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November 11, 2010 — xanthippa
White Poppy Campaign: plans to desecrate the National War Memorial on Rememberance Day
November 3, 2010 — xanthippaWhere: National War Memorial
When: 11th of November, 2010
Time: 12:30 pm
What: Come and protect the National War Memorial from desecration
The ‘White Poppy Campaign’ is out in force again: Ian Harvey of the Ottawa White Poppy Coalition announced that they are planning to lay a wreath of White Poppies at the National War Memorial this Remembrance Day.
They have done it last year, and the year before that….
….after the official ceremony, of course. More precisely, at 12:30 pm.
Why?
Vince McDermott reports in the National Post:
“The red Legion poppy, in my opinion, represents the nostalgia and romanticizing of war,” said Ian Harvey, an activist in the Ottawa White Poppy Coalition. “We should remember that you don’t have to go to war to get peace.”
The ‘White Poppies for a Culture of Peace’ website explains their philosophy:
How many people is it acceptable to kill, or maim, or chase out of their homes, so that we can live in comfort?
WHERE DO I BEGIN?!?!?!?!?
I, for one, will take the advice of a caller to the Lowell Green show on CFRA today. I will come to the War Memorial, this Remembrance Day, and stay until 12:30. When these people attempt to desecrate the memories of all those who sacrificed of themselves so that we may live, I will stand in their way. Peacefully, but firmly (and not necessarily quietly…).
Hopefully, enough of us will come to form a protective wall.
If these ‘White Poppy Coalition’ people truly believe in the principles of non-violence, they will not attempt to use force against us: either the force of their own hands or the force in the form of civil authorities.
The Veterans have done for us.
Now, it is time for us to do for them!
Was the ‘Koran-burning preacher’ Terry Jones duped by the moderate imam Musri?
September 9, 2010 — xanthippaWhile checking out TheReligionOfPeace, I came across this story.
Instead of trying to simply retell what the article says, let me try to re-construct some plausible approximation of how it might possibly had happened.
First, we have the ‘Ground Zero Mosque’. And, yes – the undercarriage of one of the airplanes that hit ‘The Towers’ on 11/09/2001 actually fell on top of this building and damaged it: this makes the building ‘Ground Zero‘. Imam Rauf, who is building the Ground Zero Mosque cannot, by any reasonable person, be called ‘moderate’ – not with what has been learned about him… and certainly not based on his behaviour.
Anyhow…
Yesterday (Wednesday), imam Rauf is quoted in the linked article as saying that
‘nothing is off the table’ when asked whether he would consider moving the site.
Today, (Thursday), Donald Trump is reported to have offered that he would buy the building from imam Rauf for 25% more than it had cost him: not because he wants the building, but because he would like to end the controversy amicably. Considering that imam Rauf and his gang had paid $4.8 million for the damaged building, Mr. Trump is truly putting his money where his mouth is.
So far so good.
But things go from good to bad rather fast.
A nutty and, by the sounds of it, somewhat unpopular preacher Terry Jones from Florida got annoyed by something and declared September 11th, 2010, to be ‘International Burn-the-Koran Day’. (No, not a ‘Burn-an-imam Day’ – just destroying some inanimate objects he owns.)
Could it have been the very existence of the Mosque at Ground Zero? Or, perhaps the speed with which it’s breezing through all the building permits while St. Nicholas Orthodox Church, the tiny little churched destroyed as the South Tower collapsed on top of it, appears to be fatally entangled in the red tape which denies its reconstruction? Or was it hearing about the hundreds of bibles burned by Iran?
Perhaps he was expressing solidarity with the Muslims in Iran who have posted this video of themselves, burning the Koran, as a symbol of protest against the oppressive theocracy which is ruining their country? (Thanks, BCF, for digging this one up.)
Perhaps it was a little bit or everything.
Perhaps he was simply exercising his freedom of religion!
Whatever the cause, the fact remains that preacher Jones is well within his rights to destroy his own property, however he chooses to, and nobody has the right to meddle!
Of course, meddle they did.
And this is where it gets rather ugly…
‘Everyone’ has been meddling!
It was just ugly when it was just the usual media lackeys who condemned him.
It was emotional blackmail and just idiotic when people ‘all over’ tried to make him somehow responsible for the potential actions of other people. Yet, that is exactly what happened!
