Fake but accurate: what if it’s turtles all the way down?
Here’s the joke:
A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the Earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy.
At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: “What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.”
The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, “What is the tortoise standing on?”
“You’re very clever, young man, very clever,” said the old lady. “But it’s turtles all the way down.”
I thought of this story the other day, while discussing the France2 case with an exceptionally intelligent young man. He was open to the idea that France2 had been guilty of promulgating a lie in the al Durah affair, but asked me whether it really mattered so very much that it was a lie in that particular instance because, after all, Israel does target Palestinian children. The old, “fake but accurate” argument.
A brief discussion about the nature of collateral damage in asymmetrical warfare ensued, and he agreed that it’s probably unavoidable no matter how careful a military is. But he insisted that Israel must purposely have targeted children in some instance or other, because it was such a well-known fact.
I asked the young man the following question: what if all the reports he’d read about Israelis purposely targeting children were based on lies? If enough reporters truly believed that “fake but accurate” was a reasonable way of reporting things, then what was to stop them from lying about this to make a point they felt to be essentially true?
In other words, what if–like the turtles–it’s lies all the way down?
[NOTE: As a bit of background on journalistic standards for reporting about Israel, here’s a point-by-point debunking of the famous and influential Chris Hedges Harper’s article that alleged Israeli soldiers killed Palestinian children “for sport.” And here’s an excellent overview on the entire topic of the NY Times’s distorted and misleading coverage of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, written by Tom Gross of National Review. The more I’ve learned about the media, the more I’ve come to believe that Hedges was operating under the “fake but accurate” rubric.]
Nor will you pay any attention to Israeli atrocities whatever the facts, grackle.
Because the fact is – the facts are OVERWHELMING – that Israel does committ atrocities and war crimes against Palestinans.
Not a shred of doubt whatsoever.
Go to HumanRightsWatch too(oh right – they like any group that brings up Israel’s murdering of Palestinan civilians is anti-semetic – nevermind your lying eyes – right grackle?)
Regarding the MSM’s treatment of Israel…yes, it IS turtles all the way down.
I remember when the slanted reporting began soon after the 1967 war. Israel went from being a plucky little underdog to a cruel occupying power. Never mind that they built schools and roads, opened up educational and job opportunities, allowed for local self-government, etc. etc. No matter what they did, it was wrong.
I’m not trying to justify every action the Israeli national and local governments took in the past 40 years. It’s just that the reporting in the MSM is so generally slanted and distorted as to be meaningless.
I used to attribute these turtles to the practice of having different standards for a Jewish country than for other countries. In fact, a lot of liberal/leftwing Jews perpetuate these different standards. “The perfect is the enemy of the good” (the LLLs’ utopian worldview that is so defeatist, immobilizing, and destructive.)
However, I’ve also started looking for evidence that the double standard is paid for by Saudi and other Wahabbist monies. See Dore Gold’s “Hatred’s Kingdom.” Also, the Soviet Union is known to have trained and financed the PLO (today’s “moderates”). So maybe there is also a conspiracy among some of the turtles, who may be on various enemy payrolls.
BTW, “son of a turtle” is a really terrible Chinese insult.
In case my post is not making sense, I’ll summarize:
Yes, the MSM is generally full of lies and distortions when it comes to reporting on Israel. The Al Dura case is just one shocking example.
If it were blatantly obvious that Israelis target children, there would be multiple examples one could point to.
gcotharn: did you follow the link to the discussion of the Hedges article? Hedges, by the way was the commencement speaker at Rockford College who appropriated the occasion to make an antiwar speech and was booed off the stage. See this.
I am convinced that it is highly likely that Hedges was swayed by his own ideological bias when he wrote that Harper’s article, and that his writing is one of the “turtles” that has affected liberal perceptions about Israeli troops and their actions.
Turtle soup, anyone?
Well, I’m sure an Israeli soldier somewhere, someplace, and sometime purposly targeted an unarmed inocent child. I say this because of how long things have been going on and the number of people involved, it’s foolish to think other wise.
However, I’m certain that a liberal someplace, somewhere, and sometime has rooted for America to loose. Since this is the case does that individual support reporting “Liberals want America to loose” and lump everyone including hawks – after all it is true *somewhere* and is a well known fact.
