Why this man is laughing fit to explode

daniel maris

People are being really naive if they think Iran is another Soviet Union. It's a tyranny run by a Millenarian cult that sponsors ruthless terrorist movements.

porkbelly

The Iranians apparently knew some time ago that the Qom facility had been detected by Western intelligence and their disclosure of its existence to the IAEA was intended to forestall the possibility of Obama using the UN Security Council meeting he was to chair as a forum to unite the world against Iranian nuclear ambitions. Imagine their amazement when Obama said not a word about it during his speech, preferring to drone on about world disarmament! It must have been somewhere around then when they decided that Obama could be bought off with their usual arsenal of empty gestures and hollow promises, which is exactly what this latest meeting has produced. One man's vanity will be sufficient, it appears, to lead the world to war.

Terry, Eilat - Israel

Obama's legacy will be nuclear war in the Middle-East.

Pragmatist

Honestly did anyone expect any more from the UN and the antisemitic Islamophile International Community. The BOGUS POTUS of the USA is a Mohammedan the UN's Chief Inspector is a Mohammedan and the other members of the UN Security Council are Dhimmie PC MC Islamophile moonbats.

Trumpeldor

When hard press into the corner,HEIL HAAVIR and HEIL HAYAM will do the necessary job.
But Jews in Israel and diaspora will have to face a huge level of threats from Iran and hezbollah missiles to "spontaneous" outbursts of savagery fom "European" "youths" and their lefists servants,governments included.

GaryO

Mohammed al Baradei - the clue as to which side this guy's on is in his name!

I have said this many times and I'll say it again: US WANTS Iran to have nuclear weapons just like it wanted pakistan to have them (and is now playing dumb about it) �“ all these talks and admonishments are just a charade. The lefties in the media and politics are rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of a nuclear Iran that will take care of Israel once and for all.

US is playing a vicious and vindictive double game with the lives of Israelis and Indians by arming some of the most hateful regimes in the world.

Al Arabia (remember that news organisation hand picked by Obama for his TV address to the muslim world? Yeah them) predicts that Israel will fall in FIVE years!
http://www.alarabiya.net/views/2009/10/05/87015.html

The above article is worth a read for its sheer cheek! It shows where the left in the West get their bearing from.

Not just that. Disturbing events are also taking place in EU aspirant Turkey �“ yeah remember that bastion of democracy, women rights and moderate islam and the first Islamic country Obama chose to visit and address yet more in the muslim world from? Yeah them.
"A mass anti-Israel rally was held in Istanbul Monday. The demonstrators, who rallied in support of the riots in east Jerusalem, carried Palestinian Authority flags and posters of the al-Aqsa Mosque, and set Israeli flags on fire". (from Ynet)

And Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared in Russia that: "Our Goal Is Restoration Of Ottoman Empire Might,"
http://www.armtown.com/news/en/pan/20090921/36653/

Gee, I'm sure the morons running the EU will be pleased to hear that!

It is sickening!

Adam M.

It was reported today that Mohammed el-Baradei, top guy at the International Atomic Energy Commission, states that the greatest threat to world security is that ISRAEL has nuclear weapons.

The news report is not dated April Fool Day.

tiki

The "world body" has been a "laughing stock" for a long time and not only in the eyes of Iran but of the whole Arab world, North Korea, Russia, etc. The "principal clowns" of this circus being Obama, Mrs. Clinton and el Baradeh is making sure they stay that way.

Raymond Joseph Douglas

Obama is weak president who would never have got elected if the republicans had got heir act together ! It is typical of weak leaders to pick on the victim of bullying rather than the bullied ! Witness obama's attitude to the eastern european countries and israel !

Ian C

Appeasement ends in bigger wars than tackling aggression head on. Obama is the man who looks like being forced to lead the world to war, because his humiliation will demand it and his ego (not to mention US opinion) will also when the extent of the deception beocmes apparent to all, not just the few as at present.

Ben-Tsiyon (ha rishon)

The Wall Street Journal observed that the IAEA inspectors "won't find anything incriminating" at Qoms, and "Having lied about it for years, the Iranians now have plenty of time to clean the place out."

Isn't that exactly what happened with Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction (which I firmly believe were there)! With all the pussyfooting that went on back then, he had plenty of notice and "plenty of time to clean the place out"!

Frank P

Putin is the key to these developments:

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20091005_two_leaks_and_deepening_iran_crisis?utm_source=GWeeklyS&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=091005&utm_content=readmore

George Friedman, as ever, gives some insight on the Machiavellian dealings proceeding sub rosa.

But, as we appear to be bound to be subsumed by the EUSSR regardless of who wins the next election, judging from the noises being emitted from the Tory conference, and the revealing silences and nuances regarding the Tory intentions on Europe, we are only spectators anyway. Britain is already a busted flush.

Kiwi

Here's another perspective, for what it's worth. According to some fundamentalist Christians, any day now, the world, as we know it, is going to end in a major disaster, and when that day arrives (The Rapture), according to them, God will lift all the born-again Christians (and only the born-again Christians) directly up into heaven. Graves will open, the dead will be alive again, and all true believers will ascend into heaven to be with Jesus.
Sound familiar? Laughable? Only difference being, these people are not in power, running an entire country, and are not actually building a nuclear weapon.
Since Iran is governed by those of a similar ideology, albeit Islamic, we should be very worried indeed, because these people will soon have the wherewithal to hasten a disaster. Of course, those of sane minds know that no graves will open, and neither will any �hidden� Imam appear to return as the Mahdi. The question is, are the leaders of the free world actually aware of this nonsense, and what do they intend to do about it?

Harthacanute

And how about the lengths the world goes to in order to facilitate the Apartheid State of Israel's nuclear weapons and WMD programmes?

