| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Sun May 21, 2006 5:44 pm Post subject: Israel's Olmert wants US to 'deal with' (bomb!) Iran |
| Iran: Gulf War III:
http://www.amconmag.com/2006/2006_06_05/feature.html
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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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Olmert tells US Congress world must confront Iranian threat
May 24 12:00 PM US/Eastern
afp.com
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert addressed a joint session of the US Congress and urged the international community to tackle Iran's nuclear bid.
"If we don't take Iran's bellicose rhetoric seriously now, we will be forced to take its nuclear aggressions seriously later," he said.
"The international community will be judged by its ability to convince nations and peoples to turn their backs on hatred and zealotry."
In his rare speech, Olmert also vowed to push forward in peace efforts with the Palestinians.
"I extend my hand in peace to Mahmud Abbas, elected president of the Palestinian Authority. On behalf of the state of Israel, we are willing to negotiate with a Palestinian Authority."
But Olmert reiterated Israel's demand that the Hamas government in the Palestinian territories recognize Israel's right to exist and renounce violence.
"In a few years they could be living in a Palestinian state, side by side in peace and security with Israel," Olmert declared to members of the US Senate and House of Representatives.
"But no one can make it happen for them unless they refuse to make it happen for themselves."
The newly-elected premier repeated Israel's commitment to the US-sponsorred roadmap to peace -- which calls for a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians -- but said Israel will not wait forever.
"Our deepest wish is to build a better future for our regions, hand in hand with a Palestinian partner," he said. "But if they refuse, we will not give a terrorist regime a veto over progress, or allow it to take hope hostage."
Among the audience in the House chamber was Vice President Dick Cheney, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Senator Hillary Clinton.
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Zionists manipulating public opinion to get US to attack Iran:
http://representativepress.blogspot.com/2006/06/manipulating-public-opinion.html
Iran Won't Give Up Nuclear Program Under Western Pressure But Agrees To Talks... (see pages 1 - 5 of the 'Comments' at the following blog entry):
www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/06/03/iran-wont-give-up-nuclea_n_22150.html
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From: "Jeff Blankfort" <jblankfort@earthlink.net>
Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 22:42:48 -0700
Subject: [IntelligentMinds] Haaretz: Birds of a feather
"An interesting question is why Israeli leaders are the ones who feel so at home in the White House. It must be true what they say about birds of a feather flocking together."
w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/719939.html
Last update - 06:03 26/05/2006
Birds of a feather
By Yossi Sarid
It was an important meeting between two very important people - a president whose time has passed and a prime minister whose time hasn't come yet. What Ehud Olmert will do with his time, and what time will do to Olmert, is something that only time will tell. Because time, as everyone knows, does what the brain keeps us from doing.
Now the political pundits will peck at every crumb that falls from George Bush's mouth, as if he is the one who decides, and not the global and regional reality that decides for him. "Bold ideas," said the president. "Positive ideas," he added for good measure.
I studied at a university in New York for two years before it dawned on me that when people said my remarks were "very interesting," it meant I was laying it on a little too thick. It took a while, but eventually it sank in.
Olmert passed the White House test with flying colors, no question about it. The famous chemistry seems to have been established. And why wouldn't it? Even before he flew off to Washington for this "get-acquainted meeting," as it was called, he gave an interview to The New York Times. "I wake up every morning and say to myself: 'Thank God for America, thank God for George W. Bush, thank God for Condi Rice, the most decent people I can talk with and take counsel with, and get advice and support from,' " he told Steven Erlanger.
Even the correspondent himself was a little uncomfortable with such fulsome praise. It's been so long since America's leaders have heard anything like it. Olmert's remarks were a little over the top, said Erlanger, a little too thick. It's a matter of taste, of course. Olmert must have figured that a bit of flattery never did anyone any harm.
"Condi" instead of "Condoleezza"? That's a way of marking territory with a familiar body odor. It wouldn't have taken much to turn Bush into "Bushy." Such slobbering hasn't been seen in these parts since we stopped licking stamps and envelopes. Happy is the man who gets up every the morning with such prayers of thanks to the good Lord. In the entire universe, I bet there are only handful who feel the way Olmert does.
