This is where a velvet revolution would be a good idea

There are clear and defined cracks inside of the Iranian government--and if we had a functioning State Department and a government that was interested in engaging in something other than war-mongering, we would be supporting a velvet revolution in that country:

Iran arrested a mid-ranking civil servant on Wednesday for "spreading lies" after he reportedly made unprecedented corruption allegations against several of the country's most powerful clerics.

Abbas Palizdar, presented as a supporter of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, also charged in the speech in the western city of Hamedan on May 27 that the authorities had assassinated two prominent officials, reports have said.

He was summoned to the government employees tribunal on Wednesday and charged with financial irregularities, spreading lies and disturbing public opinion, the Fars news agency reported.

"He was issued with a detention writ and sent to prison," the news agency added, without giving further details.

Neither Iranian newspapers nor official news agencies have carried the contents of the controversial speech but the conservative news site Tabnak has published excerpts.

This kind of schism within their political structure is even more important to exploit--what is a more fundamental, basic human freedom than the ability to speak freely? Where is the full court press effort by the United States government to make inroads into Iranian society? We should never unite a country against us by war-mongering. We should take a clear moral stand and align ourselves with the people in Iran who agree with us.

For every Palizdar, there are dozens more in the shadows who do not speak out because they fear what the regime will get away with doing to them. When your own country--the Bush regime--abducts people, jails the innocent for years, hides detainees, tortures people and starts wars, how can you criticize a single thing the thugs in Iran do to their people?

What used to work was when the United States could actively and publicly support dissidents and protesters and their organizations and movements. We used to do that by elevating them to international status by recognizing them and supporting them, with diplomatic and economic means. When the regime has to think twice before arresting someone for speaking out because they don't want the added pressure from the international community, the cracks get larger and larger. This country is at its best when it can use its power to elevate a person who would normally have been jailed and forgotten to the status of a Nelson Mandela, a Lech Walesa, a Vaclav Havel, or a Aung San Suu Kyi.

This is lost on the neocon mindset because supporting human rights and dissidents is a slow, messy, inconvenient process. It's a strategy that requires a full package of diplomacy, economic incentives, and setting an example. For now, the American example is nothing to wave in the face of thugs.

UPDATED - BELOW

THIS little gem is a fitting way to add a little context to what I said above:

Responding to an angry State Department official, who called a forced assignment to Baghdad a "potential death sentence," Condoleezza Rice's deputy, David Satterfield, said: "This is an expeditionary world. For better or worse, it requires an expeditionary service."

Those phrases caught Tom Engelhardt's eye back in October 2007. An expeditionary world. An expeditionary service. How typical of the muscled-up, faintly un-American phrases -- think "homeland," "regime change," "enhanced interrogation techniques," "extraordinary rendition" -- that the Bush administration has made part of our vocabulary. "These were," he writes in a piece adapted from the introduction to his new book, The World According to TomDispatch: America in the New Age of Empire,"years when American men (and a few women) put on the pith helmets they had last seen in imperial adventure films in the movie theaters of their childhoods, imagined themselves as the imperial masters of a global Pax Americana (as well as a domestic Pax Republicana), and managed to sound as if they were surging across the planet with Rudyard Kipling at their side."

[excerpt from Tom Dispatch]

UPDATE: Soldier who shot Koran removed from Iraq

Probably a good idea--although I hope they don't come down too hard on the soldier:

An American sniper was removed from Iraq after he used a copy of the Quran for target practice, the military said Sunday, a day after a U.S. commander held a formal ceremony apologizing to Sunni tribal leaders.

The elaborate ceremony _ in which one U.S. officer kissed a new copy of Islam's holy book before giving it to the tribal leaders _ reflected the military's eagerness to stave off anger among Sunni Arabs it has been cultivating as allies.

The tribesmen have become key in the fight against al-Qaida in Iraq militants, who depict the American forces as anti-Islamic occupiers. One anti-U.S. Iraqi Sunni group condemned the Quran shooting, calling it "a hideous act." Similar perceived insults to Islam have triggered protests throughout the Muslim world.

Iraqi police found the bullet-riddled Quran with graffiti inside the cover on a firing range near a police station in Radwaniyah, a former insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad, U.S. military spokesman Col. Bill Buckner said.

