So maybe it's possible that some of these Syrians we see and read about dying are fighting for themselves against Assad's barbarism? This wasn't instigated by the west or Saudis, etc. This is one more domino that is falling starting from Tunisia. It's pretty condescending (and illogical) to attribute the Arab Spring to the CIA and GCC states. And God forbid that we or anyone else should support people who want their freedom and don't want to be massacred.
Are you kidding? You refuse to be part of the bandwagon to militarize Syria? It's already militarized, see all that death and destruction. I have no problem with anyone giving them weapons, money, intel and training to protect themselves.
And if the West, Saudis, etc. are propping up the opposition, what are Iran-IRGC, Hezbollah, Russia doing for Syria? Their support to the regime is much greater and more enduring than anything the FSA and co have gotten.
None of this is news and there's nothing nefarious about it. We are there at the behest of the host governments and in some cases with formal UN approval.
No mention was made of counter-piracy operations or humanitarian assistance. Those are part of the mission too.
Military officials assigned to embassies is nothing new either. The U.S., China and other large countries probably have military attaches / mission in most of their embassies.
We are not the only country with troops, personnel, assets in Africa either. In fact, I'm willing to bet that China has more personnel in Sudan alone than the U.S. has in all of Africa. And Sudan has a 100 times worse human rights record than any of the countries listed in this article; in fact, probably the worst in Africa along with that other Chinese client Zimbabwe.
Passing off what's routine for the extraordinary--I'm not falling for it.
The true crime is Israel's embarrassing and non-democratic treatment of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. If you want to effectively pressure / influence Israel and those who support it, focus on 1,3,4,5. Support for Israel among American Jews and American liberals, historically its base in the U.S., is suffering. The right-wing is taking their place, but they are not nearly as strong or a reliable base. In Israel too, they are cognizant of the difference. J Street's criticism is more meaningful than the Presbyterian Church's and Lieberman's support is more significant than Demint's. (Did Arafat not realize this too, isn't there a famous quote?)
When you start talking about #2, you lose me and most other Americans and some of our allies. Rightwing Israeli wackos aside (to include the current PM and his coalition), their policy towards Iran is closely coordinated with the U.S. (and generally with the U.K. and others). The assumption is that the U.S. is doing Israel's dirty work with regards to Iran, but I suspect it is Israel that is doing our bidding here. After all, we worry about minimizing our profile and anti-Americanism in the Arab and Muslim worlds; Israel has no such qualms. Also, I can scarcely rememember any talk of Iran's nuclear program until Bush named them as part of the 'axis of evil.' U.S. and Israeli fixation was always on Iraq (how foolish that was), at least that's how I remember it. Obama has continued, if not intensified, U.S. opposition to Iran and its allies.
This country has many reasons to be angry and distrustful with Iran and Hezbollah. When Israel gets in it with them, usually in self-defense, it garners U.S. support and sympathy. However, the only Americans that support Israel's treatment of the Palestinians are ignorant of true conditions, disingenous, or flat-out rejectionists (that'll never be convinced anyway). If you confuse Israel's victims with its legitimate adversaries, you do Israeli rightwingers a favor and its victims a disservice.
I visit this website because of some of the notable expertise on Middle East, Islamic, etc. issues and because it is both more in depth and often contrarian to conventional wisdom. I don't agree with everything and that's OK with me.
Not only don't I agree with this item, but it's fallacious logic (as the comment above also noted) and outright idiotic. In general, I don't think the Tomdispatch posts add anything, but this one is particularly useless.
Cenk is absolutely correct. We never here about the Khamanei fatwa against nuclear weapons and if there was a fatwa in favor we'd hear it all the time (as we've heard about the fatwa against Jews and Crusaders, etc. over and over).
That being said, I don't think Khamanei has any credibility as a religious leader, honest leader, or human being. He lies, kills and deprives his people on a daily basis. What's another lie?
He rigs elections, arrests and tortures his people, supports terrorism around the world, and arms U.S. enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan to kill Americans, but we should take his word on this?
That doesn't mean we should go to war with Iran. That doesn't mean Iran is seeking nuclear weapons. That doesn't mean that even if Iran had a nuke it would use it.
But let's not be naive about the ruthless nature of the Iranian regime and its despicable leader.
Your argument about taqiya seems very well reasonsed and I don't disagree with it.
I would argue though that Ali Khamenei is no more bound by religious virtue than any other person who claims a false mantle of moral leadership. He is the unelected, unpopular leader of a corrupt regime which only stays in power because it has shown that when millions of its citizens take to the streets it will shoot and beat them.
So he steals elections, disregarding (or lying) the will of his countrymen, but we are to believe that he is being honest about never ever wanting to pursue nuclear weapons?
Sorry. He's a politician and a very ruthless one at that, who will do and say anything to stay in power.
This is not to say that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons or would ever use them if it had them--that's a different discussion.
Just because they're bad people doesn't mean we should go to war with them (there are a lot of bad people out there and our actions aren't always perfect), but please, let's not deceive ourselves about the gang of brutal murderers that runs Iran and their despicable leader.
