| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Wed May 17, 2006 7:55 pm Post subject: US spells out plan to bomb Iran (for Israel) |
| US spells out plan to bomb Iran
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/62043-print.shtml
IAN BRUCE, Defence Correspondent May 16 2006
THE US is updating contingency plans for a non-nuclear strike to cripple Iran's atomic weapon programme if international diplomacy fails, Pentagon sources have confirmed.
Strategists are understood to have presented two options for pinpoint strikes using B2 bombers flying directly from bases in Missouri, Guam in the Pacific and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.
RAF Fairford in Gloucester also has facilities for B2s but this has been ruled out because of the UK's opposition to military action against Tehran.
The main plan calls for a rolling, five-day bombing campaign against 400 key targets in Iran, including 24 nuclear-related sites, 14 military airfields and radar installations, and Revolutionary Guard headquarters.
At least 75 targets in underground complexes would be attacked with waves of bunker-buster bombs.
Iranian radar networks and air defence bases would be struck by submarine-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles and then kept out of action by carrier aircraft flying from warships in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf.
The alternative to an all-out campaign is a demonstration strike against one or two high-profile targets such as the Natanz uranium enrichment facility or the hexafluoride gas plant at Isfahan.
UK sources say contingency plans have also been drawn up to cope with the inevitable backlash against the Basra garrison in neighbouring Iraq.
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Israel's Olmert wants US to 'deal with' (bomb!) Iran
Olmert: Iran Close to Atomic Bomb Know-How
By RAMIT PLUSHNICK-MASTI,
Associated Press Writer
30 minutes ago
Iran is just a few months away from acquiring the technological know-how that will allow it to build an atomic bomb, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in an interview broadcast Sunday.
Olmert flew to Washington on Sunday for his first meeting as prime minister with President Bush. The two leaders are expected to discuss Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Olmert told CNN's "Late Edition" that the key issue regarding Iran was not when it builds a nuclear bomb, but rather when it acquires the knowledge they need to manufacture such arms.
"This technological threshold is nearer than we anticipated before. This is because they are already engaged very seriously in enrichment," Olmert said.
"The technological threshold is very close. It can be measured in months rather than years," Olmert added, repeating statements previously made by other senior Israeli officials.
Olmert said the world could not take Iran's nuclear ambitions lightly because Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly called for Israel's destruction. However, he said it was unlikely Israel would act on its own, diplomatically or militarily, to deal with the problem.
In 1981, Israel's air force attacked the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak, destroying the facility. But Olmert said the situations cannot be compared, and Israel will try to persuade the Western world to impose sanctions on Iran.
Iran has so far rejected European proposals to back off the idea of U.N.-imposed sanctions if Tehran agrees to freeze its uranium enrichment program. Another proposal the Europeans are preparing will apparently include a clause saying that if Iran refuses, it could face sanctions backed by the threat of force.
Iran, which insists its nuclear program is for peaceful, civilian purposes, says it has the right to enrich uranium.
Olmert expressed confidence that Bush would "lead other nations in taking the necessary measures to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power."
"We will certainly try to convince other countries that, at this time, before they cross the technological threshold, that the measures will be taken to stop them," Olmert said.
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No Security Guarantee for Iran, Rice Says
By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL, Associated Press Writer
Sun May 21, 11:24 AM ET
The U.S. has not offered a guarantee against attacking or undermining Iran's hard-line government in exchange for having Tehran curtail its nuclear program, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday.
"Iran is a troublemaker in the international system, a central banker of terrorism. Security assurances are not on the table," Rice said.
The European Union said last week it would propose economic and political incentives to persuade Iran to halt its plans for enriching uranium. While Iranian officials contend they are only seeking nuclear power, the U.S. and other nations fear Iran is working toward developing weapons.
Rice, appearing on Sunday news shows, said European officials have not asked the U.S. for security guarantees as they discuss options for dealing with Iran. She did not say what the U.S. response would be if asked to provide such an assurance.
"What we're talking about is a package that will make clear to Iran that there are choices to be made," she said on "Fox News Sunday."
"Either that there will be sanctions and actions taken against Iran by the international community or there's a way for them to meet their civil nuclear concerns," she said.
Diplomats have said that Mohamed ElBaradei, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency, would meet with Rice and President Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, this week in Washington. In addition, representatives from the five permanent U.N. Security Council members, the EU and Germany plan to met in London to talk about Iran.
Rice said she thought it was strange even to discuss security guarantees when Iran threatens Israel, promotes terrorism in the Middle East and stirs up violence in southern Iraq to the detriment of U.S. forces.
Asked on NBC's "Meet the Press" if Bush would leave office with nuclear arms being developed in Iran, Rice said: "We can't allow Iran to steadily turn toward nuclear weapons because it would be tremendously destabilizing in this already volatile region. We have a lot of tools at our disposal."
