middle east musings

The first thing that set me off to write today was idiotic statement Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who said that 1) the holocaust was a "fairy tale" and 2) that Israel should pick up and move to Europe or North America. Let's deal with them one at at time shall we? Gen. Eisenhower specifically visited and recorded his visits to consentrations camps because he wanted to make sure the world never forgot and never pertended that 6 million jews just dissipeared. Does Ahmadinejad really need a tour of Dachau and the rooms of shoes, suitcases, and the like? Does he need to go see the ovens, and the bones that are still inside? Does someone need to dig up the mass graves for him to peer into? How much more proof do you need? It would be a pretty amazing stunt to make 6 million people just vanish and have all this archival footage and consistant survivor/perpetrator memories and tatoos etc. and have the massacre not be true.

Maybe Ahmadinejad can't stand the idea of Jews outvictiming Muslims. Most middle east countries with muslim control maintains its power by using the plight of the palistians, and blaming everying on Western Imperalists. True, the British and French are to blame a lot that is wrong in the middle east, including putting the house of Suad in charge, and divving up borders to match up with oil pipeline routes, not ethnic or religious groups.

Secondly, Ahmadinejad is an idiot for saying if the US and EU "believe" in the holocaust so much, we should carve out turf for Israel given all the wrongs that the Germans "purportedly" did to the Jews. While 10 men and a torah equals a congration, a whole bunch of Jews in one spot doesn't equal Israel (it probabbly means Ghetto, notice you never hear of little Israel, but you hear of little Tokyo or Chinatown or little Italy). The idea of Israel is based on the land of Canaan itself. If you were to read almost any part of the Torah Ahmadinejad, you would see reference after reference to that piece of land.

The problem facing the land of Canaan is that both Jews and Palistians have pretty much equal right to be there. One can go back and say my people had it first, but how accurate are these records anyway, and should that really be the basis of a who gets to live where? Somehow both groups need to learn to live together. There isn't much mystery as to the best way to do it--all these peace plans are basically the sam e thing--it just take willingness to sacrifice on all parties the goal of getting it all. Ideally, the country would be one with islamic law and the talmud coexisting and some basic law that apply to both sets of peoples (and the various christians or others that choose to live there). Threatening one side with an atomic bomb will never win the debate.

And on to Lebanon, where moronic Syrian thugs again killed another prominant anti-Syrian politican. The predictible result: 300,000 Lebanese mourners marched through cities denouncing Syria. Just when things had died down and people were forgetting about Lebanon and Syria, Syria makes it worse by trying to rid itself of a foe. Meanwhile, even dumber neo-cons still think Syria is next on the list of nations to invade and occupy. Do they really have no clue how badly things have gone, how stretched US forces are, how little support they have with the American people (let alone the world)?

And finally, Iraq. Today the purple fingers return, and not much will really change. For all Bush's talk about how an artificial time table is bad for withdrawl, we already have one--the crazy election/constitution schedule. After a few months, Bush will claim victory/sucess and get out, say around September or October. Meanwhile, Iraqi leaders are purposely not adaquately arming or training their personel because they hope that will stall US troop withdrawl. Silly Talibani, Bush never really means what he says.


Today is my 700th post, wow, how times fly. On my way to work, I saw a man at a stoplight holding a sign saying "Why are you polluting the air?" and then flipped the sign to show the horrible air quality rating (106 particulates per whatever I think it said) of the Wasatsch Valley these past view days. The funny thing was, I hate driving. I had just dropped off my wife and was going to work via car only because I don't think I should have to take 2 bus lines that never match up in the cold (and on the way back, dark) to get from home to work. We choose where we lived so that we could be close to downtown and the University and I otherwise take public transit most days or walk. This guy picked the wrong motorist.