Melanie Phillips wants to see global sanctions against Iran; whilst she wants Israel - which commits more flagrant war crimes and human rights violations than it is possible to count - mollycoddled, gifted more military aid than it knows what to do with and left to do whatever it wishes with its own nuclear weapons programme.

It is hardly surprising to see such a loyal agent if the Israeli state, Melanie Phillips, staying ominously quiet on that front.

At least Iran is a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Israel isn�t.

At least Iran agrees to inspections of its nuclear sites, Israel doesn't.

At least Iran doesn't use WMD against civilians, in in an indisputable breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Israel does.

If you want to see a real terrorist state, then look no further than Melanie's beloved Israel; so, please, someone spare us from this senile old woman and her rabid racist bleatings.

Hysteria

@ Harthacanute - what utter nonsense you speak

SHIM

So let him realise what the threat of our nuclear weapons is more than just words.

It is time for us to obliterate Iran with a tactical nuclear strike that shows these savages and their friends that we mean business

Sam ARMSTRONG

The prospects look bleak for the world. Nuclear war and the transforming of Europe into a socialist superstate. All due within half a decade.

Thanks, lefties. Nice one. Still, as long as your egos are satisfied eh?

Raymond in DC

There seems to be some confusion here. The reference to "an implosion-type nuclear device" is almost certainly a reference to a *plutonium* device, not one based on enriched uranium. That plutonium could be derived from the heavy water reactor at Arak. It just confirms that Iran is working on a two-track strategy, just as the US was during the Manhattan Project.

N

America has "set a deadline"? Wow i need to catch up on my news. However, i have a distinct feeling that this "deadline" is going to be like a) The original UN deadline in which Iran simply did what it wanted, passed the deadline, and received no punishment. b) The U.S. will talk tough but in reality won't and can't do anything. Does anyone remember George Bush threatening Putin in regards to Georgia at the Olympics? I'm amazed that despite the Wild West being over our U.S. presidents still somehow think that Wild West style diplomacy works.

Arezoo

No one seems to have entertained the possibility that the Iranians have already got the atom bomb, which is, after all, a 65-year-old technology developed before broadcast television, before jet air travel, before electronic digital computers, before the birth control pill, the laser, the microwave oven, and even before McDonalds hamburgers. How could they NOT have it?

Augustus

The best predictor of the future is the past. The religious fanatic mullahs in The Islamic Republic of Iran (80% of whose inhabitants detest them for their blatant Islamofascism, Hartha Canute please note) has a record of deception, dissimulation, treachery and violence. These Koran-trained and directed agents of a wrathful Allah can never be trusted. They are master schemers who have honed the business of scheming to a fine art. Deception, doubletalk, double-dealing and treachery is what they are about. The Western world must come to its senses and rid itself of the belief that these doddering old-world religious fools could never do real harm. They employ people who, if they do not shoot their own demonstrators outright, then they savagely attack them with knives, axes, chains, batons, or any other crude weapons they can lay their hands on. And when they get any dissidents to jail they savagely torture, rape, and beat them to death. These agents of terror are brainwashed and trained to believe that any defiance of the Supreme Leader is defiance of Allah. The West should not cut a deal with these people because they follow the blueprint of Stalin's
Great Terror in the 1930s.

YA

That is all smokescreen. West has prevailed. The pressure worked, and Obama gets what he wanted - Iranians are cornered; there is no point for them in continuing clandestine nuclear program anymore, - they can't even declare nuclear test. Their intimidation prospects were dwarfed in the UN by a simple dislpay of Western unity. Most likely Iran will have rest in this position, with strongly blown cheeks, for many years. They also understood how effective Western intelligence is, and that at their level of technology (an A-bomb made of bricks and logs) the project have no chance to enter an age of technical significance.
Iranians need to sell this defeat to their people but can't do it immediately either, so they will negotiate less strict inspections (why? - peaceful program..), be evasive, continue this paralysis, and wait until eventually the issue fades..

But they still remain unpleasant, savage types. IMHO the Iranian ideological funding of UK universities is much more dangerous phenomenon than their nuclear ambitions. It spreads barbarism, - that is worse than megatons of radiation.

Mladen Andrijasevic

Arezoo, You write: �How could they NOT have it? � Well, if they had it, they would have either exploded it to show that they had it, or attacked Israel. I do not think that Ahmadinejad is waiting for any action from Israel to 'justify' his attack. Not someone who has just given this speech at the UN General Assembly: http://www.un.org/ga/64/generaldebate/pdf/IR_en.pdf �The world is in continuous change and evolution. The promised destiny for the mankind is the establishment of the humane pure life. Will come a time when justice will prevail across the globe and every single human being will enjoy respect and dignity. That will be the time when the Mankind's path to moral and spiritual perfectness will be opened and his journey to God and the manifestation of the God's Divine Names will come true. The mankind should excel to represent the God's "knowledge and wisdom", His "compassion and benevolence", His "justice and fairness", His "power and art", and His "kindness and forgiveness". These will all come true under the rule of the Perfect Man, the last Divine Source on earth, Hazrat Mahdi (Peace be upon him); an offspring of the Prophet of Islam, who will re-emerge, and Jesus Christ (Peace be upon him) and other noble men will accompany him in the accomplishment of this, grand universal mission. And this is the belief in Entezar (Awaiting patiently for the Imam to return). Waiting with patience for the rule of goodness and the governance of the Best which is a universal human notion and which is a source of nations' hope for the betterment of the world. 1 They will come, and with the help of righteous people and true believers will materialize the man's long-standing desires for freedom, perfectness, maturity, security and tranquility, peace and beauty. They will come to put an end to war and aggression and present the entire knowledge as well as spirituality and friendship to the whole world. Yes; Indeed, the bright future for the mankind will come.�

Shaun Harbord

Harthacanute, well said. But you're overly optimistic if you think you'll get anywhere with the Israel worshippers on this blog. Israel has nuclear weapons, has just told the IAEA where to go, threatens its' neighbours with violence and has a record of carrying out such threats.....the sun will rise in the west before Melanie Phillips is an anyway consistent and starts criticising Israel over these issues. Still, keep trying.

