Canadian Ambassador returns to Iran

Sept. 30 - The Canadian ambassador to Iran, Phillip MacKinnon, will return to Iran with instructions to keep an eye on Iran's ongoing nuclear program, the investigation into the beating death of Zahra Kazemi and push for a public trial of the person accused of causing her death, and to press for a return of her body to Canada.

So now he's an expert on the development of nuclear programs. That's a lame attempt to sell his return due to an urgent reason.

Just last week the Canadian government was threatening to suspend foreign aid.

Doesn't it really mean that the Foreign Affairs Ministry is still hoping this issue just "goes away?" "Soft power" indeed. Canada is trying for a Guinness World Record spot as the Most Indifferent when her citizens are arrested and tortured.

Kazemi's death last July gained international attention in great part due to the efforts of her son, Montrealer Stephan Hachemi. There are two petitions at the Project Free Iran website addressed to world leaders which calls them to join in calls demanding that the current regime step down and that the UN oversee a referendum in Iran and free elections.

There is also a lot of news updates and analysis about Iran on that page. Good one to bookmark.

Among other things is the claim that over 120,000 political prisoners and freedom loving Iranians have been executed in Iran over the past 2 decades. Inasmuch as the number of those who were tortured and executed in Iraq under the former regime turned out to be much higher than we suspected, this isn't a claim that can be easily dismissed however much we might wish it weren't true.

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Intelligence agent charges in Kazemi death

Sept. 23 - An Intelligence Ministry agent has been charged in the death of Zahra Kazemi in Iran last July.

In a statement from the Tehran prosecutor's office Monday, veteran judge Javad Esmaeili charged the agent with the "semi-premeditated murder" of Zahra Kazemi.

The agent was one of two Intelligence Ministry officials charged in connection with Kaezmi's death last month. The prosecutor's office had rejected those charges Sept. 1.

At the time, Tehran's deputy prosecutor general, Jafar Reshadati said the original probe into the crime was incomplete and needed to be opened for reinvestigation.

The second agent linked to the case was acquitted, the prosecutor's office said in its statement Monday.

According to the statement, Esmaeili concluded that there was no government conspiracy behind the crime.

"The crime is attributed to one of the (Intelligence Ministry) interrogators and the reasons have been presented in the lawsuit against the accused."

Kazemi died in an Iranian hospital in early July, after reportedly suffering head injuries while in custody. The Montreal-based photojournalist had been arrested for photographing student-led protests outside a Tehran-area prison.

Initially, the hardline Tehran prosecutor, Saeed Mortazavi, was quoted as saying Kazemi had died of a stroke. But a presidential-appointed committee discredited his account, finding instead that she had died on July 10 -- from head injuries sustained while in custody.

Iran's investigation of the case has since exposed deep internal divisions within Iran -- between reformists, who loosely control the Intelligence Ministry, and hardliners who control Iran's police force, judiciary and security agencies.

I don't think I'm out of line if I ridicule CTV for contending that Kazemi's death exposed the internal divisions in Iran. The internal struggle in Iran between moderates and hardliners has been considered newsworthy for a couple of years now, and Iranian President Katami has publicly expressed frustration many times when even mild reforms have been approved by the Parliament but vetoed by the mullahs.

CTV, of course, is hardly the only Western news media that consistently underestimates the yearning for freedom in Iran (and other countries, I might add.) Most of us had already clued into the fact that Iranians were not totally supportive of the mullahs when they staged an imprompteau rally in sympathy with the Sept. 11 attacks, and Australian Tim Blair's post Compare and Contrast hits the nail pretty squarely on the head when he quotes Canadian Duncan Beatty(now living in California) who recently traveled to Iran:

Many of the people in the cabs in Tehran had the similar thoughts. "Tell George Bush to come and get rid of the mullahs for us." I was shocked by the openness of that statement. With one fellow I tried to discuss it with him in more detail to see if he really meant it or was just talking. I told him that if George Bush came and got rid of the Mullahs, it would not be to help the people of Iran; he would be coming for the oil. The fellow replied, "He can have the oil, its not doing us any good anyway and at least then we would be free."

The sweet air of liberty. Why does the media fear it so?

