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Mahmoud Ahmadinejad 
Mon Sep 28, 2009 at 13:37:44 PDT
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( - promoted by buhdydharma )
Crossposted from Daily Kos
THE WEEK IN EDITORIAL CARTOONS
This weekly diary takes a look at the past week's important news stories from the perspective of our leading editorial cartoonists (including a few foreign ones) with analysis and commentary added in by me.
When evaluating a cartoon, ask yourself these questions:
1. Does a cartoon add to my existing knowledge base and help crystallize my thinking about the issue depicted?
2. Does the cartoonist have any obvious biases that distort reality?
3. Is the cartoonist reflecting prevailing public opinion or trying to shape it?
The answers will help determine the effectiveness of the cartoonist's message.
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Mahmoud, Hugo, and Muammar... Meet Rush, Glenn, and Sean
Pat Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune
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Wed Jun 17, 2009 at 07:09:21 PDT
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So, Iran is having a 'green' revolution in response to the weekend's election results.
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Sat Jun 13, 2009 at 15:32:26 PDT
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(9:00AM EST - promoted by Nightprowlkitty)
In the tense aftermath of Iran's fiercely contested presidential election between the incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and reform candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi . . .
the Associated Press is reporting that . . .
according to Iran's Interior Ministry, the final count from Iran's presidential election gave 62.6 percent of the vote to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and 33.75 to Mir Hossein Mousavi, "a former prime minister who has become the hero of a youth-driven movement seeking greater liberties."
Ahmadinejad only got 62 percent of the vote? Those slackers who "counted the votes" for him obviously didn't count them with enough enthusiasm. Government hacks counting the votes for Saddam Hussein always gave him at least 95 percent of the vote. Government hacks counting the votes for Ferdinand Marcos always gave him at least 98 percent of the vote. Government hacks counting the votes for Idi Amin always gave him at least 150 percent of the votes.
Ahmadinejad only got a feeble 62 percent of the vote, but that was plenty good enough for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei . . .
who is urging Iranians to unite behind Ahmadinejad. He told the nation that Ahmadinejad's "landslide win" over reformer Mousavi in Iran's presidential election was a "divine assessment" and a "real feast".
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Fri Oct 03, 2008 at 06:04:04 PDT
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Here's what Sarah Palin told an international audience about the information and attitudes she has toward Iran, a nation that will loom large in the next decade and more of America's future:
An armed, nuclear armed especially Iran is so extremely dangerous to consider. They cannot be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons period. Israel is in jeopardy of course when we're dealing with Ahmadinejad as a leader of Iran. Iran claiming that Israel as he termed it, a stinking corpse, a country that should be wiped off the face of the earth. Now a leader like Ahmadinejad who is not sane or stable when he says things like that is not one whom we can allow to acquire nuclear energy, nuclear weapons.
{snip}
...leaders like Ahmadinejad who would seek to acquire nuclear weapons and wipe off the face of the earth an ally like we have in Israel...
and
dictators who hate America and hate what we stand for, with our freedoms...
Palin and her handlers must be aware that her words will be fact-checked. So you have to ask: where does she get her information? How does her information square with other sources of information about Ahmadinejad? If her information is not consistent with other facts and reports, who is wrong? Do Palin and her information sources know that their information is wrong? If so, WHY DO THEY PERSIST IN LYING? And if Palin and her handlers are lying, what can we assume about their character, their respect for the integrity of the communications process by which Americans make an extremely important decision -- the choice of the next leader of the nation; their respect for the people of the United States; their respect for Constitutional principles that are "what America stands for"?
Who hates America more, Sarah Palin and her handlers, or Ahmadinejad and Iran?
You decide.
Above the fold: What Sarah Palin said.
Below the fold: Eye witness accounts from religious and civic leaders who spoke with Dr. Ahmadinejad on September 24, 2008.
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Fri Mar 14, 2008 at 11:47:47 PDT
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( - promoted by buhdydharma )
Iran holds its parliamentary elections today, March 14th, to fill the 290 seats of the Islamic Consultative Council. It is also expected to be a referendum on Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is in the third year of a four-year term. Currently the Iranian Parliament seats consist of 190 conservatives, 50 reformists, 43 independents (or centrists), 5 seats reserved for religous minorities, and 2 other seats. Voting will conclude at 2:30 PM EDT today, and preliminary results can be expected Saturday and Sunday. Official results will probably not be announced for a few days after that.