Unlike the Israeli killing it isn’t even hard to document and verify that sentiment. Go read the DU or go to almost any anti-war demostration.
I doubt that person would come close to accepting that when applied to his own group.
Your assertion is shrewd.
It bugs me that I have smart and reasonable friends who believe terrible things about Israelis. Why do they believe such things, when they can point to zero or few actual instances of Israeli misbehavior?
As Shrinkwrapped notes in a post today, leftists are interested, above all else, in avoiding violence. I think my friends have absorbed our societal cues that avoiding violence equates to moral behavior. When leftists, and these friends, look at the Israeli/Arab conflict, the easiest way they see to avoid violence is for all Jews to leave Palestine. Since avoiding violence is paramount, they are willing to embrace the trope that Jews have no righteous claim on these lands, w/o looking too closely at actual history. It helps their cause to believe that Arabs righteously deserve to rule all of Israel. Similarly, they are willing to embrace Hedges’ turtle, being careful not to look too carefully at his assertions – lest they be proven untrue. Embracing Hedges helps their cause of minimizing/avoiding violence.
Actually, many leftists likely do not care if Hedge’s assertions are true or not. They can still feel smugly superior, if they are embracing lies which further the cause of minimizing violence. Do my friends also subscribe to this? Maybe not consciously…
At what point can you run to avoid violence until there is no place to run? I had a friend who was a liberal and when asked at what point would he fight back said when they get to the Ohio River.
I mentioned that by the time they reach the Ohio River it will be to late to do anything about it. He never did understand that one cannot avoid violence by giving into violent people. Sooner or later it will arrive at your place of residence and it will not care if your a peaceful person.
I suspect that many on the left think they can avoid violence by being blind to it or blaming the ones who fight violence for the violence.
This is a violent world with a significant number of violent people. The sooner one deals with it the fewer people who will be affected by it.
So, what answer did the young man give to your question?
“leftists are interested, above all else, in avoiding violence.”
That is rich. Stalin? Mao? Pol Pot?
The left is prepared to express pious disgust when the Capitalists defend themselves, but they can only make excuses when their favorite tyrants commit acts of unspeakable horror.
To NN’s original point: The Soviet Union taught the “national liberation fronts” it sponsored the art of disinformation and propaganda. The Arabs were particularly apt and willing pupils because of a cultural affinity for story telling and a concomitant disinclination towards the idea of scientific truth.
The PLO and its sponsoring regimes have never been constrained by mundane facts in their propagandizing, and the western media, solidly leftist, has swallowed their nonsense hook line and sinker because their commitment is to the Revolution, not to the truth.
‘Deliberate killings’
Since the outbreak of the Intifada, several human rights organisations have thoroughly investigated the circumstances of thousands of Palestinian civilian deaths, reaching the conclusion that the Israeli army “kills civilians knowingly and deliberately”.
One of these organisations is Physicians for Human Rights-USA, which investigated the number of Palestinian deaths and injuries in the fist months of the Intifada.
A total of 266 children killed
were 14 or younger
It concluded that “the pattern of injuries seen in many victims did not reflect IDF use of firearms in life-threatening situations but rather indicated targeting solely for the purpose of wounding or killing”.
In some cases, the killing of Palestinian youths by Israel assumes a brazen and dastardly nature.
Nearly two years ago, Chris Hedges, a Western journalist covering events in Gaza reported how Israeli soldiers lured Palestinian kids to walk towards them for the purpose of hunting them down with their machineguns.
What is more shocking though is that virtually none of these killings has been investigated by the Israeli army or justice system, underscoring the striking ease with which the Israeli army kills Palestinians.
About CAMERA – a pro-Zionist, propaganda organization renowned for playing fast and loose with facts and bias.
“.. in June 1992, CAMERA representatives met with NPR(National Public Radio) officials to demand “strict NPR monitoring of their own journalists” and “prohibition against reporters employing NPR as a vehicle for advancing personal political views.” The CAMERA representatives also presented NPR with a list of demands that included:
“An end to the practice of quoting both left-wing and right-wing Israeli groups” (thus leaving Israeli government officials as virtually the only acceptable sources in Israel).
“An end to broadcasting Palestinian allegations of Israeli wrongdoing without . . . verification” (but not the reverse).
“A policy of treating the suffering and deaths of Israelis with the same sympathetic attention as those of Palestinians.”
