Amnesty International Comes Out Against Meddling
Muslim apostate Nonie Darwish, on FrontPage, criticizes Amnesty's Iran specialist, Elise Auerbach, who bizarely argued that the film The Stoning of Soraya M. does more harm than good because it "distorts" the issue of stoning. Darwish writes:
To Ms. Auerbach, I would like to say that the act of stoning is sensational to all those who cheer and participate in it. As a "specialist," perhaps she can compare the movie to videos of actual stonings, noting not just the horrific violence upon the victim, but also the chilling enthusiasm of the crowd.
The director of the movie, Cyrus Nowrasteh, simply showed the truth that no one in Hollywood dares to touch. Stoning is one of the most horrific acts committed against humanity. I want to thank Mr. Nowrasteh from the bottom of my heart, not just for the realistic stoning scene, but also for his portrayal of the Muslim culture of secrecy, pride and shame which condones, indeed encourages, such actions.
When I lived as a Muslim in the Middle East, I personally knew victims of honor killings, and heard about the bodies of women floating in the Nile that no one cared to report. Even the police ignored such horrific murders. In Muslim culture, women's bodies belong to men. If they are shamed, men cannot live with dignity and respect in society unless they kill the suspected wife or daughter. One of the most moving parts in the movie was the pressure placed on Soraya's father to throw the first stone. That father could not have survived in dignity if he had refused. It was brilliantly done and so true.
Speaking as though the defense of human rights in Iran are the exclusive right of one group or another, Auerbach sounds like an Iranian official when she say, "Iranians don't need people from outside Iran telling them what is good for them." Accordingly, since Amnesty International is an outside entity, can she say the same thing applies to both her and her organization? Indeed, it has been external pressure applied by that very organization and others which has compelled Iran to place moratoriums, however brief, on stoning in the past.
...Ms. Auerbach is apparently very concerned that the film portrays Iranians "as barbaric, bloodthirsty savages." I cannot understand why she is more concerned about the reputation of Iran than the atrocity of stoning people to death there. The movie never generalizes about Iranians. It's a cheap shot by her to criticize a well-done movie that stands for human rights.
Auerbach stresses that "we must look at stoning in the overall context of executions in Iran." Wow. Is she talking about the slow hangings of homosexuals in public squares? I don't think so. Execution of murderers is swift, but perpetrators of "moral" crimes are killed torturously. Ms. Auerbach must understand that the barbaric, cruel and slow death by stoning in which fathers, sons and husbands participate is not equal to execution of mass murderers which must still be done humanely.
Amnesty International, a noble and well-intentioned organization, has less impact on ending tyranny in the world than a great and courageous film like "The Stoning of Soraya M."
'Auerbach sounds like an Iranian official when she say, "Iranians don't need people from outside Iran telling them what is good for them."'
I've despised the fraud that is Amnesty International for a long time, but this is still stunning. AI, more or less by definition, tells countries committing atrocities "what is good for them". Of course, it also tells Americans, over and over, how vicious we are and "what's good for us". They've never seemed any problem with that before.
AlamedaMike at July 20, 2009 1:16 AM
I'm glad to see my lifelong contempt for AI is fully justified.
MarkD at July 20, 2009 6:45 AM
how is it possible to write such things as: "we must look at stoning in the overall context of executions in Iran"? Isn't this one of the groups that says that the death penalty is babaric in the US? Where does this self hatred come from?
SwissArmyD at July 20, 2009 7:09 AM
AI loves terrorists and murderers, so long as they are of the Islamic persuasion. It's why they have so very little to say about Hamas, and so very, very much to say about Israel.
kishke at July 20, 2009 10:35 AM
Good to have more reason for AI to make me want to vomit.
momof4 at July 20, 2009 10:36 AM
We "throw stones" at the depraved, barbaric Muslims as we sit here in the U.S. -- the only "civilized" nation which still imposes capital punishment (although more prisoners die by suicide than are finally executed -- talk about slow and tortuous!) We also calmly accept the killing before birth of 1/4 of the children conceived in this country.
When we demonstrate our own commitment to life over death we can step out of our "glass house" and really let 'em fly!
Jay R at July 20, 2009 1:11 PM
BTW,
Look at photos taken at lynchings and public executions in this country -- many of which occurred within the memory of living people --and observe the men, women and children enjoying a picnic-like atmosphere. But for the current laws against public execution, I expect not much would have changed.
