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Propaganda SpinMasters At Work? Iran and its nuclear capability

#21 User is offline   luke warm 

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Posted 2007-January-31, 05:55

Winstonm, on Jan 30 2007, 09:19 PM, said:

The very "wipe Israel off the map" comment has been discredited as a bad translation.  Supposedly, the speech was comparing the fall of the regime of the Shah of Iran with Israel's current regime, and he quoted a speech by Ayatollah Khomeni in saying that this regime (meaning the Shah's in Khomeni's speech) should disappear from the face of time.  The speech was talking about regime change in Israel and that the Palestinians who live there should take heart.

It is a considerable stretch to go from: Iran's regime under the Shah was changed, so take heart Palestinians that the Israel regime may also be removed from the pages of time - to - I am going to nuke Israel as soon as I can and "wipe Israel off the map."  Bad translation or purposefully deceitful translation?

Like so many other "lies", this one has been repeated over and over until now it is accepted as truth - but is it?

See what I mean?  Is this guy a real danger or has he been demonized by propaganda into something he really is not?

winston, why do you seem so willing to believe something like that? that the comment has been discredited as a bad translation? that just is not true... from the BBC:

Quote

Iran leader defends Israel remark 

Iran's president has defended his widely criticised call for Israel to be "wiped off the map".  Attending an anti-Israel rally in Tehran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his remarks were "just" - and the criticism did not "have any validity".

His initial comment provoked anger from many governments, and prompted Israel to demand Iran's expulsion from the UN.

and even those in the region, who should supposedly know what words were used and what those words meant, said

Quote

Egypt said they showed "the weakness of the Iranian government". A Palestinian official also rejected the remarks.

and if he didn't say what he said, why this?

Quote

Tens of thousands of Iranians took part in the rally in Tehran which Iran organises every year on the last Friday of the fasting month of Ramadan to show solidarity with the Palestinian struggle.

Shouting "Death to Israel, death to the Zionists", the protesters dragged Israeli flags along the ground and then set them on fire. Many carried posters and placards sporting the slogan "Israel should be wiped off the map".

Joining the protest, Mr Ahmadinejad said: "My words were the Iranian nation's words. Westerners are free to comment, but their reactions are invalid," Mr Ahmadinejad told the official Irna news agency.

if he didn't say what i and others say he did, why did a palestinian official denounce him?

Quote

Palestinians recognise the right of the state of Israel to exist and I reject his (Ahmadinejad's) comments

Saeb Erekat
Chief Palestinian negotiator

you seem to have established a trend whereby you are willing to lend credence to a view that makes america's enemies look good (or less bad)

link: http://news.bbc.co.u...ast/4384264.stm
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#22 User is offline   hrothgar 

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Posted 2007-January-31, 06:56

luke warm, on Jan 31 2007, 02:55 PM, said:


>you seem to have established a trend whereby you are willing to lend
>credence to a view that makes america's enemies look good (or less bad)

Obviously, I am speaking for myself here and not Winston (however, I would hope that he and most of the rest of the members of this list would agree)

From my perspective there is a difference between analysis and propaganda. I would argue that the most important goal should be ensuring the accuracy of our description, not worrying whether or not the facts happen to make America's enemy's look "good / less bad". Some of us still believe that there is something to the whole notion of a "reality-based community".

>winston, why do you seem so willing to believe something like that? that
>the comment has been discredited as a bad translation? that just is not true...
>from the BBC:

There is a fair amount of debate about the precise meaning of Ahmadinejad's statement. Personally, I'm not a Farsi speaker so I'm not going to weigh in directly. I'll simple point folks over to the Wikipedia and quote part of their entry

http://en.wikipedia....ejad_and_Israel

Translation of phrase "wiped off the map"

Many news sources have presented one of Ahmadinejad's phrases in Persian as a statement that "Israel must be wiped off the map"[4][5][6], an English idiom which means to cause a place to stop existing[7].