Rice dismissed as "high talk" the statement last month by Iran's president, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, that his country would not "give a damn" about U.N. resolutions that could penalize Tehran.
"The Iranians know that sanctions, that international action can, in fact, be quite damaging to them," she said. "And so I assume that the Iranian president is simply posturing on this because I think the Iranians do know how devastating this could be."
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told CNN's "Late Edition" that he believes Iran is just a few months rather than a few years from acquiring the technological expertise needed to build a nuclear bomb
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Listen to what Dr. Sniegoski mentions about the US attacking Iran for Israel via the following:
'IRAQ WAR CONCEIVED IN ISRAEL' author on Karen Kwiatkowski's radio program yesterday
Dr. Stephen Sniegoski was on Karen Kwiatkowski's radio broadcast (for the Republic Broadcasting Network) yesterday discussing the JINSA/PNAC Neocon 'war for Israel' agenda as such can be listened to via clicking on the May 20th, 2006 link at:
http://mp3.rbnlive.com/Karen06.htm
Additional at the following URL:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2006/05/17/iraq-war-conceived-in-israel-author-on-karen-kwiatkowski-s.php
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General Janis Karpinski discussed the MEK operations in Iran (via the JINSA/PNAC Neocon cabal out of AEI and Dick Cheney's office) with a caller on her radio program from April 22nd, 2006 (click on the link for the second hour of her broadcast for April 22nd at the following URL - there is music that plays for a few minutes before the second hour of her broadcast begins):
http://mp3.rbnlive.com/Janis06.html
Additional about the JINSA/PNAC Neocon connection to the MEK via Richard Perle and others at the following URL:
http://gorillaintheroom.blogspot.com/2005/04/terrorist-group-to-hold-convention-in.html
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US, ISRAEL OPERATE IN IRAN
COVERT FORCES IN IRAN TRAINING KURDISH REBELS
Richard Walker
May 17, 2006
Behind the increasingly shrill rhetoric and saber rattling over Iran’s nuclear ambitions America and Israel are engaged in a secret war against Iran that has echoes of the years when the CIA supported the Afghan mujahideen against the Soviet Union.
This time, the United States and Israel are running covert operations with the help of Kurdish militias and rebel Iranian fighters. For some observers, training and arming Islamic fighters smacks of the days of Soviet rule in Afghanistan.
Then, the Soviet army, which was the second most powerful military in the world, was defeated by Islamic militants, including men like Osama bin Laden.
Now the U.S. military, with Israeli commandos lending a hand, is arming and secretly training a different breed of mujahideen, or Islamic fighters—Kurdish militias with links to ethnic Kurdish communities in Iran and Syria, and fighters from the Iranian Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK), which has bases in southern Iraq and has provided the United States with information about the Iranian military and Iran’s nuclear sites.
From the perspective of Washington and Tel Aviv, the history of the Kurds makes them ideal recruits for a covert war against Iran and Syria.
During and after Saddam Hussein’s rule, the Kurds of northern Iraq longed for an independent Kurdistan. When the so-called "no-fly zone" was in place over Iraq, the Kurds had protection from the U.S. Air Force and U.S. allies. That enabled them to build a large militia force and to develop a burgeoning economy.
But, since the fall of Saddam the Kurds have become disillusioned with the country’s slide into chaos and have hinted that they would be happy to see Iraq divided into three parts. In that event, they would establish an autonomous region called Kurdistan and the rich northern oil fields of Kirkuk would ensure their prosperity for decades to come.
Not everyone favors creation of an independent Kurdistan. The Turks, Iranians and Syrians are united in a belief that it would generate instability by encouraging large ethnic Kurdish communities in their countries to demand separation and an alignment with Iraq’s Kurds.
In the 20th century ethnic Kurdish demands for autonomy led to more than 30,000 of them being slaughtered by the Turks. In Iran, they were brutally suppressed in three provinces they dominated.
As part of a covert scheme to destabilize and soften up the Iranian regime for possible Special Forces attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities, Washington has turned to disaffected Iranian Kurds for help and to Iranian dissidents in the MEK.
Using fighters trained by the United States in secret bases in southern Iraq, the MEK has carried out a series of attacks in Iran. In recent months, there has been increasing instability inside three Iranian provinces dominated by Kurds, as well as attacks on Iranian troops near the border with Iraq. A Kurdish guerrilla group claimed responsibility for two of the attacks, saying they were in retaliation for Iranian shelling into Kurdish areas of northern Iraq.
New York journalist Seymour Hersh claimed in December 2005 that U.S. combat troops were already in Iran. Following that report, there was an incident near the Iran-Iraq border in January when an Iranian military cargo plane carrying 10 top Iranian Revolutionary Guard commanders mysteriously crashed. Later, there were rumors it was brought down by U.S. Special Forces within Iran.
