Moon of Alabama Brecht quote
Back to Main

November 8, 2007
Quiz: A Country With …

Another quiz task:

We are looking for a country on the continent of Asia that has significant religious based extremism, tribal unrest and a warrior culture.

There are several of those, so here is a little help.

Some of the country’s borders were defined by British geographic carving.

Afghanistan? Not quite right.

Second hint: It has a nuclear program.

Pakistan? Well it could fit, but …

Third hint: The country’s name starts with an I.

India? I’ll give you some time to think about that.

Meanwhile the Friday Lunch Club points us to a letter by one Mohammad Alireza in Teheran to the Israeli people. It was published in, of all places, the Jerusalem Post:

Do the Iranian people really want to go to war with the Jewish people? The answer is a resounding No! For thousands of years the Iranian and Jewish peoples have lived in peace, and continue to do so to this very day. There are 25,000 Jewish Iranians living and working in Iran without any persecution or worry.
[…]

What the Israeli people need to realize is that those in power in Iran become stronger and increase their grip on power when they can point to "enemies" and "threats." So why do you play their game and inadvertently help them?

The Israeli government must not make decisions based on fear and take preemptive action. They need to trust their ability to keep the peace through deterrence, and trust the Iranian people to bring about democracy through our own efforts.

We the Iranian people have lived in peace with the Jewish people for thousands years and will continue to do so. Nobody should be allowed to destroy this tradition of peace, even those who misunderstand their own religious teachings.
[…]
We have lived in peace with each other for thousands of years and there is no reason why this has to change, and I think most Iranians would agree with this.

It is worth your time to read the letter in full. But I urge you to at least check the comments towards the letter. They may even help you to answer the quiz:

Name a country on the continent of Asia that has religious based extremism, tribal unrest, a warrior culture and some borders defined through British colonial geographic carving. It also has a nuclear program and the name starts with an I.

What country was I thinking of?

Posted by b on November 8, 2007 at 11:52 UTC | Permalink
Comments

I’d say you were talking about Israel, but Indonesia would fit just as well.

Posted by: China Hand | Nov 8 2007 13:10 utc | 1

I don’t think that Indonesia has a nuclear program, and it was defined by the Dutch and Portuguese, rather than the Brits.

Posted by: Peter vE | Nov 8 2007 16:35 utc | 2

The crux of the whole Middle East dilemma is exposed in the debate between Norman Podhoretz, Foreign Policy Adviser to Rudy Giuliani, godfather of the neoconservatives, and Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek, on PBS NewsHour and the comments in the Jerusalem Post. Will Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) prevent nuclear war like it has deterred war with Soviet Union and Communist China?
Team B (Bomb ‘Em back to the Stone Age) including VP Cheney and the Likud Party say No. The Mullahs are crazy; only intent on obtaining Seven Virgins in Paradise. Listening to the Neocons one clearly sees that they are projecting themselves on to their enemies. Team B and Israel will ultimately have to resort to a nuclear exchange since a non-nuclear bombing campaign against Iran will only strengthen the Mullah’s regime and will assure, sooner or later, atomic bombs in the hands of radical fundamentalists. The current undermanned non-nuclear war of attrition against Islam is doomed to failure.
As long as Team B and the Likud Party followers have their finger on the nuclear trigger, pray fervently that the button isn’t pressed even though the ideology and reactionary forces in play will ultimately force a nuclear war. MAD can only work if bipartisan realists are in charge and if the provocation of the war of attrition is ended.

Posted by: VietnamVet | Nov 8 2007 17:06 utc | 3

@VietnamVet – Listening to the Neocons one clearly sees that they are projecting themselves on to their enemies.
Yes, that is the core of the problem here. It’s not only the neocons. Israel in general assumes others would follow its own behaviour even if those others cleary do not show any trend into such a direction. Bush’s worldview of other powers is nothing else but projection of his own bully behaviour.

Posted by: b | Nov 8 2007 17:37 utc | 4

Indonesia. It has a nuke program.
That letter was OK, but the we the people stuff isn’t going to fly.
from the letter: The Israeli people have the power of making peace within their grasp given their democratic system of government, and they should use it.
Israel has a free-er press and media in general than the US – by far. But the ‘democratic’ stuff doesn’t parse. Israel has an elite which is basically military, now also corporate. Ok some get thrown out, but nothing changes really. Musical chairs. And always the victim stance, the fear, the hate of Arabs, etc. That is so ingrained the other trimmings can be afforded.
See the world federation of child survivors of the holocaust, conference, the hoopla:
link
and just one link on the recent outrage about what is paid to Holocaust survivors, from the world socialist website, it is extremely mild actually:
link
Pornography about suffering, complete with weepy tours, fat meals, soft entertainment, and maybe even raffles, etc. pseudo intellectualism, combined with an incessant effort to short change the victims (what they are owed is a can of worms), evident at least the effort to keep them poor, powerless, and victimised once more!

Posted by: Tangerine | Nov 8 2007 18:09 utc | 5

Well, OK, I suppose the answer you are trying to elicit is that BOTH countries mentioned in your post fit the bill to some extent.

Posted by: heatkernel | Nov 8 2007 19:33 utc | 6

A portion of Indonesia’s borders were also defined by the British: the parts that border Malaysia.

Posted by: Anonymous | Nov 9 2007 6:38 utc | 7

This fits here maybe more so than on OT.
Federal Liabilities Now Equal $175,000 for Every American

“If these items are factored in,” Walker said in his report, “the total burden in present value dollars is estimated to be about $53 trillion. Stated differently, the estimated current total burden for every American is nearly $175,000; and every day that burden becomes larger.”
– David Walker, Comptroller General of the United States.

Posted by: Rick | Nov 9 2007 10:59 utc | 8

OOPS
above was supposed to go on FAT thread!

Posted by: Rick | Nov 9 2007 11:02 utc | 9

Back to Main