Iran yellow-badges fallout: Amir Taheri comments
posted at 6:59 pm on May 22, 2006 by Allahpundit
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He says he’s sticking by his story, which after all wasn’t a news story but an opinion column, and if other people treated it as a news story then that’s their fault for having “jumped the gun.” Errrrr…
He also says (or seems to say) he never claimed the provisions about non-Muslims had been formally enacted, only that they were being considered:
Many ideas are being discussed with regard to implementation, including special markers, known as zonnars, for followers of Judaism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism…
I have been informed of the ideas under discussion thanks to my sources in Tehran, including three members of the Majlis who had tried to block the bill since it was first drafted in 2004. I do not know which of these ideas or any will be eventually adopted. We will know once the committee appointed to discuss them presents its report, perhaps in September.
Compare that to what he wrote in the National Post on Friday. Emphases mine:
The law … envisages separate dress codes for religious minorities, Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians, who will have to adopt distinct colour schemes to make them identifiable in public. The new codes would enable Muslims to easily recognize non-Muslims so that they can avoid shaking hands with them by mistake, and thus becoming najis (unclean)…
Although the final shape of the uniforms is yet to be established, there is consensus on a number of points… Religious minorities would have their own colour schemes. They will also have to wear special insignia, known as zonnar, to indicate their non-Islamic faiths. Jews would be marked out with a yellow strip of cloth sewn in front of their clothes while Christians will be assigned the colour red. Zoroastrians end up with Persian blue as the colour of their zonnar.
He sure sounded certain to me. Jim Henley also notes that there’s no record of “Moustafa Pourhardani,” whom Taheri names as Iran’s Minister of Islamic Orientation, anywhere online.
The New York Sun follows up by quoting another prominent Iranian exile, Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi, as corroborating Taheri’s account, for whatever that’s worth at this point. The question at this hour: if the story really is “classic pre-war propaganda,” which, oh which, unspecified government could be behind such a dastardly deed?
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You know, I referenced that original article. I used it on this leftwing blog I go to when I want to argue with the moonbats. As you can no doubt guess, that blew up in my face and I looked like a freakin’ idiot. (more so than usual)
I’m tellin’ you, I was steamed…
EFG on May 22, 2006 at 7:05 PM
We can always borrow their “fake but accurate” meme.
Kokonut on May 22, 2006 at 7:11 PM
I’m still puttin’ a red badge on my .45
;-)
speed647 on May 22, 2006 at 7:16 PM
Badges? We don’t need no steenkin’ badges! (Sorry, couldn’t resist!) :-D
Chappy on May 22, 2006 at 7:21 PM
How many times do we have to be told:
“It’s not the accuracy of the information, it’s the seriousness of the charge.”
NTWR on May 22, 2006 at 7:31 PM
So, in a Muslim country, we need to wear a badge so they don’t accidentally shake our unclean, infidel hand. How about in a Christian or Jewish country, they wear their explosive belts on the outside so we don’t accidentally get on a bus with them.
right as rain man on May 22, 2006 at 7:39 PM
Here is a couple of steam of consciousness points.
1) We say the blogs will overtake the MSM. We brought down Dan Rather, memo-gate…Yeah, all true stories, but there is more.
2) We need the MSM. They provide the articles that we blog about. Most bloggers can’t create stories. Yeah, I know Michael Yon is an exception. He covers the wars and then blogs it. Me? I gotta day job and I ain’t goin’ anywhere as long as I got bills to pay. So no MSM, no bloggers. Unless we just wanna blog about our personal lives.
3) We criticize the MSM for being too quick to jump the gun with some of their stories. They are always fighting a deadline, and want to be the first paper to publish some scoop. So sometimes, they cut corners on checking their facts and sources. This is true. But…
4) We do the same thing. Or at least I did. When that article about the yellow badges for Jews in Iran came out, I took that article and I ran with it. I went to some Moonbat blog and used that to make my political points. And I got creamed because of it. Why? Because I wanted to make my point with this brand new article before they had heard of it. I wanted to surprise them with it. To have the “scoop” so to speak.
5) I know what I didn’t do. I didn’t check to see if other papers were confirming it. I didn’t check the sources closely enough. His sources appeared to be off the record Iranian Exiles.
6) I know I was fuming at Newsweek for running the flushing Koran story based off of the anonymous sources. But I guess I didn’t mind when those anonymous sources were telling me something that I agreed with.
7) Maybe we need to come up with some sort of professional code of ethics for bloggers. Hmmmm. I have just reviewed that sentence and it sounds like arrogant crap. I don’t want to insinuate that only “professionally trained” people can be bloggers. Screw that. I get steamed when people start talking about how superior the editors and reporters at the New York Times are because they are “professionals” and we are just a bunch of untrained, unlettered cranks and hacks. BUT…
8) I don’t want to run off and make a fool of myself.
9) LGF has a code. It goes like this: “Lord, grant me the serenity to ignore the trolls,
the courage to debate with honest opponents,
and the wisdom to know the difference.”