Juan Cole, a University of Michigan Professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History, translates the Persian phrase as:

The Imam said that this regime occupying Jerusalem (een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods) must [vanish from] the page of time (bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad).[8]

According to Cole, "Ahmadinejad did not say he was going to wipe Israel off the map because no such idiom exists in Persian" and "He did say he hoped its regime, i.e., a Jewish-Zionist state occupying Jerusalem, would collapse."[1]

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) translates the phrase similarly:

[T]his regime that is occupying Qods [Jerusalem] must be eliminated from the pages of history.[9]

On 20 February 2006, Iran’s foreign minister denied that Tehran wanted to see Israel “wiped off the map,” saying Ahmadinejad had been misunderstood. "Nobody can remove a country from the map. This is a misunderstanding in Europe of what our president mentioned," Manouchehr Mottaki told a news conference, speaking in English, after addressing the European Parliament. "How is it possible to remove a country from the map? He is talking about the regime. We do not recognise legally this regime," he said. [10][11][12]

In a June 11, 2006 analysis of the translation controversy, New York Times deputy foreign editor Ethan Bronner concluded that Ahmadinejad had in fact said that Israel was to be wiped off the map. After noting the objections of critics such as Cole and Steele, Bronner said: "But translators in Tehran who work for the president's office and the foreign ministry disagree with them. All official translations of Mr. Ahmadinejad's statement, including a description of it on his Web site (www.president.ir/eng/), refer to wiping Israel away." Bronner stated: "So did Iran's president call for Israel to be wiped off the map? It certainly seems so. Did that amount to a call for war? That remains an open question." [2]

On June 15, 2006 The Guardian columnist and foreign correspondent Jonathan Steele cites several Persian speakers and translators who state that the phrase in question is more accurately translated as "eliminated" or "wiped off" or "wiped away" from "the page of time" or "the pages of history", rather than "wiped off the map". [13]

A synopsis of Mr Ahmadinejad's speech on the Iranian Presidential website states:

He further expressed his firm belief that the new wave of confrontations generated in Palestine and the growing turmoil in the Islamic world would in no time wipe Israel away. [14]

[edit] Interpretation of speech as call for genocide

The speech was interpreted by some as a call for genocide. For example, Canada's then Prime Minister Paul Martin said, "this threat to Israel's existence, this call for genocide coupled with Iran's obvious nuclear ambitions is a matter that the world cannot ignore."[15]

Cole interprets the speech as a call for the end of Jewish rule of Israel, but not necessarily for the removal of Jewish people:

His statements were morally outrageous and historically ignorant, but he did not actually call for mass murder (Ariel Sharon made the "occupation regime" in Gaza "vanish" last summer[sic]) or for the expulsion of the Israeli Jews to Europe.[16]

In the speech, Ahmadinejad gave the examples of Iran under the Shah, the Soviet Union and Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq as examples of apparently invincible regimes that ceased to exist. Ahmadinejad used these examples to justify his belief that the United States and the State of Israel can also be defeated claiming, "they say it is not possible to have a world without the United States and Zionism. But you know that this is a possible goal and slogan."[1]

In April 2006, Iran's ambassador was asked directly about Ahmadinejad's position towards Israel by CNN correspondent Wolf Blitzer:[17]

BLITZER: But should there be a state of Israel?

SOLTANIEH: I think I've already answered to you. If Israel is a synonym and will give the indication of Zionism mentality, no.

But if you are going to conclude that we have said the people there have to be removed or they have to be massacred or so, this is fabricated, unfortunate selective approach to what the mentality and policy of Islamic Republic of Iran is. I have to correct, and I did so.
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#23 User is offline   helene_t 

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Posted 2007-January-31, 07:05

Oh, so maybe "Israel should be wiped off the map" does not mean that the Israelean soil should vanish into a degenerated electron gas, but rather that Hamas should take control of the country, forcing the Israeleans to emmigrate, convert, get killed or maybe live in some small gettos in the Negev. Big diference.

