of course not, that was "back then" during the Cold War, we don’t worry about that now – Russia is forgiven for the decades of misery its Marxist-Leninist dictatorship inflicted upon hundreds of millions around the world.

Moreover, the Greens effectively apply moral equivalency between Iran and the USA - where there is individual freedom on a grand scale compared to Iran, where women do have equal legal rights, where there is a high degree of freedom of speech and a secular state. It is dishonest and discredits their claims to be advocates for "international justice, peace and human rights".

The Green party likes to claim it takes the moral highground on human rights internationally, but when it is a state the US targets (for whatever reason) it starts finding excuses for it.

The Green (declared) beliefs in feminism, freedom of speech, secular government, liberal democracy and human rights are set to one side, along with its agenda against nuclear weapons, or even the belief in peace, because Iran is being exposed for what it is by the USA. The blind anti-Americanism is such that the Greens NEVER protest against the torture and executions carried out by Iran, and NEVER protest Iran's failure to be transparent with the IAEA (even though you profess to believe in multilateralism).

They are no different from the old fashioned Soviet type anti-Americans of the Cold War. If USA confronts another country it's baad, so a blind eye is turned to what Iran does. I for one would be thrilled if the Iranian Islamist state was overthrown, I would also prefer an airstrike against Iranian nuclear facilities over an Iranian nuclear strike on Israel, or an Iranian supplied nuclear device for terrorists to use in the West.

The question really is, what will it take for the Greens to protest against Iran's horrendous human rights record and its nuclear programme? How many have to die due to the Iranian state deliberately engaging in murder of its own citizens? What answers will the Greens have if Iran tests a nuclear weapon in the next 2-3 years, or if it implies that it has one?

So what about the men?

Now this case of public group sex involving a teenage girl and several men, is likely to be associated with an earlier news item about an occurence of group sex between a teenage girl and several men on a hotel balcony in Christchurch - which still raises the question as to why SHE was charged, but nothing has been mentioned about the men involved.

She was convicted of theft, which is the only real crime here. The drugs were presumably not just about her, whereas the sex charge (indecency in a public place) is what the prurient media have latched onto.

Perhaps the men have been charged and convicted, or perhaps reporters are only interested in the words "teenage girl" and "groupsex" in the same phrase.

and on the name suppression, assuming there aren't two very similar cases, it really should have happened before Stuff published the girl's full name some months ago.

Such high standards.

Blog censorship prediction in late 2006 - was I wrong?

A quick review of some previous blog posts saw me find once again this post about government moves to place the blogosphere on a fairer level.
^
It was meant to be funny, I'm not laughing much anymore - it's not exactly what has happened, but the parallels...

Helengrad is a word

However, the debate about its origins has to continue. I don't know when I first came across it, I am suspecting an issue of The Free Radical, or an utterance on talkback radio - so it may be up to PC to do some research. It is pleasing that the term is in an Australian online dictionary according to Stuff. It has more popularity than "Clarkistan".

Nevertheless, this is bound to upset Labour's sycophants who never engage in attacks of personal abuse against politicians they oppose - oh never.

Hopes for 2008

PC tagged me to place my eight wishes for 2008, so without referring to his list (which I largely agree with), here they are:

1. The 2008 New Zealand elections see Labour unable to form a government, and Helen Clark being ousted by the caucus as leader. Rodney Hide waking up and giving National a run for its money based on a consistently liberal platform, NZ First passing away like so many of its voters, the people of Wigram and Ohariu booting their ex.Labour MP one man bands from Parliament, and the Nats having to form a government with a genuinely liberal ACT (it has to be its last chance) with Rodney Hide supplying the testicles to do at least what the Nats promised in 2005. I don't hope for a National win, but I expect it and understand it as the likely consequence of a Labour loss.
2. The media holding the Green and Maori Parties to account for their appeasement of those who advocate political violence in a modern liberal democracy, and both parties' strong support for state endorsed racism, interventionist government in much business and personal life, surrender of individual freedom to collectivist goals decided, of course, by them and their mates, and a general rejection of modern western civilisation. The Green Party failing to reach 5% as a result (the Maori Party will continue to get support as the education system has brainwashed enough voters in the apartheid seats ideologically in favour of them).
3. Acknowledgement by those who should know better, especially feminists and so called “civil liberties” advocates of the left, that the growth of Islamism is a clear and present threat to life and liberty across the globe. It cripples the lives of so many in Africa and Asia, particularly women, it is threatening mass murder of peace loving people in countries rich and poor, and it cannot be appeased. It is time to advocate separation of all churches from all states worldwide.
4. Rational analysis and debate about responses to “environmental issues” that challenges the quasi-religious mantra that “recycling is good”, “road building is bad”, “energy consumption is bad”, “global warming is bad and must be fixed by microeconomic intervention”. Taking what Hayek said about economics and applying it to the environment would be a start. There is no way that governments can make the right choices for everyone (the most recent example being concern about the tens of thousands who are allergic to light from low energy lightbulbs, of course no bureaucrat could ever have thought of that).
5. The removal of Mahmud Ahmadinejad, Robert Mugabe, Bashar al-Assad, Fidel Castro, Than Shwe, Alexander Lukashenko, Kim Jong Il and Islam Karimov as leaders of their respective countries. Almost without exception preferably by assassination. The residents of their countries should be a safer place without them, and besides they all have the blood of thousands on their hands. All are far too powerful in their regimes and far too disturbing, their successors may not be angels, but they are more likely to assist in a transition towards better government.
6. The US Presidential primaries produce a clear two horse race between Hilary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani. Why? Obama is a charismatic flake, Hilary has less chance of winning, and Giuliani for his many many faults, is probably the candidate best placed to handle the foreign policy challenges around Iran and Islamism, and as a reasonably socially liberal Republican he can steer the party away from the religious conservatism that has kept too many in the dark ages. I hope the prospect of a Clinton win scares the "bejesus" out religious conservatives that they vote for Giuliani.
7. The British Conservative Party turns away from its environmentalist mantra, and pushes for major reform of education and welfare to lift standards and address the persistent underclass in UK society of virtually useless individuals destined at best to have sad lives with little hope, or at worst to be violent criminals who breed the same. It might even advocate that people generally know best how to run their lives, but I don't think they understand it.
8. Ken Livingstone to be ousted as Mayor of London. While I hesitate in fully endorsing Boris Johnson, Livingstone’s appeasement of Islamists, filthy deal with Hugo Chavez for cheap diesel for London buses, Stalinist empire building over housing and transport (he now controls the central government budget for public housing in London, and wants to renationalise all local train services) is a drain on London’s dynamism and is a complete embarrassment. At a time of recession London needs someone managing the till who isn’t trying to mould London in the style of Michael Foot.