Monday, October 10, 2005
Iraq "Votes" On Constitution.....
With just a number of days to go until Iraq votes on its Constitution, hopefully the security will be adequate, and the "Islamofascists" don't disrupt the voting, although they will try, blowing themselves and innocent civilians up in their quest to meet the "72 virgins". An actual "vote" must be seen as progress, and hopefully it goes well. Whether or not the Constitution is adopted or not remains to be seen, but the people are actually "voting". The Jan.30 Iraqi elections drew 8 million voters, with a far larger number expected to make it to the polls this time.
One thing I have noticed, as I am sure everyone else has, there seems to be a real vocal, leftist element in the States trying to smear or undo any good our fine men and women are doing in Iraq. Is anybody else besides me sick of these obscure "parties" or "coalitions", or "show-boating" movie actors, directors, or producers? To think that Hollywood could have any effect on national policies and security is to me "grotesque". A lot of these vocal people are uneducated, and the only reason they grab headlines is because they have "Matinee Idol" looks, are controversial, or have been in trouble with the law, and are usually "rich". I wish they would all just "Shut-the-f@#$-up"! They are doing absolutely nothing to help resolve the situation, and are actually making it worse, by creating divisiveness at home.
Anyways, I was thinking of a good "handle" (nick-name) to give these people, and the other day I was reading columns in the Winnipeg Sun, and it jumped out at me. The column was by Salim Mansur, and I always read his column, as he is very objective, and has a vast ability to understand today's events, and how they are ultimately affecting history. Salim Mansur, BA, MA, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Western Ontario. Teaching fields: Comparative politics developing areas, international relations. Research interests: Comparative/political economy of development, the Muslim world, Islam, South Asia, Middle East. So you see, an educated man, which doesn't mean that you should agree with every statement he makes, but the "phrase" he uses for the "Hollywood elitists" and the others is dead-on. Here is his column in it's entirety.
------------------------- ----------- ----------------------
By SALIM MANSUR
Vladimir Lenin coined the apt phrase "useful idiots" to describe those living in western democracies who made common cause with his Bolshevik politics.
He understood them well, held them in contempt while exploiting their despicable naivete and self-loathing for propaganda purposes of the gulag he made of Russia, and his successors from Stalin to Gorbachev served as chief wardens.
Similarly, Mao Zedong of China had his legion of useful idiots, such as the American journalist Edgar Snow, justifying his sadism as a display of earth-shaking statesmanship.
Mao's most recent biographers, Jung Chan and Jon Halliday, in a massive tome of impeccable scholarship, have given us the inside view of a China where people were raped, starved and murdered systematically.
Mao surpassed Stalin and Hitler -- it is some record to reflect upon -- to become, in Jung Chan's words, "the biggest mass murderer in the history of the world." The number of Chinese who perished in Mao's China exceeded 70 million.
In a free society, as in nature, aberration is not uncommon. "Useful idiots" are aberrations in a democratic society, frequently seditious, and a reminder that freedom has costs free people must bear vigilantly.
The recent anti-war demonstrations in Washington and elsewhere are comprised of the useful idiots of our time, who make common cause with bloody-minded insurgents determined to derail the difficult transition of Iraq, from tyranny to freedom.
Their public representatives, such as British MP George Galloway and Michael Moore, the duplicitous American filmmaker, openly embrace "jihadist" insurgents -- the fanatical dregs of the Arab-Muslim world -- colluding with former Baathists loyal to Saddam Hussein.
Galloway is on record stating: "It can be said, truly said, that the Iraqi resistance is not just defending Iraq. They are defending all the Arabs and they are defending all the people of the world against American hegemony."
In the excuse of opposing war, these useful idiots defend mass murderers, trade in conspiracy theories and spurn democratic societies by being obsequious to despots.
At the very same time these useful idiots gathered together last month to display their wretched time-worn politics of anti-war, making fools of their apologists in the lib-left media, Jalal Talabani of the emergent Iraq was attending the annual United Nations summit in New York.
Talabani is an Iraqi Kurd, a social democrat by conviction, a lifelong opponent of Saddam and a genuine hero of freedom-loving Iraqis. He was voted president by the first freely elected Iraqi parliament.
In a column published by The Wall Street Journal on the day he appeared in New York, Talabani addressed those who continue to be skeptics about Iraq and its future.
He wrote: "Without foreign intervention, the transition in Iraq would have been from Saddam's bloodstained hands to his psychopathic offspring. Instead, thanks to American leadership, Iraqis have been given an opportunity of peaceful, participatory politics. Contrary to the new conventional wisdom, Iraq and the history of 20th-century Europe demonstrate that force of arms can implant democracy in the most arid soil."
Despite the insurgency, he said, Iraq held an open election last January, "has a democratically elected head of state, government and Parliament" and "members of the most repressed ethnic groups now hold the highest offices of state."
These came about, Talabani reminded everyone, as "a result of the courage and vision of President (George) Bush and his allies, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Australian Prime Minister John Howard, leaders whose commitment of troops to enforce UN Security Council resolutions liberated Iraq."
The useful idiots embracing insurgency in Iraq want, instead, to reverse history's forward march into freedom there, and elsewhere, consistent with their record.
