I am sure everyone has heard about the silly girl who wore a fake bomb on her sweatshirt to the airport. of course none of that is true except what Maj. Scott S. Pare of the state police, commanding officer of the airport’s security contingent said. “Had she not followed our instructions” when confronted by state troopers, “we would have used deadly force,”
many comments in various places cheered this bravado, only a few voices of sanity were to be heard.
take a good look at the image at the link below and then remind yourself you can get yourself shot for wearing that. this is the US of A today. what will it take for people to come out of their stupor?
link

Posted by: dan of steele | Sep 23 2007 12:09 utc | 4

Fallon foresees ‘no war’ with Iran

The commander of US military forces in the Middle East does not believe current tensions with Iran will lead to war and urges for greater emphasis on dialogue and diplomacy.
…
“I expect that there will be no war and that is what we ought to be working for,” said Fallon during the Friday interview at Al-Jazeera’s headquarters in Qatar. “We should find ways through which we can bring countries to work together for the benefit of all …. It is not a good idea to be in a state of war. We ought to try and to do our utmost to create different conditions.”

Posted by: b | Sep 23 2007 14:32 utc | 6

Only five out of 200 people complained when they were instructed by Sheriff’s deputies to pull over so that a 3rd party could test their breath, blood and saliva? I’m sure more than a few people are looking at that feedback with drool pooling in the corners of their mouths.

Posted by: Pyrrho | Sep 24 2007 2:04 utc | 8

Columbia withdraws invitation to Ahmadinejad
So much for free speech in academia – Columbia just tossed out its reputation for independent scholarship.
Guess they had to as CBS 60 Minutes 9/23 Kicks Off Push For Iran War
continuing w/ my incessant ‘war at home’:
Scrubbed: U.S. collecting personal data on travelers
Search for this story on MSNBC.com is still listed (third item down on search page)
Alternative news agency report:
U.S. collecting personal data on travelers

Scope of data collection alarms privacy experts; officials cite safety issue
11:53 PM CDT on Friday, September 21, 2007
From Wire Reports
WASHINGTON – The U.S. government is collecting much more detailed electronic records than previously disclosed on the travel habits of millions of Americans, according to documents obtained by a group of civil liberties advocates and statements by government officials.
The data includes whom the persons travel with or plan to stay with; the personal items they carry during their journeys; and even the books that travelers have carried, according to the documents.
The personal travel records are meant to be stored for as long as 15 years, as part of the Department of Homeland Security’s effort to assess the security threat posed by all travelers entering the country. Officials say the records, which are analyzed by the department’s Automated Targeting System, help border officials distinguish potential terrorists from innocent people entering the country.
But new details about the information being retained suggest that the government is monitoring the personal habits of travelers more closely than it has previously acknowledged. The details were learned when a group of activists requested copies of official records on their own travel. Those records included a description of a book on marijuana that one of them carried and small flashlights bearing the symbol of a marijuana leaf.
The Automated Targeting System has been used to screen passengers since the mid-1990s, but the collection of data for it has been greatly expanded and automated since 2002, according to former DHS officials.
Officials Friday defended the retention of highly personal data on travelers not involved in or linked to any violations of the law. But civil liberties advocates have alleged that the type of information preserved by the department raises alarms about the government’s ability to intrude into the lives of ordinary people. The millions of travelers whose records are kept by the government are generally unaware of what their records say, and the government has not created an effective mechanism for reviewing the data and correcting any errors, activists said.
The activists alleged that the data collection effort, as carried out now, violates the Privacy Act, which bars the gathering of data related to Americans’ exercise of their First Amendment rights, such as their choice of reading material or persons with whom to associate. They also worried that such personal data could one day be used impede their right to travel.
“The federal government is trying to build a surveillance society,” said John Gilmore, a civil liberties activist in San Francisco whose records were requested by the Identity Project, an ad hoc group of privacy advocates in California and Alaska. The government, he said, “may be doing it with the best or worst of intentions. … But the job of building a surveillance database and populating it with information about us is happening largely without our awareness and without our consent.”
Mr. Gilmore’s file, which he provided to The Washington Post, included a note from a Customs and Border Patrol officer that he carried the marijuana-related book Drugs and Your Rights. “My first reaction was I kind of expected it,” Mr. Gilmore said. “My second reaction was, that’s illegal.”
DHS officials said this week that the government is not interested in passengers’ reading habits, that the program is transparent, and that it affords redress for travelers who are inappropriately stymied. “I flatly reject the premise that the department is interested in what travelers are reading,” DHS spokesman Russ Knocke said. “We are completely uninterested in the latest Tom Clancy novel that the traveler may be reading.”
But, Mr. Knocke said, “if there is some indication based upon the behavior or an item in the traveler’s possession that leads the inspection officer to conclude there could be a possible violation of the law, it is the front-line officer’s duty to further scrutinize the traveler.” Once that happens, Mr. Knocke said, “it is not uncommon for the officer to document interactions with a traveler that merited additional scrutiny.”
He said that he is not familiar with the file that mentions Mr. Gilmore’s book about drug rights, but that generally “front-line officers have a duty to enforce all laws within our authority, for example, the counter-narcotics mission.” Officers making a decision to admit someone at a port of entry have a duty to apply extra scrutiny if there is some indication of a violation of the law, he said.
Although the screening has been in effect for more than a decade, data for the system in recent years have been collected by the government from more border points, and also provided by airlines – under U.S. government mandates – through direct electronic links that did not previously exist.
The records the Identity Project obtained confirmed that the government is receiving data directly from commercial reservation systems, but also showed that the data, in some cases, are more detailed than the information to which the airlines have access.
Ann Harrison, the communications director for a technology firm in Silicon Valley who was among those who obtained their personal files and provided them to The Post, said she was taken aback to see that her dossier contained data on her race and on a European flight that did not begin or end in the U.S. or connect to a U.S.-bound flight.
James Harrison, director of the Identity Project and Ann Harrison’s brother, obtained government records that contained another sister’s phone number in Tokyo as an emergency contact. “So my sister’s phone number ends up being in a government database,” he said. “This is a lot more than just saying who you are, your date of birth.”
Stewart Verdery, former first assistant secretary for policy and planning at DHS, said the data collected for ATS should be considered “an investigative tool, just the way we do with law enforcement, who take records of things for future purposes when they need to figure out where people came from, what they were carrying and who they are associated with. That type of information is extremely valuable when you’re trying to thread together a plot or you’re trying to clean up after an attack.”
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff last August said that “if we learned anything from Sept. 11, 2001, it is that we need to be better at connecting the dots of terrorist-related information.”
Mr. Knocke, the DHS spokesman, added that the program is not used to determine “guilt by association.” He said the DHS has created a program called DHS TRIP (Traveler Redress Inquiry Program) to provide redress for travelers who faced screening problems at ports of entry.
But DHS TRIP does not allow a traveler to challenge an agency decision in court, said David Sobel, senior counsel with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has sued the DHS over information concerning the policy underlying the system. Because the system is exempted from certain Privacy Act requirements, including the right to “contest the content of the record,” a traveler can’t correct erroneous information, Mr. Sobel said.