Or did he just say that he hoped that the workers party will win the next election?
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#24 User is offline   Al_U_Card 

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Posted 2007-January-31, 08:48

Liberté, égalité, fraternité.

Wiser words from our bloody past. Funny how we can't seem to come up with the methods to implement our higher ideals.
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#25 User is offline   helene_t 

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Posted 2007-January-31, 09:11

Well, "fraternity" means some kind of in-group-vs-out-group moral, and "egality" is quite difficult to achieve without limitting "liberte".

I once read in a prospect from a volunteer-work organization that they work for "peace and justice". But peace is the absense of fighting and people usually fight for some kind of perceived justice. So "peace and justice" is self-contradicting except in the trivial sense that we all would like to have free lunch, and having our cake and eating it at the same time.
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#26 User is offline   Al_U_Card 

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Posted 2007-January-31, 10:08

In this context, "fraternité" means brotherhood or brotherly love, so we are speaking about mutual respect.

The hardest part of dealing with humans is their imperfections of which there are many. Our higher ideals are constantly being bogged down by the nitty-gritty baser elements. We are individualized survival machines. We don't have an innate "protect the hive" mentality. Our "self-sacrificing" actions tend to be motivated by an often mis-placed altruism indoctrinated into us more psychologically than psychically.

Get Iran! is the same as those muslim youths swearing to kill Pope Benedict if the Imam so requested.....and when asked what he had said that was so reprehensible, they replied that they did not know but if the wise Imam so indicated then they would follow his lead. Right. Didn't this pope quote another religious leader's philosophy and was it (or not) taken out of context?

The zealots always find reasons for their insanity. Reasons are in great supply. Reasoning is in small demand. Look behind the veil and you will see the face as it truly exists....not always a pretty sight.
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#27 User is offline   Winstonm 

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Posted 2007-January-31, 16:41

Quote

Wininston, why do you seem so willing to believe something like that? that the comment has been discredited as a bad translation? that just is not true... from the BBC:



This is what I have read:

Quote

The Guardian's Jonathan Steele cites four different translations, from professors to the BBC to the New York Times and even pro-Israel news outlets, in none of those translations is the word "map" used. The closest translation to what the Iranian President actually said is, "The regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time," or a narrow relative thereof. In no version is the word "map" used or a context of mass genocide or hostile military action even hinted at.
The acceptance of the word "map" seemingly originated with the New York Times, who later had to back away from this false translation. The BBC also wrongly used the word and, in comments to Steele, later accepted their mistake but refused to issue a retraction.

"The fact that he compared his desired option - the elimination of "the regime occupying Jerusalem" - with the fall of the Shah's regime in Iran makes it crystal clear that he is talking about regime change, not the end of Israel. As a schoolboy opponent of the Shah in the 1970's he surely did not favor Iran's removal from the page of time. He just wanted the Shah out," writes Steele.

"It's important to note that the "quote" in question was itself a quote, writes Arash Norouzi, "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."


This would be akin to President Truman quoting Winston Churchill's "desire to crush the Nazis" as somehow meaning Truman wanted to wipe Germany and its people off the map.

Quote

Joining the protest, Mr Ahmadinejad said: "My words were the Iranian nation's words. Westerners are free to comment, but their reactions are invalid,"


"The westerners reactions are invalid" - didn't the westerners assume a reaction that he wanted to wipe Israel off the map?

Quote

Iran's president has defended his widely criticised call for Israel to be "wiped off the map".  Attending an anti-Israel rally in Tehran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his remarks were "just" - and the criticism did not "have any validity".


Here we have the BBC saying that the quote is "wiped off the map" and a different quote from Ahmadinejad saying his remarks were just - there is no way of knowing if Ahmadinejad in his response was resonding to "wipe then off the map" or what he believed he said.