----------------- --------------------- ------------------------
"Whew!" Well-written, and exactly what I would have written, if I had half the brains and vocabulary skills as Salim. In closing, again, I just wish all the "USEFUL IDIOTS" would just shut-up, and quit making the future longer and darker for the Iraqi people. God knows they need some peace and joy in their lives, and the "Useful Idiots" aren't helping.
One thing I have noticed, as I am sure everyone else has, there seems to be a real vocal, leftist element in the States trying to smear or undo any good our fine men and women are doing in Iraq. Is anybody else besides me sick of these obscure "parties" or "coalitions", or "show-boating" movie actors, directors, or producers? To think that Hollywood could have any effect on national policies and security is to me "grotesque". A lot of these vocal people are uneducated, and the only reason they grab headlines is because they have "Matinee Idol" looks, are controversial, or have been in trouble with the law, and are usually "rich". I wish they would all just "Shut-the-f@#$-up"! They are doing absolutely nothing to help resolve the situation, and are actually making it worse, by creating divisiveness at home.
Anyways, I was thinking of a good "handle" (nick-name) to give these people, and the other day I was reading columns in the Winnipeg Sun, and it jumped out at me. The column was by Salim Mansur, and I always read his column, as he is very objective, and has a vast ability to understand today's events, and how they are ultimately affecting history. Salim Mansur, BA, MA, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Western Ontario. Teaching fields: Comparative politics developing areas, international relations. Research interests: Comparative/political economy of development, the Muslim world, Islam, South Asia, Middle East. So you see, an educated man, which doesn't mean that you should agree with every statement he makes, but the "phrase" he uses for the "Hollywood elitists" and the others is dead-on. Here is his column in it's entirety.
------------------------- ----------- ----------------------
By SALIM MANSUR
Vladimir Lenin coined the apt phrase "useful idiots" to describe those living in western democracies who made common cause with his Bolshevik politics.
He understood them well, held them in contempt while exploiting their despicable naivete and self-loathing for propaganda purposes of the gulag he made of Russia, and his successors from Stalin to Gorbachev served as chief wardens.
Similarly, Mao Zedong of China had his legion of useful idiots, such as the American journalist Edgar Snow, justifying his sadism as a display of earth-shaking statesmanship.
Mao's most recent biographers, Jung Chan and Jon Halliday, in a massive tome of impeccable scholarship, have given us the inside view of a China where people were raped, starved and murdered systematically.
Mao surpassed Stalin and Hitler -- it is some record to reflect upon -- to become, in Jung Chan's words, "the biggest mass murderer in the history of the world." The number of Chinese who perished in Mao's China exceeded 70 million.
In a free society, as in nature, aberration is not uncommon. "Useful idiots" are aberrations in a democratic society, frequently seditious, and a reminder that freedom has costs free people must bear vigilantly.
The recent anti-war demonstrations in Washington and elsewhere are comprised of the useful idiots of our time, who make common cause with bloody-minded insurgents determined to derail the difficult transition of Iraq, from tyranny to freedom.
Their public representatives, such as British MP George Galloway and Michael Moore, the duplicitous American filmmaker, openly embrace "jihadist" insurgents -- the fanatical dregs of the Arab-Muslim world -- colluding with former Baathists loyal to Saddam Hussein.
Galloway is on record stating: "It can be said, truly said, that the Iraqi resistance is not just defending Iraq. They are defending all the Arabs and they are defending all the people of the world against American hegemony."
In the excuse of opposing war, these useful idiots defend mass murderers, trade in conspiracy theories and spurn democratic societies by being obsequious to despots.
At the very same time these useful idiots gathered together last month to display their wretched time-worn politics of anti-war, making fools of their apologists in the lib-left media, Jalal Talabani of the emergent Iraq was attending the annual United Nations summit in New York.
Talabani is an Iraqi Kurd, a social democrat by conviction, a lifelong opponent of Saddam and a genuine hero of freedom-loving Iraqis. He was voted president by the first freely elected Iraqi parliament.
In a column published by The Wall Street Journal on the day he appeared in New York, Talabani addressed those who continue to be skeptics about Iraq and its future.
He wrote: "Without foreign intervention, the transition in Iraq would have been from Saddam's bloodstained hands to his psychopathic offspring. Instead, thanks to American leadership, Iraqis have been given an opportunity of peaceful, participatory politics. Contrary to the new conventional wisdom, Iraq and the history of 20th-century Europe demonstrate that force of arms can implant democracy in the most arid soil."
Despite the insurgency, he said, Iraq held an open election last January, "has a democratically elected head of state, government and Parliament" and "members of the most repressed ethnic groups now hold the highest offices of state."
These came about, Talabani reminded everyone, as "a result of the courage and vision of President (George) Bush and his allies, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Australian Prime Minister John Howard, leaders whose commitment of troops to enforce UN Security Council resolutions liberated Iraq."
The useful idiots embracing insurgency in Iraq want, instead, to reverse history's forward march into freedom there, and elsewhere, consistent with their record.
----------------- --------------------- ------------------------
"Whew!" Well-written, and exactly what I would have written, if I had half the brains and vocabulary skills as Salim. In closing, again, I just wish all the "USEFUL IDIOTS" would just shut-up, and quit making the future longer and darker for the Iraqi people. God knows they need some peace and joy in their lives, and the "Useful Idiots" aren't helping.
