I’m having too much fun watching ‘Army-of-Juan’ Cole stagger across the Internet (metaphor selected in honor of his assertion that Hitchens is only challenging him because he’s drunk) to let it go this weekend. So I decided to do some homework on Cole’s core claim – that Hitchens had ‘stolen’ his email.
I first thought of Googling Cole’s own site to see what he’d said about others – for example – revealing national secrets via ‘pilfered’ documents, but I didn’t think that would be hard enough to be any fun.
So here’s Cole’s latest, an epistolary post that opens with:
Cole/Weisberg Correspondence on Hitchens
With Mr. Weisberg’s permission, I am posting our correspondence on the Hitchens hatchet job on me in Slate earlier this week.
and ends with Jacob Weisberg:
Dear Mr Cole,
I have read your message and also your blog post today. In my judgment, there is no ethical issue here. Commentators are under no obligation to call people they write about. And Hitchens correctly described the email he quoted from as being from your Gulf discussion group. Your substantive disagreement about the translation and the issues around it are a fit matter for public debate, which appears to be taking place.
Yours sincerely,
Jacob Weisberg
In between, Cole rants about the valuable intellectual property stolen by Hitchens:
I am sorry that I did not do a better job of explaining the issue of the purloined email. It is not a matter of going to the law, but it is a matter of Slate’s reputation, especially in the blogosphere . . .
The email correspondence that Mr. Hitchens published without my permission had not appeared publicly. The emails were sent to a small private list, of scholars and experts, for reaction, and I was aiming to write something journalistic or give a major address on Ahmadinejad. The list to which I sent the emails has a requirement that no material appearing there be forwarded off the list. Obviously, a list member violated his pledge and passed the messages to Hitchens.
In his original fulmination, Cole said:
I belong to a private email discussion group called Gulf2000. It has academics, journalists and policy makers on it. It has a strict rule that messages appearing there will not be forwarded off the list. It is run, edited and moderated by former National Security Council staffer for Carter and Reagan, Gary Sick, now a political scientist at Columbia University. The “no-forwarding” rule is his, and is intended to allow the participants to converse about controversial matters without worrying about being in trouble. Also, in an informal email discussion, ideas evolve, you make mistakes and they get corrected, etc. It is a rough, rough draft.
So, being a fact-based guy, i decided to do a simple test.
I Googled [“gulf/2000” message], and got a pretty extensive result set (420 results).
I went through about half of them, taking about six minutes, and came up with this list of sites, blogs, articles, and messages that cited, quoted, or copied messages from the gulf/2000 listserv:
A guide to the Gulf arms bazaar maze
Center for Contemporary Conflict: “In Defense of the Nation”: Terror and Reform in Saudi Arabia
Across the Bay: The Latest on the Hit
AFSA News: Diplomats on the Front Lines
Beeman: Understanding Osama Bin Laden (fwd)
Friends of a Free Iran: “People’s Mojahedin of Iran” Mission report
I could do more, but this is boring.
Cole’s super-confidential mailing list is leakier than the CIA. Sadly, it contains the ‘rough draft of history’ that he is preparing; and rather than simply standing behind his words, or accepting that they may be in error, he explains them away as “just sayin'”…in an academic sense, of course.
So, Cole’s offense appears to be – once again – “typing while tired.” (check the PPS) I wonder if the Mayo Clinic has a program for that?
Cole’s attempt to drag Slate into his personal vendetta with Hitchens is yet another example of his resort to the kind of chickensh-t intimidation that he accuses everyone else of using on him. As if he can frighten Slate into protecting him from Hitchens.
The next step will be to go to the Kostapo and demand an investigation of Jacob Weisberg – and while they’re at it, anybody else with a “berg” in their name.
Glancing quickly through your links, I don’t see any instance of a person claiming that a message was published without the approval of the author. You are being kinder to Hitchens than he is to himself:
bqHH: Now how did you come by his e-mail?
bqCH: Well, people send me these things. I have my methods. [Story follows about a group member who maligned him.] I hit back. I mean, people are sorry if they do that kind of thing.
bqHH: Do you believe that your obtaining of the e-mail was ethical?
bqCH: Well, not to split a hair, but the person who sent it to me should, I suppose, be asked that. I believe that I have a right to keep an eye on a website that circulates gross professional slanders and libels against me, yes, and to point out that some of the people involved in this little circle are not as smart or as knowledgeable as they claim.
Normblog links to this; you will prbably want to read it, since Hitchens says lots of the derogatory things you like to hear about Cole (and then disparages him for using ad hominem arguments!).
Hitchens is not denying that there is an ethical issue here; the person who sent it to him may have acted improperly. Evidently he considers it okay to use a weapon given to him without asking how it was obtained. Make what you will of that. But the reference to “this little circle” indicates that he does regard such communications as private.
The larger issue concerns the correct translation. I’m still browsing through the various arguments about this, but Cole evidently has a point here: the much-quoted phrase “wiped off the map” seems to be a mistranslation.
Cole’s “point” is very, very, very far from “evident,” vid. the responses from Iranians. In fact, it is quite NON-evident when applied to a regime that literally follows this practice in its maps. Among many, many other obvious indicators that provide context to all but the regime’s apologists.
Why am I reminded of “Mars Attacks” here?
Re: Hitchens, Juan Cole is just upset that he has been caught out, and instead of being able to snipe behind closed doors he is being engaged in public and called on it. That kind of cowardly conduct of slandering someone behind their back, in a professional forum, in the full expectation that they will never have an opportunity to reply, is something some of us would consider, oh, I don’t know… “unethical” is a good term.