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Americans wake up

Sept. 19 - Americans are beginning to wake up. Far too many of us have accepted the judgement that, unlike other nations, the USA alone pursues policies that are advantageous to her and her people.

Americans are beginning to realize that, although we and our governments are far from perfect, we are certainly not alone in the pursuit of self-interest but may be unique in that we are not only aware of our shortcomings but even discuss them publicly.

We've gone from accepting the scolding of imaginary "international community" and have begun to see the UN for what it is: a bureaucratic organization where the majority of the members don't even pretend to respect human rights yet think they have moral authority to lecture and dictate to us.

This is an organization in which Libya can chair -- without intentional irony -- the UN Human Rights Committee and that committee can strip Reporters Without Borders of observer status because they held a peaceful demonstration which protested the naming of Libya as chair of that committee.

Further, the UN found itself unable to rise to the challenge Saddam posed as expressed in Pres. Bush's speech to the UN in September, 2002, that it assert its mandate and finally confront Saddam:

Are Security Council resolutions to be honored and enforced or cast aside without consequence?

Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding or will it be irrelevant?

The French have probably done the most to erode American idealism about the UN. Their threats of exercising their veto not only over pre- and post-war Iraq but also to removing the sanctions on Libya over the Lockerbie bombing unless they received additional money from Libya above their previous settlement for a different bombing raised even more questions about the actual purpose as well as integrity of the UN.

Thanks to The Canukistanian for sending me this WSJ Opinion Journal link Do You Feel Lucky, Paris? by Daniel Henninger.

A recent Gallup poll confirms some of the changes that many of us hoped for: Sept. 11 finally got a lot of Americans to wake up and look a bit closer at the true state of the world, and they have drawn their conclusions. (Follow the link for the statistics; the UN's approval rating has dropped significantly.)

A few excerpts from the Opinion Journal article:

Shortly after the [Iraq] war was over, a high official from France's Parliament visited our offices hoping to let bygones be bygones. He said we were all joined in the war on terror and that our countries' long-term interests coincided. He was visiting American editorial boards and going to Washington to see key members of Congress in the belief that if he could convince these influential people--the U.S. networking equivalent of les grandes ecoles--Franco-American relations would revive.

Whereupon he was told: "Sir, there is really not much that we or the members of Congress can do for you. France's problems now are not with America's policy makers but with America's comedians." [Their emphasis]

Nope, no gag order for Jay Leno. And one has to wonder what on earth the French thought their strategy would accomplish except to provide more material for the comedians.

One result of the list the French circulated purporting to prove that they were being slandered was for journalists to point out those articles (usually by themselves) which had been left off and to write even more in hopes of being included on that list. This was a fairly predictable reaction, but I have to wonder: do the French really understand so little about us?

And then there's this:

Well before Iraq, one of the elite criticisms of the U.S., heard mostly in Europe and in the American academy, has been that the U.S. is compulsively trying to "impose its values" on the rest of the world. . . But from Germany and Japan after World War II and on up to Kosovo, Afghanistan and now Iraq, I am aware of only one "value" America has tried to impose and it's not Mickey Mouse. It is democracy, or at a minimum, liberty.

The one place the US maintained troops against the wishes of the people is South Korea, or at least they objected until we actually began to withdraw. Go figure.

But one thing is clear: Americans are seeing the UN and its institutions as if for the first time, and they are shaking off an undeserved legacy of shame and humiliation. We have chosen the option to continue to work to improve ourselves and our country and yes, even the world, but it will be about the things we care about and in the ways we think will work. That is not going to include enriching the coffers of the renowned tyrants and butchers. Those days are over.

We are also seeing Europe differently and now realize that, contrary to their belief, Belguim and France do not speak for all of Europe. There's some new kids in town, and they are not only newer but stronger in their support of democratic institutions and human rights because they had been deprived of them for so long.

(I'm not going to explain the Dirty Harry reference in the title; read the entire article.)

I think the knock-out punch to the UN could come if a free Iraq were to demand an accounting from those who ran the UN Oil-For-Food program and and an explanation not only for the palace trappings but for the weapons and military equipment that the Russians, French, Chinese and, to a lesser degree, Germany imported as food and medicine. And, less we forget, Kofi Annan signed off on all the invoices in the program.