Austin Barry

Obama's foot-dragging 'appeasement' may not be what it seems. The following report from the Israeli-intel site DebkaFile on 28 September:

"The Pentagon has brought forward to December 2009 the target-date for producing the first 15-ton super bunker-buster bombs (GBU-57A/B) Massive Ordinance Penetrator, which can reach a depth of 60.09 meters underground before exploding. ...top defense agencies and air force units are also working against the clock to adapt the bay of a B2a Stealth bomber for carrying and delivering the bomb."

Mmmmm.....

Arezoo

My dear Mladen Andrijasevic, I don't think it is necessarily true that if Iran had the bomb they would already have exploded it. There is first the issue of an accurate delivery system. And also the question of whether they will be able to acquire the Russian S-300 missile defence system to protect against an Israeli counter-attack. You know, the Persians are said to have invented chess, and their present strategy misdirects Western attention away from these crucial ancillary requirements. And the existence of Israel misdirects the Arabs from uniting against Iran. If Israel were to disappear, Iran would again be face to face with its ancient enemy.

Carl

Harthacanute-bravo! Unfortunately the followers on this blog consider it quite in order to describe Muslims as "savages" and call for Iran to be "obliterated" so, as you can see, they are not the most rational of folks.

Linda Smith

Carl opines that people who describe Muslims as �savages� are irrational. Obviously one must make such judgments based on evidence. Here is a snippet from an Account by an American Correspondent, Januarius A. MacGahan of Observations at Batak, July-August 1876 during the Ottoman Massacres of the Bulgarians:

��At the next house a man stopped us to show where a blind little brother had been burnt alive, and the spot where he had found his calcined bones, and the rough, hard -visaged man sat down and cried like a child�
On the other side of the way were the skeletons of two children lying side by side, partly covered with stones, and with frightful saber cuts in their little skulls. The number of children killed in these massacres is something enormous. They were often spitted on bayonets, and we have several stories from eye-witnesses who saw little babes carried about the streets, both here at Otluk-kui, on the point of bayonets. The reason is simple. When a Mahometan has killed a certain number of infidels, he is sure of Paradise, no matter what his sins may be�the ordinary Musselman takes the precept in broader acceptation, and counts women and children as well. Here in Batak the Bashi-Bazouks, in order to swell the count, ripped open pregnant women, and killed the unborn infants. As we approached the middle of the town, bones, skeletons and skulls became more numerous. There was not a house beneath the ruins of which we did not perceive human remains, and the street besides were strewn with them.

And now we begin to approach the church and schoolhouse. The ground is covered with skeletons, to which are clinging articles of clothing and bits putrid flesh; the air is heavy with a faint sickening odor, that grows stronger as we advance. It is beginning to be horrible. The school is one side of the road, the church on the other. The schoolhouse, to judge by the walls that are in part standing, was a fine large building, capable of accommodating two or three hundred children. Beneath the stones and rubbish that cover the floor to the height of several feet,are the bones and ashes of two hundred women and children burnt alive between those four walls.�

Carl

@Linda Smith - very colourful and hardly likely to be true. Now, if a journalist today wrote that an Army used white phosphorous against women and children.........

LInda Smith

Carl said about the Muslim Ottoman Massacres of the Bulgarians in 1876 �very colourful and hardly likely to be true.

�Three contemporary investigators who visited only a small number of the localities where the atrocities were reported to have been committed - Eugene Schuyler, James F. Clarke, and Walter Baring - agreed that there were been ten and fifteen thousand innocent people slain in the districts directly affected by the revolt. Modern Bulgarian historians estimate that as many as thirty thousand were murdered. Moreover, three thousand children were orphaned, thousands of Bulgarians were imprisoned and exiled, sixty to eighty villages and towns were destroyed, while an additional two hundred were plundered, and three hundred thousand livestock - cattle, sheep and goats - and countless personal goods were confiscated as �booty� from a defenceless populace long exploited during centuries of oppressive Ottoman rule. Bulgarian revolutionaries did kill some Ottoman troops and officials engaged in the fighting, as well as few hundred Muslim irregulars who also fought against them. However, as the consensus reports of Baring, Schuyler, and Clarke substantiated, very few peaceful Muslims were killed by Bulgarian insurgents. Furthermore, the 1986 analysis by Shashko of American and British diplomatic reports from Bulgaria provides convincing evidence of

�some kind of pre-meditated scheme that entailed coordinated action of Ottoman officials, bashi-bazouks, Circassians, and the army against not just rebels, but unarmed Bulgarians as well�The fact that Ottoman authorities were aware of the planned uprising and the swiftness with which they acted against the rebels, as well as the immediate dispatch of bashi-bazouks and Circassians against the unarmed people, strongly suggests the possibility of pre-meditated action.� (Bostom, The Legacy of Jihad.)

Carl is obviously not a student of history, ditto for the other ignoramuses who deny the empirical evidence for Islamic religious fanaticism and slaughter of non-Muslims as a religious imperative throughout history. Nothing has changed. The slaughter in Sudan is a Jihad.

John Streather.

Carl, What do you mean "hardly likely to be true?" Have you not heard of the horrififc massacres of over a million Armenians - simply because they were Christians - by the Turks during the Great War nor the enslavement of at least a million white Europeans by the Ottoman Turks, nor the endless humiliations and financial exactions imposed upon the Christians and the Jews throughout the existence of that Empire, not to mention all the preceding Muslim empires? The quoted report is all of a piece with all other records of the savage inhumanity with which the Turks replaced the rule of the Christian Byzantine Empire throughout the Middle East.

