Segacs's World I Know

Posts Tagged ‘godwin’s law’

Believe it or not, other newsworthy things happened in the world yesterday and today. You’d never know it from watching the local news, of course, which has been covering Dawson nonstop since yesterday afternoon. But here are a few things that happened in the world outside our little corner:

• Sadaam’s judge doesn’t think he was a dictator. So what was he, then? A democratically-elected leader? A royal monarch? The winner of the first season of Iraqi Idol?
• The new Palestinian “unity” government appears likely to get its funding back from Europe, though the U.S. isn’t on board.
• Amnesty said Hezbollah committed war crimes, in what Charles Johnson over at LGF dubbed a flying pig moment. I’m shocked too. Amnesty gets so much more money and support when it’s directing its wrath at Israel.
• In a big sign of normalcy returning to the country, Israel’s getting its international soccer games back.
• Germany ordained its first rabbis since 1942. See that big middle finger in the air, you neo-Nazi assholes?
• Speaking of Jews and Europe, Pajamas Media is all over this under-reported story about the defamation trial that just begun in France against three Jewish citizens who questioned the French Channel 2 network for its coverage of the Mohammed Al-Dura affair.
• The Pope has pissed off Muslims, it seems, by making some statements that, regardless of their intent, will surely be taken way out of context. This could be a thing.
• Bibi said that Ahmadinejad is “more dangerous than Hitler”. You’d think such a normally-competent debater would’ve heard of Godwin’s Law, no?
• And in other news, Stephen Colbert’s bridge in Hungary looks like it isn’t going to happen, despite his large margin of victory in the online naming poll, due to the tiny problem of his failing to meet one of the qualifications – being dead. Whoops! (By the way, Budapest rocks!)

Okay, I think that about does it for the ten-second catch-up. Or, as the BUZZ puts it, some “temporary relief from ignorance”.

Update on the stories below:

Stephen Harper backed Jason Kenney on his comparison of Hezbollah to the Nazis, claiming it was “fair”:

“Like all comparisons, it’s true in some ways, and not in others,” he said, “but as near as I can tell, both Hezbollah and the Nazi party stand for the elimination of the Jewish nation. So I think that’s pretty fundamental and, in that sense, I don’t think it’s unfair.”

Though Kenney and Harper both have a point, they ought to realize that Nazi comparisons, even when justifiable, tend to obscure the original argument.

Meanwhile, one of the three MPs who originally called for Hezbollah’s legitimization, Liberal Borys Wrzesnewskyj, has resigned as foreign affairs critic (hat tip: Puck):

All 10 leadership hopefuls condemned the remarks. Scott Brison and Carolyn Bennett said Wrzesnewskyj should no longer retain his post as a foreign affairs spokesman.

The Liberal party has been floundering lately, with no clear voices emerging in this conflict. Wrzesnewskyj’s resignation, and the condemnation of his remarks by the leadership candidates, is the first hopeful sign in a while that perhaps the Liberals might find their moral compass that has been missing now for quite some time.

It seems to me that the problem is one of perception, and of which historical comparison is the most apt. Some, like Kenney and Harper, see Hezbollah as the new Nazi party, and view appeasement as dangerous and ultimately more destructive. Others, like Boris Wrzesnewskyj, Peggy Nash and Maria Mourani, see Hezbollah as the new IRA:

“You want to encourage the politicians of this military organization, you want to encourage the political wing, so that the centre of gravity shifts to them.”

Wrzesnewskyj compared the situation in Lebanon to the decades of sectarian violence by the Irish Republican Army.

“If there wasn’t a possibility for London to negotiate with Sinn Fein [the IRA's political party], we’d still have bombings in Northern Ireland,” he said.

Certainly, Hezbollah (and Hamas, and other groups that employ a political/social/terrorist combination strategy) would like to encourage the IRA comparisons. But there’s one key difference, that the Canadian MPs on their “fact-finding mission” seem to have missed: The IRA had, as its goal, the establishment of an independent Irish state. Say what you will about their methods – and I will condemn terrorism unequivocally – they did have a goal that could be pursued politically, and that would be legitimate if pursued politically. Hezbollah has no such goal. They aren’t vying for statehood or independence of freedom. Their goal is the destruction of Israel. And no matter what means they choose to pursue this goal, it cannot be legitimatized.