Massacred Iraqi citizens are not thanking the Lord or praising Bush. American soldiers are not grateful to God and their president. Neither are their families. The genocide victims in Darfur don't wake up in the mornings sighing with happiness and contentment. The thanks of global terror victims, hoping to be rescued from the rising storm, have been cut off in mid-sentence. The torture victims of the CIA in dungeons around the world curse the day they were born and the person who darkened their lives. Those who have been poisoned by pollution and greenhouse emissions pour out their bitterness on the man who has refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol. Refugees of the hurricane in New Orleans, who observe their city from afar and have yet to return, will never forget, or forgive, the damage inflicted by nature and the Bush administration.
Most importantly, 71 percent of American citizens do not share our prime minister's Israeli good cheer. They are sick and tired of their president, they don't trust his judgment and they don't have the same faith in his integrity and good sense that Olmert has. The Americans, the Europeans, the Africans, the denizens of the Middle East, the Russians, the Chinese - none of them want to be pals with this president. None of them want his jinxed blessing. Even the Republicans in the Senate and the House of Representatives are on guard, and keeping their distance as they campaign for election in November.
An interesting question is why Israeli leaders are the ones who feel so at home in the White House. It must be true what they say about birds of a feather flocking together.
/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=719939
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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
Scroll down to the 'Thinking about Neoconservatism' article link at the following message thread URL:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/04/06/neoconservatism-as-a-jewish-movement.php
General Janis Karpinski discussed the MEK operations in Iran (via the JINSA/PNAC Neocon cabal out of AEI and JINSA/PNAC associate Dick Cheney's office) with a caller on her radio program from April 22nd, 2006:
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
“Hawkish Israeli Lobby Wants War with Iran!”
http://baltimore.indymedia.org/newswire/display/12448/index.php
Study Alleging Dominant Influence of Israeli Lobby Sparks Heated Fallout:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2006/05/25/study-alleging-dominant-influence-of-israeli-lobby-sparks-he.php
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June 1, 2006
Too Stupid for Citizenship
Will Americans fall for Bush's lies again?
by Charley Reese
If we allow the Bush administration to drag this country into a war with Iran, we should all burn our voter-registration cards and go ahead and admit that we are no longer worthy of being citizens of a self-governing republic.
For heaven's sake, the administration is employing the same tactics it used to justify the war against Iraq – refusal to negotiate, lies, disinformation, and demonization of the Iranian leader. Are we going to fall for the exact same con job all over again? If so, we are far too dumb to be trusted near a voting booth.
Recently, a story was floated that the Iranians had passed legislation requiring religious minorities to wear an identifying badge. "Nazi, Nazi" cried the neocon warmongers. Trouble is, the story was completely false. No such legislation was passed, and this bit of disinformation was knocked askew by the representative of Iran's Jewish community in the Iranian Parliament.
The source of the story was an Iranian who had been a big shot when the Shah was in power and is now with a public-relations firm that represents – surprise – many of the neoconservatives.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert also told a big whopper when he said Iran was only months away from making a nuclear bomb. No nuclear expert I'm aware of agrees with that assessment, and Olmert is no nuclear expert. Even assuming Iran wants a bomb, it is years away from being able to produce one.
It's clear that the Bush administration has chosen war. One, it refuses to negotiate with Iran; two, it refuses to recognize Iran's right, as a signer of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes; three, it has already set up an office in the Pentagon and another in the State Department to agitate for regime change; and four, it has begun its anti-Iranian propaganda campaign.
President Bush is a liar when he says he wants to use diplomacy to end the crisis. In the first place, he created the crisis; in the second place, he refuses to negotiate; and in the third place, he has, for all practical purposes, issued an ultimatum: Give up your right to enrich uranium, or we'll attack.
No country in the world wants us to attack Iran except Israel. That's no surprise. If the American people haven't figured out that Israel exerts an undue and injurious influence on the American government, then that's another reason for them to tear up their voter-registration cards.
