Archive for the ‘World News’ Category
The current administration and their GOP and Fix Noise lackeys are spending a log of time lately telling us how Iran is the next Iraq. I have to ask, though, is Iraq our biggest threat?
Hardly.
First off, Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is not the supreme ruler of Iran. According to Iran’s constitution, Ahmadinejad is responsible for the implementation of the Constitution. He can exercise executive powers as long as they are not in relation to those matters directly related to the Supreme Leader.
One thing that Ahmadinejad doesn’t have control over is Iran’s armed forces, nor does he control the military intelligence and security operations. He can’t declare war.
The Supreme Leader has the final say in all matters. He controls the armed forces, military intelligence and security operations. He is the only one that can declare war.
The Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is Iran’s Supreme Leader. Unlike Ahmadinejad, Khamenei does not claim that the Holocaust never occurred. Through his top foreign advisor, Khamenei has said that the Holocaust was genocide and a historical reality.
Ahmadinejad may be a scary, crazy president, but he’s not the Supreme Leader of Iran. He’s only slightly better than a figure head of that country.
Pakistan, on the other hand, has a president that does rule that country. His name (in case you haven’t watched the news the past couple of days) is Pervez Musharraf.
Musharraf is a scary, crazy president.
Iran may be investigating and trying to develop nuclear energy (according to their Supreme Leader the oil won’t last forever and Iran needs other energy sources) but we have no evidence that Iran is doing more than develop nuclear energy. They definitely don’t have nuclear weapons at this time. Even our government has to admit that fact.
Pakistan, on the other hand, has nuclear weapons. The country is also very unstable. This was true even before Musharraf declared martial law this weekend.
Many of the tribal leaders in Pakistan supported the Taliban. Musharraf has been battling insurgents its largest province, Balochistan, ever since he took over Pakistan in 1999. Musharraf himself took over power in 1999 through a military coup.
Yesterday, November 3, 2007, Musharraf declared a state of emergency. His actions show that this “state of emergency” is in effect martial law. Musharraf’s “state of emergency”
suspending the country’s Constitution, firing the chief justice of the Supreme Court and filling the streets of this capital city with police officers.
The move appeared to be an effort by General Musharraf to reassert his fading power in the face of growing opposition from the country’s Supreme Court, political parties and hard-line Islamists. Pakistan’s Supreme Court had been expected to rule within days on the legality of General Musharraf’s re-election last month as the country’s president.
Independent and international news stations in Pakistan have gone silent. Police officers surrounded the Pakistan Supreme Court and forced the justices to take an oath to abide by a “provisional constitutional order” that has replace the country’s existing Constitution. Those who did not take the oath were dismissed.
So who should we really fear? A president that is not the Supreme Leader of a country that does not have nuclear weapons? Or a president who is the supreme leader of a country that does have nuclear weapons? A president who can’t declare martial law? Or one who can and has all in an effort to ensure that he stays in power?
I know which one scares me more.
On May 31st, I posted a story about how the United States government had funded terrorist broadcasting on al Hurra television network in the Middle East. This happened because not a single one of the executives or officials at al Hurra spoke Arabic.
Why? Why don’t they have any Arabic speakers among their personnel?
I can’t say for sure but I can say that over 11,000 service members have been discharged from the military in the last 14 years. It continues to happen to this day even though the military is having trouble meeting recruiting quotas and desperately needs members to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of these 11,000, 300 were speakers of critical languages.
Why were they discharged? They were openly gay.
When the military acts against their own best interests because of a archaic anti-gay policy something needs to be done.
Robert Greenwald at Brave New Foundation has a new video out about the ban.
You can also help by signing the petition to your Member of Congress to sign the Military Readiness Enhancement Act.
When I read about our army giving weapons to Sunni insurgents earlier this week I was confused. After all, weren’t these the same people who were fighting and killing U.S. troops? Why would we want to help them kill more of our troops.
Apparently, a promise to use the weapons to fight Al Qaeda is enough to win over the commanders of our troops.
When I first read about this I thought of the saying “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” It turns out I wasn’t the only one. There is, however, a bit of a problem with this type of thinking. It ignores the fact that when your “enemy” is no longer around, your “friend” may revert back to being your enemy.
It turns out I wasn’t the only one to remember that saying in regards to this story. Jon Stewart over at The Daily Show had this very funny spin on the issue. Click on the picture below to be taken Crooks and Liars to see the clip of the show.