Quote

Palestinians recognise the right of the state of Israel to exist and I reject his (Ahmadinejad's) comments

Saeb Erekat
Chief Palestinian negotiator


This is the best quote you provide - and to me it appears that Mr. Erekat is acknowledging Ahmadinejad's anti-Zionist ambitions - and to me there is great difference between Iran hoping for the state of Israel to be eliminated and a simple-minded hatred for all Jews - I don't believe I have seen any threats from Iran to Jews living in London, New York, or anywhere else but Israel. So to extrapolate that Ahmadinejad's anti-Zionists beliefs are somehow genocidal is not logically consistent.

So for me, Jimmy, it is quite complex, as I know the one thing I can never again do is accept what the present adminstration claims, what the major news networks reports, or what I read in the major newspapers - and I am unwilling to paint this man with such a broad brush as "totally evil and insane" without more information.
Certainly I question his motives and want to know more - but to accept on face value what has been provided, "that he is a looney and wants to wipe out Israel" is not enough for me.

I guess that really is the bottom line of this entire thread - where do we root out the truth these days? What sources are credible? Who can we believe? Ir is everything only spin.
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#28 User is offline   luke warm 

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Posted 2007-January-31, 17:47

but winston and richard, you both seem to ignore (although winston did alude to the palestinian position) what his own people and others in the area said about his words... remember egypt's official position on the speech?

Quote

Egypt said they (the words) showed "the weakness of the Iranian government".

not only that, how did his own people interpret his words?

Quote

Shouting "Death to Israel, death to the Zionists", the protesters dragged Israeli flags along the ground and then set them on fire. Many carried posters and placards sporting the slogan "Israel should be wiped off the map".

to mistrust bush, et al, is one thing... to deny that iran wishes harm to israel is quite another... why outwardly mistrusting the administration's view of this speech while giving it the benefit of the doubt is beyond me

if i was to say, "i will not rest until iran is wiped off the face of the map" i obviously don't even imply that physically removing the land upon which the country sits is my aim... that explanation is at the very least ingenious, and at the most it is apologetics in action - imho
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#29 User is offline   Winstonm 

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Posted 2007-January-31, 18:18

luke warm, on Jan 31 2007, 06:47 PM, said:

but winston and richard, you both seem to ignore (although winston did alude to the palestinian position) what his own people and others in the area said about his words... remember egypt's official position on the speech?

Quote

Egypt said they (the words) showed "the weakness of the Iranian government".

not only that, how did his own people interpret his words?

Quote

Shouting "Death to Israel, death to the Zionists", the protesters dragged Israeli flags along the ground and then set them on fire. Many carried posters and placards sporting the slogan "Israel should be wiped off the map".

to mistrust bush, et al, is one thing... to deny that iran wishes harm to israel is quite another... why outwardly mistrusting the administration's view of this speech while giving it the benefit of the doubt is beyond me

if i was to say, "i will not rest until iran is wiped off the face of the map" i obviously don't even imply that physically removing the land upon which the country sits is my aim... that explanation is at the very least ingenious, and at the most it is apologetics in action - imho

Jimmy, I'm afraid I didn't make my point well - sorry.

What others in the region said is not a validation of the translation - the Palestinian even said he respects Israel's right to exist as a nation - he said nothing about the quote itself. Egypt's response is equally plausible regardless of how they understood the words.

And the second drives home the point - "Shouting Death to Israel, death to the Zionists," the protestors ....placards sporting...."Israel should be wiped off the map."

None of us speak Farsi and none of us saw the placards in question - and that is my point - how, with the apparent mistranslation before, can we be so sure that this translation reporting is accurate?

What I am arguing is that this is not the same situation as German Nazis killing Jews by the millions - a true atrocity that deserved to be stopped by military action against the Nazis.