And if driving toward war with Iran isn't bad enough, the Bush administration has restarted the Cold War with Russia by its incessant criticism of Vladimir Putin's government. I think, sometimes, that the whole Bush administration is out of touch with reality and should be on medication, starting with the president and vice president.
When you consider the wars, the profligate spending, the out-of-control debt and trade deficits, the refusal to control the borders, the alienation of most of the world and the constant spitting on the Constitution and civil liberties, you can conclude that this administration is going to destroy the United States as we know it. I don't say that lightly. I never in a million years would have imagined that this administration would do what it's done.
And if you are one of those armchair jingoists who thinks it's fun to kill foreigners, just keep that thought in mind when you have to pay $10 a gallon for gasoline and the economy comes crashing down on your head. Sure, we can damage Iran's nuclear facilities and kill a lot of Iranians, but we can't do it and keep the oil flowing out of the Persian Gulf at the same time.
It isn't out of concern for the Iranians that the rest of the world doesn't want a war. It's because other nations recognize the damage it will cause the world economy. It's also because they recognize that this is a phony crisis, like Iraq's mythical weapons of mass destruction.
Even if Iran developed a nuclear weapon, so what. We have thousands; the Israelis have hundreds. Iran isn't going to attack anybody. It hasn't attacked anyone in the past 100 years.
Find this article at:
http://www.antiwar.com/reese/?articleid=9066
Last edited by Alpha on Wed Jun 07, 2006 8:04 am; edited 10 times in total | |  | | Alpha | | Posted: Sun May 21, 2006 7:02 pm Post subject: No Security Guarantee for Iran, Rice Says |
| 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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Former CIA Analyst Says Iran Strike Set For June Or July:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2006/06/02/former-cia-analyst-says-iran-strike-set-for-june-or-july.php
Laura Catches George With Condi - Moves To Hotel?:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2006/06/02/laura-catches-george-with-condi-moves-to-hotel.php
Last edited by Alpha on Mon Jun 05, 2006 11:19 pm; edited 2 times in total | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon May 22, 2006 9:48 pm Post subject: Israel's new plan: A land grab |
| Israel's new plan: A land grab
Posted 5/15/2006 8:48 PM ET
By Jimmy Carter
New Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has announced that Israel will take unilateral steps to establish its own geographical boundaries during the next four years of his administration. His plan, as described during the recent Israeli election and the formation of a new governing coalition, would take about half of the Palestinian West Bank and encapsulate the urban areas within a huge concrete wall and the more rural parts of Palestine within a high fence. The barrier is not located on the internationally recognized boundary between Israel and Palestine, but entirely within and deeply penetrating the occupied territories.
The only division of territory between Israel and the Palestinians that is recognized by the United States or the international community awarded 77% of the land to the nation of Israel and the other small portion divided between the West Bank and Gaza. Only about twice the size of Washington, D.C., Gaza is now a politically and economically non-viable region, almost completely isolated from the West Bank, Israel and the outside world.
West Bank dissected
The Olmert plan would leave the remnant of the Palestinian West Bank with the same unacceptable characteristics. Deep intrusions would effectively divide it into three portions. The prime minister has also announced that Israeli soldiers will likely remain in the Palestinian territory, which will be completely encapsulated by Israel's control of its eastern border in the Jordan River valley.
It is inconceivable that any Palestinian, Arab leader, or any objective member of the international community could accept this illegal action as a permanent solution to the continuing altercation in the Middle East. This confiscation of land is to be carried out without resorting to peace talks with the Palestinians, and in direct contravention of the "road map for peace," which President Bush helped to initiate and has strongly supported.
Although former prime minister Ariel Sharon and the Israeli government rejected the key provisions of the road map by the Quartet of negotiators — the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia — it has been endorsed unequivocally by the moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Israel's government had adopted carefully negotiated agreements at Camp David in 1978 and in Oslo in 1993. Israeli leaders Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres received Nobel Peace Prizes for these major steps toward peace, along with their Arab counterparts. The basic terms of both of these historic accords would also be violated by Olmert's plan, as would all of the U.N. Security Council's resolutions on which the agreements were predicated and the nation of Israel was founded.
