Who Let the Dog Out?

"You cannot hope to bribe or twist/ Thank God! The British journalist./ But, seeing what the man will do/ Un-bribed, there's no occasion to." Humbert Wolfe

"It inflames their brains, they have spasms of involuntary behaviour, eventually go mad, froth at the mouth, and will bite the hand that feeds them." (Turkey may no longer be a friend of ours, 14/6/10)

Eretz - Let's Do the Mad Dog Again - Israel?

No. "Gaza has rabies."

Welcome to the howling nonsense of the Herald Sun's Alan Howe.

"Well, sort of. Actually, its disease is an infestation of self-loathing, ungrateful Islamists. But the symptoms and the prognosis are much the same."

Ungrateful Islamists? Hm... what the hell is he talking about?

"Right now, in a change that might yet develop into the greatest threat to those of us who choose to remain civilised, it seems Turkey may be incubating the disease. If Turkey, a full member of the world's most important security club, NATO, falls under the influence of the Islamists, we are all in trouble."

I see. Turkish activists join an aid flotilla to Gaza and are murdered by Israeli thugs and, hey presto, Turkey's the problem? And moving right along, the US encircles Iran with bases, and Israel threatens to nuke it every other day, and Iran's an even bigger problem?

"The United Nations last week voted in new sanctions against Iran, aimed at punishing the country whose nuclear program could easily be used to destroy Israel - and that's top of their agenda - before having a crack at any other democracies within rocket fire range."

Yes, Alan, but could Iran's democracy-destroying nukes be activated within 45' like Saddam's? And isn't it funny how Iran comes in at 104/149 in the 2010 Global Peace Index (see previous post) - 40 points more peaceful than the Middle East's only democracy?

"The lying tyrant Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who stole last year's 'elections' in Iran, does not believe Israel, or any of its allies, should exist, and hopes to kill us all. Ahmadinejad was scraped like a piece of scum on to this earth in late 1956, and is embarked on a straight line to Hell, his only distraction being the slaughter of as many innocents as he can rack up in between. By his standards he's doing well. His agents are raping and killing their way through those Iranian kids brave enough to protest at last year's illegal election farce. Public executions, where innocents are slowly and agonisingly strangled, not hanged, from mobile cranes are a specialty. Don't think for a moment Australians aren't in his sights. Anyone who recognises Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury', he once spat out, a dribble of saliva suggesting he is more than unwell."

OK Alan, I give up. I've scoured the latest (9/6/10) Amnesty International report, From Protest to Prison: Iran One Year After the Revolution, and all I've managed to find is: "Some [protesters] have been detained in conditions amounting to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Many have been tortured, including by beatings, rape and solitary confinement in small spaces for long periods."

Bad enough to be sure. But where are the mobile cranes used as makeshift gallows for Iranian protesters? Yes, mobile (is there any other kind?) cranes have been used to hang people in Iran. After a bit of googling, I managed to find the case of a teenage girl executed "for crimes against chastity." (It was actually the subject of a Four Corners doco screened on 7/8/06.) But that was in August 2004 before Ahmadinejad's presidency and years before the Green Revolution protests hit the streets of Tehran. Another instance involved two men convicted of murder (Iranian hangings 'hit new record', bbc.co.uk, 11/2/08).

Now Alan, if you have data on cases of the Ahmadinejad government hanging protesters, you need to contact AI at once so they can include them in their next report. Not that you have a problem with capital punishment though. I mean, didn't you comment just recently, May 3 to be exact: "Would we, as a community, be willing to invest in our judicial system the power for a judge to call for the end to a life? I find myself leaning that way sometimes." (Some crims are fit to kill)

OK - back to the Turks:

"Notwithstanding the extraordinary and shared experience at Gallipoli, and the strong bonds between Australia and Turkey that have grown from them, when it comes to the centenary of that campaign - less than 5 years from now - it is very possible we will be enemies once more. This time the stakes are much higher. We lost against the Turks in 1915. We cannot afford them to win in 2010."

Let me get this straight, Alan, we had an extraordinary and shared experience at Gallipoli in 1915, right? Best thing that ever happened to us, right? Made men of us, right? Even put balls on the sheilas, right? So why wouldn't we want a rerun? Surely you'd agree that our feckless youth need something a bit more spine-infusing than mowing down women and kids in Afghanistan? So what's the problem, mate? Bring it on! The sooner the better! And, if we want to make the most of our second extraordinary and shared experience, shouldn't we hope and pray Johny Turk whips our asses good like before, dig?

