The only thing which can prevent a Fascist President in 2008

As I have written in a previous post, the "election" of an openly Fascist President in 2008 is almost certain. The USA already has an Imperial Presidency (the politically correct term for which is "unitary executive") and this trend will only get worse no matter which Neocon puppet gets elected in 2008. Only two candidate - Ron Paul and Mike Gravel - are real democrats (small "d"), and neither of them has any real hope of getting elected.

As Chalmer Johnson wrote in his recent book Nemesis, we are in all likelihood living the last days of the American Republic. I would submit that the day the Military Commissions Act was past by the Imperial Congress was the Constitutional Kristallnacht which marked the beginning of the end for democracy in the USA. To paraphrase Churchill, we are now already beyond the beginning of the end, though not quite at the end of the end yet. There remains one last thing which can prevent the USA from becoming a Fascist Empire: a Ron Paul - Mike Gravel ticket in 2008.

The American people overwhelmingly voted for the Democrats to stop the total calamity which the war in Iraq has turned into for the USA and what did they get in return? A so-called "surge" which is likely to bring the US troops in Iraq to around 200'000 by this Fall, and a Democratic leadership who told the Neocons in the White House that the Congress voluntarily renounces is constitutional right and obligation to decide whether the US will go to war against Iran or not. I cannot think of a bigger and more blatant betrayal of the will of the American people in the entire history of the USA.

As Chalmer Johnson puts it, the USA is now facing a crucial choice: either to persist in its efforts to become an Empire, or to accept the loss of this foolish and evil chimera and become a "normal" nation again. Not that there any chance at all for the US to become the Empire the Neocons want it to be - there is none. The real issue is whether this will happen as the result of a social awareness and choice of the US society or as the result of a Roman-style collapse impose by external forces.

The magnitude of this choice trumps all other issues. Nothing comes even close to being as important as this choice, not Social Security, not taxation, not environmental issues, not even civil liberties, even more so because the latter are directly linked to the Empire vs. Republic choice. For all its faults, the USA used to be a Republic whose internal structure was carefully crafted by Jefferson and the other founding fathers of the Republic.

Congress has clearly caved in to Neocon pressures, and so has the Supreme Court (though to a lesser degree), and the entire balance of power created by the Founding Fathers has now collapsed. From being, at least in theory, "of the people and for the people", it the US power structure has become of the Neocons and for the Neocons.

This represents nothing short of a complete loss of sovereignty of the American people over their country.

Those who realize and oppose this cannot be easily defined as liberals or conservatives, Democrats or Republicans. What is certain is that those who wish to live in an American Republic cannot have any more hopes to be represented by either Democrats or Republicans. A third force or, more accurately, a second force is desperately needed and only Ron Paul and Mike Gravel can create it.

It might be sound tactically for Ron Paul and Mike Gravel to use the label of their respective parties to try to speak up and educate the American people, but pretty soon both of them will get the boot from the Establishment (see the Pravda-like editorial in the Washington Post) demanding their elimination from the Presidential debates). When this happens they need to join forces and run on an independent anti-Imperial ticket together. Others from both sides of the political spectrum would join them (just imagine Ron Paul, Mike Gravel, Pat Buchanan and Ralph Nader standing together!). The entire peace movement could join forces with the constitutionalists and libertarians in a last ditch attempt not to promote some agenda, but to save the Republic!

Sure - this is admittedly a far-fetched solution but, as Sherlock Holmes liked to say, eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth or, in this case, the *only* option.

US conservatives and liberals would also do well to remember that the social issues on which they disagree with each other and not in the realm of the Presidency, but of Congress. It does not really matter whether a libertarian paleo-conservative like Ron Paul or a liberal like Mike Gravel sits in the White House for internal social programs. What matters is that the USA not turn into an empire externally and into a Fascist state internally. Only if these two conditions are met can the Left and the Right freely and democratically offer their respective political platforms to the American people to choose from.

Will Paul and Gravel agree to join forces together?

My guess is that this will only happen if the American people pressure them to do so, in fact demand that from them. Both Paul and Gravel are honest and dedicated people and both love their country and want to serve it. The American people need to tell that that this is what is needed from them. Any other hopes have now become futile.

Keep Ron Paul in!!

"Keep Ron Paul in!" is the initiative of conservative bigwig Richard A. Viguerie who created a special website with a petition to demand that Ron Paul not be excluded from the Presidential debates. While this initiative originates from conservatives, the petition itself has options for being a concervative, liberal, moderate, libertarian or "other" and for various motives - including keeping a real, pluralistic, debate to sign the petition.

Thus, this is not a matter of endorsing Ron Paul's views, as it is a matter of trying to keep a real debate going. This is the letter explaining the petition:

Keep Ron Paul in the June 5 New Hampshire debate!