But when General Petraeus, the American Troops top commander in Afghanistan, came out and started telling anyone who’d listen that how a specific citizen of the USA chooses to exercise his Constitutionally guaranteed rights, he’ll be guilty of putting American troops into danger – that is when it gets downright scary!
Since when do we live in a society which permits military generals to dictate who gets to exercise their Constitutional rights, and how? Do we even WANT to live in such a society?
Of course, the media ignored the constitutional rights issue and instead of demanding that General Petraeus be stripped of his position and dishonourably discharged from the military (the minimum reasonable reaction to a general caught bullying civilians out of their civil rights) , they have given the military man a pass and continued to beat up on the nutty preacher. Sad, even if predictable.
Of course, this is not where it ended.
US President Obama – the guy who found nothing offensive in decades of reverend Jeremiah Wright‘s ‘God Damn America’ sermons – condemned his own citizen for exercising his freedom of religion. In this abc piece, Obama is quoted as saying (regarding Terry Jones’s plan to exercise his freedom of religion):
“If he’s listening, I just hope he understands that what he’s proposing to do is completely contrary to our values … this country has been built on the notions of religious freedom and religious tolerance,”
In other words, Obama says that the USofA ‘has been built on the NOTIONS(?!?) of religious freedom’, but believes that exercising them is ‘completely contrary’ to American values. (I am presuming here that when Obama says ‘ours’, he actually DOES mean ‘American’.)
Does Obama really not realize what is coming out of his mouth?!?!?
Last night, the internet provider pulled the plug on the prea
Today, when Secretary of Defense Gates did not only not fire Petraeus, but actually personally phoned Jones up and parroted Obama and the disgraceful general, preacher Jones began to show cracks.
So, let me recap.
So far, we have tons of pressure on preacher Jones to cancel his ‘Burn-a-Koran Day’ day, which he is ostensibly holding as an exercise of his freedom of religion, because he is so annoyed with imam Rauf’s arrogant project which has created so much discord in the American psyche.
We also have imam Rauf claiming ‘nothing is off the table’ when he was asked if he would be willing to move the mosque’s location to a less controversial spot.
Donald Trump takes imam Rauf seriously and offers to buy out the ‘Park 51’ property from him while giving imam Rauf a 25% return on his investment.
In comes the ‘moderate’ imam Musri,reportedly an influential Muslim from Florida.
Preacher Jones meets with imam Musri and comes out of the meeting convinced (rightly or wrongly) that since the Ground Zero Mosque builders have agreed to move their project, he is calling off the ‘Burn-the-Koran Day’!
Yes, he has called the ‘Burn-the-Koran Day’ off!
But, he has done so in the honest belief that the reason for his decision to so publicly exercise his freedom of religion by burning the Koran was no longer there – that the thorn has been removed from his side!
Once the ‘Burn-a-Koran Day’ was called off, the ‘moderate’ imam Musri says that there must have been a misunderstanding: he only promised that the two of them (Musri and Jones) would travel to New York to seek an audience with imam Rauf in order to ask him to, please, be so kind as to consider, may be, perhaps, moving his project elsewhere.
If he’d like to.
Pretty please.
Gee – how could such a misunderstanding have come about?!?!?
On a completely unrelated note – have you ever heard of the Islamic concept of ‘taqiyya’?
A letter from Afghanistan to Dalton McGuinty’s EA
September 9, 2010 — xanthippaFirst of all, I would like to thank this soldier – both for what he is doing for all of us in Afghanistan, putting himself in danger tto keep us and our kids are safe, and for taking time to write to Dalton McGuinty’s EA and asking for an explanation of how ‘freedom of speech and assembly’ became ‘privileges’.
Now, to explain…
There has been a series of recent protests against Dalton McGuinty, the Premier of Ontario, organized by two Ottawa taxpayers, Debbie Jodoin and Shirley Mosley. Ms. Jodoin is so upset with Mr. McGuinty’s policies, she has decided to seek a nomination for the Conservative Party to run against Mr. McGuinty, in his riding, during next year’s Provincial election.
