The Iran Controversy

[Elfhelm]

Originally Posted by The Gaffer

Them = the US or Them = Iran?

Both. The negotiators. The threat of a nuclear attack on Israel is one of the bargaining chips. I wonder if it has occurred to them (the negotiators on both sides) that you can't nuke Israel without destroying Palestine. Which means it's an empty threat. It makes for excitement on the 5:00 News and on messageboards and blogs. But beyond that, it's impossible to carry out.

[The Gaffer]

Hey guys, thought you'd be interested in this:

It is 50 years since the greatest misquotation of the cold war. At a Kremlin reception for western ambassadors in 1956, the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev announced: "We will bury you." Those four words were seized on by American hawks as proof of aggressive Soviet intent.

Doves who pointed out that the full quotation gave a less threatening message were drowned out. Khrushchev had actually said: "Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you." It was a harmless boast about socialism's eventual victory in the ideological competition with capitalism. He was not talking about war.

Now we face a similar propaganda distortion of remarks by Iran's president. Ask anyone in Washington, London or Tel Aviv if they can cite any phrase uttered by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the chances are high they will say he wants Israel "wiped off the map".

Again it is four short words, though the distortion is worse than in the Khrushchev case. The remarks are not out of context. They are wrong, pure and simple. Ahmadinejad never said them. Farsi speakers have pointed out that he was mistranslated. The Iranian president was quoting an ancient statement by Iran's first Islamist leader, the late Ayatollah Khomeini, that "this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time" just as the Shah's regime in Iran had vanished.

He was not making a military threat. He was calling for an end to the occupation of Jerusalem at some point in the future. The "page of time" phrase suggests he did not expect it to happen soon. There was no implication that either Khomeini, when he first made the statement, or Ahmadinejad, in repeating it, felt it was imminent, or that Iran would be involved in bringing it about.

Jonathan Steele, Comment is Free, 2nd June 2006; http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...788542,00.html

So, are we just playing our part in a propaganda war to establish legitimacy and passive acceptance of aggression towards Iran?

[Spock]

There are times you frighten me with your statements.

[hectorberlioz]

but you know Gaffer...I'm not sure. Rice is a pretty (what a complimentary pun) hands on person, she doesn't mince words too much. Who knows what Ahmadinijead's precise quote was, it may be what YOU yourself quote, or it could be Iran saying that he was misquoted, to cover up a boo boo on their part.

What we know is that Militant Islamists want, and have wanted Israel "out" "dead" "anything but here" for quite a long time. It doesnt and won't help Iran to say, as they develop "Nucular" power, to say it's for "Energy efficiency", especially when they weren't complying with the UN or US.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by The Gaffer

So, are we just playing our part in a propaganda war to establish legitimacy and passive acceptance of aggression towards Iran?

I have doubts about this. I've seen that quote in BBC News, ABC News and CNN. Though I know CNN tends to be on the conservative side, BBC is pretty liberal, and both are highly respected. I know less about ABC, but these are all major news sites.

Also, President Ahmadinejad has said this on more than one occasion. He said at an anti-Zionism conference that Israel was "a tumor", "a rotten and dried-up tree which will be destroyed by one storm".

[Spock]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Though I know CNN tends to be on the conservative side, BBC is pretty liberal, ...................

On this part, I just shake my head. CNN is also known as The Clinton News Network.....it's about as far left as you can get.

[hectorberlioz]

Originally Posted by Spock

On this part, I just shake my head. CNN is also known as The Clinton News Network.....it's about as far left as you can get.

Leif, your sarcasm can is really convincing...

CNN is the Bible of Liberal Television. Thats why so many people accuse Fox of bieng "right-wing" biased, because the change from CNN to Fox is so drastic ...

[Lief Erikson]

I'm Republican, and I've regularly checked CNN for a long time. I've found that it generally does give a fair hearing to the conservative cause. This is very different from BBC, which for the most part doesn't mention successes our troops have against the insurgency, almost never presents a good picture of President Bush, and only brings up Christian American conservatives to give them a punch in the nose.

CNN reports Iraq successes as well as defeats and gives a pretty detailed account of the evidence the Bush Administration raises to argue its position on various issues.

For example, let's compare this BBC article with this CNN article. CNN gives a pretty decent hearing to Bush's arguments and shows the response they make to the accusation of manipulating politics for voting purposes. BBC does not present any of their responses.

[hectorberlioz]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

I'm Republican, and I've regularly checked CNN for a long time. I've found that it generally does give a fair hearing to the conservative cause. This is very different from BBC, which for the most part doesn't mention successes our troops have against the insurgency, almost never presents a good picture of President Bush, and only brings up Christian American conservatives to give them a punch in the nose.

