Iranian Alert -- January 25, 2004 -- IRAN LIVE THREAD --Americans for Regime Change in Iran

Join Us At Today's Iranian Alert Thread – The Most Underreported Story Of The Year!

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1 posted on 01/25/2004 12:01:14 AM PST by DoctorZIn

To: Pan_Yans Wife; fat city; freedom44; Tamsey; Grampa Dave; PhiKapMom; McGavin999; Hinoki Cypress; ...

Join Us At Today's Iranian Alert Thread – The Most Underreported Story Of The Year!

"If you want on or off this Iran ping list, Freepmail DoctorZin”

2 posted on 01/25/2004 12:04:26 AM PST by DoctorZIn (Until they are Free, "We shall all be Iranians!")

Pakistan’s nuclear father did help Iran

Marie Colvin
January 25, 2004
Timesonline.co.uk

INVESTIGATORS in Islamabad have acknowledged for the first time that Abdul Qadeer Khan, the so-called father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb, and another research scientist provided technical assistance to Iran’s secret nuclear weapons programme.

The scientists allegedly gave their help, the investigators said, under a covert agreement between Pakistan and Iran that was supposed to be limited to the sharing of peaceful nuclear technology. They are accused of breaking that agreement without the knowledge of the state.

Confirmation of Khan’s involvement, which follows weeks of damaging revelations about Pakistan’s role in the supply of bomb technology to rogue states, will increase the pressure on the president, General Pervez Musharraf, to prosecute a man regarded by many radical Muslims as a hero. Khan has been confined to Islamabad while the investigation is taking place.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday, Musharraf promised that “we will move against anybody who proliferated ... because they are enemies of the state”. Prosecuting Khan, however, could prove politically suicidal for Musharraf, who survived two assassination attempts in December.

As Musharraf faces up to one of the most awkward decisions of his career, Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), described the network that spread the apocalyptic technology as a “Wal-Mart of private sector proliferation”.

ElBaradei, who was also at Davos, said: “When you see things being designed in one country, manufactured in two or three others, shipped to a fourth, redirected to a fifth, that means there’s lots of offices all over the world. The sophistication of the process, frankly, has surpassed my expectations.”

ElBaradei’s agency is arguing with Washington over how closely it can work with British and American inspectors in analysing and dismantling non-conventional weapons in Libya. The country’s dramatic admission of a clandestine nuclear programme last month helped to clarify the extent of Pakistan’s involvement in the proliferation business.

The US-UK team is now working towards a delicate compromise: in effect, it means Washington and London will dismantle the most worrying part of Libya’s arsenal — at least 11 facilities that contain sensitive nuclear materials — while the IAEA will provide the international stamp of approval.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-976069,00.html

3 posted on 01/25/2004 12:08:03 AM PST by DoctorZIn (Until they are Free, "We shall all be Iranians!")

Double Standards and Deception - How the Left Treats Iran and the Middle East

Defense & Foreign Affairs - By Elio Bonazzi
Jan 24, 2004

In an article that appeared in the New York Post, in early March 2003, prior to the Coalition war on Iraq, Iranian-born journalist Amir Taheri denounced what he felt were the deeply hypocritical position of the peace movement, which had, in the build-up to the 2003 US-led war against Iraqi Pres. Saddam Hussein, organized marches and rallies throughout 600 cities and 25 countries.

Stalin founded this “peace movement” movement in 1946, when the USSR was in a distinctly weak position; he was trying to consolidate the newly conquered empire in Eastern Europe without nuclear weapons to counter the military predominance of the West. Pablo Picasso designed the emblem of the movement, the famous dove, and world-renowned poets such as French Paul Eluard and Chilean Pablo Neruda composed odes inspired by Stalin. The goal of the movement was to extend the influence of the various communist parties over the more moderate center-left political formations, to push the Kremlin’s agenda in the West with the support of forces which would have transcended the meager political weight of the various communist parties operating in what was then described as “the free world”. The symbol was a dove, rather than hammer and sickle; the emblem color was white, rather than red. But the International Section of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), operating behind the scenes in Moscow, orchestrated the “peace movement” to fulfill their goals.

In the course of its existence, the “peace movement” never betrayed its origins.

In his article, Mr Taheri reminds us that the movement was not opposed to all wars indiscriminately, but only to those that threatened the Soviet empire. The “peaceniks” (which is the appellation by which Mr Taheri refers to them) were comfortable with the Soviet annexation of 15 percent of Finland’s territory and the Baltic States, and did not demur when the Soviet tanks entered Budapest and Prague. But when the US led a coalition under a UN mandate to prevent North Korean communists from conquering South Korea, the “peace movement” was “up in arms”, denouncing the “imperialist ambitions” of the US. Peaceniks reached their peak during the Vietnam War. And once again they were silent when the USSR invaded Afghanistan, but became very vocal about the deployment of the Pershing theater-strategic surface-to-surface missiles in Europe in the years which followed that very invasion. The missiles were a response to the Soviet deployment of entire batteries of SS-20 ballistic missiles aimed at European capitals. But the peaceniks never asked for the dismantling of the SS-20s; their protest was only aimed at impeding the deployment of the Pershing SSMs.

While the “peace movement” is probably the most evident example of double standards, tolerated and even encouraged by the left, the recent events which have occurred in Iran and the repercussion which those events had in the Western world are a revival of the hypocrisy and duplicity by those who theoretically should be staunch supporters of democracy and freedom for the Iranian people.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is an extreme-right theocracy, which has increasingly lost consensus even among the clergy. It oppresses the large majority of Iranians, perpetrating what by accepted international standards would be described as “crimes against humanity” on a daily basis. Women are stoned to death, people [especially the young] are tortured and executed in public without trial, tens of thousands of political prisoners populate highly objectionable prisons; the oppressors must resort to Muslim foreigners for help in anti-riot policing, enlisting Palestinians, Afghani Talibans and even Syrians arriving straight from Damascus to Tehran via camouflaged chartered flights, because Iranian police will no longer beat fellow compatriots during demonstrations.

