Archive for March, 2008
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Mar
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Hello everyone,Â
This is a wonderful DVD. I not only have one for myself, I also gave a copy to each of my US Senators and a copy to my Member of Congress! Sandra
If you would like to see ”Listen to Iran’s People: a call for Peace”, go to www.video.google.
Margot Smith
Several Reports Surfacing regarding Dick Cheney’s recent banter on national media regarding Iran’s so-called “nuclear enrichment” — evidently he is psychic since no one else has observed this activity — either that or he is just hoping that the American people and the media will not bother to verify the facts — as he clearly saw in the faked facts and figures and reasons he gave for invading Iraq five years ago.
Dick Cheney has his sights set on Iran
To the Editor:
Dick Cheney is making the same type of broad accusation that he made in the run-up to the Iraq war. This time, his target is Iran: “Obviously, they’re also heavily involved in trying to develop nuclear weapons enrichment, the enrichment of uranium to weapons-grade levels,†he said during an interview in Turkey on Monday with ABC’s Martha Raddatz.
Cheney’s statement contradicts the findings of the International Atomic Energy Agency and his own intelligence agency’s reports. One can be sure that he is working behind the scenes, imploring the intelligence community to come up with some piece of information — no matter how small or suspect — that supports his contentions.
We’ve seen it all before.
From India eNews.com
By Ria Novosti. Moscow, Russia, 10:32 PM IST
Moscow, March 27 (RIA Novosti) Russian military intelligence services are reporting a flurry of activity by US Armed Forces near Iran’s borders, a high-ranking security source said Tuesday.
‘The latest military intelligence data point to heightened US military preparations for both an air and ground operation against Iran,’ the official said, adding that the Pentagon has probably not yet made a final decision as to when an attack will be launched.
He said the Pentagon is looking for a way to deliver a strike against Iran ‘that would enable the Americans to bring the country to its knees at minimal cost.’
He also said the US Naval presence in the Persian Gulf has for the first time in the past four years reached the level that existed shortly before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
Colonel-General Leonid Ivashov, vice president of the Academy of Geopolitical Sciences, said last week that the Pentagon is planning to deliver a massive air strike on Iran’s military infrastructure in the near future.
A new US carrier battle group has been dispatched to the Gulf.
The USS John C. Stennis, with a crew of 3,200 and around 80 fixed-wing aircraft, including F/A-18 Hornet and Super hornet fighter-bombers, eight support ships and four nuclear submarines are heading for the Gulf, where a similar group led by the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower has been deployed since Dec 2006. The US is also sending Patriot anti-missile systems to the region.
From: Kashangallery@
To: iran@forusa.
Subject: ASAP …The Persian Parade
Date: Sat, 29 Mar 2008 02:33:42 EDT
Dear Leila , Salam:
Please inform FOR members Via email
regarding the Persian Parade this Sunday March30, in NYC
Madison Avenue, between 41st and 28th Street @11:00am
This is a non political, non religious cultural event
_http://persianparad
This is a great event that unfortunately is not well publicized!.
So many hours of volunteer work and donations to bring this together.
And bring the people of Iran and US closer
Hope to see you there
Letter to the Editor of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle by Lynda Howland :: Originally Published March 29th, 2008
Having just returned from a trip to Iran with an interfaith peace delegation from the Fellowship of Reconciliation, I am distressed by the increase in U.S. posturing regarding Iran. Our delegation met with numerous political, religious and cultural figures in Iran, including the former president and reformer, Mohammad Khatami. His message to us, voiced by so many others with whom we met, was: “The United States is a great nation. The Constitution is one of the most important documents for justice, democracy and freedom. Why should violence toward and humiliation of others come out of such a great nation? Let us all resist another buildup to another senseless war. Unlike the United States, Iran has never attacked another nation.”
Iran need not be our enemy.
Originally Published in Middle East Times HereÂ
by Leila Zand
The upcoming second round of talks with the United States on Iraq security offers another opportunity for U.S.-Iranian dialogue and negotiations. However, an atmosphere of mistrust between the United States and Iran persists, leaving open the potential for yet another disastrous conflict in the Middle East.