There is no doubt that Iran would like Israel to "disappear into the sands of time" or whatever - but that is no different that the Sunnis in Iraq wanting the Shiites to disappear or Pakistan wanting India to disappear.

These are cultural/land-based grievances that are not genocidal in nature and therefore really not anyone else's business but the disputing parties. If Omert had said that Iran should be "wiped off the map", how big of public outcry would there have been?

Is Iran an enemy of Israel? Absolutely. The question is: how much so?

I don't put much stock in demonstrators, do you? I remember a bunch of long-hairs back in the sixties saying things like "Kill the pigs" but I never for an instant believed any one of them would actually murder a policeman. In that regard "Kill the pigs" was euphenism for "Change the establishment."

I see a lot of similarity between those long-hairs and the Iranian demonstrators.
Sure they want to see Israel go - but to the degree of actually supporting a nuclear holocaust?
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#30 User is offline   hrothgar 

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Posted 2007-January-31, 18:39

luke warm, on Feb 1 2007, 02:47 AM, said:

not only that, how did his own people interpret his words?

Quote

Shouting "Death to Israel, death to the Zionists", the protesters dragged Israeli flags along the ground and then set them on fire. Many carried posters and placards sporting the slogan "Israel should be wiped off the map".

Three points:

1. Even after reading the original BBC article, I have no way of knowing what the Iranian crowd was saying. I don't know whether a large Iran crowd was marching arround shouting slogans and carrying placards in English. Alternatively, its entirely possible that the BBC translated what the crowd was saying from Farsi to English. Furthermore, even if the crowd was chanting a slogan in a foreign language, its unclear whether that actually understood what they were syaing.

2. Its entirely possible that there is an element of the Iranian population that would love to see a nuke go off over Tel'Aviv. Hell, there's a sizable element of the the US population that would love to see a nuke go off over Tehran. I'm old enough to recall all the claptrap about "turning Tehran into a parking lot" from the hostage crisis back in 79. I don't think these idiots have changed their positions much. (If anything, I'd argue that they've radicalized more)

3. Lets take it as a given that a significant portion of the Iranian population does want to see the state of Israel destroyed. I think that we'd both agree that this is regretable. I think its very regretable that Ahmadinejad is President of Iran. Where we differ is the appropriate way to respond to this issue. Personally, I think that escalating a military conflict with Iran will only strengthen the position of the current government.
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#31 User is offline   Winstonm 

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Posted 2007-January-31, 22:29

How can you believe anyone who says this:

Quote

from the January State of the Union Address, spoken aloud in front of all the U.S. and indeed the world:

BUSH: But here is some of what we do know -

We stopped an Al Qaida plot to fly a hijacked airplane into the tallest building on the West Coast.



Now here is the truth behind this statement:

Quote

The day after the announcement, twenty three separate intelligence experts, all with either CIA, FBI, NSA or military credentials, both in and out of service, angrily disputed Bush's remarks about the alleged L.A. plot, with one going as far as saying that the President was "full of *****."

Another described the claims as “worthless intel that was discarded long ago.”

A New York Times story cited "several counter-terrorism officials" as saying that "the plot never progressed past the planning stages.... 'To take that and make it into a disrupted plot is just ludicrous,' said one senior FBI official."

The New York Daily News cited another senior counterterrorism official who said: "There was no definitive plot. It never materialized or got past the thought stage."

The Washington Post also dismissed the alleged plot as nothing more than talk, noting that no actual attack plan had been thwarted.

The LA attack plot arose from the same discredited informant who said that Washington and New York financial institutions were being targeted, which led the White House to raise the terror alert right as the 2004 election campaign was beginning.


Bush dug out a year-old tall tale that had been discredited, shown to be false, yet claimed it as true and a victory. This is more than spin. This is no mispeak. This is, by my views, a total and malicious fabrication designed to reinforce the causes of Bush's wars. This same man is now saying Iran is supporting insurgents inside Iraq - how can anyone take seriously a single claim he makes, or is made for him by his supporters, including certain media outlets.