It’s not like the ravings of moonbat professors are protected by the Official Secrets Act, and obviously one of the list members had a sense of fair play. Good for them. I’d say their actions were very ethical.
Hitchens, who is perfectly entitled to receive that email and react by challenging Cole, has no ethical issues associated with his conduct at all. Cole asked for a donnybrook, got one, and discovered too late that it’s a bad idea to bring a pocketknfe to a gun fight. Tant pis.
I do not agree with the cheering for Christopher Hitchens.
I think the rules of the Gulf2000 group should have been respected.
What to do when the rules of the group are not respected, and when you are baited with messages that should have retained a degree of privacy, is a difficult question.
Throwing a frothing, screaming fit, with chants and a photo essay, would seem not to be the ideal solution.
I would have accepted a claim that what Jaun Cole said was off the record, if he had made that claim and left it there. He has put everything on the record now, in a way as damning to himself as possible.
I think having a reasonable claim that what he said was not to be made public, taken seriously or held against him was Jaun Cole’s opportunity to fold his arms, stand on his rights, and shut up. I think that, literally, Jaun Cole missed an excellent opportunity to shut up.
David,
Let me put it another way. Sitting in a “confidential” mailing list (and A.L. casts heavy doubt on whether that is even a reasonable characterization) and using that forum to slander someone who is not a member, in a professional context, and then being upset when they find out and go after you… is like installing weapons and firing positions in a mosque, shooting at people outside, and then being shocked when people fire back into your “religious site.”
From the Radioblogger interview… and Kevin, how about being honest enough to post the ENTIRE relevant exchange hmm?
bq.. “…He now says I must have hacked into his site, and if I may take one second on that?
HH: Yes.
CH: I wouldn’t know how to do such a thing at all. But that site, not long ago, attacked me in a private exchange, saying that I had claimed to be in Iran interviewing Ayatollah Khomeini’s grandson, Sayed Hussain Khomeini in Qum, which I had, and reporting his huge disagreement with the Iranian theocracy, his feeling that they’re a bunch of tyrannical ratbags, and that the only good thing in the region is the liberation of Iraq. He’s been spending a lot of time, young Khomeini, in Karbala and Najaf helping out the anti-Saddam Shiia. Anyway, someone said that I had made this up, that I hadn’t been to see him, and so forth. And I’ve just felt I had to reply when that was pointed out to me.
HH: Now how did you come by his e-mail?
CH: Well, people send me these things. I have my methods. But I’ll just add that in the Vanity Fair piece where I reported on the goings on in Iran, including my long meeting with young Khomeini, I did illustrate the article with a picture of myself standing in Qum with young Khomeini. So it seemed to me a bit much that anyone would circulate the rumor that I hadn’t been there. And so when I’m attacked, I’ll tell you what I do. I always reply, if it’s a slanderous allegation of that sort, impugning professionalism. And I don’t just reply, I reply again and again. I hit back. I mean, people are sorry if they do that kind of thing.
HH: Do you believe that your obtaining of the e-mail was ethical?
CH: Well, not to split a hair, but the person who sent it to me should, I suppose, be asked that. I believe that I have a right to keep an eye on a website that circulates gross professional slanders and libels against me, yes, and to point out that some of the people involved in this little circle are not as smart or as knowledgeable as they claim.”
p. I believe he does, too. Apparently, someone on the list also had a sense of fair play that said if you were going to slander a guy behind his back in a “confidential” professional forum, it was only fair to bring Hitch into the debates and let him take it from there in a more public venue.
Joe,
I had that Radioblogger interview in mind.
If it was Christopher Hitchens’ policy simply to defend himself, and if that was all he had done, then I would be ready to join in the cheering for him. But he said, and I believe him, that’s his policy to go after a critic on one occasion on and on, to pick at them again and again and again.
I don’t think Christopher Hitchens is someone people should regard as a nice guy. I wouldn’t think of him as a nice guy if he was still a hard lefty on all issues and hadn’t changed his general approach. I don’t think his taking the right side on some issues, still without changing his general manner, fits him for a halo. I won’t cheer for him.
And I still think Jaun Cole missed an excellent opportunity to shut up.
I expect he will do so again, too.
Kevin, you have to click through and read all the links.
From “Dr. Rasool Nafisi’s”:http://www.rnafisi.com/Research.htm bio page.
“I am actively involved with the Gulf 2000 listserve. Incidentally I found on the Web that one of my comments on Ayatollah Taheri is forwarded to another party. I copied the link to show the type of contribution I make to this valuable and highly scholarly listserve.”
Adveance permission not granted? Check. Outrage? Hold on … nope.
There are a few others.
Cole may have felt those were the rules, but I see no sign that anyone else did.
A.L.
I don’t want to involve myself too deeply in this debate between Joe and David.
But I do want to toss this in.
If an individual (in this case JC) is spreading mis or dys information about either another individual (CH) or and situation (Iran) it is absolutely ethical that such dysinformation be addressed.
Since when is it unethical to expose a lie?
AL,
Fair enough, but “leakier than the CIA” still seems a bit strong. Obviously, how angry somebody is going to get depends mainly on how a piece is used. If someone quotes a private e-mail of mine on the web saying “here’s Kevin’s take on the issue, it’s spot-on”, chances are I’m not going to blow a fuse. If a journalist uses it for a hatchet-job then I’m entitled to be angry – mainly with the leaker, of course. In your cite, Nafisi seems happy enough that his comments are being circulated, but the tone doesn’t suggest that he regards this as normal.
