The Rants of Issachar
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Canadian Government Identifies Terrorists...
I'm listening to the radio on the drive to work and blogging in the ferry lineup again. :) Too bad I'm writing offline, so I'll some links in and post this later...
The Canadian government has classified the People's Mujadeen as a terrorist group. CBC radio identified them as the largest opposition group in Iran although according to the CBC website they're also an exile group. (Apparently opposition isn't welcome in Iran...)
The Conservative Party is critical. They're thinking that the government is trying to molify Iran's government to make up for the grief they've been giving them over the torturing, sexually assaulting and murdering photo journalist Zahra Kazemi. My first reaction was to think that the Liberals might be right. Just because Iran is run by violent murderous thugs doesn't mean that the opposition isn't a bunch of terrorists. The enemy of my enemy is not automatically my friend.
The Conservative point that Liberal MP's have been friendly with the Iranian opposition recently is well taken, but beside the point. We know the Liberals have been soft on terrorism when the terrorists are popular with minority Canadian voters. As of January, the LTTE were not classified as terrorists by the government and Tamil voters here tend to vote Liberal. (The US, Australia and the UK have labelled the LTTE terrorists). I do believe it was Martin who attended a Tamil Tigers fundraising dinner a year or two ago. (There were a couple of cabinet members there, but I can't remember the details, so it may not have been Mr. Martin). To be fair the Liberals weren't pro-terrorism, they were just clueless about how terrorists raise money in my opinion, but that doesn't mean that we should attack them if they get it right. Are the Conservatives suggesting that being consistent with your past mistakes is more important than doing the right thing? I don't believe any politician will never make a mistake. It's the ones who won't correct their mistakes that are the problem.
But then CBC radio went on to say that government had labelled the Iranian group terrorists 2 years after they disarmed and that they couldn't point to anything they'd done to make them into terrorists. That's a big confusing. If they're disarmed I'm not sure how they're terrorists. If the disarmament is a sham, then the government should say that that's the reason. If it's not, but they've somehow been terrorists all this time, the government needs to say that. As it is, it sounds like the Conservatives might be right, but that makes no sense to me either. Why on earth would the Canadian government care about appeasing the Iranian mullahs? We're happy ticking off the world's most powerful nation which happens to be on our doorstep. Why would we make nice to a bunch of theocrats halfway across the world?
Oh, and did the government ever get around to calling Hezbollah a terrorist group? I don't believe they did...
The Canadian government has classified the People's Mujadeen as a terrorist group. CBC radio identified them as the largest opposition group in Iran although according to the CBC website they're also an exile group. (Apparently opposition isn't welcome in Iran...)
The Conservative Party is critical. They're thinking that the government is trying to molify Iran's government to make up for the grief they've been giving them over the torturing, sexually assaulting and murdering photo journalist Zahra Kazemi. My first reaction was to think that the Liberals might be right. Just because Iran is run by violent murderous thugs doesn't mean that the opposition isn't a bunch of terrorists. The enemy of my enemy is not automatically my friend.
The Conservative point that Liberal MP's have been friendly with the Iranian opposition recently is well taken, but beside the point. We know the Liberals have been soft on terrorism when the terrorists are popular with minority Canadian voters. As of January, the LTTE were not classified as terrorists by the government and Tamil voters here tend to vote Liberal. (The US, Australia and the UK have labelled the LTTE terrorists). I do believe it was Martin who attended a Tamil Tigers fundraising dinner a year or two ago. (There were a couple of cabinet members there, but I can't remember the details, so it may not have been Mr. Martin). To be fair the Liberals weren't pro-terrorism, they were just clueless about how terrorists raise money in my opinion, but that doesn't mean that we should attack them if they get it right. Are the Conservatives suggesting that being consistent with your past mistakes is more important than doing the right thing? I don't believe any politician will never make a mistake. It's the ones who won't correct their mistakes that are the problem.
But then CBC radio went on to say that government had labelled the Iranian group terrorists 2 years after they disarmed and that they couldn't point to anything they'd done to make them into terrorists. That's a big confusing. If they're disarmed I'm not sure how they're terrorists. If the disarmament is a sham, then the government should say that that's the reason. If it's not, but they've somehow been terrorists all this time, the government needs to say that. As it is, it sounds like the Conservatives might be right, but that makes no sense to me either. Why on earth would the Canadian government care about appeasing the Iranian mullahs? We're happy ticking off the world's most powerful nation which happens to be on our doorstep. Why would we make nice to a bunch of theocrats halfway across the world?
Oh, and did the government ever get around to calling Hezbollah a terrorist group? I don't believe they did...
