{ 4 } Comments

1. Mrs. John Rockefeller | November 2, 2007 at 5:07 pm | Permalink

   Norman Podhotz needs to move to Israel, where his views would be much more popular than they are here in the United States. I am ashamed that the U.S. has attached itself to the Zionist policies of terrorism against the people of the Middle East.

   I had been losing heart over the fact that America seemed to be converting to the neocon point of view. However, this video made me proud once again to be an American. Thank God for freedom of speech, and shame on the police for ousting those who attempted to exercise that right!

   Why does Iran not have the right to nuclear power? I have been following all events, and would like to list the reasons why we should NOT go to war with Iran:

   (*) The International Atomic Energy Agency is monitoring the sites, and Director General Mohammad ElBaradei has stated that he has found no evidence of a nuclear weapons program.

   (*) The IAEA also states that Iran is enriching uranium only to the 2-4 percent required for nuclear power.

   (*) Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei, who’s the theocrat of Iran and sets law, says that atomic bombs are immoral in Islamic law, and that you can't use them because they inevitably kill large numbers of innocent civilians, which is contrary to the rules for waging war in Islam. He says that it can only be waged properly against combatants.

   (*) On August 9, 2005, therefore, Khamenei issued a fatwa forbidding the development of nuclear weapons.

   (*) A statement on President Ahmadinejad’s blog supports this. He writes, “During these 8 years [of the Iran-Iraq war, 1980-1988], Saddam fought with us and also with his own people. He bombarded our cities with chemical weapons provided by the Western powers [the Reagan administration did provide these] and also Iraqi villages and towns. During the whole period of war, while Saddam was bombarding our cities, Islamic Republic of Iran, obeying the laws of Islam and humanitarian principles, never attacked [Iraqi] cities and limited the war with [to] the army of Iraq in the battlefield. It is sad, that even this humane attitude of Islamic Republic didn’t impress those who at world stage watched the war at that time.”

   (*) Iran has never started a war, but has only responded when it was attacked.

   (*) Former U.S. diplomats state that, just as was the case in the run-up to the war in Iraq, the intelligence about Iran is being cherry-picked to make the case for war. Just a year or two ago our intelligence apparatus in the Middle East (and presumably Persia as well) was practically non-functional. It was stated that we were in desperate need of agents who spoke Arabic, Farsi and other languages of the region. We were told of the difficulties of infiltrating tribal-based societies. Now we are to believe that the United States is suddenly expert in the intelligence of this area? How do we know that these supposed weapons were really made in Iran, and not being forged by some entity who would like to see us wipe out Iran, or would like to see our military decimated even more than it is now?

   (*) Words are constantly being put into Ahmadinejad’s mouth, such as his alleged comments about wiping Israel off the map. This might be a valid concern—if he had actually said that. But he didn’t. The comment, which indirectly quoted the late Ayatollah Khomeini, translated in English to, "The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time." It did not include the Farsi words for "Israel", "wipe out" or "map". Therefore, the quote neither came from Ahmadinejad nor advocated annihilation of the Israeli people. It hinted instead at toppling the "regime" in Israel. In the context of the speech Ahmadinejad was giving, the quote made sense. He was speaking about toppling the unpopular (in Iran) Israeli government.

   (*) Does Ahmadinejad have a right to criticize Israel? Here is a quote from a report by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights:

   "Israel has, in addition, violated the most fundamental rules of international humanitarian law, which constitute war crimes in terms of article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and article 85 of the Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflict (Protocol I). These include direct attacks against civilians and civilian objects and attacks which fail to distinguish between military targets and civilians or civilian objects (arts. 48, 51 (4) and 52 (1) of Protocol I); the excessive use of force arising from disproportionate attacks on civilians and civilian objects (arts. 51 (4) and 51 (5) of Protocol I); the spreading of terror among the civilian population (art. 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and art. 51 (2) of Protocol I) and the destruction of property not justified by military necessity (art. 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention). Above all, the Government of Israel has violated the prohibition on collective punishment of an occupied people contained in article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The indiscriminate and excessive use of force against civilians and civilian objects, the destruction of electricity and water supplies, the bombardment of public buildings, the restrictions on freedom of movement and the consequences that these actions have had upon public health, food, family life and the psychological well-being of the Palestinian people constitute a gross form of collective punishment. The capture of Corporal Gilad Shalit and the continued firing of Qassam rockets into Israel cannot be condoned. On the other hand, they cannot justify the drastic punishment of a whole people in the way that Israel has done."

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2. Raz | November 3, 2007 at 3:50 pm | Permalink

   WOW! kick butt. sounds like the Left has not left. just taking a breather.

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3. Mr. Burke | November 12, 2007 at 3:40 am | Permalink

   Amen! What we need is a new Mao or Stalin, or dare I say it…. Hitler…
   Those guys would definitely see eye to eye with Iran and the rest of radical Islam. They know what to do with Zionists.

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4. Nicholas | December 5, 2007 at 8:31 am | Permalink

   "Racist Norman Podhotz being confronted in NY"
   Podhotz said that there was no way to stop Iran from creating nuclear weapons other through military air strikes, i.e. the U.S. going to war with Iran. Well, guess what the NIE says, and apparently has been saying for months… http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003680766
   … rot in hell Podhotz!

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