Joe Katzman,
I have already seen the “the responses from Iranians” on this site and some discussion elsewhere. There is widespread agreement that “wiped off the map” is a mistranslation. Your comment doesn’t seem to add anything in that regard.
“… and Kevin, how about being honest enough to post the ENTIRE relevant exchange hmm?”
AFAIC it is common practice to use square brackets to indicate that part of a text has been excised. That’s what I did: “[Story follows about a group member who maligned him.]” Didn’t you notice that, or are you simply unfamiliar with that practice?
To my mind that’s the only relevant bit, but I also pointed out where the full interview could be found. It seemed reasonable to suppose that you guys could find your way to Normblog. As for the paragraph which comes before, what of it? Hitchens is describing a different episode. Do you have reason to believe Cole was involved? You appear to think he was, judging by your reference to “cowardly conduct of slandering someone behind their back”, but Hitchens merely refers to “someone” who accused him of fabricating a story.
Since you think it fair to impugn my honesty merely because I didn’t paste a chunk of irrelevant text into your web page, I don’t think your endorsement of Hitchens’ standards tells us much.
Kevin, don’t you think that’s kind of bogus? If my message is leaked in a way that makes me look good, leaking is OK. If it’s leaked in away that makes me look bad, it’s not. Come on…
And to suggest that saying that Israel “should be erased from the pages of history” … like Carthage … means something substanively different than “should be wiped from the map” is hardly a strong position.
And as to you point aimed at Joe, I do think tha tthe excised porion changes the context substantially – first in suggesting that Hitchens is responding to more than the single issue, and second in suggesting that Cole is using the list to attack Hitchens.
I certainly don’t think that reflects on Joe’s credibility or Hitchens’.
A.L.
Email correspondence is private or confidential solely by custom. The mail transport system used in Internet-based email virtually assures the de facto public nature of email correspondence. Anybody who thinks otherwise is poorly informed.
Sending a note by email is like posting it in the town square. Sending an encrypted email is like posting an encrypted message in the town square.
And a journalist publishing correspondence received by unethical means? Why, blow me down! Whatever will happen next. They’ll be telling me that reporters drink, use foul language, or are cynical.
To have professional ethics, journalism must be a profession. It isn’t: it’s a trade or a craft. They post professional codes of ethics on their web sites for the rubes.
As they see it, it’s their job to publish stuff that comes into their hands.
Meanwhile, if you want your correspondence to stay reasonably private, use FedEx. There’ll be a chain of custody and it will arrive on time. Or the U. S. Post Office if you don’t care when (or if) it arrives.
Email is just relying on the kindness of strangers. Millions and millions of them.
I’ve done a few Google searches along the lines of Armed Liberal’s, and find some references to the Gulf 2000 listserv as ‘a group with a membership of hundreds of distinguished academics and policymakers,’ etc. I also saw instances where people had quoted from their own contributions to Gulf 2000. The Hitchens/Cole kerfluffle seems to be the first when a Gulf 2000 contributor has had his words put out onto the broader internet against his desires.
Hitchens is always smart and often angry, erratic, funny, caustic, and personal in his arguments. I happen to agree with many (though by no means all) of his foreign policy ideas, and find his expositions are often telling. I’d rather have him at a debate than, say, in the audience at the funeral of a beloved but flawed family member.
In this case Hitchens and his unnamed listserv member pal have overstepped the bounds of propriety as it’s generally understood on the internet, and as it’s specifically been practiced on Gulf 2000.
Cole is simply an idiot to post something to a distribution list with hundreds of members, if he expects that this is akin to a genuinely private and privileged correspondence. His shock, shock rings a bit, shall we say, over the top. So I find it hard to defend Hitchen’s misdemeanor and also hard to get too worked up about it.
Hitchens broader point was that Cole trimmed the sails of his translation of the “wiped off the map” phrase (and others) to suit his politics. To say nothing of Coles apparent unsavory personal beliefs when it comes to certain ethnic groups and nations.
This main point has little to do with the tu quoques being offered by both principals and their advocates. As far as I can see from the original pieces and from the analyses of the translations offered by Farsi speakers here at Winds, Hitchins is correct and Cole is flat-out wrong. How embarassing this ought to be for a leading academic in his own area of specialization! But Cole has illustrated before that he’s beyond shame, and he’s sure to do so again.
AL, where does Hitchens suggest that that Cole is using the list to attack Hitchens?
Kevin,
“The URL”:http://www.radioblogger.com/#001591 for the Radioblogger transcript Joe excerpts above, in #7.
Hitchens credibly claims that somebody on the listserv ‘attacked’ him. On re-reading, it’s not clear to me that that ‘somebody’ is Cole. I’m now assuming that it’s not, as Hitchens would presumably have added that detail if it strengthened his case.
This detail only adds to the blurring of the line between academic discourse and “Lindsay Lohan pix about scheming high school girls.”:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0377092/plotsummary
AMac,
Thanks – actually that’s the interview which I referred to in my first comment, which Joe Katzman objected to on the grounds that I “dishonestly” left out material which I consider irrelevant.
“As far as I can see from the original pieces and from the analyses of the translations offered by Farsi speakers here at Winds, Hitchins is correct and Cole is flat-out wrong. How embarassing this ought to be for a leading academic in his own area of specialization!”