But I digress. There's that other, closet Ahmadinejad, that Trojan Horse, Recep Erdogan, lying in wait, ready to pounce:

"The Turks own the story of Troy. You think they'd know a Trojan horse when they saw one [Er, Alan, you're not suggesting he's actually a Greek agent, are you?]... No matter what colours [Erdogan] has tried to show since gaining power, his true ambitions became clear when he supported last month's so-called Freedom Flotilla of boats carrying what they claimed was aid to the people of Gaza. In a stunt organisers knew would end in tears, 6 vessels carrying 663 deluded 'friends' of Gaza attempted to sail there without authority to deliver 'aid'. Gaza, which is in the grip of the terror movement Hamas, is rightly blockaded by both Israel and Egypt, the most influential Islamic nation in the region, because its aim is to export radical Islamic revolution to those countries that might be susceptible - and to destroy those that aren't. The almost non-stop rocket attacks from Gaza on Israel are all the evidence you need."

In the grip? Yeah, as in Australia is in the grip of the Rudd government.

Rightly blockaded or illegally blockaded?

"Interestingly, the Turkish Muslim men on board - their subservient women presumably behind burkas at home where they belong - had not just prepared themselves to become 'martyrs', they appear to have had some combat training, not blinking at the grenades that would have you and me shocked and seeking cover. In any case, they were hardly seeking to become martyrs in the noble Christian sense of persecuted believers being killed for daring to keep faith in Christ while being taunted for their religion; these are angry, murderous blokes hell-bent on provoking a response from a democracy - just like Australia's - obliged to protect its borders and people... Three of the four Turks killed in the encounter sought martydom, according to their relatives and friends. Apparently they had prayed to Allah to grant them their wish. In the end, Allah seems to have done rather less than the Israeli Defence Forces, which took on most of the heavy lifting to dispatch these fellows to the hereafter."

Presumably, Alan? Why presumably? It's because they're Muslims and everyone knows how dreadfully Muslim men treat their women, right? If only they could learn to respect their women as much as Aussie men respect theirs: "Some of our most exploited women are top athletes, a painful example being those playing beach volleyball at the Olympic level. Organisations that should be devoted to promoting, policing and protecting the sport instead insist the women players must dress, well barely, to titillate male television audiences." (Women lose their roar, Alan Howe, Herald Sun, 14/3/10)

Only 4 Turks killed, Alan? And here's me thinking it was 9! But then Alan's a quality journalist and I'm just a niggling blogger, so what would I know?

And gee, some Turkish activists prepared themselves for martyrdom. Really? Martyrdom? As in "somebody who suffers persecution and death for the people, a country or an organisation..." (wikipedia). OMG! They knew they were messing with the Israelis - the Israelis for God's sake! - and the thought actually crossed their minds that they might be returning in a body bag? How paranoid can you get?

But seriously, Alan, that bit about praying to Allah to grant them martyrdom, that's not really in the Guardian report (Flotilla raid: Turkish jihadis bent on violence Israel claims, 2/6/10) you got this martyrdom stuff from, now is it? Let's see what was actually said: One activist said he'd "dreamed" he was going to be a martyr. Not in the sense of wanting to be a martyr, Alan, but, ominously, going to be a martyr. The brother-in-law of another said, Allah gave him a death he desired. Couldn't that perhaps be Turkish for something as simple as, If I'm going to die (and aren't we all) I'd prefer it to be in a good cause? And the third had "dreamt of becoming a martyr." As in had a dream about his fate? Or as in dreamt of winning Lotto? Who knows? Certainly not you, Alan. One thing's for sure though, whatever these martyrs thought of martydom, there's not a jot of evidence for your prattle about praying to Allah to grant them martyrdom.

Finally, Alan reminds us of the Awesome Evil that this "flotilla of fools" was out to aid and abet:

"[F]our Kassam rockets were launched into the Israeli towns of Sderot and Ashkelon. No one was killed, but that wasn't the plan. For Hamas, and the possibly reluctant recruits it has exploited in the blighted region it intends to restore to the Stone Age, it was business as usual."

But Alan, didn't your News Limited colleague over at The Australian, John Lyons, write on June 12: "It's generally accepted now - even by Israel - that Hamas has halted rockets. The war of last year wrought such terrible consequences for Gaza and its 1.5 million people that more retaliation is the last thing Hamas wants now. 'We have declared a unilateral ceasefire', senior Hamas political adviser Ahmed Yousef tells Inquirer in an interview in his office. 'The priority now is how to take care of our people after the war'?" (Running the Gaza blockade)