So maybe it's possible that some of these Syrians we see and read about dying are fighting for themselves against Assad's barbarism? This wasn't instigated by the west or Saudis, etc. This is one more domino that is falling starting from Tunisia. It's pretty condescending (and illogical) to attribute the Arab Spring to the CIA and GCC states. And God forbid that we or anyone else should support people who want their freedom and don't want to be massacred.
Are you kidding? You refuse to be part of the bandwagon to militarize Syria? It's already militarized, see all that death and destruction. I have no problem with anyone giving them weapons, money, intel and training to protect themselves.
And if the West, Saudis, etc. are propping up the opposition, what are Iran-IRGC, Hezbollah, Russia doing for Syria? Their support to the regime is much greater and more enduring than anything the FSA and co have gotten.
None of this is news and there's nothing nefarious about it. We are there at the behest of the host governments and in some cases with formal UN approval.
No mention was made of counter-piracy operations or humanitarian assistance. Those are part of the mission too.
Military officials assigned to embassies is nothing new either. The U.S., China and other large countries probably have military attaches / mission in most of their embassies.
We are not the only country with troops, personnel, assets in Africa either. In fact, I'm willing to bet that China has more personnel in Sudan alone than the U.S. has in all of Africa. And Sudan has a 100 times worse human rights record than any of the countries listed in this article; in fact, probably the worst in Africa along with that other Chinese client Zimbabwe.
Passing off what's routine for the extraordinary--I'm not falling for it.
The true crime is Israel's embarrassing and non-democratic treatment of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. If you want to effectively pressure / influence Israel and those who support it, focus on 1,3,4,5. Support for Israel among American Jews and American liberals, historically its base in the U.S., is suffering. The right-wing is taking their place, but they are not nearly as strong or a reliable base. In Israel too, they are cognizant of the difference. J Street's criticism is more meaningful than the Presbyterian Church's and Lieberman's support is more significant than Demint's. (Did Arafat not realize this too, isn't there a famous quote?)
When you start talking about #2, you lose me and most other Americans and some of our allies. Rightwing Israeli wackos aside (to include the current PM and his coalition), their policy towards Iran is closely coordinated with the U.S. (and generally with the U.K. and others). The assumption is that the U.S. is doing Israel's dirty work with regards to Iran, but I suspect it is Israel that is doing our bidding here. After all, we worry about minimizing our profile and anti-Americanism in the Arab and Muslim worlds; Israel has no such qualms. Also, I can scarcely rememember any talk of Iran's nuclear program until Bush named them as part of the 'axis of evil.' U.S. and Israeli fixation was always on Iraq (how foolish that was), at least that's how I remember it. Obama has continued, if not intensified, U.S. opposition to Iran and its allies.
This country has many reasons to be angry and distrustful with Iran and Hezbollah. When Israel gets in it with them, usually in self-defense, it garners U.S. support and sympathy. However, the only Americans that support Israel's treatment of the Palestinians are ignorant of true conditions, disingenous, or flat-out rejectionists (that'll never be convinced anyway). If you confuse Israel's victims with its legitimate adversaries, you do Israeli rightwingers a favor and its victims a disservice.
I visit this website because of some of the notable expertise on Middle East, Islamic, etc. issues and because it is both more in depth and often contrarian to conventional wisdom. I don't agree with everything and that's OK with me.
Not only don't I agree with this item, but it's fallacious logic (as the comment above also noted) and outright idiotic. In general, I don't think the Tomdispatch posts add anything, but this one is particularly useless.
Cenk is absolutely correct. We never here about the Khamanei fatwa against nuclear weapons and if there was a fatwa in favor we'd hear it all the time (as we've heard about the fatwa against Jews and Crusaders, etc. over and over).
That being said, I don't think Khamanei has any credibility as a religious leader, honest leader, or human being. He lies, kills and deprives his people on a daily basis. What's another lie?
He rigs elections, arrests and tortures his people, supports terrorism around the world, and arms U.S. enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan to kill Americans, but we should take his word on this?
That doesn't mean we should go to war with Iran. That doesn't mean Iran is seeking nuclear weapons. That doesn't mean that even if Iran had a nuke it would use it.
But let's not be naive about the ruthless nature of the Iranian regime and its despicable leader.
Your argument about taqiya seems very well reasonsed and I don't disagree with it.
I would argue though that Ali Khamenei is no more bound by religious virtue than any other person who claims a false mantle of moral leadership. He is the unelected, unpopular leader of a corrupt regime which only stays in power because it has shown that when millions of its citizens take to the streets it will shoot and beat them.
So he steals elections, disregarding (or lying) the will of his countrymen, but we are to believe that he is being honest about never ever wanting to pursue nuclear weapons?
Sorry. He's a politician and a very ruthless one at that, who will do and say anything to stay in power.
This is not to say that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons or would ever use them if it had them--that's a different discussion.
Just because they're bad people doesn't mean we should go to war with them (there are a lot of bad people out there and our actions aren't always perfect), but please, let's not deceive ourselves about the gang of brutal murderers that runs Iran and their despicable leader.