The German Selective Perception of "Threat"

The more real a possibility of a war becomes, the less interested the peace movement gets, or so it seems. Or is it a matter of the originator? Or the informer? However, the silence is deafening.

Here is what the newsservice of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem has to tell:

Iran acquires missiles that can hit Europe
April 27, 2006
By: ICEJ News

IDF officer confirms Bild report on Russian BM-25s

Iran has purchased Russian-designed ballistic missiles from North Korea with a range of 2,500 kilometers, the head of IDF intelligence Major General Amos Yadlin said Wednesday, confirming a recent report out of Germany.

With North Korean assistance, Iran could already target Israel with its 1300 km range Shahab 3 (No Dong class) missile. But with the acquisition of the Russian-made SSN6 missiles (known in the West as BM-25s), Iran has extended the range of its ballistic capabilities to now take in much of Europe and parts of the Middle East previously out of reach. Some of the missiles have already arrived in Iran, Yadlin said.

The disclosure confirms a report in the German publication Bild that Iran recently received 18 of the BM-25 missiles from North Korea.

In a lecture earlier this month, Israeli missile expert Uzi Rubin - considered the father of the Arrow anti-missile defense system - suggested that German intelligence likely leaked the report to the press out of concern the country was now within Iran's range. Rubin said he also suspects North Korea may just be a conduit for Russian missile sales to Iran.

The purchase of the BM-25s has allowed the Iranians to leapfrog over their Shihab-4 missile program, which has a projected range of 2,000 kilometers and has been under testing for nine years with spotty results.

Ha'aretz adds that American intelligence sources say Iran is at an advanced stage of developing a missile that can carry a nuclear warhead. Washington has informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of the details of the Iranian missile program.

When the military operation in Iraq was imminent in 2003, Henryk M. Broder gave a scathing account in his Tagebuch (diary) of the average German idiocy and their hypocritical, hysterical hyperventilations:

To help Saddam out of his self-made predicament, the same three claims are always made. First, the German constitution outlaws any war of aggression. Second, a war is no solution to anything and peace can't be achieved by force. And third, any intervention in Iraq would "destabilize" the whole region and probably even lead to a "World on Fire". This opinion is shared, among others, by Jürgen Fliege (Protestant pastor and talk show host) and Katja Ebstein (popular singer), Bishop Kock (President of the German Protestant Church) and Cardinal Lehmann (President of the German Conference of Bishops), Günter Grass (Nobel laureated writer) and Peter Gauweiler (diehard Bavarian politician), the No Angels (girl group) and with them thousands or even millions of practicing pacifists who are gathering these days to form "Chains of Light" and who jointly take part in events called "Beat Your Drums for Peace", " Honk Your Horn for Peace ", "Be Silent for Peace" and "Sleeping for Peace". [Translator's note: This is NO satire!]

Usa 3rd Reich
you are so alike

All those suicidal braindeads are, mind you, from what would be normally called the "educated classes". Considering such a squad of educators, role-models and paragons, is it really amazing that Germany ended up among some third world-countries in the PISA-study of 2003?

It seems that, for Germans, any war is no war as long as it isn't started by the (notabene!) arch-enemy America. Pictures from peace rallies speak volumes. Like those ethically-challenged lemmings who went to Baghdad to offer themselves as "human shields" for poor, innocent Bubba Saddam, there is no pacifist lifting as much as a finger now when that unshaven monstrosity Ahmadingbat from Iran is now threatening to wipe Israel off the map (okay, that may fulfil many German not-so-secret wishes, but do they really think he will STOP there and then?) and openly boasts his firepower. He is, after all, not American.

I have forgotten who said that the Germans will never forgive America for liberating them, but if you look at those pictures (taken from the Broder-article I quoted -- there are more to enjoy, btw.) it becomes obvious that this is the sad truth, not just some wisecrack.

German sense of historic justice: "The Amis killed my father". So what better reason can there be to hate them?

But the monstrous idiocy doesn't end here. Just one more dose of it as quoted by Broder:

Equally substantial is the claim that war isn't a problem-solver. "There is no war that could help to bring about peace or even civilized conditions," says theater manager Dieter Dorn from Munich, on behalf of many. We ought to be "prepared to communicate with the opposite side" and "realize that the cause for terror and dictatorship can be found at our end as well". Dorn belongs to those who took the attacks of September 11 as a sort of invitation to an intercultural dialogue. If somebody were to raid his house and flambé his dog, would he invite the perpetrator for breakfast at the "Bayerischer Hof" the next morning to discuss "issues" with him?

It is amazing, that he didn't protest more vehemently against the "civilized conditions" that can be blamed for the fact that he only manages Munich theaters today instead of entertaining the "grossdeutschen" troops at the front near Novosibirsk. The doggedness that makes German intellectuals and artists deny the idea that they owe their life and careers to a peace that had to be accomplished by bombs, their disability or lack of goodwill to imagine what would have become of them had that war not been waged, is as infantile as those slogans currently flaunted at peace rallies "War Is Uncool!" and "War Is Shit!"

A claim that, not surprisingly, didn't apply when it came to supporting the liberation movements in Angola, Mozambique and Vietnam.

Those were the days when Good and Evil still existed and war against the occupiers and oppressors was, of course, a good war. Nowadays Claudia Roth (leading Green politician) talks about the necessity of a "non-military disarmament of the Iraq" as if she had discovered a secure and neat method for asexual reproduction, and a prominent elder of the peace movement, who doesn't even want to deliver gas masks to crisis areas, can't remember that he, in a former life, used to collect money to buy "weapons for El Salvador".

So what has changed since 2003? Not much. Broder was kind enough not to mention the name of the "elder of the peace movement", the Green politician Hans Christian Ströbele. The same Ströbele recently blamed in a TV chat show the United States and co-guest Richard Perle of planning an attack on Iran with nuclear weapons. The very Ströbele, who thinks that Iran has the right of using nuclear technology. Ströbele who thinks that, if Iran is banned from having nukes, Israel ought to be too. Yes, that very Ströbele who described Iraq's missile attacks on Israel during the first Gulf War already as "the logical, almost unavoidable outcome of Israel’s policies", thus following the old and cherished German (although not EXCLUSIVELY German) school of thoughts, which maintains that antisemitism is the Jews' fault anyway.

As the Iran's nuclear ambitions are just a response to American aggression and have thus per definitionem nothing to do with war and can't be a threat.

---

(See my entry Cacophony regarding Germany's "special relationship" with Israel. Translation of the excerpts from the Broder-article by me.)

The Fox and The Henhouse

The Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran report at their website:

Mullahs’ regime announces it will soon carry out limb amputations in Iran
Thursday, 11 January 2007

NCRI - The chief of the regime’s judiciary in the western city of Kermanshah, Allah-Yar Malik-Shahi yesterday said, “Soon there will be a number of limb amputations in public in connection with robberies in [Kermanshah] Province.” (Official news agency IRNA, January 10, 2007)

He said, “The judiciary will cut off the hand which steals people’s properties in order to serve as a lesson for others… Carrying out several sentences in public will greatly decrease such crimes in society.”

The medieval regime has resorted to extreme measurers, such as limb amputation, eye gouging, flogging, and the degrading punishment of parading prisoners around towns, to combat the rising tide of popular uprisings and demonstrations in various provinces across Iran.

The Iranian Resistance calls on all international human rights organizations to condemn the medieval regime’s punishments and take urgent action to stop the barbaric and systematic violations of human rights in Iran.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
January 11, 2007

Yes, that is the same Iran, Green politician Angelika Beer called "a fascinating country with a young well-educated society" and about which nobody laughed.

Elsewhere, Germany highlighted Iran's role in Iraq peace efforts.

Berlin, Jan 18, IRNA
There will be no solution to the Iraqi conflict unless Iran and Syria are also involved in international efforts to restore peace to the war-stricken country, German deputy foreign minister, Gernot Erler reiterated Thursday in an interview with German radio.

Erler urged for a greater political approach to the Iraq crisis which would integrate "important actors like Iran and Syria in a constructive policy".
[...]
Berlin has repeatedly stressed Iran's important regional role for peace and security in the Mideast.

I wonder whether Erler can say: "Fox -- Henhouse".

Why Germans don't fight anymore

I have read most of Leon de Winter's novels (their excellent German translations, that is) and liked them tremendously. But he is an eminent political writer as well. This is from the OpinionJournal of the Wall Street Journal website:

Soft Europe
Is the Continent willing to fight for anything, besides a welfare check?