Better yet, how can we so stupid as to let him again and again get away unchallenged with unbridled lies? And why should we believe anything he says about Iran?

Legal note: Of course this is all stated as opinion.
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#32 User is offline   Al_U_Card 

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Posted 2007-February-01, 11:27

His credibility is zero. His power is still 100%..for now...
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#33 User is offline   luke warm 

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Posted 2007-February-01, 18:03

Winstonm, on Jan 31 2007, 11:29 PM, said:

Now here is the truth behind this statement:

ok, we have bush saying, "We stopped an Al Qaida plot to fly a hijacked airplane into the tallest building on the West Coast."

we have the NYT saying, "...the plot never progressed past the planning stages..."

we have the NYDN saying, "There was no definitive plot. It never materialized or got past the thought stage."

that statement makes no sense... what never materialized or got past the thought stage? no definitive plot? if there was thought, if there was planning, there was a plot by definition, yes?

the washington post "...dismissed the alleged plot as nothing more than talk, noting that no actual attack plan had been thwarted."

then what were they talking about? put yourself in "their" shoes and try to imagine exactly what was being planned, or thought of, or talked about

so it appears that bush and the others agree there was a plot that was in *some* stage, yes? now my question is, did the plot fail to "progress" because of something "we" did? bush says yes and i see nothing you've provided that says otherwise

Quote

Bush dug out a year-old tall tale that had been discredited, shown to be false, yet claimed it as true and a victory.

this is not true... the tale was not discredited, the sources you quote agree that there was a plot, they disagree on the severity or importance of it... they don't say *why* it wasn't severe or important, so it's possible it was what it was because of actions taken by the u.s. gov't

Quote

This is, by my views, a total and malicious fabrication designed to reinforce the causes of Bush's wars.

i hope a closer reading of the quotes you provided will cause you to see that there was no fabrication

Quote

This same man is now saying Iran is supporting insurgents inside Iraq ...

winston, do you believe iran is supporting insurgents inside iraq? if not, upon what do you base your opinion?
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#34 User is offline   Winstonm 

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Posted 2007-February-01, 19:38

luke warm, on Feb 1 2007, 07:03 PM, said:

Winstonm, on Jan 31 2007, 11:29 PM, said:

Now here is the truth behind this statement:

ok, we have bush saying, "We stopped an Al Qaida plot to fly a hijacked airplane into the tallest building on the West Coast."

we have the NYT saying, "...the plot never progressed past the planning stages..."

we have the NYDN saying, "There was no definitive plot. It never materialized or got past the thought stage."

that statement makes no sense... what never materialized or got past the thought stage? no definitive plot? if there was thought, if there was planning, there was a plot by definition, yes?

the washington post "...dismissed the alleged plot as nothing more than talk, noting that no actual attack plan had been thwarted."

then what were they talking about? put yourself in "their" shoes and try to imagine exactly what was being planned, or thought of, or talked about

so it appears that bush and the others agree there was a plot that was in *some* stage, yes? now my question is, did the plot fail to "progress" because of something "we" did? bush says yes and i see nothing you've provided that says otherwise

Quote

Bush dug out a year-old tall tale that had been discredited, shown to be false, yet claimed it as true and a victory.

this is not true... the tale was not discredited, the sources you quote agree that there was a plot, they disagree on the severity or importance of it... they don't say *why* it wasn't severe or important, so it's possible it was what it was because of actions taken by the u.s. gov't

Quote

This is, by my views, a total and malicious fabrication designed to reinforce the causes of Bush's wars.

i hope a closer reading of the quotes you provided will cause you to see that there was no fabrication

Quote

This same man is now saying Iran is supporting insurgents inside Iraq ...

winston, do you believe iran is supporting insurgents inside iraq? if not, upon what do you base your opinion?