Wm. Hazlitt

Prof. Juan Cole (a US history professor): I thought I�d take the opportunity to list some things that people tend to think they know about Iran, but for which the evidence is shaky.

Belief: Iran is aggressive and has threatened to attack Israel, its neighbors or the US

Reality: Iran has not launched an aggressive war modern history (unlike the US or Israel), and its leaders have a doctrine of �no first strike.� This is true of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, as well as of Revolutionary Guards commanders.

Belief: Iran is a militarized society bristling with dangerous weapons and a growing threat to world peace.

Reality: Iran�s military budget is a little over $6 billion annually. Sweden, Singapore and Greece all have larger military budgets. Moreover, Iran is a country of 70 million, so that its per capita spending on defense is tiny compared to these others, since they are much smaller countries with regard to population. Iran spends less per capita on its military than any other country in the Persian Gulf region with the exception of the United Arab Emirates.

Belief: Iran has threatened to attack Israel militarily and to �wipe it off the map.�

Reality: No Iranian leader in the executive has threatened an aggressive act of war on Israel, since this would contradict the doctrine of �no first strike� to which the country has adhered. The Iranian president has explicitly said that Iran is not a threat to any country, including Israel.

Belief: But didn�t President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threaten to �wipe Israel off the map?�

Reality: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did quote Ayatollah Khomeini to the effect that �this Occupation regime over Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time� (in rezhim-e eshghalgar-i Qods bayad as safheh-e ruzgar mahv shavad). This was not a pledge to roll tanks and invade or to launch missiles, however. It is the expression of a hope that the regime will collapse, just as the Soviet Union did. It is not a threat to kill anyone at all.

Belief: But aren�t Iranians Holocaust deniers?

Actuality: Some are, some aren�t. Former president Mohammad Khatami has castigated Ahmadinejad for questioning the full extent of the Holocaust, which he called �the crime of Nazism.� Many educated Iranians in the regime are perfectly aware of the horrors of the Holocaust. In any case, despite what propagandists imply, neither Holocaust denial (as wicked as that is) nor calling Israel names is the same thing as pledging to attack it militarily.

Belief: Iran is like North Korea in having an active nuclear weapons program, and is the same sort of threat to the world.

Actuality: Iran has a nuclear enrichment site at Natanz near Isfahan where it says it is trying to produce fuel for future civilian nuclear reactors to generate electricity. All Iranian leaders deny that this site is for weapons production, and the International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly inspected it and found no weapons program. Iran is not being completely transparent, generating some doubts, but all the evidence the IAEA and the CIA can gather points to there not being a weapons program. The 2007 National Intelligence Estimate by 16 US intelligence agencies, including the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency, assessed with fair confidence that Iran has no nuclear weapons research program. This assessment was based on debriefings of defecting nuclear scientists, as well as on the documents they brought out, in addition to US signals intelligence from Iran. While Germany, Israel and recently the UK intelligence is more suspicious of Iranian intentions, all of them were badly wrong about Iraq�s alleged Weapons of Mass Destruction and Germany in particular was taken in by Curveball, a drunk Iraqi braggart.

Belief: The West recently discovered a secret Iranian nuclear weapons plant in a mountain near Qom.

Actuality: Iran announced Monday a week ago to the International Atomic Energy Agency that it had begun work on a second, civilian nuclear enrichment facility near Qom. There are no nuclear materials at the site and it has not gone hot, so technically Iran is not in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, though it did break its word to the IAEA that it would immediately inform the UN of any work on a new facility. Iran has pledged to allow the site to be inspected regularly by the IAEA, and if it honors the pledge, as it largely has at the Natanz plant, then Iran cannot produce nuclear weapons at the site, since that would be detected by the inspectors. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted on Sunday that Iran could not produce nuclear weapons at Natanz precisely because it is being inspected. Yet American hawks have repeatedly demanded a strike on Natanz.

Belief: The world should sanction Iran not only because of its nuclear enrichment research program but also because the current regime stole June�s presidential election and brutally repressed the subsequent demonstrations.

Actuality: Iran�s reform movement is dead set against increased sanctions on Iran, which likely would not affect the regime, and would harm ordinary Iranians.

Belief: Isn�t the Iranian regime irrational and crazed, so that a doctrine of mutally assured destruction just would not work with them?

Actuality: Iranian politicians are rational actors. If they were madmen, why haven�t they invaded any of their neighbors? Saddam Hussein of Iraq invaded both Iran and Kuwait. Israel invaded its neighbors more than once. In contrast, Iran has not started any wars. Demonizing people by calling them unbalanced is an old propaganda trick. The US elite was once unalterably opposed to China having nuclear science because they believed the Chinese are intrinsically irrational. This kind of talk is a form of racism.

Belief: The international community would not have put sanctions on Iran, and would not be so worried, if it were not a gathering nuclear threat.

Actuality: The centrifuge technology that Iran is using to enrich uranium is open-ended. In the old days, you could tell which countries might want a nuclear bomb by whether they were building light water reactors (unsuitable for bomb-making) or heavy-water reactors (could be used to make a bomb). But with centrifuges, once you can enrich to 5% to fuel a civilian reactor, you could theoretically feed the material back through many times and enrich to 90% for a bomb. However, as long as centrifuge plants are being actively inspected, they cannot be used to make a bomb. The two danger signals would be if Iran threw out the inspectors or if it found a way to create a secret facility. The latter task would be extremely difficult, however, as demonstrated by the CIA�s discovery of the Qom facility construction in 2006 from satellite photos. Nuclear installations, especially centrifuge ones, consume a great deal of water, construction materiel, and so forth, so that constructing one in secret is a tall order. In any case, you can�t attack and destroy a country because you have an intuition that they might be doing something illegal. You need some kind of proof. Moreover, Israel, Pakistan and India are all much worse citizens of the globe than Iran, since they refused to sign the NPT and then went for broke to get a bomb; and nothing at all has been done to any of them by the UNSC.

