Another War....

Lindsay Graham is promoting the idea of another war....this time with Iran. I think Lindsay Graham has a big hole in his head. The man is definitely out of touch with what Americans need. Will we be seeing John McCain start singing Bomb bomb bomb....Iran again?

Ball Girls, Big Lies and Bombing Iran

I originally posted this at OpEdNews on June 28, 2008 and here it is now for Mosquito Blog viewers:

Ball Girls, Big Lies and Bombing Iran

The Distortion of Reality

Take a look at this video for a minute: click here. Pretty amazing, pretty fantastic, right? When I first saw it I remarked to myself that that has got to be the most amazing catch I've seen since Willie Mays' famous catch in 1954. And then later in the day, very curious about the amazingly talented ball girl, I ran across Snopes.com's exposure of the whole video sequence as an extremely clever, viral Gatorade commercial. The ball girl had been flung into the air by stunt men above who hoisted her up with cables, and digitized editing and speech had done the rest, even adding the ball, to create an apparently seamless, very real sports event. Ball girl, I am pained to say, is a phony. To read how the producers did it, click here. And what is the moral here? We can no longer believe our own eyes in the media.

Now what has this got to do with Iran exactly? Actually, it has something to do with the entire fabric of modern civilization, with the media, with politics, with our perception of reality, for this little video is so convincingly real to the average eye, so minutely nuanced in every little detail that it is stark proof-positive that technology has now ushered in limitless horizons for propaganda, falsehood and deception. Let us think back to Colin Powell in February 2003 giving his infamous Power Point presentation that was essentially setting up Iraq for the kill. At one point he had to revert to some 3-D animations to show those supposed mobile biological/chemical warfare labs in the desert. That software technology in and off itself wowed millions, but some of us knew then and there, because Powell was really resorting to fancy cartoons, that something was definitely not right.

Indeed, nothing was right, as it turned out. But if they had gone to the extent taken in making the Ball Girl video, with actual video footage, they would have possibly fooled everybody at that point in time. Maybe they had that capacity but thought better of it, because the White House, State Department and Pentagon still would not have found their fantasy mobile labs in the desert, and this would have exposed the fact that they had utilized cutting edge video technology to create great new levels of deceit.

But in light of the proven capabilities of media technology to now manipulate or fabricate reality, we have to start asking ourselves, what else might we have been shown in the media in the last few years that just isn't real, that is pure lies, pure propaganda, pure wizardry? What readily comes to mind is the veracity of the infamous Osama bin Laden "Confession Tape" in late 2001, in which a healthy, suddenly plump and rounder-faced bin Laden is sandwiched, chronologically, between an earlier and then later al Qaeda video showing an increasingly gaunt and sickly bin Laden.

In fact, some of us have intuited that bin Laden likely died in December of 2001, which would mean that somebody has been pulling the Ball Girl routine on the world for some seven years now, with artistic renditions of bin Laden in audio and video format. This is why I am rather convinced that bin Laden will never be captured and never be prosecuted, despite the melodramatic pledges of both Senators McCain and Obama to do so. Good luck Senators! Meanwhile, both Pro-Taliban tribal warlord Baitullah Mehsud recently and the late Benazir Bhutto, in an interview before she died, have stated that bin Laden is dead. But this kind of fly in the ointment news never reaches the mainstream media, with its ever-fleeting relationship with truth.

Regurgitating Hitler

The media's pathetic acquiescence to White House/Pentagon propaganda in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq was part and parcel of the grand Neocon strategy to capture the media and play it like a talking puppet. The Neocon strategy in turn is lifted right out of the pages of Mein Kampf, and let us never forget that. Hitler's autobiographical manifesto is actually one of the first extensive works on mass psychology and how to manipulate the masses. His propaganda principles are now time-tested and proven to work, and work well, so long as you are dealing, of course, with ignorant and authority-craving people, eager to believe whatever their rulers throw at them. That they were so effective in 2002 and 2003 during the propaganda onslaught against Saddam Hussein doesn't speak well of the sophistication of the American people or of much of the planet for that matter, for Bush had his cheerleaders in many, many countries brainwashing their citizens, particularly those that became the Coalition of the Willing.