Ongoing isolation and diplomatic sanctions will not reduce such a possibility. As a result, the question for most of us – both Americans and Iranians – is how can we be influential in determining our countries’ future? How can we demand a workable solution, or at least a dialogue, to promote the peaceful co-existence of our two countries?
Because of its geopolitical location, Iran is an important power in the troubled region of the Middle East. Iran shares history, culture and religion with two of its neighbors, Iraq and Afghanistan, where America has a military presence. In addition, the country has a great deal of control over oil from the Persian Gulf. As such, it could be a welcome partner to the United States in the region.
However, the Iran hostage crisis in 1979 created a permanent fear of Iran in American minds. For 444 days, every news agency in the east and west carried news of this unlawful act. Though the majority of Iranian citizens disapproved of the hostage taking, their opinions were rarely covered in the media, and neither were the motives that compelled these students to take American hostages. No major media spoke of the connection between this action and that of the U.S. government’s in 1953, when the CIA helped overthrow Mohammad Mossadegh, the popularly elected prime minister of Iran. Despite the link, this American fear has continued with the recent development of an Iranian nuclear program.
Subject: [CarlislePeaceColle
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The Pentagon has decided not to allow the outgoing Commander of the U.S. Central Command, who was responsible for the overall military strategy and actions in the Middle East, to testify before Congress. See article below for details.
This is a time of critical foreign policy decision making and the American public needs to have testimony under oath from Admiral Fallon. News reports indicate Admiral Fallon left due to disputes with the White House over whether a military attack on Iran should be pursued.
The U.S. should not move toward a military attack on Iran without public discourse on the subject. These should include congressional hearings where people like Admiral Fallon testify under oath about whether opening a third front of combat makes sense at a time when things are going so poorly in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
We request you do the following (doing all three will take less than one minute!):
Forward this email to people you know.
Contact the Pentagon; tell them that they should let Admiral Fallon testify. The American public needs to hear the views of the most senior military official for the Middle East.
http://www.democrac
Contact Congress and tell them to subpoena the testimony of Admiral Fallon. They have the power to require Admiral Fallon to testify. This is a critical juncture for U.S. foreign policy. The U.S. is already fighting a two-front war – and failing on both fronts – and should not be adding a third front in Iran.
http://www.democrac
Thank you for your time. We appreciate you taking action on this important request.
Sincerely, Kevin Zeese Executive Director VotersForPeace
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Pentagon will not send Adm. Fallon to Congress on Iraq
REUTERS Reuters North American News Service
Good news fails to slow anti-Iran campaign
For a moment it looked like the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) finding that Iran had halted its alleged nuclear weapons program might put a crimp in the White House’s campaign to portray Iran as a menace to the U.S. and its Mideast neighbors.
The Washington Post (12/4/07) summarized the NIE’s impact:
The new intelligence report released yesterday not only undercut the administration’
CBS News‘ Bob Schieffer (12/4/07) called the disclosures “more than an embarrassment” and “very disturbing.” The same day CNN’s Wolf Blitzer told colleague Jack Cafferty the revelations were “pretty embarrassing.
That was before George Bush embarked on a six nation Mideast tour intended to hype the Iran threat and do NIE damage control. The trip followed by a week a suspicious “incident” in the Strait of Hormuz, where the White House and the Pentagon claimed Iranian speedboats had aggressively approached and threatened U.S. Naval vessels. (See page 12.)
Just a month after the release of the NIE, on January 9, Bush stood next to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem declaring Iran “a threat to world peace,” while privately, according to news reports, disavowing the NIE findings to Olmert.
According to Newsweek (1/13/07), an administration official who accompanied Bush on the trip said Bush “told the Israelis that he can’t control what the intelligence community says, but that [the NIE's] conclusions don’t reflect his own views.” A source close to Olmert seemed to confirm the account, saying Bush told the prime minister “he was uncomfortable with the findings”; he “seemed almost apologetic,” the sources said. As Newsweek reasonably concluded, Bush “may be trying to tell his allies something more: that he thinks the document is a dead letter.”