The protests have attracted some attention – and Mr. McGuinty’s ‘office’ began subtle intimidation tactics against the demonstration organizers, especially Ms. Jodoin. This culminated in a letter Mr. McGuinty’s Exacutive Assistant, John Fraser, had written and emailed to Ms. Jodoin.
Not only did Mr. Fraser see fit to email it to Ms. Jodoin at work, he also emailed it to each and every one of her co-workers – and her boss. In the email, Mr. Fraser admonishes Ms. Jodoin not to forget to obey the laws…. Yeah, employer’s just LOVE to get emails addressed to their employees which imply that without a ‘friendly reminder’ from the office of the Premier, this employee could not be counted on to obey the law of the land!
If the intimidation were not enough, Mr. Fraser’s letter (officially sent as coming from the Premier’s office) also included the following phrase:
“I think we can agree that free speech and the right to assemble are both a privilege and a cornerstone of our democracy.”
With Ms. Jodoin’s permission, I posted the full letter, along with the context (Mr. Fraser thought it necessary to come up to Ms. Jodoin just prior to the demonstration and ensure she agrees to follow the laws – the Ottawa Police were there in force, and even brought along a paddy-vagon…you know, just in case!)
Well, a few other blogs picked up on this, thanks to a great deal to MooseAnd Squirrel, BlazingCatfur and all the rest of the bloggers who picked up the story. The story made it around the world. Yesterday, BlazingCatfur posted a letter which a soldier, serving in Afghanistan as a member of Canadian Armed Forces, had sent to Mr. Fraser in response to the Jodoin letter.
He writes:
“One can not even imagine the sheer delight, as I try in many ways to convey to my troops that free speech and the right to assemble are a privilege.”
Read the full letter here.
And, if I ever have the honour to shake this person’s hand, the beverages will be on me!
‘Regular Tamils’ are returning to Sri Lanka: so, who is aboard the MV Sun Sea?
August 13, 2010 — xanthippaSometimes, one has to wonder at the level of our ‘public debate’.
The latest example is the ship which had entered Canadian waters today, loaded with ‘Tamil political refugees’.
Some claim the boat is chock full of ‘human smugglers’ and Tamil Tigers – a terrorist organization which is best known for (among other things):
- the invention of ‘the suicide belt’
- using women as suicide bombers
- oppressing (even murdering) other Tamils who refused their militant methods and who tried to negotiate peace with the Sri Lankan government
- extorting money from emigrant Tamils to financially supporting the Tigers’ terrorist activity by threatening to harm their relatives still living in Sri Lanka
- ethnically clensing the Singhalese and Muslims in ‘their’ territoty
- being a terrorist organization that is Hindu and not Muslim…
The ‘public debate’ is dominated by the questions of how to separate the ‘legitimate refugees’ from the terrorists hiding among them, how to treat them, what process to apply to them, and so on. This is all done among the warnings that several more ships are ready to set out. Whether they also head for Canada depending on how Canada treats this shipload….because Canada has a reputation as a naive pushover when it comes to aggressive immigrants.
The mainstream media is, rather predictably, not getting to the core of the issues – which pretty much ensures that the public remains ignorant of them, much less that they get discussed.
As it happens…
Until recently, my husband used to work with an excellent engineer who just happens to be a Tamil émigré.
Very intelligent, a competent and skilled engineer, with a six-figure salary.
Her husband also had an excellent job.
When their homeland on Sri Lanka was being torn apart by the ‘conflict’, they left, came to Canada and made a home here for themselves and their kids.
But, the conflict is over.
Done with.
Gone.
No, things are not ‘perfect’. Of course not. 25 years of bitter conflict, with hundreds of thousands of deaths on both sides, take a while to ‘work out’.
But, the time for fighting is over and the time for re-building has begun. And, many ‘regular’ Tamils who had been driven from their homeland are returning and starting the process of rebuilding everything, from the infrastructure and the economy to the social fabric of the country.
According to my hubby’s friend, ‘things’ are now ‘safe’ on Sri Lanka, even for ‘regular Tamils’. Safe enough for these two intelligent and practical people to bring their kids back ‘home’.
Which makes me wonder:
If ‘regular Tamils’ and their families are returning home to Sri Lanka, who are the people claiming to be refugees?
If Sri Lanka is now safe for ‘regular Tamils’, why is it not safe for the people on the MV Sun Sea?