Dear Fellow Conservative:

The next Republican presidential debate is just days away. It will be held at 7:00 pm Eastern Time on Tuesday, June 5 in New Hampshire. Its sponsors are CNN, the Manchester (NH) Union Leader, and WMUR-TV. CNN will televise the debate, which is being hosted by Wolf Blitzer.

It’s up to you and I and all our conservative friends to make sure this is a real debate—with real conservative views allowed—and not a sham Soviet-style “debate” with just one Establishment-approved viewpoint expressed.

You know what happened during and after the last debate in South Carolina. Rep. Ron Paul was the only debater who took the traditional Republican foreign policy positions of Robert A. Taft (“Mr. Republican”). And Ron Paul was the only debater who called for the elimination of entire Cabinet departments that are not authorized by the Constitution—which had been the position taken in recent Republican platforms.

So what happened? A movement began to oust Ron Paul from future debates, led by Saul Anuzis, chairman of the Michigan Republican Party. He found Ron Paul’s conservative positions “off the wall and out of whack” (even though Paul was the debate winner in viewer responses to Fox News and MSNBC after the debate).

Anuzis has since flip-flopped on his demand to ban Ron Paul (he heard from We the People), but I don’t trust the Big Government Republicans one bit. If they can’t get their way publicly, they’ll try to get their way behind closed doors.

I expect intense behind-the-scenes pressure to be placed on the three debate sponsors to get Rep. Ron Paul off the panel on June 5. And WE have to counteract with pressure to keep this a true debate. That’s why I have launched a petition on www.KeepRonIn.com.

The title says it all. And we will be keeping the three debate sponsors—as well as the rest of the media—fully informed of your desire to see a real debate.

SIGN THE PETITION HERE

I encourage every visitor to visit www.KeepRonIn.com and sign the petition!

The Saker

Former Sephardi chief rabbi calls for the carpet bombing of 1.4 millions Palestinians living inside the 135 square miles of Gaza strip

Many observers critical of Israel, Zionism or Judaism point out that the object of their hostility is not the Jewish ethnicity (in fact - many of these critics are Jews themselves: Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, Michael Neumann, Israel Shahak, Amy Goodman, Israel Shamir, Gilad Atzmon are just some of the better known ones), but the ideologies of Zionism or Judaism which are deeply hostile to all non-Jews. There is plenty of evidence that, not unlikey Wahabi/Salafi Islam or traditional Roman Catholicism (as opposed to the modern theological soup the Papacy has become), Judaism often serves as a religious basis for massacres and genocide. A recent example can be found in the Israeli press: according to the Jeruslam Post, rabbi Eliyahu advocates carpet bombing Gaza:

All civilians living in Gaza are collectively guilty for Kassam attacks on Sderot, former Sephardi chief rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu has written in a letter to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Eliyahu ruled that there was absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a potential massive military offensive on Gaza aimed at stopping the rocket launchings.

The letter, published in Olam Katan [Small World], a weekly pamphlet to be distributed in synagogues nationwide this Friday, cited the biblical story of the Shechem massacre (Genesis 34) and Maimonides' commentary (Laws of Kings 9, 14) on the story as proof texts for his legal decision.

According to Jewish war ethics, wrote Eliyahu, an entire city holds collective responsibility for the immoral behavior of individuals. In Gaza, the entire populace is responsible because they do nothing to stop the firing of Kassam rockets.

The former chief rabbi also said it was forbidden to risk the lives of Jews in Sderot or the lives of IDF soldiers for fear of injuring or killing Palestinian noncombatants living in Gaza.

Eliyahu could not be reached for an interview. However, Eliyahu's son, Shmuel Eliyahu, who is chief rabbi of Safed, said his father opposed a ground troop incursion into Gaza that would endanger IDF soldiers. Rather, he advocated carpet bombing the general area from which the Kassams were launched, regardless of the price in Palestinian life.

"If they don't stop after we kill 100, then we must kill a thousand," said Shmuel Eliyahu. "And if they do not stop after 1,000 then we must kill 10,000. If they still don't stop we must kill 100,000, even a million. Whatever it takes to make them stop."

In the letter, Eliyahu quoted from Psalms. "I will pursue my enemies and apprehend them and I will not desist until I have eradicated them."

Eliyahu wrote that "This is a message to all leaders of the Jewish people not to be compassionate with those who shoot [rockets] at civilians in their houses."