Just how thoroughly the White House was able to turn the intelligence document into a “dead letter,” and press on with its case against Iran almost as if the NIE never happened, is a tale of media complicity going back years.
Losing Exhibit A
“We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program,” read a declassified summary of the 2007 NIE, released on December 3, 2007. It noted that Iran continues to run a civilian enrichment program, but said this was not considered a weapons program because it was being done at openly declared facilities under international supervision. The assessment explained that even if Iran were to restart its program now, it would not be likely to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a single weapon before the middle of the next decade, and expressed doubt about whether Iran “currently intends to develop nuclear weapons.”
Drafted in November 2006 by the 16 agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community, the assessment cut against a 2005 NIE that found with “high confidence” that Iran was “determined to develop nuclear weapons.”
The new NIE brought the U.S. intelligence community closer in line with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N. group charged with monitoring nuclear energy programs and their compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). In five years of inspections, going back to 2002, the IAEA had found no credible evidence that Iran had a nuclear weapons program.
But hawks, eager to do damage control over the loss of Exhibit A in their case against Iran, wasted little time in countering the effects of the NIE, making use of a media that gave them little resistance.
Leading the way was George W. Bush himself. In a news conference the day after the NIE was published (White-house.
Besides hyping the Iran menace, Bush’s rhetoric appeared to raise the bar on Iran, to a point where even Iranian “knowledge” of nuclear weapons manufacture—knowledg
When it was revealed that Bush had learned at least as early as August that U.S. intelligence believed Iran had jettisoned its alleged nuclear weapons program, a few journalists asked why, after learning such seemingly good news, Bush would adopt increasingly dark and ominous rhetoric toward Iran (e.g., WashingtonPost.
Army of hawks
But an army of Iran hawks followed Bush into the media with the message that Iran was still a looming menace. Some suggested the NIE made no difference; some, like former Bush official John Bolton, suggested the new NIE was simply wrong.
For instance, Bolton appeared in the first flush of New York Times reporting (12/4/07), suggesting, in the paper’s words, that “the finding that Iran halted a weapons program could just mean that it was better hidden now.” The same piece quoted Bush National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley warning that the NIE “tells us that the risk of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon remains a very serious problem.”
Bolton also appeared in that day’s Washington Post (12/4/07) belittling the NIE as merely “this week’s intelligence.
Paradoxically, the new NIE was repeatedly used by hawks, including Bush, Hadley and Bolton, to enshrine as fact that Iran had once had a nuclear weapons program (e.g., L.A. Times, 12/5/07; Washington Post, 12/4/07; CNN, 12/4/07). IAEA inspections have never been able to verify this claim, a fact that went virtually unmentioned in corporate media coverage of the claims.
Bolton was not the only hawkish critic of the NIE. Among the many critics who appeared in the wake of the NIE release, Frank Gaffney and Michael Ledeen were also popular (e.g., MSNBC Hardball, 12/5/07; NPR, 12/5/07).
Unnamed sources were also called on. For instance, in its first-day coverage, the New York Times (12/4/07) cited an unnamed “senior nuclear specialist” suggesting that, in the paper’s words, “Iran had made so much progress in its clandestine work that the 2003 halt might have little practical significance, as long as it can keep working on its open efforts to produce fuel suitable for a weapon.”
In its second day of coverage, the Times (12/5/07) featured a report about how civilian enrichment programs may be converted to produce weapons-grade uranium. A few days later, a similar segment about the convertibility of Iran’s civilian enrichment program ran on NPR (12/8/07).
These stories were not in error. In fact, the same process used to manufacture civilian-grade uranium at 5 percent concentration, if done over and over on a massive scale, may be used to produce weapons-grade uranium at 85 percent purity. But neither report pointed out that there are many civilian enrichment programs around the world— all convertible, with some effort, to weapons use. So the problem isn’t unique to Iran. Furthermore, the fact that Iran’s program has been called a civilian program by the NIE and the IAEA, which found that Iran has never enriched uranium beyond a 4 percent concentration, went unmentioned in these stories.
Missing doves
Critical perspectives, especially ones that challenge government claims, are a key ingredient of good journalism. But post-NIE coverage exhibited a one-sided notion of which critical perspectives are acceptable.