If law-abiding citizens – Tamils or not – feel that Sri Lanka is safe for them, exactly whom is it NOT ‘safe’ for?
Could it, perhaps, be the people who were part of the Tamil Tiger terrorist network?
This would be in agreement with the warnings we have received that the boat is loaded with Tamil Tiger terrorists… Except that, instead of genuine ‘refugees infiltrated by some terrorists’ – as the boat’s passengers are being presented to us by the mainstream media, the whole boat is, perhaps, filled with people who are ‘refugees’ because they (and their kids) are escaping justice for their terrorist activities?
I don’t know. But, if Sri Lanka is now so safe, pragmatic Tamils (and engineers do tend to be pragmatic) are returning there from Canada because the situation there is now ‘safe for regular Tamils’, I don’t know what other conclusion to reach. At least, not logically….
Which brings me to my second point.
I am an immigrant to Canada. Before I came here, I was a refugee – a genuine refugee – and was granted a political asylum in Austria. So, I do know a little bit about the international laws that govern that whole pesky ‘refugee’ thingy… both in theory and from practical experience.
The thing is – international law has very specific laws governing refugees.
There are several kinds of refugees: coming from a country which is now peaceful (no civil war or conflict), which has not experienced any natural disasters lately, one where the economy has not collapsed, the only kind of refugees the international laws recognize are ‘political refugees’.
There are specific protections for political refugees under international law – for obvious reasons. However, there are also some very strict rules political refugees have to obey in order to earn those legal protections and enjoy the status of ‘political refugee’.
The number one rule – the one every country (other than Canada, to the best of my knowledge) – for ‘political refugees’ is that they MUST request political asylum in the nearest country where it is safe for them to do so.
The reasons for this are simple, yet important: countries in the region are better aware of the details of the internal political situation of the country the potential refugees are coming from. So, the understanding of the nuances of the local picture is much more likely – both because the closest ‘safe’ country’s government is likely keep abreast of the latest political developments in their area of the world and because it is bound to have ‘good assets’ on the ground to verify specific claims.
Plus, if there is a specific area of the world which is, over an extended period of time, seeing more political refugees than other parts, either UN-run or UN-supervised refugee camps can be set up there. I went through one of these: they are not necessarily more ‘comfortable’, but they certainly are much more efficient. They have channels set up to verify people’s identities, check their international criminal records, assess the veracity of their claims as well as the potential danger they are in.
Yes, the advent of the internet has made much of the checking easier, without the need for centralized facilities. But, some of the other ‘stuff’ is still best verified as locally as possible.
Which brings me back to the MV Sun Sea: Canada is not exactly the NEAREST safe country for Tamil refugees to seek shelter in!
Sri Lanka – formerly known as Ceylon – happens to be right next to the subcontinent of India. The same India which has been a strong supporter of the Tamils, sometimes even accused of being too supportive of them.
This ship has had to pass right by the – perhaps – safest, most supportive of the Tamil cause. Then it has had to pass by a whole slew of countries, navigate directly away from the democratic countries of Australia and New Zeland. Then it has had to traverse across the largest body of water on Earth, the Pacific Ocean, intentionally avoiding the US islands there….
…before making it to Canada!
That means that the boat (and the refugee-status seekers on it) have intentionally breeched international laws and bypassed many safe havens – just to get here.
This act, in itself, makes each and every passenger on the MV Sun Sea NOT ELIGIBLE to receive the status of ‘political refugee’, according to international laws. (Yes, I am not a lawyer – but, that is my best understanding of the laws.)
To sum things up: ‘regular Tamils’ are returning from countries like Canada to Sri Lanka, because the conflict is over and it is safe for those Tamils who were not terrorists to return ‘back home’ and begin rebuilding the society. And, the political asylum seekers on the MV Sun Sea have disqualified themselves from being eligible for that status under international law by not seeking asylum in the closest available safe haven to Sri Lanka.
Until these facts are highlighted and Canadians in general are made aware of them, we cannot even engage in any kind of a reasonable, informed debate as to the appropriateness of actions our government ought to take with respect to these asylum seekers….
Kaffir Kanuck from Afghanistan: “it ain’t the Talibs we’re really at war with”
August 4, 2010 — xanthippaKaffir Kanuck of Moose and Squirrel is currently serving in our armed forces in Afghanistan. Thank you, Kaffir Kanuck!
