“Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told France’s LeMonde on Monday that Iran will not be a nuclear threat for at least three years since the country is three to eight years away from producing a nuclear bomb.

I am getting no hits on this in english, is it possible that ElBaradei said this in the french only edition of LeMonde?

Tangerine, R'giap, do you read Le Monde? did you see this article? can you find a written quote that says what JTA says he did?

are Kouchner and Sarkozy to take the place of Bliar in putting this BS out for general consumption? It will probably make some rednecks dizzy, hell they just got done pouring all that french wine down the drain and changed all the signs in the cafeteria to reflect freedom fries and freedom toast and now all of a sudden those damn frenchies are our bestest friends. glory be! it was pretty hard to accept that those evil russkies could be our buds and even stay over night at junior's farm so I guess they can handle this too.

Posted by: dan of steele | Oct 22 2007 19:58 utc | 101

bea @96 - wrong link... does not go to Asia Times

Posted by: crone | Oct 22 2007 20:21 utc | 102

(Baradei etc.)

From Le Monde, in French, 22 Oct. 2007:

“Mohamed ElBaradei pense que "l'Iran ne sera pas une menace dès demain" ..

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3218,36-969665@51-677013,0.html>le monde

another brief article in English, press tv, 22 oct 2007:

IAEA chief: No psywar on Iran

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=28145&sectionid=351020104:press tv>link

Posted by: Tangerine | Oct 22 2007 20:37 utc | 103

something different:

Halloween In Iran. (!)

- Ah, see the pictures.

(not making any particular point)

Ali Larijani (nuke negotiator) is in the middle somewhere.

http://kamangir.net/2006/10/20/iranian-halloween/>Kamangir

Posted by: Tangerine | Oct 22 2007 20:45 utc | 104

someone here recently opined something like this (paraphrasing):

Terror is a result of the political and never religion and those that would say otherwise must be guarded against...

This rankles, because it is disingenuous at best and dissembling in the worst - although I doubt the author intended to deceive and came to this conclusion honestly through a fairly benign experience with religion.

Were that only true for all the terrorized children, such as Shalom Auslander who this past weekend read from his new novel "Foreskin's Lament" at the International Festival of Authors in Toronto:

...a story of growing up in an Orthodox Jewish family, attending a yeshiva, observing all the Jewish laws and suffering what he calls 20 years of "theological abuse."

Shalom's story begins in early childhood and moves up through his teenage years, when he attended Jewish yeshivas, finally being sent to Israel, "the Oxford of f------upness."

This is Shalom, age 9, in his kosher home in Monsey, N.Y., having just devoured handfuls of biblically prohibited snack food while his mother was out of the house: "I was sick. I was diseased. I was a criminal. I was a Sodomite, an Amorite, a Hittite, A Sinite, a Givite. I was Cain. I was Esau. I was Lot's wife (mmmm, NaCl).

I wondered what was taking God so long to punish me, to throw me under a bus with a pocketful of Slim Jims, to give me a heart attack mid-Moon Pie, and when I thought that He was – when I felt a stabbing pain in my chest (heart attack) or a sharp pang in my head (brain aneurysm) – I ran to the bathroom and forced my fingers down my throat, trying to regurgitate the sins I had already swallowed ... Afterward I went back to my bedroom, beat myself in the stomach with my fists, and rocked back and forth on the edge of the bed, holding a bag of Cheez Doodles I desperately, desperately did not want to eat."

And there is at least one example of a kid from a rapturous family returning home from a day out in the woods to find his home left empty - including the dog. Living in a rural neighbourhood where the nearest home might be a coupla kliks away, no one could hear his terrified screams for his P&M as he realised that they had been lifted up to god and he was left behind for whatever sins. The guy still has nightmares apparently.

And my own familial experience of a father that was so enamored of his own catholic school days in 1920's Liverpool, that he feared we'd be forced into it here and so we are officially Presbyterian.

