What More Can You Say?

The constant chatter about Iran and a potential war there has not abated much over the past month or so. I stumbled across this today while browsing Juan Cole's site. It leaves me speechless. Here's a takeaway:
( Thanks to Jason Lepold for great work on this)

During a trip to the Middle East in March 1996, Vice President Dick Cheney told a group of mostly U.S. businessmen that Congress should ease sanctions in Iran and Libya to foster better relationships, a statement that, in hindsight, is completely hypocritical considering the Bush administration’s foreign policy.
“Let me make a generalized statement about a trend I see in the U.S. Congress that I find disturbing, that applies not only with respect to the Iranian situation but a number of others as well,” Cheney said. “I think we Americans sometimes make mistakes . . . There seems to be an assumption that somehow we know what’s best for everybody else and that we are going to use our economic clout to get everybody else to live the way we would like.”
Cheney was the chief executive of Halliburton Corporation at the time he uttered those words. It was Cheney who directed Halliburton toward aggressive business dealings with Iran—in violation of U.S. law—in the mid-1990s, which continued through 2005 and is the reason Iran has the capability to enrich weapons-grade uranium.
It was Halliburton’s secret sale of centrifuges to Iran that helped get the uranium enrichment program off the ground, according to a three-year investigation that includes interviews conducted with more than a dozen current and former Halliburton employees.

Iran

I've been meaning to post on this for a week or so bit got sidetracked by some business travel. There is plenty of buzz out that the Bush Administration is itching to press an attack on Iran before their term ends. This talk has picked up considerably since Admiral Fallon stepped down form his post as head of Centcom earlier this month.

The question needs to be continually asked--- WHY??? What annoys the hell out of me is the constant drumbeat of propaganda constantly spewed over the airwaves (TV and Radio) as well as the print media. Look I'm no fan of the midget Ahmadinejad-- but the American people need to have a fuller explanation of the rhetoric. How many times will Sean Hannity spout, " Ahmadinejad says he wants to wipe Israel off the map" ? As Paul Harvey used to say-here's the rest of the story.

Juan Cole does a great job everyday providing a Western audience insight into daily events in the greater Middle-East. It helps that he speaks the language.

"Israel must be wiped off the map," although some experts disputed the translation

Juan Cole: "Ahmadinejad 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] 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.
Leading the misinformation campaign, as it did on Iraq, was the New York Times. Jonathan Steele: "The New York Times, which was one of the first papers to misquote Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, came out on Sunday with a defensive piece attempting to justify its reporter's original "wiped off the map" translation.
The mis-translation originated with the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), located in Washington. MEMRI was founded in 1998 by Yigal Carmon along with Dr. Meyrav Wurmser. Carmon was a colonel in the IDF Intelligence from 1968-88, Acting head and adviser on Arab affairs, Civil Administration in Judea and Samaria, 1977-1982 and counterterrorism adviser to prime ministers Yitzhak Shamir and Yitzhak Rabin 1988-93.

Here we go again!

Over the last few days our media has gone out of its collective way to throw sticks and stones at the visiting Iranian President Ahmadinejad . A couple examples: the NY Daily News leading with the headline "The Evil Has Landed" or FOX News' Greg Gutfeld referring to him as " the foul-smelling fruitbat Ahmadinejad ".

I'm no fan of Ahmadinejad- the guy is a clown, but let's face it Iran is no threat to the US.When was the last time Iran invaded another country? What we are watching is a rerun of the buildup to our Iraqi action. Remember how Saddam was another Hitler? Please!

In any analysis of US/Iranian relations and actions,it might be helpful to revisit Mohammed Mossadegh and the SAVAK . I'm willing to bet that 99.9% of Americans have any idea as to what I'm referring to.

Hats off to Juan Cole for his analysis of this pathetic comedy:

"The media has focused on debating whether he should be allowed to speak at Columbia University on Monday, or whether his request to visit Ground Zero, the site of the Sept. 11 attack in lower Manhattan, should have been honored. His request was rejected, even though Iran expressed sympathy with the United States in the aftermath of those attacks and Iranians held candlelight vigils for the victims. Iran felt that it and other Shiite populations had also suffered at the hands of al-Qaida, and that there might now be an opportunity for a new opening to the United States.
Instead, the U.S. State Department denounced Ahmadinejad as himself little more than a terrorist. Critics have also cited his statements about the Holocaust or his hopes that the Israeli state will collapse. He has been depicted as a Hitler figure intent on killing Israeli Jews, even though he is not commander in chief of the Iranian armed forces, has never invaded any other country, denies he is an anti-Semite, has never called for any Israeli civilians to be killed, and allows Iran's 20,000 Jews to have representation in Parliament. . .
The real reason his visit is controversial is that the American right has decided the United States needs to go to war against Iran. Ahmadinejad is therefore being configured as an enemy head of state"

I know I'm getting more and more cynical with each passing day, but I have to wonder if this has anything to do with the renewed Iran war chatter," Iran gets over 70pc oil income in non-US currencies "