Monday, September 29, 2014

Roger Cohen, "Here There Is No Why": Which Is Worse, Stoning or Beheading?

Did you ever read a New York Times op-ed and want to vomit?

Describing the beheadings of James Foley, Steven Sotloff and David Haines by ISIS in his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Here There Is No Why," subtitled "For ISIS, Slaughter Is an End in Itself," Roger Cohen tells us, "Presented with the counter-human, the human must fight back." So how can the US best fight back against ISIS? For Cohen, the answer is simple:

"In this fight, I would say, all means are good. The Soviet Union, an ideological rival, was a key ally of the United States in defeating Nazism. It is obvious which nation today can play that role against ISIS. Its name is Iran."

Perhaps you recall how, in 2009, Cohen sought to convince the readership of The New York Times that Iran is "not totalitarian." Ignoring the stoning to death of women in that country, the hangings of homosexuals by the mullahs, and the persecution and oppression of Baha'is, Kurds, Christians and Sunnis, Cohen continued with his harangue until he was smacked in the face with reality, i.e. the brutal suppression of Iran's Green Revolution.

Well, Iran continues to stone to death women alleged to have perpetrated adultery, and I would like to ask Cohen, which is worse, stoning or beheading? Cohen says that he watched the videos of the beheadings of Foley, Sotloff and Haines. Has he ever watched the stoning to death of a woman in Iran? The victim is buried alive up to her neck, and then she is pelted with rocks until dead.

Ashley Fantz wrote in a June 2013 CNN article entitled "Iran aims to keep stoning as punishment for adultery, rights group says":

"Stoning remains the way Iranians -- overwhelmingly women -- are punished for committing adultery, Human Rights Watch said Monday. The international group blasted a judicial council in Iraq, made up of 12 religious jurists, for inserting a stoning provision into a draft law where it had been previously removed.

Last November, security agents with the country's judiciary moved the bodies of four women who had been stoned to the Tehran medical examiner's office, according to reports on the Melli-Mazhabi site, which opposed Iran's government, the U.S. State Department says."

Iran should be the "key ally" of the United States in defeating ISIS? I don't think so.

1 comment:

  1. Regarding Cohen....this is the perfect case explained by John Cleese ( of Monty Python fame) in which someone is sufficiently stupid to be utterly unable to perceive his own stupidity. Truly a conundrum.

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