Posted on 09/22/2007 5:37:35 PM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, right, watches
an annual military parade in Tehran on Sept. 22, 2007.
(CBS) TEHRAN, Iran -- A day before flying to New York to speak directly to the American people, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad struck a confrontational tone Saturday with a parade of fighter jets and missiles and tough warnings for the United States to stay out of the Mideast.
Three new domestically manufactured warplanes streaked over the capital during the parade marking the 27th anniversary of the Iraqi invasion of Iran, which sparked a 1980-88 war that killed hundreds of thousands of people. The parade also featured the Ghadr missile, which has a range of 1,120 miles, capable of reaching Israel.
Some of the missile trucks were painted with the slogans "Down with the U.S." and "Down with Israel." The parade also featured unmanned aerial surveillance drones, torpedoes, and tanks.
Tensions are high between Washington and Tehran over U.S. accusations that Iran is secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons and helping Shiite militias in Iraq that target U.S. troops. Iran denies the claims.
Washington has said it is addressing the Iran situation diplomatically, rather than militarily, but U.S. officials also say that all options are open.
"Those (countries) who assume that decaying methods such as psychological war, political propaganda and the so-called economic sanctions would work and prevent Iran's fast drive toward progress are mistaken," Ahmadinejad.
Iran launched an arms development program during its war with Iraq to compensate for a U.S. weapons embargo. Since 1992, Iran has produced its own jets, torpedoes, radar-avoiding missiles, tanks and armored personnel carriers.
"Those who prevented Iran, at the height of the war from getting even barbed wire must see now that all the equipment on display today has been built by the mighty hands and brains of experts at Iran's armed forces," Ahmadinejad said.
He is expected to address the American people directly in an interview with CBS's "60 Minutes" airing Sunday, and through appearances at the U.N., Columbia University and several other events.
His request to lay a wreath at the World Trade Center site was denied and condemned by Sept. 11 family members and politicians. Protests against his Columbia appearance are planned at the university and the United Nations by demonstrators angry at his questioning of the Holocaust and declarations that Israel will cease to exist.
Iran and the U.S. have not had diplomatic ties since militants took over the U.S. Embassy following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Since then, the cleric-led regime has vilified the United States as the "Great Satan."
Despite Ahmadinejad's frequent anti-U.S. rhetoric, he has tried to appeal to the American people before. Recently, he told a live satellite television show that his country wanted peace and friendship with the U.S. Since coming to power in 2005, Ahmadinejad has also sent letters to the American people in which he criticized Bush's Mideast policy.
He is scheduled to address the General Assembly on Tuesday - his third time attending the New York meeting in three years. "You should treat this as an off-Broadway production," former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton said in an earlier report by CBS station WCBS-TV in New York.
Last year, Ahmadinejad was harshly critical of U.S. policies in Iraq and Lebanon and insisted that his nation's nuclear activities were "transparent."
At the parade, Ahmadinejad repeated his demand for foreign forces to leave the region and urged the United States to acknowledge it has failed in Iraq. Outside the 160,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, there are 40,000 troops on U.S. bases in Persian Gulf countries and another 20,000 in Mideast waters.
"Nations throughout the region do not need the presence of the foreigners to manage their own needs. Foreign presence is the root cause of all instability, differences and threats," he said.
On the sidelines of the parade, the head of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, Mohammad Ali Jafari, said the event highlighted the "might of Iran's armed forces to its enemies," adding that Iran is ready to retaliate if attacked.
"Iran has drawn up plans to confront enemies in the face of any possible attack," the official IRNA news agency quoted Jafari as saying.
The Bush administration is expected to soon blacklist a unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization, subjecting part of the vast military operation to financial penalties. The step would be in response to Iran's involvement in Iraq and elsewhere.
The U.S. is also leading a push in the U.N. Security Council for a third round of economic sanctions against Iran over its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment. Iran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes including generating electricity. The Security Council is not expected to take up the issue before October.
"Learn lessons from your past mistakes. Don't repeat your mistakes," he said in a warning to the United States over its push to impose more sanctions.
I really hope the little napoleon meets his fate right here in nyc.
Never thought I could wish for someone’s plane to crash.
**Proof enough ?(Maybe if we’d done this in Iraq before the Soviets help move Saddam’s stuff to Syria...)
***************
From The Sunday TimesSeptember 23, 2007
Snatched: Israeli commandos ‘nuclear’ raidUzi Mahnaimi, Tel Aviv, Sarah Baxter, Washington, and Michael Sheridan
ISRAELI commandos from the elite Sayeret Matkal unit – almost certainly dressed in Syrian uniforms – made their way stealthily towards a secret military compound near Dayr az-Zawr in northern Syria. They were looking for proof that Syria and North Korea were collaborating on a nuclear programme.
Israel had been surveying the site for months, according to Washington and Israeli sources. President George W Bush was told during the summer that Israeli intelligence suggested North Korean personnel and nuclear-related material were at the Syrian site.
Israel was determined not to take any chances with its neighbour. Following the example set by its raid on an Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak 1981, it drew up plans to bomb the Syrian compound.
But Washington was not satisfied. It demanded clear evidence of nuclear-related activities before giving the operation its blessing. The task of the commandos was to provide it.
Related Links
Secret US air force team plan for Iran strike
Today the site near Dayr az-Zawr lies in ruins after it was pounded by Israeli F15Is on September 6. Before the Israelis issued the order to strike, the commandos had secretly seized samples of nuclear material and taken them back into Israel for examination by scientists, the sources say. A laboratory confirmed that the unspecified material was North Korean in origin. America approved an attack.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article2512105.ece
...and the faculty and administrations of American academia squeal with delight.
Why did our government grant this clown a visa to come here?
We’re required to...unfortunately. Thank the UN supporters :)
Imanutjob gets a forum, in the good old USA.
Maybe the slacker in the visa office didn't notice his name on the "restricted list?"
I don't know but I trust they have a very good reason for it. I really do.
Gonna be interesting to see what happens in NYC over the next coupla days, and in the national debate thereafter.
SPLAH THAT SUCKER!!!!!!
Post #4
Bush family thinks the UN is going to save the world.
If there was justice, they should arrest him on the spot and force feed him bad mushrooms laced with LSD and put him into a cage with two polar bears and the winner is?????????/Just Asking - seoul62.......
Just arrest the SOB when he lands.
Have one of the former Iranian hostages file charges of unlawful imprisonment, torture and terrorism, then have the cops pick him up and throw him in the slammer. Make sure he gets bacon for breakfast.
“Those (countries) who assume that decaying methods such as psychological war, political propaganda and the so-called economic sanctions would work and prevent Iran’s fast drive toward progress are mistaken,” Ahmadinejad.
“We all know it will take a bomb dropping right on top of my head to get me to stop my totalitarian reign of evil”
My note:
WRT: "A day before flying to New York to speak directly to the American people, ..."
Ahmadinejad is a murderous terrorist. His words will not be listened to by me or anyone who still recalls his takeover of the American Embassy in Tehran in 1979. that you and the rest of the fawning Media seem to think this pile of human excrement deserves to be heard tells me all I need know about your own allegiances.
Let them know your thoughts!
The FRED has gone on record saying he wouldn't even let this "iranian" scumbag in country.
This midget Hitler wannabe in a cheap suit was involved in taking Americans hostage in 1979, its really sad that the Bush administration would allow this to happen.
“Down with this lunatic’s airplane”. Preferably while it is on a Westward heading.
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