They are casting a very wide net. There are PRIVATE organizations, assisted by cops, trying to bully people for their DNA.
btw, where is John Francis Lee? Anybody know?

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 24 2007 3:59 utc | 10

As I recall, he “walked out” during the conversation on whether higher American casualty numbers were necessary to hasten the war’s end…

Posted by: PeeDee | Sep 24 2007 4:24 utc | 12

Walter Pincus parses the words uttered on the “surge” reductions and finds that there may well be no troop reductions next summer A Cautious Approach to Troop Reduction

Posted by: b | Sep 24 2007 7:10 utc | 14

i really don’t usually watch these things but i did tonight. i was flipping stations. the result surprised me. she didn’t win the $10,000.
it was on national TV. 11%
i don’t know if this will get any other press but out of curiosity i googled it. thats how i found this link.
One of the questions tonight was, what percent of the general population would agreed that we stay in IRAQ.[1] I was not suprised to see the answer which I will share with you. I just want to give you a chance to think about it. Drew Carey is the host. On the show he clarified that the poll was taken by democrats, republicans, non partican, female, male, young, and old. Basically, he legitimized the accuracy of the poll. I could not wait to hear the answer. The national poll answer was 11%. A very below average percent of Americans honestly feel this war is legitimate.

Posted by: annie | Sep 24 2007 8:30 utc | 16

Military baiting, killing Iraqis

A Pentagon group has encouraged some U.S. military snipers in Iraq to target suspected insurgents by scattering pieces of “bait,” such as detonation cords, plastic explosives and ammunition, and then killing Iraqis who pick up the items, according to military court documents.

We’re like Jack Palance in the movie Shane, throwing the pistol at the sheepherder’s feet. ‘Pick it up.’ ‘I don’t wanna pick it up, mister, you’ll shoot me.’ ‘Pick up the gun.’ ‘Mister, I don’t want no trouble, I just came to town here to get some hard rock candy for my kids, some gingham for my wife. I don’t even know what gingham is, but she goes through about ten rolls a week of that stuff. I ain’t looking for no trouble, Mister.’ ‘Pick up the gun.’ The sheepherder picks up the gun, three shots ring out. ‘You all saw him, he had a gun.’
~ Bill Hicks

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 24 2007 9:51 utc | 18

Saw reports of riots in Hamburg. As usual the papers only report what the police said in their press release. What’s up?

Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Sep 24 2007 11:51 utc | 20

well well well
blackwater back in the business of murder
maliki as always, another puppet

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 24 2007 17:45 utc | 22

Fallon does not foresee war with Iran. (b at 6)
Right. The head of US central command speaks in this line on Al Jazeera.
Huh?
Since when is a military commander not subordinate to the upper levels? Goes on foreign TV to mouth off? Well it guess it is free speech… or globalization… or personal identity issues…or sumpt’in.
That spells schisms up top, I did read his damning criticism of Petraeus, forget the wording now, so is this the old guard re-grouping to prevent neo-con follies? If so, it underlines that US citizens are dependent on influence at the top and play no role, not exactly flash news. And, as some have intimated, that the military might save them (coup) – at home! Heh.
If Bush doesn’t fire him immediately that will send a strong signal of his weakness. Of course, the Dems provide the back-up.

Posted by: Tangerine | Sep 24 2007 18:27 utc | 24

ahmedinjad hit below the belt when he spoke of the ‘self-absorption’ of the united states – he touched something vey important
i was also struck by the utter impoliteness of the forum & of the questions. i’ve no special brief for this theologue but common decency seems to have no place in the public dscourse within the united states
you scream hysterically at the ‘ other’
you zap anyone who might have a question

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 24 2007 19:15 utc | 26

sorry ’bout that

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 24 2007 19:19 utc | 28

Sam noted:
They don’t pay Israel 3 billion a year to have Israelis dictate to the US. It amazes me how people think that tiny Israel could possibly order around the mightiest country that this planet ever saw.
2 Thoughts:
1) Funny how people say Israel blah blah, but never the Oil Cos. are demanding… though as someone posted in recent mos. that a former top oil co. guy is ~V.P. in charge of policy @AEI/Heritage – I forget which, though i believe they underwrite both. And as Peter Dale Scott noted & I posted long ago, what was unique about Iraqi invasion, and the reason it went off so easily, is that it was the first time both Oil Cos. & AIPAC et al were on the same side. In the past, the Oil Cos. took the don’t upset the Arabs, we need our oil, line; whereas, the Israelis were of the Screw the Arabs, they’re screwing us mentality. And in this case, it doesn’t even mention the Saudis who are at least as impt. as Oil Cos. In short, Israel is allowed to take the shit, while the serious power remains concealed.
2) If you google about, you’ll discover that Israel was about to negotiate a peace w/Syria recently & Cheney told them they Were Not Allowed To Do
So.

Posted by: jj | Sep 24 2007 19:25 utc | 30

I like this part of yesterdays interview with Ahmedinejad (that journalist is such an idiot):

PELLEY: What trait do you admire in President Bush?
AHMADINEJAD: Again, I have a very frank tone. I think that President Bush needs to correct his ways.
PELLEY: What do you admire about him?
AHMADEINEJAD: He should respect the American people.
PELLEY: Is there anything? Any trait?
AHMADINEJAD: As an American citizen, tell me what trait do you admire?
PELLEY: Well, Mr. Bush is, without question, a very religious man, for example, as you are. I wonder if there’s anything that you’ve seen in President Bush that you admire.
AHMADEINEJAD: Well, is Mr. Bush a religious man?
PELLEY: Very much so. As you are.
AHMADEINEJAD: What religion, please tell me, tells you as a follower of that religion to occupy another country and kill its people? Please tell me. Does Christianity tell its followers to do that? Judaism, for that matter? Islam, for that matter? What prophet tells you to send 160,000 troops to another country, kill men, women, and children? You just can’t wear your religion on your sleeve or just go to church. You should be truthfully religious. Religion tells us all that you should respect the property, the life of different people. Respect human rights. Love your fellow man. And once you hear that a person has been killed, you should be saddened. You shouldn’t sit in a room, a dark room, and hatch plots. And because of your plots, many thousands of people are killed. Having said that, we respect the American people. And because of our respect for the American people, we respectfully talk with President Bush. We have a respectful tone. But having said that, I don’t think that that is a good definition of religion. Religion is love for your fellow man, brotherhood, telling the truth.
PELLEY: I take it you can’t think of anything you like about President Bush.
AHMADEINEJAD: Well, I’m not familiar with the gentleman’s private life. Maybe in his private life he is very kind or a determined man. I’m not aware of that. I base my judgment on what I see in his public life. Having said that, I think that President Bush can behave much better. There were golden opportunities for President Bush. He should have used them better.

