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IT’S NOT ENOUGH JUST TO CRITICIZE IRAN
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Comments
1
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sk
said:
You know, I have to admit that I've become increasingly bewildered regarding the US "policy" of sitting on its hands. There are all sorts of institional explanations, and there are conspiracy theories. The odd thing is that the US has allowed Iran to threaten the US with destruction without consequence.
Canada can't do didly, having disarmed years ago. It's also not nearly first in line for destruction. Israel is first in line, but it's a political basketcase. Really, though, when Iran threatens the US, why doesn't Bush decide that such language merits a response, and why doesn't he launch a decaptation strike against Iran?
One big reason to launch such a strike is, interestingly enough, that Israel might launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike if the situation continues as is. Israel is vulnerable to a nuclear first strike. While it has a nuclear triad and therefore can probably melt much of Iran after a nuclear strike against it, no one can be sure that this would sufficiently deter Iranian leaders, who, we will remember, had no qualms sending teenagers to be cannon fodder in the Iran-Iraq war. Now, if you are vulnerable to a first strike, you are likely to strike before the enemy does. Will Israel do so? I'd guess not, because Israel is too politically dysfunctional. But even if the probability is only 10%, the consequences are too serious.
Posted by: sk on November 10, 2005 01:36 AM
2
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greenmamba
said:
Some time ago there was a news article on Allan Rock, Canada's then new U.N. ambassador. He had stated that Canada would be voting in a more pro-Israeli fashion. Shortly after there was another news article quoting some government source saying that, "no we wouldn't."
I knew it was too good to be true when I saw the first article. I suspect that Rock got there, figured things out and wanted to vote his conscience. Our local "State Department" then brought him to heel.
Bar stewards.
Posted by: greenmamba on November 10, 2005 01:47 AM
3
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Reza
said:
Just one quick comment as an Iranian. Iranian government has always spread wrong slogans, while staying harmless. You can go and do as many reseaches as you want in all of the terrorist attacks during the last 10 years, and find out that the terrorists have always been hard-liner, (mostly ignorat) arab countries citizens.
I know that that the Iranian government slogans of "wiping Israel of the world map" sounds very threating, but that's all they do: they just threat verbally. This is a fact that every scholar Iranian is informed of and can confirm.
Posted by: Reza on November 10, 2005 02:05 AM
4
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mal
said:
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/Production/files/podhoretz1205advance.html
Posted by: mal on November 10, 2005 03:09 AM
5
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BobW
said:
Shalom SK,
The institutional explainations re the US not doing that much are, for the most part, valid.
If, for example, Sergeant Preston of the Yukon has a tip on Teheran terrorism and sends it to Sergeant Joe Friday of the Los Angeles Police Department, the information cannot as yet be securly transmitted to eg Miami. The public testimony of the FBI is that a secure communications system will not be in place until 2009. Plus, the FBI is known for time delays and cost overruns. It is no longer a premier organization during the era of J. Edgar Hoover.
Some things just take time to get established and running. I am impressed with the new NORTHCOM. Northern Command is not to be confused with NORAD, the North American Air Defense Command. NORTHCOM is not ready but it's what is needed as an institution. NORTHCOM is in Colorado. It is military.
Another institution not ready to perform is the new Department of Homeland Security. Here again, it takes time. In practical terms, America disarmed after the Church Committee hearings of 1975 (circa end of Vietnam War). I'm impressed that the US is performing as well as it's doing.
Besides the actual combat in Iraq the US military is being remolded. Here also, the time element is involved. The day care centers are leaving the scene.
Don't forget all this is taking place in a domestic US economic environment with problems. The US economy has a labor shortage (soon at a decent level) and this affects US military strength also. Plus, besides the basic labor shortages, the skills are missing, a result of the Church Committee. A colleague of mine, retired from a senior position in a national security organization was asked to return to work. My colleague was undergoing therapy for cancer treatment. They still wanted him to return to work. This is not an uncommon occurance within the security apparatus.
Don't forget the Islamic Republic has allies in the US. El-gelt-o buys honey, chocolates and allies.
Plus, we must not forget that the USG is on edge when dealing with Iran. Actions,whether military or economic can sky rocket oil prices. The already damaged US dollar will again suffer from oil volatility. The Middle East oil and the US dollar are both tied into the Peoples' Republic of China. Besides a weak security apparatus, America's diplomatic corps does not win awards.
The US has a long way to go to close down the day care centers.