I like to read his dispatches. In his latest, Dispatch 13, something he wrote caught my eye:
‘I have no doubt the Taliban can be defeated, but as I’ve often written before, it ain’t the Talibs we’re really at war with, but the cult which has spawned them and their like-minded brethren in all terrorist and political forms, both foreign and dawah domestic. Until the leaders of the western nations acknowledge that reality, we’ll keep fighting on the enemy’s terms.’
Indeed.
Read the rest here.
H/T: BCF
Israel, ‘Gaza flotilla’ and a few questions about the reporting….
June 2, 2010 — xanthippaAround midnight of May 31st, 2010, there was an ‘unpleasant’ confrontation between a ‘flotilla of boats’, sailing under the Turkish flag, and the Israeli military. By now, most of us have been inundated with ‘information’ about what had happened, so I’ll delve right into what is bothering me.
This information comes from ‘respectable news sources’ – and, most people accept the words as true. However, I like doing (both solving and creating) logic puzzles – you know, of the type of the famous ‘Einstein Puzzle‘: if I see two guys, Bob and Rob, and if Bob is wearing a blue shirt, and the two are wearing shirts of the same colour, what colour shirt is Rob wearing?
That type of a puzzle….
So, I could not help notice that some of the things constantly repeated over and over and over within the ‘news stories’ contained internal contradictions. Not just inconsistencies, but downright contradictions!
Sort of like if they were reporting on the above (simplified) puzzle, and kept saying ‘Rob, the one wearing a red shirt, is taller than Bob…’
How am I supposed to figure out which bits are the facts of what happened and which bits are wrong – when the reporting has such glaring internal inconsistencies?!?!?
That does not, in any way-shape-or-form even get close to considering or commenting on the ‘correctness’ – or, demonstrable ‘incorrectness’, as in ‘contradictions to international laws’ – within the statements and claims in the articles. There are bits in the reports which directly contradict other bits asserted in the same reports!
Well, most of the times – in the ‘mainstream media’ – so you have to go to the blogosphere to learn the facts….
Let me give you one example.
From Wikipedia, this is a diagram of how ‘territorial waters’, ‘international waters’ and so on are defined under ‘international law’ (I put ‘international law’ in quotes because that itself is also a nebulous matter, to say the least…plus neither Turkey, nor Israel are idiotic enough to have signed UN’s L.O.S.T. – but it is the convention):
This seems relatively clear: ‘international waters’ begin 200 miles (or more) from the shore. That is rather unequivocal!
Right?
(If there are multiple countries whose claim ‘overlap’ inside this 200 mile limit, the ‘jurisdictional border’ is negotiated – usually giving each side half the amount of the overlap, leaving no ‘international waters’ between them. This, for example, is the case between Canada and those 2 tiny little French islands… Other countries may have ‘right of passage’ through these waters – but not unregulated!)
Next step:
The ‘news reports’ all seem to agree that the ‘incident’ happened 70 miles off-shore. As in, well within the regulated ‘economic zone’, within which all ships may cross, but are obligated to submit to inspections by the ‘enforcing country’, which has the right to regulate these waters.
But, these same reports claim that the incident took place in ‘international waters’!
And – that because the ‘incident’ occurred in ‘international waters’, Israel had no right to board the vessels….and so is, in effect, guilty of piracy!
Apply logic here….
Which is it? Did it happen in ‘international waters’ or did it happen 70 miles off-shore?
It cannot possibly be both!
Ah – the trouble one runs into when applying logic to ‘news reports from reputable sources’!
Are the Taliban ‘freedom fighters’?
May 27, 2010 — xanthippaWell, that depends on what you mean by ‘freedom fighter:
If ‘freedom fighter’ means ‘fighter FOR freedoms’ or ‘fighter OF freedoms’…
If the ‘freedom fighter’ is fighting so that everyone may exercise their unalienable rights equally, or fighting so that a select/elite group would be free to do impose their views on the everyone else…
You ‘get the picture’!
As for the Taliban: in which sense are they ‘freedom fighters’?
They forbid freedom of religion.
They kill women for the crime of holding a job – or even leaving the house without male supervision.