Posted by: b | Sep 24 2007 19:53 utc | 32

Ahmedinjad was nicely assassinated by the University President before he even reached the stage.
Uncle, I assume you mean Pres. of Columbia indulged in character assasination. Given the times, it’s impt. to be more precise about such things. Perhaps, b- could edit it to reflect that. Yes, I’m edgy…but then I was just reading Activist silenced for fear of surveillance. If what’s basically social work, begets that response ….
I just heard part of the introduction (i don’t get youtube) in which C.U. Pres. takes him to task for his holocaust denial. If that’s what you are referring to under the name of “assassination”, I have no problem w/him starting off there. That is why he was under so much pressure not to have him speak there; and most Am. will see him as a monster until he clears up why he organized a conference of holocaust deniers. Though there may be no way back from that one.

Posted by: jj | Sep 24 2007 20:07 utc | 34

on jj’s @30
another item that seems to skip people’s attention, wrt the influence of private national oil interests/companies in u.s. foreign policy, is cheney’s career:
SECDEF –> moves over to halliburton as CEO –> steps down to be installed as u.s. vp

Posted by: b real | Sep 24 2007 20:15 utc | 36

JJ, I can send you some Prozac to smoke if you think it would help…
A Feeling I’m Being Had

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 24 2007 20:30 utc | 38

@askod – 20 – Saw reports of riots in Hamburg. As usual the papers only report what the police said in their press release. What’s up?
Oh, nothing special – just the yearly street festivities in the “Schanze” quarter.
Clown, cookies and flea market in the afternoon. Beer and kebbap for dinner and later at night, when the 700 policemen who have been waiting for the event for weeks are rolling along, some barricades and burning garbadge cans.
Simply said: tradition – just like the May 1 festivities in Berlin-Kreuzberg. I don’t even bother to attend anymore. After all these years, it is missing exclusivity …
Still it’s important – it trains the next generation on civil resistance techniques.

Posted by: b | Sep 24 2007 20:54 utc | 40

Civil discourse, get your ci…. Iranian president spars with academics in NY

NEW YORK, Sept 24 (Reuters) – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad clashed with a U.S. academic who called him a “petty and cruel dictator” at a forum in New York on Monday where Ahmadinejad said Iran was a peaceful nation and a victim of terrorism.
Ahmadinejad also insisted in a forum at Columbia University Iran’s nuclear program was purely peaceful. Challenged over his past comments that Israel should be wiped off the map and questioning the Holocaust, he said his concern was why the Palestinians were suffering.
Ahmadinejad received a caustic welcome at the university, which had come under fire from critics who said it should not give a platform to a Holocaust denier.
Security was tight at the hall where he addressed around 700 people, 80 percent of them students — dozens of whom were wearing T-shirts saying “Stop Ahmadinejad’s Evil.”
Introducing him, Columbia University President Lee Bollinger said that Ahmadinejad behaved as a “petty and cruel dictator” and that his Holocaust denials suggested he was either “brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated.”

For your edification and fast find:
Putting Words in Ahmadinejad’s Mouth

Why is Mr. Ahmadinejad being so systematically misquoted and demonized? Need we ask? If the world believes that Iran is preparing to attack Israel, then the US or Israel can claim justification in attacking Iran first. On that agenda, the disinformation campaign about Mr. Ahmadinejad’s statements has been bonded at the hip to a second set of lies: promoting Iran’s (nonexistent) nuclear weapon programme.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 24 2007 21:57 utc | 42

what i saw was some thug parading as a scholar exhibiting in every sense both an absence of culture & manners – providing plenty of evidence – if any was needed to a middle east audience just how barbaric a certain kind of america is

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 24 2007 22:40 utc | 44

Bea @ 21:
I do think both Israel and the US are a bit more equally and symbiotically to blame for the patterns you are seeing (although not, obviously, in Africa). Israel deeply believes and has always believes that weakening the Arabs at home and in the region is in its vital interest.
From what perpective though? Just imagine real peace in the region. Israeli ingenuity and Arab oil money working together to create a regional power. Now who would be against that? Like you say:
That notwithstanding, your summary of the basic policy pattern is right on, tragically so. It is the old colonialist strategy of divide et impera.

Posted by: Sam | Sep 24 2007 23:12 utc | 46

Who is Isreal? Who is the US?
In both cases the people has lots to gain from peace but peace would only weaken and expose the thugs in charge for what they are, so war it is.

Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Sep 24 2007 23:45 utc | 48

Opening salvo: (Note b, if this is to long feel free to delete it)Also, keep in mind the above in that this is translated from the Israeli project.

