In Memoriam: Neda Soltani

In Iran, a teenage girl stood watching the protests. She was not even taking part, simply peacefully watching with her father. The next moment, she was shot down and lay in the street, bloody, dying. Her name was Neda Soltani. The video of her death is a tragedy. What is even more tragic is that anyone calling themselves a cleric of any religion could support such murder.

The only thing the clerics of Iran may now do to show their religion is not one of murder and savagery is to strip themselves of everything - power, wealth, even possessions, and live in the gutter on the charity of strangers. Neda Soltani's blood cries out, accusing them, staining them with the crimson of murderers, vicious criminals who will lie, kill, oppress, anything to keep themselves in power.

How long must young girls such as Neda live at the mercy of such beasts? How long will the people of Iran permit such injustice among themselves. My heart bleeds for the people living in Iran, for, with the exception of a few savage, murderous monsters who lust after power, they have a horrible choice ahead. They may submit to the injustice, the cruelty, the snatching after power in the name of religion, the murder of innocent young girls, they may make themselves accomplices to all that - or they may face the guns and tanks of the monsters in power.

Make no mistake, such men do not surrender all the privileges they exploit to assuage their terrible lusts easily. They will fight, they will invoke their twisted image of God, they will lie. And the worst among the Iranian people, the bullies, the thugs, the criminals, those are the people who support such a regime because they grow fat and powerful under it. They will fight to preserve it. They will satisfy their own hunger for blood.

And the innocent people, the decent people, will suffer, no matter what they do. I hate that fact, I rage against it in my mind and with my words, and if I lived in Iran I would rage against it in protest. Yet all that rage cannot change the way the world is. When evil men cling to power, the innocent suffer. I can only think of poor Neda Soltani, suffering and frightened on the ground as she lay dying, and pray that she will not be forgotten, that her memory will rise up and smash the evil that grips Iran right now.

May everyone who looks upon the grim, hate twisted face of Iran's "President" see the blood of Neda Soltani that drips from his beard, staining it, thanks to his greedy gulping of power. May every appearance of the "Supreme Leader" with his smug ability to twist the truth, to distort the God he claims to worship into nothing but a pillar of his own power, reveal Neda's lifeblood dripping from his beard. May they choke on her blood, may it spill over and drown them, before the blood they shed drowns more of the innocent people they exploit.

In Memoriam: Stephen T. Johns

Stephen T. Johns died yesterday heroically defending one of the most important sites in the world, the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D. C. He was gunned down in cold blood by a man unable to bear the presence of such a museum, one dedicated to proving the awful destructiveness of hate. Mr. Johns died protecting others, and if not for his actions and those of his colleagues, we can only imagine how many visitors to the museum might have died.

I urge everyone who reads this to learn the lesson that was enacted again yesterday, in minature. Hatred is a destructive force. It accomplishes nothing but killing. It deserves only enough attention to understand why it must be avoided. The important story is that of Stephen Johns, who gave his own life in order to save others. That is a legacy which is worthy of being remembered, and I urge all of you to keep Stephen Johns and his family in your thoughts and your prayers, and to remember his sacrifice.

Although what is important was how Mr. Johns, as an individual, acted yesterday, and although I know most of my readers understand this anyway, I do want to make one other point. Mr. Johns happened to be a black man. His murderer was white, someone who endorsed the absurd belief that that single fact, the colour of his skin, made him somehow superior. However, his own actions and those of Mr. Johns yesterday give the lie, once and for all, to that belief.

It is ironic this bigot proved exactly what he would have liked to disprove, but I think it is important to take note of this. A white man, convinced this fact alone made him superior, proved by his own actions he was inferior to the black man he confronted. Superiority is not conferred by skin colour, race, heritage, or anything other than what each of us, as individuals, chooses to do and how we choose to act. And the fact a self professed "genius" could overlook the way in which what he planned to do would demonstrate how very wrong he was illustrates, clearly, how little anyone really learns who chooses to blame all their frustrations on a scapegoat.

I'm very, very sorry Stephen Johns had to die proving that lesson, which most of us already understood, once again, but I'd like to think, if it had to happen anyway, he would be pleased to know his actions did affirm just how dreadful a lie racism and bigotry really are. And if even one person who reads this finally understands the reality of this important lesson for the first time, perhaps some small good can come out of such a great tragedy.

And, although I hardly dare hope so, if this incident, which so emphatically establishes just what pathetic losers all those people are who believe in any sort of racial supremacy, reverses the spread of hate groups through our society like cancer, I hope Stephen Johns will at least be remembered as the man whose heroism brought it about. Whatever the outcome, he deserved better. From now on, when I hear the phrase "only the good die young", the name of Stephen T. Johns will be added to the list of those who come to mind. May God bless you and may you rest in peace, Mr. Johns.

An Apology: To the Government and People of Israel

This is my two hundredth post. I've been busy, but I'd hoped to make this a bit of a celebration. Instead, I'm posting this with tears on my face, confronted with a reality I find unbearable. I am certainly not a blind supporter of US policy, and never have been. There are any number of incidents that disturb me, and policies I oppose. But President Obama, in his speech in Cairo last week, has gone too far.