Verity (not the Coffee House one)

Linda Smith, I had not expected my prediction to come true quite so quickly - here you are strutting your stuff quite unruffled, even telling off Carl for not being a true student of history, even railing against other unidentified ignoramuses - beyond chutzpah.

Adam B.

Carl speaks of "rationality" when he is on record applauding the openly anti-semitic and genocide supporting terror organization that is Hamas.

If that's "rational" to you Carl, I'd hate to see your idea of irrationality.

Maximilian

@ Austin Barry (Oct. 6 at 9:14 pm)

I've been trying to locate your DebkaFile reference but can't find it. Could it perhaps be a subscriber-only restricted access report? From what you say, the Debka piece seems to have fuller information tnan the later ABC News item.

Thanks
M

http://www.debka.com/index.php

Linda Smith

Interesting that Hazlitt/Sidgwick has now deployed another "anti-Zionist" nom-de-plume - Verity.

Verity (not the Coffee House one)

Linda Smith, I know you for what you are, the airs you give yourself, your hollow claims to reasoning - so huff and puff all you like, it'll make no difference to me. Of course, you could always answer your opponents honestly, without the huffing and puffing - coz that would be more instructive all round which is what I came here for in the first place. How about it?

Augustus

W. Hazlitt - Why, pray do tell us, should you, an Englishman (I presume), want to defend in such a political and personal way, President Ahmadinejad of Iran? He himself is, of course,
only really a puppet of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He has expressed quite heinous views about the Holocaust, and Israel itself, and yet he was born a Jew from both Jewish parents who converted to Islam when they came to seek work in Persia in the 1950s. Only a very few of the Iranian people actually like him and would vote for him if elections were fair and not rigged. It doesn't make sense!

Linda Smith

Verity/Hazlitt/Sidgwick: I should say that writing "coz" instead of "because" is giving oneself airs - of subterfuge.

I am still waiting for a response to my question: the holocaust is a fact. I'm certain. Are you?

Linda Smith

Verity/Hazlitt/Sidgwick: I should say that writing "coz" instead of "because" is giving oneself airs - of subterfuge.

I am still waiting for a response to my question: the holocaust is a fact. I'm certain. Are you?

Linda Smith

Verity/Hazlitt/Sidgwick: I should say that writing "coz" instead of "because" is giving oneself airs - of subterfuge.

I am still waiting for a response to my question: the holocaust is a fact. I'm certain. Are you?

Linda Smith

Augustus, the Englishman Hazlitt also decries Britain for failing to comply with the demand of Sharif Hussein of Mecca in his correspondence with McMahon of 14 July 1915 that in return for helping defeat the Ottoman Empire: �England to approve the proclamation of an Arab Khalifate of Islam� over the entire conquered territories.

Is Hazlitt/Sidgwick/Verity a closet Islamist?

Verity (not the Coffee House one)

Linda Smith, It's simple really - answer the points people put to you or if you don't want to keep quiet - but don't pretend to answer while avoiding the question, with all sorts of fascinating but irrelevant quotes and all sorts of abuse. - that's how rational debate is meant to be carried on - is it not how it is done here?

Linda Smith

Verity/Hazlitt/Sidgwick, Careful! your yashmak is slipping!

Wm. Hazlitt

Augustus, I do not defend the Iranian president either personally or politically. I think we can agree that he is not a fit person to be in government.

Wm. Hazlitt

(Bostom, The Legacy of Jihad.)
I recall a reference to a Mr. Bostom MD to be found in a racist and hate-filled site tellingly entitled Sheikyermami. I wonder if this would be the same Mr. Bostom masquerading as an historian of Islam. We can judge to some extent the quality of the commentators here by their sources, poisoned or otherwise.

David D

And to cap it all. Barak Obama has jsut won the Nobel Peace Prize - what a joke !

Linda Smith

I observe that when Haz/Sidg/Verity finds facts not to his liking, he attempts to shoot the messenger. Is he alleging that Dr Bostom publishes fraudulent material?

I note that Haz/Sidg/Verity does not dispute that he decries the British government for not imposing an Arabian Islamic Kahlifate across the entire conquered Ottoman Empire a la Saudi Arabia.

Wm. Hazlitt

Bostom and Ye'or. - Imagine the "History of the Roman Catholic Church" by the Rev. Dr. Ian Paisley. Imagine relying on it unquestioningly as THE source of the truth on the Roman Catholic Church. Then imagine trying to insist that your practice is intellectually honest.

Linda Smith

Sheik Hazlitt, the truth about Islam is in the Muslims' own historical documents.

Why do you find the truth about Islam so unpalatable - or are you just trying to put up a smokescreen to fool the infidel?

Wm. Hazlitt

Linda Smith, "...the truth about Islam is in the Muslims' own historical documents" We can agree about something.

I am sure that as a man of the cloth the Rev. Dr. Paisley does not knowingly retail falsehoods. I would nevertheless not trust any history of the Church of Rome written by him. He believes that Beelzebub sits in the seat of St. Peter, or some such. The Vatican is so full of documents that there will be some he can quote to persuade those willing to be persuaded that he is right.

For the Arab-hater and the anti-Islamite, Bat Ye'or and DR. Bostom supply plenty of material to show that they are right. Anyone but a bigot would beg to differ.

"Eurabia" ought to warn off even the most blinkered.

Augustus

I'm glad we can all agree that civilized people cherish and celebrate life. Islamists, on the other hand, actually relish death. Their daily ideology and practices state this.