In April 2006, Iran said it shot down a U.S. surveillance drone flying over the country. Israel has been running its own black operations with the help of Kurds it has trained. The Kurds reportedly have strong ties to Israel because it supports the creation of an independent Kurdistan. From an Israeli perspective, such an entity would provide Israel with an ally in a region in which it is totally isolated and would keep Iraq destabilized.
It was Israel’s neo-con friends in Washington who once believed a new Iraq would be Israel’s best ally, but the more that vision has turned to nightmare, the more Israel has looked to the creation of a separate Kurdish state in Iraq as the next best thing.
Israel’s relationship with the Kurds goes back a long way. During the Iran-Iraq war, the Israelis supplied the Kurds with weapons to attack Saddam Hussein’s forces. Then, after the first Gulf War, when the United States and its allies abandoned the Kurds, Israel continued to provide them with weapons and training.
To that end, Israeli special forces and Mossad have been training and recruiting Kurds for clandestine operations and surveillance in Iran and Syria. The advantage of having Kurdish fighters carry out operations is that they can easily blend into ethnic Kurdish communities and sow dissent.
They can also recruit rebel elements and build bases for future operations. Kurdish militiamen and fighters from the MEK are seen by Israel as ideal insurgents.
Richard Walker is the nom de plume of a former mainstream news producer who now writes for AFP so he can expose the kinds of subjects that he was forbidden to cover in the controlled press.
:: The incoming address of this article is :
www.americanfreepress.net/html/us__israel_operate_in_iran.html
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The above 'divide and conquer' agenda is right in accordance with the Zionist plan (translated by Israeli Oded Yinon) for the Middle East which Dr. Stephen Sniegoski mentions in his 'The war on Iraq:
Conceived in Israel' article via the following URL:
http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_conc1.htm
As the following conveys, Dr Sniegoski will be on Karen Kwiatkowski's radio broadcast this coming Saturday (May 20th, 2006) as http://video.csupomona.edu/HotTalk/KarenKwiatkowski-245.asx includes an excellent interview with Karen Kwiatkowski who is also mentioned in James Bamford's 'A Pretext for War' book:
From: "Stephen Sniegoski"
To: "Sniegoski, Stephen"
Subject: Karen Kwiatkowski Radio Program (Correction)
Date: Fri, 12 May 2006 12:14:33 -0400
Friends,
Karen Kwiatkowski Radio Program (Correction)
A correction here. It was the Office of Special Plans (not planning) that pushed the neocon propaganda. Sorry for the brain malfunction. A friend corrected it.
Karen Kwiatkowski Radio Program (Correction)
I will be on Karen Kwiatkowski's radio program "American Forum" on Saturday, May 20 from 9-11 PM Eastern Time. It is broadcast on the Internet http://www.rbnlive.com/listen.html (and archived) As you probably know, Karen Kwiatkowski provided the early eye-witness accounts of the Office of Special Plans--the neocon propaganda unit in the Pentagon that helped to push the US into the war on Iraq. At the time, she was a USAF lieutenant-colonel working at the Pentagon's Near East/South Asia bureau. Kwiatkowski has a Ph.D. in World Politics, with a background in intelligence--she also worked with the National Security Agency while in the military.
Kwiatkowski left NESA in February, 2003 and retired from the Air Force the following month, after 25 years of military service Since that time she has been writing about what she experienced at the Pentagon as well as commenting on more general topics concerning politics and foreign policy (regularly for LewRockwell.com). She is obviously a strong critic of the war agenda in the Middle East.
I will be talking on the neocon-Israel role in the Iraq war and current developments with Iran. I think it should be an interesting show.
Steve Sniegoski
Republican Broadcasting Network American Forum w/Karen Kwiatkowski
http://www.rbnlive.com/listen.html
Also short-wave radio frequency 5.050
Saturday, May 20
8-10 PM Central Time
9-11 PM Eastern Time
If you live in another time zone, you will have to make your own calculations. The radio programs are also archived for future listening. If you listen to the live broadcast, the Call-in Number is 800-313-9443
Additional material by Dr. Sniegoski is included at the following URLs (scroll down to such at both)::
"Hawkish Israeli Lobby Wants War with Iran!"
http://baltimore.indymedia.org/newswire/display/12448/index.php
US Middle East policy Motivated by pro-Israel lobby:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2006/03/17/u-s-middle-east-policy-motivated-by-pro-israel-lobby.php
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No wonder the Israelis have been so interested in the Kurds:
PLAN B:
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040628fa_fact
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Pro-Israel lobby in U.S. under attack
http://www.upi.com/InternationalIntelligence/view.php?StoryID=20060320-124726-1902r
Intl. Intelligence
WASHINGTON, March 20 (UPI) -- Two of America's top scholars have published a searing attack on the role and power of Washington's pro-Israel lobby in a British journal, warning that its "decisive" role in fomenting the Iraq war is now being repeated with the threat of action against Iran. And they say that the Lobby is so strong that they doubt their article would be accepted in any U.S.-based publication.