The truly staggering costs of US unconditional support for Israel

An increasing number of US public figures are breaking the old taboo and openly discussing the huge cost the US is paying for its unconditional support of Israel. From Michael Scheuer, to President Carter, from John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's to Scott Ritter, to the recent Republican Presidential debate in which Ron Paul dared to openly say that US policies in the Middle-East had something to do with the "blowback" on 911. What is less known, however, is the huge, absolultey stupendous financial costs of the US support of Israel. The figure is truly breathtaking: Since 1973, Israel has cost the United States about $1.6 trillion. That is not a typo, its *trillion*, not billion or million. That's 1,600,000,000,000 dollars or more than more than $5,700 per person.

These figures come from a detailed article in the Christian Science Monitor which quotes a study by the Thomas Stauffer, a Washington, DC-based engineer and economist who has taught the economics of energy and the Middle East at Harvard University and Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service and whose study was commissioned by the US Army War College. The CSM article gives a breakdown item by item of how Stauffer has arrived at this figure. Others have challenged both his figures and his methodology.

In his original 2003 report for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Stauffer gives the item by item analysis of the figure for the total costs to American taxpayers of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: $3 Trillion. That is four times more than the Vietnam war.

At a time when Americans are willing to vote for politicians who will reduce their taxes at the cost of drastic cuts in the already pitiful Social Security in a country with the worst healthcare system of the entire industrialized world, were a person on full invalidity get 700 bucks a month and has to co-pay for his medecines, where most war vetarans end up homeless at least for a while upon their return from war (grand declarations of "support our troops nonewithstanding), at a time when education, research, pensions, salaries and culture appropriations get slashed to shreds in the name of reducing costs, not a single politician dares to demand cuts in the "aid" Israel receives. Not even the fact that a former President speaks of "Israeli Apartheid" allows this issue to be raised.

Thousand of Americans displaced by Katrina are still sitting in tent camps, and their minute FEMA aid is being terminted, illiteracy and hunger have reached truly Third-World country levels, but the issue of US aid to Israel remains beyond discussion.

The Pollard spy scandal, the AIPAC spy scandal, the Israeli spies in the Pentagon, the various Neocon scandals (Libby, Wolfowitz), the so-called "Israel art students affair", or the many questions about what Israel might have known about 911 had exactly zero effect on this (and nevermind the old USS Liberty affair). Those who dare raise the issue are still inevitably called "anti-Semitic" even though this term has no logical meaning whatsoever.

Considering the ridiculously small percentage of Americans which have any personal ties at all with the Middle-East, and keeping in mind that most American Jews are not at all in agreement with the polices advocated by AIPAC and the rest of the so-called "Jewish lobby" - the fact that this aid has not been meaningfully challanged by a single US politicans truly attests to the iron hold the Zionist/Neocon lobby has acheived in the USA.

It is clearly naive to the utmost to believe that the inevitable costs of an agression against Iran will deter anyone in the White House from attacking. Having spent 1,6 TRILLION dollars in direct aid to Israel, having suffered 911 as a consequence of its foreign policy in the Middle-East, having lost over 3'500 soliders and many hundered mercenaries in Iraq, having turned the entire planet (with the rather comical exceptions of Naru, Palau, Tuvalu, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands!) against itself, the regime in Washington will not hesitate for one second to start yet another imperial war against Iran. And if it costs another trillion dollars or thousands of American lives - who cares?! Certainly not those in control of the White House, the Imperial Senate or the US corporate media.

Don't We Have a Constitution, Not a King?

By Marjorie Cohn, AlterNet

As the nation focused on whether Congress would exercise its constitutional duty to cut funding for the war, Bush quietly issued an unconstitutional bombshell that went virtually unnoticed by the corporate media.

The National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive, signed on May 9, 2007, would place all governmental power in the hands of the President and effectively abolish the checks and balances in the Constitution.

If a "catastrophic emergency" -- which could include a terrorist attack or a natural disaster -- occurs, Bush's new directive says: "The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government."

What about the other two co-equal branches of government? The directive throws them a bone by speaking of a "cooperative effort" among the three branches, "coordinated by the President, as a matter of comity with respect to the legislative and judicial branches and with proper respect for the constitutional separation of powers." The Vice-President would help to implement the plans.

"Comity," however, means courtesy, and the President would decide what kind of respect for the other two branches of government would be "proper." This Presidential Directive is a blatant power grab by Bush to institutionalize "the unitary executive."

A seemingly innocuous phrase, the unitary executive theory actually represents a radical, ultra rightwing interpretation of the powers of the presidency. Championed by the conservative Federalist Society, the unitary executive doctrine gathers all power in the hands of the President and insulates him from any oversight by the congressional or judicial branches.

In a November 2000 speech to the Federalist Society, then Judge Samuel Alito said the Constitution "makes the president the head of the executive branch, but it does more than that. The president has not just some executive powers, but the executive power -- the whole thing."