Besides NPR reporting from Israel and Israeli-occupied territories, CAMERA also singled out for criticism two specific NPR programs. They were: “Talk of the Nation” and “Fresh Air,” which have presented a variety of viewpoints, ranging from those of Palestinian-American Edward Said to vehemently pro-Israel radio host Ze’ev Chafetz. Notwithstanding the fact that the preponderance of those interviewed on the programs attacked were Jewish, and some were Israeli, CAMERA remains choleric. “
“Under the headline “Publishing Houses, Media Promote Bogus Mideast History,” CAMERA advances the views of historian Bernard Lewis, who wrote in 1986: “The rewriting of the past is usually undertaken to achieve specific political aims. By depicting the great Arab Islamic expansion in the seventh century as a war of liberation rather than of conquest, the Arabs can free themselves of the charge, even in the distant past, of imperialism.”
Lewis, whose son Michael is chief of “opposition research” for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Israel’s principal Washington lobby, is right on one point: Over many centuries, most Western and Eastern historians have credited the Muslim empire in the Iberian Peninsula with having brought cultural enlightenment and tolerance rather than violence to Europe. And that knowledge rankles revisionist Zionists.
Levin urges CAMERA supporters to “make a point to visit bookstores…and to note the lineup of books and periodicals available on the Middle East.” If they find works by Noam Chomsky or Edward Said “posing as Middle East experts,” they should “talk to the manager.” Then CAMERA’s newsletter recommends 309 books, including those by Fouad Ajami, Joan Peters, and Edward Alexander. The latter was skewered by Nation columnist Cockburn as one of the late extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane’s “ushers, a parlor terrorist licking the boots of a real one.”
Levin takes a page out of Joan Peters’ widely disparaged book, From Time Immemorial, when she states that “the mass of today’s Palestinian Arabs are descendants of immigrants who arrived in the 19th and 20th centuries.” Among publications, Levin indicts the National Geographic, Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East, Webster’s New World Encyclopedia and even the Encyclopedia Britannica for “unabashed inventions,” and “mutilations of fact.” She offers no documentation or authority for these attacks.
CAMERA promotes even more aggressive tactics against university libraries. The publication “CAMERA on CAMPUS” has advocated that students scour campus libraries for “offensive” books, and pressure universities to remove them.”
Since the outbreak of the Intifada, several human rights organisations have thoroughly investigated the circumstances of thousands of Palestinian civilian deaths, reaching the conclusion that the Israeli army “kills civilians knowingly and deliberately”.
I’m wondering how the investigators were able to determine that the deaths were caused “knowingly and deliberately.” Do the wounds look different than the ones on the civilians killed while providing shelter for the terrorists?
Methinks if these investigations actually took place(as usual Stephen/Stevie/etc./etc. doesn’t provide any links) that the “investigators” probably interviewed folks that have a stake in making these claims, who are frightened of the terrorists or supporters of the terrorists.
We know now that many so-called ‘atrocities’ are staged in Lebanon and Palestine. The videos at Second Draft reveal obvious staging of the Al Dura incident. We are beginning to realize that much of what is offered as news in that part of the world is simply staged propaganda which is eagerly swallowed whole by the MSM.
Thank goodness there are organizations like MEMRI and Camera, not to keep the folks like Stephen/Stevie/etc./etc. honest, that would be impossible, but simply to provide a factual alternative to the terror-pimping “news” from news organizations that employ terrorists as “stringers.” Below is a link that illustrates my point:
http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/critiques/Covering_the_Conflict_in_the_North.asp
Here’s some links.
http://www.phrusa.org/
http://www.btselem.org/English/
Have a look.
“I’m wondering how the investigators were able to determine that the deaths were caused “knowingly and deliberately.” Do the wounds look different than the ones on the civilians killed while providing shelter for the terrorists?”
Location of the wounds;(head shots, etc) type of ammunition, testimonys, eyewitnesses etc.
The leave the political spin out of it.
Shame you can’t grackle…
By the way – don’t you find it a little bit odd that CAMERA uses only Israeli Government sources to ‘debunk’ what Hedges claimed in the article?