Jay R at July 20, 2009 1:34 PM
Jay, for the past several hundred years there have been attempts to make executions as painless as possible... its why the guillotine was invented, for example.
I'm not defending capital punishment. There IS a spectrum, however. Hanging is much quicker and less painful than stoning.
NicoleK at July 20, 2009 2:42 PM
"There IS a spectrum, however. Hanging is much quicker and less painful than stoning." NicoleK
Not only is this true... but there is a major difference with stoning. When you hang, decap, use a firing squad or lethal inject. it is the STATE or other broad authority who carries the act out. Stoning is in the hands of your neighbors, and your family. Not quantifying good or bad there, but there is a different level.
SwissArmyD at July 20, 2009 3:06 PM
"We also calmly accept the killing before birth of 1/4 of the children conceived in this country."
Not to mention the billions that are casually disposed of by birth control pills and condoms.
It's a slaughterhouse out there, and that's not even counting the zygotes cut down in their prime.
Oh, Mildred. It's all so SORDID.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at July 20, 2009 3:32 PM
Are we missing a very important point here? Whether or not you favor the death penalty, it is being used in a quick and merciful way for criminals while the slow torturous death is saved for crimes supposedly against morality, and let's not forget which gender is at the bad end of these stonings. I'm not sure, Jay R, how you can possibly do a comparison of some young teenage girl getting stoned because she was raped thus bringing dishonor to her family with a young teenage girl getting an abortion or even a murderer sentenced to the death penalty. Yes, a life is a life, but please. Where is due process for a woman tried for adultery in Iran? Where are her rights period? She is nothing but a possession. Last I checked, when humans were possessions in this country, they were called slaves and slavery was abolished. Maybe we should say that slavery was what made us what we were and all go out and buy us a nice slave somewhere. It is called human rights and AI is dead wrong here.
Kristen at July 20, 2009 5:40 PM
Not to mention the billions that are casually disposed of by birth control pills and condoms."
Oh really, Gog? Gotta go there with the absurdity? I realize, you're going way out past left feild to demonstrate you think he's IN left feild, but come on. A condom full of sperm does not a human make. A sperm in an egg has a fully unique genetic code which immediately gets to work making the human.
"when humans were possessions in this country, they were called slaves"
or embryos. fetus's. Clumps of cells (wait, isn't that all of us?)
momof4 at July 20, 2009 7:11 PM
JayR, momof4 - If you are upset with people who get abortions then what are your feeling about a god who designed the human body to spontanously abort and constantly fail to implate each and every fertilized egg in the uteran wall?
www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001488.htm
It is estimated that up to half of all fertilized eggs die and are lost (aborted) spontaneously, usually before the woman knows she is pregnant. Among those women who know they are pregnant, the miscarriage rate is about 15-20%.
So if half of all pregnacies miscarry before a woman knows she is pregnat, and 20% of the surviving half(which is 10% of the whole) miscarry once the woman knows she is pregnant
That gives us a failure rate of 60%(in a first world counrty, who knows what the failure rate is in a shithole like Somalia),
Meanwhile abortion rates in the USA are around 20%, that is 20% of the 40% that survived gods flawed design
So that gives us a figure of 8% of the whole, 8% of all pregnacies end in abortion, while 60% of all pregnaices end due to gods negligence or design.
god kills more babies(at nearly 8x the rate) then abotrion clinics so why arent you mad at him?
lujlp at July 20, 2009 11:19 PM
And again...how can you compare a young girl getting stoned to death to save her father's honor with abortion. How can you compare slavery and the atrocities associated with slavery to an abortion. Are you condemning the stoning, Momof4 or Gog? Are you outraged that this goes on and that an international organization that supposedly fights for human rights is minimizing this? Or was this just a platform for you to rant and rave the usual abortion is murder shit? I didn't realize that as long as abortion is legal and safe for women in America that it doesn't matter what is done to people in other countries. Make sure to send AI a donation and tell them that Iran should continue the stoning until they can get Roe v. Wade overturned.
Kristen at July 21, 2009 6:13 AM
Kristen - isn't AI the group that started the whole bumper sticker about "nobody is free while others are oppressed"?
They shouldn't complain when it gets turned back around on them.