What is the alternative to this ill-advised move toward the unilateral confiscation and colonization of a major portion of the West Bank?
A better course
Good-faith negotiations should be initiated under the auspices of the international Quartet with President Abbas. During recent days, Abbas has been making the rounds of international capitals calling for the opportunity to find a path to permanent peace in the Holy Land. Although the recently elected Hamas legislators will neither recognize nor negotiate with Israel while Palestinian land is being occupied, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has expressed approval for direct Olmert-Abbas peace talks. He said, "The problem is not the Palestinian side or its consent to negotiations. ... If the (Palestinian) Authority chairman, as the elected president, wants to get the negotiations moving, we have no objection to that. If what Abu Mazen (Abbas) presents to the people as a result of negotiations serves its interest, then we too will redefine our position."
Presumably, these talks would be monitored and orchestrated by the United States, and any successfully negotiated terms of the road map would subsequently be approved by both Israelis and Palestinians. Such approval of a final peace agreement was an important facet of the Camp David Accords.
It would be a mistake to underestimate the difficulty of finding a mutually acceptable agreement, but many Israelis, Palestinians and international representatives are familiar with what must be its ultimate basic terms. They include reasonable border compromises based on the swapping of land, which could leave a substantial number of Israeli settlers undisturbed on Palestinian land.
A mutual Israeli-Palestinian agreement would undoubtedly result in full recognition of Israel by all Arab nations, with normal diplomatic and economic relations, and permanent peace and justice for the Palestinians.
It would also remove one of the major causes of international terrorism and greatly ease tensions that could precipitate a regional or even global conflict.
Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter is founder of the non-profit Carter Center, advancing peace and health worldwide.
Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2006-05-15-carter-israel-edit_x.htm | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Wed May 24, 2006 4:31 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
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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
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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 | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Thu May 25, 2006 6:43 pm Post subject: Ahmadinejad: Not Hitler After All |
| Ahmadinejad: Not Hitler After All
Ahmadinejad: Not Hitler After All
By Jan Frel, AlterNet
Posted on May 25, 2006, Printed on May 25, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/36654/
A now discredited article by Iranian-American and neocon chum Amir Taheri that appeared last Friday in the Canadian National Post suggested that new legislation in Iran would require Jews and other religious minorities to wear distinctive color badges. At the article's end appeared this invitation to readers:
"Dangerous Parallel: Is Iran turning into the new Nazi Germany? Share your opinion online at nationalpost.com."
The readers who wrote in immediately savaged the article, its author and the National Post's facile, transparent attempt to resurrect the Wermacht. No one took the bait, and the disbelief quickly spread across the internet.
The swift rejection of this attempt to turn Iran into the Fourth Reich incarnate is surely a natural reflex of a public still smarting from the ordeal of the Iraq PR campaign. Another explanation for the rapid response is the massive growth in streams of alternative information available to the public -- organizations like Media Matters and PR Watch literally make their living exposing lies and propaganda as they are released through media and government channels.
And then there are the bloggers who can singlehandedly get to the bottom of large-scale lies. In the case of the National Post story, blogger Taylor Marsh phoned the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which had confirmed Taheri's story after the report came out. A researcher Marsh spoke with on Friday "was eager to confirm it, using words like 'throwback' to the Nazi era, 'very true' and 'very scary.' ... "
Within the day, the story was repudiated. Middle East expert Juan Cole revealed that there was no evidence of any such anti-Jewish Iranian legislation, citing a report in the Australian press that quoted an Iranian politician denying its existence. Later in the day, Marsh again called the Wiesenthal Center and got the runaround. Looking at a fax the researcher sent her as background, Marsh discovered that the National Post had suggested to a rabbi at the Wiesenthal Center that it was important to "draw attention" to Taheri's report, exposing the scaffolding behind the propaganda effort.
Marsh concluded with the pointed question, "Who got the Simon Wiesenthal Center to stick their necks out on this bogus Iranian badge story, risking their very reputation and funding credibility, and who had what to gain by doing so?"