REMARKS BY PRESIDENT OF IRAN MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD
MODERATOR: JOHN COATSWORTH, ACTING DEAN, SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS, COLUMBIA, UNIVERSITY INTRODUCTION BY LEE BOLLINGER, PRESIDENT, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK
1:50 P.M. EDT, MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2007
FULL TEXT:
(Note: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s comments are through interpreter.)
MR. BOLLINGER: I would like to begin by thanking Dean John Coatsworth and Professor Richard Bulliet for their work in organizing this event and for their commitment to the School of International and Public Affairs and its role — (interrupted by cheers, applause) — and for its role in training future leaders in world affairs. If today proves anything, it will be that there is an enormous amount of work ahead of us. This is just one of many events on Iran that will run throughout the academic year, all to help us better understand this critical and complex nation in today’s geopolitics.
Before speaking directly to the current president of Iran, I have a few critically important points to emphasize. First, in 2003 the World Leaders Forum has advanced Columbia’s long-standing tradition of serving as a major forum for robust debate, especially on global issues. It should never be thought that merely to listen to ideas we deplore in any way implies our endorsement of those ideas or our weakness of our resolve to resist those ideas or our naivety about the very real dangers inherent in such ideas. It is a critical premise of freedom of speech that we do not honor the dishonorable when we open our public forum to their voices; to hold otherwise would make vigorous debate impossible.
Second, to those who believe that this event should never have happened, that it is inappropriate for the university to conduct such an event, I want to say that I understand your perspective and respect it as reasonable. The scope of free speech in academic freedom should itself always be open to further debate. As one of the more famous quotations about free speech goes, it is an experiment as all life is an experiment. I want to say, however, as forcefully as I can that this is the right thing to do, and indeed it is required by the existing norms of free speech, the American university and Columbia itself.
Third, to those among us who experience hurt and pain as a result of this day, I say on behalf of all of us that we are sorry and wish to do what we can to alleviate it.
Fourth, to be clear on another matter, this event has nothing whatsoever to do with any rights of the speaker, but only with our rights to listen and speak. We do it for ourselves. We do it in the great tradition of openness that has defined this nation for many decades now. We need to understand the world we live in, neither neglecting its glories nor shrinking from its threats and dangers. It is inconsistent with the idea that one should know thine enemy — I’m sorry — it is consistent with the idea that one should know thine enemies, to have the intellectual and emotional courage to confront the mind of evil, and to prepare ourselves to act with the right temperament. In the moment, the arguments for free speech will never seem to match the power of the arguments against, but what we must remember is that this is precisely because free speech asks us to exercise extraordinary self-restraint against the very natural but often counterproductive impulses that lead us to retreat from engagement with ideas we dislike and fear. In this lies the genius of the American idea of free speech.
Lastly, in universities we have a deep and almost single-minded commitment to pursue the truth. We do not have access to the levers of power, we cannot make war or peace, we can only make minds, and to do this, we must have the most fulsome freedom of inquiry.
Let me now turn to Mr. Ahmadinejad.
First, on the brutal crackdown on scholars, journalists and human rights advocates. Over the past two weeks, your government has released Dr. Haleh Esfandiari and Parnaz Azima and just two days ago, Kian Tajbakhsh, a graduate of Columbia with a PhD in Urban Planning. While our community is relieved to learn of his release on bail, Dr. Tajbakhsh remains in Tehran under house arrest, and he still does not know whether he will be charged with a crime or allowed to leave the country.
Let me say this for the record, I call on the president today to ensure that Kian will be free to travel out of Iran as he wishes. (Applause.) Let me also report today that we are extending an offer to Kian to join our faculty as a visiting professor in Urban Planning here at his alma mater in our Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, and we hope he will be able to join us next semester. (Applause.)
The arrest and imprisonment of these Iranian Americans for no good reason is not only unjustified, it runs completely counter to the very values that allow today’s speaker to even appear on this campus, but at least they are alive.
According to Amnesty International, 210 people have been executing In Iran so far this year, 21 of them on the morning of September 5th alone. This annual total includes at two children, further proof, as Human Rights Watch puts it, that Iran leads the world in executing minors.
There is more. Iran hanged up 30 people this past July and August during a widely reported suppression of efforts to establish a more democratic society. Many of these executions were carried out in public view, a violation of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, to which Iran is a party. These executions and others have coincided with a wider crackdown on student activists and academics accused of trying to foment a so-called “soft revolution.” This has included jailing and forced retirement of scholars. As Dr. Esfandiari said in a broadcast interview since her release, she was held in solitary confinement for 105 days because the government believes that the United States is planning a velvet revolution in Iran.
In this very room, last year we learned something about velvet revolutions from Vaclav Havel, and we will likely hear the same from our World Leaders Forum speaker this evening, President Michelle Bachelet of Chile. Both of their extraordinary stories remind us that there are not enough prisons to prevent an entire society that wants its freedom from achieving it.
We at this university have not been shy to protest the challenge — and challenge the failures of our own government to live by our values, and we won’t be shy about criticizing yours. Let’s then be clear at the beginning. Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator. And so I ask you — (applause) — and so I ask you, why have women, members of the Baha’i faith, homosexuals and so many of our academic colleagues become targets of persecution in your country? Why, in a letter last week to the secretary-general of the U.N., did Akbar Ganji, Iran’s leading political dissident, and over 300 public intellectuals, writers and Noble Laureates express such grave concern that your inflamed dispute with the West is distracting the world’s attention from the intolerable conditions in your regime within Iran, in particular the use of the press law to ban writers for criticizing the ruling system? Why are you so afraid of Iranian citizens expressing their opinions for change?
In our country, you are interviewed by our press and asked to speak here today. And while my colleagues at the law school — Michael Dorf, one of my colleagues, spoke to Radio Free Europe, viewers in Iran a short while ago on the tenants of freedom of speech in this country — I propose further that you let me lead a delegation of students and faculty from Columbia to address your universities about free speech with the same freedom we afford you today. (Applause.)
Secondly, the denial of the Holocaust. In a December 2005 state television broadcast, you described the Holocaust as “a fabricated legend.” One year later, you held a two-day conference of Holocaust deniers. For the illiterate and ignorant, this is dangerous propaganda.
When you have come to a place like this, this makes you, quite simply, ridiculous. You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated. You should know — (applause) — please — you should know that Columbia is the world center of Jewish studies — us a world center, and now in partnership with the — Institute of Holocaust Studies.
Since the 1930s, we provided an intellectual home for countless Holocaust refugees and survivors and their children and grandchildren. The truth is that the Holocaust is the most documented event in human history. Because of this, and for many other reasons, your absurd comments about the debate over the Holocaust both defy historical truth and make all of us who continue to fear humanity’s capacity for evil shudder at this closure of memory, which is always virtue’s first line of defense. Will you cease this outrage?
The destruction of Israel. Twelve days ago you said that the state of Israel cannot continue its life. This echoed a number of inflammatory statements you have delivered in the past two years, including in October 2005, when you said that Israel “should be wiped off the map”, quote-unquote. Columbia has over 800 alumni currently living in Israel. As an institution, we have deep ties with our colleagues there. I have personally spoken — personally, I have spoken out in most forceful terms against proposals to boycott Israeli scholars (in/and ?) universities, saying that such boycotts might as well include Columbia. (Applause.)
More than 400 — more than 400 — more than 400 college and university presidents in this country have joined in that statement.
My question then is, do you plan on wiping us off the map too? (Applause.)
Funding terrorism: According to reports of the Council on Foreign Relations, it’s well-documented that Iran is a state sponsor of terror that funds such violent groups as Lebanese Hezbollah, which Iran helped organize in the 1980s, Palestinian Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. While your predecessor government was instrumental in providing the U.S. with intelligence and base support in the 2001 campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan, your government is now undermining American troops in Iraq by funding, arming and providing safe transit to insurgent leaders like Muqtada al-Sadr and his forces. There are a number of reports that you also link your government with Syria’s efforts to destabilize the fledgling Lebanese government through violence and political assassination.
My question is this: Why do you support well-documented terrorist organizations that continue to strike at peace and democracy in the Middle East, destroying lives and the civil society of the region?
The proxy war against the United States troops in Iraq — in a briefing before the National Press Club earlier this month, General David Petraeus reported that arms supplies from Iran, including 240- millimeter rockets and explosively formed projectiles, are contributing to, quote, “a sophistication of attacks that would by no means be possible without Iranian support.” A number of Columbia graduates and current students are among the brave members of our military who are serving or have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. They, like other Americans with sons, daughters, fathers, husbands and wives serving in combat, rightly see your government as the enemy.
Can you tell them and us why Iran is fighting a proxy war in Iraq by arming Shi’a militia targeting and killing U.S. troops?
And finally Iran’s nuclear program and international sanctions: This week, the United Nations Security Council is contemplating expanding sanctions for a third time, because of your government’s refusal to suspend its uranium enrichment program. You continue to defy this world body by claiming a right to develop a peaceful nuclear power, but this hardly withstands scrutiny when you continue to issue military threats to neighbors. Last week, French President Sarkozy made clear his lost patience with your stall tactics, and even Russia and China have shown concern.
Why does your country continue to refuse to adhere to international standards for nuclear weapons verification, in defiance of agreements that you have made with the U.N. nuclear agency? And why have you chosen to make the people of your country vulnerable to the effects of international economic sanctions, and threaten to engulf the world in nuclear annihilation? (Applause.)
Let me close with a comment. Frankly — I close with this comment frankly and in all candor, Mr. President. I doubt that you will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions. But your avoiding them will in itself be meaningful to us. I do expect you to exhibit the fanatical mindset that characterizes so much of what you say and do. Fortunately I am told by experts on your country that this only further undermines your position in Iran, with all the many good-hearted, intelligent citizens there.
A year ago, I am reliably told, your preposterous and belligerent statements in this country, as at one of the meetings at the Council on Foreign Relations, so embarrassed sensible Iranian citizens that this led to your party’s defeat in the December mayoral elections. May this do that and more. (Applause.)
I am only a professor, who is also a university president.
And today I feel all the weight of the modern civilized world yearning to express the revulsion at what you stand for. I only wish I could do better. Thank you. (Cheers, extended applause.)
MR. COATSWORTH: Thank you, Lee.
Our principal speaker today is His Excellency the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Mr. President. (Applause.)