It is clear that Iranians want a secular, representative government ; anything short of that is not acceptable. Surprisingly, both liberals and left wing radicals have, up until now shown little or no support for a secular democracy in Iran. It is difficult to argue that the struggle for a secular democracy in Iran is not “progressive”. After all, the Iranian opposition forces are trying to defeat religious obscurantism, which is definitely not a left-wing ideological asset; they propose a modern democracy instead, which is certainly more in line with left-wing rhetoric.

Historically, whenever a brutal dictatorship teetered on the edge of collapse, left-wing movements and media worldwide stood up in support of the “freedom fighters”. For instance, the autocracy in Nicaragua which lasted until July 1979 and proceeded the fall of the Pres. Anastasio Somoza had liberal media worldwide in a campaign which completely discredited Somoza’s Administration. The turning point was the assassination of journalist Bill Stewart by a soldier of the regular Nicaraguan Army, captured on the video camera of a fellow journalist and promptly distributed throughout the world.

Something similar has recently happened in Iran. A Canadian-Iranian photojournalist, Zahra Ziba Kazemi, was raped and murdered (at the instigation of Tehran prosecutor Saeed Mortezavi) in June 2003 while detained after being arrested for filming anti-Government riots outside the political prison of Evin in Tehran. After an initial pathetic attempt to cover up this assassination, [the Islamic Republic officials injected her body with rapid decomposing chemicals and burying her hastily] essentially refusing to return her body to Canada, in spite of an official request made by her family and demand by the Canadian Government. The murder of Ms Kazemi, however, did not provoke the same amount of public outrage which forced Nicaraguan Pres. Somoza to step down.

For weeks during the month of June 2003 and on the occasion of the July 9, 2003, anniversary of the 1999 University protests in Iran, the opposition movement inside Iran challenged the authority of the Administration, marching and rallying, chanting anti-Government slogans, defying the guns and death squads of the various mullahs in key posts. As a result, thousands of political activists, students, and others, were rounded up and packed into prisons, subjected to torture, and in some cases murdered.

It is instructive to compare and contrast the articles about Nicaragua that appeared in liberal newspapers in 1979 and the articles about Iran today. In 1979 not a single liberal journalist strove to be “neutral”. From the perspective of the political left, there was no doubt: Somoza and his Government had to go.

The situation is totally different today. If it is to succeed, the growing opposition movement inside Iran needs tangible support from the West. Freedom fighters need laptops, fax machines and cellular phones to organize the uprising. If the Iranian opposition is to succeed, it also needs support from international media. But, significantly, that is not happening. The basic ingredients of the political situation in Iran a growing opposition movement fighting against a leadership which oppresses the vast majority of the population would normally be considered to be the perfect ingredients for a left-wing recipe to galvanize the masses in the name of freedom and democracy. It worked for Nicaragua, at the end of the 1970s; it worked for Poland and Solidarnosc in the 1980s. The question for analysts today is why the same recipe has failed to take hold in Iran.

Mainstream US liberal media barely reported on the Iranian uprising which occurred at the end of June and beginning of July 2003. Instead of praising the opposition demonstrators who literally risked their lives, soon after the end of the uprising, The New York Times, which in spite of recent scandals still remains one of the most prestigious national newspapers, published an Op-Ed by Mr Reza Aslan, a visiting professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Iowa.

In that article, Mr Aslan argued that the Iranian opposition was fighting for a religious democracy, not secularism, and religion must play a rôle in the country. Mr Aslan completely misrepresented the reality of Iran, and could not be further from the truth. The New York Times, by publishing that article, sided with those who sought to maintain the status quo in Iran. The most prominent Shi’ite scholars, ayatollahs like Taheri and Montazeri, have distanced themselves from the “political” clergy (Khamnei and Rafsjani), openly criticizing the very concept of Islamic Republic. Hossein Khomeini, himself an ayatollah and the grandchild of the Islamic revolution’s very leader, recently joined Taheri and Montazeri, criticizing religious interference in State matters, in a significant blow to the theocratic establishment. Mr Khomeini left Iran, and is now in Najaf, Iraq, which has once again become the most prominent Shi’ite theological center, relegating the Iranian holy city of Qom to a secondary rôle. Coalition forces in Iraq recently discovered a plot to assassinate Hossein Khomeini organized by the Shi’ite extremists sent by Iran’s “Supreme Leader”, “Ayatollah” Khamene’i and former Pres. Rafsanjani’s assassination teams.

Taheri, Montazeri and Khomeini the younger understand that Islam today is losing consensus in Iran and that the harshness of the Islamic revolution backfired. As a result, it is no longer appealing to Iranian youth; they now respond with either religious apathy or by embracing Zoroastrianism [the ancient religion of Iran, before Persians were forced to convert to Islam by the Arab invaders].

The “peace movement” taught us that only wars which were threatening the Soviet Union were worth protesting. Contemporary liberals would like to sell us a similar concept: siding with the “oppressed freedom fighters” against the brutal oppressors is not always politically correct. In the case of Iran, for example, the toppling of the mullahs could potentially benefit the US Bush Administration, simplifying the process of stabilization in Iraq, and extending US and Israeli influence in the Middle East. The perceived Bush-Sharon axis would come out undoubtedly stronger, after HizbAllah and HAMAS were left without their primary source of financial and logistic support, the Iranian clerics.

It is easy to understand why it is in the interest of the left to deliberately downplay the growing opposition movement in Iran. Apart from the more evident reason explained above, as far as Iran is concerned, the left still has a few skeletons in its closet, and must come to terms with past mistakes and faulty assessments.

To begin with, the left significantly contributed to the creation of the Islamic Republic, when US President Jimmy Carter deliberately destroyed the Shah, who had been a staunch ally of the US for 27 years. In the Shah’s White House visit of November 1977, Jimmy Carter and his aides who demanded radical changes in the way the internal affairs of Iran were conducted met the Shah with open hostility. They asked the Shah to institute the right of free assembly, at a time when the Soviet Union was stepping up a campaign of propaganda, espionage and even sabotage inside Iran, and Islamic fundamentalists where teaming up with the Iranian Communist Tudeh party to overthrow the Government.