Let us recall Hitler's core tenets, repetitiveness and simplicity, the Big Lie, and a unified organization, with the following quotes, first with:

"But the most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. Here, as so often in this world, persistence is the first and most important requirement for success." -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (Ralph Manheim translation, p.184)

Then there is what can only be described as the Nazis' grandest propaganda principle:

"All this was inspired by the principle - which is quite true in itself - that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation."
-Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (James Murphy translation, p. 134)

Finally, Hitler points out the need to have a focused, overbearing and passionate organization:

"Propaganda tries to force its doctrine on the whole people.....Propaganda works on the general public from the standpoint of an idea and makes them ripe for the victory of this idea, while the organization achieves victory by the persistent, organic, and militant union of those supporters who seem willing and able to carry on the fight for victory."
-Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (Ralph Manheim translation, p. 582)

Thus, all of the above principles must be implemented to be truly effective, and done so by a strong propaganda apparatus, dedicated and single minded, that brooks no internal dissent, and ultimately no external dissent. When you stop to analyze the last seven years of the Bush Administration in general, and the strategy and tactics employed to drag America into war against Iraq in particular, then you will see all these principles at work.

We indeed saw the effort to purge the government of all dissent, as whistle-blowers and contrarians were forced out on the street or resigned in disgust, while true believers were hired by the droves to fill the ranks of the various departments of the Executive Branch. We saw the corollary attempt to stack all the Federal courts with the same true believers. And we saw the Republican Party become ascendant, for a time at least, in the Legislative Branch, although even when later back in minority status, the Neocon Republicans still seem to frame the debate and control the issues.

Furthermore, the effort to create a united front marching for the victory of the "Idea", the comic-book "War on Terror", extended well into the ever-consolidating and petrified-of-being-lambasted-as-unpatriotic, corporate media. And once Iraq was actually invaded, we then saw the spectacle of the embedded reporter who seemed to do everything except take a gun and shoot some "Hajis" to fit in with the troops, and who waited around expectantly, much as a dog waits for crumbs to be thrown at it, for the next press conference by some puerile officer who would present the latest Pentagon adjustment of reality.

We also saw two Big Lies arise, the great WMD myth, followed up by the great Saddam-al Qaeda-link myth. These were hammered into our heads daily, relentlessly, with evidence even being fabricated, during and after the buildup to war, fulfilling the third essential component to propagandizing the masses, repetitiveness.

Applying the Principles to Iran

Thus first we saw the perfect propaganda storm engineered to invade and occupy Iraq, not to mention Afghanistan, and now we are witnessing the same phenomenon being put into play again against Iran. There is absolutely no doubt that the Neocon movement wants to attack and emasculate Iran, and so, as all inherent Fascists would do by instinct, they have crafted three key Big Lies about the Republic of Iran: 1) that Iran is a terrorist state threatening the Middle East and actually the entire world. 2) that the Iranian government is training and supplying various Iraqi elements to kill Americans inside Iraq as well as destabilize the Iraqi government, and 3) that Iran is Hell-bent to create weapons-grade uranium and nuclear weaponry.

To support the first allegation, the Bush Administration depends to a great extent on the support Iran gives to Hamas and Hezbollah, whom the State Department ritually declares terrorist organizations annually, and thus to paint Iran as guilty of terrorism by association. Yet the fundamental reality that even Israel tacitly admits to is that both Hamas and Hezbollah are popular resistance movements, not al Qaeda-like terrorist organizations, that are borne from the Israeli occupations, past or present, of Palestine and Lebanon respectively. Israel, to underscore this point, has just negotiated a ceasefire, however unstable, with Hamas, recognizing that Fatah leader, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, is basically a politician without a constituency, utterly weak and compromised, propped up only by Israeli and American support. It is Hamas that represents the majority of the Palestinian people.

Then there have been vague and shadowy reports and rumors surfacing in the media that Iran is in league with al Qaeda, not only historically absurd, but again without confirmable substance. But this serves the purpose of reinforcing the image of Iran as a terrorist state, guilt by insinuation.

Regarding the second Big Lie, that Iran is supplying lethal explosive devices to the Iraqi resistance, this has been debunked rather regularly by various independent journalists, who also point out that what weapons do reach Iraq from Iran are largely bought from the Black Market and then smuggled in. Meanwhile, Iraqis are fully capable of manufacturing their own IEDs and EFPs. Gareth Porter has also just written a devastating piece in Alexander Cockburn's Counterpunch Newsletter entitled "The Story of Gen. Petraeus' Deception and How It Easily Duped the Press and Congress", which has not been released to the public yet, so I will not try to quote from it, but the crux of it is that General Petraeus, who is an embarrassment to the memory of men like Eisenhower and MacArthur, has been colluding with Dick Cheney in a full scale propaganda campaign against Iran with no real substance, one that has been consistently exposed and debunked by Iraqi officials, including Kurdish Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, as well as by foreign reporters. Even the American military has had to renege on some of its past accusations against Iran publicly, they were so patently untrue.