These "unitarians" claim that all federal agencies, even those constitutionally created by Congress, are beholden to the Chief Executive, that is, the President. This means that Bush could disband agencies like the Federal Communications Commission, the Food and Drug Administration, the Federal Reserve Board, etc., if they weren't to his liking.

Indeed, Bush signed an executive order stating that each federal agency must have a regulatory policy office run by a political appointee. Consumer advocates were concerned that this directive was aimed at weakening the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The unitary executive dogma represents audacious presidential overreaching into the constitutional province of the other two branches of government.

This doctrine took shape within the Bush administration shortly after 9/11. On September 25, 2001, former deputy assistant attorney general John Yoo used the words "unitary executive" in a memo he wrote for the White House: "The centralization of authority in the president alone is particularly crucial in matters of national defense, war, and foreign policy, where a unitary executive can evaluate threats, consider policy choices, and mobilize national resources with a speed and energy that is far superior to any other branch." Six weeks later, Bush began using that phrase in his signing statements.

As of December 22, 2006, Bush had used the words "unitary executive" 145 times in his signing statements and executive orders. Yoo, one of the chief architects of Bush's doctrine of unfettered executive power, wrote memoranda advising Bush that because he was commander in chief, he could make war any time he thought there was a threat, and he didn't have to comply with the Geneva Conventions.

In a 2005 debate with Notre Dame professor Doug Cassel, Yoo argued there is no law that could prevent the President from ordering that a young child of a suspect in custody be tortured, even by crushing the child's testicles.

The unitary executive theory has already cropped up in Supreme Court opinions. In his lone dissent in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, Justice Clarence Thomas cited "the structural advantages of a unitary Executive." He disagreed with the Court that due process demands an American citizen held in the United States as an enemy combatant be given a meaningful opportunity to contest the factual basis for that detention before a neutral decision maker. Thomas wrote, "Congress, to be sure, has a substantial and essential role in both foreign affairs and national security. But it is crucial to recognize that judicial interference in these domains destroys the purpose of vesting primary responsibility in a unitary Executive."

Justice Thomas's theory fails to recognize why our Constitution provides for three co-equal branches of government.

In 1926, Justice Louis Brandeis explained the constitutional role of the separation of powers. He wrote, "The doctrine of the separation of powers was adopted by the convention of 1787 not to promote efficiency but to preclude the exercise of arbitrary power. The purpose was not to avoid friction, but, by means of the inevitable friction incident to the distribution of the governmental powers among three departments, to save the people from autocracy."

Eighty years later, noted conservative Grover Norquist, describing the unitary executive theory, echoed Brandeis's sentiment. Norquist said, "you don't have a constitution; you have a king."

One wonders what Bush & Co. are setting up with the new Presidential Directive. What if, heaven forbid, some sort of catastrophic event were to occur just before the 2008 election? Bush could use this directive to suspend the election. This administration has gone to great lengths to remain in Iraq. It has built huge permanent military bases and pushed to privatize Iraq's oil. Bush and Cheney may be unwilling to relinquish power to a successor administration.

Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, president-elect of the National Lawyers Guild, and the US representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists. Her new book, Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law, will be published in July.

Israel's house of horrors

Ali Abunimah writing from Chicago, USA, Live from Palestine, 30 May 2007

Debris litters the streets of Ramallah after an undercover Israeli death squad shot a 22-year-old man 24 times at close range, an event which was not reported by the mainstream press. (Elias Khayyo)

Reading an account of an Israeli cabinet meeting in Ha'aretz is like a trip through a House of Horrors. Here are some choice excerpts:

"Ministers Meir Sheetrit and Rafi Eitan proposed Wednesday that Israel produce its own version of the Qassam rocket to be fired at targets inside the Gaza Strip in response to Palestinian rocket fire on its southern communities."

"Minister of Industry, Trade and Labor Eli Yishai of Shas proposed that Israel use air strikes to destroy Palestinian towns and villages in response to the rocket fire, after giving local residents advance notice allowing them to evacuate their homes."

"Shas MK Yitzhak Cohen proposed cutting off the supply of electricity, water and fuel to the Strip, and justify the move by saying that Qassam rockets had destroyed Israel's infrastructure and that it will take a long time to repair the facilities with which to supply the Palestinians with basic resources. Shin Bet security service director Yuval Diskin suggested that Cohen's idea is worth examining."

This is the state that is supposed to be the conscience of the world following the Nazi holocaust? Which other government could openly hold such discussions to such overwhelming silence from the so-called "international community"?