LEE BOLLINGER is a Complete dickhead in my opinion, but then I’m not big on Ahmadinejad either, and even less so on Israel policy.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 25 2007 2:02 utc | 50

yikes. screwed that one up. sorry. ‘a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.’
coatsworth may be the acting dean, but bollinger was the one trying to steal the spotlight

Posted by: b real | Sep 25 2007 2:33 utc | 52

“exhibit the fanatical mindset that characterizes so much of what you say and do” best describes his views, actions, and that group from which he comes from.
Although by pandering to a domestic audience the entire theaterical performance falls into the play book.
It actually set the stage to make Ahmadinejad look good – both to an international audience and to Iranians. From a PR perspective he certainly nailed it – even the no gay people in my country bit reinforced the guys believability.
All in all – Pres. Lee spoke for the more powerfull and fundamentalist group of the “money people” in our country, an echo that was heard loud and clear in the media as well as in the dis-infromation campagin waged by the politicos.
No wonder one of the geratest American sociologist C.Wright Mills was marginalized in this place – and to hear some describe this Columbia as “liberal”.

Posted by: BenIAM | Sep 25 2007 2:39 utc | 54

Bollinger and Kissinger. I do expect you to exhibit the fanatical mindset that characterizes so much of what you say and do.

Posted by: biklett | Sep 25 2007 3:41 utc | 56

Bill Burroughs was a Columbia alumni wasn’t he? Considering his most ingenious construction was ‘The great adding machine scam’ is looks like the place has been downhill ever since.
Incidentally William S Jnr made many refinements to the adding machine scam especially after he no longer needed to use it generate sufficient cash to buy heroin.
William S. Burroughs’ & Brion Gysin’s Non-Linear Adding Machine an automated method of constructing Dadaist or “cut up” prose rendered a part of Bollinger’s speech into:

“We never have happened, ourselves. I want cheers, applause — government has released role in training. Over the past threats and dangers from Coatsworth and Professor Bulliet released brutal crackdown on further debate only with our thanking.

You’ll agree that while it is only slightly more cogent, it is rather more truthful.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Sep 25 2007 4:03 utc | 58

i saw 60 minutes w/the interview of Ahmadinejad . the reporter was incredibly rude. not only his words but his facial scowls and his body language. gross. what an embarrassment.

Posted by: annie | Sep 25 2007 5:43 utc | 60

This is the full, 81 min (embedded small screen vid) speech given today at Columbia University by President Ahmadinejad of Iran.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 25 2007 6:48 utc | 62