Petraeus has taken his own Faustian plunge into the world of lies, fabrications and deceit, and how the Devil gets his due from him will remain to be seen.

If you are frantic to read Porter's article, by the way, go to http://www.counterpunch.org/ The first paragraph of the home page tells you how to subscribe to the newsletter. The newsletter you want is Volume 15, Number 11.

Regarding the third Big Lie, that Iran is developing weapons-grade uranium for a secret nuclear weapons program, Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, has written a hard-hitting, well-researched article for Asia Times eviscerating this canard. It is entitled "The myth of 'weapons-grade' enrichment".

First he points out the almost abject servility of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon toward one of the worst longtime offenders of various United Nations statutes and resolutions over the decades, Israel, one of those statutes being that member nations do not threaten each other. Ban is very quick to criticize Iranian President Ahmadinejad's rhetoric against Israel, but is totally silent while Israel has repeatedly, over the past few years, threatened to bomb Iran, not in self-defense from any attack, but as a preemptive strike against some hypothetical future threat.

This is uttered while the head of the IAEA, Mohammad ElBaradei, has stated, fatalistically, that an Israeli attack on the Middle East will provoke a regional fireball. Yet Ban is doing nothing to defuse tensions, and is actually tacitly taking sides in the confrontation, another blow to the credibility of the United Nations.

Worse still, Kaveh points out, is the American media's actively taking sides in the dispute by faithfully regurgitating all of the Neocon propaganda, from Bush to Cheney to Bolton to McCain to Olmert, ad infinitum, about Iran's phantom Nuke program. I quote:

Instead, the US media in particular have allowed themselves to become an unwitting accomplice of Israel's anti-Iran propaganda machine, dutifully recycling the line that Iran is actively pursuing nuclear weapons, has amassed "weapons-grade" enriched uranium, and is thus on the verge of arriving at "the point of no return" with respect to bomb-making.

In a word, the race to dupe public opinion about a "clear and present danger" posed by Iran's nuclear program, to justify Israel's threatened attack (with the US's tacit approval) is in full gear and the US media are by and large about to receive another "F" card, just as they did with the US's 2003 invasion of Iraq, when the "pluralistic" media became a shell of itself by blindly echoing the White House's spin about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. (Asia Times source)

Kaveh excoriates the corporate media, including the New York Times, Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal and the other usual propaganda channels for what is a cartoonish distortion of facts about Iran's legal nuclear energy program. To wit:

With leading nuclear experts, media pundits and members of the US Congress recycling it, this serious distortion has now acquired the status of a truism about Iran, and a dangerous one that lends itself to an unprovoked attack on Iran by Israel and or the US.

But, no matter what the influential position of their signatories, the narratives in the US media that persist in their claim that Iran has manufactured "weapons-grade" enriched uranium simply cannot stand the weight of scrutiny and are refuted by the IAEA's findings to the contrary. These narratives routinely refer to the IAEA's reports on Iran, yet turn a blind eye to those reports' explicit references to Iran's "low-enriched uranium" (up to 4%). (ibid.)

Meanwhile, Republican presidential nominee John McCain, speaks about the non-existent Iranian nuclear weapons program as if it already in place and being poised for launch against Israel, against Europe and against us, while, simultaneously, every little tidbit about any IAEA criticism against Iran is immediately blown out of proportion by disingenuous journalists like the smug Michael Gordon:

Thus, for instance, in a front-page article in the New York Times, [3] dated June 20, Michael Gordon and Eric Schmitt break the sensational news about Israel's extensive maneuvers in preparation for an attack on Iran, indirectly rationalizing Israel's belligerency by omitting any mention of the IAEA's latest report confirming the absence of any evidence of military nuclear diversion and, instead, confining themselves to the following comment: "In late May, the IAEA reported that Iran's suspected work on nuclear matters was a 'matter of serious concern' and that the Iranians owed the agency 'substantial explanation'."

What ought to have been added was that the same IAEA report states unequivocally that it had received "no credible information" regarding the alleged "weaponization studies", nor has the agency detected any nuclear activity connected to those alleged studies. Besides, the same IAEA report more than a dozen times stresses the evidence of peacefulness of Iran's nuclear program. (ibid.)