Nureddin Klanuri, head of the Tudeh Party, who was living in exile in East Berlin, officially sanctioned the party line in support for Khomeini:

“The Tudeh Party approves Ayatollah Khomeini's initiative in creating the Islamic Revolutionary Council. The ayatollah’s program coincides with that of the Tudeh Party.”

Furthermore, Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, a key figure in Khomeni’s entourage, was known for his strong connections with Soviet and Eastern European intelligence.

The Shah was left with little room for maneuver; he had to succumb to the blackmail of the Carter Administration and release political prisoners, ending military tribunals and granting rights of assembly in order not to lose vital US military supply and training. But the mechanism designed by Carter to provoke an escalation of the opposition to the Shah was already in motion. In addition to the support of the Tudeh party and Eastern intelligence, Khomeini could also count on US leftist radicals like Ramsey Clark, who had served as Attorney-General in the Lyndon B. Johnson Administration. Mr Clark went to Tehran and to Paris, to visit Khomeini. Upon his return to the US, he played a behind-the-scenes rôle to influence prominent senators and congressmen not to allow the US military to back the Shah in case of popular upraising against the Peacock throne.

Mr Clark is today still proud of his crusade of 1979. In a recent interview he talked of overthrowing the Shah as “the” accomplishment of his lifetime, quoting overly exaggerated numbers of supposed Shah’s victims as the moral justification for his actions. The smear campaign orchestrated by left media while the Shah was still on his throne, and which continued well after his fall, depicted the Shah as a mass murderer, responsible for the killing of 60,000 people, who died between 1963 and 1979. That number was fabricated by Khomeini, and never verified, not even by Western media, which took for granted the “official truth” of the newly installed Islamic Administration.

Only recently a respected historian, Emad al-Din Baghi, who had access to the files of the so-called “Martyrs Foundation”, told the truth about the real number of Shah’s victims. For years, The Martyrs Foundation collected the names of the victims of the revolution against the Shah, classifying them by age, sex, education, etc. The findings where never disclosed by the Islamic Republic, in order not to contradict the official number “established by decree” by Khomeini. The statistical breakdown of victims covering the period from 1963 to 1979 adds up to a figure of 3,164. Emad al-Din Baghi left the Martyrs Foundation to write books about his findings. According to his historically accurate account, the worst moment of the uprising against the Shah, culminated in the massacre at Jaleh Square, gave the “revolutionaries” the chance to grossly inflate the number of victims, from 88 to initially 3,000, which later became 4,000. Western media never bothered to verify the accuracy of the numbers, based on rumors and anti-Shah hysteria, and helped perpetuate the inflated figures.

Not only the left contributed to the creation of the Islamic Republic; in more recent years, during the US Clinton Administration, the media and left-wing politicians helped the Islamic Republic propaganda, repeating and magnifying the “Big Lie” about Iran and its “Reformist Leaders”. “Big Lie” is a term originally coined to describe a characteristic form of nazi (and later Soviet) propaganda. The essence of the Big Lie propaganda technique is that if one repeats the lie often enough over enough channels, people will soak it up deep into their pores and come to believe it as something of “common knowledge” or “fact”.

In this case, the “Big Lie” consisted of portraying current Iranian Pres. Hojjat ol-Eslam (Ali) Mohammad Khatami-Ardakani and his Government as a genuine force capable of reforming the Islamic Republic “from within”, expanding democracy and meeting the requests of Iranians who voted for change against hard-line clerics in 1997. The “Big Lie” remained credible for a short time, and even opposition forces of the Iranian diaspora initially credited Mr Khatami with good intentions. But soon after the electoral victory of May 1997, it appeared evident that Khatami was a mere façade figure, whose task was to restore an image of respectability, which the Islamic Republic had lost when Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsajani, the former President, had ordered the elimination of anti-Islamic Republic activists [carried out by Iranian killers] in Berlin. After several European countries recalled their ambassadors from Tehran to protest against the assassinations perpetrated on European soil and threatened to reconsider business deals with Iran, the clerical apparatus in charge of the Islamic Republic decided to give itself a new and more presentable look.

The Iranian society had already sent strong signals of deep disaffection towards Islamic rule. It was easy to maneuver the elections; spiritual leader Ali Khamene’i handpicked a fossilized, ultra-conservative mullah, Nategheh-Nouri, the Speaker of Parliament (Majlis), as the candidate of the establishment, knowing full well that the electorate would have voted for the alternative candidate.

But what kind of alternative was Khatami? One should not forget that “democratic elections” are in reality nothing more than a farce in Iran. Opposition parties that do not pledge their allegiance to the Islamic regime are banned. And as if that is not enough, the all-powerful Council of Guardians subjects all candidates to a close examination of their loyalty to the “system”. The latter represents the “will of God”, while the Parliament (Majlis) represents the “will of the People”. Needless to say, the will of God always prevails over the will of the people. The “Spiritual Leader” Ali Khamene’i, who presides the Council of Guardians, is, to all intents, an absolute monarch. Of the initial 240 candidates who wanted to run for the May 1997 election, the Council of Guardians chose four who were deemed sufficiently Islamic to run. All women candidate were filtered out, leaving Khatami, carefully screened by the establishment, as the only reasonable choice. With his image of well-spoken, clean-shaven mullah capable of debating without losing his temper, Khatami was the perfect choice to rebuild the shattered image of Iran, especially in the eyes of the European powers.