Professor John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, author of "The Tragedy of Great Power Politics" and Professor Stephen Walt of Harvard's Kenney School, and author of "Taming American Power: The Global Response to U.S. Primacy," are leading figures American in academic life.
They claim that the Israel lobby has distorted American policy and operates against American interests, that it has organized the funneling of more than $140 billion dollars to Israel and "has a stranglehold" on the U.S. Congress, and its ability to raise large campaign funds gives its vast influence over Republican and Democratic administrations, while its role in Washington think tanks on the Middle East dominates the policy debate.
And they say that the Lobby works ruthlessly to suppress questioning of its role, to blacken its critics and to crush serious debate about the wisdom of supporting Israel in U.S. public life.
"Silencing skeptics by organizing blacklists and boycotts -- or by suggesting that critics are anti-Semites -- violates the principle of open debate on which democracy depends," Walt and Mearsheimer write.
"The inability of Congress to conduct a genuine debate on these important issues paralyses the entire process of democratic deliberation. Israel's backers should be free to make their case and to challenge those who disagree with them, but efforts to stifle debate by intimidation must be roundly condemned," they add, in the 12,800-word article published in the latest issue of The London Review of Books.
The article focuses strongly on the role of the "neo-conservatives" within the Bush administration in driving the decision to launch the war on Iraq.
"The main driving force behind the war was a small band of neo-conservatives, many with ties to the Likud," Mearsheimer and Walt argue." Given the neo-conservatives' devotion to Israel, their obsession with Iraq, and their influence in the Bush administration, it isn't surprising that many Americans suspected that the war was designed to further Israeli interests."
"The neo-conservatives had been determined to topple Saddam even before Bush became president. They caused a stir early in 1998 by publishing two open letters to Clinton, calling for Saddam's removal from power. The signatories, many of whom had close ties to pro-Israel groups like JINSA (Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs) or WINEP (Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy), and who included Elliot Abrams, John Bolton, Douglas Feith, William Kristol, Bernard Lewis, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, had little trouble persuading the Clinton administration to adopt the general goal of ousting Saddam. But they were unable to sell a war to achieve that objective. They were no more able to generate enthusiasm for invading Iraq in the early months of the Bush administration. They needed help to achieve their aim. That help arrived with 9/11. Specifically, the events of that day led Bush and Cheney to reverse course and become strong proponents of a preventive war," Walt and Mearsheimer write.
The article, which is already stirring furious debate in U.S. academic and intellectual circles, also explores the historical role of the Lobby.
"For the past several decades, and especially since the Six-Day War in 1967, the centerpiece of US Middle Eastern policy has been its relationship with Israel," the article says.
"The combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to spread 'democracy' throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardized not only U.S. security but that of much of the rest of the world. This situation has no equal in American political history. Why has the U.S. been willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of another state?" Professors Walt and Mearsheimer add.
"The thrust of U.S. policy in the region derives almost entirely from domestic politics, and especially the activities of the 'Israel Lobby'. Other special-interest groups have managed to skew foreign policy, but no lobby has managed to divert it as far from what the national interest would suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that U.S. interests and those of the other country - in this case, Israel -- are essentially identical," they add.
They argue that far from being a strategic asset to the United States, Israel "is becoming a strategic burden" and "does not behave like a loyal ally." They also suggest that Israel is also now "a liability in the war on terror and the broader effort to deal with rogue states.
"Saying that Israel and the U.S. are united by a shared terrorist threat has the causal relationship backwards: the US has a terrorism problem in good part because it is so closely allied with Israel, not the other way around," they add. "Support for Israel is not the only source of anti-American terrorism, but it is an important one, and it makes winning the war on terror more difficult. There is no question that many al-Qaida leaders, including Osama bin Laden, are motivated by Israel's presence in Jerusalem and the plight of the Palestinians. Unconditional support for Israel makes it easier for extremists to rally popular support and to attract recruits."
They question the argument that Israel deserves support as the only democracy in the Middle East, claiming that "some aspects of Israeli democracy are at odds with core American values. Unlike the US, where people are supposed to enjoy equal rights irrespective of race, religion or ethnicity, Israel was explicitly founded as a Jewish state and citizenship is based on the principle of blood kinship. Given this, it is not surprising that its 1.3 million Arabs are treated as second-class citizens."
The most powerful force in the Lobby is AIPAC, the American-Israel Public affairs Committee, which Walt and Mearsheimer call "a de facto agent for a foreign government," and which they say has now forged an important alliance with evangelical Christian groups.
The bulk of the article is a detailed analysis of the way they claim the Lobby managed to change the Bush administration's policy from "halting Israel's expansionist policies in the Occupied Territories and advocating the creation of a Palestinian state" and divert it to the war on Iraq instead. They write "Pressure from Israel and the Lobby was not the only factor behind the decision to attack Iraq in March 2003, but it was critical."