BY LEON DE WINTER
Tuesday, March 7, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST

After two years of disastrous dialogue, and more of the same in recent days, we can conclude that no diplomatic initiative can stop Iran from getting the bomb. The International Atomic Energy Agency meets again this week to discuss the mullahs' nuclear ambitions, while Russia floats a plan to get Iran to enrich uranium on its soil. But before we got to this point, we had the Europeans in the starring role. The foreign ministers of the leading European Union countries--Britain, France and Germany--did try for years to persuade Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions, most recently at Friday's meeting in Vienna that ended up in yet another failure. But Iran knew all along that this threesome, formally the "Troika," had no real negotiating authority and would never resort to serious measures.

And yet Britain's Jack Straw, France's Philippe Douste-Blazy (and his predecessor, Dominique de Villepin) and Germany's Joschka Fischer (and his successor, Frank-Walter Steinmeier) talked on, clinging to a postmodern European belief in a world where any conflict can be resolved with enough reason and mutual understanding. The Troika offered the mullahs economic carrots and alternative sources of nuclear power--as if energy had anything to do with it--while Iran did what any football team does when it's ahead: It played for time. This it used very well to push ahead with its clandestine nuclear program.

Did the Troika know that Iran knew that Europe was weak? Of course. Europe's posturing was empty from the start. The only weapon that the EU was willing to consider, as a last result, was an economic boycott that would harm Europe's commercial interests more than Iran's.

The mullahs also knew that the Troika couldn't back up its threat of an economic boycott with the threat of military action. If the EU couldn't muster the will to fight in its own backyard in the Balkans without America leading the way, it surely wouldn't put any lives at risk beyond the frontiers of the Continent.

By contrast, Iran, ostensibly a democracy but in reality a religious tyranny, possesses a character trait that is almost nonexistent in modern Europe: Iranians, almost exclusively Shiite, are willing to suffer. This quality is deeply rooted in their religion. Ashura, one of the central Shiite rituals that marks the death of Imam Hussain at the Battle of Karbala in 680, celebrates flagellation, blood, pain. As Steven Vincent, the remarkable American journalist who tragically was murdered last August in Iraq, observed in his book "In the Red Zone": "Eight-foot long white silk flags depicting crossed sword, the blades oozing with blood . . . pictures of severed hands, severed heads, . . a fountain in front of Meshed Ali spraying geysers of blood-red liquid. . . . bloody swords flashing over the heads of milling crowds . . . men with blood-soaked bandages wrapped around their heads to stanch the bleeding from self-inflicted wounds . . . endless posters of the slaughtered innocents. This is an orgy of death imagery, I thought."

Can Europe grasp this commitment to voluntary suffering? For casualties to be acceptable on the battlefield, people need collective ideals and values that transform their society into a sacred entity. In European eyes, Shiites have ritualized this to the point of absurdity, with most Westerners finding it bizarre.

After the horrors of World War II, Western Europe turned to new ideals of radical pacifism and post-nationalism. The Continent had been devastated by war twice in three decades. In the 1950s, the desire to avoid more war led it to a new ideology, permeating society and politics, that viewed national interests and cultural traditions as relative. As a result, people started to believe that peaceful coexistence with communist Eastern Europe was better than emphasizing the differences between East and West.
[...]
Little has changed in recent decades. Europe became wealthier and more convinced of its idea that world peace can be achieved by talk alone. Even the West European countries in the American-led coalition in Iraq, apart from the British, are only participating symbolically in order not to offend their main ally. In the Netherlands, the authorities speak of "peace missions" when discussing Dutch military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, avoiding terms like "war" and "violence."

If the threat were limited to the Middle East, the European reluctance to act now that Iran has de facto begun developing nuclear weapons might be almost understandable. But it is clear that the Iranian theocracy has set its sights far beyond its region. The rhetoric of the Iranian regime has been clear for years. As with Germany in the 1930s, anti-Semitism plays a key role in modern Iranian politics. If Iran succeeds, its nuclear weapons will be controlled by people who believe that they should bring the End of Days closer--a notion not dissimilar to Hitler's apocalyptic visions. An Iranian bomb threatens the very existence of Western civilization.

But what does Western civilization mean in and to Europe? In the European welfare state, the system ensures that each individual can rely on maximum social security. Without doubt, the welfare state is the ultimate achievement of European civilization. But it did not come without a philosophy: the welfare state gave birth to a postmodern cultural relativism that underpins the tolerant, liberal, pacifistic and secular European societies of today.
[...]
The EU does not know why it should ever sacrifice its sons in military conflict. What sacred values are worth defending at such a high cost? The EU isn't prepared to enter a conflict with Iran, with all its potentially devastating human casualties and economic hardships.

So for years the Troika continued talking, maintaining the illusion that Tehran was playing by the rules as equal partners and denying the reality that the Mullahs will gain great economic and military leverage over Europe in the very near future.
Europe could have suppressed the Iranian threat if it had convinced the mullahs two years ago that it was willing to contemplate military options. Only Europe lacks core values that it holds sacrosanct and that it's willing to defend at the highest cost. It will continue to operate on the diplomatic field and cling to soft power even though this is the path of certain defeat when confronted with power players burning with geopolitical and religious ambitions.

Thanks to European illusions about soft power, the free world has two options left on Iran: disaster or catastrophe. America and Israel will bleed for Europe's lack of conviction.

Mr. de Winter is a Dutch novelist and adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute.

To read the entire article click HERE.

As a German, my point of view is probably a bit different from the take other Europeans may have. We have an additional motive to support the terrorist scum that is beyond "White guilt", cultural relativism and welfare-state flabbyness. We have been, after all, historically "on the other side", so there may be a deeper reason for the brazen, smug self-righteousness that is stinking up the media here.

We condemn capital punishment in America and hold candlelight vigils for convicted murderers but ignore the fate of women and girls im Muslim countries who are executed for the sin of their existence.

We create a preposterous comparison of WWI and WWII and the war in Afghanistan because the latter has cost about twenty German soldiers their lives, conveniently forgetting that it weren't the Americans who started WWI and WWII.

We diss the Americans for doing our dirty work when we educated the 9/11 terrorists at our universities.

And every time the Americans get a bit more guilty, we get a bit more innocent.

No, we will never forgive the "Amis" for liberating us.

Talking about forgiveness: The Israeli psychoanalyst Zvi Rex once quipped that "the Germans will never forgive the Jews for Auschwitz". So giving in to the Muslim threat would have the double advantage of getting rid of that thorn in the German flesh as well.

And no, I don't think that is very far-fetched.

And yes, my favourite asswipe, should you read this, this IS self-loathing. Rest assured, however, that my next entry will be suitably America-loathing to make up for it.

To Dispel A Myth

An article by Caroline Glick in Monday's JP:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's speech in German before the Knesset this afternoon will be the culmination of what the Israeli media has referred to as an "historic" three-day state visit to Israel. The day before Merkel launched her "historic" visit, Der Spiegel reported on the "historic" visit of another German to Afghanistan.

That visit ended on March 3 when the visitor in question, known as Cüneyt C. from Bavaria and also known as Saad Ebu Furkan blew himself up in front of a US guard post in Khost, an hour's drive from the border with Pakistan where the German-Turk underwent terror training. Two US soldiers were killed and dozens were wounded after being trapped beneath the rubble, making C. Germany's first successful suicide bomber.

Although the first German to kill US forces, C.'s associate, Sadullah K. a young German from the state of Hesse died trying...

And of course, Germany's reputation as a home for al-Qaida-like jihadists was brandished by Saudi and Egyptian nationals who studied in Hamburg several years ago. Led by Muhammad Atta, they enjoyed German hospitality while planning the attacks they carried out in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001.

MERKEL, WHO presents herself and her country as Israel's greatest friend and supporter in Europe, will no doubt ignore this story in her Knesset speech. She will doubtlessly also not mention that her country is Iran's largest importer. She might mention that last year Germany did cancel a half of its loan guarantees to German firms doing business with Iran. But she won't mention that the move has had almost no impact on trade volume. In a recent report on German firms in Iran, Reuters interviewed British businessman Robert Mills, who runs DHL's operation in Teheran. DHL, the express delivery firm is a unit of the mail and logistics group Deutsche Post.