The Kohmeinist regime's steadfastness to its cause is such that even its own annihilation would not deter it.
If some ayatollahs speak up
for the rule of law and tolerance they are liable to be arrested and imprisoned. There is even a special court of the clergy for that very purpose. So living with an Iran armed with the nuclear bomb is not a question of saying: "But they wouldn't use it, would they? They're not going to risk Iran becoming a radioactive parking lot. Wrong! These are criminal masterminds. They want the power to intimidate the whole world, and that includes millions of their own unarmed citizens.

John.

Wm. Hazlitt: Your long defense of Iran doesn't explain why one of richest countries in oil in the world should need to enthusiastically pursue any kind of a nuclear energy policy. It is clearly not in need of any other source of energy than that which it already possesses, by good fortune, beneath the ground.

Wm. Hazlitt

John, Perhaps you should go back and check out why the US encouraged Iran to develop nuclear power under the Shah - it clearly accepted the reasons then.

Linda Smith

Sheik Hazlitt, staunch anti-Zionist wrote:

�For the Arab-hater and the anti-Islamite, Bat Ye'or and DR. Bostom supply plenty of material to show that they are right. Anyone but a bigot would beg to differ.�

Sheik Hazlitt often admits he is no scholar. Here is the learned opinion of Johannes J.G. Jansen, Houtsma Professor for Contemporary Islamic Thought, Utrecht University on �The Legacy of Jihad:

�The pioneering analyses of Bat Ye�or in her book �The Dhimmi� demonstrated convincingly the plight of Jews and Christians living under Muslim rule. Now Andrew Bostom manages equally to upset the conventional view in this fascinating and well-documented clinical study of jihad.�

Here too is French Jurist Jacques Ellul�s learned opinion of The Dhimmi:

�So now it must be asked: is this book a serious scholarly study? I reviewed Le Dhimmi, when it first appeared, in a major French newspaper (the French edition was far less complete and rich than this one, especially with regard to the documents, notes and appendixes, which are essential). In response to that review I received a very strong letter from a colleague, a well-known orientalist, informing me that the book was purely polemical and could not be regarded seriously. His criticisms, however, betrayed the fact that he had not read the book, and the interesting thing about his arguments (based on what I had written) was that they demonstrated the serious nature of this work�.

�If I have dealt with the criticisms at some length it is because I feel that it is important in order to establish the �scholarly� nature of this book. For my part, I consider this study to be very honest, hardly polemical at all�.The Dhimmi contains a rich selection of source material, makes a correct use of documents, and displays a concern to place each situation in its proper historical context. Consequently, it satisfies a certain number of scholarly requirements for a work of this kind. And for that reason I regard it as exemplary and very significant. But also, within the �living context� of contemporary history, which I described earlier, this is a book that carries a clear warning. The Muslim world has not evolved in its manner of considering the non-Muslim, which is a reminder of the fate in store for those who may one day be submerged within it. It is a source of enlightenment for our time.�

Sheik Hazlitt is a self-confessed antiZionist who bewails the failure of the Sharif of Mecca�s demand to install a Saudi Arabian style Khalifate across the entire conquered Ottoman Empire. His defence of Islamism by attacking and besmirching serious scholarship begs the question: what is it about the theology and tenets of Islam that Sheik Hazlitt is so desirous of hiding from the non-Muslim infidel, the potential dhimmi - and why?

Wm. Hazlitt

I am a fool to myself: I will only be abused in the end when Linda Smith finds that she has to counter the arguments put to her or run away (for those new to the performance, she shouts insults while running).

Jacques Ellul, I believe, distinguished himself in the war by working to save Jews from the Nazis. He was a hero when many proved less than human (or, to be true to our frailties, all too human). He then had a long career as a Christian theologian and academic. I do not think he would have claimed the credentials to conduct a peer review of Ye'or or Bostom (although he clearly feels able to dismiss someone who was in a position to conduct a peer review).

Prof. Jansen, tutor to Theo van Gogh, inspiration and supporter of Geert Wilders, friend to DR. Bostom, admired by Daniel Pipes...It is good to have the seal of approval of an authoritative independent academic.

We have had this conversation before, for example, when you quoted both an academic and a journalist to the opposite effect from that each of them intended on the massacre at Deir Yassin; when you demonstrated conclusively that no massacre took place by quoting the memoirs of one of the Jewish fighters who took part; when you were challenged again and again to produce credible evidence to support your various claims and again and again came up with Daniel Pipes in one guise or another.

Tell me, also, do you frequent Sheikyermami to gather yet more credible evidence or simply to stoke your hatred of Muslims?

And, just for the record, I note you continue your recitation of assertions I have not made. It is easier than engaging with the argument, I grant you, but it serves no purpose other than to attempt a smear.

Quite a track record you have acquired.

Moving on, could you explain what your obsession with the dhimmi has to do with a settlement to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians? Assume, per impossibile, that Israel returns to the Palestinians sufficient territory to form a viable state. There would then be two states (perhaps, if anyone has any sense, with close economic cooperation). Tell me, where does the notion of the dhimmi come into this? How does the notion of the dhimmi preclude Israel from agreeing a settlement, as it has with Egypt and Jordan, Muslim states both? What is the notion of the dhimmi for you other than a device to avoid considering even the possibility of a settlement? What is all this shrilling about Eurabia/dhimmis/worldwide Islamic conspiracy/shari'a but an attempt to stun us into accepting without question that no settlement is possible,until Israel has taken all it wants and has the Palestinians locked away in little enclaves or ghettoes where they can safely (for Israel) be left to descend into barbarism as any semblance of civil society is finally crushed?

John.