The fictitious contraposition between “conservatives” and “reformists” and the “electoral victory” of the latter was the PR stunt that allowed the Europeans, anxious to continue usurping cheap oil and gas from Iran, to feel morally justified when they restored diplomatic and business relations with the Islamic Republic. The Western media on both sides of the Atlantic did the rest, generating a false sense of confidence in the “good guys”, the reformists, who, in spite of all the obstacles erected by the conservatives, would have eventually succeeded in fulfilling the needs and the democratic aspirations of Iranians. In all fairness, it has to be said that all mainstream media, irrespective of political leaning, initially praised Khatami’s election, to the extent of giving him the nickname of “Ayatollah Gorbachev”. The mullahs benefited from the newly-found line of political credit by cracking down on internal opposition with renewed vigor. A few months after Khatami’s “landslide victory”, journalists and intellectuals were killed in what went down the annals of history as the “chain murders”. In addition, real opposition magazines and newspapers were banned and forcibly closed down.

In spite of the repression of internal dissent, Khatami was invited by the major European powers for State visits. He went to Italy in March 1999, where he delivered a speech to the Parliament, to France in October 1999, where he was welcomed by Pres. Chirac at the Elysée Palace, and to Germany in July 2000, where he met federal Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and Foreign Minister Joseph Fischer.

The Big Lie represented a perfect win-win situation for Iranian officials and European powers. It legitimized the Islamic Republic and its crackdown of the opposition, while justifying the Europeans in their renewed business interests with Iran, because, as German Foreign Minister Fisher claimed: “any opposition to Khatami only benefits his conservative opponents”. Khatami visited Germany exactly one year after the July 1999 student protests, during which security forces and Islamic militia murdered several young people. Khatami explicitly supported the repression of the protest, and in spite of receiving thousands of petitions; he did not intervene to stop the tortures and the arrests if students who were then sentenced to death after mock trials. But that was not enough to defeat the Big Lie; the sad reality of Iran was not convenient for liberal media and European politicians, anxious to clear the way to lucrative business deals with Iran.

The latest elections held in Iran on February 2003 also showed that the Emperor had no clothes; in Tehran only 10 percent of voters cast their votes, in other parts of the country the percentage of voters was higher, but in average no more than 25 percent. That sent Iranian authorities and the world a strong message of the distaste the Iranian public felt towards Islamic rule. Initially, only the Council of Guardians was labeled “the unelected few”; today the same can be said about the entire ruling class.

US non-liberal mainstream media finally woke up and started questioning the Big Lie, reporting on the June/July 2003 uprisings, realizing that Iran needed a secular democracy and not the false promises of a better future by a powerless mullah. In several occasions, however, liberal media still described the Iranian situation in terms of internal fighting between reformists and conservatives, demanding that the US State Department open a dialogue with “reformist forces” to reach a compromise on the Iranian interference in Iraq and the nuclear facility being built in central Iran.

Left-wing radical fringes recently gave birth to a Committee called the “International Committee for Transition to Democracy in Iran”. Radical celebrities like Noam Chomsky, Costa Gavras and the Nobel Laureate Jose Saramago were among the founders of the committee, which mixes anti-US and anti-Imperialist rhetoric with legitimate requests for a genuine democratization in Iran. It is now time for the more moderate mainstream left to start the long overdue process of self-criticism of past mistakes, and to recognize that the only reasonable political position is to side with the growing opposition movement that wants to overthrow the mullahs to create a secular democracy in Iran. The left opposed the war in Iraq using morally charged messages like “no blood for oil”. In order not to lose its credibility, the left can no longer ignore the legitimate aspiration of Iranians for a secular democracy. If the left insists on perpetuating its mistakes as far as Iran is concerned [trading long term benefits for myopic short term anti-Bush gains], it will be caught, once again, on the wrong side of history. It is not too late for the left to recognize its mistakes and to rectify its position on Iran, after a factual and honest debate; but that must begin now.

Elio Bonazzi is an Italian-born political scientist and IT professional, with extensive experience covering Iranian issues.

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_4738.shtml

4 posted on 01/25/2004 12:13:20 AM PST by DoctorZIn (Until they are Free, "We shall all be Iranians!")

To: DoctorZIn; F14 Pilot

I support Iran bump!

5 posted on 01/25/2004 12:28:32 AM PST by dixiechick2000 (President Bush is a mensch in cowboy boots.)

To: dixiechick2000; blackie; Alamo-Girl

Thanks for your support!

6 posted on 01/25/2004 2:58:22 AM PST by F14 Pilot ("Terrorists declared war on U.S. and War is what they Got!")

Iran in wait for change in US policy

2004/01/25
IRIB English News - Iran

Tehran, Jan 25 - President Mohammad Khatami on Sunday strongly pledged that any fundamental change in US policies toward Iran will change the existing atmosphere of hostility between the two arch-foes.

"If we observe a fundamental change in American policies, a new situation will prevail," he told reporters here after welcoming Austrian President Thomas Klestil who arrived on a four-day visit early Saturday evening.

"We have no enmity toward anyone, anywhere (they might be).But we also expect that others do not make enmity toward us," Khatami added.

Washington cut ties with Tehran in 1980 in wake of a hostage crisis after Iranian students stormed the US embassy in Tehran and arrested its staff.

Since then, the United States has taken an antagonistic stance against Iran, assisting the deposed regime of Saddam Hussein during the imposed Iraqi war between 1980 and 1988.

http://www.iribnews.com/Full_en.asp?news_id=197186

7 posted on 01/25/2004 3:01:59 AM PST by F14 Pilot ("Terrorists declared war on U.S. and War is what they Got!")

To: DoctorZIn; McGavin999; freedom44; nuconvert; Eala; AdmSmith; dixiechick2000; onyx; Pro-Bush; ...

This is an Old open letter but still suitable at the moment.

An Open Letter To Mr. Khatami: RESIGN

IranMania News
August 2002

Dear Mr. Khatami:

In 1997, Iranian population took to the election pools and looking at you as a refreshing voice of hope, the only 'other' one provided to them by the conservatives, and voted for you in a large majority to become the Iranian President. This was despite the vast support of the conservatives of your opponent. Stories of the Iranian TV cameras lingering and closing on the hand of the "neutral" supreme leader- while he was clearly writing the name of your opponent on the ballot- and the subsequent massive popular vote for you was supposed to be the new chapter in the "evolution" of Iran's revolution.