Sounds to me like the Taliban are ‘fighters OF freedoms’!
Yet, for some reasons which are not quite clear – perhaps mis-applied attempt at objectivity, perhaps an expression of guild and self-loathing for having been born into one of the best, ‘safest’ human societies ever – keep suggesting that the Taliban are, in some sense, ‘freedom fighters’.
These people claim that just because the Taliban fight in a ‘different way’ than we would expect ‘proper armies’ to fight does not mean that they ought not be regarded on equal footing with our soldiers….
Aside from the offensiveness of this statement which reduces our soldiers to the level of terrorists and murderous thugs, there is an objective way to demonstrate that the ‘difference in fighting style’ is not just some ‘cultural thing’…. Because it is not!
This type of fighting – using small units which are indistinguishable from the population, then ‘malting into the crowd’ – has occurred in the past in just about every human society, in every continent, in every culture.
This is the easiest method of using the civilian population as ‘human shields’, because the other side (whether army – during war, or police forces if there is no war officialy declared) cannot defend itself without harming its own civilians into peril. That is why this type or ‘fighting’ is universally reviled and opposed.
We don’t have to look further back than WWII: consider the differences between the ‘partisans’ who fought against the Nazi’s in the different parts of the occupied lands. In most Slavic countries, the partisans may have been secretly supplied by the civilian population, but they did not live among them. To ‘join the partisans’, one had to leave the village and find the caves or temporary camps they set up in forests, away from populated areas.
Of course, they had spies and allies among the civilians, but the ‘active soldiers’ typically avoided the civilian areas so as not to endanger innocent people when the Nazis would come hunting them. This was a conscious decision they made – at least, so I have been told by several veterans who were indeed partisans in WWII in ‘the East’.
It was a little different in France. Yes, the French Resistance units were also supposed to stay away from the towns and villages. But, the French resistance fighters were much more ready to hide among the civilians than the Eastern partisans. This is why, I was told, partisans object to the term ‘partisan’ being extended to the French Resistance fighters…..
By hiding among the civilians to the degree they did, the French Resistance fighters were ‘not worthy’ of the term ‘partisan’. So I have been told – by those who lived it and were very passionate on this subject.
This bitterness towards those who would fight in this reckless manner, who place their own safety above the safety of the civilians by using them as human shields (whether it was focused on the French Resistance or not) was quite palpable following WWII. That is quite clear from reading the Geneva Convention!
In order to prevent, or, at least, minimize, this form of warfare, the drafters of the Geneva Convention included very real measures.
It is precisely to ‘discourage’ this ‘Taliban-style’ form of warfare that was the goal of the Geneva Convention!
They specifically protect people who are not taking part in the hostilities (civilians, health workers and aid workers) and those who are no longer participating in the hostilities, such as wounded, sick and shipwrecked soldiers and prisoners of war.
To this end, if an active fighter is found to be hiding among the civilians (even his/her own family), under the original terms of the Geneva Conventions, such a person was specifically excluded from any protections under the convention!
In other words, the drafters of the Geneva Convention thought this behaviour to be such a high crime against humanity that they specifically excluded those who practice Taliban-style warfare from any and all protection! In no uncertain terms, their message was that for people like that, no punishment is strong enough, no treatment is harsh enough.
Since then, there have been amendments to the Geneva Convention that extend humane treatment to everyone – makes good sense, too – including all prisoners and detainees (even the Taliban-type fighters).
Just keep in mind: there is a provision in the Geneva Convention that permits any member of a legitimate military, in uniform or wearing appropriate identification as such, who identifies an active combatant hiding among the civilian population to decide whether to detain the combatant – or whether to summarily execute him/her! Right there, right then – the legitimate soldier has the right to execute a combatant hiding among the civilians.
Quite a power to give even the lowest-ranking soldier!
But, in the eyes of the people who wrote the Geneva Convention, it is just and proper: not just as a punishment for this vile crime, but also as a deterrent.
After all – the aim of the convention clearly states that the prime purpose of it is to protect the civilians first. And, it considers those who use civilians as human shields and endanger them by hiding among them to be the vilest, most despicable criminals who ought to be summarily executed.
Still think the Taliban can be labeled as ‘freedom fighters’?
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 