'Book-Burning -- Persian Style'

A friend's friend is not always a friend, but an enemy's enemy always is. This is a prime reason why we see rogues and radicals of all sorts gaining more and more support even among the ranks of the rational and the educated.

Various aspects of the US foreign policy has been causing animosity all of the world for many decades now. So, it is a given that we all know the reasons to hate/dislike the US. There's also the psyche of disapproval of the super-power's every action. We know that, too.

What we don't know are the reasons to approve of/like the US. Those, in my experience, can be learned readily when one comes in contact with an American. This nation is by far the most accepting and friendly one, but that knowledge is suspect to the rest of world; and understandably so. Not everyone has had my luck of living a life in the melting pot, after all.

Anyways, anecdotes of my gracious experiences in the US will be discussed in another entry. This one is not about friends, it's about enemy's enemies.

In theory, any nation has the right to achieve any level of scientific progress. In theory, every nation should have the right to own nuclear weapons. Living by the book of logic until this morning, I supported Iran's claim on nuclear weapons. They can have it if they can make it, I thought.

There is also the painful truth that the world still runs according to religious maps. There is the graciously overlooked fact that Muslims all over the world are persecuted almost as badly as the Jews were during the Holocaust. Some Muslim countries with nuclear weapons looks to be the only 'solution' to the global persecutions in the short run.

These are all in line with the logics that made Muslims tolerate the Taliban until it was too late. Still, I opted for a generous, sparing, and utopian view, hoping that dialogue will resolve the crises; eventually.

After reading THIS (purging "secular" teachers from faculty positions in the academic institutions) in the news this morning, all I want is to see these nutcases' a**es kicked. As soon and as hard as possible. Iran's move is not a 'resistance' against the West, after all. This country isn't coming out of the decades of darkness, either. Their only agenda is to spread an ultra-conservative brand of Islam. That brand of Islam isn't the Islam I know.

We all know what "book-burning" means. We saw it when the Catholic Church denounced science, we saw it when the Nazis denounced people's rights. This recent "purge" of Iran is all but a modern variation of book-burning. It is time for moderate Muslims to let go of all hesitations and unanimously denounce this crooked, medieval regime.

The only thing worse than a nutcase is a nutcase with a nuclear bomb.