American commanders launched an inquiry that led to disciplinary action against the unidentified soldier, who has been removed from Iraq, Buckner said.

Members of the local U.S.-allied group said the Quran was found with 14 bullet holes in a field after U.S. troops withdrew from a base in the area.

Sheik Ahmed Khudayer al-Janabi, a local tribal leader, said the group had planned a protest march last Thursday but called it off under pressure from U.S. forces and to prevent any insurgent violence as retaliation.

The incident, which occurred on May 9 and was discovered two days later, was first reported by CNN, which broadcast a ceremony at which the top American commander in Baghdad apologized to tribal leaders Saturday in Radwaniyah. The military confirmed the details Sunday in an e-mailed response to a query.

"I come before you here seeking your forgiveness," Maj. Gen. Jeffery Hammond was quoted as saying at the ceremony. "In the most humble manner I look in your eyes today and I say please forgive me and my soldiers."

"The actions of one soldier were nothing more than criminal behavior," he added. "I've come to this land to protect you, to support you _ not to harm you _ and the behavior of this soldier was nothing short of wrong and unacceptable."

The problem with coming down hard on the soldier is this--it will drive the "conservative" American electorate crazy and will lead to outrage in communities that will then stage their own "shooting" of the Koran in order to support the soldier. The soldier should be disciplined and the matter should be dropped immediately. Making a "martyr" out of someone who did something stupid and immature accomplishes nothing. The apology has been delivered, and that should be enough. Kudos to the US Army for at least recognizing that they had to do something. Now is not the time to hand radical elements fodder for controversy, be they the radicals in the Middle East who hide behind Islam or the radicals in this country who hide behind Christianity and the Republican Party to further their own agendas.

Shooting the Koran was offensive because it wasted a perfectly good book and it was offensive to the sensibilities of the people who revere that book. When you are sent into a country to try and win the hearts and minds of the people over to a more peaceful way of settling their political differences, shooting their holy book is a frustratingly immature and stupid thing to do. It teaches no one about free speech to use the opportunity of making a statement to ruin a book with bullets and to write profanity in that book. It is just as wrong to shoot a Torah, a Bible, or any other book. It is a symbolic thing that wallows in the stupidity of the act. No one's mind is changed from shooting a book. Reading a book, on the other hand, is something this soldier should be asked to do, as in, reading the COIN manual, reading a book about basic tolerance for other religions, and reading a book about how to express oneself in a more mature and thoughtful manner. This is the kind of thing that sets small minds to twittering, and we need much less of that.

When The Generals Lied - LTC Robert Maginnis

One of our esteemed colleagues, Batocchio, gave us a link to this site, PR Watch. They are a great resource and actually gave me a lot of stuff that I used against "Uncle Jimbo" and his ilk last month.

While certainly NOT a general officer and more of retired busybody with an obsession about homosexuals serving in the military, LTC Robert Maginnis appeared in the New York Times story last Sunday as a kind of "voice of reason."

Another analyst, Robert L. Maginnis, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who works in the Pentagon for a military contractor, attended the same briefing and recalled feeling “very disappointed” after being shown satellite photographs purporting to show bunkers associated with a hidden weapons program. Mr. Maginnis said he concluded that the analysts were being “manipulated” to convey a false sense of certainty about the evidence of the weapons. Yet he and Mr. Bevelacqua and the other analysts who attended the briefing did not share any misgivings with the American public.

There's something really interesting about Maginnis--he used to write articles for Gary Bauer's Family Research Council. I'd love to share them with you. Unfortunately, all of the articles he wrote the in the 1990s about homosexuals in the military were scrubbed from their website. If you find some of his more popular writings, let me know. I confess I didn't spend a whole lot of time trying to track down his anti-homosexual wingnuttery.

Allow me to editorialize--I spent seven years on active duty. I served with a number of homosexuals. It was no big deal. And, for the record, the only people who ever presented a theat to "good order and discipline" were immature assholes who couldn't accept that someone might have more skills or authority than they had, criminal malcontents who had no business being in the Army in the first place, and zealously religious Christian activists who were openly recruiting people into their wacko sect by putting informational fliers on their door to their offices in Brigade headquarters.