For instance, there are critics of the latest NIE who take the IAEA’s position that no evidence has been presented proving Iran ever had an illicit program. Indeed, IAEA chief Mohammed El Baradei has been demanding the U.S. produce evidence for such charges for years. (According to a recent New York Times article—2/15/
But critics who don’t hold hawkish views were nowhere to be found in the post-NIE coverage. It’s a pattern that has repeated itself many times in U.S. reporting on Bush administration foreign policy. A look at the reporting on three relevant NIEs (2002, 2005, 2007) reveals the lopsided truth: When findings vindicate hawkish views, no critics are necessary; when hawkish views are not appeased, reporting naturally includes hawkish critics. In either case, experts with less belligerent views are largely ignored or downplayed.
This pattern was borne out in the run-up to the Iraq War, including coverage of the 2002 NIE that declared that Iraq had illicit weapons programs and stockpiles of WMD. Even though the 2002 NIE was produced hastily (and, as it would later be learned, under pressure from the Bush administration—Washington Post, 6/5/03), critics of the case for war were exceedingly hard to find in coverage. Indeed, even journalists who clearly debunked the U.S. intelligence at the time were ignored (Extra!, 3–4/06). (By contrast, the current NIE was reportedly produced under a new process designed to bring forward dissenting views—New York Times, 12/5/07.)
If journalists learned any lessons from Iraq, it wasn’t evident in coverage of the 2005 NIE, which found with “high confidence” that Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons. That NIE similarly met with little to no scrutiny in the mainstream press.
As Extra! showed in 2005 (9–10/05), top national media outlets like the New York Times reported as fact that Iran had a nuclear weapons program. For instance, Times reporter Patrick Tyler wrote (6/27/05) of “efforts to bring the issue of Iran’s nuclear weapons program before the United Nations Security Council,” while the paper’s star military correspondent, Michael Gordon, suggested (10/19/04) that a U.S.-friendly regime in Iraq might pressure “Iran to halt its nuclear weapons program.” This was at a time when, the 2007 NIE now says, the alleged program had been jettisoned, and when IAEA findings that Iran was in compliance with the NPT were largely being ignored.
Praying for bombs
This pattern continued into the months leading up to the 2007 NIE release. In June, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman (6/6/07) asserted that “Iran is about to go nuclear.” The Wall Street Journal (5/30/07) featured a long essay by Norman Podhoretz that compared Iran to Nazi Germany and, citing its non-existent nuclear weapons capacity, called for it to be bombed. The headline and the subhead said it all: “The Case for Bombing Iran: I Hope and Pray That President Bush Will Do It.”
Not to be outdone by Podhoretz, who was an advisor to GOP presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani at the time, Republican candidate John McCain replied to a question about his Iran policy by breaking into a chorus of “Bomb Iran, bomb, bomb Iran,” to the tune of the old Beach Boys song “Barbara Ann” (ABC News, 4/19/07).
Perhaps unsurprisingly, on Fox’s Hannity & Colmes (9/25/07), anchor Sean Hannity hosted a segment in which he set out to explain “what a U.S. strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities would look like,” outlining its “objective”:
destroy and disable Iran’s top nuclear facilities, impact its ability to process and enrich uranium, delay its ability to manufacture and deploy nuclear weapons, all while crippling the ruling regime.
In a healthier media culture, a less bellicose commentator might have pointed out that what Podhoretz, McCain and Hannity were advocating amounted to war crimes, whether Iran was harboring a covert nuclear weapons program or not. Moreover, in following up on the NIE release, journalists might have grilled each of them about their calls for American air strikes against innocent Iranians.
But these views went unchallenged, in large part because they were not that far out of place in a media culture that had completely swallowed the White House line on Iran.
Lulled by the line
Indeed, so lulled by the White House line were U.S. reporters that no one caught George Bush falsely claiming last August that Iran “has proclaimed its desire to build a nuclear weapon.” That job was left to Agence France Presse (8/6/07), which not only declared the Bush claim false in its lead, but explained why the charge was particularly irresponsible: “U.S. President George W. Bush charged Monday that Iran has openly declared that it seeks nuclear weapons—an inaccurate accusation at a time of sharp tensions between Washington and Tehran.”
