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philo
Trad climber
Somewhere halfway over the rainbow
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Published 03:45 06.06.10Latest update 03:45 06.06.10
Breaking out of the siege
If Israel is to break out of the international siege and strategic catastrophe it now faces, it urgently needs a different policy.
Haaretz Editorial
The intelligence failure and faulty planning in last week's operation to board the Mavi Marmara led to a crisis in Israel's foreign relations in the blink of an eye and a low in its standing in world public opinion. The international community is demanding an investigation into the incident and is roundly criticizing the siege Israel continues to impose on the Gaza Strip's 1.5 million residents. Friendly countries such as the United States and France are demanding that the Israeli government lift restrictions on the passage into Gaza of goods and raw materials for civilian use.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in his usual manner, rushed to raise the specter of the Iranian threat along with the adage that "the whole world is against us." Instead of locating the source of the fire scorching the diplomatic relations we built up with such effort, Netanyahu is following in the footsteps of his ostracized foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, accusing the world of hypocritical treatment of Israel.
In an effort to evade responsibility for the crisis and escape his obligation to fundamentally change his policy, the prime minister is distorting the nature of the criticism against his government and has plied it as hatred of the Jews.
Netanyahu and Lieberman are imposing a siege on a Jewish and democratic state that has professed to be a light unto the nations, but is becoming anathema among nations. The disagreement over halting construction in West Bank settlements and East Jerusalem sorely eroded the goodwill Israel had garnered in the wake of Netanyahu's declared support for a two-state solution. Last month's nuclear nonproliferation conference diverted attention from the Iranian nuclear program to Israel's nuclear capabilities. The summit of countries bordering the Mediterranean, which had been due to open today in Barcelona, was scrapped following Arab leaders' refusal to be in the company of the Israeli foreign minister. And finally, the proximity talks with the Palestinians are being portrayed as a recipe for perpetuating the deadlock in the peace process.
Reasonable governments of democratic countries act in accordance with the interests of their citizens. Even if the world is "hypocritical," as Netanyahu claims, he must fundamentally change his government's aggressive and inward-looking approach; it is not within his power to change the nature of the rest of the world.
A thorough investigation of the Mavi Marmara incident and the lifting of the siege against civilians in Gaza are essential steps, but they are certainly not sufficient. If Israel is to break out of the international siege and strategic catastrophe it now faces, it urgently needs a different policy.
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philo
Trad climber
Somewhere halfway over the rainbow
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Oh sorry about that Jeff I meant big fence. Should I edit it?
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philo
Trad climber
Somewhere halfway over the rainbow
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I sympathize for you Fats. Will you be taking away my mind or my speak?
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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hmmm...wonder how the world will react
Let me explain for you;
Israelis = Savage oppressors and occupiers
Palestinians/Hamas = Peaceful victims, freedom fighters
Armenians/Kurds = violent terrorists
Turks = Noble humanitarians
(I suspect you know this already though...)
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Well, now that we know that UBL is hiding out in Savzevar, Iran will BHO go after him as promised?
Osama bin Laden's hiding place was pinned down for the first time Monday, June 7, by the Kuwaiti (newspaper) Al-Siyassa Monday, June 7, as the mountainous town of Savzevar in the northeastern Iranian province of Khorasan, 220 km west of Mashhad.
He is said to have lived there under Tehran's protection for the last five years, along with Ayman Al-Zawahiri and five other high-ranking al Qaeda leaders.
Intelligence sources disclosed Monday night that Turkish prime minister Recep Erdogan and his intelligence chiefs are well aware that Bin Laden and Zawahiri are hiding in Iran.
The leak to the Kuwait paper was intended to show the Obama administration that the Turkish leader's ties with Iran had grown intense enough for him to be fully in the picture of Iran's secret sanctuary for the authors of the 9/11 attacks on the United States.
Savzevar (alt. Sabzevar), a small town of about a quarter of a million inhabitants, is connected by road to Tehran and Mashhad and has a small airport. A center for producing grapes and raisins, its location is remote and difficult to access because it is enclosed by lofty mountains and a salt desert 50,000 square kilometers in area.
On May 13, American intelligence sources reported in detail that senior al Qaeda operatives living in Iran had been allowed to leave the country through Syria to orchestrate terrorist attacks on American targets. Among them was Saif al-Adel, who is believed to have been assigned with planning an attack on the world soccer games opening in South Africa on June 12.
