Monday, May 22, 2006
The Short Version of a Big Lie
Hat tips to many, especially to Juan Cole, Antonia Zerbisias, and Josh Micah Marshall, but also to lesser known bloggers who winkled out the facts to counter this Big Lie.
In trying to herd the American people into a war with Iran, the war party produced the Big Lie that the Iranian government is making Jews wear yellow stars of David. . The Australian:
IRAN'S only Jewish MP strongly denied reports in a Canadian newspaper overnight that Iran may force non-Muslims to wear coloured badges in public so they can be identified."This report is a complete fabrication and is totally false," Maurice Motammed said in Tehran. "It is a lie, and the people who invented it wanted to make political gain" by doing so.The National Post newspaper quoted human rights groups as saying that Iran's parliament passed a law this week setting a public dress code and requiring non-Muslims to wear special insignia
To synopsize Paleo at Daily Kos, this Big Lie was concocted and spread in part by an employee of Benador Associates, Amir Taheri (National Review, JPost, NYPost, Weekly Standard). The Benador client list includes Richard Perle, James Woolsey, Michael Ledeen, Frank Gaffney, A. M. Rosenthal, Charles Krauthammer, Max Boot, and Victor Davis Hanson, as well as "Khidhir Hamza, an Iraqi nuclear scientist who fled several years ago to the United States, where he wrote a book claiming that former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had a nuclear bomb."
So, what actually happened?
Legislator Emad Afroogh said the Post story distorts a bill he presented to parliament calling for Muslims to dress conservatively. It seeks to have women avoid Western fashions, he said.
So, as best as one can tell, it's on a par with the school uniforms debate in the US. Not on a par with the concentration camp debate in Nazi Germany.
But to the people who want more war, death, and destruction, more orphans and widows and suicidally-angry people, there's nothing wrong with trying to make white seem black or vice versa, according to expediency's demands.
More blogs about politics.
