COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Saturday, September 28, 2013

The lies about Rouhani are exposed by the fact that Iranian protests meet him on his return to Iran


Hassan Rouhani greeted with cheers and protests on return to Iran
Iranian president gets mixed reception on return home following UN trip and historic phonecall with US president

Hassan Rouhani returned to Tehran from New York on Saturday after his historic phonecall with Barack Obama to a mixture of cheers from supporters and protests from hardliners who threw eggs and shoes at his car.
The reception greeting the Iranian president at Tehran airport reflected the precarious tightrope he will have to walk to do a deal with the west. Ultra-conservative protesters chanted: "Death to America" and hurled invective and missiles at Rouhani's car. But his supporters outnumbered his opponents – estimated about 50-strong – and more importantly, the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sent his closest foreign policy adviser to greet Rouhani.
The presence of Ali Akbar Velayati gave weight to Rouhani's insistence that he had the highest authority to pursue his diplomatic initiative at the UN general assembly, which culminated in a groundbreaking 15-minute phone conversation with Obama on Friday, conducted on a mobile phone while Rouhani was on the way to John F Kennedy airport.
Iranian state television did not broadcast the hardliner protests at the airport, and the state news agency, Irna, instead played up the fact that the US had presented Rouhani with a 2,700 year-old Persian silver drinking vessel, shaped like a gryphon. It had been seized from an art dealer who had smuggled it out of Iran in 2003 and the state department had been waiting for a thaw in relations in order to return it.
The majority of the official and semi-official Iranian press reports on Rouhani's trip have been supportive or neutral. Even Qassem Suleimani, the head of the Revolutionary Guards' external operations wing, the Quds Force, a powerful figure in the security apparatus, had positive things to say about the visit. Suleimani acknowledged the respect the world had shown to Rouhani, attributing it to the "resistance and endurance" of the nation.
However, the delicate nature of Rouhani's position was also evident in the careful managing of the coverage of the New York trip. Rouhani contradicted the White House account of his phone call with Obama stressing that the conversation had been an American idea.
"Yesterday, at the moment we were preparing for moving towards the airport, the White House contacted us and expressed the willingness of the US president to have a phone conversation for some minutes," Rouhani told reporters at Tehran's Mehrabad airport according to the Fars News Agency.
A number of tweets put out just after Friday's phonecall by Rouhani's official English-language Twitter account, reflecting the friendly and bantering tone of the conversation, were deleted a few hours later and replaced with a more formal, less detailed version.
Iranian officials have also sought to deny that Rouhani described the Holocaust as reprehensible in a CNN interview, even though the translation was provided by an official Iranian interpreter. A senior member of parliament has even called for the news channel to be sued over the issue.
At a press conference before leaving New York, Rouhani had said the visit had exceeded his expectations, but his team is well aware of the resistance in Tehran that will have to be overcome in order to make the necessary compromises over the nuclear programme on secure an enduring settlement with the west.
A senior official in the Iranian delegation pointed out that hopes of detente with the west had been dashed before during the term of the last moderate president, Mohammad Khatami, as a result of ideological resistance in Tehran and the failure of the Bush administration to response positively to Iranian overtures in 2003.
"We have followed this path before and we know it does not necessarily end well," the official told the Guardian. When it was suggested that there was more chance of a breakthrough now there were presidents in both Washington and Tehran who favoured diplomacy, the official replied: "You need more than for the stars to be in alignment. You need luck too."

40 comments:

  1. Can you imagine Adolf Hitler returning to Berlin and being booed and having eggs and shoes thrown at his car?

    How very inconvenient to the propaganda machine that is invested in the continued US and Iranian stand off.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Here comes the real political bomb thrower and liar in chief:

    NEW YORK - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed government ministers and official spokesmen on Saturday not to give interviews or issue public statements regarding the phone call between U.S. President Barack Obama and Iranian President Hassan Rohani, or on the Iranian issue in general.

    Following Netanyahu's instructions, minsters Yuval Steinitz and Gilad Erdan, as well as Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren canceled scheduled interviews with various television stations.

    Netanyahu's instructions were aimed at avoiding gaffes by ministers or official spokesmen such as criticism of Obama or U.S. foreign policy before Netanyahu meets with Obama at the White House on Monday.