Mills gushed about the booming business his firm is doing in Iran, in spite of the international sanctions. Mills said the tonnage handled by DHL jumped by 50 per cent in the last two years and the company has doubled its turnover in Iran since 2005 on the back of rising imports of everything from telecommunications equipment to car spare parts.

Like Mills, other businessmen representing German firms reported booming businesses and expanding opportunities in spite of UN sanctions. Business managers reported that their earnings have doubled and tripled in the past two years.

Iran's faith in its German business partners is apparently unlimited. Why else would it be considering listing $92 billion in shares of its energy holding company on the Frankfurt stock exchange? As MEED, the Middle East Business Intelligence Report reported Sunday, with over 1,700 German firms operating in Iran, the fact that Germany recently broke off banking ties with Iranian banks is not viewed as an obstacle to listing the firm on the Frankfurt exchange. A spokeswoman for Deutsche Borse, the company which manages the exchange told the journal that it would have no objection to listing the Iranian firm.

GERMANY'S actions toward Iran cannot be squared with Merkel's rhetoric of support for Israel and commitment to Israel's security. Both Germany's actions and its pro-Israel rhetoric can only be understood when seen through the lens of power politics - which is the lens that informs European policymakers in their decisions relating to Israel, Iran, the Middle East, and indeed the world as a whole.

[...]

Merkel of course, knows full well that Israel's presumptive Palestinian "peace partner" the Fatah movement is a terrorist group. She also knows that the Olmert-Livni-Barak government's presumptive interlocutor for peace, Palestinian Authority Chairman and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas is neither able nor interested in establishing a Palestinian state that will live at peace with Israel. She also knows that if the so-called peace process brings about a Palestinian state in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, that state will simply be a terror state that will stand at the side of the terror state that was established in Gaza in 2005.

[...]

But of course, in the media frenzy of feel good German-Israeli friendship that has characterized Merkel's visit, none of this is likely to occur this week. And in the appeasement frenzied political climate that has gripped Israel since 1993, it is hard to imagine anyone stopping to realize that we are the only ones who take the Europeans at their word.

The article is well worth reading in its entirety. I would like, however, to add a correction concerning a not totally unimportant detail, because it might create a myth.

Caroline Glick says that Cüneyt Ciftci (a Turk with German passport and, no doubt, brought up in a German Muslim "parallel society") was the first "German" to kill US forces. That is not the case. The first Germans to kill US forces were undoubted and undoubtedly ethnic Germans, namely members of the Baader-Meinhof gang, and the first member of the American military they killed was First Lieutenant Paul A. Bloomquist. That was on May 11, 1972 during a bomb attack on the headquarters of the 5th US Corps in Frankfurt/Main. Thirteen others were injured.

13 days later, during an assault on the European headquarters of the US Army on May 24, 1972, the GIs Ronald A. Woodward and Charles Peck were killed, five others were injured.

On August 7, 1985, the GI Edward Pimental was shot dead in Wiesbaden by members of the Baader-Meinhof gang. One of the girls had lured him out of a discotheque and into a situation that rendered him helpless. The sole purpose of the murder of this 20 year old boy was to get hold of his ID-card, which they later proudly showed-off to the world. It was used to get access to the Rhein-Main-Airbase in Frankfurt/Main the next day, where they detonated a car bomb. GI Frank Scarton and the civilian employee Becky Jo Bristol, the wife of an enlisted man, were killed, 23 others were injured.

The victims of the Baader-Meinhof gang are listed at the website of the Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung.

Most of the murderers are free, whereas the families of the victims serve a life sentence without pardon or parole in their own private hell.

As examples may serve Irmgard Möller, who drove a car full of explosives into United States Military Intelligence Headquarters at Campbell Barracks in Heidelberg in 1972, who was arrested in July of the same year and given a lengthy prison sentence, but was released in the Nineties and Eva Haule, who was involved in the murder of Edward Pimental as well as in the following Rhein-Main Air Base bombing. The latter was granted parole in August 2007 after a "life sentence" of 21 years because, so the court, "she can't be considered a danger to the public" any longer. With her release date set for August 21, "the heirs of Freisler, Inc." released her on the 17th already, in order to protect her from the media. Everything to accomodate! Calling to account the murderers of Americans has never had a high priority in Germany anyway.

What shouldn't be forgotten either is the fact that the Baader-Meinhof terrorists received training at PLO camps, thus reviving a long tradition of excellent cooperation between Arabs and Germans, which had passed its acid test during the holocaust of the European Jews already.

And here, the matter reaches its full circle and we are back at Caroline Glick's article.

Islam Is Mercy

Although I am not known to be particularly friendly towards Islam, what I learned today shocked me. Did you know that they hang little girls in Iran? And if you do, do you know too that they rape them before they hang them so that they won't go to heaven, as virgins are supposed to do?

Excerpts from: Women and the death penalty in Iran

The 1979 Revolution and the 1980’s.

Under the rule of the former Shah a small number of women were hanged, mostly for murder, using the British style long drop method. The Shah was deposed in 1979 and replaced by a fundamentalist Muslim regime led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. He won a huge democratic majority for the formation of an Islamic Republic on April the 1st 1979. Under the new government women were required to wear the veil, Western music and alcohol were banned, and the punishments prescribed by Sharia law came into force.

Male and female executions became frequent – often for refusing to convert/recognise Islam, or for being a member of an anti-regime political group.

There are no accurate records of just how many men, women and girls were executed in the first years of the Revolution. There is a credible list of 14,028 names available and some sources claim figures of several tens of thousands, although these are not substantiated with names. According to a report published by the Organisation of Women Against Execution in Iran, at least two thousand women were executed between June 1981 and 1990. They have been able to prepare a list containing 1428 names. 187 of these women were under the age of 18, with 9 girls under the age of 13 and 14 between the ages of 45 to 70. The youngest girl executed was just 10 years old.* 32 of these women were reported to have been pregnant at the time of their execution. Many of those executed were high school and college students. Hanging was the most common method of execution for women although some were shot. (Large numbers of men were shot during this period). Men and women were hanged in large groups in Tehran prisons from cranes and fork-lift trucks. Each crane jib or fork-lift had a wooden or steel beam to which the noose were attached and when the preparations were complete the prisoners were simply hoisted into the air.

Under Revolutionary law young girls who were sentenced to death could not be executed if they were still virgins. Thus they were "married off" to Revolutionary Guards and prison officials in temporary marriages and then raped before their execution, to prevent them going to heaven*. The Mullahs believed that these women were ungodly and did not deserve paradise in the next life, and that if they were deprived of their virginity it would ensure that they went to hell. Therefore on the night prior to execution, the condemned girl was injected with a tranquilliser and then raped by her guard(s). After the execution, the religious judge at the prison would write out a marriage certificate and send it to the victim's family along with a box of sweets.

Generally details of executions from the early years of the Revolution are hard to find but the case of the ten women hanged in Shiraz in 1983 is well documented.

The “crime” of these women was to believe in the Bahá'í religion instead of Islam, and to believe in the equality of men and women. These were considered to be very dangerous concepts by the Revolutionary regime who had them arrested and tortured in an effort to persuade them to convert into Islam. Several of them were subjected to the "bastinado" - beating on the soles of their feet. They were all given the opportunity to avoid execution by recanting their faith and converting to Islam but none of them chose to.

On the night of June the 18th 1983 they were driven in a bus to a polo field on the outskirts of Shiraz where a gallows had been set up. The bus driver who took them there reported that they seemed to be in good spirits, singing on the way and prepared to meet their fate.

The youngest prisoner was Mona Mahmudnizhad, who was just 17 years old. Her father had been hanged some months earlier for his beliefs. At the execution ground she asked to be hanged last so that she could pray for all the other women. Reportedly she kissed the noose and recited a prayer before she was suspended.

The other nine members of the group were :

23 year old Roya Ishraqi, a promising veterinary student, was executed with her 50 year old mother, Izzad Janami Ishraqi.

20 year old Akhtar Sabit, a graduate nurse, who had taught children’s religious classes.

28 year old Mahshid Nirumand was a physics graduate from the University of Shiraz. She is said to have remained resolute in prison and to have shared her food with the others and encouraged them to remain firm.

Shirin Dalvand who was 25 years old and held a degree in sociology from the University of Shiraz. Shirin was an expert in the Baha'i faith. Under interrogation she was asked whether she would ever give up her religion - she told her questioner that she would hold to her faith " Until my death, I hope that the divine mercy will enable me to remain firm to the last breath of my life ".