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Sat Oct 27, 2007 at 06:41:52 PDT
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(kidneystones, keeping the pressure on! ...@3 - promoted by buhdydharma )
Don Rumsfeld was charged with war-crimes today. Bushco's connection to Mid-East terrorism and pork may be the next story to blow.
Wapo
Retired Air Force Gen. Joseph W. Ralston, a former NATO commander Bush appointed last year as his special envoy to work on the issue, left the job recently because of what several sources described as his frustration at the administration's failure to devote serious attention to the problem. Ralston, vice chairman of an international consulting firm led by former defense secretary William S. Cohen, did not return several calls for comment.
There's far more at stake...
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Sat Oct 20, 2007 at 07:13:09 PDT
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TPM puts Kurd threats to repel Turkish intrusions by force way up high. Vladimir Putin warned the US not to attack Iran just days ago.
Iran today appointed a key ally of Iranian President Ahmadinejad as Iran's new nuclear negotiator just days before a crucial meeting with the EU.
An Iranian spokesman, "Gholam Hossein Elham, said a deputy foreign minister, Saeed Jalili, would replace Mr Larijani in time for a meeting on Tuesday with the European Union's foreign policy head Javier Solana."
Mr. Jalili, unlike his predecessor Ali Larijani, is a hard-liner. His appointment by the man who really holds control of Iran's nuclear project, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, suggests an end to compromise....
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Sun Sep 30, 2007 at 15:00:00 PDT
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The new Seymour Hersh article in the New Yorker has both good news and bad news, on the Bush Administration's warmongering against Iran.
The good news?
I was repeatedly cautioned, in interviews, that the President has yet to issue the "execute order" that would be required for a military operation inside Iran, and such an order may never be issued.
Furthermore, understanding that the American public isn't buying his demonizing of Iran, Bush has realized that he can't sell an all-out war. He also seems to understand that Iran really is at least five years from having nuclear weapons capabilities, so there is no imminent threat.
The bad news?
Bush realizes that Iran is the big winner of his Iraq disaster. So, he has to do something. As an average adolescent would, Bush seems to have decided that the best way to reverse the victory he handed Iran, by invading Iraq, is to bomb them.
(T)here has been a significant increase in the tempo of attack planning. In mid-August, senior officials told reporters that the Administration intended to declare Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps a foreign terrorist organization. And two former senior officials of the C.I.A. told me that, by late summer, the agency had increased the size and the authority of the Iranian Operations Group.
Three points:
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Sat Sep 29, 2007 at 09:00:00 PDT
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Spiegel Online has a powerful and terrifying interview with legendary investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, the man who won a Pulitzer Prize for breaking the story of the My Lai massacre and cover-up, and more recently broke the story about the atrocities at Abu Ghraib prison. The interview covers a lot of ground, so let's just look at some key parts, and then you must go read it!
On Iran:
(I)t's been underestimated how much the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) knows. If you follow what (IAEA head Mohamed) ElBaradei and the various reports have been saying, the Iranians have claimed to be enriching uranium to higher than a 4 percent purity, which is the amount you need to run a peaceful nuclear reactor. But the IAEA's best guess is that they are at 3.67 percent or something. The Iranians are not even doing what they claim to be doing. The IAEA has been saying all along that they've been making progress but basically, Iran is nowhere. Of course the US and Israel are going to say you have to look at the worst case scenario, but there isn't enough evidence to justify a bombing raid.
As Hersh explains- and I love this phrasing:
We have this wonderful capacity in America to Hitlerize people. We had Hitler, and since Hitler we've had about 20 of them.
Yes- Godwin is a staple of American political life. Hersh points to Kruschev, Mao, Stalin, and Gadhafi, and now Ahmadinejad. Of course, we're now on friendly terms with the apparent ex-Hitler, Gadhafi- if a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, Bush need not worry, because he appears to have no mind at all.
Hersh also points out that Ahmadinejad is not actually in control, in Iran, so whatever rhetorical blather he blithers is not necessarily related to actual Iranian policies.