Marsh's deconstruction matters, because the story quickly made the rounds in conservative media, as analyst Jim Lobe wrote for IPS:
Taheri's story ... was reprinted by the New York Post, which is owned by media baron Rupert Murdoch, and picked up by the Jerusalem Post, which also featured a photo of a yellow star from the Nazi era over a photo of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Another neoconservative publication, the New York Sun, also noted the story Monday, claiming that the specific report that special badges were required by the legislation had been "incorrect." At the same time, however, the Sun quoted two Iranian-American foes of the Islamic Republic as suggesting that dress requirements for religious minorities were still being considered by Iran's ruling circles. It offered no evidence to support that assertion.
The rapid discrediting of the Taheri article had real impact; instead of Condi Rice's trumpeting it as evidence of a proto-Nazi human-rights disaster, all we heard was a peep from U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, who professed ignorance of the now-toxic article and slyly referred to the idea of Iran forcing people to wear badges as evocative of "Germany under Hitler."
Since the evil dictator line has been used and abused to the point of meaninglessness over the past five years in Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea and elsewhere, Bush and his team have been reduced to plundering words that still have some resonance in American life: "Hitler," "Nazis" and "Holocaust." Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker quoted a former senior intelligence official who said that Hitler is the comparison "name they are using" for Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
But, as the National Post story makes apparent, this tactic is not really working. The columnists and propagandists who support attacking Iran appear to sense that the Nazi backdrop through which they have been asked to present "The Iranian Question" reflects the utter baselessness of the charge and the facility with which opponents can easily refute their claims. Unlike the point-blank lies and bullet-point shotgun blasts on the op-ed pages and cable segments we got with Iraq about evil and weapons programs, with the Iran campaign, it has to be subliminal, surreptitious, stab-in-the-back.
Take conservative pundit Niall Ferguson's attempt in the L.A. Times. His May 15 opinion article was ostensibly about the rise of many little Cold Wars with the proliferation of nuclear powers. But within six sentences, Ferguson reveals that he wants to talk about Iran. Soon enough, in the most backhanded way possible, he tiptoes toward the Nazis:
"It is, of course, always dangerous to draw analogies with the 1930s. Too many bad decisions have been made over the years on the basis of facile parallels -- between Hitler and Nasser, between Hitler and Saddam Hussein."
In other words, even the Nazi comparison may have been looted of its meaning in the name of making bad decisions. So haven't we learned our lesson? No, because Bush still has one very bad decision to make, and a fanatic obsession with war does not generally give rise to creative impulses. So Ferguson relents: "Still, in one respect, Ahmadinejad really has taken a leaf out of the Führer's book."
It would be a distraction to explain just which leaf Ferguson is referring to, because then we'd be missing the point, which is to push us to link our historic venom against Nazis with anything Iranian, at any cost. Even the projection of Ahmadinejad as supreme leader is dubious; analysts and reporters have argued that he's merely a figurehead, and Seymour Hersh qouted a European diplomat who declared, "Ahmadinejad is not in control."
If enough people laugh off the attempts to draw Hitler's moustache on Ahmadinejad's upper lip, we might see the domestic propaganda division of the Get Iran effort shut down. The rapid and torrential takedown of the Taheri story is a good step in that direction.
But what if the propaganda were to stop, yet the attack on Iran were launched anyway?
Given the growing sense of total independence the Bush administration has displayed over the years, and its contempt for the press, it doesn't take a huge leap of the imagination to envision them attacking Iran while ignoring congressional power, public opinion, protesters and dissidents alike. That would be a very scary "first" in American history -- the only administration to go to war without a propaganda campaign. They don't even feel the need to lie to us anymore.
