Here’s an interesting tidbit from Stratfor: “Iran will build a 435 mile-long cement wall topped with barbwire along 100 percent of the border between Iran and Afghanistan to prevent the entry of narcotics from Afghanistan, Farsi News Agency reported July 30. The proposed wall is scheduled to be completed by March 2010.”
A “report” on Press TV - the Iranian backed Holocaust-denial outfit which masquerades as a legitimate news organization - approvingly quotes the deputy head of Iran’s Drug Control Headquarters on the wall. “Taha Taheri noted that the barriers will be constructed along the 700-km (435-mile) border between the two countries. He stressed that the move is aimed at halting drug trafficking from Afghanistan to Iran,” it says.
For good measure, the report is headlined: “Iran to build huge wall along Afghan border.” I suppose it’s too much to expect that Press TV might understand irony.
So can we expect massive protests against this apartheid wall? Or at least an ICJ ruling?
For the record, I don’t really think this constitutes an “apartheid” wall. To use this term to describe a structure aimed at curbing drug trafficking makes about as much sense as using it to describe a similar - though smaller and less fortified - structure which has successfully curbed murderous terrorist attacks on innocents going about their daily business. Right?
If it’s not an apartheid wall why did you call it that in your headline?
Some questions:
How much Afghan territory does the wall grab?
Does Iran prevent Afghan refugees from returning to their homes?
Is Iran imposing an economic blockade on the Afghan people as collective punishment for electing the “wrong” government?
Does the Iranian wall snake through Afghan villages and towns, breaking up entire communities?
No - but the Israeli wall does. And that is why, for the recordm, it is an APARTHEID WALL.
If it’s not an apartheid wall why did you call it that in your headline?
To annoy you.
Have the Afghani people been engaged in a war to dispossess or eliminate the Iranian people or an Iranian state for over 60 years?
Also, this really will be almost 100 as opposed to 3% cement wall.
And it’s not intended to prevent Iranian refugees returning, it’s to prevent any more findng refuge in Iran, inter alia.
“Is Iran imposing an economic blockade on the Afghan people as collective punishment for electing the “wrong” government?”
The Iranian government treats Afghan refugees and immigrants like second-class citizens and actively discriminates against them. The state media often demonize them by treating as scapegoats for systemic social problems. I know, I lived there. Meanwhile, it’s a well-documented empirical fact that Israeli Arabs have reached the highest echelons of the Israeli state and civil society (as judges, ambassadors, lawyers, etc.). The same could not be said for Iran’s Afghans.
Ben White (who I think may be Hypocrisy Buster, or someone like him), lived in Brazil for a few years, which has the worst social inequality in the world:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_apartheid_in_Brazil
But White’s an Evangelical Anglican Christian and Latino cultural Catholics are not remotely as interesting as Jews. It’s much more fun reinventing mediaeval paradeigms as the latest thing in social commentary.
I think Hypocrisy Buster to be our old Argentian antisemitic friend, “hasbarah buster” who used to post here and on Hurry’s Place before he got banned for posting obvious lies.
I just posted this link on Ben’s HP thread, which I discovered only late due to my lousy Internet connection on the road — but I think it’s a very worthwhile read in the context of Ben’s piece:
http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/2009/07/nastiness-inspired-by-israel.html