If we’re going to be honest – like seriously honest, not like “honest”reporting.com type(their reply to the Hedges report is just plain ridiculous – it sites ‘bias’ as a reason to question Hedges; he didn’t consider the history of the conflict before reporting that he saw IDF purposely murdering children – silly boy! I truly recommend reading their 12 point rebuttal to Hedges to comprehend the infantile, irrlevant and often completely nonsensical approach in the face of overwhelming evidence – of which they have no real defense.
After you do this(and then take a passing glance, even, at the links I’ve posted – then come back and read neo’s fantasy post about ‘turtles’ again.
Sheer idiocy…..
Having said that – the way I’ve written that doesn’t make me look to sharp either.
Oh well – read on.
You’ll get the point…
When fighting takes place in occupied territory, the occupying power must comply not only with the provisions of IHL dealing with occupation, but also with the laws of warfare, the other component of IHL. On the one hand, the laws of warfare expand the powers of soldiers beyond those of regular law enforcement actions, and allow them to initiate attacks against persons taking part in the hostilities. On the other hand, the laws of warfare limit the actions that soldiers can take, the objective being to protect as far as possible civilians who are not taking part in the fighting. To accomplish this, the laws of warfare established two fundamental principles: the principle of distinction and the principle of proportionality.
The principle of distinction requires the sides to direct their attacks only against persons taking part in the hostilities and against objects that are used for military purposes. To ensure that this distinction is respected, international law provides that it is forbidden to mount an attack against an object that is not a specific military target, and that it is forbidden to use weapons that are incapable of distinguishing with sufficient precision between military and civilian objects. It should be emphasized that the presence of non-civilians among a civilian population does not deny the civilians the protections to which they are entitled, and the fact that one side breaches these rules does not release the other side from complying with them.
The principle of proportionality prohibits an attack even where the intended target is a legitimate object of attack, if the damage to the civilian population is greater than the military advantage anticipated in making the attack.
Application of these principles vis-a-vis Israel’s military actions in a built-up area, particularly when the persons taking part in the hostilities on the Palestinian side do not distinguish themselves from the rest of the population, is complicated. However, these principles continue to apply. Furthermore, they require Israel to use special care in planning for these situations, and Israel must cancel certain operations because the casualties that are liable to result from the planned action is excessive.
Checkmate
If we’re going to be honest – like seriously honest, not like “honest”reporting.com type(their reply to the Hedges report is just plain ridiculous – it sites ‘bias’ as a reason to question Hedges; he didn’t consider the history of the conflict before reporting that he saw IDF purposely murdering children – silly boy! I truly recommend reading their 12 point rebuttal to Hedges to comprehend the infantile, irrlevant and often completely nonsensical approach in the face of overwhelming evidence – of which they have no real defense.
Can you clarify that – are you saying this is “infantile, irrlevant [sic] and often completely nonsensical in the face of overwhelming evidence” regarding Hedge’s report “that he saw IDF purposely murdering children”?
On the other hand, it is impossible to disprove Hedges’ claim — because we were not there.
But we suspect Hedges wasn’t there, either. His account is rife with factual errors and fails to stand up to scrutiny. For example, Hedges didn’t hear the shots, and jumps to the conclusion that the Israeli soldiers used silencers on their M-16s. Why would they use silencers in the open day out on the dunes? And why would they do so in one of the most photographed war zones, where cameras anyway record the conflict?
The cylinders he saw on the end of the rifles were probably rubber projectile kits, not silencers. When rubber projectiles are used, it means lethal bullets have been removed from the magazine and blank cartridges are shot to project the rubber pellets.
Hedges even admits to not seeing the boys shot — they were “out of sight.”
…why does HaloScan say my last post was anonymous, when my name was entered, and even my URL was successfully submitted?
And what is ‘checkmate’?
Show me the context in which your application of international law is refering too.
What you’ve pasted doesn’t tell me anything.
Location of the wounds;(head shots, etc) type of ammunition, testimonies, eyewitnesses etc.
I still don’t see how anyone can tell anything from wounds. Even from the location of the wounds. What does the location of a wound tell anyone about WHO inflicted that wound? As for ammunition, ALL kinds of ordnance must be floating around that part of the world. Ammunition of ALL types are easily obtained – isn’t dealing in arms practically a cottage industry in the Middle East?