You can either stand against evil or not. It does not matter that you have not got the resources to fight against every evil that exists, just that you fight.
lujlp:
Are you really comparing the body's natural response to the quite unnatural forced removal of an occupant who clearly does not want to leave? Is that really where you want to take this?
brian at July 21, 2009 9:05 AM
For those who use religion as the platform to disagree with abortion, yes.
If you are going to argue removig a clump f cwlls is murder becuase their god says so then my response is what about those clumps of cells that spontanously abort due to gods negligence, or purpouseful intent, in desiging a flawed human species
They want to pull innane moral theories out of their asses then I'll pull an even bigger peice of shit out of mine
Now for those who want to argue against abortion without bringing theology into it I'll use a diferent track.
But in the 20something year I've been aware of this issus I have never heard one pro lifer who didnt use god or religion as the core of their opposition
lujlp at July 21, 2009 9:54 AM
Then you didn't "listen" when I explained it.
brian at July 21, 2009 11:30 AM
Are you really comparing the body's natural response to the quite unnatural forced removal of an occupant who clearly does not want to leave? Is that really where you want to take this?
So it's OK if it's natural? That's just weird. Mother Nature can choose to eject my (theoretical) fetus, no harm no foul, but if I do it, I'm a murderer. Maybe the fetus doesn't "want to leave" in the case of a miscarriage, either. Maybe it was just getting comfortable in there when some random genetic flaw booted it to the curb. Or, more likely, it had no feelings on the subject whatsoever, because the part of its brain that houses the will to live hadn't developed yet.
MonicaP at July 21, 2009 12:35 PM
brian, I dont retain info or arguments I find to be innane, stupid, uniteresting or patronizing.
The fact that I cant for the life of me remember what your grounds for opposing abortion is tells me I either missed it or found it so uttery unpersuasive that I didnt bother to remember it
lujlp at July 21, 2009 12:58 PM
And if yor ground for opposing abortion arent based on any given mythology then what do you care if I have an argument that highlights the absurdity of such mythology based arguments?
lujlp at July 21, 2009 1:00 PM
I'm sorry to say it would never have occurred to me before reading Auerbach's review that anyone from AI would ever write such a thing. (Though I wish I'd read it before reading Darwish's, just so I could have come to my own conclusions first.)
Isn't AI supposed to be bolder than most when it comes to putting the blame where it's due? Forgive my naivete.
But one thing I've always wanted to know is: Since stonings and "honor killings" have been in the international news for years, that implies that the nations that practice them - even when they're illegal - don't care about the image they're projecting, since the majority of the people in such societies seem to support such practices. Why, then, are "honor killings" illegal in ANY nation that condones them? It's very strange.
lenona at July 21, 2009 2:42 PM
Why, then, are "honor killings" illegal in ANY nation that condones them?
They are paying lip service on an international level to get aid monies from 1st world countries
lujlp at July 21, 2009 3:01 PM
Because I'm sick of the religion-hatred.
brian at July 21, 2009 4:47 PM
Its nt really hatred.
If you were arguing with a guy who thought 2+2=3 would it be considered hatred if you argued againts the obvious flaw in his reasoning?
lujlp at July 21, 2009 5:06 PM
'So that gives us a figure of 8% of the whole, 8% of all pregnacies end in abortion, while 60% of all pregnaices end due to gods negligence or design.'
Weirdest math I've seen in a while....'abortion' or 'miscarriage' is applied only to the eggs that implant in the uterus, not to those who just whistle through for various reasons....blighted ovum (nothing in the egg sac), fertilization too late in the cycle for implantation, or a faulty zygote. It's a biological function. It's not 'abortion' or even 'miscarriage' as no implantation has taken place, and it's unknown to the mother. Miscarriage is a natural process, many miscarriages are blighted ovums or the baby failed to develop properly and the embryo dies.
Abortion is always a **conscious decision** on the part of the woman to go in, lie down, be anesthesized, and have the fetus sucked out of her uterus.
Using statistics for spontaneous abortion and non-implantation to water down abortion statistics is one of the strangest arguments I've ever seen.
'So it's OK if it's natural? That's just weird. Mother Nature can choose to eject my (theoretical) fetus, no harm no foul, but if I do it, I'm a murderer. Maybe the fetus doesn't "want to leave" in the case of a miscarriage, either. Maybe it was just getting comfortable in there when some random genetic flaw booted it to the curb.'