So Hell-bent are the Bush Administration, AIPAC, the Israeli government, and certain blood-sport Europeans to attack Iran that all of Hitler's tenets of successful propaganda have already come into heavy and ever increasing play: the full-court press against the public and media and the constant, daily repetitions of the "mushroom cloud" fear factor, "killing Americans" and "evil terrorist state" from multiple directions. Glaring contradictions to their hype, such as the recent NIE report, as well as regular IAEA reports, are simply ignored. For example:

Thus, Mike McConnell, the US national intelligence director, told the right-wing Fox TV last Sunday that Iran was a year or two from developing its first nuclear bombs. McConnell's alarmist estimate on Iran is clearly at odds with the US's National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran, released late last year, that confirmed that Iran's nuclear program was, and had been since 2003, peaceful.

McConnell's own deputy, Donald M Kerr, has repeatedly defended the NIE report before the US Congress, stating that the US intelligence community does not plan to "revise" it. (ibid.)

If Iran was actually manufacturing weapons-grade uranium, Kaveh points out, the IAEA would certainly know it:

.....with the IAEA's robust inspection of Iran's enrichment facilities, any such diversion to "weapons-grade" enrichment would be instantly detected, simply because significant modifications, re-assembling and re-configuration of the cascades of centrifuges would be necessary and that could not possibly evade the IAEA's watchful eyes.

Yet, all of this is ignored, with the tacit suggestion that Iran's program is "unsupervised" when, in fact, it is one of the most exhaustively inspected and supervised nuclear programs in the world, in light of some 3,500 hours of inspection of its facilities since 2003. (ibid.)

Neocon Failure

Despite employing the Hitler paradigm again against Iran, the Neocon movement has been unable to maximize the tenet regarding a unified organization forcing its doctrine upon the public. The recent NIE report is a case in point. The Bush Administration is no longer able to repress dissent within the federal government and military. Too many people have woken up and are moving against the Neocons, just as within Nazi Germany during WWII, at a certain point, key generals and officers began plotting Hitler's overthrow. The only way the Neocons can whip everyone back into lockstep, and that may not work anyhow, is if another "9/11" occurs to provide the emotional drive to rally everyone around "the Fuhrer" once again.

And while the Neocons may control the corporate media, they are getting racked through the coals endlessly on the Internet. Their lies are being lacerated daily on various sites.

On the world stage, many governments, no longer enthralled with the "War on Terror", are disputing the Neocon agenda, in particular Russia, which has stated that it has asked the United States and Israel for any real proof of an Iranian nuclear weapons program and received none (see my diary entry, "Russia Calls Israel's and the White House's Bluff" (click here)) How damning a proof is that that the whole game is a charade?

What peace and truth-loving people have to do now is to continue to neutralize the three tenets of Hitler, by debunking the Big Lies, confronting the daily repetition of these lies with equal intensity, and resisting all attempts to beat and brow-beat, threaten and intimidate everyone into conformity, conformity to a sick death cult. For us to fail now invites further disaster. And, I might add, watch out for ball girls.

REAL NEWS--Major News you WON'T See On TV

REAL NEWS--Something you WON'T See On TV

Check it out.....

Our Secretary of Defense--Robert Gates--believes that if we invade Iran our grandchildren will be fighting Islamists.....

Kristol: Bush might bomb Iran if he thinks Obama will win

I'm not the only one worried about Bush launching a nuclear attack against Iran...These right wing neo con extremists are insane. buzz...buzz...

Noteable McCain Quote

“Of course I am going to misspeak and I've done it on numerous occasions and I probably will do it in the future.”--McCain

I have no doubt that you will.....McSame as Bush....

Hoping for change as soon as possible......

The Folly of Attacking Iran: Lessons from History

Looking into the history of American-Iranian relations, it is not hard to see why Iran is not exactly our Friday night drinking buddy. Even so, that did not stop either side from engineering what became known as the Iran-Contra scandal in the 80's. But this was an example of antagonists using each other, and the end result was quite negative.

The hostility remains, and plans are on the Pentagon books to bomb Iran back to the Stone Age, as well as to implement regime change, that is, to repeat the traditional Imperial paradigm all over again of "Bow to our will, dogs, or die!"

This is, of course, a prescription for more war, chaos, death and destruction, the eternal spawn of the Path of Fear and Hatred between nations. It is all about ego and power, which as any good Buddhist will tell you, are delusional concepts. And these concepts keep the planet in the sorry state it is today.