CNN reports Iraq successes as well as defeats and gives a pretty detailed account of the evidence the Bush Administration raises to argue its position on various issues.

For example, let's compare this BBC article with this CNN article. CNN gives a pretty decent hearing to Bush's arguments and shows the response they make to the accusation of manipulating politics for voting purposes. BBC does not present any of their responses.

But the BBC isn't American...

IMO, forget comparing the BBC. Compare with ABC, NBC, FOX...

[GreyMouser]

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

But the BBC isn't American...

IMO, forget comparing the BBC. Compare with ABC, NBC, FOX...

I'll certainly agree with you that most of the American media is in the tank for Bush.
CNN- apart from their total cheerleading for the Iraq War?

From the June 1 edition of The Situation Room:

BLITZER: John, it's an important diplomatic triumph, if you will, for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. But it's too early to be corking champagne bottles over at the White House.

ROBERTS: Yeah. I mean, there is nothing to suggest, Wolf, that even though they have agreed on a set of sanctions that anything is going to get past the U.N. Security Council. Don't forget, there has been a resolution on sanctions against North Korea because of its nuclear program that's been languishing for three years. And then, of course, there is the issue, if they do get sanctions leveled against Iraq -- leveled against Iran, are they going to work? Don't forget, Iraq endured 11 years of sanctions, and, you know, we still had to go to war to get rid of what it was that they had.

BLITZER: Good point, John. Thank you very much.

http://mediamatters.org/

Uh, what is it that they had? Would that be, Nothing?

[GreyMouser]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

I have doubts about this. I've seen that quote in BBC News, ABC News and CNN. Though I know CNN tends to be on the conservative side, BBC is pretty liberal, and both are highly respected. I know less about ABC, but these are all major news sites.

You have seen that, and they are major news sites, but nonetheless it's incorrect.

"'Imam [Khomeini] said: 'This regime that is occupying Qods [Jerusalem] must be eliminated from the pages of history.' This sentence is very wise. The issue of Palestine is not an issue on which we can compromise.

http://memri.org/bin/

And note that Memri is a right-wing Israeli organisation.

Ahmadinejad is certainly an anti-Semite and a Holocaust denier, but his official position is that a government should be established by a free vote among the legitimate inhabitants of Palestine- Muslims, Christians and Jews.

The kicker is that "legitimate" is defined to include all the Palestinians (and their descendants) who were expelled/fled from Israel, and exclude all the Jews who came as part of the modern Zionist movement, who should go back where they came from.

[Lief Erikson]

Several governments have condemned Ahmadinejad's "Israel must be wiped off the face of the map," comment, many of the most large and reliable news sites have all translated it in the way the governments did, and Ahmadinejad himself has never objected to their interpretation of what he meant. Instead, he has simply reaffirmed those words with statements given in other meetings, as I already pointed out.

The evidence that this isn't a mistranslation of what he was saying is overwhelming.

[hectorberlioz]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Several governments have condemned Ahmadinejad's "Israel must be wiped off the face of the map," comment, many of the most large and reliable news sites have all translated it in the way the governments did, and Ahmadinejad himself has never objected to their interpretation of what he meant. Instead, he has simply reaffirmed those words with statements given in other meetings, as I already pointed out.

The evidence that this isn't a mistranslation of what he was saying is overwhelming.

I agree, and as you point out, he lets it mean whatever to whoever...

[The Gaffer]

Riiiight, so should he ring you up and say, sorry guys you got me all wrong?

Clearly the man is an opportunist out to paint himself as the poster boy for the domestic knee-jerk audience. A bit like Bush really. Except that, unlike Bush, Ahmedinejad has to contend with serious opposition within his own power structure. Hence, again, the posturing.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by The Gaffer

Riiiight, so should he ring you up and say, sorry guys you got me all wrong?

YES. If everyone thinks he believes Israel should be wiped off the map when he doesn't mean that, it would be very good for easing tensions if he explained himself.

Originally Posted by The Gaffer

Clearly the man is an opportunist out to paint himself as the poster boy for the domestic knee-jerk audience. A bit like Bush really. Except that, unlike Bush, Ahmedinejad has to contend with serious opposition within his own power structure. Hence, again, the posturing.

Ahmadinejad could represent the West as willfully lying about him, if they are misrepresenting him. I wouldn't put it beneath him to do that. Instead of using their error against them, he refuses to deny what they say he said.

[The Gaffer]

Which would precisely serve his purposes. (And he might be right.)

So, he gets to paint himself as the righteous wronged, our great leaders get to paint themselves as standing up to a looney. Nice little arrangement.

And who's swallowing this facile charade hook, line and sinker?

[Lief Erikson]

There is nothing charade-like about Iran's development of nuclear technology, funding of terrorism, and spreading of radicalism.