Go to the link and read the original post which upset me. I have no idea how many things Erick Erickson and I would agree on, but on this issue we agree totally. I can't even bring myself to repeat the offending quote. If I simply retyped it, my fingers would feel filthy for the rest of my life. If you read the archives of this blog for January, you'll see that I tried to give President Obama the benefit of the doubt any new president deserves.

I'll admit, I've never thought any politician would be able to do much to make the world a better place, but some of them at least manage to avoid making it noticeably worse. Now, his defenders will no doubt say it was just a speech, and he was trying to appeal to his audience... No! That is not an excuse. First, because such a comparison is so utterly outrageous, so horrific, it deserves to be treated as the type of propaganda it is: a "Big Lie". Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister, would be rubbing his hands in glee if he read that statement. And any statement we can imagine making Goebbels happy is inexcusable.

And it is not just a speech. There is the context as well, a context in which America, a huge country, seeks to use our power to force Israel, a small and young country, into a false peace which will destroy them. The Palestinians in charge have made it plain they are murderers, bent on Israel's total destruction, and that they are willing to violate any promise they make. Any deal under such conditions will eventually prove to be a fatal one.

Let me be very clear here. I don't hate Palestinians as individuals. Many of them may honestly wish to live in peace. I hope they get that wish. I cry when I see reports of women and children killed. The difference is, instead of blaming Israel as so many people do, I look at the facts. Many of those innocent deaths were planned, as a cold calculation, by the leaders who want to use them as propaganda. Many of the ordinary people are misled by their leaders' lies. Their blood is on the hands of their own leaders. And now, the country I live in is siding with those vicious monsters.

We're singling out the very people so many other nations have persecuted and tried to exterminate for thousands of years, and we're trying to hand them over to their enemies. Then, when the inevitable tragedy happens, we'll shrug and say it wasn't our fault, because we really believed the Palestinians wanted peace. Perhaps some of them do - but not those in power! Those in power want blood, and that blood will be on the hands of anyone who helps them.

If you read this, you can ignore it. It isn't very well written; it's a blog post, after all, not a polished editorial. But if you ignore it, you too will be guilty. Every individual has a choice: to speak out and oppose such wrong, or to stay silent. If you stay silent, you will be just like the Germans at the end of World War Two who claimed they knew nothing of the horrors that took place in their own cities and towns. If true, it was because they turned away, because they didn't want to know.

I've sent the following message to the Israeli embassy in Washington, D. C. to let them know that they are not utterly alone in the world. Governments may be against them, but not every individual agrees. I hope you'll consider doing the same.

To the Government and People of Israel;

I am an ordinary American citisen, with no power or authority to speak for anyone but myself. Recently, though, I've been distressed observing some of the policies of the government I live under. In specific, I've found the insistence that the nation of Israel deal on equal terms with terrorists who have consistently violated their earlier obligations, made their intentions to destroy Israel every bit as plain as Adolf Hitler ever made his intent to kill Jews, and who continue to murder innocent Israeli citizens, utterly repugnant. As far as I can see, this serves no purpose other than to cement our President's reputation and gain him political capital as the President who "solved" the tension in the Middle East.

I was not alive when Adolf Hitler was in power, and so I could only hope, if I ever saw anything so terrible happening again, that I would have the sense and the courage to speak out. Now, I do see something that may prove just as terrible happening, although I hope it will not be allowed to go that far. I must at least speak out. I have little power to stop it. I am one voter, with one vote, all but drowned out among the sea of idiots who believe the half-truths and outright lies published in our press. (After seeing how our reporters refuse to print the truth out of fear of reprisals, I am ashamed that I ever considered becoming a journalist.)

Yet I do have the ability to speak, publicly. If I fail to do at least that much, I am guilty of whatever harm is done to Israel. If I were a Jew, with the "right of return", I would move to Israel to stand beside you as you struggle to survive. I am not, so I cannot do that, but I can at least add my voice to those protesting this travesty of justice. I am ashamed to live in a nation that is putting more pressure on Israel than on Iran or North Korea, nations guilty of real crimes. I am ashamed to see an innocent country and her innocent citisens punished in my name.

When I read some of the outrageous statements made by President Obama in Cairo - so outrageous I refuse to even repeat them - I could no longer bear to remain silent. When I consider what the country I live in now stands for, I am sick. I cannot bear the thought of living in a country guilty of actions any Nazi would be proud of. Yet I cannot prevent those actions. I can only apologise for them, insofar as they are carried out in my name, and beg the government and the people of Israel to keep in mind that not every American agrees with the moral depravity which would deliberately equate actions taken only as a defense against unprovoked attacks with those meant to exterminate an entire people.

In fact, I would like to thank Israel and her people for standing firm against terrorists who believe murder is a legitimate political tool. I for one am glad you are there to do what my country has lost the decency or the courage to do.