I would have thought he would be a lot more embarassed to find that MEMRI’s version is pretty close to his:
“Imam [Khomeini] said: ‘This regime that is occupying Qods [Jerusalem] must be eliminated from the pages of history.’ This sentence is very wise. The issue of Palestine is not an issue on which we can compromise.”
Is MEMRI “flat-out wrong” as well?
Incidentally, Farsi isn’t Cole’s area of specialization. That’s not to say he knows nowt about it. No offence to the Farsi speakers here at Winds, but I for one don’t regard as authoritative comments from people I’ve never heard of. We need to look to people who have reputations to protect, even if they also have axes to grind; for me, if Cole and MEMRI are in agreement there isn’t much scope for argument.
AL,
“And to suggest that saying that Israel ‘should be erased from the pages of history’ … like Carthage … means something substanively different than ‘should be wiped from the map’ is hardly a strong position.”
The reference to Carthage is entirely your own, I take it? In the version I’m looking at, the reference to Israel comes after references to the Shah’s regime and to the USSR. Both of these “are history” but neither was wiped off the map. Now, what’s involved in erasing the pages I don’t know; perhaps it is proposed to commission Stalinist-style histories in which inconvenient characters are airbrushed out. But what really matters is whether the mullahs are willing to resort to a genocidal (and suicidal) attack on Israel. I don’t think the speech sheds much light on that.
Kevin,
Uh, sorry I gave you the URL you referred to in #2.
> Is MEMRI “flat-out wrong” as well?
Um, no. I’d direct readers to “the MEMRI translation”:http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP101305 to get a sense of the aggressive, action-oriented context of Ahmadinejad’s quote of Khomeini’s remark about “This regime that is occupying Qods.” It is precisely the threatening (Hitchens) or innocuous (Cole) context of the Ahmadinejad quotes that is the center of the dispute.
They can compare MEMRI to “Cole via Hitchens via Slate:”:http://www.slate.com/id/2140947/?nav=navoa
bq. Ahmadinejad did not “threaten” to “wipe Israel off the map.” I’m not sure there is even such an idiom in Persian. He quoted Khomeini to the effect that “the Occupation regime must end” (ehtelal bayad az bayn berad). And, no, it is not the same thing. It is about what sort of regime people live under, not whether they exist at all.
For context, they can refer to the close readings that Farsi speakers offer in “this Winds post and thread.”:http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/008563.php Most of the detailed deconstructions are in agreement with that presented by Tino Sanandaji in the body of the post, which is consistent with MEMRI but not with Cole.
I’ll wager that if we asked MEMRI’s translator about the issue, s/he would come down squarely on the side of Tino Sanandaji and against Cole’s reading. Would you want to take that bet?
Anyway, the point is that there’s enough information linked for interested people to click and investigate and arrive at their own informed opinions. Will you and Nema (of that Winds thread) then come to agree with me? Of course not. I’m not looking for unanimity.
[It’s too bad that Cole didn’t refuse the bait and instead respond, “that was a first-pass translation shared in confidence among friends; I need not offer any comment on a rough draft like this, except to say that by publishing my work, Mr. Hitchens has unethically diminished its value to me.” But since Cole’s response was to defend his translation and attack the alternatives that Hitchens offered, it seems to me it’s fair game for discussion by the rest of us.]
>Incidentally, Farsi isn’t Cole’s area of specialization.
I suppose this is notionally true, in the sense that Cole doesn’t claim to be an expert on Persian literature, etc. Here’s what he does say: “[Cole’s] current research focuses on two contemporary phenomena: 1) Shiite Islam in Iraq and Iran and 2) the ‘jihadi’ or ‘sacred-war’ strain of Muslim radicalism… Cole commands Arabic, Persian and Urdu…”:http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jrcole/jcpers.htm
For someone who regards his Gulf 2000 emails as “rough, rough draft”, “Cole sure does cut and paste a lot of them to his blog.”:http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jrcole/juancole/2002_03_31_juancole_archive.html
These are interesting in giving us undiluted stream-of-consciousness Cole, with its unique blend of bitchiness and banality:
So Hitchens is on all the cable shows in spite of being debilitated by alcoholism, and Cole can’t get a Slate gig stone cold sober. There’s probably a whole chapter in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion which explains why things like that happen.
The fact that Cheney is on a diet for a heart condition doesn’t seem very amusing or noteworthy, unless everybody on the Gulf 2000 list is seriously stoned. That would explain why they think Professor Cole is profound, and why they can’t get on decent cable shows.
“I’ll wager that if we asked MEMRI’s translator about the issue, s/he would come down squarely on the side of Tino Sanandaji and against Cole’s reading. Would you want to take that bet?”
Since Cole himself considers MEMRI’s reading to be pretty close to his own, what on earth would the bet be about? Whether somebody at MEMRI is going to say in so many words that s/he agrees with Juan Cole? I’d want very generous odds. The important thing is that we now have very close agreement. Cole himself wrote: “[Ahmadinejad, quoting Khomeini,] said that the occupation regime over Jerusalem must be erased from the page of time”; MEMRI: “must be eliminated from the pages of history”.
It’s clear now what was said and it surely wasn’t that Israel should be wiped off the map, as numerous commentators have claimed.