Tahirih Siyavushi was a 32 year old nurse, who had been a member of the Local Spiritual Assembly of Shiraz. Her husband, Jamshid, had been hanged two days earlier. As a nurse Tahirih helped to look after the other prisoners.

20 year old Simin Sabiri, who had been a member of the Committee of Studies Baha' ies of Shiraz.

Zarrin Muqimi was 28 years old and also very knowledgeable about her faith defending it vigorously under interrogation.

The oldest of the ten was 54 year old Mrs Nosrat Yalda' I who had belonged to the Spiritual Local Assembly of Shiraz and whose house was regarded as the "nerve centre" of the Community life Baha' ie in Shiraz. She had been viciously whipped during her time in prison and her wounds were still visible after her hanging. Both her husband and her son, Bahram had also been executed.

The town’s people of Shiraz groups brought flowers to the mortuary to honour the bravery of these women, despite the dangers of such a protest. The Bahá'í religion is still considered dangerous by the regime and is suppressed.

Dina Parnabi was an Iranian high school student, accused of smuggling forbidden literature and criticising the regime in her talks with her classmates. She was hanged on the 10th of July 1984 in a Teheran prison. The hanging was done in private and after the execution was over, her body was stripped, washed and delivered for dissection at medical school. In Iran, female bodies delivered for medical studies often show the rope or cable burns around their necks, indicating that they were all executed by hanging.

Modern day Iran.

Through the 1900’s reported female executions were rare but in the 21st century they have begun to rise.

In 2004 it is thought that four women have been hanged, 3 in public. Shooting is no longer used and short drop or suspension hanging in private or public is now the norm. At least 2 women are thought to be facing stoning at the time of writing in January 2005, although it is probable that their sentences will be commuted to hanging. It is notable that public execution is increasingly used for both sexes and most of the 95 executions that I recorded in Iran during 2004 were carried out in public. Flogging prior to execution is not unusual.

Iran is a signatory both to the International Convention on Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, both of which explicitly forbid the execution of minors, however, Iranian law allows the death penalty for boys from age 15 and for girls from age 9. Girls and women can be sentenced to hanging either in private, or now more commonly in public, or to stoning to death. Under external pressure, minors now tend to be kept in prison until they are 18 and then have their death sentence carried out. Iman Farrokhi, who was hanged on the 19th of January 2005, was 17 when he was convicted of murder. Several other juveniles are under sentence of death.

Let us have a look at the individual cases of these women.

Everyone of them died a painful and humiliating death, there being no effort made to minimise their suffering or make their execution in any way humane. Pictures of Fariba Tajiani-Emamqoli’s hanging and those of male prisoners show that an American style coiled noose made from modern nylon rope is used and that the prisoner is either stood on a box which is pulled from under them or hoisted into the air by a crane jib as happened with Fariba and 16 year old Atefeh Rajabi.

The first execution took place on the 26th of January 2000 when Masoumeh Fathi was hanged in the north-western city of Tabriz for killing a prison warder during an escape attempt. On the same day Alieh Moradi and her male accomplice, Farhang Moradi, were hanged in Kermanshah in western Iran, for the murder of Alieh’s husband. Her children were present in the prison grounds to watch their mother die. Both executions took place within the prisons.

The first public hanging took place at dawn on the 19th of March 2001 when 30 year old Fariba Tajiani-Emamqoli and four men were put to death for drug trafficking in Tehran. Fariba was attended by a woman prison officer and was blindfolded and had her hands tied behind her back. Like most public hangings nowadays the hydraulic crane of a small recovery vehicle was used to hoist her into the air. The whole process took 25 minutes, with the bodies being left hanging for 10 minutes before being taken down A crowd of about 200 gathered to witness the event and chanted "Allah akbar" - God is great and "death to the traffickers, death to the traffickers."

A series of photos of Fariba’s execution:









Iran also uses stoning to death as punishment for women and this horrific fate was meted out to 32-year-old Maryam Ayoubi who was stoned on Wednesday 11th July 2001, within Tehran's Evin prison. Maryam had confessed to poisoning her husband with soup and then stabbing him to death with the assistance of her lover, who was hanged on the same day.

Women who are to be stoned are buried up to their shoulders in the ground and their head covered with a cloth. The law specifies the size of the stones that are then hurled at their heads until they die from their injuries.

Monireh Ghasempour was reportedly hanged in public in Tehran on the 11th of July 2004, but the details of her crime are unknown.

Diba Zomorodian, a microbiology student was hanged in Qazvin (western Iran) on the 29th of June 2004, again there being no details of her crime. It is thought that an unnamed woman was hanged in Qazvin on July 12th 2004.

A truly scandalous execution took place on Sunday, August the 15th 2004, when 16-year-old Atefeh Rajabi was hanged in public in the town of Neka. Atefeh was executed for “engaging in acts incompatible with chastity”.

Atefeh was not represented by a lawyer at her trial and efforts by her family to recruit a lawyer was to no avail. She had to defend herself and told the religious judge, Haji Rezaii, that he should punish the main perpetrators of moral corruption not the victims. She further enraged the judge by removing some of her clothing (probably just her headscarf) and he accused her of having a “sharp tongue”. It is claimed that he pursued her execution beyond all normal procedures and finally gained the approval of the Supreme Court and the chief of the nation’s “judiciary branch.” Her age was given in official court documents as 22 but her birth certificate has been viewed by reliable sources and shows she really was just 16.

At the place of execution in the town’s square the judge personally put the rope around the girl’s neck and gave the signal to the crane operator to begin her hanging.

Witnesses reported that she begged for mercy and had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the execution truck. She repeatedly shouted "repentance" which, according to Islamic law, is supposed to grant the accused the right to an immediate stay of execution while an appeal is heard.

Judge Haji Rezaie said he was pleased to hang her and is quoted as saying. "Society has to be kept safe from acts against public morality." Her body was left dangling from the crane for some time so people could see what happened to teenagers who committed acts incompatible with chastity.

It should be noted that although according to the Islamic Republic’s penal code the presence of an attorney for the defense is mandatory, regardless of the defendant’s ability to afford one, nevertheless Atefeh did not get an attorney, despite the efforts of her father to raise money for one. Atefeh’s boyfriend, who had been arrested as well, received 100 lashes and was afterwards released.

So what was Atefeh’s “crime”? It would seem that it amounted to having sex with her boyfriend. According to judicial records, Atefeh had five previous convictions for having sex with unmarried men. For each offence she had been jailed and flogged. She confided in her friends that she had been abused by the guards in prison. A law suit is being brought by Shadi Sadr, a lawyer representing the Rajabi family, against the judiciary for wrongful execution. Sadr is also trying to bring a murder charge against the judge, Haji Rezaie.

Akram N., a 20 year old Iranian woman was hanged in prison in the north-eastern town of Shirevan, on the 7th of December 2005. She had been convicted of murdering an older woman, Maryam A., in December 2001. The death sentence was carried out at dawn in front of the religious prosecutor and judge.

There are thought to be 15 women currently under sentence of death in Iran as of December 2005:

Kobra Rahmanpour, aged 22, convicted of murdering her mother.

Najmeh Vosouq-Razavi, a law student from Mashhad, whose crime is not known.

Hajiyeh Esma’eilvand, 30, sentenced to stoning for adultery with an unnamed 17 year old boy.

Zhila Iazadi, aged 13 or 14,sentenced to stoning for incest with her 15 year old brother, by whom she became pregnant. It is reported that she has already received 50 lashes in prison and is in a poor state both mentally and physically.

It should be noted that all death sentences in Iran must be upheld by the Supreme Court before they can be carried out.

There seems to be considerable contradictions between the Iranian government’s “official line” and the allegations of human rights groups as to what is actually happening in the country in 2005. There have been reports of death sentences passed on juveniles and of stoning sentences passed on women, despite assurances to the International Community that these practices had ended. In January 2005, at a weekly briefing for journalists to which some foreign media correspondents were invited, judiciary spokesman Jamal Karimirad, dismissed the allegations saying that "in the Islamic Republic, we no longer face such verdicts and implementation of such verdicts." "I do not know how they get such baseless information and then make a fuss over it. The aim of such news is to harm Iran's image." There also seems to be a dichotomy between what senior ministers are saying for foreign consumption and what is going on at “ground level” with Islamic judges.