    Earlier on Saturday, a senior Israeli official said that White House National Security Advisor Susan Rice informed her Israeli counterpart Yaakov Amidror on Friday of the planned telephone conversation between Obama and Rohani, and then informed him of its contents after it had taken place.

    "The goal of the prime minister's trip is to expose the Iranian lie at the United Nations," said a senior diplomatic source in Jerusalem. "Netanyahu fears they're heading toward a bad agreement with Iran, and if this is the situation, he prefers there be no agreement whatsoever."

    The source added, "Netanyahu is going to spoil the party and he has no problem with that. He doesn't care if he's the only one saying it in public even if there are others in the world who think like him."

    Netanyahu will depart from Israel Saturday night, arriving in New York early Sunday (local time). The prime minister will spend most of the day Sunday working on his speech before the United Nations General Assembly and preparing for his meeting with President Obama.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Was it survival that caused the Israeli to commit crimes against humanity in Guatemala?

      How did the Mayan Indians of Guatemala threaten Judaism?

      Why do you not condemn Israeli complicity in genocide?
      Why do you not condemn Israel for the crimes against humanity they have committed?

      Why two standards, one for Israel, another for the rest of the world?

      Delete
  3. Speaking of liars and frauds

    The Washington scholar who was cited by US leaders calling for a military strike on Syria, only to lose her job for fabricating her academic credentials, has been hired by the office of US Senator John McCain, Foreign Policy magazine reports.

    Elizabeth O’Bagy was formerly employed by the Institute for the Study of War, where she quickly became a respected voice on the ongoing conflict between Syrian President Bashar Assad and opposition forces. McCain and US Secretary of State John Kerry once read from an editorial O’Bagy wrote in the Wall Street Journal when advocating for a military strike in front of Congress.

    O’Bagy was fired from the Washington, DC based think-tank shortly thereafter, when it was revealed that she did not have a combined masters/PhD from Georgetown University as she had claimed.

    “Elizabeth is a talented researcher, and I have been very impressed by her knowledge and analysis in multiple briefings over the last year,” McCain told Foreign Policy in a statement. “I look forward to her joining my office.”

    The article McCain and Kerry referenced argued the US should send arms to Syrian rebels, claiming that “contrary to many media accounts, the war in Syria is not being waged entirely, or even predominantly, by dangerous Islamists and Al-Qaeda die-hards.”

    Kerry said it was a “very interesting article” and that he was impressed by O’Bagy’s “enormous” experience.

    O’Bagy, 26, also spent time as the political director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, which she failed to disclose to the Wall Street Journal before her opinion piece was published. The Syrian Emergency Task Force is an advocacy group that lobbies on behalf of Syrian rebels in Washington. The newspaper was later criticized for what some journalists said was a delayed reaction in disclosing that affiliation alongside O’Bagy’s column.

    O’Bagy has said she was not employed by the group, only working as a contractor, and was not affiliated with any lobbying efforts. She later acknowledged facilitating a meeting between the group and with commanders from the Free Syrian Army.

    While she was fired from the Institute for the Study of War for stretching her credentials, Kimberly Kagan, the group’s founder, refused to discount any of O’Bagy’s work.

    “Everything I’ve looked at is rock solid,” Kagan told Politico at the time. “Every thread that we have pulled upon has been verified by multiple sources.”

    ReplyDelete
  4. Kimberly Kagan is founder and president of the Institute for the Study of War and a frequent collaborator with her Neocon husband, American Enterprise Institute fellow Frederick Kagan.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      Funny. Even they don't want her but John McCain does.

      .

      Delete
  5. The DC-based American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI) has been a leading member of the neoconservative advocacy community for several decades.

    ReplyDelete


  6. Neoconservatives are former liberals (which explains the "neo" prefix) who advocate an aggressive unilateralist vision of U.S. global supremacy, which includes a close strategic alliance with Israel. Let's start with one of the founding fathers of the extended neocon clan: Irving Kristol. His extensive resume includes waging culture wars for the CIA against the Soviet Union in the early years of the Cold War and calling for an American "imperial" role during the Vietnam War. Papa Kristol, who has been credited with defining the major themes of neoconservative thought, is married to Gertrude Himmelfarb, a neoconservative powerhouse on her own. Her studies of the Victorian era in Britain helped inspire the men who sold Bush on the idea of "compassionate conservatism."