Thanks aMac.
bq. “‘I hope that the Palestinians will maintain their wariness and intelligence, much as they have pursued their battles in the past 10 years. This will be a short period, and if we pass through it successfully, the process of the elimination of the Zionist regime will be smooth and simple.
bq. “‘I warn all the leaders of the Islamic world to be wary of Fitna: If someone is under the pressure of hegemonic power [i.e. the West] and understands that something is wrong, or he is naïve, or he is an egotist and his hedonism leads him to recognize the Zionist regime – he should know that he will burn in the fire of the Islamic Ummah [nation]…
bq. “‘The people who sit in closed rooms cannot decide on this matter. The Islamic people cannot allow this historical enemy to exist in the heart of the Islamic world.
bq. “‘Oh dear people, look at this global arena. By whom are we confronted? We have to understand the depth of the disgrace of the enemy, until our holy hatred expands continuously and strikes like a wave.‘”
Does this sound like A) reasoned discourse about political approaches to Zionism or B) the shit has hit the fan?
I say B. what say you?
So now we are reduced to the difference between “wiped off the map” and “wiped from the pages of history”, as if this changed the entire meaning of what Ahmadinejad said.
If being “wiped from the pages of history” is a good thing, then I wonder what they use for toilet paper at the University of Michigan.
Since this battle of metaphors is of such earth-shaking significance, it is interesting that “English Aljazeera”:http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/15E6BF77-6F91-46EE-A4B5-A3CE0E9957EA.htm reported the remark as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has openly called for Israel to be wiped off the map. The Iranian foreign minister “objected”:http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/F497A302-79E2-46D7-9416-DBC764F69F9B.htm, saying “Nobody can remove a country from the map. This is a misunderstanding in Europe of what our president mentioned.” The so-called misunderstanding, though, was not over the difference between pages and maps:
Of course Khomeini’s Iran never recognized any Israeli regime as legitimate – past, present, or hypothetical. I defy even Prof. Cole to squeeze out a distinction.
“The Great Persian Poet himself”:http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/882BF23B-0D16-4C1F-9983-3428DDB96A18.htm defended his remarks. Strangely, he did not say he had been mistranslated. Instead he seems to engage in more Holocaust denial.
Although perhaps one of you Cole scholars will discover that Ahmadinejad never questioned the Holocaust, but only said that Hitler wiped the Jews of Europe off the pages of history, rather than off the map. You can congratulate yourselves for that historical/rhetorical profundity, because of course the Jews were never allowed to be on any European map.
Kevin #18:
I wrote (#16):
bq. I’ll wager that if we asked MEMRI’s translator about the issue [which translation gives a better rendering of Ahmadinejad], s/he would come down squarely on the side of Tino Sanandaji and against Cole’s reading.
You responded (#18):
bq. Since Cole himself considers MEMRI’s reading to be pretty close to his own, what on earth would the bet be about?
My goodness, it’s hard for me to put it more plainly. The issue isn’t whether you think that Cole thinks that MEMRI’s translation is close to his own. You say that’s your opinion so of course I believe you.
You continue
bq. It’s clear now what was said and it surely wasn’t that Israel should be wiped off the map…
If your point is that “wiped off the map” isn’t a Persian idiom then you are of course trivially correct. If your point is that all or most informed parties agree with your interpretation… no.
bq. Whether somebody at MEMRI is going to say in so many words that s/he agrees with Juan Cole? I’d want very generous odds.
Sensibly so! Because it’s unlikely that the MEMRI translator agrees with you and Cole. At any rate, if you want to make that bet, I’ll inquire. Here are the odds on offer:
* If you win, I’ll state publically that I’m very, very sorry for making incorrect assumptions about third parties’ support for my opinions, and I’ll be extra careful to try and aviod same in the future.
* If I win, you state publically that you’re somewhat sorry for making such incorrect assumptions.
Is there a point in pursuing this, or should we let it go?
Kevin –
Let’s wrap some context around this.
We have a Farsi phrase which we’ll agree means “Israel should be erased from history.” The question is, whether that’s metaphorical or material.
Does “this”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4384264.stm help us settle the question??
So do you really think they mean in a purely metaphical sense Israel should be erased?
A.L.
There’s another angle to this story that shouldn’t be allowed to get lost in the dustup.
Cole is an academic. Exactly what do his antics, the poor quality of his ad hominem attacks and — for goodness’ sake — the one, two, three, four sloganeering (straight out of the 1960s) suggest about his research and his pedagogy?
Nothing complimentary, I’m afraid.
I neither speak nor read Farsi. But splitting hairs over the wording of Ahmadinajad’s repeated public statements about Israel and its Jewish citizens seems to me to be about on par with Robert Fisk’s insistence that there were no US troops at the Baghdad airport, back in March of ’03.
AMac: “My goodness, it’s hard for me to put it more plainly.”
That’s pretty much how I feel. I wrote: “I’d want very generous odds.” You surely must have noticed that, since you quoted it in your response. Then you offer a me wager in which the loser gets to eat crow. In what sense does that represent generous odds? You have done me no injury so why on earth would I want to see you on such a diet? I wouldn’t have positive utility even if I “won” so my expected utility certainly can’t be positive. You’re an economist, for crying out loud. You know this stuff.
At the end of the day, my only reason for comparing translations supplied by Juan Cole and MEMRI is that they represent opposing viewpoints. MEMRI is more likely to play up the Iranian threat and Cole is more likely to play it down. Here the choice is between “erased from the page of time” (Cole) and “eliminated from the pages of history” (MEMRI).
You think the guys from MEMRI would say their translation differs from Cole’s. You are very likely to be right about that, but my only reason for thinking so is that they detest Cole. I really don’t see much difference between those two phrases. “Eliminated” has more sinister connotations than “erased” – if that’s why you insist on the difference fair enough. But recall that it is a regime, not a people, which is to be eliminated. The context makes that very clear: the Shah’s regime, the USSR and Iraq’s Baathists are given as examples of powers that the Lord can demolish when He chooses. That, briefly, is how I read the speech. One last point, lest you think I am dodging an important issue here: the regime he expects to see eliminated is Israel, not merely Israeli control of the West Bank. The aim is “one Palestine, complete” and Ahmedinejad believes this is no more than a generation away.