Jimmy, your points are always well thought out and non-provacative and I appreciate that - you deserve well-thought out answes.

Here are my contentions about this claim:

First, this quote: "The LA attack plot arose from the same discredited informant who said that Washington and New York financial institutions were being targeted,"

So it seems the the source of the "plot" intelligence was vritually worthless.

And these quotes: "twenty three separate intelligence experts, all with either CIA, FBI, NSA or military credentials, both in and out of service, angrily disputed Bush's remarks about the alleged L.A. plot, with one going as far as saying that the President was "full of *****."

Another described the claims as “worthless intel that was discarded long ago.”


To my reading this means there was no plot to begin with - only the word of of previously discredited informant who provided worthless intelligence.

And finally this: cited another senior counterterrorism official who said:"There was no definitive plot.
That's pretty clear - no plot.

The President's words were: "We stopped an al-Qaeda PLOT. The quoted senior counterterrorism official said: "There was no PLOT."

So who are you going to believe? Was there a plot or wasn't there a plot?

And these were not the only claims the Bush made in this part of his speech - he also talked about the ridiculous Brittish pop-bottle bomb plot that has all of us dumping our water out pre-boarding and thus far has shown to have been nothing but a bunch of hot air - of the 24 arrested, 8 were released without charges. Of the rest, only a few even had passports that would allow them to fly, and none have been shown to have the knowledge and skill (even professionals don't know if they could do it) to mix liquid explosives in flight and set them off.

But there is more - Keith Olbermann said it more eloquently - disregard the name on the website as it is simply the first one that had the link when I Googled.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/01/30/o...-the-president/

So to capsulate, we have these areas:

First, "Worthless Intel". This is the same thing that the trial of Libby is about, about Wilson discrediting the worthless intel that Iraq was trying to buy Nigerian uranium. Still the president made that claim about Iraq.

Second, "There was no plot." Bush said there was a plot, but he also stood up in front of the world and said we knew that Iraq had stockpiles of chemical weapons and was trying to buy uranium from Nigeria.

I mean, really , fool me once, shame on me, but try to fool me over and over is annoying, especially with the same old tired trick I've seen before.

The way you get people to accept propaganda as truth is by repeating it over and over and over. To continue to accept this man's statements as factual borders on fanciful delusion - the definition of insanity is to do the same thing again and again and expect different results. How many times do we have to believe what hear from this man before we finally decide we are nuts to believe him?
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#35 User is offline   Winstonm 

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Posted 2007-February-01, 20:05

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winston, do you believe iran is supporting insurgents inside iraq? if not, upon what do you base your opinion?


I quite honestly do not know. I think it is possible - but so is the likelihood of Syria being as seriously involved. It seems strange that Iran would be trying to dismantle a Shiite Iraqian regime by providing weapons to the Sunnis.

I can say this much - if Bush states it as fact I will not believe it. And this is not about Bush-bashing or the Republican party - but the man has shown his unrepentence in masquerading behind unsubstatiated claims that later proved false.

Has any of us truly grasped yet the magnitude of the tales told about Iraq and their WMDs, the chemical stockpiles, and their hunger for nuclear arms - we were told they knew for a 100% fact that this was gospel, that they even knew where the stockpiles were hid. There was nothing there - and they had been so informed but chose to disregard that news and instead listen and quote intelligence that fit their mindset.

Over 3000 American's dead, now, because of those disproven claims - and an untold number of Iraqis - and not one word of repentence, of error, of being wrong. Not even a lame claim to have been misled by a lousy CIA. Nothing.

In my opinion, Israel and the U.S. have more to gain in toppling Iran than Iran does in destabilizing Iraq - and I'm unwilling to bet the lives of another 3000 Americans that this time we are being told the truth.

I really don't care if Iran is providing arms - they have to the right to chose sides in a civil war if they so wish - we need to get our troops out so they don't get caught in the crossfire. To say that Iran is furnishing arms to fight Americans is not really accurate, is it? Even if Iran is providing weapons, they are doing so to disrupt the regime and not specifically trying to harm our soldiers.