    The son of this proud couple is none other that William Kristol, the crown prince of the neoconservative clique and editor of the Rupert Murdoch-owned Weekly Standard. In 1997, he founded the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a front group which cemented the powerful alliance between right-wing Republicans like Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld, Christian and Catholic Right leaders like Gary Bauer and William Bennett, and the neocons behind a platform of global U.S. military dominance.

    Irving Kristol's most prominent disciple is Richard Perle, who was until Thursday the Defense Policy Board chairman, is also a "resident scholar" at the American Enterprise Institute, which is housed in the same building as PNAC. Perle himself married into neocon royalty when he wed the daughter of his professor at the University of Chicago, the late Alfred Wohlstetter -- the man who helped both his son-in-law and his fellow student Paul Wolfowitz get their start in Washington more than 30 years ago.

    Perle's own protege is Douglas Feith, who is now Wolfowitz's deputy for policy and is widely known for his right-wing Likud position. And why not? His father, Philadelphia businessman and philanthropist Dalck Feith, was once a follower of the great revisionist Zionist leader, Vladimir Jabotinsky, in his native Poland back in the 1930s. The two Feiths were honored together in 1997 by the right-wing Zionist Organization of America (ZOA).

    The AEI has long been a major nexus for such inter-familial relationships. A long-time collaborator with Perle, Michael Ledeen is married to Barbara Ledeen, a founder and director of the anti-feminist Independent Women's Forum (IWF), who is currently a major player in the Republican leadership on Capitol Hill. Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and another neo-con power couple -- David and Meyrav Wurmser -- co-authored a 1996 memorandum for Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu outlining how to break the Oslo peace process and invade Iraq as the first step to transforming the Middle East.

    Though she doesn't focus much on foreign-policy issues, Lynne Cheney also hangs her hat at AEI. Her husband Dick Cheney recently chose Victoria Nuland to become his next deputy national security adviser. Nuland, as it turns out, is married to Robert Kagan, Bill Kristol’s main comrade-in-arms and the co-founder of PNAC.


    {…}

    ReplyDelete
  7. {…}
    Bob's father, Donald Kagan, is a Yale historian who converted from a liberal Democrat to a staunch neocon in the 1970s. On the eve of the 2000 presidential elections, Donald and his other son, Frederick, published "While America Sleeps," a clarion call to increase defense spending. Since then, the three Kagan men have written reams of columns warning that the currently ballooning Pentagon budget is simply not enough to fund the much-desired vision of U.S. global supremacy.

    And which infamous ex-Reaganite do the Kagans and another leading neocon family have in common? None other than Iran-contra veteran Elliott Abrams.

    Now the director of Near Eastern Affairs in Bush's National Security Council, Abrams worked closely with Bob Kagan back in the Reagan era. He is also the son-in-law of Norman Podhoretz, long-time editor of the influential conservative Jewish publication Commentary, and his wife, Midge Decter, a fearsome polemicist in her own right.

    Podhoretz, like Kristol Sr., helped invent neo-conservatism in the late 1960s. He and Decter created a formidable political team as leaders of the Committee on the Present Danger in 1980, when they worked with Donald Rumsfeld to pound the last nail into the coffin of detente and promote the rise of Ronald Reagan. In addition to being Abrams' father-in-law, Norman Podhoretz is also the father of John Podhoretz, a columnist for the Murdoch-owned New York Post and frequent guest on the Murdoch-owned Fox News channel.

    As editor of Commentary, Norman offered writing space to rising stars of the neocon movement for more than 30 years. His proteges include former U.N. ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick and Richard Pipes, who was Ronald Reagan's top advisor on the "Evil Empire," as the president liked to call the Soviet Union. His son, Daniel Pipes, has also made a career out of battling "evil," which in his case is Islam. And to tie it all up neatly, in 2002, Podhoretz received the highest honor bestowed by the AEI: the Irving Kristol award.

    This list of intricate, overlapping connections is hardly exhaustive or perhaps even surprising. But it helps reveal an important fact. Contrary to appearances, the neocons do not constitute a powerful mass political movement. They are instead a small, tighly-knit clan whose incestuous familial and personal connections, both within and outside the Bush administration, have allowed them grab control of the future of American foreign policy.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yet, with all this imputed power and influence, 69% of American Jews voted for Obama, and the American Embassy is still not in Jerusalem...Hmm...