Optimists like myself became hopeful to see that a new wind is coming and soon the Islamic Republic, like China or Soviet Union, will change. "The era of transparency, responsibility and accountability are upon Iran", we thought. Iranian people nicknamed you the Ayatollah Gorbachev and they thought that the implementation of your "jame'eh madani" and the Iranian Constitution would bring them some freedom. The rejuvenated masses thought of you as the new cavalry rushing to their rescue from sadness, politico-economical depression and the complete lack of the basic human rights. Reading Hamshahri on the Internet became a ritual of daily hope for us expatriates. Many similar or more progressive newspapers-permitted by your government to publish- replaced the many tired "conservative"-controlled papers. We noted a dichotomy among the ranking files.

Events that followed showed that maybe our hopes were premature. In a typical "fool me twice" you put shame on us Iranian who once again trusted a clergyman. (Recall that the prior time was when Khomeini stole OUR revolution.) In 1998, the Mayor of Tehran, one of your staunch supporters was imprisoned and gagged from the political arena. This was followed shortly by the imprisonment of several of your "close" confidents, the killing of the critics and political thinkers, the closing of many newspapers, the events of 7/19/1999 university dormitory, the arrests of the students activists, the Berlin conference, etc. Throughout this ordeal, you did not do anything to allay our fears and concerns that the Old Persian saying maybe accurate. You know, the saying that when a mullah gets on a jackass, either the jackass or the mullah has to die before mullah gets off the jackass.

Subsequent elections of the city councils, the parliamentary election and your second election to the office were also thought to be a referendum by Iranian people demanding simple social, economical and political freedoms. With each election, people were massively turning out at the pools and were voting for you and other reformists in complete disdain of your conservative friends. You were supposed to get bolder and start fighting the conservatives wholeheartedly during the second term. Do you remember that your immediate boss, Mr. Rafsanjani, could not even get elected to the last seat of Tehran when your brother, by the virtue of being your brother, was the first vote getter in Tehran. "There is no stopping him with the Sixth Parliament mostly reformers", we thought. Making ourselves believe that there is an actual divergence among your clergy ranks, we actually believed the mirage of differences among ruling clergymen. You played the "bad cop, good cop" game to a perfection. We were fooled by your charm, your smile, and your politically savvy answers to Christian Amanpour.

You have proven to be a weak, incapable human being who looked the other way when the conservatives killed students in the dormitory. You proved to be incapable of bringing justice to the killers of the Iranian political activists, poets and writers despite your mandate. Closure of the newspapers, arrests of your close associates and the attempted assassination of your comrades in arm not even convinced you that you need to do something: The need to be transparent and clearly and unwaveringly make public pronouncements of the wrong doings by the "supreme" leader, Rafsanjani and their gangs of Sha'ban Bimokhs. Or maybe that was the general plan, "Divert these fools by dangling the jameh madani in their faces, while we rob them clean." The public speeches you have delivered, using double talks, have spoken vaguely of the "elements in the regime" that are causing mayhem in your "civil" society. Sir, who are they? Do you really not know them or are you, the President of Iran with a large popular mandate, afraid of them? Sir, it is time to be honest.

It is time to declare to the world that Iranians' blood replaced one dictatorship for another. Declare to people who shed their sweat and blood for the success of the revolution- or afterwards protecting it in that ridiculous Anglo-American-Arab-Clergy aggression- that they wasted their lives, youths and blood for nothing. Tell them that they committed a faux pas. Declare to the Iranian youth that they are the most oppressed generation in the long history of Iran and there is no cavalry coming to their help. Tell them that religion is the "opium of the masses" and clergies are the pimps who are pushing the opium to the many 12-year old boys who jumped on the mines. Tell them that while we all suffered in one shape or form during the war, only very few members of the establishment suffered during the war. Tell the women who voted for you in large numbers that they are truly considered only a half human in the eye of Islam and the clergy. Tell them the truth that your clergy-sponsored seegeh is nothing but prostitution. Tell them that in the eye of Islam it is quite justified and acceptable to wed a 9-year old girl (Ayesheh) to a 60+-year-old man (Muhammad). Tell them that the women have no hope in you. Tell them that the killing of an 11-year-old girl in the hand of his father is indeed considered a paternal right of corporal punishment in Islam. Tell this people that you are without power to implement change, without intestinal fortitude to stand up against dictatorship, and that you have been toying with their dreams over the past 5 years. Tell them the real truth that the system is incapable of an "evolution". Tell them that you are a "constitutional" mirage, a smiling face to the European investors; a façade of a deeply disturbing gang of criminals who continue to plunder the country, kill the people, oppress the individual rights and freedom. Tell them that there are no "six degrees of separation" between you and Rafsanjani and expose the real puppeteers. Tell Iranians that clergymen are not their saviors. Tell them the truth behind destroying of the Iran's beautiful environment over the past twenty-plus years, the mortgaging of the countries' wealth to the multi-national oil companies, the dismantling of the hope and the stealing of the joy from the joyous and hopeful crowds who brought you to power. Tell them that they need to look for a savior elsewhere, tell them that your people- the clergy- killed their heroes and devastated the fertile post-revolutionary political field of Iran and now they are waiting for the death of the "jackass".

It is time for you to resign and let the people know that there is no hope left and that all the heroes are dead. People of Iran who were looking for a Kaveh Ahangar in you got only a weak Judas instead.

An Iranian

http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?NewsCode=21920&NewsKind=Current%20Affairs

8 posted on 01/25/2004 3:14:16 AM PST by F14 Pilot ("Terrorists declared war on U.S. and War is what they Got!")

Thanks for the ping!

9 posted on 01/25/2004 6:33:19 AM PST by Alamo-Girl

10 posted on 01/25/2004 7:40:53 AM PST by Ragtime Cowgirl ("The chapter of Iraq's history - Saddam Hussein's reign of terror - is now closed." Lt. Gen. Sanchez)

Thanks for the ping.