The U.S. has sided with Malaki and that regime, and is sending not only weapons but troops - Iran, if true, has taken the other side. How does that make them an enemy of the U.S.? Is the U.S. the enemy of Iran because they have sided with Malaki?

With our continued presense, this is probably another 100-year war - if we withdraw someone will win sometime soon. I don't care which side wins - we had no right to invade in the first place; we are the ones who destabilzed Iraq; and we are the ones who have an obligation to help rebuild - but that is only after Iraq decides who will be in charge. Let them determine that by themselves - and then let us try to repair our damage with whomever comes out on top.
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#36 User is offline   jikl 

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Posted 2007-February-01, 22:32

Does anyone think that an organisation or a country will have the guts to try and charge Bush with war crimes?

Sean
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#37 User is offline   Winstonm 

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Posted 2007-February-01, 22:53

jikl, on Feb 1 2007, 11:32 PM, said:

Does anyone think that an organisation or a country will have the guts to try and charge Bush with war crimes?

Sean

No, unless two extremely large "ifs" occur.

If #1 would involve a "smoking gun" piece of evidence that proved beyond dispute that the one of the three buildings that collapsed on 9-11 was brought down by controlled demolition, and thereby brought about a criminal investigation that found a tie to the administration.

If #2 would be proof that this administration manufatured false evidence about Iraq's WMD and indirectly profited from the war.

I doubt - even if true - either could ever be proven to a point that would bring about war crime charges - and the Military Commissions Act has a built in pardon for the tortures already committed on detainees so no crimes there.

I think it would take something provably so savage that the ire of the American people would demand Bush be sacrificed as a "war criminal" or even a plain criminal - foreknowledge of 9-11, allowing it to happen, demolition of the buildings after the fact to intesify the horror, and falsifying evidence to start a war.

However, even if this did happen, finding proof would be virtually impossible.
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#38 User is offline   luke warm 

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Posted 2007-February-02, 05:50

ok winston... i'll stand by my words above, that when people admit there was a plot, but one only in the planning stages ("...the plot never progressed past the planning stages..." and "...It never materialized or got past the thought stage.") then a plot had to have existed, by definition... heck, even those papers seem to be saying that... so my only point is that a plot either did or did not exist.. the nydn and nyt, according to my understanding of their words, agree one did

to believe there was no plot, one has to believe there were no plotters... correct? if that's true, who was doing this planning? who was doing this thinking?

the only other thing i'll mention is that just because someone provided insufficient or faulty intel in the past does not mean that is the case in the present

i am not defending bush, i am *far* more disappointed in him than you'll ever be (imo), and if i was given to name calling he'd be a prime candidate... but fair is fair, and i'd make those same points no matter the person involved
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#39 User is offline   helene_t 

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Posted 2007-February-02, 06:34

No Jimmy, it's not so that there either is or isn't a plot. It starts as a vague idea ("what about killing some heathens?") and then graduadely evolves into concrete plans. Since most vague ideas never evolve into anything, you can only say that you "prevented a terrorist attack" if it has evolved so far that it was likely to happen if it hadn't been "prevented".

When an intel expert says that "the president is full of *****" I see no reason not to believe him (the expert), especially given the reputation of the particular president being refered to.
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#40 User is offline   luke warm 

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Posted 2007-February-02, 08:10

helene, i agree with you about bush's reputation, and it's one he's earned and fully deserves... but words have meanings, and even the nyt called this a "plot"... now it's possible they used the wrong word, or used it incorrectly... but they did use it

also, you can prevent a terrorist attack in many ways... imagine for a moment that we'd have been able to infiltrate and prevent the attacks of 9/11 during the early (i.e. planning or thinking) stages... would it be incorrect to say a plot was foiled?
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