Genetic abnormalities incompatible with life trigger miscarriages, among other things. Lungs don't develop, heart doesn't form properly....the body rejects them, yes. The alternative would be for them to rot inside of you after they die, I'll take the body's defense mechanism, thank you. Not that it's "OK" it never is...most miscarriages are followed by weeks or months of grieving.
Are you really saying that actively going to a clinic and having an implanted fetus sucked out is exactly the same morally as non-implantation or spontaneous abortion? Both natural processes beyond the ability of the mother to stop them? Saying 'It's okay to get an abortion because my body does the same thing on it's own in certain cases' , to borrow your phrase 'is just weird'...abortion requires a conscious decision, that's the difference.
crella at July 21, 2009 6:11 PM
A few thngs crella,
1. The website which places the failure rate of pregnacy didnt mention the odds of a fertilized egg not even implanting, I just mentioned it as an aside. The 60% failure rate was regarding failure of pregnacies not failure of eggs to implant
2. Genetic abnormiaties dont always naturally abort - case in point http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44220000/jpg/_44220774_203family-ap.jpg
3. This argument only applies to those who use religion and god as an argument against abortion.
If one wants to agrue that god is againt abortion of any reason(down syndrome, systic fibrosis, dysplasia, etc) then they also need to agrue againt the babies "aborted" by god, either thru his intentional or unintentional flaw in the design of the human reproductive system.
4. If your argument against abortion does not rely on inane religious overtones then my argument about gods incompitance or negligence is moot as it is taylored specifically for the god freaks
lujlp at July 21, 2009 7:34 PM
1. Fine.
2. Never said that. Of course many babies are born with defects, but usually those that are survivable. Multiple legs are survivable, heart and lungs are fine, pregnancy comes to term. "Genetic abnormalities incompatible with life trigger miscarriages, among other things." was what I said...blighted ovum, defects incompatible with life...common causes of miscarriage. Not 'all causes' but 'common causes'.
3.Weird reasoning. I still think so. Free will of the mother has nothing to do with miscarriage, and has everything to do with abortion.
4. Your contempt for religious people is striking.
crella at July 21, 2009 10:07 PM
1.NA
2.Never said you did, just pointing it out, and here is another tory for you, child born with dysplasia of the lungs, wast a problem in the womb but was one the child was born, funny how they disconnected life support after it was born, but had she sought an abortion she would have been condemed
http://www.click2houston.com/news/4285371/detail.html
3. No more wierd than people who think they know what an imaginary man in the sky wants them to do - in fact its just as wierd - which was my point
4.Thank you, although my contmept is for religion itself, the only religious people I hold in contmept are those who use it as a cudgel to enforce their will upon others
Ofcouse if you have some proof as to why your god is less imaginary, less impotent, or less crazy then say Anubis, Lolth, Ishtar, or Silvanus - I am willing to listen
lujlp at July 21, 2009 10:31 PM
Who said I believed in god?
crella at July 22, 2009 5:35 AM
If you dont belive in a god then why would you care about an argument specifiacclay designed to highlight and counter the absurdites of a god/religion based anti abortion argument?
lujlp at July 22, 2009 7:09 AM
Because you are using it as a method to shut down debate.
"You believe that God xxx, therefore I dismiss your argument."
It's just an extension of "Shut up, he explained".
brian at July 22, 2009 8:10 AM
It doesnt shut down debate - it opens it up. The people who use "because god says so" are the ones trying to shut down debate.
The beauty of my dumbass argumnet is it forces god freaks to put their god in the same hot seat as those they condem for seeking abortions.
If they choose to run away from the harsh realities, that is on them, not me.
But if some jeasus freak wants to harass a rape victim, or a mother who will give birth to a child that the state will remove life support from once its born anyway - or even some tramp getting her 23rd abortion as a means of birth control
then what is so wrong in asking them to hold god to the same standard they seem to think god wants them to hold everyone else too?
If the god freaks want to claim its morally wrong to cause the death of any child/fetus/zygote(stem cell reaserch) then they should also belive it is morally wrong ffor god to "kill" 60% of all unborn potential humans as well
lujlp at July 22, 2009 9:16 AM
Luj, that argument is the very epitome of stupid.
It would be the same as arguing that God is morally wrong for letting people die at all, and therefore people ought not complain about murder. After all, if God kills people, then why can't people do the same?
Either there are human rights, or there are not. You don't get to pick and choose what constitutes "human" once the genomic requirements are met.