Mr Auslander has found he has touched many:

...But on his book tour, many others from different religions – Catholic, Mormon, Baptist – have expressed gratitude for telling their story.

"They have exactly the same issue," he says on the telephone. "I call it abuse. It's not like Santa Claus, where one day you realize it's not true. It's a serious thing to scare a child straight through their lives.

"I thought I was writing about a peculiar, unique screw-up. And then I hear from people who say, `I was raised Catholic and I can't get rid of it either.' "

After a reading in Albany, N.Y., he says, "Two very old men walked to the front, two Irishmen. One of them said, `I've waited my whole life to write about what it's like to be Catholic.'" Auslander had done it for him. But, the older man added, "Better you than me."

While he found it somewhat cathartic, it was no cure:

"I'm stuck with a real son of a bitch in my head. If he's real, then we've got a much bigger problem on our hands than if (Christopher) Hitchens (god is Not Great) is right."

Still, the fear of retribution has not ended. Whenever he hears bad news, "there's always going to be that knee-jerk reaction: This is my fault."

Remain en guard, especially with Samhainn fast approaching, pour les enfants terrible.

Posted by: jcairo | Oct 22 2007 21:02 utc | 105

jcairo @105. somebody opined...

that was me here.

the point which i made that you are referring to is

terror is a political strategy, not a religious one, so we need to be careful to not fall into the framework of discussion advanced by those who strive to equate any religion w/ terrorism

i don't see where you are discussing the same subject

Posted by: b real | Oct 22 2007 22:32 utc | 106

terror is obviously innate to religion and used to make people obey

Posted by: jcairo | Oct 22 2007 23:15 utc | 107

hehe, Ecuador wants a military base in Miami in exchange for renewing the US's lease on their base in Ecuador.

Correa, a popular leftist economist, had promised to cut off his arm before extending the lease that ends in 2009 and has called U.S. President George W. Bush a "dimwit".

outstanding idea!

I think Lebanon should also get a US base of we get a Lebanon base.

Posted by: ran | Oct 22 2007 23:18 utc | 108

Probably the terror is there innately, fear of death - which religion develops into a language for in the promise of salvation in exchange for obediance. Problem is though, how can salvation be proved in actual experience? It can't, so the fear is only transmuted from one thing to another, fear of one thing to fear of another.

Posted by: anna missed | Oct 22 2007 23:55 utc | 109

Re-posting a malfunctioning link from #96 - sorry!

Turkey Approaches "Its Finest Hour"

Posted by: Bea | Oct 23 2007 0:18 utc | 110

Mistrial Declared in Muslim Charity Case

DALLAS — The biggest terror-financing trial since Sept. 11 ended in confusion Monday, with no one convicted and many acquittals thrown out after three jurors took the rare step of disputing the verdict.

Prosecutors said they would probably retry leaders of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, as well as the organization itself, which the federal government shut down in December 2001.

Defendants and their supporters considered the outcome a victory....

"I thought they were not guilty across the board," said Neal, a 33-year-old art director from Dallas. The case "was strung together with macaroni noodles. There was so little evidence...."

"This is a stunning setback for the government," said a former U.S. attorney, Matthew Orwig. "There is absolutely nothing positive in that verdict today for the government."

The government "failed in Chicago, it failed in Florida, it failed in Texas," said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, one of dozens of Muslim groups named as unindicted co-conspirators. "The reason it failed is the government does not have the facts; it has fear."

Posted by: Bea | Oct 23 2007 0:22 utc | 111

Another good piece about the significance of Putin's trip to Iran: Caspian Summit: Putin Puts Forward A War-Avoidance Plan.

Russia is Back.