The United Nations condemned Iran's record on public executions, floggings, arbitrary sentences, torture and discrimination against women, in a resolution in December 2004. Many other bodies have done the same. You will find endless websites condemning Iran’s human rights record.

So what are we to believe? I will monitor the situation during 2005 and update this article in January 2006. Individual executions will be reported monthly.

THE HANGING OF WOMEN AND GIRLS IN IRAN.

What follows is a first hand account of the atrocities committed against women and girls in the first few years after the 1979 Revolution. It was written by an Iranian doctor who served as a prison doctor's assistant before managing to escape from Iran in 1986, and is published with his consent.

Hundreds and perhaps thousands of Iranian females went to the gallows for various offences after the Islamic revolution in 1979. They were of various ages and occupations, school teachers, students, workers, young teenagers, writers and business owners. What united them in their final hour was the method of their death. For females, the noose became the standard and brutal method of execution after denial of their rights enjoyed during the reign of Shah Pahalav, who went into exile after his abdication. Initially peaceful, the Islamic revolution promised Iranian women and girls a better society. But what they got was theocratic government that took their rights away from them. During the reign of the Shah, few Iranian females went to the gallows. They died mostly for murder and their executions were rare in comparison with the male criminals. Although several young female university students were known to have been hanged by the Shah's secret police, they were executed for arson and terrorism and died on a British style gallows that guaranteed a quick death from a broken neck. Traditionally, Iran, (Persia) was the first country in history to introduce hanging as punishment in the Middle eastern region 2,500 years ago. Previously females were simply strangled with a rope to preserve modesty. Hanging was seen as a simple and efficient method of punishment for both males and females, but only during Khomeini's reign, was mass hanging of women and girls implemented as government policy. Khomeini decreed that females as young as 10 could be executed by hanging for various offences, although there is no record of someone that young ever being hanged. The youngest girls ever hanged were between 12 and 14 years old and were always hanged en masse with the adults. Traditionally, all women and girls were raped by the guards prior to their execution. This measure was to ensure that they lose their virginity and do not go to paradise. The day after the rape, the condemned were allowed to rest for one day and then brought to a room to be prepared for their execution. Their head-scarves would be removed if execution was not in public and their necks and a portion of the upper chest would be exposed by unbuttoning the top button of a blouse or a shirt. All sentenced to hang would have their hands bound behind them with a rope and escorted to the gallows. Very strong thin ropes or steel cables with simple slipknots would be placed around their necks and drawn fairly tight. After suspension, the hanged would kick violently thrashing and choking, defecating and urinating. Their agonies were designed to last long for the drop was very short, made to ensure a slow, painful and complete strangulation. After they stopped kicking and convulsing, their bodies would be examined by a prison doctor and left hanging for 10 to 20 minutes. They would then be taken down, brought to the morgue and washed with a fire-hose. Relatives would claim the bodies after signing the death certificate and paying for the rope used.

Preparation for hanging.

The day before execution, the condemned women or girls are given the last chance of confessing more of their sins or provide any useful information about their amoral or criminal activities to the religious court. Additional information is recorded and the condemned are returned to their cells. While women and girls await execution, the gallows room, if the hanging is in private, is prepared. Ropes as well as wire cables are used for the hanging and are no more than one inch in diameter. They are usually strong and thin, designed to dig into the neck, crush the larynx and inflict reasonable amount of pain after the moment of suspension. In the early 80's simple wooden or plastic crates would be used for the condemned to step on and be noosed. To expedite the volume of executions, the gallows room was designed to accommodate a special gallows designed for multiple hangings. An iron or wooden beam sometimes with attached metal hooks would be positioned opposite a single gallows. A female had to be someone of importance to be hanged alone. Most girls and women shared the gallows together, sometimes being hanged four to six at a time. The floor of the hanging room would have one or two drainage holes designed to clean the urine and faeces expelled during their agony in the noose. After the execution, when the bodies were cut down, examined and removed, a prison guard would clean the room with a fire-hose. Most of the females hanged in Iran in private died in wire or cable nooses. Cable nooses were more durable since they did not snap under the prisoner's weight after the drop. During early public hangings of females, telephone cords, vertical blind cords and parcel ropes were used for hanging.


Hanging Procedure.

Solo hanging.

At the appointed time one or two clerics accompanied by the soldiers would wait for the condemned women or a girl to enter the gallows room. Regardless of her age, she would be shown the gallows she would be hanging on and then a blindfold would be applied to her face to cover only her eyes. In private hanging, her headscarf would be removed to expose her head and neck and her shirt unbuttoned to expose the upper chest as a sign of humiliation. Her hands would already be tied with a rope or a cord behind her back. Ropes are used to bind the prisoners. Only high ranking prisoners are hanged wearing handcuffs. The woman or a girl would then be placed under the noose and the executioner would place the noose around her neck. The slipknot is usually positioned on the side under her chin so the hanged does not die too quickly as she would if the slipknot was at the back of her head. After suspension, her windpipe would still be open for several minutes but it will be slowly squeezed shut. During that time, the fully conscious girl would feel the pain of the noose or a wire digging into her neck. There are different ways used to hang the females in solo hanging. Sometimes she would be hoisted up via winch turned by two executioners or guards or made to stand on a simple crate which will be kicked from under her. Observers wait patiently until her convulsions stop and leave the gallows room after the prison doctor pronounces her dead. The body is not taken down immediately. Sometimes it would remain hanging for ten to forty five minutes and finally removed after the rigor mortis had passed.

Mass hanging.

During mass hanging of four or more females, all condemned mount a bench one by one and wait for their nooses to be put on. If children are hanged together with the adults, they are placed on top of a crate placed on the bench so executioner could place the noose around their necks without problems. Most observers of mass hangings of Iranian females note mixed expressions on the faces of the condemned. Shock, pain, fear and curiosity are four main reactions to the proceedings. During the adjustment of the nooses, the condemned are forbidden to talk and if they display any resistance to the executioner like putting their chins down on their chests, they are yanked by the hair and when noose is slipped around their neck, the executioner deliberately draws it fairly tight. When all females have been noosed, the religious judge reads a sentence of death after which the bench is kicked away. Since the drop is short, the hanged struggle hard and long before expiring. The prisoners would be swinging beside one another with only a meter's length between them. It is very possible that one hanged woman would be able to observe the strangulation process of a female to her left and right before she herself would finally lose her vision due to the lack of supply of blood and oxygen to the brain. In the present, public hangings are usually carried out by lifting the condemned by the use of a crane as in the cases Fariba Tajiani-Emamqoli, hanged in public for drug trafficking and 16 year old schoolgirl Atefeh Rajabi, who was hanged for "moral corruption." The youngest hanged female in Iran was reportedly 11 year old Nasrin Sakvar, daughter of a doctor who denounced Khomeini regime and was killed by the Revolutionary guards. Nasrin was arrested while hiding several letters that compromised her father and was sentenced to death by hanging. Due to her young age, Nasrin's execution was carried out inside the prison, but she was hanged in a same brutal manner as the others suspended by the neck on a thin rope slowly strangling to death before guards and clerics who showed little or no emotion.

Iranian girls' attitude toward hanging.

In private interviews, most Iranian girls when asked how they wanted to die if they were executed, responded mostly in favour of the noose. Older woman mostly preferred firing squads, but 90 percent of all condemned females die on the gallows. There were a few very rare cases when a girl or a woman would be offered a choice between a bullet and the noose. Death on the gallows in spite its age long tradition and simplicity remains a fascinating subject among Iranian girls. Hanging is also the most popular method of suicide among young Iranian females aged 12 to 30. (Female suicides are a frequent occurrence in Iran) Currently, Iran holds the record for executing more females per year than any other country. The religious forces governing Iran see no reason to abolish hanging for females. One of the mullahs actually said that he wanted to hang as many Iranian girls and women as possible. Sometimes clerics place the ropes around women's necks personally and observed with morbid curiosity as the victim strangled and choked until her convulsions stopped. As far as death penalty goes, the Islamic Republic of Iran will continue to execute females by hanging as long as they remain in power.

Copyright by Dr. Hamiz 2004 & Saleha Darani

*Emphasis added by me!

Yes, that's right. That would be the same Iran Angelika Beer, German Greens MEP, called a 'fascinating country with a young well-educated society'. Of course, all this is not more than a quaint, folkloristic custom, which this 'young well-educated society' preserves with an admiring sense of tradition. We must not be judgemental here and who are we to judge with the Holocaust (top THAT!) under our belt and the Americans better shut up anyway because they are nasty to the Negroes!

