Syria Gets Serious, Iranian Journalist Crackdown, Iraqi Cancer and Birth Defect Rates

David Brooks
Eugene Robinson
Boris Morozov

"As Republican leaders -- except RNC Chairman Michael Steele -- are beginning to realize, "I'm With the Taliban Against America" is not likely to be a winning slogan."  - Eugene Robinson

"If I'm controversial, it's because I say things everybody thinks but doesn't have the guts to say. Political correctness is like a vise grip around all our throats." - Rush Limbaugh

have a nargila...
One of the most momentous news items today is that the President of Syria, who is a medical doctor, has banned smoking in cafes, restaurants, and all government places and meetings. Included in the ban is the hubble-bubble pipe, a favorite for hundreds of years among locals and tourists throughout the region. We even have nargile smoking lounges here in Colorado Springs... I have yet to see a smoking ban in any country in the Middle East and Asia that works. The fine for breaking the ban is about $46. It might be more effective if Syria adopted the Singapore Solution, and used lashes of the cane for breaking the ban; then sullen young Americans would flock to the country for the experience...

Syria and Turkey have also been making nice, no longer requiring a visa to travel between the two countries. This is good for families who are on both sides of the border, and economic trade and development is planned. Turkey has also lifted restrictions to its long time cultural enemy, Armenia.

Another factor uniting Syria and Turkey is they both were shocked and disgusted by Israel's Gaza Offensive, where 1,4000 Palestinians were killed. So former decent relations with Israel have become strained, and is why Israel was not asked to participate in a Turkish sponsored air exercise, causing the US to pull out in response.

the cost of freedom...
Turkey is also the gateway for people being smuggled out of Iran. For about $150 folks can get a Kurdish guide to take them across the border into Iraq and then to Turkey, where they can travel on to other countries. Many Iranian journalists are fleeing their country because of the government shutting down newspapers and blogs, arresting many who were involved with them: "... the wave of departures reflects the journalists’ anxiety over the retribution many of them have faced for reporting on the government’s violent suppression of the post-election protests. As bloody clashes unfolded in the streets of Tehran, the government went to great lengths to restrict the flow of information to the outside world. Foreign journalists were banned, and local reporters and photographers were warned to stay at home. A number of Iranian journalists defied those orders, disseminating information in phone interviews, on Internet sites and through pictures sent to photo agencies. Now, they say, they are paying the price."

The Iranian government is literally fighting back at everyone who publicly criticized Ahmadinajad and the fake elections. They fear any news media that is not state controlled, and like any military dictatorship, they are harassing and ransacking the homes, arresting and torturing any local journalist and photographer they can get their paws on. "Last week, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the media a major weapon, “worse than nuclear weapons,” in the hands of Western countries." My link to Tehran Bureau is still working and you can find interesting stories on it, though it is located outside of Iran...

dangerously depleted...
About a year ago I wrote about the dangers from the US leaving depleted uranium from the 2003 war, and a gentleman who has made it his life's work to debunk such claims wrote to me several times in a critical fashion. Of course, he didn't like my sarcastic responses, but sarcasm is the only thing I have left for enjoyment as I get older. If you want to write to me, please do, but look at the title of my blog and realize what you might be getting into...

Recently Iraq has seen a sharp jump in cancer cases in an area where vehicles, that were reinforced with depleted uranium, were left behind along with shell casings also made from the stuff. The reported cases of cancer in 2004 was 500. In 2008 it was 7000, and so far this year there have been over 9000 cases being treated in hospitals. There are birth defects, too, but they are harder to link directly to the uranium. "In the last ten years, research has emerged that has made it quite clear that uranium is one of the most dangerous substances known to man, certainly in the form that it takes when used in these wars."


So far, the US hasn't offered to clean up and get rid of its spent ordinance, just like we left thousands of land-mines in Laos and Vietnam after we were no longer wanted in those countries. And we wonder how terrorists are recruited and why so many Iraqis have a bad opinion of us...