      Delete
    2. Obama is Jewish, it is of little wonder his own people voted for him.
      It was extensively researched and articles published in Chi-town attesting to Obama's "Jewishness"

      The Embassy, that's window dressing Not moving it just a sop to the Israeli's ally, the Saudi Arabians

      The Saudi don't want to confuse the illiterate Arabs, the ones on the streets.
      Smoke and mirrors and a little deceit is required to keep those folk in their place.

      Delete
    3. Obama is Jewish? I think not. Yes, articles have been published, in the sort of publicatons that report the birth of the love child of Jesus and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

      Delete
    4. And, no, Mrs. Douglas is not Jewish. Therefore, even the son of Jesus would not be Jewish. :-)

      Delete
    5. I think the name of the paper was the Jewish News of Chicago, but I will be back with the title, thepaper and the link.
      It was a paper for the Jewish community, by the Jewish community.

      Are you telling us, allen, that Sammy Davis Jr was not really Jewish?
      The Candyman was not a Jew, Frank Sinatra would have been shocked!

      Delete
    6. The paper ...

      Chicago Jewish News ...
      Abner Mikva, the former Chicago congressman, federal judge and White House counsel to President Bill Clinton, puts a 21st-century twist on the notion that Clinton was "the nation's first black president."

      "I think when this is all over, people are going to say that Barack Obama is the first Jewish president,"


      You think Abner doesn't know what he is talking about?
      Look at his credentials!

      http://www.chicagojewishnews.com/story.htm?id=252218&sid=212226

      Delete
    7. Allen, are you also saying that Mary Magdalene was not Jewish?
      All this time i thought she was.

      Delete
    8. Sammy Davis was a Jew by choice, a convert. He was in every particular thereafter a Jew. Your knowledge of Judaism is rudimentary at best. There are some excellent books on Judaism for dummies available.

      When the Reagan administration asked Israel to supply 3 or 6 helicopters to the government of Guatemala, Israel complied (the number of helicopters, if any, varies, depending on the teller of the tale). How this transfer, if in fact true, constitutes genocide on Israel's part is something of a mystery to me.

      Delete
    9. Your inability to provide a source for your claims of Obama's Jewishness seems odd.

      Delete
    10. It was right there,allen in the Chicago Jewish News.

      Unless Abner and he other jews quoted in that peice were misinformed.

      desert rat has never claimed to have any knowledge of Judaism.
      That is why Jewish experts are referenced.
      The Chief Rabbinate of Israel in some cases
      Abner Mikva amongst others.

      One fella said Mr Obama was "embedded" in the Jewish Community.

      Maybe he doesn't qualify for the decoder ring, or maybe he is still in the closet.


      Delete
    11. If a well known and respected Jewish fella from Chi-town describes another man, Barack H Obama, as...
      "The First Jewish President"

      Why in the world would we not take him at his word?

      Delete
    12. Is there a reason we should not believe a fella that was a Federal Judge, a confidant of William J Clinton?

      Delete
    13. Is there not a possibility that Abner Mikva is correct, he has known Mr Obama for a long, long time.
      Why should we assume you know more of Mr Obama's personal life and beliefs than his friends and associates from Chicago?

      What makes you more knowledgeable than Abner Mikva?

      Delete
    14. 'Is there a reason we should not believe a fella that was a Federal Judge, a confidant of William J Clinton?'

      You're joshing...right?

      Delete

  8. Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
    Home > All in the Neocon Family
    By Jim Lobe
    http://www.alternet.org/print/story/15481/all_in_the_neocon_family
    All in the Neocon Family

    ReplyDelete
  9. So let’e cut the BS about why the US has an intractable relationship with Iran. It is all about the politics of Aipac and their influence in DC. Nothing more, nothing less.

    ReplyDelete
  10. There is an entire war industry heavily invested in convincing the US that it has a lid=fe and death struggle with Iran and there is only one frontline defense to save America and that of course is Israel.

    It is time to cut Gordian’s knot once and for all.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Israeli sold their UAV technologies to the Russians ...
      The Russians provide it to the Iranians ...

      quot blames Obama.

      Another comical disinformation attempt by the Israeli.