I don't think I will sleep particularly well tonight.

Back to the Prussian three-class system of voting!

It pays to follow the Islamist media. This little gem is from IRNA, Islamic Republic News Agency:

The European Union Wednesday called on the Islamic Republic of Iran to resume talks to resolve the nuclear dispute and to forge a better relationship between the two sides.

''We urge Iran to come back to talks on long-term arrangements on the basis of the Paris agreement,'' Douglas Alexander, the British Minister of State for Europe told the European Parliament in Strasbourg during a debate on Iran Wednesday evening.
Alexander, whose country holds the current EU Presidency, said a diplomatic solution to Iran's nuclear programme should include an agreement on long term arrangements.
[...]
Angelika Beer, German Greens MEP and chair of the EP's delegation on Iran urged the Iranian leadership to play a positive role in the international community.

''Iran is a fascinating country with a young well-educated society,'' she said.

''We should not make the mistake of cutting off contacts with the civil society and slamming the door. We need to speak of rights and peaceful solution to disputes''...

...thus spake Beer and nobody laughed.




Fascinating with a young, well-educated society indeed. Hey, why don't watch a fascinating and well-educating stoning to death video!

That would be the same Angelika Beer who finds the delivery of two submarines to Israel "irresponsible", wouldn't it?

While spending her well-paid retirement in the European Parliament as a representative of the Greens, Beer, former "chairperson" of the Green Party, muses that Germany thus "jeopardizes her position as a neutral partner in the Middle East".

"With the unanimous decision of the old and the new government of Germany to deliver two more Dolphin-submarines," Beer informs us, "they torpedo in an irresponsible way the negotiations of EU 3 with Iran about their nuclear program."

By the way, my translation improved the original: «Mit der einvernehmlichen Entscheidung der alten und neuen Regierung Deutschlands, Israel zwei weitere Dolphin-U-Boote zu liefern, torpediert sie in unverantwortlicher Art und Weise die Verhandlungen der EU 3 mit Iran über dessen Nuklearprogramm.» WHO do "torpedo"? Can only be the old and the new government of Germany (plural), because they form the sentence article. So that should read then "sie torpedieren", "they torpedo", NOT "sie torpediert", "he/she/it torpedoes". But who cares about grammar as long as the spirit is right. And here, it is SO right, it makes me throwing up yesterday's breakfast!

I am not talking about that hypocritical, perverted "special relationship with Israel" Germans love to claim, which is more a sort of German masturbation icon tackled as, to paraphrase Wolgang Pohrt, with the typical German obsession with responsibility, comparable to a convicted child molester who thinks that his "experience" does qualify him specifically for a job as kindergarden teacher. No, I'm not talking about that.

I am not talking either JUST about the fact, that, in a case where the only democratic country with the rule of law in the Middle East stands with her back to the wall (or rather the sea) against the, to quote John Derbyshire, "howling, jeering forces of barbarism", a case of six million in a sliver of land against 22 million (give or take a few million, I am not petty) ready to kill at the spur of a moment as soon as that tiny slip of land shows a chink in its armour, that in such a case the phrase "neutral partner" rings a tiny wee little bit hollow.

I am not talking either about the fact that this deal was heavily sponsored by the German industry and those guys are not known for giving presents.

What I am talking about is that I'd wish back the times when the representatives of the people had a modicum of formal education and stood for their own, and, albeit egoistic, nevertheless SANE interests and not for some warm-and-fuzzy-feeling-of-one's-own-goodness-in-the-belly at best, a dangerous totalitarian ideology at worst. Beer is qualified to type legal documents or to clean a physician's instruments and should be allowed to make suggestions how to improve the filing system and that is where, in a sane society, her influence would end.

I say the times when political influence was limited to a person's actual importance and children had to present their fingernails for inspection on a regular basis had their decisive advantages!

Maybe a bit of Holocaust-relativism will be in order later...

From SPIEGEL ONLINE's newspage:

Is Ahmadinejad Giving Germany's Far-Right Free Propaganda?

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gave SPIEGEL an exclusive interview (to be published on this Web site on Tuesday), the first extensive one with a Western publication, in which he reiterated his doubts about whether the Holocaust happened and warned that Europe should "stand behind Iran" in the current nuclear conflict.

"I only accept something as the truth if I have really been convinced," he told SPIEGEL, referring to the Holocaust. Part of the interview turned into a debate between Ahmadinejad and the three SPIEGEL journalists, who argued that the Holocaust is a historically established fact.

Ahmadinejad also reiterated his statements questioning Israel's right to exist. "We say if the Holocaust happened, then the Europeans must accept the consequences and the price should not be paid by Palestine," he said. "If it did not happen, then the Jews must return to where they came from."

His remark that Germany is "hostage to Zionists" over the Holocaust is likely to be welcomed by Germany's far-right and the National Democratic Party (NPD), writes Financial Times Deutschland. "His big SPIEGEL interview delivers free NPD propaganda. One can ask whether journalists should provide a stage for this. The answer is that an open society should know its enemies. It only has to be prepared to take a close look at them."

-- David Crossland, 11 a.m. CET

Free Far-Right propaganda? Really? Let's have a look at the organised part of the Far Right in Germany, the NPD (Nationaldemocratic Party of Germany), which is, mind you, to all intents and purposes a Nazi organisation. If you can read German, go to wwwdotnpddotde (I am not linking to them) for a look. So that would be horrific, wouldn't it? After all, the hype in the international media from South Africa to Seoul MUST have a reason, mustn't it? To quote just a tiny selection:
- Is There Threat for Foreign Visitors in Germany?
- Could racism mar the World Cup in Germany?
- Analysis: Extremism on the rise in Germany
- Neo-Nazis 'won't hijack' Cup stage

That can't be ALL hysteria, or can it?

Let's have a closer look!

The German Wikipedia entry for NPD contains a lot of interesting information regarding this political party -- information freely available to anybody who can read and is willing to do his maths.

The NPD can boast, on a national level, roughly 6000 members, which is not exactly a people's movement. Here are their results for the elections of the Landtage, the state parliaments, from the foundation of the party until recently:




("n.a." means that the party didn't run in the respective elections.)

Here are the NPD's results for the elections of the Bundestag, the federal parliament.

I am asking myself now whether the media can't read (and do basic maths) and are therefore hysterical or is their ability to read (and to do basic maths) hampered because of their hysteria?

Or maybe they haven't done any research at all? Another case of correct societal reaction resolutely removed from the cause?

So, while everybody is barking up an almost empty tree with a few pathetic Nazis far removed from any power or influence on top, others, sharing major parts of the same ideology, remain unfazed. I know that I am repetitive, in fact many times so, but what about politicians like Angelika Beer, German Greens MEP who thinks that Iran is "a fascinating country with a young well-educated society", the same Angelika Beer who finds the delivery of two submarines to Israel "irresponsible".

Those are the NPD's results for the elections of the European Parliamen. (All graphs taken from the above mentioned Wikipedia entry.)

Then there is is the Greens' sortof "elder statesman" Hans Christian Ströbele who recently blamed in a TV chat show the United States and co-guest Richard Perle of planning an attack on Iran with nuclear weapons. The very Ströbele, who thinks that Iran has the right of using nuclear technology. Ströbele who thinks that, if Iran is banned from having nukes, Israel ought to be too. Just like the NPD.

And nobody got hysterics.

Talking about propaganda, elsewhere, ex-chancellor Gerhard Schröder thinks that a boycott of the "democratically elected" Hamas is wrong, because specifically we as Germans know of the evil-preventing powers of democratic elections, and opposes sanctions against Iran.

At a celebration in the Foreign Office where Schröder took on the position of Honorary Chairman of the Board of the Nah- und Mittelost-Verein e.V. NUMOV, the German Near and Middle East Association, whose mission it is to promote trade and investment between Germany and the countries of the Near and Middle East, Schröder stated that it is wrong to apply any standards to Iran, which are different from those applied to other countries, like, dare I say it, the NPD.

Once the Middle Eastern business connections are working fine, maybe a little bit of Holocaust-relativism will be in order later, or Gerhard can always start a roaring trade with THE bestseller in the Middle East. After all, we have that traditionally terrific relationship with the Arab world. Besides, the majority wants them and one must never undermine the majority vote, democratically speaking.

At least then he will see what propaganda is THAT WORKS.