Those sources noted that Saif al-Adel had received his instructions directly from Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri but did not reveal knowledge of their presence in Iran.
Quote Here
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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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barry's administration continues its shameful slouching:
Syrian Rep Promotes Blood Libel at UN Human Rights Council
BY Anne Bayefsky
June 8, 2010 2:40 PM
Meeting today in Geneva, the UN Human Rights Council heard the following statement from the Syrian representative, First Secretary Rania Al Rifaiy: “Israel…is a state that is built on hatred…Let me quote a song that a group of children on a school bus in Israel sing merrily as they go to school and I quote 'With my teeth I will rip your flesh. With my mouth I will suck your blood.'" The Obama administration chose to join this Council, the UN’s lead human rights body, and its representative was present. But they said nothing after hearing this blood libel.
On the contrary, rather than expose the Council and its anti-Jewish agenda, one of President Obama’s first foreign policy moves was a decision to pay for it. Hence, American taxpayers will pay 22 percent of the cost for this speech to be permanently posted on the UN website, translated, and broadcast around the world.
There is a reason that none of the members of the UN Human Rights Council thought this statement was sufficiently repulsive or shocking to complain. The blood libel against the Jewish people is a calling card of UN proceedings, with UN members usually casting their anti-Semitism as vicious anti-Israel attacks. For instance, last week’s Council debate over the attempt by Turkish-backed extremists to break the Israeli blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza included the following outbursts. Along with references to Israel’s desire for “bloodshed,” came Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua’s accusation that “the Zionist regime” conducted an “indescribable” and “brutal massacre.” Pakistan said Israel committed “crimes against humanity,” Algeria described Israelis as “butchers,” and Libya distributed a statement entitled “The Massacre Committed by the Zionist Entity Forces.”
The UN Human Rights Council has a webpage for all those who follow its proceedings. Although it is now in the midst of its fourteenth session, and has thousands of videos from its many meetings since 2006, smack in the middle of its home page is only one video link. It reads: “Human Rights Council 12th session Highlights,” and has a photo of Richard Goldstone. He is speaking about his libelous 2009 report that claimed Israel deliberately intended to murder civilians in the 2009 Gaza war rather than defend itself against eight years of rocket attacks.
In the chair during the Syrian statement today was Council President Alex Van Meeuwen of Belgium, who also said nothing, though he has no trouble finding his voice when it comes to objecting to statements from Israel or other states and NGOs which refer to less popular subjects. Today, following this statement by Canadian representative Jeffrey Heaton – “Canada condemns the lack of respect of the Burmese regime for human rights and fundamental freedoms of its population” – Van Meeuwen responded: “before moving to the next speaker, I would like to ask once again all speakers to refrain from using words such as regime in reference to member states and uphold to UN standards when referring to countries.”
In February, after Israeli Ambassador Aharon Leshno-Yaar called upon Iranian leaders to cease denying the Holocaust, Van Meeuwen exceptionally intervened in the debate to chide: “I would like to remind all speakers of the importance to deal with human rights issues with dignity and respect and to and to adhere to the well-established principles of the United Nations.” But when it came to dehumanizing Israeli children, Van Meeuwen had only two words to say: “Thank you.”
There are no more excuses for President Obama to pretend that there is a greater good in lending American credibility to an international vehicle for anti-Semitism. It is time to leave the UN Human Rights Council and to ensure that not a single U.S. dollar is used to encourage its sickening agenda.
Anne Bayefsky is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust.
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philo
Trad climber
Somewhere halfway over the rainbow
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Jun 10, 2010 - 10:09am PT
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Well BrainWorm it most really crumple your tighty whitys to realize the whole world is waking up tp the truths behind the mythical Israeli narrative. You must be leaving Skid marks in your skivies to see the world reject the occupation of Palestine.
Zionists and the Jewish Fundamentalists are their own worst enemy.
Fattrad must be appoplectic that Obama pledged $400 million to rebuild the occupied territories.
A drop in the bucket compared to the tens of billions we flood Is(un)reall with.
The times they are a changin'.
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dirtbag
climber
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Jun 10, 2010 - 10:13am PT
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TGT, what's the source for that info?
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Jun 10, 2010 - 10:36am PT
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Except it would all get spent on rockets and suicide bombs.