And then, there are these comforting words, about the real intent, behind Bush's warmongering:
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Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 18:37:21 PDT
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Before we all lose it over the Senate's asinine Iran resolution, I thought we should all take deep breaths and calm down! The Senate did not authorize military action against Iran! The most dangerous wording in the Lieberman-Kyl resolution was removed before the vote!
With a hat tip to the reality-based Talking Points Memo, the National Security Advisors blog explains it thusly:
According to a staffer in Senator Lieberman's office, due to objections from some colleagues, Lieberman and Kyl removed these two quoted sections regarding use of military force. The remaining items, which the Senate did approve today, are pretty tame by comparison (though Senate moderates Biden, Hagel, Lugar, and Webb voted against it. The revised amendment implies that the U.S. military should plan a future force structure in Iraq to help contain Iran; states that it is a vital interest of the U.S. to prevent Iran from creating a Hezbollah-like proxy army in Iraq; and recommends that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards be put on the Executive branch's list of specially designated global terrorists.
The quoted sections that were deleted from the resolution? The Carpetbagger Report explains:
To be sure, the revised version is preferable to the original. Two offending paragraphs, in particular, were omitted entirely, including the notion that "it should be the policy of the United States to combat, contain, and roll back the violent activities and destabilizing influence inside Iraq of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, its foreign facilitators such as Lebanese Hezbollah, and its indigenous Iraqi proxies."
Indeed, the original resolution also included language that the Senate would "support the prudent and calibrated use of all instruments of United States national power in Iraq, including diplomatic, economic, intelligence, and military instruments," as part of our drive to "combat" Iran's "destabilizing influence."
Was it still a terrible resolution? Of course. Did it indicate Congress now backs a war with Iran? Not only is the answer no, but the National Security Advisors blog makes the point that the Democrats had already, twice this year, acted in ways that could be considered as supporting the use of force against Iran. In other words, by forcing the removal of the most inflammatory language from this resolution, the Democrats could be read as now being less supportive of using force against Iran! Or maybe not. We've all been doing way too much tea-leave reading, and far too little focusing on the facts.
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Sun Sep 02, 2007 at 18:37:18 PDT
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The truth about Iran is that their current regime is barbaric.
The Guardian, in July:
Iran is to defy western criticism over its human rights record by executing 20 sex offenders and violent criminals, days after a man convicted of adultery was stoned to death.
The Observer, two weeks ago:
Iran has hanged up to 30 people in the past month amid a clampdown prompted by alleged US-backed plots to topple the regime, The Observer can reveal.
Many executions have been carried out in public in an apparent bid to create a climate of intimidation while sending out uncompromising signals to the West. Opposition sources say at least three of the dead were political activists, contradicting government insistence that it is targeting 'thugs' and dangerous criminals. The executions have coincided with a crackdown on student activists and academics accused of trying to foment a 'soft revolution' with US support.
The truth about Iran is that their current president is belligerent and dangerously provocative.
The New York Times, in February:
Iran's president remained defiant today on the eve of a United Nations deadline for his country to stop enriching uranium, as tensions between Iran and the United States continued to mount in various ways.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his country will halt its uranium enrichment program, a prerequisite for building nuclear weapons, only if Western powers do the same. The U.N. Security Council has imposed limited sanctions on Iran, and has said it would consider further sanctions if the enrichment program is not stopped by tomorrow.
The truth about Iran is that they are not close to having nuclear weapons.
The same New York Times article:
Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency... was quoted as saying, American and British intelligence services estimate that Iran is still 5 to 10 years away from developing a workable nuclear bomb.
The truth about Iran is that they have again begun cooperating with the IAEA.
The Guardian, in July:
The UN nuclear watchdog said today that Iran had agreed to lift its ban on inspectors visiting a controversial nuclear facility, and was ready to answer questions about its past plutonium experiments.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said a deal had been reached on the designation of new inspectors, a visit of inspectors to the heavy water research reactor at Arak by the end of July, and the finalisation of safeguards at the Natanz uranium enrichment plant during early August. The plant is the focus of US concerns about Iran's nuclear programme.
Tehran insists it wants to develop an enrichment programme for peaceful purposes, but the US and EU fear it could enrich uranium for nuclear warheads.
The truth about Iran is that they have been edging back from the brink.
RIA Novosti, in July:
Iran is prepared to consider the UN nuclear watchdog's proposal to hold direct talks with the United States on its controversial uranium enrichment program, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said.
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