11 posted on 01/25/2004 9:31:49 AM PST by massiveblob

Cheney's Message for the Iranian Rulers

January 25, 2004
Iran va Jahan
Reza Bayegan

Dick Cheney's speech at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland on 24 January is of special significance for its vision and timing. It spells out the challenges that are still ahead of the free world in confronting terrorism. It makes clear that the search for global peace is inseparable from combating dictatorships and supporting democratic movements in the Middle East and around the world. It singles out Iran by name as a country whose rulers should "honour the legitimate demands of the people". He said "there are growing calls for true democracy and human rights in Iran." Cheney's words come at a time when the totalitarian establishment in Iran has again dashed hopes for a free parliamentary election. The Islamic regime in Iran survives by intimidating the country's population and promoting terrorism abroad. Dick Cheney has used the opportunity of appearing in Davos to state that Americans are aware of this fact and harbour no illusions about the identity of their number one enemy.

September 11 has brought home to Americans the reality that the virus of dictatorship cannot be contained within the borders of one country or a continent. The world has turned into a place where the life and safety of the whole human civilization has become interdependent. Saddam Hussein not only was an evil to his own people, but an ongoing international menace. His removal has freed the Iraqi people and at the same time saved countless potential victims around the globe. The unfortunate truth is that a far greater danger than Saddam still threatens the world and the Middle Eastern peace with an ideology that thrives on hatred and xenophobia. The deadly ideology of suicide bombers and hostage takers that is fostered and promoted by the government of the Islamic Republic and is as dangerous as any weapons of mass destruction. Any political analyst worth his salt knows that without a regime change in Iran and the restoration of civil and political rights to the people of that country, peace in the Middle East is bound to remain a piecemeal peace, in constant threat of danger destruction.

To those Iranians struggling for freedom, Dick Cheney's words are a welcome sign that the Americans are still with them in their fight against the mullahs and have not bought into the policy of appeasement adopted by some European countries towards the Islamic Republic. The American Vice-President called on Europe to stand together with America in insisting on democratic changes in Iran. His statement that the "ideologies of violence should be confronted at the source" was clearly directed at the rulers of the Islamic Republic who are incontrovertibly the spiritual and ideological doctrinarians of terrorism in the Islamic world.

Another top American official who gave a clear indication that America will maintain the pressure for bringing about democratic change in countries of the axis of evil was Condoleezza Rice, Bush's National Security Advisor. In an interview she gave from Camp David where she was editing the drafts of the State of the Union speech delivered by George Bush on Tuesday she emphasized the need for providing moral help to the people of the countries suffering under totalitarian rule. Citing the example of the collapse of the Soviet Empire she said:

"When Ronald Reagan spoke out against the Soviet Union, it stimulated those inside, who saw they had friends around the world, and they were able to speak out".

Codoleezza Rice also underlined the need for truthfulness regarding the nature of undemocratic governments. The truthfulness she referred to is what is ignored by many European countries who encourage and embolden the totalitarian governments by their false bonhomie and moral indecision. This amounts to glossing over their crimes and making them look respectable. Those who are fighting to change those regimes need international solidarity; and it will not aid their search for a cure to call their national disease by any different name than what it really is.

It will not help those Iranians struggling for democracy when the Economist, in keeping with the dominant European relativism of the day, in its 17 January 2004 issue, paints an ameliorating picture of the lives of Iranians under President Khatami and calls it "less appalling" than what it used to be. As if "less appalling" is what any self-respecting nation can settle for. Dick Cheney in his speech spoke against this kind of moral relativism. Calling it a condescending attitude he said the idea that the Islamic World is incapable of accommodating democracy is ridiculous.

As the world can never settle for a piecemeal peace Iranian people also cannot settle for a demi-democracy or a "less appalling" dictatorship. There are positive and encouraging signs coming from Washington indicating that in their genuine struggle for freedom, the Iranians can count on American support.

http://iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news.pl?l=en&y=2004&m=01&d=25&a=6

12 posted on 01/25/2004 9:49:52 AM PST by DoctorZIn (Until they are Free, "We shall all be Iranians!")

To: Pan_Yans Wife; fat city; freedom44; Tamsey; Grampa Dave; PhiKapMom; McGavin999; Hinoki Cypress; ...

Cheney's Message for the Iranian Rulers

January 25, 2004
Iran va Jahan
Reza Bayegan

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1064770/posts?page=12#12

13 posted on 01/25/2004 9:50:45 AM PST by DoctorZIn (Until they are Free, "We shall all be Iranians!")

Iran Dismisses Claims of Sept 11 Link

January 25, 2004
AFP
ABC News

Iran has rejected a suggestion by a man claiming to be a former member of its intelligence services that Tehran was involved in the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

The Iranian embassy in Berlin said in a statement that claims of a link between Iran and Al Qaeda were groundless and that the statements were the "contradictory and false declarations of an unknown person".

In the statement the Iranian embassy "robustly denied this rumour, which is without foundation," and said Tehran was fully committed to the fight against global terror.

The man has been called as a witness in a trial being held in Germany of Moroccan student Abdelghani Mzoudi over the suicide hijackings that killed more than 3,000 people.

Identified by the codename Hamid Remz Zakeri, the man was called on by federal prosecutors to appear at the trial only hours before a verdict was due because they were convinced he could incriminate Moroccan student Abdelghani Mzoudi in the attacks.

On Wednesday, the court made a shock announcement that it had agreed to wait to deliver its verdict in the case in order to assess the credibility of the new witness.

German media report the witness told German police that Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ex-president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and three other clerics met with Osama bin Laden's eldest son at an airbase near Tehran on May 4, 2001 to finalise the plans for the attacks.

The officers testified that the witness told them Mzoudi had been in Iran and was "active in the logistics of the September 11, 2001 operation," including the "composition and transmission of [encrypted] information to intermediaries".