For weeks, Israel has bombed the Gaza Strip killing dozens. In one such attack, on May 20, Israel bombed the house of a democratically-elected legislator Khalil al-Haya, killing eight people, including seven members of his family -- among them three teenagers. B'Tselem called for a criminal investigation, but the issue has been long forgotten by the rest of the world.

Israel's relentless attacks are allegedly a "response" to Palestinian rocket fire which has killed two Israelis, and caused minor damage in the small town of Sderot. Anyone who follows the news carefully, however, knows that Israel has never needed an excuse to attack Palestinians. In the whole of 2006, Israel killed almost 700 Palestinians, according to B'Tselem, of whom half were unarmed civilians, and 141 children. In the same period, Palestinians killed 23 Israelis.

Israel never accepted any of the unilateral truces offered and implemented by Palestinian factions. Once again, today, Palestinian Authority prime minister Isma'il Haniyeh said "We in the Palestinian government are in favor of a reciprocal and simultaneous calm ... in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. The ball is now on the Israeli court." (Ha'aretz, May 30) This was instantly rejected by Israel which demands the right to kill Palestinians whenever and wherever it likes while Palestinians should not in any way defend themselves.

Yesterday, an Israeli death squad carried out a cold blooded execution of a 22-year-old man in the center of occupied Ramallah. After shooting him in the leg, he was finished off with a bullet to the back of the head. He was then riddled with a total of 24 bullets. This brutal murder did not even make the news in the US.

Regular EI contributor Sam Bahour, who was a short distance away when the death squad murder happened, observed:

"On my way home, I passed the Presidential Compound on Radio Street. This is [Palestinian Authority President] Mahmoud Abbas's headquarters. Only a few hours before it was reported in the news that he announced that he will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Olmert on June 7 to discuss the 'peace process.' Alone, I just shook my head and wondered for how long can this Palestinian President, this Palestinian Authority Government, and this Palestinian Legislative Council continue to go through the empty motions of governance under military occupation, while Israel, with full internationally-sanctioned impunity, assassinates Palestinian citizens -- those very same security personnel that are supposed to hold the peace -- in broad daylight, arrests dozens from their beds every night -- including ministers, mayors and legislators -- and prohibit millions of Palestinians whom they have displaced from returning to their homes. I guess the more accurate question I should be asking myself is until when will the Palestinian people continue to accept such inept leadership?"

Of course, the Palestinian people, those under occupation, at least, did express their rejection of this inept leadership in January 2006, when they voted overwhelmingly to replace them with a Hamas-led authority. Since then the will of the occupied Palestinians has been stymied, by a so-called international community -- principally the United States and the European Union -- who are arming and financing Palestinian collaborator militias whose job is to undermine and destroy the Hamas-Fatah 'unity government.'

Ronnie Kasrils, South Africa's minister of intelligence, and an ANC veteran of the anti-apartheid struggle wrote on May 21 "Travelling into Palestine's West Bank and Gaza Strip, which I visited recently, is like a surreal trip back into an apartheid state of emergency." Except, adds Kasrils, it's a situation "infinitely worse than apartheid" (Mail & Guardian).

In such a situation, it is up to people of conscience all over the world to bring Israel to account and not wait for compromised and complicit governments to do it for them: no one who claims to be in solidarity with the Palestinian people can stand opposed to the call for boycott, divestment and sanctions universally supported by Palestinian civil society (see pacbi.org). There is no parity between occupier and occupied, colonizer and colonized.

Ali Abunimah is cofounder of the online publication The Electronic Intifada and author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse.

source: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6975.shtml

"Wiped off the Map" - The Rumor of the Century

by Arash Norouzi

Across the world, a dangerous rumor has spread that could have catastrophic implications. According to legend, Iran's President has threatened to destroy Israel, or, to quote the misquote, "Israel must be wiped off the map". Contrary to popular belief, this statement was never made, as the following article will prove.

BACKGROUND:

On Tuesday, October 25th, 2005 at the Ministry of Interior conference hall in Tehran, newly elected Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivered a speech at a program, reportedly attended by thousands, titled "The World Without Zionism". Large posters surrounding him displayed this title prominently in English, obviously for the benefit of the international press. Below the poster's title was a slick graphic depicting an hour glass containing planet Earth at its top. Two small round orbs representing the United States and Israel are shown falling through the hour glass' narrow neck and crashing to the bottom.

Before we get to the infamous remark, it's important to note that the "quote" in question was itself a quote— they are the words of the late Ayatollah Khomeini, the father of the Islamic Revolution. Although he quoted Khomeini to affirm his own position on Zionism, the actual words belong to Khomeini and not Ahmadinejad. Thus, Ahmadinejad has essentially been credited (or blamed) for a quote that is not only unoriginal, but represents a viewpoint already in place well before he ever took office.