10) That is more what I am looking for. Wisdom. I suppose that is what point #7 is trying to get to. A code, or guide to enabling those of us who blog and comment to ensure that we don’t make some of the same mistakes that the MSM has.
11) I am going to get controversial with some of you. Here is an example of what I think we in the blogosphere have done poorly. The reporting on the Jill Carroll rescue.
12) She was recovered, and made those comments about her kidnappers immediately after she was freed.
13) And some in the blogosphere did a PILE DRIVER on this woman. Saying she had betrayed us, she was an example of Dhimmitude…etc.
14) Well, I gotta tell you, her saying those things didn’t make it so. If after you have been held hostage for months and months, if they say we are going to let you go, but you will make a little statement saying we were merciful kidnappers with hearts of gold, brother, I am telling you, make the statement and come home.
15) In the first Gulf War, when our pilots were shot down, and paraded in front of cameras, some of them said that they were war criminals, and they were bombing baby food factories, etc. Well, we also notice they were all beat up, and assumed that they had been tortured by Saddam, so we didn’t hold it against them. I think this Jill Carroll deserved the same. But some of us didn’t give it to her.
16) And then after she was back a couple of days, she told us that she had been forced to say those things. She said she did NOT agree with them, but she wanted to come home alive.
17) Not our finest hour…
Anyway, that is all I have to say about that (Forest Gump rip off) Do any of you all have anything to agree or disagree with about this?
Very respectfully
EFG
EFG on May 22, 2006 at 7:46 PM
Also, I’ve heard this hand shaking BS before. Seems kind of hard to assimilate into a culture if they can’t shake a non-muslim hand. Have you ever seen a story from the MSM about that aspect of the religion of peace? No, they won’t criticize or expose anything negative about Islam. Too busy singing Kumbaya!
right as rain man on May 22, 2006 at 7:47 PM
Well, EFG, I don’t think we need the MSM in the form it is right now. The press is biased and thus a threat to our society. When the time comes that they’re able to influence a national election, like Mary Mapes and Dan Rather attempted, their freedom should be curtailed.
We pride ourselves on a free press, but we shouldn’t let that blind us to the threat of an imperial press. Mary Mapes stalked her National Guard story for years hoping to damage Bush and wasn’t above using fake documents to achieve it. I think the press has shown they can’t handle the freedom they were granted and should be reigned in.
right as rain man on May 22, 2006 at 9:24 PM
The MSM is the MSM and the Blogs are the Blogs. Let them both keep an eye on each other and let no mistake go unpunished. In the end we get a better MSM and better Blogosphere.
At least it’s better than when the MSM had free reign.
moc23 on May 22, 2006 at 9:49 PM
EFG,
About all one can do is learn from their mistakes.
I am glad that the badge story came out and blew up. I found myself breaking a few of my own rules:
1) Checking for other sources
2) Believeing what I read because it fit in with what I want to beleive
3) Not thinking criticaly about what I read.
We all make mistakes. Its only natural to want to be reasured or even confirmed by what we read. I think many of us fell for the story because we felt that it may help wake the world up to the danger of Iran. Was the story true? No. Is the danger real? Yes. But unless we wantt o walk down that slippery path of Danratherisms we have to deal only with the truths as they present themselves.
Wisdom takes time to accumulate. Just learn from this and move on. I know thats what I am doing.
Wyrd on May 22, 2006 at 10:32 PM
EFG, thank you for your reminder about proper behavior. It is too easy to get impassioned and jump to use information merely because it supports what we want it to support, without checking the veracity of it.
Being right should not come before being correct.
theholyhermit on May 22, 2006 at 11:15 PM
……Just like I said.
:)
VonHelton on May 23, 2006 at 8:32 AM
One thing that blogs have, and the MSM (for the most part) doesn’t, is accountability. EFG has assumed responsibility for any shortcomings he had in using the information. In fact, even before someone pointed it out to him, he made sure that he had done so. Of course, if he hadn’t, I’m sure that others would have called him on it. But even when the MSM gets called on a topic, or if they an error they’ve made, the correction (if made at all) is usually buried somewhere in a place hardly anyone sees. So, kudos to EFG, and to blogs generally!
Chappy on May 23, 2006 at 12:31 PM
EFG, great stuff.
I think what is going to separate bloggers from the MSM is the self respect that requires acknowledging that none of us are all-knowing, or perfect. As long as people like EFG continue to self-regulate, their products will continue to shine.
In this time of huge government, I think we need to stop regulating everything and start regulating ourselves. Honest consumers will always gravitate to honest producers. This is what makes capitalism and the USA great.
Keep plugging along, and with bloggers like EFG the products and consumers will get better, and more factual, and when a big fake story burns through the nation like wildfire bloggers will be able to carefully deconstruct what happened and hold the MSM accountable.
NTWR on May 23, 2006 at 12:47 PM