Bea @47:
No Sam, here is where you miss the mark. Israel does not at present want peace in the region, not at all. Israel wants to consolidate the territorial and demographic basis for an exclusively Jewish state that will never have to come to terms with the millions of non-Jewish inhabitants that it displaced. There are huge huge huge issues at stake for Israel. War and constant conflict suit its plans for gradual ethnic cleansing and continual territorial expansion just fine.
I don’t agree. Israel has already conceded to Palestine in agreements with Formet President Carter and Sharon himself pulled settlements out of Gaza. Sharon stated on the floor of the Knesset that we cannot occupy these people forever and he drew much criticism for it. Their policy is not mass genocide but persecution and targetted killing hoping Palestinians will either submit or leave. Their method of killing doesn’t even come close to the birth rate ensuring that this struggle will go on forever unless a settlement is reached.
Shortly after the last Israel Lebanon war the IDF cornered a group of resistance fighters in a Mosque in Gaza. The local women came out and offered their bodies to shield them from IDF bullets to facilitate their escape. They did kill 6 women but the IDF stopped shooting and let the enemy go. These were people that obviously had every intention of killing those Israeli soldiers that stopped shooting. If they are not willing to kill their women in masse they have no chance of ever winning militarily.
Sure you have elements that want to go into Gaza and eradicate the problem in the name of stopping the rocket fire but this never happens because it would require mass killing on a grand scale. They haven’t done it and they wont do it.
It is generally accepted that Rabin would have made a deal with Arafat. When Clinton invited Arafat to Camp David the extreme right in America went into action. They wrote the “Clean Break” and filled Israeli newspapers with OpEds denouncing any concessions towards the Arabs. This led to a change in temprement in Israel leading to Rabin’s assasination. Sharon took full advantage and thus his strut to the Temple Mount and the direct path to Prime Minister. Peace with Palestinians became an evil word. Clinton was despised by the Neocons for allowing a terrorist to come to America. They hated him just as much they hated Carter that imposed peace between Egypt and Israel. They even turned on Bush I when he threatened to withhold US money over settlement expansion. If those US elites had put pressure in the opposite direction promoting peace would those events have happened?
Most polls in Israel and America show a majority want a 2 state solution in peace. This will never happen because America wont let it. Look at the upcoming November peace initiative calling on the Arab states to parcipate yet Hamas is excluded as a terrorist entity declared so by US Congress. How can any sane person think that you can make peace with a minority of a population that is required to kill, arrest or starve their own majority. This is impossible yet it is showcased as great progress towards to a lasting peace with 2 states living side by side and living happily ever after. How can people beleive such a thing?
How many times has the UN put resolutions on the table to try and resolve the issue only to have America veto it? How many times are we told that Israeli aggression is discussed in Washington first. Whether it was the plan to bomb Lebanon or the latest bombing run in Syria, America is always involved in the discussions leading up to the event. Would Israel really act on its own? The flow of money tells the story. Always follow the money.
Did you read Krauthammer’s OpEd during the bombing of Lebanon demanding Israel bomb Syria too if wants to maintain it’s usefulness to the US? How about Cheney’s latest screed where he wants Israel to strike Iran so America can have an excuse to do shock and awe part II on Tehran? How about Bush sabatoging Israeli Syrian peace talks? Sure the parties in Israel that want peace don’t get elected any more because they don’t get any US support. You want support you have to kill people. Yitzhak Rabin is the proof.

Posted by: Sam | Sep 25 2007 7:14 utc | 64

b:
Do you imply that the Palestinian men killed their women? Do you imply the women didn’t decide for themselves to protect their men? If Gaza, as you say, isn’t occupied, why were there Israeli soldiers at all?
The IDF shot the women. I didn’t think I said the Palestinians did. Actually the call came from the loudspeakers of the other mosques for the local women to come and save the fighters. They surrounded the fighters using their bodies as shields and escorted them to safery. I never said Gaza wasn’t occupied where do you get that idea? You’ll have to ask the IDF why they were there not me. You miss my point. The IDF stopped shooting because they didn’t want to kill any more women. They allowed those they deem “terrorists” to walk right out and live to fight another day, perhaps even killing their buddies on a later date.
The point is if they are not willing to kill women and children enmasse they haven’t a hope in hell of ever winning this militarily, which means hatred and targetted killing forever.

Posted by: Sam | Sep 25 2007 7:59 utc | 66

You’ll have to ask the IDF why they were there not me.
no, i think we all have to ask why the idf was there.
the IDF cornered a group of resistance fighters in a Mosque in Gaza.
if you check our archives you will find as the world was watching lebanon we were also observing how many palestinians were killed during this period. you said it yourself, the idf cornered palestinians. where were they supposed to go? They did kill 6 women. yes they killed 6 women
the IDF stopped shooting and let the enemy go.
how generous of them? i think the enemy’invader stopped shooting after killing 6 women.
The IDF stopped shooting because they didn’t want to kill any more women.
too much blood on their hands. did it occur to you know one had to die that day?
They allowed those they deem “terrorists” to walk right out and live to fight another day,
i guess israel allows those palestinians to live every day. they could just level the whole place. maybe i can ‘deem’ israel the terroist?
perhaps even killing their buddies on a later date.
you mean the way israelis have been killing off he palestinians ‘buddies, children, teenagers w/rocks, women 10 fold compared to the israeli live that have been lost?
The point is if they are not willing to kill women and children enmasse
no, the point is they have been willing to occupy and kill off and imprison thousands of palestinians in the last few years. including many many women and children.
they haven’t a hope in hell of ever winning this militarily
oh please. not for lack of trying. if it weren’t for public opinion the palestinians would all be dead meat.
which means hatred and targetted killing forever.
face it, hatred and targetted killing is happening . i think it is the palestinians that don’t have a hope in hell. why don’t we give them 3 billion a year for their defense, and then it would be a fair fight.

Posted by: annie | Sep 25 2007 8:43 utc | 68

The point is if they are not willing to kill women and children enmasse they haven’t a hope in hell of ever winning this militarily, which means hatred and targetted killing forever.
Sounds better than it is. When you see young zionist thugs beating up old Palestinian men for no reason other than ‘he was there’ meanwhile their father (a ‘settler’ all the way from NY) cheers them on, you come to understand a larger truth which is that Israeli ‘liberals’ may not be able to kill Palestinians themselves, but they don’t need to.
All they need do is perpetuate the poisonous dehumanisation of the Palestinians and these skinheaded thugs will do it for them. Whether it is by holding an ambulance at a roadblock containing a pregnant Palestinian woman with a breeched baby long enough that both mother and child die, or with-holding Palestinian funds for so long that the fuel oil bills cannot be paid so the power generators go off and what little food there is spoils and poisons already starving Gazains.
Best of all is when the media isn’t watching, go up front and personal. The zionist thugs shooting women and children even if just by the handful at a time outside mosques before the cameras arrive, adds up. Five at a time six at a time, do you think they laughed at the notion of less Palestinians being born after they destroyed ‘half a dozen’ wombs along with the humans who owned them? Since there is nowhere left to drive the poor buggers to, zionist scum will try to kill them all.