AL: “We have a Farsi phrase which we’ll agree means ‘Israel should be erased from history.’ The question is, whether that’s metaphorical or material.”
My reply to AMac refers. If the Mullahs have their way Tel Aviv nightlife will be pretty dreary. Even on the most optimistic interpretation, their aim is a world in which Christians and Jews are free to worship in their own way and if they (or backsliding Muslims) want to do some sinning they had better do it behind closed doors. There is not much doubt about the kind of society the Mullahs want to create, since they have already shown us. The question is what they are prepared to do to export that model.
If you want to “wrap some context around this” the context I see is that Iran may soon have nuclear weapons (for some value of “soon” between one and ten years). Will they be used for deterrence only? Or to present the Jews with an ultimatum: accept our proposals or be nuked? You only have to look at that question it to see that the 24th comment in a thread about journalistic ethics is no place to be attempting an answer. Your link about people burning flags tells me nothing new. Juan Cole is clearly concerned that the nightmare scenario is getting too much attention and the NYT translation is partly responsible for that. Borrowing statistical jargon, you might say he is warning against a Type I error: the Mullahs are judged to be suicidal genocidaires, when in fact they are risk-averse theocrats who believe that God will deliver Israel to them in His own good time. His opponents are warning against a Type II error: the Mullahs are presumed rational, but actually they aren’t.
That’s the context as I see it.
Understood, Kevin.
But that context utterly fails to acknowledge Iran’s overt and substantial sponsorship, funding and arming of Hizboallah and Hamas – which change the real-world context of the debate substantially.
To put it in terms of decision theory, it changes both the utility curves and the estimated performance measures re: Iranian actions against Israel and against the West. For that reason, while I understand your desire for care, I find your argument not only unpersuasive but somewhat disengenuous. We are not judging Iranian intentions in a vacuum of evidence beyond the question of translations for one public statement. We have several murderous decades of evidence through which to read the lastest rants — and the intentions behind them.
I don’t see the slander of Cole that was supposed to have occurred by Hitchens. I see a disagreement over a translation. Hitchens links it to statements and actions that show that IRan wants to eliminate Israel as a national entity and points out that the statemetn of nullification is tied to a time span that covers the establishment of Israel, nine years longer than the occupation Jerusalem. Sure the words involving the past tense of “wipe” coupled with aprepositional phrase “off the map” didn’t occur in the speech, in much the same way that “wiped from the page of time” isn’t in the English lexicon for annihilation.
And when pushed, Cole shows his real reason. He doesn’t want to provide ammunition for a war. So, he slants his facts and skews the context. In fact he spends easily four times more space devoted to what a bad idea a war with Iran would be than defending his translation.
And so what. We have him ID’d. He isn’t academically pure, but he isn’t crazy. He doesn’t want people to go to war with Iran. Plenty of smart people think that’s the way to think. Plenty of other smart people think the other way, too.
His complaints about Hitchens are mainly ad hominem cheap shots and pantywaist complaints about his lack of priviledged status on the internet. Some of the attacks display some egotism and moral obesity. He sees himself as a Good Guy. The people against him must be the Bad Guys or crazy. One of his complaints was that Hitchens was great until they disagreed on the second Iraq war. Up to then Hitchens was a fine individual. Now he’s a drunk/ crazy/ right-wing/ chicken hawk/ whatever sellout. There have been better stated and researched defenses of Cole’s work here on this thread than on Cole’s website, by Cole himself.
The main thing that Cole is guilty of is laughably poor form. His translation was skewed by his own conscience, but not severely enough by itself to be his greatest act of defense of the intentions of the current Iranian regime, and not enough to change any kind of serious policy.
Robin,
Re your #25: Of course the Mullahs have few scruples about killing people to achieve their goals. If I don’t mention that, it isn’t because I’m disingenuous, it’s because I presume readers to know these things. My understanding of what makes these guys tick may be wrong and that’s why I look for evidence against it. For now, my take is that they are somewhat like Cardinal Richelieu, who could preach a sermon or stab a rival in the back with equal facility. The fact that they sponsor Hamas is no more surprising than the fact that America sponsored OBL in his war with the Soviets. It shows that they are quite at home in the bloody world of power politics. If that is all there is to it then Iran wants the Bomb for much the same reasons that prompted existing nuclear powers to get it; and they will refrain from using it for obvious reasons.
Now, remarks such as these frequently elicit tirades about moral equivalence and suchlike. I’ve no reason to suppose you go in for that sort of thing, but I regard your use of the word “disingenuous” as a warning sign, so let me make it clear that I have no intention of getting into a discussion of the relation between politics and morality. The key question here is whether the Mullahs are rational actors. That’s quite enough to be going on with. A discussion of possible Western policy responses would have to consider moral questions but that can wait for another day.
The key question here is whether the Mullahs are rational actors.
Within what framework of assumptions and goals???
It makes all the difference. It’s a mistake IMO to read them through Western cultural lenses and unspoken assumptions about rational behavior.
Kevin,
Thank you for a serious response. You’ve tried to stick to the actual points raised, so I’ll try and offer my thoughts on the same, without repeating what Robin Burk or Blair said (comments I generally agree with).
bq. You think the guys from MEMRI would say their translation differs from Cole’s.
