Today, that view is intellectually and morally indefensible.

It was found that Captain Holmes has been guilty of indefensible cruelty

Government policies that resulted in the unbalanced promotion and protection of some rights at the expense of others were indefensible.

CANBERRA When does acceptable diplomatic caution and realism become indefensible abdication of moral standards? Not everyone on the foreign policy frontline cares, but those who do often face deeply uncomfortable choices.

Nearly 70 years ago, when George Orwell examined the tendency toward ambiguity, he offered the rather simple explanation that political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. In other words, hazy language is necessary to obscure unsavory realities.

Third, as usual, Israel has accused of anti Semitism those who have dared to criticize its disproportionate response to Hamas s indefensible rocket attacks and its collective punishment of Palestinians. An Italian cardinal, who admittedly spoke intemperately, was accused of using the language of Holocaust denial.

But the issue today is different politicians are using vague rhetoric less because their policies are fundamentally indefensible than because they fear having to defend any position at all. While there are myriad reasons for this reticence, when it comes to international relations, two stand out.

German leaders opposition to every proposal for institutional reform may be excusable now, in the run up to the general election in September. But once the new government takes office, Germany s continued refusal to adopt an active approach to solving Europe s problems would be entirely indefensible.

Continued international paralysis is indefensible. Inaction would ignite fires throughout the Middle East, and would violate the international community s now accepted responsibility to protect, through timely and decisive collective action, populations at risk of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and other major crimes against humanity and war crimes.

We must learn a new grammar of power in a world that is made up more of the common good or the common bad than of self interest or national interest. These haven t disappeared, of course, but they are proving to be indefensible outside of a framework capable of addressing common threats and opportunities.

In Malaysia, the country's highest court last month rejected opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim's appeal against a five year prison sentence and a ban against running for public office for a further five years a shocking and indefensible decision. Prime Minister Najib Razak's government was transparently vindictive in pursuing allegations of sodomy (a crime rarely prosecuted in Malaysia) against Anwar.

This year also marks the centenary of the Armenian genocide, about which successive Turkish governments have maintained an indefensible denial. But at least the fate of the more than one million Turkish Armenians killed outright or death marched into the Syrian desert in 1915 for their wartime disloyalty remains the subject of immense international scrutiny, research, and advocacy.

That, however, is a completely different question from whether women who do want to become engineers and are qualified to study engineering should be denied the opportunity to achieve their ambition. By explicitly preventing women from enrolling in courses open to men, Iran has taken a step that is as indefensible as racial discrimination, and that should be condemned just as forcefully.

(iv) Put an end to the imposition of closures and curfews for indefensible reasons and merely as measures of collective punishment that have a disastrous effect on the economic and social situation of the population of the occupied territories and hinder the enjoyment of a number of fundamental rights and freedoms such as those of movement, education, religion and expression

The main contention of these nuclear weapon States is that nuclear disarmament that is, a phased programme of reductions of nuclear weapons leading to their elimination is the exclusive domain of bilateral negotiations between the nuclear weapon States. This contention is fatally flawed. It is morally indefensible, logically incoherent and politically unacceptable. As all of us are aware, nuclear war knows no boundary.

70. Mr. Paguaga Fernández (Nicaragua), speaking in exercise of the right of reply in response to the statement made by the Cuban delegation at the Committee s 47th meeting, said that while the Cuban delegation had every right to use absurd and anachronistic arguments to defend the indefensible, it did not have the right to insult countries that had chosen the path of democracy.

(iv) Put an end to the imposition of closures and curfews for indefensible reasons and merely as measures of collective punishment that have a disastrous effect on the economic and social situation of the population of the occupied territories and hinder the enjoyment of a number of fundamental rights and freedoms such as those of movement, education, religion and expression

We must find ways which enhance the ability of the United Nations to deal with violations of international peace and security and other serious breaches of international law. Failure to act on such challenges is morally indefensible and betrays the principles of the United Nations Charter. Violations and breaches must be met convincingly, with resolve and with the legitimacy of international law.

Countries like ours should take a clear stand when China overreaches externally (as it has in the South China Sea with its indefensible nine dashed line asserting historical rights with no known justification in international law). The same applies when China does not behave like a good international citizen on the UN Security Council, or should it commit egregious human rights violations at home.