Kol tuv,
Bob
Posted by: BobW on November 10, 2005 03:37 AM
6
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sk
said:
Shalom BobW. I grant your interesting points. My concern is to avoid a situation in the Middle East where Israel's officials could rationally initiation a nuclear first strike.
Posted by: sk on November 11, 2005 12:41 AM
7
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Bill Levinson
said:
Considering what the Triple Entente did with the execution of Edith Cavell (who was in fact guilty of using her hospital to help prisoners escape), something should be doable with http://www.zahrakazemi.com/ that will make Iran an international pariah in the eyes of the world.
Posted by: Bill Levinson on November 11, 2005 02:25 AM
IT’S NOT ENOUGH JUST TO CRITICIZE IRAN
By David Matas, B'Nai Brith Canada
Published in the Globe and Mail,
Canadian foreign policy needs coherence. When two events are related, the Government of Canada needs to connect the dots.
Canadian foreign policy, to date, has failed to connect the dots between the development by Iran of nuclear weapons by stealth and its anti-Zionist hatred. The connection is that Iran is moving towards a nuclear genocidal attack against Israel. To thwart the threat of that attack should be a priority of Canadian foreign policy.
No state determined to launch a genocidal attack against Israel is likely to announce in advance the timing of the attack and the exact means of destruction to be used. We would have to look for signs.
The only warning signs we are likely to get is the development of weapons of mass destruction through stealth, a vicious anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic propaganda campaign, the depersonalization of Jews in deed as well as word, complicity in mass killing of Jews, and threats against Israel of the most dire sort. The state with all these signs in place is Iran.
In March, 1992, a suicide bomber drove a car bomb into the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29 people and injuring 100. A second suicide car bomb targeted the Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires in July, 1994, killing 85 and wounding over 200. Hezbollah, the Lebanese terrorist organization financed by Iran, perpetrated both these attacks.
Iran has missiles with enough range to reach Israel that have the slogan, visible in bold paint, "We will wipe Israel from the face of the earth". The religious leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has said: "The cancerous tumour called Israel must be uprooted." President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has labelled Israel a disgraceful blot which should be wiped off the map. What could be clearer?
The Nazis invoked self-defence as their justification for the killing of Jews, claiming that they were protecting themselves and the world from a Jewish conspiracy and the threat of Jewish world domination. The fact that there was no such conspiracy, no such threat, did not save millions of innocent people from annihilation. Tomorrow, if Iran launches a nuclear attack against Israel, it will likely be justified by a claim of an Israeli threat to the Islamic revolution in Iran. Iranian leaders today mouth these claims regularly, even though there is clearly no such threat.
Canada must do everything possible to thwart Iranian nuclear weapons development. It should also be calling for an emergency special session of the UN General Assembly devoted to Iran. Because of the Iranian torture and murder of Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi, Canada has a direct interest in bringing Iranian human rights violations to the UN.
As well, Canada should enter the global combat against anti-Zionism. At the moment, that is far from the case.
Last year, the General Assembly voted for 19 resolutions that either delegitimized, demonized or imposed a double standard against Israel. Canada voted against only two of these resolutions, abstained on four, and supported 13.
Beyond voting against all such resolutions, Canada must stop funding anti-Zionist propaganda fomented by international institutions and non-governmental organizations it supports. There are reliable reports that anti-Zionists store ammunition in West Bank and Gaza schools operated by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). They smuggle arms and terrorists in UNRWA ambulances. Schools financed by the agency are anti-Zionist indoctrination centres, glorifying suicide bombers. The textbooks are anti-Zionist propaganda pulp. The agency has Hamas members on its payroll.
UNRWA receives about $10-million a year from the Canadian International Development Agency. CIDA does not control the way UNRWA spends Canadian money or the way funding to the agency is abused. Canada should stop giving to an agency that is complicit in incitement to terror and violence.
Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew has condemned the recent anti-Zionist diatribe by the President of Iran and that is welcome; so is the link the minister drew between the Iranian President's statement and anti-Semitism. But that condemnation alone is not enough.
The venom of Iran’s President is part and parcel of a long-standing policy connected with the Iranian government’s nuclear-weapons development. Canada must act on that connection. Otherwise, during the lifetime of the last survivors of the Holocaust, Canada will remain ineffectual once again in the face of yet another impending genocide of the Jewish people.
David Matas is a Winnipeg lawyer and senior counsel to B'nai Brith Canada. He is the author of "Aftershock: Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism".
Posted by Ted Belman at November 9, 2005 10:08 PM