Yes. They would because it does. Are Ahmadinejad’s words best rendered as fairly innocuous (Cole & Farsi-speaker Nema) or as quite threatening (MEMRI & other Farsi speakers)? Readers who want to collect sufficient evidence to decide for themselves have the key Cole paragraph and links to MEMRI and to the earlier Winds thread at hand (comment #16).
bq. If the Mullahs have their way Tel Aviv nightlife will be pretty dreary.
Night life. Yes, I think the ~20% of Iranian Jews who haven’t fled since the fall of the Shah would agree with that. I would suppose Iran’s Bahais would concede that the mullahs have “crimped their clubbing, too.”:http://info.bahai.org/persecution_iran.html
I agree that the Tehran regime has not signalled that it is committed, Nazi-style, to the extermination of Israel’s Jews. On the strength of the evidence, the mullahs imagine forced immigration for most, and the acceptance of a rump dhimmi community in Palestine (Jews are, after all, “people of the Book”). Would this be accompanied by a sudden turn away from celebrating the murder of Jews? Anything’s possible.
bq. [Ahmedinejad et al.’s] aim is a world in which Christians and Jews are free to worship in their own way and if they (or backsliding Muslims) want to do some sinning they had better do it behind closed doors.
Let’s not expect people to be blase about the extinction of Enlightenment ideals in their own homelands. Even those who, unlike you and me, live in shitty little countries. Most readers here understand that Sharia is more fun for the oppressors than it is for dhimmis, unbelievers, heretics, and apostates.
bq. The question is what [the Mullahs] are prepared to do to export that model.
That’s the policy question. The narrower linguistic question is, “how are Ahmedinejad’s words best translated?” In Cole’s world, the latter follows the former. Not in mine.
That’s the context as I see it.
Re: The key question here is whether the Mullahs are rational actors: (1) The first key question is how are Ahmedinejad’s words and intentions best rendered into English? Trimming translations because of overall policy worries about Type I and II errors deprives us–or at least, deprives Cole partisans–of important information. (2) The Mullahs are, of course, rational, based on their world view. In some ways that corresponds with Western (e.g. Clauswitzian) perspectives and in other ways it does not. This issue is beyond the scope of my comments.
Robin,
I’m not presenting a complete theory about the Mullahs’ rationality. For me, the important question is whether they are crazy enough to challenge a superior foe to a duel with nukes. I think the answer is no, but I’m not married to it.
AMac,
You contend that Cole reads the text in search of support for his politics, rather than letting textual and other evidence shape his thinking. I’m sure that’s true to some extent, because that’s a normal human tendency. He strikes me as being enough of a scholar to guard against it. But as you say, the material is there for anyone who wants to form a view. I think your point might usefully be directed at the advocates of air strikes. Now that there is widespread agreement that “wiped off the map” is a mistranslation, do you suppose the phrase will go out of circulation? Any keyboard warriors who switch to either MEMRI’s version or Cole’s will rise in my estimation (albeit from a low base in many cases).
Your description of life in the Mullahs’ United Palestine strikes me as spot-on, but I don’t see any reason to suppose God will grant Ahmedinejad his wishes in that regard. He might get most of what he wants in Iraq though, which is bad enough.
I think we’ve got as far as we’re going to get, so I’ll sign off. Thanks for your time.
Kevin, I’ll offer a few thoughts and sign off as well. Please sign back on if you think my ‘last words’ warrant a response.
bq. You contend that Cole reads the text in search of support for his politics
Yes.
bq. I think your point might usefully be directed at the advocates of air strikes.
My narrow point addresses the question, “how are Ahmedinejad’s words best translated?” My broader contention is that evaluations of reality should precede rather than be governed by ideological preconceptions. This rather basic notion would be accepted by both advocates and opponents of airstrikes. In the best of all possible worlds.
bq. Now that there is widespread agreement that “wiped off the map” is a mistranslation.
No rebuttal needed for careful readers of this thread. For those scanning, Kevin has asserted this point in comments 2, 9, 15, 18, 24, and now 30. Each time, without substantiation and without links. The “widespread”:http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/008563.php#76222 “agreement”:http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/15E6BF77-6F91-46EE-A4B5-A3CE0E9957EA.htm “is”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4384264.stm “that”:http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1129540608312&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull the English idomatic expression “wiped off the map” conveys Ahmedinejad’s meaning. Kevin and Juan Cole are, of course, free to dissent. I won’t claim that they are in accord with most knowlegeable observers on this issue.
AMac,
If you want English which “conveys Ahmedinejad’s meaning” you will need someone who does telepathy. My concern is with translation. I will merely quote some of Tino Sanandaji’s comments; neither al Jazeera nor the BBC claim to have considered the text as he has.
“The word map is not litterarly in there, but “wiped of the map” is a less exagerated translation that Professors Coles translation is underreporting the wording.”
I didn’t think “less exagerated” was a ringing endorsement myself.
“I agree that eased from the page of time is closer than whiped of the map, but neither is perfect, and the underlying meaning is not in dispute, The State of Israel be destroyed.”
Exactly! That’s precisely my understanding, based of course on what MEMRI and Cole say, since I know not a word of Farsi. Note that a genocidal attack is not implied, as it surely is in the phrase “wiped off the map”; the idea is to eliminate a political entity.
“Cole has a fair argument with “bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shaved” as “must disappear from the face of time” rather than “wiped of the map”, although more precise would be “must be made to disappear from the face of time”. As I wrote there is an action implied in the sentence. He also has a reasonable point about Ahmadinejad not necessarily calling for Hitler like genocide, although this argument has been made by others.”