Here's another thing that is really striking about Maginnis--he's a West Point Grad who should have made General. Check out his bio and explain to me how THIS guy didn't retire without hoisting his flag:

In July 1993, Colonel Maginnis retired from an assignment in the Pentagon where he served as an Inspector General. He is an airborne-ranger infantry officer with an assignment history that includes Korea, Germany, Alaska, and several posts in the continental United States. He served in command and staff positions in four infantry divisions from platoon to division level. The colonel was the chief for the U.S. Army Infantry School’s leadership and ethics training branch. He developed curricula, taught, participated in leader development research and consulted with leaders and soldiers throughout the Army. He is the author of more than fifty articles published in professional military journals concerning ethics, leadership, and personnel matters impacting the military. Colonel Maginnis service in the armed forces was commended with the Legion of Merit, one of the highest Army peacetime decorations, as well as with five meritorious medals and four commendation medals.

In the last eight months of his military service, Colonel Maginnis was a member of the Army’s study group examining the homosexual ban. He also was advisor to the Defense Department Military Working Group on homosexuals in the military. In that role, he debated the issue in the media as well as speaking in various forums - including testifying before a House subcommittee.

Colonel Maginnis received his B.S. from the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York in 1973 and a M.S. from the Naval Postgraduate School, California, in 1983. He is a graduate of many military schools, including the Command and General Staff College and the US Army’s War College strategy course.

I mean, what the hell? He retires at twenty with O-5? I realize his timing couldn't have been worse--graduating from West Point in 1973 doesn't exactly guarantee you fame and fortune in the world of the United States Army, unless you're General John Abizaid, who was in the same class as Maginnis.

One of the many appearances that Maginnis made last year was on Fox News, as an analyst, to condemn the British sailors detained by Iran as cowards. Make no mistake about it--Maginnis is a classic wingnut:

NEIL CAVUTO, FOX News: "So, heroes under the gun or cowards under pressure? Lt. Col. Bob Maginnis says 'cowards." Captain Robert McGovern says 'heroes.' ... So, Col. McGinnis to you first. Not pleased with their performance?"

COL. BOB MAGINNIS: "Well, it looks like Holiday in Tehran. You ment - indicated there, Neil, that they were standing in front of Ahmadinejad, and you know they were thanking him for their kind treatment, for letting them go. He was giving them Persian candy and all sorts of souvenirs to take home. And then, by the way, get on this airplane and have a happy Easter. Now, this is great politics. It plays well, perhaps, across the world but the reality is they won big time, the Iranians. In other words, no penalty. Essentially, the oil went way up. He padded his pocketbook in a time of inflation and unemployment. Certainly he bloodied the nose of a key western ally, and, of course, you know, he's the big hegemon in that part of the world, par excellence and he has great ambitions and it looks as if he might realize those."

Maginnis has also run afoul of religious tolerance advocates:

Lt. Col. Robert L. Maginnis (U.S. Army, Ret.) has written a paper for the conservative Christian group, the Family Research Council (FRC). He is the director of their Military Readiness Project. The paper seems to have been triggered by a boycott of some conservative Christian groups against the U.S. Army.
The FRC was initially organized by Focus on the Family, another conservative Christian organization, under the leadership of Gary Bauer, a candidate for the presidency of the U.S. in the year 2000.
The conclusion of the paper is that the "Pentagon should withdraw recognition of Wicca for readiness reasons." Maginnis feels that certain religious rights of Wiccans in the army should be terminated, because Wiccans are a threat to unit cohesion, morale, and efficiency in the Army...

Not sure how you could make THAT case, but what puzzles me about Maginnis is this--he's a relatively low-ranking, low-rent type of commentator. Why such prominence for a man of modest achievement? Why do they elevate him to "commentator" rank?

In his many roles, Colonel Maginnis has appeared on ABC, NBC and CBS evening news shows, CBS 60 Minutes, CBS This Morning, ABC Good Morning America, PBS Newshour with Jim Lehrer, MSNBC Equal Time, Hardball, Internight, and The News with Brian Williams, Court TVs Pro and Con, Fox News The OReilly Factor, Hannity and Colmes, and is a regular guest on On the Record, CNN’s Crossfire, Larry King Live, Talk Back Live, Wolf Blitzer Reports, Late Edition as well as other programs, such as Donahue and The Jenny Jones Show. He has been quoted many times in newspapers and magazines across the world such as The New York Times, US News & World Report and Time Magazine. Since 1993, he has written more than 500 articles, many of which have been published in distinguished newspapers and magazines nationwide.