THE ACTUAL QUOTE:

So what did Ahmadinejad actually say? To quote his exact words in farsi:

"Imam ghoft een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad."

That passage will mean nothing to most people, but one word might ring a bell: rezhim-e. It is the word "Regime", pronounced just like the English word with an extra "eh" sound at the end. Ahmadinejad did not refer to Israel the country or Israel the land mass, but the Israeli regime. This is a vastly significant distinction, as one cannot wipe a regime off the map. Ahmadinejad does not even refer to Israel by name, he instead uses the specific phrase "rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods" (regime occupying Jerusalem).

So this raises the question.. what exactly did he want "wiped from the map"? The answer is: nothing. That's because the word "map" was never used. The Persian word for map, "nagsheh", is not contained anywhere in his original farsi quote, or, for that matter, anywhere in his entire speech. Nor was the western phrase "wipe out" ever said. Yet we are led to believe that Iran's President threatened to "wipe Israel off the map", despite never having uttered the words "map", "wipe out" or even "Israel".

THE PROOF:

The full quote translated directly to English:

"The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time".

Word by word translation:

Imam (Khomeini) ghoft (said) een (this) rezhim-e (regime) ishghalgar-e (occupying) qods (Jerusalem) bayad (must) az safheh-ye ruzgar (from page of time) mahv shavad (vanish from).

Here is the full transcript of the speech in farsi, archived on Ahmadinejad's web site

www.president.ir/farsi/ahmadinejad/speeches/1384/aban-84/840804sahyonizm.htm

THE SPEECH AND CONTEXT:

While the false "wiped off the map" extract has been repeated infinitely without verification, Ahmadinejad's actual speech itself has been almost entirely ignored. Given the importance placed on the "map" comment, it would be sensible to present his words in their full context to get a fuller understanding of his position. In fact, by looking at the entire speech, there is a clear, logical trajectory leading up to his call for a "world without Zionism". One may disagree with his reasoning, but critical appraisals are infeasible without first knowing what that reasoning is.

In his speech, Ahmadinejad declares that Zionism is the West's apparatus of political oppression against Muslims. He says the "Zionist regime" was imposed on the Islamic world as a strategic bridgehead to ensure domination of the region and its assets. Palestine, he insists, is the frontline of the Islamic world's struggle with American hegemony, and its fate will have repercussions for the entire Middle East.

Ahmadinejad acknowledges that the removal of America's powerful grip on the region via the Zionists may seem unimaginable to some, but reminds the audience that, as Khomeini predicted, other seemingly invincible empires have disappeared and now only exist in history books. He then proceeds to list three such regimes that have collapsed, crumbled or vanished, all within the last 30 years:

(1) The Shah of Iran- the U.S. installed monarch

(2) The Soviet Union

(3) Iran's former arch-enemy, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein

In the first and third examples, Ahmadinejad prefaces their mention with Khomeini's own words foretelling that individual regime's demise. He concludes by referring to Khomeini's unfulfilled wish: "The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time. This statement is very wise". This is the passage that has been isolated, twisted and distorted so famously. By measure of comparison, Ahmadinejad would seem to be calling for regime change, not war.

THE ORIGIN:

One may wonder: where did this false interpretation originate? Who is responsible for the translation that has sparked such worldwide controversy? The answer is surprising.

The inflammatory "wiped off the map" quote was first disseminated not by Iran's enemies, but by Iran itself. The Islamic Republic News Agency, Iran's official propaganda arm, used this phrasing in the English version of some of their news releases covering the World Without Zionism conference. International media including the BBC, Al Jazeera, Time magazine and countless others picked up the IRNA quote and made headlines out of it without verifying its accuracy, and rarely referring to the source. Iran's Foreign Minister soon attempted to clarify the statement, but the quote had a life of its own. Though the IRNA wording was inaccurate and misleading, the media assumed it was true, and besides, it made great copy.

Amid heated wrangling over Iran's nuclear program, and months of continuous, unfounded accusations against Iran in an attempt to rally support for preemptive strikes against the country, the imperialists had just been handed the perfect raison d'être to invade. To the war hawks, it was a gift from the skies.

It should be noted that in other references to the conference, the IRNA's translation changed. For instance, "map" was replaced with "earth". In some articles it was "The Qods occupier regime should be eliminated from the surface of earth", or the similar "The Qods occupying regime must be eliminated from the surface of earth". The inconsistency of the IRNA's translation should be evidence enough of the unreliability of the source, particularly when transcribing their news from Farsi into the English language.