"Thanks to the lobby, the United States has become the de facto enabler of Israeli expansion in the Occupied Territories, making it complicit in the crimes perpetrated against the Palestinians," and conclude that "Israel itself would probably be better off if the Lobby were less powerful and U.S. policy more even-handed."
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Mearsheimer replies to the irate "Israel Lobby"
Letters - The Israel Lobby - From John Mearsheimer & Stephen Walt.
We wrote ‘The Israel Lobby’ in order to begin a discussion of a subject that had become difficult to address openly in the United States (LRB, 23 March). We knew it was likely to generate a strong reaction, and we are not surprised that some of our critics have chosen to attack our characters or misrepresent our arguments. …. Must Read !!!
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n09/letters.html
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/print/mear01_.html
Additional at following URL:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2006/03/17/u-s-middle-east-policy-motivated-by-pro-israel-lobby.php
Last edited by Alpha on Sun May 21, 2006 7:03 pm; edited 11 times in total | |  | | Alpha | | Posted: Thu May 18, 2006 12:59 am Post subject: IRAN: THINK IT WON'T HAPPEN? THINK AGAIN |
| STOP THE WAR COALITION NEWSLETTER
No 2006/10: May 1
Email office@stopwar.org.uk
Telephone 020 7278 6694
Web www.stopwar.org.uk
*************************************************
IN THIS NEWSLETTER
1) IRAN: THINK IT WON'T HAPPEN? THINK AGAIN.
2) THE COST OF ONE US SOLDIER IN IRAQ
3) REGISTER ONLINE FOR THE STW CONFERENCE
4) HEAR NEIL YOUNG'S ANTI-WAR BARRAGE FOR FREE
*************************************************
1) IRAN: WILL IT HAPPEN?
Are they really going to attack Iran? The short answer is, yes, but
only
if we let them. 350,000 Americans filled the streets of New York on
Saturday, with Don't Attack Iran being one of their main slogans,
showing how the issue has begun to galvanise the US anti-war movement.
(For reports on the US demo go here: http://tinyurl.com/eq6gc. For
photos, go here: http://tinyurl.com/fvy7k)
The UK anti-war movement also needs to push Iran to the top of its
agenda. Next Saturday 6 May there will be Don’t Attack Iran events
around Britain, in response to the call for an international day of
action. The details of the all-London event, with Tony Benn and Bruce
Kent among the speakers, and of other 6 May events round the country
are
given on the Stop the War website: http://tinyurl.com/foc2l.
But will it happen? What more evidence do we need? The US government
has
branded Iran "public enemy number one" and called it "the world's most
active sponsor of terrorism". Condoleezza Rice says the United Nations
credibility is at stake if it doesn't act. Jack Straw says, "It is very
serious that the Iranian regime has failed fully to cooperate with the
United Nations". Rice added that the US will act with a coalition of
"like-mined nations", if the UN doesn't do America's bidding. Sound
familiar?
It was recently revealed that British army officers took part in US war
games aimed at preparing for a possible invasion of Iran, despite Straw
saying such an attack was "inconceivable".
Meanwhile, the Turkish foreign minister has revealed that Turkey has
turned down a US offer of a sweetener in the shape of a free nuclear
reactor if it will allow the Bush administration to use a Turkish air
base for attacking Iran.
It's all very reminiscent of the build up to the Iraq war and the media
has fallen for it again, as if the lies and deceptions used to lay the
foundations for that illegal war never happened. As Edward Herman
writes, "The media are going through the same routines of propaganda
service in the build-up to a possible attack on Iran."
Add to all of this, Bush's fast plummeting poll ratings and the
imploding of Blair's government. A foreign "adventure" may seem to them
very inviting, whatever the cost in lives and further destabilisation
of
the world. We have all the ingredients for an attack taking place
sooner
rather than later.
Whether they can get away with it depends on what the anti-war movement
does. It has to be our task to build the widest opposition to the plans
to attack Iran, which will make it clear to Bush and Blair that any
more
of their warmongering will bring politically fatal consequences. The
best place to start in this country is by organising and joining Don't
Attack Iraq protests on Saturday 1 May (for details see
http://tinyurl.com/foc2l)
To read key articles relating to the plans for attacking Iran, see the
feature on the Stop the War website titled "Don't think an attack on
Iran will happen? Think again", which you will find here:
http://tinyurl.com/foc2l
*************************************************
2) THE COST OF ONE US SOLDIER IN IRAQ
73 US soldiers sent to kill and be killed in Iraq were killed in April,
the highest monthly figure this year. This has been the fate of over
2400 US soldiers in the past three years, with close to 20,000 having
been seriously injured, 10,000 of them so badly they are retired from
the army, many of them with missing limbs, horrific facial injuries or
brain damage.