Media Darlings of the Unenlightened Masses

... or: Sheer and Undiluted Shittyness

The release of the fifteen British soldiers triggered off the inevitable German media ritual to let the inexorable "Iran-experts" have their say. The most inescapable among those is the unavoidable Bahman Nirumand. His love affair with the German media beats the longevity of 98% of marriages in this country and he is always good for a howler. This time he sees the bizarre staging a "coming around" regarding the hostage-crisis, which is "a defeat for the president". And he even managed to keep a straight face.

The amnesty surely wasn't his [Ahmadinedjad's] will, but that of his adversaries who obviously managed to rein him in and thus to avert an imminent danger from the the country.

Which will, according to Nirumand, lead to a decision of crucial importance:

Iran is at the crossroads. Either the radical Islamists around Ahmadinedjad ... will succeed to monopolize the power or his critics, the moderates, the reformers, will manage to to take over the helm. This round goes to the moderates.

A superfluity of metaphors doesn't make the reasoning any more lucid and the fairytale of the "moderate" Muslim who needs nothing but support to bring peace to the world any less moronic. Following this logic from the nuthouse, the kidnapping was even a good thing because it somehow weakened Ahmadinedjad, Liza observes.

Nirumand was born in Tehran in 1936 and went to Germany as a student in the Fifties. He read German philology, philosophy and Iranic studies, his doctor's thesis was about Bertolt Brecht. He returned to teach in Iran, then had to flee the regime of the Shah, went back to Germany, where he became one of the leading members of the "Movement of 1968" at the German universities in the Sixties and early Seventies, which is still considered by the mainstream an anti-autoritarian revolt, while its main achievement was to firmly replace German historical guilt by that of America (famous chant: "USA -- SA -- SS") and to change America's role from that of a liberator to that of an oppressor, not just of Germany, but of the world.

The banners say: "Amis out of Indochina", "Class War intead of war between peoples" and "For the set-up of the IVth Internationale".

After the Shah's demise, Nirumand returned a second time to Iran to flee once again when the Mullahs came to power.

1989, Nirumand's book Leben mit den Deutschen (Life with the Germans) appeared. As a series of letters he writes to a relative in Iran who is considering to come to Germany about his experiences with the culture of the post-war Teutons, including gems like being invited for dinner, then being charged for his meal, or people being reprimanded for turning up for an appointment at 2:02 when it was scheduled for 2:00. Such clichés, bordering on the slanderous, come, mind you, from a confessing "lover" of German culture and almost lifelong resident in this country and are, in a culture of intense self-hatred, guarantors for adequate sales figures, specifically with multi-kulti appeal thrown in.

At this point it is, maybe, not all that amazing anymore to learn that this is the same Bahman Nirumand, who compares "Christian and Jewish fundamentalism" with Islamism, who are all (ALL!) "instrumentalising the faith to mobilise the unenlightened masses for their goals", notabene in the mouthpiece of the post-GDR-Communist PDS, Neues Deutschland, and Israel's ownership of nuclear weapons with that of Iran.

All that has nothing to do with neither, religion nor culture. That is naked safeguarding of interests.

Having learned now from Father Nirumand that the wish of the Jewish state to survive among a host of aggressive and armed-to-the teeth neighbours is more precisely described as "naked safeguarding of interests" (we are relieved!), Nirumand Daughter goes on -- Habemus Papam -- to explain us the nature of comparisons in even more detail:

Many Catholics who are trying to live with their church's guidelines, are shattered by the election of Cardinal Ratzinger. On the other hand, some intellectuals are revelling in submissive gestures and self-flagellation rituals that put a Shiite in Kerbala to shame ... What is supposed to be ethically relativist, and thus somehow arbitrary, about the stance that divorce is better than a broken down relationship? To some, the unborn life in the petri-dish is sacred, to others the freedom of individual decision -- why is one ethical and the other relativist? Some consider euthanasia hubris, others a deed of mercy -- where is here the indifference?

Whether this professed (albeit recent) "conservative" is really as dumb as she looks and really hasn't twigged what ethical relativism is about or whether she is spouting calculatingly Daddy's "Islamism Light" is beyond me.

But don't take Mariam Lau née Nirumand, who made the transgression from film editor at the leftist taz to chief correspondent for the "conservative" Die Welt seemingly without hangups and whom obviously nobody told that her time as a cheeky media brat had been outstayed decades ago, verbiage about our pope too seriously. She can be nice to us Germans as well. After all, didn't she do us the immense favour to call Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners "pulp fiction with sociologic camouflage code" in an article headed "Little Historians" in taz vom 13./14. April 1996, and the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial for for victims of the former East German Ministry of State Security ('Stasi') an "educational shock treatment" in Die Welt, which each hit the center of the German Zeitgeist with stunning accuracy, regardless of the ten years between those two statements, the different media in which they appeared and the professed change of political stance of the writer.

Gosh, and there was I, thinking that Daddy Bahman's thingy about calling Israel's wish to defend herself "naked safeguarding of interests" was unbeatable in its sheer and undiluted shittyness!

My take on all that? Only in a country like Germany, with that dangerous mixture of self-hatred and denial and without any moral and ethical compass, phonies like Nirumand père et fille can become the media darlings of the unenlightened masses, while they are making up their bull, somehow arbitrarily, while they are going along. In any sane society they would have been laughed out of the door ages ago.

Frightfully prickly, those Jews!

My favourite fishwrap, the Al Guardian, fawns over the Iranian soccer team:

Iran's squad face controversy in Germany
By Christian Oliver

TEHRAN, May 25 (Reuters) - Iran will probably be the subject of bitter controversy at the 2006 World Cup finals, playing in the Nazi bastion of Nuremberg only months after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad labelled the Holocaust a myth.

Many in Germany, especially Jewish community leaders obviously ultra-sensitive to the kind of remarks uttered by the president, considered trying to get Iran banned from the finals.

The idea did not carry enough strength with politicians to get far -- nor would FIFA, world soccer's governing body, realistically entertain such a motion.
Still, there is likely to be some serious opposition to the players in Germany but if the Iranians can steer clear of politics and get their manifestly talented stars to gel as a team, they stand an outside chance of being the first Iranian side to make the second round of the tournament.

[...]

Politics, however, will not go away. In response to calls for a ban on the team, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the Iranian players and their fans should not have to be penalised for their president's comments.

Iran's embassy in Berlin demanded an apology for a German newspaper cartoon showing moustachioed Iranian footballers as suicide bombers, standing for the national anthems with plastic explosives strapped round their midriffs.

German officials have admitted that Iran present a special security concern, particularly if they are accompanied by senior politicians.

The Iranian team will have to leave such disputes behind them and conquer their knack of throwing away winning positions in matches when they arrive in Germany.
"God willing, we will make Iran proud of us in the World Cup," goalkeeper Ebrahim Mirzapour said.

Click HERE to read Muhammad's Christian's swooning over the Iranian soccer hunks, if you have a high nausea-threshold.

So the German Jewish community leaders are "obviously ultra-sensitive" to those kind of remarks saying that Israel ought to be wiped off the map and that such a marginality like the genocide of the Jews of Europe with a negligible headcount of roughly 6 Mio never happened. Trust those attention-seeking Jews to make a mountain out of a molehill again!

And how could the FIFA, world soccer's governing body, entertain such a motion, really? Realistically, that is? (Or the German government, for that?)

They couldn't just have said "No, you can't come" to Adolfdinejad, really, realistically, or could they!

By the way that is the same FIFA, la Federation Internationale de Fornication avec des Arabes, who, even though they say they don't get involved in politics, found time to reprimand Israel for an artillery strike on March 30, hitting a football stadium in Gaza by which no one was injured. That was in retaliation for Kassam rocket attacks from Gaza (which ironically included one rocket which hit a football pitch in a kibbutz the day before, by which somebody actually WAS injured).

But the FIFA wasn't actually lying, just a bit ... selective in their reaction. They usually DON'T give a damn for politics, for example neither when the Taliban used a football stadium (built with international humanitarian funds) for mass executions and amputations during half time to attract maximum publicity nor over the abuse of a, now legendary, football stadium by a certain South American dictator for similar purposes.

Really, can't somebody shut for once those Jews up?

Realistically, Adolfdinejad might oblige, given time.