Posted by: Debs is Dead | Sep 25 2007 8:56 utc | 70

you make a very good argument Sam and I too have come to the conclusion that most Israelis and most Jews are not happy with the present situation.
The fact remains that powerful Jewish interests control public opinion and the political process in the US. Every presidential candidate must be vetted by AIPAC, any congressman or senator who dares say anything critical of Israel is destroyed….either by a massive influx of funding for his opponent or some kind of smear. Agents of AIPAC have bragged about getting 70 Senators to sign a napkin within 24 hours.
Would you say that most US Jews are unwitting sheep, being led to slaughter by….who? Rich and powerful Gentiles? Rich and powerful Muslims? or maybe rich and powerful Jews? I suppose it could be but it certainly does not speak well for a group of people well known for their intellect and survival skills.
Why is it so easy to rile up US Jews? The dog and pony show put on for the Iranian President’s speech was organized by jewish organizations and influential Jews made horrible statements that can only be described as fearful or hateful. Even Katie Curic reading from her notebook said that Ahmadinejad had no right to visit Ground Zero. Why the hell not? Why would anyone not have the right to pay their respects to innocents killed in a tragedy of that size? Did someone think he was going there to gloat?

Posted by: dan of steele | Sep 25 2007 9:04 utc | 72

annie @ 68:
face it, hatred and targetted killing is happening .
I could of sworn I just wrote that so why do I need to face it?
Debs is Dead @70:
Sounds better than it is. When you see young zionist thugs beating up old Palestinian men for no reason other than ‘he was there’ meanwhile their father (a ‘settler’ all the way from NY) cheers them on, you come to understand a larger truth which is that Israeli ‘liberals’ may not be able to kill Palestinians themselves, but they don’t need to.
All they need do is perpetuate the poisonous dehumanisation of the Palestinians and these skinheaded thugs will do it for them.
It’s not meant to sound better or worse just relating the actual facts that happened on the ground. The only thing I’m not sure of is how, (because of memory) many women were actually shot and killed. This painting of all Israelis as thugs and evil killers is bullshit. Israelis are out there every day protesting the construction of the wall and a few of them have even been shot for their troubles. Rabbi Arik W. Ascherman was brought up on charges for standing in front of a bulldozer, just like Rachel Corrie, for trying to prevent house demolitions. He was not the only one. Jews regularly patrol the checkpoints trying to stop the soldiers from committing abuses. They are also using the courts trying to protect Palestinian land from that wall. They call them “Jewish Hamas” even on the floor of the Knesset. Ever heard the term self hating Jew?
There are lots of Jewish liberals protesting what Israel is doing and just because the US media gives them no air time doesn’t mean they don’t exist. A recent study of Jewish youth in America exposed most of them feel dissacociated from Israel more so than ever before. It was Jewish youth that sacrificed their lives in Mississippi that helped prompt Johnson to send in the troops in order to end segregation. Go to Gush Shalom’s sight and then tell me they want genocide for the Palestinians.
If most people were okay with killing Bush and company wouldn’t have to tell massive lies to get them to support the invasion of Iraq. We can’t wait for that mushroom cloud remeber? They have poured billions into stink tanks to get people to change their natural sense of justice in order to support oppression and make people think liberals are evil. Money talks.

Posted by: Sam | Sep 25 2007 10:30 utc | 74

missing the forest for a tree

The University of Rhode Island Centre for Nonviolence and Peace Studies, USA has commended Shell Nigeria for its role in promoting peace among the youths in the Niger Delta Region of the country.
Group Lauds Shell on Non-Violence Training for Youths

that’s a long way from the days when shell was arming the nigerian police and others to protect its interests, eh? it’s a cynical move though, this attempt to pacify the delta youth, b/c non-violence generally only works when the aggressor is already convinced for their own reasons to vacate/cease operations. it buys them time to pump more crude & natural gas. especially now that a permanent u.s. navy presence in the gulf is in the works.
also see 2003’s leaked shell rpt on their role in the violence & corruption in the delta
peace and security in the niger delta: conflict expert group baseline rpt

The “Peace and Security in the Niger Delta: Conflict Expert Group Baseline Report” provides the Group’s findings of: (a) the extent and how SCIN policies, practices, and corporate values/culture create, feed into or exacerbate violent conflict; (b) an external assessment of Delta-wide conflict factors and micro-conflicts taht SCIN faces; (c) the conflict management capacities the corporation can draw on (and needs to develop) in order to reach its stated objectives; and (d) strategic pitfalls (risks and areas of push-back) likely to be encountered during PaSS implementation.

Posted by: b real | Sep 25 2007 16:00 utc | 76

Why is it so easy to rile up US Jews?
dan, i know we have had this conversation before. it is not my personal experience whatsoever that jews in the US speak in a unified voice or all get ‘riled up’ together. i think there is as wipe a spectrum as the ideological scism between the left and the right of american politics.
i’m sure there are an abundance of progressive jews in israel also, just not as many as the US. ask yourself, if there were a 1000 naomi kliens, seymore hershs,maloogas or chomskys in israel, would it change coarse?
sam, just relating the actual facts that happened on the ground.
i guess i heard something in the framing. some assumptions made The IDF stopped shooting because they didn’t want to kill any more women.
we can’t be certain why they stopped shooting when the cameras arrived, they may have been following orders.
lets please not devolve into stereotypes of what all jews think and do.

Posted by: annie | Sep 25 2007 16:24 utc | 78

i’m sure there are an abundance of progressive jews in israel also, just not as many as the US. ask yourself, if there were a 1000 naomi kliens, seymore hershs,maloogas or chomskys in israel, would it change coarse?
Could it be that progressives, who by some coincident are also jews, do not identify themselves primarily as jews and therefore have see no need to talk out as such?
On the other side those who emphazise their jewishness seem to be insecure about it – insecurity is a typical rightwing pattern.

Posted by: b | Sep 25 2007 16:36 utc | 80

Could it be that progressives, who by some coincident are also jews, do not identify themselves primarily as jews and therefore have see no need to talk out as such?
jews in this country have a history of being social activists , it isn’t just a coincidence. many used to be called socialists, communists during the cold war.
i don’t know if they identify themselves as jews anymore than any other activists identifies strongly w/religion. i’m sure there are many progressive activist jews who identify strongly w/their religion, and many who don’t.

Posted by: annie | Sep 25 2007 17:40 utc | 82

@ Sam, #46
“Just imagine real peace in the region. Israeli ingenuity and Arab oil money working together to create a regional power. Now who would be against that?”
In talking with an academic just returned from Israel, he said the local, on the ground, truth was that Palestinians were much better business people than the jews, and if they had half a chance they would dominate economically.
I repeated this to a jewish academic friend of mine and asked her opinion. She said if the arabs were smarter they wouldn’t be in the fix they are in.
Sheesh!! What is the aid to Israel? Ten million U.S. per day?