How much does it cost to keep a single US soldier in Iraq with the
increasing prospect of being killed or seriously injured? The figure
was
released this week: 350,000 dollars a year.
The new STATISTICS page on the Stop the War website carries continually
updated information like this about every aspect of the Iraq war. Visit
it here:
http://www.stopwar.org.uk/Statistics.htm
Send us any information you think we should include on our STATISTCS
page to: office@stopwar.org.uk
*************************************************
3) REGISTER ONLINE FOR THE STW CONFERENCE
Online registration for the Stop the War national annual conference on
Saturday 10 June is now available. Delegates from affiliated
organisations and individuals who wish to attend as observers can
register here: http://tinyurl.com/oo5c9
Interest in the conference is very high, given the impressive range of
speakers, to which has been added Plaid Cymru MP Adam Price, who lead
the parliamentary attempts to get Tony Blair impeached for misleading
the House of Commons over Iraq.
Full details of the conference are available on the website here:
http://tinyurl.com/oo5c9
*************************************************
4) HEAR NEIL YOUNG'S ANTI-WAR BARRAGE FOR FREE
Neil Young's latest album Living with War is, in the words of one
reviewer, "a fierce, comprehensive indictment of the Bush
administration". Song titles like "Shock and Awe" and "Let's Impeach
the
President" tell you all you need to know about the content of the
album,
and the lyrics couldn't be more blunt:
"Let's impeach the president for lying
and leading our country into war
abusing all the power that we gave him
and shipping all our money out the door
Let's impeach the president for spying
on citizens inside their own homes
breaking every law in the country
tapping our computers and telephones."
Young has put the whole album on his website for a free listen. It will
remain there for one week prior to its release. To hear it go here:
http://www.neilyoung.com/
--
To unsubscribe from this list, send a blank e-mail to
stwc-unsubscribe@lists.riseup | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Wed May 24, 2006 4:32 pm Post subject: J. Cole: Ahmadinejad didn't say wipe Israel off the map |
| POLITICS:
Iran Target of Apparent Disinformation Ploy
Jim Lobe
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=33322
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To: "rbleier" <rbleier@igc.org>
From: "Ronald" <rbleier@igc.org>
Date: Tue, 23 May 2006 12:38:40 -0400
Subject: [IntelligentMinds] J. Cole: Ahmadinejad didn't say wipe Israel off the map
Here's what Ahmadinejad really said according to Cole.
"The Imam said that this regime occupying Jerusalem (een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods) must [vanish from] from the page of time (bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad)."
Ahmadinejad was not making a threat, he was quoting a saying of Khomeini and urging that pro-Palestinian activists in Iran not give up hope-- that the occupation of Jerusalem was no more a continued inevitability than had been the hegemony of the Shah's government.
Friends:
Did I get this wrong, or was Cole's revelation that President Ahmadinejad didn't say Israel should be wiped off the map, prompted by an attack by Christopher Hitchens?
If that's. the case, why wasn't this information distributed independently?
According to Cole the supposed remark was invented as a deliberate slander on the part of the usual subject. I gather that Hitchens is way beyond the appeals to truth, common sense or apologies. Yet, as low as he's fallen, does he really want Bush to attack Iran with all the chaos and disaster that it might bring? Talk about descents. . --- Ronald
***
Hitchens the Hacker; And, Hitchens the Orientalist
By Juan Cole, 3 May 2006 (source: www.juancole.com)
Christopher Hitchens owes me a big apology.
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.
Hitchens somehow hacked into the site, or joined and lurked, or had a crony pass him things. And he has now made my private email messages the subject of an attack on me in Slate. (I am not linking to the article because it is highly unethical and Slate does not deserve any direct traffic from my site for it.) Moreover, he did not even have the decency to quote the final outcome of the discussions.
I'd like to take this opportunity to complain about the profoundly dishonest character of "attack journalism." Journalists are supposed to interview the subjects about which they write. Mr. Hitchens never contacted me about this piece. He never sought clarification of anything. He never asked permission to quote my private mail. Major journalists have a privileged position. Not just anyone can be published in Slate. Most academics could not get a gig there (I've never been asked to write for it). Hitchens is paid to publish there because he is a prominent journalist. But then he should behave like a journalist, not like a hired gun for the far Right, smearing hapless targets of his ire. That isn't journalism. For some reason it drives the Right absolutely crazy that I keep this little web log, and so they keep trotting out these clowns in amateurish sniping attacks. It is rather sad, that one person standing up to them puts them into such piranha-like frenzy.
The precise reason for Hitchens' theft and publication of my private mail is that I object to the characterization of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as having "threatened to wipe Israel off the map." I object to this translation of what he said on two grounds. First, it gives the impression that he wants to play Hitler to Israel's Poland, mobilizing an armored corps to move in and kill people.