THE REACTION:

The mistranslated "wiped off the map" quote attributed to Iran's President has been spread worldwide, repeated thousands of times in international media, and prompted the denouncements of numerous world leaders. Virtually every major and minor media outlet has published or broadcast this false statement to the masses. Big news agencies such as The Associated Press and Reuters refer to the misquote, literally, on an almost daily basis.

Following news of Iran's remark, condemnation was swift. British Prime Minister Tony Blair expressed "revulsion" and implied that it might be necessary to attack Iran. U.N. chief Kofi Annan cancelled his scheduled trip to Iran due to the controversy. Ariel Sharon demanded that Iran be expelled from the United Nations for calling for Israel's destruction. Shimon Peres, more than once, threatened to wipe Iran off the map. More recently, Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu, who has warned that Iran is "preparing another holocaust for the Jewish state" is calling for Ahmadinejad to be tried for war crimes for inciting genocide.

The artificial quote has also been subject to additional alterations. U.S. officials and media often take the liberty of dropping the "map" reference altogether, replacing it with the more acutely threatening phrase "wipe Israel off the face of the earth". Newspaper and magazine articles dutifully report Ahmadinejad has "called for the destruction of Israel", as do senior officials in the United States government.

President George W. Bush said the comments represented a "specific threat" to destroy Israel. In a March 2006 speech in Cleveland, Bush vowed he would resort to war to protect Israel from Iran, because, "..the threat from Iran is, of course, their stated objective to destroy our strong ally Israel." Former Presidential advisor Richard Clarke told Australian TV that Iran "talks openly about destroying Israel", and insists, "The President of Iran has said repeatedly that he wants to wipe Israel off the face of the earth". In an October 2006 interview with Amy Goodman, former UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter referred to Ahmadinejad as "the idiot that comes out and says really stupid, vile things, such as, 'It is the goal of Iran to wipe Israel off the face of the earth' ". The consensus is clear.

Confusing matters further, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad pontificates rather than give a direct answer when questioned about the statement, such as in Lally Weymouth's Washington Post interview in September 2006:

Are you really serious when you say that Israel should be wiped off the face of the Earth?

We need to look at the scene in the Middle East — 60 years of war, 60 years of displacement, 60 years of conflict, not even a day of peace. Look at the war in Lebanon, the war in Gaza — what are the reasons for these conditions? We need to address and resolve the root problem.

Your suggestion is to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth?

Our suggestion is very clear:... Let the Palestinian people decide their fate in a free and fair referendum, and the result, whatever it is, should be accepted.... The people with no roots there are now ruling the land.

You've been quoted as saying that Israel should be wiped off the face of the Earth. Is that your belief?

What I have said has made my position clear. If we look at a map of the Middle East from 70 years ago...

So, the answer is yes, you do believe that it should be wiped off the face of the Earth?

Are you asking me yes or no? Is this a test? Do you respect the right to self-determination for the Palestinian nation? Yes or no? Is Palestine, as a nation, considered a nation with the right to live under humane conditions or not? Let's allow those rights to be enforced for these 5 million displaced people.

The exchange is typical of Ahmadinejad's interviews with the American media. Predictably, both Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes and CNN's Anderson Cooper asked if he wants to "wipe Israel off the map". As usual, the question is thrown back in the reporter's face with his standard "Don't the Palestinians have rights?, etc." retort (which is never directly answered either). Yet he never confirms the "map" comment to be true. This did not prevent Anderson Cooper from referring to earlier portions of his interview after a commercial break and lying, "as he said earlier, he wants Israel wiped off the map".

Even if every media outlet in the world were to retract the mistranslated quote tomorrow, the major damage has already been done, providing the groundwork for the next phase of disinformation: complete character demonization. Ahmadinejad, we are told, is the next Hitler, a grave threat to world peace who wants to bring about a new Holocaust. According to some detractors, he not only wants to destroy Israel, but after that, he will nuke America, and then Europe! An October 2006 memo titled Words of Hate: Iran's Escalating Threats released by the powerful Israeli lobby group AIPAC opens with the warning, "Ahmadinejad and other top Iranian leaders are issuing increasingly belligerent statements threatening to destroy the United States, Europe and Israel." These claims not only fabricate an unsubstantiated threat, but assume far more power than he actually possesses. Alarmists would be better off monitoring the statements of the ultra-conservative Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, who holds the most power in Iran.

As Iran's U.N. Press Officer, M.A. Mohammadi, complained to The Washington Post in a June 2006 letter:

It is not amazing at all, the pick-and-choose approach of highlighting the misinterpreted remarks of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in October and ignoring this month's remarks by Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that "We have no problem with the world. We are not a threat whatsoever to the world, and the world knows it. We will never start a war. We have no intention of going to war with any state."

