skippy the bush kangaroo: that darn echo chamber

Saturday, May 20, 2006

that darn echo chamber

taylor marsh wonders aloud about the story that the iran government is going to start identifying non-muslims with badges, a la nazi germany.

taylor believes that this is but the start of the propaganda campaign to get the usa riled up for another war. luckily several news organs have already repudiated this story, among them, bloomberg:

iran denied a report that it passed a law that would force non-muslims in the islamic republic to wear colored labels identifying their religion.

the canadian national post yesterday reported iran's parliament passed a law last week for a public dress code that would require jews to wear a yellow strip of cloth on their clothing, christians a red one, and zoroastrians blue. iran is a predominantly muslim country.

``such a bill was never introduced in the parliament,'' said maurice motammed, iran's only jewish deputy who represents iran's community of 25,000 jews, on state television today. ``iranian minorities benefit from the same liberties and social rights as other people.''

a bill to promote ``an iranian and islamic style of dress for women'' was passed in iran's parliament on may 14. however, it didn't mention religious minorities, emad afrough, head of the parliament's cultural committee and one of the main designers of the measure said, according to the official islamic republic news agency irna.

the asspress, in fact, intimates that a law that encourages muslim dress among women, which is being considered by the iranian government, is the basis of this false meme:

on friday, a canadian newspaper, the national post, quoting iranian exiles, said the law would force jews, christians and other religious minorities to wear special patches of colored cloth to distinguish them from muslims. the report drew a condemnation from the united states, which said such a law would carry "clear echoes of germany under hitler."

a copy of the draft law obtained by the associated press made no mention of religious minorities or any requirement of special attire for them, and the post later posted an article on its web site backing off the report.

taylor does some investigative work of her own:

as i said, i spoke with aaron breitbart right before noon, a senior researcher for the simon weisenthal center. aaron said the story shooting across the web about iranian badges is "absolutely true." according to aaron, rabbi hier has been on the phone for over four hours confirming the story, which they have now done. they consider this new iranian law a "throwback" to the bad old days of hitler, which is an understandable reaction, given what they do at the center. in confirming the story, aaron said it's "very true" and "very scary." he went further to say that rabbi hier has talked to experts in iran who've confirmed his worst fears. no names were provided. aaron also offered that "iranian diplomats" who have been contacted about the story refuse to answer any questions at all. obviously that's very vague and nothing further was given, so i have no way of helping you decipher if this is worth anything at all. however, aaron said something else: "it's on drudge."

stop everything.

i just received a fax from aaron, which contained the original article that was written by iranian author and journalist amir taheri. it's a fax also asking a rabbi cooper for some information on the iranian law, which has not gone into effect yet, but is definitely headed in that direction, according to them. now let's talk about amir taheri for just a second. it didn't take long to find out he's part of benador associates. guess who's also part of benador? charles krauthammer and many other neocons.

are you getting that feeling yet?

it's obvious from my conversation with aaron breitbart that the simon weisenthal center takes this seriously. that's their business.

but you simply cannot come to this story without a sense of the politics involved either, to do so would be mingling naiveté with rank stupidity. so, i remind everyone of what you're likely aware: iran and israel are enemies; the u.s. and israel are allied; plus the fact that ahmadinejad and george w. bush have opposing interests and similar solutions: war.

good work, taylor!

posted by skippy at 3:48 PM |