Wm.Hazlitt: I'm not talking about why another country, in the disant past, under a totally different kind of r�©gime, may have encouraged the Iranians to develop nuclear power, I'm talking about why on earth they would ever even consider doing such an insane thing given that they are sitting on incalculable quanities of petroleum.

Linda Smith

Sheik Hazlitt/Sidgwick/Verity: And what are your reasons for stripping out and discarding the salient issue of Islam from the Jewish/Muslim conflict?

Are the Palestinians Muslim? Is the Pope a Catholic?

Wm. Hazlitt

Linda Smith,

"How does the notion of the dhimmi preclude Israel from agreeing a settlement, as it has with Egypt and Jordan, Muslim states both?"

"And what are your reasons for stripping out and discarding the salient issue of Islam from the Jewish/Muslim conflict?"

Missing the point as a stratagem for avoiding the questions put to you?

Wm. Hazlitt

John, You are quite right. I should try to give a proper answer.

The US encouraged Iran for selfish reasons: to ensure the supply of oil to the West (even at the risk of the Shah developing the bomb, as the CIA said he would).

Iran has its own reasons, regardless of regime and of outside interests. Its oil reserves are finite, so it has the same reason as, for example, the US and UK to develop other sources of energy. More pressing, however, is its need for dollars. Iran is not self-sufficient,it is no autarky, it needs to import many the necessities of life in a modern society and economy. Oil is its main export.

I do not pretend that Iran is not a regional power like any other. It has complied with the requirements of the non-proliferation treaties that it has signed, that Israel has refused to sign, and that the US and UK have ignored insofar as they refer to their own obligations. However, as the eminent Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld (I don't think I've spelled his name correctly), has said, "Of course I do not want Iran to develop the bomb, but they would be insane not to try." Look at Iran's position, set aside for the moment the nature of the current regime, and you will agree that ANY regime, for its security, would feel bound to try to acquire nuclear weapons to match its nuclear neighbours and more distant enemies, like the US which is quite explicit in its enmity. This is why it is urgent to negotiate disarmament in the region, which requires Israel to make good its pledge in principle to work for a nuclear-free Middle East.

Linda Smith

Sheik Hazlitt/Sidgwick/Verity, I expect you would like to set aside �the nature of the present regime� a Muslim theocracy, when discussing Iran�s nuclear project just as you ceaselessly endeavour to set aside the issue of Islam in the Jewish/Muslim conflict over the existence of the Jewish State of Israel. Egypt and Jordan have tactical cold peaces with Israel. Sunni or Shia - they are united in their Islamic Koranic Judeophobia:

Extracts from 2007-2008 Textbooks of the Saudi Ministry of Education

�The Jews and Christians are enemies of the believers, and they cannot approve of Muslims.�1

�The clash between this [Muslim] nation and the Jews and Christians has endured, and it will continue as long as God wills.� 2

�In Islamic law, however, [jihad] has two uses: One usage is specific. It means to exert effort to wage war against the unbelievers and tyrants.�8

�In its general usage, �jihad� is divided into the following categories: � --Wrestling with the infidels by calling them to the faith and battling against them.�9

�In these verses is a call for jihad, which is the pinnacle of Islam. In (jihad) is life for the body; thus it is one of the most important causes of outward life. Only through force and victory over the enemies is there security and repose. Within martyrdom in the path of God (exalted and glorified is He) is a type of noble life-force that is not diminished by fear or poverty.�10

�As cited in Ibn Abbas: The apes are Jews, the people of the Sabbath; while the swine are Christians, the infidels of the communion of Jesus.�11

�The decisive proof of the veracity of the Protocols [of the Elders of Zion] and the infernal Jewish plans they contain is that the plans, plots, and conspiracies they list have been carried out. Whoever reads the protocols �“ and they emerged in the 19th century �“ will realize today how much of what they described has been implemented.�12

�You can hardly find an example of sedition in which the Jews have not played a role.� 13

�Lesson goals: The student notes some of the Jews� condemnable qualities�16

http://www.hudson.org/files/pdf_upload/textbooks_final_for_pdf.pdf

Wm. Hazlitt

Linda Smith, You are quite astonishingly brazen in using misdirection to escape serious debate. The point about misdirection is surely that it is intended to pass unnoticed. Looking back over your contributions, I find little in the way of reasoning and all too much in the way of venom and avoidance. I expect the same to continue here. Have you any notion how flimsy it makes your case appear?

John.

Wm. Hazlitt: That is a reasonable answer and makes Iran's nuclear ambitions comprehensible - thank you. However, you would probably agree that the fewer nuclear arms there are the better. I don't think it likely that any nation, even Israel, is liable to attack a conventionally armed Iran, so it is not under threat at present. But a nuclear armed Iran would present a definite threat to Israel and some other nations, and would thus become an immediate provocation for war. Added to which, the current r�©gime in Iran is apparently hated by about 80% of the people, is a theologically extreme set-up, unstable and unpredictable, so not exactly the most safest of gov'ts. to whom to entrust nuclear weapons. It would seem, therefore, to be urgently necessary for whoever can do so, (but who could that be?), to try their utmost to dissuade the Iranian r�©gime from continuing along their present nuclearly ambitious path.

Linda Smith

Sheik Hazlitt et al. Avoidance - you�re the master.
Serious debate? You�re just plain daft! Have you any notion how puerile your "case" appears when it omits all mention or consideration of Islam? More than puerile, assinine!