The mysterious witness is due to testify in person at the trial in Hamburg, north Germany, German radio and television broadcaster NDR reported on its website on Saturday, claiming to have spoken with Zakeri by telephone.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1031200.htm

14 posted on 01/25/2004 9:52:11 AM PST by DoctorZIn (Until they are Free, "We shall all be Iranians!")

Pakistan Scientists Admit Helping Iran with Bomb-making

January 25, 2004
Telegraph
Massoud Ansari

Scientists and officials working on Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme have admitted for the first time that they gave Iran crucial technical information on building an atomic bomb.

Interrogators who have questioned the eight people detained last weekend over allegations that nuclear secrets were sold abroad have confirmed that at least three confessed to helping pass secret nuclear know-how to their opposite numbers in Iran.

The two scientists and one official work for Khan Research Laboratory (KRL), the headquarters of the country's nuclear weapons programme, and include close associates of Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, a national hero in Pakistan as the "Father of the Bomb". One is said to be a senior manager at KRL and an expert in centrifuge technology.

All three deny supplying equipment directly to Iran, a senior official told the Telegraph. He said, however, that one scientist admitted: "We confided in them about the items needed to construct a nuclear bomb, as well as the makes of equipment, the names of companies, the countries from which they could be procured and how they could be procured."

Scientists are also said to have revealed the names of retired senior army officials and nuclear experts who played key roles in deals which helped Iran to launch its nuclear weapons programme. Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, ordered an investigation of his country's nuclear scientists late last year, after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) warned of possible nuclear links between Pakistan and Iran, Libya and North Korea.

Iran pledged last year to halt uranium enrichment activity, but Western diplomats believe that the country is still acquiring advanced centrifuge equipment needed to make a nuclear weapon. Inspections carried out by IAEA inspectors or Iranian nuclear facilities revealed links with Pakistan, including blueprints for a type of centrifuge similar to those used by Pakistan.

The latest information from Pakistan's scientists poses a dilemma for President Musharraf, who promised last week to prosecute anyone who sold nuclear secrets.

He said on Friday that scientists appeared to have sold nuclear designs to other nations "for personal financial gain", but insisted that no state or government officials were involved. He must decide whether to widen the investigation to include senior military figures who have been identified by scientists.

"This is highly sensitive," said an official. "Some of those identified by the scientists are 'big names', and it would not be easy for the government to lay its hands on them."

Last weekend's arrests bring the number of KRL scientists and officials arrested by Pakistani authorities over the past two months to more than 20, including key members of the team responsible for Pakistan's 1998 nuclear test. Most have since been released, but at least nine are still under interrogation. Dr Khan has also been questioned, although he was not detained and he denied any involvement in passing information abroad.

However, after these latest disclosures, officials said, that Pakistani authorities are investigating the wealth accumulated by nuclear scientists and KRL officials, many of whom enjoy luxurious homes in opulent neighbourhoods beyond the reach of someone living on a government salary.

One senior government official said: "Some of the top scientists and people associated with the country's nuclear programme appear to be living beyond their means. We do not know whether they have accumulated this wealth by illegally siphoning off funds from the KRL budget, or by obtaining money in exchange for transferring nuclear expertise."

http://portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/01/25/wpak25.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/01/25/ixworld.html

15 posted on 01/25/2004 9:53:54 AM PST by DoctorZIn (Until they are Free, "We shall all be Iranians!")

Khatami Calls for Free Elections

January 25, 2004
BBC News
Sadeq Saba

Iran's President, Mohammad Khatami, has hardened his position on the country's election row by demanding a fair and free poll. He urged the unelected Guardian Council which has disqualified more than 3,000 candidates from next month's elections, to make a full review of its decision.

He has tried to find a solution by holding talks behind closed doors.

Mr Khatami's comments indicate his patience is wearing thin with the country's hardline conservatives.

In a joint statement with the parliamentary speaker, Mehdi Karrubi, Mr Khatami accused the leader of the Guardian Council, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, of misrepresenting their views at a meeting with him last Saturday.

The president met members of the Guardian Council - which vets all candidates in elections - in an attempt to persuade them to reverse their controversial decision to disqualify thousands of reformist candidates from the parliamentary poll.

Mr Khatami's statement indicates that his mission has brought no significant result.

He has warned the conservatives that as a result of the disqualification more than two-thirds of constituencies would have no competing candidates in the elections.

He said if the elections were held in this situation, it would be against democracy and against the dignity of the Iranian people.

Mr Khatami did not make it clear what his reaction would be if the situation was not reversed. But it appears that his options are limited and his moderate policies are having little effect.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3427077.stm

16 posted on 01/25/2004 9:54:49 AM PST by DoctorZIn (Until they are Free, "We shall all be Iranians!")

Iran MPs Reform Election Law in Challenge to Candidate Blacklist

January 25, 2004
AFP
Yahoo News

TEHRAN -- Iran's parliament voted for an emergency reform of the electoral law aimed at forcing hardline religious rivals to reinstate thousands of reformist candidates barred from next month's election.

MPs backed amendments aimed at making it easier for candidates to stand, in a direct challenge to the powerful Guardians Council whose election blacklist has triggered a bitter political crisis in the Islamic republic.

The conservative-controlled council, which vets legislation and candidates for office, barred 3,605 of 8,157 prospective candidates, most of them reformers, from standing in the February 20 election.

Dozens of reformist MPs, ministers, governors and even President Mohammad Khatami, have threatened to resign en masse in protest at the disqualifications that could paralyse the new legislature, due to convene in June.

Among those rejected are 80 sitting MPs, as well as other prominent figures.

In the emergency session on Sunday, the reformist-dominated Majlis or parliament approved an amendment which would prevent the Guardians Council from disqualifying sitting MPs unless they had been convicted of a criminal offence.

A second amendment would prevent disqualifications based on any other criteria than Iran's common law, a response to the Council's rejection of a number of candidates for alleged failures to respect Islam or the constitution.

The vote came only a day after Khatami and the speaker of parliament, Mehdi Karubi, demanded a "full review" of the blacklist.