U.S Navy Ship and Iran Boats Stand-off - Iranian's Video

Here is The Great Confrontation between the Evil Iranian swift boats and the poor little ole' US Navy as fimed from an Iranian boat. Even the US Navy footage just shows the boats approaching and tailing the flotilla for several minutes. The only source of controversy is a separate audio the Navy released where someone is stating that "You will explode after [indecipherable] minutes."

Listen to this video and determine for yourself if this seemed like a threat to world peace and the US Navy, as the Great Demagogue, George Bush, has alleged. It sounds more to me like the only thing missing was some tea and cookies as the Iranian commander and an American radio operator exchanged inane information for several minutes. How does this get transformed into a grave provocation to the US Navy?"

Now the Navy is saying that they are not sure who made the alleged threatening comment. Something is quite askew here. Have we got a little creative audiotaping going on by someone who wants to stir up trouble between the US Navy and Iran? In otherwords, was this more than just a routine incident, but rather a cynical attempt to make something sinister out of nothing?

Bill Moyers reports on religion, neoconservatism, and war with Iran

Have you contacted your Senator today? Buzz..Buzz...

Loose Lips Sink Fascist Ships

From the English Sunday Mail, Sept 30, 2007:

British MPs were shocked when White House foreign policy adviser Debra Cagan told them: "I hate all Iranians." When confirming the comment one of the six MPs said: "She is very forceful and some of my colleagues were intimidated by her muscular style." (For full article, click here)

Red leather coat, Iron Cross-type jewelry, slicked-back hair and aquiline features, White House foreign policy advisor Debra Cagan looks like a cariature of a Gestapo agent from the 1940s, except she should have a black coat on to totally replicate the stereotype. Actually red and black were the Nazi colors. How interesting that she attires herself like this and has asides about hating all Iranians. This just reaffirms what I have been saying for several years, that the forces running our government have pretensions to be the Fourth Reich, and have substituted the hatred of Arabs and Moslems, indeed all the perceived inferior races, Blacks included, for the Nazi hatred of Jews, Gypsies and Slavs. This is the subtext going on beneath much of the official rhetoric.

The War on Terror is, in the psychological depths, a crusade against Islam and anchored in racial hatred of other races centered in the Middle East and Western Asia. You have only to research some of the ditties being sung in US Army and Marine Corps Boot Camps for this to be rammed home to your consciousness. It was a similar situation in Vietnam. Gooks then, Sandniggers now, both wars fueled by race hatred.

Ironically, Iran is Persian and of Aryan stock historically, the same Aryan ancestry that the Nazis idealized into blonde, blue-eyed Nordics.

The Demon Persian of Tehran Does New York

Wow, what an orgy of emotion was unleashed in New York City Monday, most of it rather nasty and negative, when President Ahmadinejad of Iran arrived to begin his Big Apple itnerary, which included a speaking engagement at Columbia University yesterday (where its president rudely attacked his guest for several minutes as an introduction) and a speech at the United Nations today, Tuesday September 25. AIPAC and other pro-Israel organizations brought out their phalanxes of troops and ratcheted up the propaganda machinery to try to will him off the planet, which didn't work, and they probably would have torn him to pieces if there hadn't been lots of cops protecting the motor entourage to boot. For Ahmadinejad is, you see, the Demon Persian of Tehran, this image largely based on the infamous statement attributed to him that Israel should be "wiped off the map".

Unfortunately, it is hopelessly lost on those locked into total hatred of the man that this was never what he said. The original, above diabolical phrase was actually a terrible translation of what he had recited in Farsi (Persian language). He had originally quoted an old Ayatollah Khomeini statement that I am now going to let Arash Norouzi enlighen us about from his article dated January 18, 2007. Here is the original statement and Norouzi's commentary.

"Imam ghoft een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad."

That passage will mean nothing to most people, but one word might ring a bell: rezhim-e. It is the word "Regime", pronounced just like the English word with an extra "eh" sound at the end. Ahmadinejad did not refer to Israel the country or Israel the land mass, but the Israeli regime. This is a vastly significant distinction, as one cannot wipe a regime off the map. Ahmadinejad does not even refer to Israel by name, he instead uses the specific phrase "rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods" (regime occupying Jerusalem).