This editorial appeared in today’s Gazette in response to the 3 Canadian MPs who called for the removal of Hezbollah from the list of terror organizations:

They appear to be typical of an alarming number of Canadians who think that compromise, which works so nicely in Canada, can work as well everywhere. But in Canada we don’t have parties, factions or demographic groups dedicated to the utter destruction of other parties, factions, or demographic groups.

How do you compromise with Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, who says “there’s no solution to the conflict in this region except with the disappearance of Israel.” What does Nash imagine Nasrallah means when he says: “When the people of this temporary country (Israel) lose their confidence in their legendary army, the end of this entity will begin”?

Meanwhile, Jason Kenney reminds us that foot-in-mouth disease strikes all sides of this one:

Conservative government spokesman Jason Kenney compared Hezbollah to the German Nazi party Tuesday and said opposition Canadian MPs are providing political cover to the banned organization.

Oh, Mr. Kenney, didn’t anyone ever teach you Godwin’s law?

This has been circling the net like wildfire, coining a new catchphrase: “In the future, everyone will be Hitler for 15 minutes”.

(Hat tip: Damian Penny).

This headline seems better suited to The Onion than to real news: North Korea likens Bush to Hitler:

North Korea has described US President George W Bush as an “imbecile” and a “tyrant that puts Hitler in the shade”.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman was responding to comments President Bush made last week in which he described the North’s Kim Jong-il as a “tyrant”.

This pretty much says it all, doesn’t it? Kim Jong-Il, the “Dear Leader” of gas chambers and concentration camps, who has killed and tortured countless members of his population and prompted comparisons to Auschwitz and outrage by Yad Vashem. The “Dear Leader” of child prisoners and sex slaves. The “Dear Leader” who prefers to starve his entire population rather than accept outside aid. The “Dear Leader” of nuclear weapons factories who refuses to even talk about disarming.

But no. In this upside-down world, Bush is clearly the person who merits comparison to Hitler. The “Dear Leader” must be just misunderstood. Or something.

A Brazilian judge compared the new US fingerprinting program to the “worst horrors of the Nazis”:

The United States began fingerprinting and photographing visitors from most countries on Monday in a controversial program to try to prevent potential terrorists from slipping in through the borders.

[ . . . ]

But the Brazilian fingerprint program of U.S. visitors that began last Thursday came on the orders of a judge who angrily compared the new U.S. controls to Nazi horrors.

“I consider the act absolutely brutal, threatening human rights, violating human dignity, xenophobic and worthy of the worst horrors committed by the Nazis,” said Federal Judge Julier Sebastiao da Silva in a court order to authorize the program in Brazil.

Hmmmm, I bet if you asked a thousand Holocaust survivors whether they thought that comparison was justified, they’d say that fingerprinting is horrifying. /sarcasm

I also find it interesting that the judge was making the comparison in the process of implementing a similar program in Brazil, to fingerprint Americans. As far as I can tell, there is no security reason for that program, and it is being done purely out of childish spite. Talk about wasting public funds!

As for the US program, for the moment Canadians are exempt, but even if we weren’t, I’d have to agree with this guy:

“I think it’s good with everything that’s going on,” said Scott Murray, a Jamaican arriving at the airport. “If you have nothing to hide, it shouldn’t be a problem. I wasn’t offended.

When I got on a plane in the US last week, I was asked to remove my shoes to go through the metal detector, and place the shoes on the X-ray belt. Everyone else had to as well. Nobody cared. I’d rather take an extra five seconds to take off my sneakers than be on a plane hijacked by terrorists. And if a simple fingerprinting program could be helpful, then why not?

But if I have to travel to Brazil, remind me to protest the fingerprinting as barbaric and horrific.