Jan Frel is an AlterNet staff writer.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/36654/ | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sun May 28, 2006 8:31 pm Post subject: |
| So does the Reuters article included below describe the beginning of the next step of the 'A Clean Break'/war for Israel agenda that esteemed intelligence author James Bamford discusses on pages 261-269/321 of his 'A Pretext for War' book (the paperback version of 'A Pretext for War' includes an additional chapter about the AIPAC/spying for Israel case and similar which the serving Israel first US press/media has hardly covered either along with the Mearsheimer/Walt paper on the pro-Israel lobby) - scroll down to pages 261-269 at the following URL:
'A Clean Break'/war for Israel' by James Bamford:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/02/11/a-clean-break-from-james-bamford-s-a-pretext-for-war.php
Every American patriot needs to read the 'Pro-Israel lobby under attack' UPI article (scroll down to such at the following message thread 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
"Hawkish Israeli Lobby Wants War with Iran!"
http://baltimore.indymedia.org/newswire/display/12448/index.php
Whose War? (Israel's war) - 'A Clean Break' agenda mentioned as well:
http://www.amconmag.com/03_24_03/cover.html
Violence flares on Lebanon-Israel border
Reuters
By Shawki al-Hajj
2 hours, 35 minutes ago (May 28, 2006)
Israeli jets attacked Syrian-backed Palestinian and Lebanese guerrillas in Lebanon on Sunday, hours after rockets fired deep into northern Israel wounded an Israeli soldier.
Gunbattles broke out between Israeli soldiers and Hizbollah guerrillas along the volatile Lebanese-Israeli border in what Israel said was its toughest attack since it ended a 22-year occupation of south Lebanon six years ago.
One Palestinian militant and a Hizbollah fighter were killed and two Lebanese civilians and another Israeli soldier were wounded in the fighting.
The Israeli army ordered residents living in northern areas to go to bomb shelters after a clash between Hizbollah and Israeli soldiers near Kibbutz Menara landed mortar and rocket fire in northern Israel, Israeli security sources said.
Hizbollah guerrillas, backed by Syria and Iran, also attacked Israeli posts in the disputed Shebaa Farms border area, Lebanese witnesses said.
U.N. peacekeepers later brokered a ceasefire that ended the hostilities and Israel called residents out of shelters.
"We are in contact with both sides. We brokered a ceasefire and we hope this agreement will take hold," Milos Strugar, senior adviser to the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, said.
The Palestinian group Islamic Jihad denied it claimed responsibility for the rocket attack into Israel although it had earlier vowed revenge for the killing of one of its officials and his brother in a car bombing in south Lebanon on Friday.
Witnesses said Israeli aircraft and artillery pounded areas along different parts of the border.
The Israeli army said those attacks targeted suspected Hizbollah positions in southern Lebanon in response to "a large scale attack on Israeli communities and military bases in northern Israel."
"VERY PAINFULL BLOW"
Israeli General Udi Adam, head of northern command for forces along Israel's northern border, told reporters that his forces attacked over 20 Hizbollah posts after an off-duty soldier was shot and wounded by sniper fire from Lebanon.
"Let there be no doubt that we will deal a very painful blow to whoever tries to disrupt life along our northern border," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Israeli television.
"I think those taking part in this fire have miscalculated. They will receive an unequivocal and very aggressive response without hesitation if they don't stop."
Hours earlier Israeli warplanes struck a military base just outside Beirut and another in the eastern Bekaa Valley, both run by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), which is based in Damascus.
Palestinian militants at the base near the eastern village of Luci fired automatic rifles and anti-aircraft guns at the planes, while the Lebanese army said its anti-aircraft units responded to the attack on the Naameh base near Beirut.
One of the bases, which consist of tunnels dug into the hills, was used to store arms.
Hizbollah, which controls the Lebanese side of the border and sporadically attacks Israeli posts in the disputed Shebaa Farms, condemned the Israeli strikes and said its fighters had hit back at Israeli positions.
"The Zionist enemy, who committed the crime of assassinating the two (Islamic Jihad) martyrs, alone bears responsibility for this dangerous escalation," Hizbollah said in a statement.
"It knows that its crimes would lead to retaliation and major repercussions..."
The group, which is under international pressure to disarm, said this week that it had thousands of rockets able to hit any target in northern Israel should the Jewish state attack Lebanese territory again.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said earlier that Israel planned to lodge a complaint with the U.N. Security Council over the initial rocket attack on the town of Safed.
(Additional reporting by Lin Noueihed in Beirut, Damascus and Jerusalem bureaux) | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