(what was left over after the Swiss bank accounts filled up, a'la Arafat)
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philo
Trad climber
Somewhere halfway over the rainbow
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Jun 10, 2010 - 12:51pm PT
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http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/06/20106535425983666.html
Flotilla activists 'shot 30 times'
Al Jazeera speaks to some of the injured activists, who are recovering in Ankara Hospital
Autopsies on bodies of activists killed in Israel's attack on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla five days ago indicate that the victims were shot multiple times at close range.
Britain's Guardian newspaper quoted Yalcin Buyuk, the vice-chairman of the Turkish council of forensic medicine, as saying that the nine men were shot a total of 30 times.
Two men were shot four times, and five of the victims were shot either in the back of the head or in the back, Buyuk told the newspaper, based on preliminary autopsy reports.
Ibrahim Bilgen, a 60-year-old activist, was shot four times in the temple, chest, hip and back, the autopsy revealed.
Nineteen-year-old Furkan Dogan, a US citizen of Turkish descent, was shot five times from less that 45cm in the face, the back of the head, twice in the leg and once in the back.
IN DEPTH
Nine people were killed in Monday's pre-dawn raid on the Freedom Flotilla, a convoy of ships carrying humanitarian aid, that was heading to Gaza in a bid to break Israel's blockade of the territory.
Israeli military said the marines, who boarded the ship in international waters, fired in self-defence after activists attacked them.
Avital Leibovich, an Israeli military spokeswoman, when asked why a 60-year-old and 19-year-old, amongst others, were shot multiple times at close range, told Al Jazeera: "We learnt the hard way that terrorists can be of a variety of ages or backgrounds."
"They had one goal, they chose to confront us with knives and metal rods," she said.
'Shot from helicopter'
Al Jazeera's Jamal Elshayyal, who was travelling in the flotilla and witnessed the Israeli raid, confirmed that some passengers took apart some of the ship's railings to defend themselves as they saw the Israeli soldiers approaching.
He said that he witnessed some of the killings, and confirmed that at least "one person was shot through the top of the head from [the helicopter] above."
ACTIVISTS KILLED
Turkish victims
Ibrahim Bilgen
Ali Haydar Bengi
Cevdet Kiliçlar
Çetin Topçuoglu
Necdet Yildirim
Fahri Yaldiz
Cengiz Songür
Cengiz Akyüz
US victim
Furkan Dogan
"After the shooting and the first deaths, people put up white flags and signs in English and Hebrew," he said.
"An Israeli activist [on the ship] asked the soldiers to take away the injured, but they did not and the injured died on the ship."
The deaths, which all took place on the lead ship, the Mavi Marmara, continue to draw widespread condemnation.
Turkish newspapers reported on Saturday that the prosecutor's office in Istanbul, in Turkey, had compiled enough evidence to press charges against Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak, the defence mininster, and Gabi Ashkenazi, Israel's chief of staff.
The charges would include murder, injury, attacking Turkish citizens on the open seas and piracy, Today's Zaman, the English-language daily, said.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister of Turkey, speaking during a televised speech said: "You [Israel] killed 19-year-old Furkan Dogan brutally. Which faith, which holy book can be an excuse for killing him?"
"I am speaking to them in their own language. The sixth commandment says "thou shalt not kill". Did you not understand? I'll say again. I say in English "you shall not kill". Did you still not understand? So I'll say to you in your own language. I say in Hebrew 'Lo Tirtzakh'."
Talking about Hamas, he said: "[They] are resistance fighters fighting for their land. They are Palestinians.
"They won an election and now they are in Israel's prisons. I told this to the Americans, that I do not accept Hamas as a terrorist group."
Turkey threat
Namik Tan, Turkey's ambassador to Washington, also warned on Friday that his country could break all relations with Israel unless it apologises for the raid against Mavi Marmara, which carried a Turkish flag.
Tan also said that Turkey wanted a credible independent investigation into the events and for Israel to end its blockade of Gaza.
Three Turkish activists wounded in the raid arrived back home on a medical plane on Friday. Another two volunteers who were seriously wounded remain in an Israeli hospital, with a Turkish plane on stand-by to repatriate them, Recep Akdag, Turkey's health minister said.
The US said that it would investigate the death of Dogan, the youngest killed in the attack, who had joint Turkish-US citizenship.
"We will look into the circumstances of the death of an American citizen, as we would do anywhere in the world at all times," Philip Crowley, a state department spokesman, said.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Jun 10, 2010 - 01:03pm PT
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Thee sixth commandment says "thou shalt not kill". Did you not understand? I'll say again. I say in English "you shall not kill".