But the actual quote, which comes from an old speech of Khomeini, does not imply military action, or killing anyone at all. The second reason is that it is just an inexact translation. The phrase is almost metaphysical. He quoted Khomeini that "the occupation regime over Jerusalem should vanish from the page of time." It is in fact probably a reference to some phrase in a medieval Persian poem. It is not about tanks.
Since Mr. Hitchens wants to splash my private mail all over the internet against my will, as though he were himself an agent of the Bush Administration's electronic spying on the private conversations of Americans, I'm glad to share the message that encapsulates the results of our deliberations at Gulf2000.
Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 15:34:18 -0400 From: "Cole, Juan"
The speech in Persian is here:
Sorry that I misremembered the exact phrase Ahmadinejad had used. He made an analogy to Khomeini's determination and success in getting rid of the Shah's government, which Khomeini had said "must go" (az bain bayad berad). Then Ahmadinejad defined Zionism not as an Arabi-Israeli national struggle but as a Western plot to divide the world of Islam with Israel as the pivot of this plan.
The phrase he then used as I read it is "The Imam said that this regime occupying Jerusalem (een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods) must [vanish from] from the page of time (bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad)."
Ahmadinejad was not making a threat, he was quoting a saying of Khomeini and urging that pro-Palestinian activists in Iran not give up hope-- that the occupation of Jerusalem was no more a continued inevitability than had been the hegemony of the Shah's government.
Whatever this quotation from a decades-old speech of Khomeini may have meant, Ahmadinejad did not say that "Israel must be wiped off the map" with the implication that phrase has of Nazi-style extermination of a people. He said that the occupation regime over Jerusalem must be erased from the page of time.
Again, Ariel Sharon erased the occupation regime over Gaza from the page of time.
I should again underline that I personally despise everything Ahmadinejad stands for, not to mention the odious Khomeini, who had personal friends of mine killed so thoroughly that we have never recovered their bodies. Nor do I agree that the Israelis have no legitimate claim on any part of Jerusalem. And, I am not exactly a pacifist but have a strong preference for peaceful social activism over violence, so needless to say I condemn the sort of terror attacks against innocent civilians (including Arab Israelis) that we saw last week. I have not seen any credible evidence, however, that such attacks are the doing of Ahmadinejad, and in my view they are mainly the result of the expropriation and displacement of the long-suffering Palestinian people.
It is not realistic for Americans to call for Iran to talk directly to the Israeli government (though in the 1980s the Khomeinists did a lot of business with Israel) when the US government won't talk directly to the Iranians about most bilateral issues. In fact, an American willingness to engage in direct talks might well pave the way to an eventual settlement of these outstanding issues.
cheers
Juan Cole
I don't have any intention of making a point by point reply to Hitchens's completely inaccurate screed. He blames me for not referring to some other speech of Khomeini, when in fact I never instanced any speeches of Khomeini at all in this discussion except the snippet cited by Ahmadinejad-- I was arguing that there is no Persian idiom to wipe something off the map, and that Ahmadinejad has been misquoted.
Hitchens imagines a whole discourse of mine (which mostly never took place) that he now sets out to refute-- from English translations! But I was saying that the wire service translations were the problem in the first place. Hitchens seems to think that he can over-rule my reading of a Persian text by reference to some hurried journalist's untechnical rendering into English.
Hitchens alleges that I said that Khomeini never called for wiping Israel from the face of the map. Actually, I never said anything at all about Khomeini's own speeches or intentions. I was solely discussing Ahmadinejad. Hitchens should please quote me on Khomeini and Israel. He cannot. He is making it up out of whole cloth. He should retract.
I write so much with which the Far Right disagrees so vehemently. I publish it here. Why is it that they keep having to invent quotations and put them in my mouth. Now, Cole is alleged to deny that Khomeini's rhetoric was hostile to Israel. Is that even a plausible allegation?
But, by the way, Khomeini sold oil to Israel, and Israel sold him weapons and spare parts, and put the Reagan administration up to doing the same thing. You will note that when Khomeini originally made the statement about the occupation regime over Jerusalem vanishing from the page of time, that was not front page news. In fact, secret Israeli arms shipments were arriving in Tehran as Khomeini was speaking. So whatever is going on now is not about the rhetoric, is it?
Here is what the National Security Archive says about Khomeini and Israel:
' Even during the hostage crisis in Tehran, Israel?later the United States' partner through much of the Iran initiative?began to strike weapons deals of its own with Iran. Tel Aviv, like Washington, had a long history of selling arms to the Shah, which Tehran's revolutionary government was willing to exploit secretly, despite its public animosity toward the state of Israel. Reportedly, the United States knew about Israeli transactions during the early 1980s but turned a blind eye. News accounts alleged later that President Reagan's first secretary of state, Alexander Haig, gave Tel Aviv an "amber light," acquiescing in the weapons transfers without officially approving them. One report stated that Haig gave permission to Israel to sell U.S.-made military spare parts for fighter planes to Iran in early 1981 after discussions between his counselor at the State Department, Robert McFarlane, and Israeli Foreign Ministry official David Kimche. An Israeli account of the U.S.-backed weapons sales of 1985-1986 reports that Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon proposed as early as 1982 that Washington consider an opening to factions in Iran using limited military sales as a vehicle. The White House apparently declined the suggestion but four years later would be more receptive to a similar proposal brought to McFarlane, then national security advisor, by his long-time counterpart, Kimche. '
Note that not only were the Israelis dealing with Khomeini, they are alleged to have been doing so while he was holding American hostages.