But the electoral reforms, drawn up less than a month before the election, still have to be approved by the 12-member council, a bastion of Iran's religious right which has consistently blocked efforts to shake up the 25-year-old Islamic republic.

The fate of the amendments is likely to be known later Sunday or on Monday, with all the signs pointing to a council veto of the reforms.

"These amendments weaken the council's legal position and give more power to the (reformist-run interior ministry which organises the polls)," charged ultra-conservative MP Mussa Ghorbani.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei moved to haul the Islamic republic out of one of its worst ever crises by ordering the council to to be less stringent in its vetting procedure, but only some 300 of the rejected candidates have so far been reinstated.

The council, whose 12 members are directly or indirectly appointed by Khamenei, has been accused of seeking to rig the polls in order to oust reformers from the Majlis.

The body, which has defended its vetting process and insisted it is only exercising the laws of the Islamic republic, has until January 30 to certify the final list of candidates to the interior ministry.

That gives those finally approved only three weeks to pitch their views to an electorate already widely disillusioned, particularly voters who have supported Khatami and the reformists in the past.

"We are opposed to illegal control by a body which sometimes claims to know men better than God himself knows them," said reformist MP Mohsen Armin.

But another reformer, Hossein Ansari-Rad, warned that the electoral reforms may only serve to heighten political tensions.

"We may find ourselves jumping out of the frying pan into the fire."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20040125/wl_afp/iran_vote_040125114206

17 posted on 01/25/2004 9:57:46 AM PST by DoctorZIn (Until they are Free, "We shall all be Iranians!")

The smear campaign orchestrated by left media while the Shah was still on his throne, and which continued well after his fall, depicted the Shah as a mass murderer, responsible for the killing of 60,000 people, who died between 1963 and 1979. That number was fabricated by Khomeini, and never verified, not even by Western media, which took for granted the “official truth” of the newly installed Islamic Administration.

Bump!

18 posted on 01/25/2004 10:42:21 AM PST by F14 Pilot ("Terrorists declared war on U.S. and War is what they Got!")

Khatami will resign for the 10 thousandth time.

They better be careful..

;)

19 posted on 01/25/2004 10:52:42 AM PST by freedom44

Phillips vs. Ameri: Anatomy of a smear

Goli Ameri wants an apology from Tim Phillips. Tim Phillips wants an apology from Goli Ameri. And both Republicans want a chance next fall to take on a Democrat they deem one sorry incumbent in Oregon's First Congressional District, David Wu.

So who deserves an apology -- Ameri or Phillips?

It's a question I would have preferred not to answer. Who wants to get involved in one of these nasty primary season scuffles? Phillips and Ameri look like top-flight GOP congressional candidates. I've written positively about both up to now. Why wade into this he-said, she-said scrap?

But this isn't a little dust-up over a public issue. It looks more and more like a bid to play the ethnic heritage card and question Ameri's patriotism.

Here's how it started: Ameri sends out an e-mail praising the Bush administration's new plan to fingerprint and photograph foreign visitors. Phillips fires back. He highlights a 1998 letter Ameri wrote criticizing a Clinton policy that required the same thing for Iranians. How, Phillips asked, can she square her support for the new policy with her opposition to the old one?

A fair question. Phillips had every right to ask it, and Ameri had every obligation to answer, which she did, though her answer is less than satisfactory. (The narrower Clinton policy wasn't effective -- witness the 9/11 hijackers -- and "humiliated and distressed" scores of Iranians who were trying to get into the United States.)

But Phillips wouldn't leave it there. "The bottom line," he has argued, "is she put the people of Iran's interests before those of the American people."

That's an explosive charge, especially in these terror-ridden times. It smacks of the old dual-loyalty charge long leveled against Jewish Americans.

Yes, Ameri is Iran-born. She also has been a proud U.S. citizen and fierce opponent of the Islamic extremist regime that forced her to abandon her native land more than two decades ago. Is Phillips suggesting he's more American than Ameri? Is he questioning his opponent's patriotism? Phillips says he isn't. He says he's only questioning her judgment. He's clearly not racist or anti-immigrant. His mother is an immigrant from India. But the best you can say is that Phillips fails to appreciate the dynamite he's peddling.

It's hard to put the matter more clearly than Ameri did in an open letter to Phillips. It's certainly hard to capture the pain this kind of blunderbuss attack inflicts on an immigrant American trying to participate in our public life.

As she wrote, "How could I support the interests of a regime that has imprisoned and persecuted my family, caused severe heartache, suffering and anguish to me, and executed dozens of my family's friends?"

Ameri goes on to detail the devastation -- an uncle who died two days after his release from prison, family friends lost to "a bullet in the back of the head," the confiscation of "everything my parents worked hard for all their lives" and more.

It would be one thing if Phillips had stumbled into this faux pas, apologized or not, and let it go. He's a new candidate, an excitable guy. These things happen. But Phillips hasn't let this go. Indeed, he seems to be doing everything he can to keep this controversy alive.

He sends a press release on Ameri's "Iran Flip-Flop" back to the National Journal's House Race Hotline, which, basically, posts the release with a catchy headline ("Iranian Flip-Flop") Then, the Phillips camp sends out another announcement: "The National Journal's House Race Hotline, a leading national political publication, called Goli Ameri's recent change in position on the fingerprinting and photographing of visitors from known terrorist states "the Iranian Flip-Flop."

So, Phillips uses the Hotline to legitimize his charge, which the Hotline folks said Friday they're not happy about, to keep this fight brewing. You might think Phillips believes it's smart politics to let more people know Ameri comes from Iran.

Except it's not smart politics at all. It's clodhopper politics. His reckless approach to this issue -- "Goli Ameri needs to come clean on this issue" -- says more about Phillips than Ameri, and what it says is this: If he fails to step back from this mess and apologize pronto, Tim Phillips may be either too careless or too cynical to merit a seat in Congress.

Which is saying something -- something more than a simple apology.

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/david_reinhard/index.ssf?/base/editorial/1074949520326390.xml

20 posted on 01/25/2004 11:12:56 AM PST by freedom44

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