That's not accurate. It was written 'thou shalt not murder'.
There's a difference (unless you choose to misrepresent the truth).
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dirtbag
climber
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Jun 10, 2010 - 01:26pm PT
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Gee, I wonder why we aren't seeing the fantastic claims of Bin Laden's whereabouts posted in MSM websites?
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Jun 10, 2010 - 01:58pm PT
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To stand above an injured man and then finish him off with rounds from an assault rifle can by no ones estimation be described as an act of self-defense.
I thought the rifles were paintball rifles. The sidearms were the only live-ammo guns they took aboard as backups.
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philo
Trad climber
Somewhere halfway over the rainbow
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Jun 10, 2010 - 08:36pm PT
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In which case Blue, they would have been torturing a dying man. For what, sport?
Either way it is a despicable act of over kill. In fact it's a barbaric act of terrorism!
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Jun 10, 2010 - 09:58pm PT
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"by Mr. Wrestling IV
On May 24th, at Track 16 Gallery in fashionable Bergamont Station in Santa Monica, CA, dozens of marginal works of art were nearly destroyed by the exploding heads of some of SoCal’s finest and most dogmatic liberals, as a roomful of them were injected with some cognitive dissonance when author Ayaan Hirsi Ali spoke.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is the author of Infidel, a deeply personal account of her disillusionment with and rejection of her Muslim upbringing, as well as her latest book Nomad, which chronicles her continuing journey. She also collaborated with late film director Theo Van Gogh on the short documentary film Submission, the release of which resulted in the brutal assassination of Van Gogh by a homegrown Dutch Islamic jihadist and ultimately drove her from the Netherlands because of her inability to find adequate security there. She continues to be an outspoken critic of the subjugation and mistreatment of women under fundamentalist Islam, and the AHA Foundation which she founded aims to combat “several types of crimes against women, including female genital mutilation, forced marriages, honor violence, and honor killings.” These would seem to be fairly non-controversial goals, especially in a pro-feminist Western society, but they received a rather chilly response that night from the tolerant progressives of Santa Monica.
During the interview portion of the evening, I was struck by how quiet the room was. Statements made by Ms. Ali that in most cities in middle America would have received applause were met with a respectful but stony silence. When the floor was opened for questions from the seemingly stunned audience, one after another of Santa Monica’s finest political thinkers rose unsteadily from their chairs to ask a question that might allow them to hold onto their deeply-held and carefully nuanced progressive beliefs in the face of someone who must have seemed to them to be an untouchable figure, a woman born in Somalia who left Islam and became an atheist, as well as an unrelenting critic of the injustice and violence that is routinely taught in the Muslim world.
In response to a lady who asked passionately if it was not true that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq had created more terrorists than they had thwarted, Ms. Ali calmly replied that the jihadists of course used these wars as propaganda for recruitment, just as they would use any situation for recruitment, since they are in the business of destroying free societies and bringing them under submission to shari’a law, and that no matter what the West did, the jihadists would recruit and terrorize.
One very confused and shaken white-haired gentleman could barely form a question, stammering that he had “great respect” for her but disagreed with almost everything she said. As he rambled on, many of his colleagues began to call at him “What’s your question?” and “No speeches, ask a question!” He finally concluded with a semi-coherent plea along the lines of, “Well, how do we deal with these extremists?”
Ali replied that once you have decided to “deal” with the jihadists, you have legitimized their demands of submission, and that you cannot “deal” with fanatics who wish to destroy your nice free society with bike paths and reusable shopping bags and replace it with a totalitarian theocracy. She went on to object to the vague use of the term “extremists,” asking “Extremists of what?” If we were talking about white supremacists, or radical Marxists or Communists or any other “-ists” that used terrorism and violence to bring about their goals, we would not hesitate to identify the ideas behind their philosophy that drove them to such ends. Why should we hesitate to confront the fact that these particular killers are driven by their fanatical religious beliefs?
She deftly fielded a question about the “perversion” of Islam by fanatics by proclaiming that she was more concerned about the perversion of the word “liberalism,” because of the willingness of many Western liberals to accept and excuse some of the most heinous criminal acts committed by practitioners of the Muslim faith, like arranged marriages, spousal abuse, subjugation of women by force, denial of education to females, and female genital mutilation in the name of multiculturalism and a so-called “respect” for other civilizations. American liberals, she said, appear to be more uncomfortable condemning the ill treatment of women under Islam than most conservatives are. This led her into a repudiation of multiculturalism, and how, despite some honorable intentions in its origins, it had mutated into a belief system that actually denies access to the freedom and justice guaranteed by the American Constitution by allowing injustice to continue within protected minority communities by not encouraging them to assimilate and become full Americans.
