Mark Steyn: MEANWHILE, BACK IN THE REAL WORLD... [genocidal fantasists of Iran]

Mark Steyn on line ^ | 12/11/2005 | Mark Steyn

[Tolik]

unexcerpted Steyn

[Mr. Mojo]

unexcerpted Steyn

Refreshing. ....practically unprecedented. Salute!

[freedumb2003]

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Thank you! Steyn is the greatest!

[kellynla]

BTTT

[Tolik]

Mark Steyn:

...So the language of international relations is no longer merely the private code of diplomats but part of the public discourse — and, if the government of the United States learns anything from the last four years, it surely ought to be that there's a price to be paid for not waging the war as effectively in the psychological arenas as in the military one. What does it mean when one party can talk repeatedly about the liquidation of an entire nation and the other party responds that this further "underscores our concerns," as if he'd been listening to an EU trade representative propose increasing some tariff by half a percent?

Well, it emboldens the bully. It gives him an advantage, like the punk who swears and sprawls over half the seats in the subway car while the other riders try not to catch his eye. The political thugs certainly understand the power of psychological intimidation. Look at Saddam Hussein in court, so confident in his sneering dismissal of judge and witnesses that he's generating big pro-Baathist demonstrations in Tikrit. I was struck by his complaint that the real terrorism was that he hadn't been given a change in underpants in three days. I hope that's true. It requires enormous strength of will on the part of free societies to bring blustering cocksure thugs down to size, even after we've overthrown them and kicked them out of the presidential palace. In Iran, President Ahmaddamytree figures that half the world likes his Jew proposals and the rest isn't prepared to do more than offer a few objections phrased in the usual thin diplo-pabulum.

We assume, as Neville Chamberlain, Lord Halifax and other civilized men did 70 years ago, that these chaps may be a little excitable, but come on, old boy, they can't possibly mean it, can they? Wrong. They mean it but they can't quite do it yet. Like Hitler, when they can do it, they will — or at the very least the weedy diplo-speak tells them they can force the world into big concessions on the fear that they can.

Look at the broader picture. The State Department's Ereli noted that President Ahmageddon's comments appear "to be a consistent pattern of rhetoric that is both hostile and out of touch with values that the rest of us in the international community live by."

Is that even true? That the Iranian president is "out of touch" with the "values" of the "international community?" The Hudson Institute's lively "Eye On The U.N." Web site had an interesting photograph of how the "international community" marked Nov. 29 — the annual "International Day Of Solidarity With The Palestinian People." Kofi Annan and other bigwigs sat on a platform with a map flanked by the "Palestinian" and U.N. flags. The map showed Palestine but no Israel. The U.N., in other words, has done cartographically what Iran wants to do in more incendiary fashion: It's wiped Israel off the map.

There has always been a slightly post-modern quality to sovereignty in the transnational age: We pretend the Syrian foreign minister is no different from the New Zealand foreign minister, and in so doing we vastly inflate the status of the former at the expense of the latter. But with Ahmadinejad we're going way beyond that. If a genocidal fantasist is acceptable in polite society, we'll soon find ourselves dealing with a genocidal realist.

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[hershey]

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[Tolik]

The Hudson Institute's lively "Eye On The U.N." Web site had an interesting photograph of how the "international community" marked Nov. 29 — the annual "International Day Of Solidarity With The Palestinian People." Kofi Annan and other bigwigs sat on a platform with a map flanked by the "Palestinian" and U.N. flags. The map showed Palestine but no Israel. The U.N., in other words, has done cartographically what Iran wants to do in more incendiary fashion: It's wiped Israel off the map.

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From the EYEontheUN website: http://www.eyeontheun.org/view.asp?l=21&p=142  (Anne Bayefsky and Hudson Institute project)

Photos - November 29, 2005 UN Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People

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This is the prominent UN public display which was used to mark the commemoration of "International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People" on November 29, 2005. The Palestinian flag is on one side. The UN flag is on the other side. A map without the UN member state of Israel stands between them.

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This map was prominently displayed by the UN on November 29, 2005 at a public gathering at UN Headquarters, in the presence of all top three UN officials, the Secretary General, and the Presidents of the UN Security Council and the General Assembly. It purports to be a "map of Palestine." Israel, a UN member state for 56 years, is not on the map. Even the UN General Assembly partition lines of November 29, 1947 marking a Jewish and Arab state, which pre-date this 1948 map, do not appear.

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As the "map of Palestine" without the state of Israel stands in the background, Secretary-General Kofi Annan addresses the public meeting at UN Headquarters. The anniversary of the UN partition vote that survivors of the concentration camps celebrated, has been described by Secretary-General Annan as "a day of mourning and a day of grief." Palestinians, and Arab citizens more generally, refer to it as part of "Al-Nakba," meaning the "catastrophe" of the creation of the state of Israel.

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In a moment which has been crafted to include the commemoration of suicide-bombers (from left to right) Nasser Al-Kidwa, Foreign Minister of the Palestinian Authority, President of the UN Security Council Andrey Denisov, President of the UN General Assembly Jan Eliasson, Chairman of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People Paul Badji, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, (and two others) rise at the outset of the November 29th UN meeting with these words from the Chair. "I invite everyone present to rise and observe a minute of silence in memory of all those who have given their lives for the cause of the Palestinian people and the return of peace between Israel and Palestine."

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[dennisw]

ALWAYS PAY ATTENTION TO SOMEONE WHO SAYS HE WANTS TO KILL YOU! Even if he only says it once you should believe him, take his remarks at face value. Even if he acts nice and pleasant afterwards

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My first Steyn bump. Good one.

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[BufordP]

Ahmadinejad is off his meds. We should replace everyone in the State Department with Air Marshalls.

[BufordP]

Ping.

[redgolum]

Once again, the West sleeps while a world war is brewing.

Iran might be waiting till 2008, with the knowledge that a Lizard Queen presidency would mean that they could finally settle the "Zionist question" with no outside intervention.