Back to Hitchens. How to explain this peculiar behavior on the part of someone who was at one time one of our great men of letters?
Well, I don't think it is any secret that Hitchens has for some time had a very serious and debilitating drinking problem. He once showed up drunk to a talk I gave and heckled me. I can only imagine that he was deep in his cups when he wrote, or had some far Rightwing think tank write, his current piece of yellow journalism. I am sorry to witness the ruin of a once-fine journalistic mind.
But the other reason for Hitchens's piece may be that he has become a warmonger, and it is possible that he wants a US war against Iran. More on that below.
As for the matter at issue, Ahmadinejad is a non-entity. The Iranian "president" is mostly powerless. The commander of the armed forces is the Supreme Jurisprudent, Ali Khamenei. Worrying about Ahmadinejad's antics is like worrying that the US military will act on the orders of the secretary of the interior. Ahmadinejad cannot declare war on anyone, or mobilize a military. So it doesn't matter what speeches he gives.
Moreover, Iran cannot fight Israel. It would be defeated in 72 hours, even if the US didn't come in, which it would (and rightly so if Israel were attacked). Iran is separated by several other countries from Israel. It has not attacked aggressively any other country militarily for over a century (can Americans say that of their own record?) It has only a weak, ineffective air force. So why worry about it?
What is really going on here is an old trick of the warmongers. Which is that you equate hurtful statements of your enemy with an actual military threat, and make a weak and vulnerable enemy look like a strong, menacing foe. Then no one can complain when you pounce on the enemy and reduce his country to flames and rubble.
It is obvious that powerful political forces in Washington are fishing for a pretext to launch a war on Iran, and that they are just delighted to have Ahmadinejad as cartoon villain and pretext. But they had a moderate, reforming president in Mohammad Khatami for 8 years, and just blew off all his overtures to the West. Iranians organized big candle-light vigils for America after September 11, in sympathy!
Washington never gave the reform movement the slightest encouragement, perhaps in hopes that the Iranians would be forced to turn right again and form a proper object of US hatred. If so, they got their wish last summer, when Ahmadinejad used the same dirty techniques to get elected as had George W. Bush.
All the warmongers in Washington, including Hitchens, if he falls into that camp, should get this through their heads. Americans are not fighting any more wars in the Middle East against toothless third rate powers. So sit down and shut up.
One, two, three, four! We don't want your stinking war!
We are not going to see any more US troops come home in body bags at Dover for the sake of some Cheney affiliate grabbing the petroleum in Iran's Ahvaz fields.
We are not going to have another 15,000 wounded vets flood onto our streets with spine damage and brain damage.
We are not going to put Yazd behind barbed wire to liberate it, as a millenarian Christian general did to Habbaniyah in Iraq.
We are not going to imprison and torture thousands of Iranians at Evin Penitentiary in Tehran, as worthy successors to the bloodthirsty Shah and Khomeini.
We are not going to kill 200,000 Iranians with aerial bombardments of Tabriz, Isfahan, Qom, Kerman, Shiraz and Mashahd.
We are not going to let dozens of US corporations loot the American people and the Iranian people alike with no-bid "contracts", embezzlement, corruption, and graft.
We are not going to let you have a war against Iran.
So sit down and shut up, American Enterprise Institute, and Hudson Institute, and Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and American Heritage Institute, and this institute and that institute, and cable "news", and government "spokesmen", and all the pundit-ferrets you pay millions to make business for the American military-industrial complex and Big Oil.
We don't give a rat's ass what Ahmadinejad thinks about European history or what pissant speech the little shit gives.
I call on university students across America to begin holding antiwar rallies. The only way you can have a war on Iran is to draft the young people. It is you who are on the line. Demonstrate! Demonstrate against the very hint of war! Demonstrate in front of the warmongering "institutes" in Washington, DC! Demonstrate to end the one we've already got! (See Speaker's Forum on Iraq
Here is what the real Iran experts think about the prospect of an Iran war.
Because Hitchens's dirty tricks and lies against me are only the beginning. Whoever stands against the Perpetual War machine will be attacked, slimed, marginalized, and destroyed if the warmongers get their way. I don't care. Thus far and no farther.
One, two, three, four. We don't want your stinking war!
posted by Juan @ 5/03/2006 06:30:00 AM | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