In response to a question about how long America should stay in Iraq and Afghanistan, she said it was her hope that the Americans would stay for 50 or 100 years, if that is how long it took to modernize those societies, even while acknowledging that there did not seem to be the political will for such an effort to be sustained.
The best question of the evening came from a young man who simply asked what would be the best way to bring about an “Enlightenment” in the Muslim world. She replied that the best way would be to ask them questions about their religion and cause “cognitive dissonance” among those who blindly follow the violent exhortations of their imams. I actually laughed out loud when she used those words, as the cognitive dissonance occurring at that moment in the Track 16 gallery was practically audible. I could swear I heard the word “What?!?” thudding over and over again in the formerly comfortable brains of those around me.
The only applause of the night (!) signaled the end of the evening, and as I lined up to have my book signed by Ms. Ali, I was struck by how short the line was. Out of the 150 to 200 people I guessed were in attendance, only about 25 or so lined up to greet this remarkable individual. As I made my way down the line, I passed pockets of fervent discussion, and caught fragments here and there. I overheard one rather agitated gentleman say, “I just think there are problems in this country that she just doesn’t understand! I mean, what’s the difference between a fanatical mass-murdering Taliban regime and a mass-murdering evangelical Christian in the White House, which this country voted in for eight years?!?”
In Nomad, Hirsi Ali states unequivocally that Christianity and Islam are definitely not equivalent, if for no other reason than Christianity’s willingness to tolerate questioning and even blasphemy without issuing death sentences, and actually calls for a “strategic alliance” between secular people –atheists like herself, Richard Dawkins, and others –and Christians in order to combat the oppression inherent in an unenlightened, unreconstructed Islam (Nomad, pp. 240-241). If this man had asked Ms. Ali his ridiculous question, she could have answered it handily. So why didn’t he? Why was he huddled in the farthest corner of the room spewing his nonsense to his nodding compatriots? What about Ayaan Hirsi Ali had flummoxed him and his fellow travellers into circles of insular outrage?
Well, she was black, so they could not dismiss her as a racist; she had lived in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, The Netherlands and the United States, so they could not call her an ignorant provincial hick; she was an avowed atheist, so they could not call her a Christian bigot on a crusade against peaceful Islam; and she was multi-lingual, articulate, and brilliant, so they couldn’t just call her stupid. All the pejoratives they usually apply to people who disagree with them wouldn’t work, and so they were left to confront her ideas, and those ideas stripped them naked, rent their garments of superiority and condescension into tatters at their feet, and left them angry and confused, whining to each other in the corners of the room, unable to say anything to her face. Their favorite weapons, ad hominem name-calling and sneering condescension, were disarmed.
Ms. Ali, flanked by 3 or 4 pleasant-looking but serious suits, a private Secret Service force necessary to protect her from the religion of peace, signed my book as I stammered out an inadequate “Thank you so much for your courage.” She smiled and said, “Thank you very much.”
Not a very scintillating exchange I know, but as I left the gallery that evening, I realized that the real crux of the matter, and the truly paralyzing aspect for the liberals around me, was simply that — her courage. To the Hollywood community, a community that did not even have the courage to list Theo Van Gogh during the 2005 Oscar ceremony as one of the people in film who had died that year, a woman willing to continue espousing her deep convictions after being threatened with death by the same people who had murdered her colleague was utterly confounding. And for someone like me, a person who writes from behind a mask, not even for fear of death but of the economic retribution I might face from the supposedly tolerant community in which I live and work, the evening I spent in a room with Ayaan Hirsi Ali was all the more humbling.
Hollywood coward"
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Jun 10, 2010 - 10:03pm PT
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In which case Blue, they would have been torturing a dying man. For what, sport?
Either way it is a despicable act of over kill. In fact it's a barbaric act of terrorism!
Get your facts straight. They said the guy was shot in the head at close range (obviously with a sidearm). The video shown was someone resisting and getting pepper-balled. If he already had a headwound, he'd be dead. It obviously is someone else or before he was shot with real ammo.
Again, that video is a misrepresentation of facts and reality. Did Reuters shoot the video?
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