So this raises the question.. what exactly did he want "wiped from the map"? The answer is: nothing. That's because the word "map" was never used. The Persian word for map, "nagsheh", is not contained anywhere in his original farsi quote, or, for that matter, anywhere in his entire speech. Nor was the western phrase "wipe out" ever said. Yet we are led to believe that Iran's President threatened to "wipe Israel off the map", despite never having uttered the words "map", "wipe out" or even "Israel".


THE PROOF:

The full quote translated directly to English:

"The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time".

Word by word translation:

Imam (Khomeini) ghoft (said) een (this) rezhim-e (regime) ishghalgar-e (occupying) qods (Jerusalem) bayad (must) az safheh-ye ruzgar (from page of time) mahv shavad (vanish from). (Reference: click here)

So, we have been brought to the edge of war with Iran based largely on, as with Iraq, Neocon-hyped bullshit like this. To the global, maniacal Neocon movement, this of course doesn't matter. Any excuse will do to attack Iran. The Cheney faction in the White House and the Israeli Right-wing, which basically controls Israel these days, both simply want a cowed and broken Iran smoldering in ruins, just as Rome continuously had it in for Carthage in ancient times. Rome ultimately destroyed the entire city of Carthage after decades and decades of war and salted all its farming fields so crops would not grow again.

However, it would be naive not to think that Iran is a rival of Israel, but a rival not because it is a pseudo-Nazi enclave of not-so-blond Aryans who fanatically hate Jews (they have their own Jewish population which is not being oppressed), but basically because it supports the cause of Moslem Palestinians trapped in the giant concentration camp called Palestine, as well as being in strong solidarity with the large Shiite Moslem faction in Lebanon, whose spokesgroup is Hezbollah.

Just as most Jews around the world tend to act in solidarity when Israel is attacked, is it surprising that most Moslems tend to act in solidarity when Palestine or Lebanon are attacked? Of course not! The trick then is to stop the polarization between these two largely religiously-defined bodies, to get everyone to learn to live as harmonious neighbors, so that the Middle East is precisely not divided into armed camps. That means dialogue, dialogue, dialogue, trade, trade, trade, exchanges of students, culture, literature, and on and on.

Moreover, it is impossible for one side to vanquish the other militarily and live happily ever after atop a large pile of skulls and bones, because violence just sets mighty new problems in motion. You know, bad Karma, and all that.

Enough said now from my point of view. At this point I want to let you share the perspective of one of the most astute and well-sourced writers on the planet about what just transpired in New York with President Ahmadinejad. I am referring to Pepe Escobar, the ROVING EYE reporter for the widely read Asia Times, who just wrote a new piece entitled:

The Roving Eye:

'Hitler' does New York

By Pepe Escobar

Here are some excerpts from Escobar's article. I am inserting more than I would normally, but this is an exceptional situation, what with war against Iran a few stupid mistakes away. Note that Escobar is pointing out the larger, positive impact the Iranian President is making globally from this trip, no matter how many tomatoes may have hit him here in New York. I quote:

[The new "Hitler", at least for a while, has lodged in a prosaic midtown Manhattan hotel. Contrary to a plethora of demonizing myths, this Persian werewolf did not evade his abode to eat kids for breakfast in Central Park. Instead, he turned on a carefully calibrated public relations charm offensive. Whatever his polemical views, for a now-seasoned head of state like Ahmadinejad to turn astonishing US disinformation on Iran, the Middle East and US foreign policy for his own advantage ended up as a string of slam-dunks.

Articulate, evasive, manipulative, the Iranian president - even lost in translation -was especially skillful in turning US corporate media's hysteria upside down consistently to paint those in the administration of President George W Bush as incorrigible warmongers. Both at the National Press Club, via video-conference, and live at Columbia University, Ahmadinejad even had the luxury of joking about fabled Western "freedom of information" - as so many are still "trying to prevent people from talking".

He scored major points among the target audience that really matters: worldwide Muslim public opinion. Contrasting with a plethora of corrupt Arab leaders, Ahmadinejad has been carefully positioning himself as a Muslim folk hero capable of standing up to Western arrogance and defending the rights of the weak (the Palestinians). The way he deflected US ire on the enemy's own turf will only add to his standing.....

He was also clever in preempting ear-splitting rumors of a next war: "Talk about war is basically a propaganda tool." One of his key points may not have made an impact in the US, but resonated widely around the world, and not only in the Muslim street: "We oppose the way the US government tries to rule the world"; there are "more humane methods of establishing peace". He assured that no Iranian weapons are flowing into Iraq, adding that "regional countries in the Middle East don't need outside interference".

