In The Court of World Opinion
So what does the United Nations do when a member state deliberately and with full intent not only slanders another member state, but publicly states, time and again, that it is that state's intention to employ any and all means available to destroy the slandered state. The United Nations is a world body set up to represent the interests and well being of all its member states and the human rights of all those states' citizens.One might ask why one state would deliver such a violent intent upon another. And particularly when that state is a theistic-driven and -administered country, embracing a religion which they claim honours peace and security and the well-being of other countries and other religions. While at the same time its adherents and the interpretors of its scriptures call for a holy jihad in the name of their god against all others who have the temerity not to worship their god.
Having asked that question and eliciting no satisfactory response, one then turns to the United Nations itself. Why has the United Nations not unequivocally denounced Iran's Prime Minister Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Many countries' representatives within the United Nations have done just that. But not the United Nations, that institute for ensuring peace, prosperity and goodwill among nations.
Denouncing the words of a raving lunatic is all very well and good. Decent, intelligent people of goodwill could not do otherwise. Unfortunately, to find fault with psychopathically egregious behaviour does nothing to extinguish either the behaviour or the full intent behind it. Tch-tch, never did accomplish much. And because that mild slap on the wrist has been given, and not much else, Ahmadinejad and Iran's ayatollahs feel they have the green light to proceed.
No one appears to be getting too upset about their declaration of intent to annihilate the State of Israel. With the exception, needless to say, of the State of Israel, their citizens, and world Jewry. This is the eve of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, when Jews around the world examine their consciences and find themselves wanting - and feel encouraged to work harder to make themselves better human beings.
Odd that, since Jews have always examined their consciences, and have since time immemorial been forced to atone. This atonement is not exactly what Jews have in mind, rather it is an atonement forced upon them by a too-often and too-generally hostile world. A world which forces Jews to atone for the sin of being Jews.
All is not lost. A metaphorical hero rides to the rescue. The former Justice Minister of Canada under the previous Liberal government, a man whose sterling record in fighting for human rights at home and abroad has joined with other like-minded individuals to do what he can to fight, in the court of world opinion and the court of justice world wide, the proposed campaign of eradication by Iran of Israel.
Montreal Member of Parliament Irwin Cotler is in the process of preparing an indictment of the president of Iran for incitement to genocide. The very term "genocide" should send shivers of disgust and fear through the mind of any intelligent individual. The world has been witness to occasional breakdowns in the collective moral order when such attempts have been made, and occasionally successfully.
It sharpens the mind somewhat to ruminate upon various scenarios. Iran is enthusiastically seeking nuclear warhead capability, and it appears to be well on the road to success in that endeavour. Iran's ruling elites are proving themselves to be collectively unstable bordering on what can only be religion-induced lunacy. What country in the region, and without, can be safe with nuclear missiles in the hands of such intelligence-impaired jihadists?
The world did nothing when Hitler declared his intention to wipe out world Jewry, even when the intention turned into the unspeakable. The world has wrung its collective hands in anguish in Rwanda, in Bosnia, and now in the Sudan. But no truly effective action to forestall these dreadful acts has resulted.
It might be a start to creating a world which recognizes it has a responsibility to act without equivocation to rescue other human beings from certain death by the hands of homicidal maniacs by taking concrete steps to have Iran's Ahmadinejad prosecuted by the International Criminal Court in the Hague.
Until anyone has a better idea, this one stands out.
posted by Pieface @ Monday, October 02, 2006
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