2. januar 2007

Europeans supported execution of Saddam Hussein The European press has framed the debate about whether Saddam Hussein should be executed as a rift between Europe and the USA. True, European governments unanimously opposed the death penalty on general principles, and the US has the death penalty. But the story you are extremely unlikely to find in any European newspaper or TV channel is that a majority of Europeans supported the execution of the former Iraqi dictator. This poll was made by Le Monde around a month before Saddam was executed: Percentage of respondents in favor of executing Saddam Hussein: USA: 82% Great Britain: 69% France: 58% Germany: 53% Spain: 51% Italy: 46% David is quite correct that there is a gap between Europe and the US on the death penalty, even when applied against mass murderers like Saddam Hussein. However, press reports that "Europe condemns execution" is only true if you poll the governing elites, not the people. The most important gap is here: The US government is totally in line with the majority of its own inhabitants on this question. European governments (except Italy, of the countries polled) are in conflict with their own population. From a Norwegian article by Arild Snoen. 9:15:03 PM    comment []  trackback []

Iranian official: Hitler was a Jew A top Iranian official claims that Hitler was Jewish. Just when you thought the Iranian leadership could stoop no further: A top advisor to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed in an interview with Iranian website Baztab that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's parents were both Jewish and that Hitler himself was one of the founders of the State of Israel. In the interview, translated by MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute) Mohammad-Ali Ramin, a chief aide to Ahmadinejad, told Baztab that Hitler's paternal grandmother was a Jewish prostitute and his father even kept his Jewish name until finally changing it to Hitler when he was 40. Ramin also claimed that the reason Hitler developed such an aversion to Judaism was because his Jewish mother was a promiscuous woman. Hitler therefore, says Ramin, tried to escape his religion. That Hitler was part Jewish is actually a common enough myth that I heard it even when I was a child. It is not necessarily intended as an anti-Semmitic slur, more as the kind of stunning contradictions and deep ironies that urban legends are often made of. The rest of the tripe Mohammad-Ali Ramin speaks is obviously intended as the typical anti-Jewish hate propaganda the Iranian government feeds off these days. In reality, while there was a history of mental illness and illegitimate children in Hitler's family that was a strong incentive for Hitler to discourage anyone looking into it, there is no evidence at all that any of his known ancestors were Jewish. One would have to go elsewhere to find the psychological explanations for Hitler's intense hatred of Jews. I have little doubt that a similar investigation could give some clues to the ideas of Ramin and his boss Ahmadinejad, too. 6:30:11 PM    comment []  trackback []

New UN Secretary General also without a clue On his first day on the job, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon shows he is as clueless as his predecessors. Ban Ki-Moon, the new secretary-general of the United Nations, said on Monday that the Israeli-Palestinian issue was at the core of solving all the problems in the Middle East. In an interview with the South Korean Hankyoreh newspaper, he followed the lead of his predecessor, Kofi Annan, and other international leaders such as British Prime Minister Tony Blair by focusing on "Palestine." "If the issues with the conflicts between Israel and Palestine go well, [resolutions of] other issues in the Middle East, including Lebanon, Iran, Iraq and Syria, are likely to follow suit. I will meet with the concerned parties as soon as possible," Ban said in an interview posted on the paper's English Web site Monday. I could be willing to accept that if anyone could actually solve the Israeli-Arab conflict, it would have to be such a genius that he or she would probably be able to solve these other conflicts as well, and probably in his spare time develop a unified theory of everything, divide by zero and make space tourism cheap. I doubt, however, this is simply what the Secretary General means. The media and talking heads are so focused on the Arab-Israeli conflict that many casual onlookers think this is the whole reason for conflicts in the Middle East North Africa region. If this one did not exist, however, it would not make MENA a better place. The oppression of women, the conflict and hatred between Turks, Kurds, Arabs and Persians, the oppression of religious minorities, like Christians in Egypt, Shias in Saudi Arabia and Sunnis in Iran and now Iraq, the corrupt kleptocracies in charge of almost all countries in the region (except Israel!) and the vicious conflict between Jihadis, nationalists, Pan-Arab nationalists and whatever moderate elements may exist, would all be there. The Islamists and secularists in Algeria would not sit down and sing kumbaya together if Israel just ceased to exist tomorrow. Ban Ki-Moon is sadly repeating a common belief that betrays a total lack of understanding of the multi-faceted conflicts of the region. One should maybe take a look at Sudan-Darfur, or Chechnya, or Kashmir, and realise it's not "the Jews" that is the common denominator in so many of the world's most brutal and persistent conflicts. 10:12:00 AM    comment []  trackback []

© Copyright 2007 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.02.2007; 06:21:36.