He was certainly an attack dog--witness this attack on retired General Shalikashvili:

Claiming that gay activists may be trying to take advantage of him as he recovers from a stroke, retired Army Lt. Col. Bob Maginnis (the same Bob Maginnis who once served as the vice president of policy for the vehemently anti-gay Family Research Council, where he wrote more than a few gay-decrying papers) responds to Gen. John Shalikashvili's recent'y released condemnation of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" by saying:

"I just believe he’s being used by those that want to use this as a political mechanism to pry open the military and to use it for their own social experimentation"

I'm thinking he's "right with the Lord" in the eyes of a conservative White House and Pentagon. They know they can go to him anytime there's an issue with "Don't Ask, Don't Tell. So, in effect, the main reason why he enjoys his access is because he's one of the God Boys who have been so beneficial to the military. If someone makes noises about tolerance, they can run to Maginnis and he'll trot out his anti-gay rhetoric and smear anyone so designated by the Pentagon. And access equals dollars, no matter what anyone says. Maginnis has a few pet issues and he beats them to death--and one of the reasons why he got that access is because of his political affiliation and orientation. Had he been a liberal, he'd be a retired O-5, and probably a cranky blogger.

Where are the "property rights" and "religious freedom" Republicans on this?

For the last six years, Muslim families who live and work in the "Research Triangle" around Raleigh-Durham North Carolina have piled into their cars after morning services that signal the start of Eid al-Adha -- or the "festival of sacrifice" -- and driven to the farm of Eddie Rowe.

At his farm, the children play, the wives set up picnic lunches and the husbands wait their turn to go into the barn and slaughter a lamb or a goat in the traditional, halal manner. The tradition of sacrifice goes all the way back to Abraham, the patriarch of all three of the worlds major monotheistic religions. The story of Abraham, set forth in the holy texts of Judaism, Islam and Christianity tells of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son, Isaac, on the altar to please God. His willingness did indeed please God, and he was allowed to sacrifice an animal instead. To this day, many Muslims the world over observe the ritual sacrifice by slaughtering a lamb or a goat and sharing the meat.

This year, the state stepped in and put a stop to what has become a tradition among the Islamic doctors and researchers who have been drawn to the area by research jobs at hospitals and universities. They say that Rowe is operating an illegal and unsanitary slaughterhouse.

Rowe said that state agriculture officials did not give him any advance warning, instead a restraining order was sought and served to stop the sacrifice from going forward this year. Some of the people who have made a tradition of sacrificing an animal on Eddie Rowe's farm took their animals elsewhere to perform the ritual, and others took their money back.

The state of North Carolina has offered Rowe plans for a code-compliant slaughterhouse - that would cost three-quarters of a million dollars to build. Rowe, understandably, is reluctant to take that plunge, since he only makes about $20.00 per animal and sells about 250 animals each Eid.

I don't understand his reluctance...He could break even in a mere 150 years.

North Carolina law allows people to slaughter animals they have raised themselves without following codes meant for commercial meat processors. But to be exempt from those codes, Wells said, they may not sell the meat to others.

Rowe's lawyer, Glenn Barfield, thinks the law allows Muslims to slaughter the animals on Rowe's land. The state has suggested that Muslims take their animals to commercial slaughterhouses, but Barfield said many of those would not allow someone to kill an animal themselves.

Rowe and his farmhands said they had a natural sympathy for the Muslims' plight. Local residents, they noted, would not take kindly to a law that pro- hibited them from dressing a deer or holding communal hog killings, long a North Carolina ritual.

So my question is - where are the people who scream the loudest that their religious rights are infringed when a creche is removed from public property? Where are the property rights people who jump up and down and scream that a mans property is his to do with as he damn well sees fit when an endangered species is discovered that prevents him from cutting down a tree or building a garage?

Do they have anything to say about this?

All I hear is crickets...