On uranium enrichment, he repeatedly stressed that it is Iran's right, as a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, to conduct a "legal" and "peaceful" nuclear program. "Why should a nation depend on another?" But if the US would engage in peace talks, so would Iran: "International law is equal to everyone." As for the US and France, they "are not the world" - a reference to both the Bush administration's and the French saber-rattling. "France is a very cultured society, it would not support war." Humanitarian imperialist French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner was summarily brushed aside: he needs to attain "higher maturity".

On Israel, Ahmadinejad said, "We do not recognize a regime based on discrimination, occupation and expansionism," and he said that country "last week attacked Syria and last year attacked Lebanon"; pretty much what most of the Middle East agrees with. He may have granted that the Holocaust did take place, but the world needs "more research on it". The Holocaust is not his main point: it always serves as an intro to one of his key themes - why should the Palestinians pay the price for something that happened in Europe? He said he wanted a "clear" answer. No one deigned to provide it.....

US corporate media's treatment of the new "Hitler" seemed to have been scripted by the same ghostwriter lodged in the same (White) House. On 60 Minutes, the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) was firing on all cylinders for a casus belli - from "There's no doubt Iran is providing the IEDs" (improvised explosive devices, in Iraq) to "Why don't you just stop denying that you're building a nuclear bomb?" Ahmadinejad was bemused, to say the least. CNN for its part could not resist proclaiming, "His state even sponsors terrorism ... in some cases even against US troops in Iraq."

Ahmadinejad succinctly unveiled to the Associated Press the reasons for so much warmongering - in a way that even a kid would understand: "I believe that some of the talk in this regard arises first of all from anger. Secondly, it serves the electoral purposes domestically in this country. Third, it serves as a cover for policy failures over Iraq."

An even more appalling measure of Western arrogance - also speaking volumes about "us" when confronted with the incomprehensible "other" - is the diatribe with which the president of Columbia University, Lee Bollinger, chose to "greet" his guest, a head of state. Bollinger, supposedly an academic, spoke about confronting "the mind of evil". His crass behavior got him 15 minutes of fame. Were President Bush to be greeted in the same manner in any university in the developing world - and motives would abound also to qualify him as a "cruel, petty dictator" - the Pentagon would have instantly switched to let's-bomb-them-with-democracy mode.

Ahmadinejad, to his credit, played it cool. Stressing, in a quirky fashion, his "academic" credentials, he unleashed a poetic rant on "science as a divine gift" just to plunge once again into the Palestinian tragedy. He stressed how Iran "is friendly with the Jewish people" - which is a fact (at least 30,000 Jews live undisturbed in Iran). Then back to the key point: Why are the Palestinians paying the price for something they had nothing to do with? Iran has a "humanitarian proposal" to solve the problem - a referendum where Palestinians would choose their own political destiny.

In the absence of informed debate, Ahmadinejad stressed his points the way he wanted to. Iran does not need a nuclear bomb. Iran does not want to manufacture a nuclear bomb. But telling other countries what they can and cannot do is another matter entirely. He is more than aware that the nuclear dossier is "a political issue" - a question of "two or three powers who think they can monopolize science and knowledge". It's up to a sovereign Iran to decide whether it needs nuclear fuel. "Why should we need fuel from you? You don't even give us spare parts for aircraft."

He also stressed that Iran is a victim of terrorism - a reference to the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, a micro-terrorist group by any other name, formerly protected by Saddam, now supported by the Bush administration; but he was also referring to destabilizing black ops by US special forces in the strategically crucial provinces of Khuzestan and Balochistan.

Ahmadinejad was not questioned in detail on internal repression, intimidation of independent journalists, what his Interior Ministry is up to, from a crackdown on women not wearing the veil properly to more sinister, unsubstantiated "collaboration with America" charges. When executions were mentioned, he quipped, "Don't you have capital punishment in the US?" - and defended them on the ground that these were drug smugglers.

Nobody questioned him on his disastrous economic policies, on the competence of his ministers, on an embryonic pact between Iran and Saudi Arabia to prevent another war in the Middle East, on the upcoming, pivotal summit of the Caspian littoral states in Tehran where Ahmadinejad, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Vladimir Putin will discuss what happens next - from technical aspects of Iran's nuclear program to Bush's warmongering impetus. Anyway, Ahmadinejad made it clear: Iran is "ready to negotiate with all countries". The same could not be said about the Bush White House........]

To read Escobar's entire article, please click here.