And nature is nature. Nature will do what nature does. A miscarriage or still-birth is not something done consciously. An abortion is.
Therein lies the difference.
Otherwise, we'd be suing God for human rights violations whenever someone keeled over from heart failure.
brian at July 22, 2009 10:51 AM
Luj, that argument is the very epitome of stupid.
At least you get that, those that claim to belive in a god ran away from the argument
As I said this stuoid argument only applies to people who think god is against abortion becuse (insert mytholigical dogma here).
For people how think abortion is wrong for rational resasons this argument is as stupid a counter as the becase god says so argument is
lujlp at July 22, 2009 11:09 AM
Well, maybe if you channeled your energy into something productive rather than hating on the religious, you'd get something worthwhile out of life instead of pain and agony.
Convincing a believer that they are wrong just isn't going to happen. Stop trying.
brian at July 22, 2009 12:05 PM
If that were true brian there wouldnt be any athiests.
And disagreement and I suppose ridicule would be the best word, of a mythology and its tenets isnt hatred
lujlp at July 22, 2009 12:40 PM
No, luj, it's hate. I know hate when I see it.
And if there's any group more smugly convinced of their evidence free beliefs, it's either Atheists or Global Warmists. I haven't decided which is more insufferable.
brian at July 22, 2009 2:31 PM
Please provide your evidence of god then if athiests have evidence free belifs
lujlp at July 22, 2009 4:46 PM
Please provide your evidence of spontaneous abiogenesis.
This could go on forever. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
So far the best you've got is that humans potentially evolved from apes, but nobody can seem to figure out a time scale that makes anything resembling sense.
In other words, where's the monolith, luj?
brian at July 23, 2009 5:33 AM
As far as evidence of God? Simple.
The measured loss of an audio signal at the transition boundary of air and water is approximately 16 decibels. In other words, if you put two microphones one immediately above and one immediately below the surface of the ocean, the one below would capture sound that was 16 dB softer than the one above.
The human ear is comprised of three sections - the outer ear; which gathers and directs sound, the middle ear; which converts pressure waves in air to physical motion, and the inner ear; which converts physical motion into nerve impulses.
The inner ear is filled with salt water, the middle ear with air. They are connected by three tiny little bones, which some ancient whose name escapes me at the moment (Newton?) determined to function as an amplifier. The gain could be calculated by the way the bones move.
The gain of this amplifier?
Approximately 16 decibels.
What are the chances of nature getting that precisely right on the first try?
There are countless examples of such things throughout biology.
By asking me to believe in an uncreated Earth, you are asking me to believe that the Universe rolls nothing but 20s.
brian at July 23, 2009 5:39 AM
"If you dont belive in a god then why would you care about an argument specifiacclay designed to highlight and counter the absurdites of a god/religion based anti abortion argument?"
Because it struck me as curiously illogical. It actually made me roll my eyes as I read it. Brian said it well--
"It would be the same as arguing that God is morally wrong for letting people die at all, and therefore people ought not complain about murder. After all, if God kills people, then why can't people do the same?"
"it forces god freaks to put their god in the same hot seat as those they condem for seeking abortions."
No it doesn't. You think it does but why? A pregnant woman has no control over a miscarriage, whether it's human biology that makes it happen, or it's God pushing the miscarriage button....she does choose to get an abortion.
crella at July 24, 2009 1:34 AM
So explain to me why we're arguing about abortion again? The murder of an adult women isn't interesting enough for you?
Chrissy at July 24, 2009 8:02 AM
Well it started like this-
'We "throw stones" at the depraved, barbaric Muslims as we sit here in the U.S. -- the only "civilized" nation which still imposes capital punishment (although more prisoners die by suicide than are finally executed -- talk about slow and tortuous!) We also calmly accept the killing before birth of 1/4 of the children conceived in this country'
but really got rolling after this --
'JayR, momof4 - If you are upset with people who get abortions then what are your feeling about a god who designed the human body to spontanously abort and constantly fail to implate each and every fertilized egg in the uteran wall?
*snip*
god kills more babies(at nearly 8x the rate) then abotrion clinics so why arent you mad at him?'
That's why :-D I wasn't so much arguing about abortion as the mysterious logic in the above post......
I hope everyone has a nice weekend :-D
crella at July 25, 2009 1:17 AM
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