Folklore Gone A Bit out of Hand

Of course, this is not nice, but we must not see that out of context. It's part of their culture, really, and racist to blame them because their quaint folklore went a tiny wee little bit out of hand. Deep down, they are quite wellmeaning. We Germans have the Holocaust under our belt, which makes us a judge of everything (but EVERYTHING!) that goes on an "Palestine" but of nothing else and the Americans are not nice to the Negroes. So who are WE to judge?

Iran to hang teenage girl attacked by rapists
Sat. 7 Jan 2006
Iran Focus

Tehran, Iran, Jan. 07 – An Iranian court has sentenced a teenage rape victim to death by hanging after she weepingly confessed that she had unintentionally killed a man who had tried to rape both her and her niece.

The state-run daily Etemaad reported on Saturday that 18-year-old Nazanin confessed to stabbing one of three men who had attacked the pair along with their boyfriends while they were spending some time in a park west of the Iranian capital in March 2005.

Nazanin, who was 17 years old at the time of the incident, said that after the three men started to throw stones at them, the two girls’ boyfriends quickly escaped on their motorbikes leaving the pair helpless.

She described how the three men pushed her and her 16-year-old niece Somayeh onto the ground and tried to rape them, and said that she took out a knife from her pocket and stabbed one of the men in the hand.

As the girls tried to escape, the men once again attacked them, and at this point, Nazanin said, she stabbed one of the men in the chest. The teenage girl, however, broke down in tears in court as she explained that she had no intention of killing the man but was merely defending herself and her younger niece from rape, the report said.

The court, however, issued on Tuesday a sentence for Nazanin to be hanged to death.

Last week, a court in the city of Rasht, northern Iran, sentenced Delara Darabi to death by hanging charged with murder when she was 17 years old. Darabi has denied the charges.

In August 2004, Iran’s Islamic penal system sentenced a 16-year-old girl, Atefeh Rajabi, to death after a sham trial, in which she was accused of committing “acts incompatible with chastity”.

The teenage victim had no access to a lawyer at any stage and efforts by her family to retain one were to no avail. Atefeh personally defended herself and told the religious judge that he should punish those who force women into adultery, not the victims. She was eventually hanged in public in the northern town of Neka.

Remember Angelika Beer, MEP of the German Greens, the party of those who are always quick to stand for women's rights and never stand in the way if a crone insists on making a fool of herself? Her take on Iran? "Fascinating country with a young well-educated society"! You don't need to wait anymore while I rummage for my sick bag. I got a huge supply always ready.

An Empty Trouser Suit Defends Free Speech

Yesterday night, chancellorette Merkel did something right and all the world have their knickers in a knot now in sycophantic amazement and praise. The Caesarian whore tabloid BILD (no link) gushed about her "bravest performance" ever since she forgot to attend an FDJ rally. But, being who she is, she couldn't HELP relativising her support of Westergaard with that ubiquitous cowardly and morally corrupt mantra about freedom of speech being lumbered with certain "responsibilities". Typically, she also chided in the same breath the pastor in Florida who intends to burn the Koran to mark the anniversary of 9/11 as "abhorrent". The old German obsession with telling Americans what to do and what not to do is still alive and thriving.

Hypocrisy runs rampant. While Westergaard's case is one of freedom of speech, Sarrazin's isn't, but about "the consequences a book may have for the author within a specifically important public law institution", as she put it in her speech. Yeah, whatever.

Reactions from the usual suspects are hardly amazing. Aiman Mazyek, secretary of the "Central Council of Muslims", and a specifically ardent defender of freedom of speech, is quoted stating that "Merkel is honouring the cartoonist who in our view trampled on our prophet and trampled on all ... blah blah yabber yabber yack yack", and the Green Party, another haven of freedom of all sorts, don't like Merkel's appearance either. "I wouldn't have done it," said Green Party floor leader Renate Künast, and "...if a chancellor also makes a speech on top of that [the Danish cartoon affair], it serves to heat up the debate." And a heated debate is something we can't have. I'll remind Künast of that as soon as another CASTOR transport is about.

But back to Merkel. It's embarrassing beyond belief. Sarrazin's book doesn't help integration, is bad for Germany's reputation in the Arabic world and hurts Muslims feelings. And to honour Kurt Westergaard does ... what? If you ask me, she makes up her shit as she goes along and thinks that a handshake for Westergaard will mollify those who found her performance in the Sarrazin case somewhat sub-optimal. Personal courage? She is under 24/7 police protection anyway. Any little Internet activist who is blogging under his real name is more endangered.

Shaking and old, freakish (I mean that in a kind way) cartoonist's hand doesn't cost much and will rake in a lot. He can always serve as the object for cheap good will and for brushing up one's image as a defender of free speech. However, a member of the establishment is different. He is a traitor to his class and must be harshly curbed and disciplined.

I mean, isn't it OBVIOUS?

Edited to add:
Benjamin Weinthal: Why is Merkel Protecting Iran's Terror Bank? -- Double standards:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is slated to honor today in the city of Potsdam, just outside of Berlin, the Danish caricaturist Kurt Westergaard, whose cartoons satirizing the Prophet Muhammad and fanatical Islam triggered violent protests across the Muslim world in 2005. Westergaard will receive the “M100” media prize for his devotion (and unwavering courage) to press freedom.

What is striking about Merkel's tribute to Westergaard's fight for the right to speak freely is her vehement opposition to shutting down the Hamburg-based European-Iranian Trade Bank (EIH), a terror entity whose revenues help prop up the Iranian regime and suppress freedom of press in Iran.

It is also disturbing that the city of Hamburg would essentially be used as the European financial center of the Islamic Republic of Iran and that the EIH has essentially been used as a conduit for Iran's missile and nuclear program. That helps explain why the U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday designated the bank a terrorist entity. According to Stuart Levey, who is spearheading anti-terror measures across the globe for the U.S Treasury Department, "As one of Iran's few remaining access points to the European financial system, EIH has facilitated a tremendous volume of transactions for Iranian banks previously [blacklisted] for proliferation.

[More]

Leave The Poor Nazis Alone

Today, the the Financial Times website informs us dumb Germans how to deal with our Nazi past. Listen to well nigh breathtaking news:

World cup seen as chance to recognise Nazi past
By Hugh Williamson in Berlin
Published: April 14 2006 18:43 Last updated: April 14 2006 18:43

This summer’s soccer world cup is proving to be another test of how Germany deals with its Nazi past.
[...]
A particular focus is the match between Iran and Angola on June 21 in Leipzig. The NPD plans to “send a clear message of solidarity” to the Iranian regime led by President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, following his denial of the Holocaust and call for Israel’s abolition, and what the NPD calls his “defiant stance against the western powers” on the country’s nuclear programme.
[...]
Germany’s main football authority has also been examining its past. The DFB refused for decades to reflect on its role in the Nazi era from 1933 to 1945, but this month held a conference on “soccer under the swastika”. Based on a study published last year, historians argued that the DFB had failed to protect Jewish players and had stabilised Hitler’s regime...

Gosh! Who would have thought so! Of course without that "study" and those no doubt hardworking "arguing historians" we'd never have learned of what was going on!

And as far as those few pathetic Nazis are concerned, yes, they don't like Jews. And they rather jeopardise their "Aryan" superiority and racial sensitivities and deal with what they'd normally call mud people as long as the latter promise to help them with their "Jewish problem". So what else is new?

New are politicians like Angelika Beer, German Greens MEP who thinks that Iran is "a fascinating country with a young well-educated society". Yes, the same Angelika Beer who finds the delivery of two submarines to Israel "irresponsible".

New is (well, sortof...) the Greens' "elder statesman" Hans Christian Ströbele who recently blamed in a TV chat show the United States and co-guest Richard Perle of planning an attack on Iran with nuclear weapons. The very Ströbele, who thinks that Iran has the right of using nuclear technology. Ströbele who thinks that, if Iran is banned from having nukes, Israel ought to be too. Yes, that very Ströbele who described Iraq's missile attacks on Israel during the first Gulf War as "the logical, almost unavoidable outcome of Israel’s policies", thus following the old and cherished school of thoughts, which maintains that antisemitism is the Jews' fault anyway.

New, too, is the recurring fast forming Grand Coalition of politicians of almost all colours when it comes to not selling weapons to Israel.

Just leave the few pathetic Nazis alone and stop abusing them as scapegoats, smokescreens and, worst, guinea pigs to prove how well you are dealing with your "Nazi past", Mr. Average German.

(On German hypocrisy regarding Vergangenheitsbewältigung see my blog entry Barking up the Wrong Tree as an Art Form.)