The fact that Bush was making false charges about a country his administration has been suggesting might require military action received next to no recognition in the U.S. press. This omission presaged the treatment another important story would receive in January.
Following up on Newsweek’s scoop about Bush’s disavowal of the NIE in Israel, Canada’s National Post (1/14/07) reported on the reactions of Israeli officials to the Bush visit. Under the headline, “U.S. Option to Bomb Iran Still on the Table; Bush Gives Israel Hope of Military Action,” the Post’s Matthew Fisher reported that Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., Sallai Meridor, said that the two countries were “in sync” on Iran, and that military action was still possible. As Fisher put it:
All options, including a military strike, remained on the table, he said, despite a recent National Intelligence Estimate prepared by an alphabet soup of U.S. intelligence agencies that concluded Iran no longer had a nuclear weapons program and had not had one since 2003.
How did we get from a situation in which the NIE was called an “embarrassment” that would “take off the table the possibility of preemptive military action” to a situation where the estimate is a “dead letter,” and the possibility of attacking Iran still very much alive?
Much of the blame goes to a White House campaign of demonization that recognizes intelligence only when it says what it wants to hear. Direct aid from a press corps that has shown little independence or vigilance when it comes to Iran made that campaign run that much more smoothly.
Research assistance provided by Jamie Cunningham.www.fair.org/
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Â
A personal message from Ed Hale
Thank you for visiting www.peacewithiran.com. Your presence here is welcomed and appreciated. I want to caveat by saying that though “war is imminent†or “military strikes are imminent†may be an idea or thought or belief that many are carrying around today in regards to the United States and Iran and even Israel, I do not personally hold this thought or idea or belief myself.
Yes I certainly see the news being released everyday about the various issues, and I recognize that parties on all sides feel very passionate about these issues; whether it is the threat of a “nuclear Iran†on one side, or a â€bullying America†on the other side, or a “fearful and hostile Israel†on yet another side. I also certainly understand the potential dangers that all three countries pose against the others and truly against all living beings on the planet today. But I believe that what we think about, what we give energy to, is what we create. We have seen it time and time again. As soon as a country starts beating its war drum, it is only a matter of time until it decides it’s time to “go to war.†Regardless of the loss of life, liberty, respect in the world community, or the burden it places upon the rest of the world. Throughout human history, there has always been one country or another “ready to attack†another country.
The truth of the matter is that this is bound to continue until mass human consciousness changes to the point of what might be called “critical mass†in a way that these people who see “war†as the only answer for “peace†simply no longer exist. In time this will be our reality. It might take our total annihilation and extinction and subsequent reincarnation in yet another form for this to happen, but let us hope not. Let us hope that those of us who see “peaceful means†as the only means available to us to achieve “peace†win this historical battle of wits that is being played out on the world stage.
With that said, let us take it for granted that for the next few months or years even we will have ample opportunity to read about “war†and the “threat of war†in regards to Iran and the United States and Israel if we so choose to. There are plenty of people who find the time and enjoy searching for the latest article or report on what “so and so†said bad about “so and so†and of course in the end it is really nothing but talk leading up to more “war†– even if their intentions are good – meaning that they don’t want “war†– but in fact that is exactly what they will create. Some people have just not evolved to the level of understanding of the “mechanisms of consciousness†yet to the degree that they realize that if they spend all their time thinking and reading about it, they will indeed create it. Whether they claim to want it or not. They are creating it simply by focusing so much attention on it.
But that is not what this particular website is concerned with. Our goals with the www.peacewithiran.com website is to show an entirely different side of US/Iran relations and to the country of Iran itself, and the Iranian people. The idea is to literally ignore that pink elephant in the room that at various times is called “war†or “threats of war†or worries or concerns about nuclear energy programs or WMDs or any of that lower-mode primitive-minded nonsense. Because God knows we have plenty of people already giving plenty of energy to those ideas in today’s world.
Attached is the newest billboard our Women Against War has put up in Albany, New York. We have rented the sign for two months.
Peace,
Priscilla