Which leaves testimonies and eyewitnesses. I wonder, would one of those eyewitnesses be the lady(who has perfected an exquisite look of horror and suffering) the terrorist-sympathizing ‘stringers’ trot out to photograph in front of various ruins? Or maybe it was the fellow with his hat neatly tucked under his arm that obligingly posed as a corpse for the news service ‘stringer’ photo that was recently featured in an anti-Israeli article by Tyler Hicks in the NYT. “Eyewitnesses” are SO gosh-darn accommodating in the Middle East.
Also, if I was an eyewitness I wouldn’t want to be telling “investigators” that civilian casualties were the result of terrorists purposefully using civilians as shields – that sort of talk could get me and my loved ones killed. My family and myself could be murdered(perhaps with “head shots”) and later have less brave and foolhardy “eyewitnesses” finger the IDF as the culprits in another ‘atrocity’ staged for the “investigators.”
Naw, I’m going to have to know a bit more about the methods used by the pathologists who by merely examining a wound can ascertain WHO gave the wound before I’ll give Stephen’s opinion much credence. I’m sure there are hordes of Medical Examiners and Coroners who would want to know of such a technique.
I also examined Stephen’s 2 links. I found no claim at either site that civilians are targeted or purposefully killed by the IDF. There was a report about a boy that was beaten by some IDF – who were tried by Israel and sentenced to prison for the beating. Does anyone have an example where someone has been tried, convicted and punished by either Lebanon or Palestine for doing harm to an Israeli? Well, we won’t hold our breath, will we?
So your saying that the Palestinians who were shot in the head and torso with Israeli(American) ammunitions were killed by Palestinians?
No, what I’m saying is: Given the terrorists’ penchant for hiding and shielding themselves among civilians, it is inevitable that civilian casualties will occur. But that’s not the IDF’s fault – it’s the fault of the terrorists for using civilians as shields. By the way, the IDF doesn’t use American ammunition; they don’t have to, since Israel manufactures all it’s own weaponry and munitions. But we’ll forgive Stephen his little distortions and myths. It seems to calm him.
Here’s a link for the readers that covers the subject of Jenin. If perhaps Stephen would read it he would find a different story than he’s heard on the Lefty blogs and the biased MSM. Stephen probably isn’t a bad guy, he’s probably just misinformed, depending as he does on unreliable sources for his information.
By the way, has anyone heard of any neutral pathologists being allowed to examine any so-called “head shots” – or any other wounds supposedly caused by Israel? It seems that despite Israeli protests the victims are always put in the ground before a neutral pathologists can examine them. Bury that evidence, baby, bury it deep.
I found one reference to “head shots” supposedly caused by the IDF in a Google search. The evidence of Israeli guilt? At some point in time IDF soldiers had taken over a nearby house. THAT’S IT, FOLKS. No one saw the ‘atrocity.’ From such tainted “evidence”(in legal terms it would be called ‘hearsay’) from “bystanders”(read locals who are frightened of the terrorists or in sympathy with the terrorists) that would be laughed out of any FAIR courtroom the Stephens of the world indite the IDF.
http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=7&x_issue=14&x_article=217
Who do you think YOU’RE fooling, troll?
“types of ammunition”?
Does the troll think we can be led to believe that IDF soldiers take combat ammo out of their weapons and reload with civilian-murdering ammo when they have a shot at kids?
shot in the head or torso? I guess so. Not much left to get shot in.
… a file was attached to the IDFs response, apparently in error, which contained internal records of the IDFs operational de-briefings and the opinions of the IDF Southern Command Judge Advocate and of the Chief Military Prosecutor.
So the Israelis more or less inadvertently confessed, eh? My, my, how convenient. Was this “file” ever aired in public, say, like the phony documents offered by Dan Rather and CBS were? Was this document ever thoroughly examined by outsiders? It is claimed that the documents were made public, but when and where? Can we examine these documents now?
The shots came from an IDF post about 800 metres away, and the boys were in a large, open space. According to testimonies given to Amnesty International by Ibrahim Kamel Abu Sussain and by other children who were present at the time of the incident, there were no disturbances or clashes in the area at that time.
Let’s look closely at the statement above. The evidence offered is all from eyewitnesses, the favorite type of evidence of supposed IDF atrocities. Can Mr. Sussain’s testimony be trusted? Who is he – a bystander who happened to be walking by, someone living in the neighborhood, an American of Palestinian descent visiting his homeland? We don’t know. The children? They’ll say anything they are told to say. Will anyone ever be able to locate these “witnesses” for cross-examination?