The Israeli government has milked every drop of the spurious quote to its supposed advantage. In her September 2006 address to the United Nations General Assembly, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni accused Iran of working to nuke Israel and bully the world. "They speak proudly and openly of their desire to 'wipe Israel off the map.' And now, by their actions, they pursue the weapons to achieve this objective to imperil the region and threaten the world." Addressing the threat in December, a fervent Prime Minister Ehud Olmert inadvertently disclosed that his country already possesses nuclear weapons: "We have never threatened any nation with annihilation. Iran, openly, explicitly and publicly threatens to wipe Israel off the map. Can you say that this is the same level, when they are aspiring to have nuclear weapons, as America, France, Israel, Russia?"

MEDIA IRRESPONSIBILITY:

On December 13, 2006, more than a year after The World Without Zionism conference, two leading Israeli newspapers, The Jerusalem Post and Haaretz, published reports of a renewed threat from Ahmadinejad. The Jerusalem Post's headline was Ahmadinejad: Israel will be 'wiped out', while Haaretz posted the title Ahmadinejad at Holocaust conference: Israel will 'soon be wiped out'.

Where did they get their information? It turns out that both papers, like most American and western media, rely heavily on write ups by news wire services such as the Associated Press and Reuters as a source for their articles. Sure enough, their sources are in fact December 12th articles by Reuter's Paul Hughes [Iran president says Israel's days are numbered], and the AP's Ali Akbar Dareini [Iran President: Israel Will be wiped out].

The first five paragraphs of the Haaretz article, credited to "Haaretz Service and Agencies", are plagiarized almost 100% from the first five paragraphs of the Reuters piece. The only difference is that Haaretz changed "the Jewish state" to "Israel" in the second paragraph, otherwise they are identical.

The Jerusalem Post article by Herb Keinon pilfers from both the Reuters and AP stories. Like Haaretz, it uses the following Ahmadinejad quote without attribution: ["Just as the Soviet Union was wiped out and today does not exist, so will the Zionist regime soon be wiped out," he added]. Another passage apparently relies on an IRNA report:

"The Zionist regime will be wiped out soon the same way the Soviet Union was, and humanity will achieve freedom," Ahmadinejad said at Tuesday's meeting with the conference participants in his offices, according to Iran's official news agency, IRNA.

He said elections should be held among "Jews, Christians and Muslims so the population of Palestine can select their government and destiny for themselves in a democratic manner."

Once again, the first sentence above was wholly plagiarized from the AP article. The second sentence was also the same, except "He called for elections" became "He said elections should be held..".

It gets more interesting.

The quote used in the original AP article and copied in The Jerusalem Post article supposedly derives from the IRNA. If true, this can easily be checked. Care to find out? Go to:

www.irna.ir/en/news/view/menu-234/0612134902101231.htm

There you will discover the actual IRNA quote was:

"As the Soviet Union disappeared, the Zionist regime will also vanish and humanity will be liberated".

Compare this to the alleged IRNA quote reported by the Associated Press:

"The Zionist regime will be wiped out soon the same way the Soviet Union was, and humanity will achieve freedom".

In the IRNA's actual report, the Zionist regime will vanish just as the Soviet Union disappeared. Vanish. Disappear. In the dishonest AP version, the Zionist regime will be "wiped out". And how will it be wiped out? "The same way the Soviet Union was". Rather than imply a military threat or escalation in rhetoric, this reference to Russia actually validates the intended meaning of Ahmadinejad's previous misinterpreted anti-Zionist statements.

What has just been demonstrated is irrefutable proof of media manipulation and propaganda in action. The AP deliberately alters an IRNA quote to sound more threatening. The Israeli media not only repeats the fake quote but also steals the original authors' words. The unsuspecting public reads this, forms an opinion and supports unnecessary wars of aggression, presented as self defense, based on the misinformation.

This scenario mirrors the kind of false claims that led to the illegal U.S. invasion of Iraq, a war now widely viewed as a catastrophic mistake. And yet the Bush administration and the compliant corporate media continue to marinate in propaganda and speculation about attacking Iraq's much larger and more formidable neighbor, Iran. Most of this rests on the unproven assumption that Iran is building nuclear weapons, and the lie that Iran has vowed to physically destroy Israel. Given its scope and potentially disastrous outcome, all this amounts to what is arguably the rumor of the century.

Iran's President has written two rather philosophical letters to America. In his first letter, he pointed out that "History shows us that oppressive and cruel governments do not survive". With this statement, Ahmadinejad has also projected the outcome of his own backwards regime, which will likewise "vanish from the page of time".

Arash Norouzi is an artist and co-founder of The Mossadegh Project.

source: http://www.mohammadmossadegh.com/news/rumor-of-the-century/