Posted by: Jake | Sep 25 2007 17:42 utc | 84

once more, we have to be clear – that the likudniks, that the elites who govern the state of israel – do not represent the jewish people. those likudniks represent ‘interests’ & it is the interests that need to be understood & confronted. the vast mass of european jewry who were exterminated were proletarians & peasants. raul hilberg’s cold hard facts prove that
elites & interests intermingle – as someone pointed out here – you have a number of confluences in the war against the people of the middle east. i would much rather see the words ‘likud lobby’ than ‘jewish lobby’ because that most closely resembles the facts & even then there is an intermingling of the interests of the deeply anti semitic chiefs of oil corporations in the us & superzionists in israel
the right always uses hysteria to hide history

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 25 2007 18:06 utc | 86

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK
Senate to vote on Iraq division plan
22 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AFP) — The US Senate is expected to vote as early as Tuesday on a Bosnia-style plan to subdivide Iraq on ethnic lines, touted by backers as the sole hope of forging a federal state out of sectarian strife.
Though the measure is non-binding, and would not force a change in President George W. Bush’s war strategy even if it passes, the vote will provide a key test of an idea drawing rising interest in Washington.
Advocates say the plan, championed by Democratic senator and presidential hopeful Joseph Biden, offers a route to a political solution in Iraq that could allow US troops to eventually go home without leaving chaos behind.
A loose autonomous federation of Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni entities might look good on paper, but critics charge it ignores Iraq’s ethnic stew, such as cities where ethnic groups live side-by-side and inter-marry, and are not divided by lines on a map.
“Critics have come along and said ‘I don’t like your plan,'” Biden said, adding: “if you don’t like Biden’s proposal, what is your idea?”

Posted by: annie | Sep 25 2007 18:54 utc | 88

“Critics have come along and said ‘I don’t like your plan,'” Biden said, adding: “if you don’t like Biden’s proposal, what is your idea?”
Hey Biden, listen up – here’s an idea for starters: Why not butt out? Isn’t this something for the Iraqi people to decide? And Biden wants to become the next President of a supposedly “free and democratic nation”! If this is his idea of democracy, then I know for sure who NOT to vote for!
Such arrogance, such ignorant fools…the whole lot of em.

Posted by: Rick | Sep 25 2007 22:19 utc | 90

@Rick #90
Amen to that! How utterly absurd for one country to “vote” on the disposition of another “sovereign” country, even an “occupied” one. How arrogant and completely oblivious to even the pretense of international law we have become.

Posted by: Bea | Sep 25 2007 23:19 utc | 92

Hooray for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, he’s the bestest since Vince Lombardi”
funny rice should mention big Z. michael totten, the everything pro US blogger was waxing poetic about him just recently.
they are draggin him out now because “The Zarqawi PSYOP program is the most successful information campaign to date.”
heck, they would resurrect him from the dead if they could.
The U.S. military is conducting a propaganda campaign to magnify the role of the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq,
i guess they figure if it worked once, maybe the turnip has more blood.

Posted by: annie | Sep 26 2007 1:34 utc | 94

A proposal for a general strike on election day November 6, 2007. See also whystrike.blogspot.com. Mentioned on cursor.org.

Posted by: PeeDee | Sep 26 2007 2:03 utc | 96

good chronology of u.s. role behind somali crisis
War Crimes in Somalia, Blame the White House

Somalia is the forgotten front in the “War on Terror.” Americans are rarely told anything about what goes on there, who the actors are and, more importantly, the reasons behind conflict in the Horn of Africa. Hence it is not surprising that there has been no concerted activist challenge to U.S. support for Ethiopia’s war in Somalia, but such a challenge is urgently required.
…
..the Bush administration has been overseeing Somalian affairs since at least early 2006. In June 2006, a coalition of warlords sought to enter and take Mogadishu – causing a series of battles in which hundreds died. As it turned out, and popular rumor is backed up by the majority of regional analysts, the so-called Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism was cobbled together by the CIA and Ethiopia.
When that failed, rumors began emerging from Uganda and Baidoa, the only city controlled by the transitional government of Somalia. The Observer reported in summer 2006 that after the APCRT debacle, private military firms based in Virginia had been linking up the Ugandan government with Addis Ababa and the TG for a renewed assault on Mogadishu, which was by then controlled by the Islamic Courts Union. Letters from the employees of Select Armor and ATS Tactical discussed how their forces could avoid “another Dien Bien Phu” in Somalia. This presumably meant how they could draw the forces of the ICU into open confrontation without losing their supply lines, as the French did in Indochina.
By now, several hundred Ethiopian troops were in Baidoa, protecting the TG, and the presence of these forces – compounded by a baffling UN report which attempted to link the Islamic Courts with Hezbollah and Iranian uranium deals – meant that peace talks floundered. The Courts would not negotiate with the TG while it was a tool of the Ethiopians.
Meanwhile, with the collapse of the CIA backed warlords and the strategic retreat of the TG to Baidoa, the Islamic Courts were free to expand into other areas of Somalia, such as the southern port of Kismayo, which they captured easily, yet by expanding they gave the impression of launching a military conquest. This allowed Ethiopian president Meles Zenawi to pose as threatened by the Courts, which he duly did, using the language of Muslim-Christian conflict to arouse American support.
But the November 2006 UN report on the arms embargo on Somalia proved the final nail in the Islamist coffin. It was this report, more than anything else, which doomed the Courts to becoming another front in the War on Terror and another one launched under cover of a blitzkrieg of lies.
The report was packed with exotic fabrications, with the transparent intention of priming Somalia for a UN approved attack. For instance, its compilers presented “evidence” that 700 Somalis had travelled to Hezbollah in 2006 to fight against Israel. This was obvious nonsense. As Andrew McGregor of the Jamestown Foundation noted , “With an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 trained fighters in the ICU, the decision to send fighters to Lebanon would have stripped the Somali Islamists of nearly a third of their best men.” Moreover, while “Hezbollah did not even commit its reserves during the fighting with Israel…according to the report, Hezbollah shipped arms, which it needed in the middle of a war, to Somalia in exchange for foreign fighters that it did not need.”
The prospect beggars, and beggared belief, but that did not stop major media outlets reporting it seriously…
[more]

Posted by: b real | Sep 26 2007 3:36 utc | 98

Shit Monolycus, your 67 made me spit tea all over my keyboard…
I’d LOL, but it’s not funny.

Posted by: Anonymous | Sep 26 2007 5:43 utc | 100