That argument surely has been made and the proponents of air strikes are particularly fond of it.
Nema Milaninia agrees:
“The position of the Iranian government has always been that Israel, as a Jewish, or Zionist, entity must be ‘wiped off the map’. Thats quite different from exterminating a people and when put in context, thats exactly what Ahmadinejad meant and how Cole came to put it into context.”
If “wiped off the map” were always qualified in that way, I wouldn’t have a problem with it. Unqualified, it certainly does suggest exterminating a people.
Now of course Tino Sanandaji, Nema Milaninia, Juan Cole and MEMRI have differing views on what Ahmedinejad would do to Israel if Iran were a superpower. Fortunately the question is academic. But none of the four defends “wiped off the map” as a translation. That’s all I mean by saying there is widespread agreement that “wiped off the map” is a mistranslation. How you can dispute that is beyond me. Until your latest comment I didn’t even realise that you were disputing it. As you rightly say, I didn’t link to support my statement; that’s because it seemed much too obvious.
If those statements won’t satisfy you, nothing will; so I won’t comment further. Thanks again.
“Tino Sanandaji”:http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/008563.php#76222 (cf. #32):
bq. [Cole’s] translation is not perfect, the dear Professor is not convewing the action implyied [by] the sentence, as I or any Iranian would read it.
“Cole’s translation”:http://www.slate.com/id/2140947/fr/rss/ is not “Israel must be wiped off the map,” but
bq. “the Occupation regime must end.”
“Sanandaji”:http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/008563.php#76222 continues:
bq. I am not a translatior, but I can tell you that [there] is a clear note in that sentence that Israel must be made to wanish from the face of time. Maybe this is not a theat, as it was not directed to Israel, but to his followers, but it clearly is an decleration of intent. The intent is to make Israel cease to exist.
bq. The word map is not litterarly in there, but “wiped of the map” is a less exagerated translation that Professors Coles translation is underreporting the wording.
In context, it’s plain that Sanandaji has not labelled “wiped off the map” as a mistranslation. He called it an idiom which conveys the meaning of Ahmedinejad’s statement, and noted that Cole’s translation incorrectly (1) turns the active voice into the passive voice and (2) focuses on the ending of Israel’s “Occupation regime” rather than on the elimination of Israel as a political and cultural entity. Which happily excuses Cole from contemplating the dhimmitude, deportation, and murder that would be the fates of the citizens of his least favored nation.
As noted earlier, Nema Milaninia but not the other Farsi speakers agree with your contention. It remains beyond my ken how you have travelled from these facts to “Now that there is widespread agreement that ‘wiped off the map’ is a mistranslation.”
But I appreciate you explaining your point of view with care.
Note that a genocidal attack is not implied, as it surely is in the phrase “wiped off the map”; the idea is to eliminate a political entity.
Bingo. If the phrase used doesn’t convey the violence implied by “wiped off the map,” then Cole is right.
““Cole has a fair argument with “bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shaved” as “must disappear from the face of time” rather than “wiped of the map”, although more precise would be “must be made to disappear from the face of time”.”
This is bogus.
In English, what does the metaphorical phrase “disappear from the face of time” mean?
I would argue that it means nothing. No such metaphor exists in English. We have no idea from such a literal translation how to take such a phrase. We could try to work out what it means based on its literal English meaning, but anyone actually familiar with the nature of languages would rightly scoff at such an idea. In most cases, you can’t even work out from an English metaphorical phrase what it literally means in English without knowing its context and etomology.
Most translators of the phrase believe that the idea it carries in Farsi is close to the idea conveyed by the phrase “wiped off the map”. The fact that Ahmadinejad was calling for the end of Israel as a political entity seems pretty much unequivical. All that is left to question is how he plans on going about it. Not even Juan Cole denies that the phrase means a calling for ending a political entity. The essential reason that Juan Cole’s translation is dishonest is not that he claims that political destruction in at least some form is not called for, but because he carefully spins the call as a call for the much more politically correct destruction of the Israeli occupation. As the Farsi speakers have repeatedly pointed out, this is diengenious, as the phrase would have been understood by any of its Iranian hearers to mean Israel.
Furthermore, when asked to clarify his statement, Ahmadinejad later spoke in exactly the terms of political destruction of all of Israel. Granted, he did not call for genocide specifically, but he certainly did call for what can only be realisticly described ethnic cleaning through the forced deportation of Israeli citizens. It seems to me that its unrealistic to assume that Israel would voluntarily cease to exist, therefore at least some threat of force is implied.
“Bingo. If the phrase used doesn’t convey the violence implied by “wiped off the map,” then Cole is right. ”
Perhaps, but if the term is closer to “to be made to be removed from the map” how can that be construed as anything but a call for violence? Israel isnt going to simply commit national suicide, and considering all the blood libel propigated by Almadinejad and others about the zionist conspiracy and all its aims and power, it is contextually absurd to think they will just fold up and quit. Cole demands subtlety but then he branzely ignores context he doesnt like. How does that make sense? The Iranians have been pimping the blood libels in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion for years, yet we are supposed to buy that they believe Israel is going to ‘come to its senses’ and give up the ghost, let themselves be put under the power of those they have supposedly done all manner of horrific crimes to in their quest for dominion (not to mention the same peoples who have been waging terrorist and conventional war on them since the day of their birth as a nation)? Its contextually incoherant.