      Delete
    2. IAI delivers 12 UAVs to Russia in key deal

      TEL AVIV, Israel, Jan. 17 (UPI) -- Israeli Aerospace Industries has delivered a dozen unmanned aerial vehicles to Russia under a $400 million contract that will eventually allow Moscow to manufacture advanced drones that will significantly enhance its military capabilities.

      The delivery of the short-range Bird-Eye 400 and I-View Mk 150 aircraft, plus the longer-range Searcher II, in recent weeks is part of an Israeli effort to encourage the Russians not to provide Iran and Syria with advanced weapons systems that could threaten the Jewish state, The Jerusalem Post reported.

      "It is reasonable … to argue that Israel viewed UAV sales and joint military technology activity as a means of bringing influence to bear on Moscow," Jane's Defense Weekly observed.

      The UAVs delivered by state-owned IAI, flagship of Israel's high-tech defense industry, stemmed from a ground-breaking April 2009 contract worth $53 million. That marked Russia's first purchase of a foreign weapons system.

      Delete
    3. delivery of the short-range Bird-Eye 400 and I-View Mk 150 aircraft, plus the longer-range Searcher II, in recent weeks is part of an Israeli effort to encourage the Russians not to provide Iran and Syria with advanced weapons systems that could threaten the Jewish state,

      Guess that didn't work out as planned, or maybe it did ......


      ."It is reasonable … to argue that Israel viewed UAV sales and joint military technology activity as a means of bringing influence to bear on Moscow,"

      Not much of a reasonable argument at all, in retrospect.

      http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2011/01/17/IAI-delivers-12-UAVs-to-Russia-in-key-deal/UPI-57821295280313/

      Delete
  11. You should have accepted the fig leaf of equivalency when it was offered, quot.



    ReplyDelete

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    U.S. »

    WASHINGTON | Sat Sep 28, 2013 7:50pm EDT

    (Reuters) - The New York Times reported on Saturday that the National Security Agency, the main U.S. government surveillance organization, had since 2010 used data it gathered to map some Americans' "social connections that can identify their associates, their locations at certain times, their traveling companions and other personal information."

    In the latest revelation of the activities of the NSA, which have prompted concern about previously unknown intrusion into Americans' privacy in the name of protecting against terrorist and other foreign attacks, the newspaper quoted documents provided by Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who fled to Russia earlier this year.


    It said the documents showed that "the spy agency began allowing the analysis of phone call and email logs in November 2010 to examine Americans' networks of associations for foreign intelligence purposes after NSA officials lifted restrictions on the practice."

    ReplyDelete

  13. ***Until those things happen ...
    Israel will remain in the forefront of our thoughts and prayers.


    Really, I hear this all the time from politicians “thoughts and prayers”. Who believes that bullshit? When do you do these prayers? Give me some times. What do you say? Honestly.

    Who are your praying to? Please, god save Israel? And god says:

    “I’ll think about it.”

    “I hadn’t noticed.”

    “I’ve been busy.”

    It’s not my problem.”

    “i’m on lunch break.”

    “I don’t like Jews.”

    How utterly childish.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No, the thoughts are that if the Israeli were to end their racist and politically insensitive activities things would go better for them.

      The prayers ...
      They go into the ether ...
      I don't have a clue who would be listening.
      Of if they would impact the situation if they were heard.

      It's kind of a "feel good" effort.

      We have to do "something"
      May as well pray.

      No one ever said it would be effective.


      Delete
    2. When does it happen ...

      Every time I think about the Mayan Indians of Guatemala.

      Delete
    3. The AIPAC spokesperson has cursed me and requested his god damn me.

      That hasn't worked out for him
      Doubt if my prayers, curses or requests for the damnation of others would have any greater impact than his.

      But I try to keep mine positive, regardless.

      Delete
    4. There is, i have no doubt ..

      Power in Positive Thinking!

      ;-)

      Delete
  14. Better, nauseating.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Dexter Filkins’ recent article in the New Yorker is a must read. Very interesting story in there about how a delegation of Iranian diplomats went out on a limb to cooperate with the US in taking down the Taliban, until David Frum wrote George W. Bush the "Axis of Evil" speech. That was the end of that. A real lost opportunity. Nevertheless, this Qassem Suleimani and his Quds Force have a lot of American blood on their hands.

    http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/09/30/130930fa_fact_filkins

    ReplyDelete