The UN Security Council lost more credibility when Def. Secy. Rumsfeld confirmed that US military forces had turned off the pipeline that was shipping Iraqi oil illegally to UNSC member Syria. By the way, does Syria occupy Lebanon with UN approval? Of course not. Does the UN care? Riiiight.

Information about the workings of the UN, which had never exactly been concealed, is beginning to achieve a prominence that should make wiser UN members a bit nervous. It may take awhile, but the US electorate does have the power to turn off the money taps to the UN which would pretty much spell the end of that institution because the other members are unwilling to support it financially. Even the prospect of moving it to Toronto was dropped when Toronto Mayor Lastman pointed out that it should be done only if the Canadian government was willing to underwrite all expenses.

TotalFinaElf, the Oil-For-Food program with UN oversight (and a 2.2% commission for the UN for that oversight), pre-war sweetheart contracts with Saddam on untapped oil fields by France, Russia and China, and failure to take action that would have forced Saddam to comply with UN resolutions seem to point to some pretty damning complicity, but the Bush administration has not exploited that information yet (although the information has appeared in both the NY Times (linked above) and Canada's Financial Post in a column by Diane Francis (FP link is dead.)

Canada's credibility has been damaged by its connection to the oil company TotalFinaElf. A sizeable oil exploration contract with Iraq was obtained when Saddam was in power by TotalFinaElf, and the majority shareholder in that company is Montreal's Paul Desmarais, whose youngest son, Andre, is married to Chretien's daughter, France. Desmarais has connections to Paul Martin, former Mulroney cabinet ministers and even former Ontario premier and NDP leader Bob Rae. And Chretien's nephew Raymond is Canada's ambassador to France. (Canadians might be very surprised if they read the linked article about Mr. Desmarais and his associates.)

You see, it wasn't the war in Iraq that was "all about oil", it was the opposition to the war that was about oil. Coming to terms with that is going to further lessen the influence of the UN on the United States.

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Zahra Kazemi (cont.)

Sept. 13 - A coalition of several journalism and human rights groups, including Kazemi's son, Stephan Hachemi, is pushing the Canadian government to pursue all legal avenues to obtain justice for Zahra Kazemi, the photojournalist killed while under detention in Iran last summer.

Specifically, the groups want Ottawa to:

- Investigate all cases of torture of Canadians abroad in accordance with the Criminal Code.

- Present Kazemi's case to the United Nations and ask it to lead an investigation through its Human Rights Commission.

- And submit an appeal to the International Court of Justice concerning violations of the Vienna Convention that prevented Kazemi, who had dual Iranian-Canadian citizenship, from getting proper consular protection.

Catherine Duhamel of the International Judicial Resources Centre said the coalition does not have wild expectations.

"It's a start," Duhamel told a news conference. "Two laws in Canada concerning Mrs. Kazemi's case are applicable. Why not use them? Start using them and see what happens."

Why not indeed?

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Ottawa requests UNHRC to take up Kazemi case

Sept. 2 -- The investigation into the death of Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi is to be reopened as Charges have been dropped in Kazemi file against the two interogators because the inditements were incomplete.

Meanwhile, Ottawa has asked the UN Human Rights Commission to take up the Kazemi case.

It's nice to know that that the UNHRC, chaired by LIBYA, and which voted to deny consultative status to Reporters Without Borders, will be on the case.

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Bruce Balfour released

Sept. 1 -- A Lebanese court has found Bruce Balfour not guilty of colllaborating with Israel and he may be free as early as Tuesday.

Another Canadian citizen, Grant Livingstone, who stood trial in absentia on the same charge was also found innocent.

Canadian Citizenship and Immigration Minister Denis Coderre met earlier Monday with Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and said Canada respected Lebanon's judicial system.

Coderre said he also met with Balfour at the suburban Roumieh prison, east of Beirut, who appeared to be in good health.

There is nothing in this article to indicate why Min. Coderre handled this instead of Foreign Affairs Min. Bill Graham. You, of course, are free to speculate.

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