Wm. Hazlitt

John, I suspect we can more or less agree. I do think that you perhaps under-estimate the threat Iran must see itself to be under. Plot on a map US military bases in the Middle East, US fleets within easy reach of the Persian Gulf, US armies in the field, and US allies in the region. Remember that the use of tactical nuclear weapons is now part of US military doctrine. I do not know about Israeli doctrine. The US is hostile to Iran (for reasons tht can all too easily be made to sound like those of a mafia don). Israel is hostile to Iran, or rather has good reason to be wary of Iran: Iran is the only remaining regional power with the potential to challenge Israel, and Israel has every reason to be on its guard. When the US and Israel insist that Iran must not develop nuclear weapons, how do you think it looks to the Iranians? Their enemies who have nuclear weapons insist they remain without, and threaten to attack if they do not comply. What sovereign state would surrender to such threats? What sovereign state would not make efforts to acquire nuclear weapons? (I suspect that the population of Iran who appear not to support the current regime - and who would - would nevertheless agree with it on these points.)

We agree that there should not be a proliferation of nuclear weapons. Surely this requires negotiation in good faith between sovereign states, not an ultimatum from one or more requiring the abject surrender of another. Iran has signed the non-proliferation treaties and has complied with their requirements to the satisfaction of the relevant agency. The US and UK have signed the treaties and have yet to comply. Israel has refused to sign. Who is here in bad faith? Who is here acting more rashly and with less interest in a peaceful settlement where both sides get something?

Wm. Hazlitt

Linda Smith,

How does the notion of the dhimmi preclude Israel from agreeing a settlement with the Palestinians to create two viable states, one called Israel and one called Palestine, and signing a treaty with Palestine such as it has with Egypt and Jordan, Muslim states both?

Linda Smith

Wm Hazlitt/Sidgwick, you ask �How does the notion of the dhimmi preclude Israel from agreeing a settlement with the Palestinians to create two viable states, one called Israel and one called Palestine��

Two viable states were planned under Resolution 181 in 1947. The Partition plan required equal civil status for citizens of each state. No requirement to relocate. The Arabs refused - because they refused to live in equality with �dhimmi Jews�.

�Four years ago (I.e. in 2003, prior to Hamas�s electoral victory in 2006), during a briefing for a visiting United States congressional delegation, the Vatican representative to Israel, Archbishop Pietro Sambi, informed US lawmakers that the Palestinian Authority�s newly approved state constitution, funded by the US Agency for International Development, provided no juridical status for any religion other than Islam in the emerging Palestinian Arab entity. The Papal Nuncio warned, in addition, that the Palestinian Authority had adopted Shari�a as the overarching guiding principle of its legal code, thus mandating the absolute supremacy of Muslims over non-Muslims as a matter of law. Archbishop Sambi also initiated a study of the new PA textbooks, which the Vatican deemed to be brazenly anti-Semitic.� (Andrew Bostom, The Legacy of Jihad)

Moderate the Palestinian Authority ain�t - or they wouldn�t have Sharia as the basis of their legal system. The �Palestinians� are dedicated to the destruction of the Jewish State of Israel as an Islamic imperative, as they have always been. In 1970 Yassir Arafat stated:

�The liberation of Palestine and (the) putting an end to Zionist penetration, political. Economic, military and propaganda, into Moslem States, is one of the duties of the Moslem world. We must fight a Holy War (Jihad) against the Zionist enemy, who covets not only Palestine but the whole Arab region, including its holy places.�

Egypt and Jordan have nothing more than a tactical cold peace with Israel:

�Dhimma or dhimmi status�is one of the results of the jihad or holy war. Connected with the notion of jihad is the distinction between dar-al-harb (territory or �house� of war) and dar al-Islam (house of Islam). The latter includes all territories subject to Moslem authority. It is in a state of perpetual war with the dar al-harb. The inhabitants of the dar al-harb are harbis, who are not answerable to the Islamic authority and whose persons and goods are mubah, that is, at the mercy of Believers. (Antoine Fattal, 1958)

Wm. Hazlitt

Linda Smith,

"The Arabs refused - because they refused to live in equality with ��dhimmi Jews��." - Was that why the Palestinian Arabs rejected the Partition? I recall that the Zionist leaders at the time had a more realistic assessment.

My question was about the current position, however. If there were to be Jews who said that they wish to live in a newly constituted state of Palestine, it might be that they had taken encouragement from the Jewish community in Iran or the Palestinian community in Israel. It might be more likely that they would want greater protection. It might be that the treaty establishing the two states provided them with that protection. It might even be that Palestine's constitution offered full protection to all its citizens. Palestine might even prove a true democracy of all its citizens. The point is: how can you tell without negotiation? The notion of the protection offered to dhimmis as second-class citizens should not be a bar to negotiation, it should be one of the subjects for negotiation. It might even be important if there are indeed Jews wishing to live in Palestine.

My question remains: Why should the concept of the dhimmi stand in the way of such negotiation which may well end in the creation of two states at peace?

And why should the treaties Israel has signed with Egypt and Jordan be taken as a precedent which precludes any such treaty in future with a Palestinian state? Is it not better to have such a treaty than to have to continue killing them?

I am away for a few days, so you may have the last word if you wish.

Linda Smith

Sheik Hazlitt/Sidgwick: denying the tenets of Islam, you say "it might....it might....it might....."

Well pigs might fly.

"Palestine might even prove a true democracy of all its citizens"!!! not as a Sharia state it won't - and can't.

I'm not surprised you want to escape for a few days, you are now reduced to composing complete balderdash. A few days rest and recuperation might bring you to your senses.

Linda Smith

Sheik Hazlitt/Sidgwick, a thought for your holiday - ask the Copts in Egypt and the Bahais in Iran if they recommend dhimmi status.

I note you used the word "protection". As Jacques Ellul wrote in the Preface to The Dhimmi:

"One must ask: 'protected from whom?' When this 'stranger' lives in Islamic countries, the answer can only be: against the Muslims themselves..."

Only a dummy wants to be a dhimmi. Fancy an "Englishman" advocating second class citizenship. Who is really hiding under your burka? And what new pseudonymn will you assume when you return from your purdah?