Considering the ample staging of so-called Israeli ‘atrocities,’ the Al Durah and Jenin incidents being the most obvious, I think we have to take such testimonies with a grain of salt. Fool me once – it’s your fault. Fool me twice – it’s my fault for trusting you after you had revealed your true intentions.
On the other hand, we KNOW the terrorists think nothing of killing children. They even have training in Palestinian schools preparing grade-school age Palestinian children for suicide bombing runs. Palestinian parents even declare they are PROUD and HAPPY when their sons and daughters blow themselves up in order to murder some innocent bystanders in Israel, children included. They become celebrities on al Jazeera. And the families eagerly spend the reward money from various despots and terrorists they receive for offering their children up for murder, one of whom was Saddam before he was deposed. So we KNOW the terrorist’s attitude toward child-murder, which is cavalier to say the least.
Given all that, unless future atrocities are investigated by neutral CSI-style investigators that are mutually agreeable to both sides – where the bodies, wounds, environment and testimony and other evidence can ALL be thoroughly scrutinized by folks without a political ax to grind while the incident is fresh – not days or weeks later – I will be paying NO attention to claims of IDF ‘atrocities.’
“Considering the ample staging of so-called Israeli ‘atrocities,’ the Al Durah and Jenin incidents being the most obvious, I think we have to take such testimonies with a grain of salt. Fool me once – it’s your fault. Fool me twice – it’s my fault for trusting you after you had revealed your true intentions.”
And thats your whole world isn’t it grackle?
No really credible criticism – only that Palestinians are liars, killers, and the agressors – while Israelis are moral, truthful and the victims.
Fantasy land.
Incredible….
Nor will you pay any attention to Israeli atrocities whatever the facts, grackle.
Not true, here’s my criteria, which I’ll repeat for Stephen, other readers feel free to skip: “Given all that, unless future atrocities are investigated by neutral CSI-style investigators that are mutually agreeable to both sides – where the bodies, wounds, environment and testimony and other evidence can ALL be thoroughly scrutinized by folks without a political ax to grind while the incident is fresh – not days or weeks later – I will be paying NO attention to claims of IDF ‘atrocities’.”
Facts – independently verifiable facts, are EXACTLY what is needed to be introduced into the well-oiled propaganda machine that presently grinds up the truth(and facts) and spits out distortions, half-truths and outright lies. Thank goodness there are organizations like CAMERA, MEMRI and HonestReporting to put fact to work destroying the lies.
News Services that employ “stringers” who are terrorists or in sympathy with terrorists can hardly be said to be lovers of fact. Photographs are regularly staged, Photoshopped and otherwise manipulated away from a truthful image.
All one has to do to know that the al Dura incident was phony is to watch the actual uncut footage. I invite all readers to do so themselves.
In the Jenin incident the terrorists and their sympathizers kept getting caught in lies and kept having to amend their facts.
So-called “investigators,” commissioned by no one but themselves, who informally interview “eyewitnesses” in neighborhoods rife with terrorists and expect to get any meaningful truth certainly display a complete disdain for fact.
Indeed, what is lacking in the entire Middle East coverage is fact.
Go to HumanRightsWatch too(oh right – they like any group that brings up Israel’s murdering of Palestinan civilians is anti-semetic – nevermind your lying eyes – right grackle?)
I went to the site and looked around for any information they had on the al Dura incident or the Jenin incident. I didn’t find anything but I only spent a few minutes. They don’t have a site search and I’m not going to waste hours looking for material. Maybe someone else is willing to devote the time. Sites without a site search give me a pain. It’s like they’re trying to hide information.
“only that Palestinians are liars, killers, and the agressors”
That so-called Palestinians – Arabs, really – are liars, murders and agressors – is so well known historical fact, that irony is here absolutely untimely. And, given that fact, I would deeply mistrust any “evidence” that came from these quarters.
I wonder what HumanRightsWatch thinks about this? When a regime controls ALL aspects of existence it becomes impossible to reform from within. We should not put too much hope in reform from within in Iran. I think such hopes come under the category of wishful thinking. (Thanks to All Things Beautiful for the link)
http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=8661