Noteable Quote

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

-François-Marie Arouet de Voltaire

Preview of Petraeus September Progress Report

The media has been reporting that the White House itself will write the Iraqi Progress Report that General Westmoreland, whoops, scratch that, General Petraeus is supposed to give. How much our brave and noble consul, oops, general, will get to input the report is irrelevant, since all of the higher officer corps of the Legions, excuse me again, Army, have undergone a Vulcan mind-meld with commander-in-chief Bush (the Roman god Vulcan, Spock's uncle, did know how to weld tin and wood together). Fortunately, I have been secretly sent the 1st Draft of this report by an unnamed White House staffer, housekeeper, gardener, cook, visitor or bartender (figure that out Secret Service!) which I am eager now to share with the public.

*********SPECIAL REPORT*********

I have been able to secretly obtain the first White House draft of General Petraeus's September report on progress in Iraq, which I feel is my patriotic duty to reveal to the public. Here it is, in raw, uncensored form:








Official Glyph of the Petraeus Report







OFFICIAL UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT REPORT ON PROGRESS IN IRAQ (1ST DRAFT)

Current Situation In-Country:

IN IRAQ, EVERYTHING IS GETTING BETTER EVERY DAY IN EVERY WAY. Iran sucks. EVERYTHING IS GETTING BETTER EVERY DAY IN EVERY WAY. Iran beats dogs. EVERYTHING IS GETTING BETTER EVERY DAY IN EVERY WAY. Iran blew up the Maine. EVERYTHING IS GETTING BETTER EVERY DAY IN EVERY WAY. Iran is Al Qaeda. EVERYTHING IS GETTING BETTER EVERY DAY IN EVERY WAY. Iran will rape your daughter. EVERYTHING IS GETTING BETTER EVERY DAY IN EVERY WAY. Iran will Nuke us. EVERYTHING IS GETTING BETTER EVERY DAY IN EVERY WAY. Iran will castrate all American males. IN IRAQ, EVERYTHING IS GETTING BETTER EVERY DAY IN EVERY WAY. Satan rhymes with Iran (sort of).


Studied Conclusion:

WE ARE WINNING! WE ARE WINNING! WE ARE WINNING IN IRAQ! Iran is bad. WE ARE WINNING! WE ARE WINNING! WE ARE WINNING IN IRAQ! Iran will nuke Europe. WE ARE WINNING! WE ARE WINNING! WE ARE WINNING IN IRAQ! Iran eats human flesh. WE ARE WINNING! WE ARE WINNING! WE ARE WINNING IN IRAQ! Slay the Iranian 7-headed Hydra.


Future Action:

THE SURGE THAT REFRESHES! THE SURGE THAT REFRESHES! HAVE ANOTHER DRINK! Iran worships Hitler. THE SURGE THAT REFRESHES! THE SURGE THAT REFRESHES! WHAT A KICK! Stalin was Iranian. THE SURGE THAT REFRESHES! THE SURGE THAT REFRESHES! GREAT TASTE ALL THE WAY! Iran, font of all evil. THE SURGE, THE URGE, THE DRINK THAT QUENCHES IRAQ'S THIRST! Nuke Iran.

Is the Propaganda going to work?

Fool me once...shame on you....but fool me twice?

Let the corporate media know you aren't buying it!!!

Protest Deployment of War Ships to Iran

Stop the War on Iran

before it starts

Sunday, Oct. 1, Noon

Norfolk Naval Base

Gate 5 -
across from the Pass Office on Hampton Blvd.

An early deployment of the Eisenhower Strike Group will depart Norfolk Tuesday, Oct 3rd.

The Strike Group is scheduled to arrive off the coast of Iran on or about October 21.

The nuclear aircraft carrier has been in the Norfolk port for several years refurbishing and was not scheduled to depart for at least another month.

Demand an immediate end to Washington’s campaign of sanctions, hostility, and falsehood against the people of Iran.

Oppose any new U.S. aggression against Iran.

Demand money for human needs, not endless war.

Endorsers:

Hampton Roads Peace and Justice Coalition 470-9797

Tidewater Peace Alliance - Norfolk Catholic Worker - Gaia Circle - Norfolk Food not Bombs - The Defenders fro Freedom, Justice and Equality

This is a great instance of the power of local indymedia....Mosquito hears that reporters have been contacting local peace activists wondering how they "discovered" the Eisenhower departure date when "they" hadn't been able to obtain the information. Hmm....Buzz...Buzz

Here's the SOURCE