Posted by: Bea | Oct 23 2007 2:00 utc | 112

re bea's #11 story on the holy land case mistrial

from that article

The prosecution's key witness was a lawyer for the Israeli domestic security agency Shin Bet who testified under a false name. He said Palestinian charities that got Holy Land money were controlled by Hamas.

from ibrahim warde's book the price of fear: the truth behind the financial war on terror

Throughout the 1990s, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief adn Development was the subject of constant political scrutiny. With its primary focus on the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, the charity, based in Richardson, Texas, was from its early days plagued by accusations that it had close ties to Hamas - indeed that it was a front for that organization. In October 1993, one month after the historic White House handshake between Itzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, FBI agents had infiltrated a two-day gathering of the Islamic charity at the Marriott Courtyard hotel in Philadelphia. The meeting revealed a desire to torpedo the Oslo process by undermining the leadership of Arafat and continuing the resistance movement. According to the agents' account of the gathering, "It was decided that most or almost all of the funds collected in the future should be directed to enhance the Islamic Resistance Movement and to weaken the self-rule government [that later became the Palestinian Authority.] Holy War efforts should be supported by increasing spending on the injured, the prisoners and their families, adn the martyrs and their families."

Israeli authorities outlawed the Holy Land Foundation's operations in the occupied territories in 1997 and confiscated its funds. Despite a steady stream of information passed along to US authorities by the Israeli government and pro-Israel groups in the US such as the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, proving a direct link between the Holy Land Foundation and Hamas was elusive. The FBI was in favor of outlawing the Foundation but the Justice Department disagreed. According to FBI agent Robert Blitzer, "We all figured just logically that some of that [Holy Land money] was being siphoned off for bad stuff, and the Israelis told us that. But the Israelis couldn't separate a good dollar from a bad dollar, and neither could we." But more senior Justice Department officials would ask them, "How can you prove to us this money isn't saving children's lives?"

Following the September 11 attacks, the proclaimed goal of the Bush administration was to concentrate on "terrorists with global reach" - those who were a direct threat to the United States. President Bush, initially seeking to create a broad coalition against terrorism, resisted repeated Israeli demands to include various Palestinian groups such as Hamas as well as the Lebanese Hezbollah in that category. But with the growing convergence of views on terrorism issues between the Israelis and the Americans, it was only a matter of time before Hamas would be targeted.

On December 4, 2001, following suicide attacks in Israel which resulted in 25 deaths and over 200 casualties, the United States added Hamas to the list of terrorists with a "global reach," and froze the assets and accounts of the Holy Land Foundation, along with those of Beit el Mal Holdings, an investment company in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza, and Al Aqsa Islamic Bank. That morning, FBI and Treasury agents raided Holy Land offices in four states. President Bush explained: "Money raised by the Holy Land Foundation is used by Hamas to support schools and indoctrinate children to grow up to be suicide bombers. Money raised by the Holy Land Foundation is also used by Hamas to recruit suicide bombers and to support their families." In response, the Foundation said it had "never provided funds, services, or any other form of support to Hamas or any other group that advocates, sponsors, or endorses terrorism, terrorist acts, or violence in any form or for any purpose." Shukri Abu-Baker, the foundation's chief executive declared: "We are a charity. We're not in a position to fight political wars against anyone. We have always denied that accusation, and the administration did not produce any qualitative evidence. The foundation is strictly a humanitarian organization, and we have never supported Hamas." He said that about half of the $5 million the charity disbursed in the previous year had gone on clothing, food, and medicine for Palestinian refugees in the occupied territories, while the other half went to a variety of other recipients, ranging from Turkish earthquake victims, refugees in Chechnya, Kosovo, Jordan, and Lebanon, food pantries in New Jersey and Texas, and a fund for the victims of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Following the freeze, eight American Muslim organizations asked President Bush to reverse his decision and accused him of capitulating to the demands of the Israeli government and the pro-Israeli lobby.

A long legal and political battle ensued. On July 26, 2004, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development and seven of its top officials were indicted on charges of funneling $12.4 million to individuals and groups associated with Hamas between 1995, when President Clinton labeled Hamas a terrorist organization, and its closing in late 2001. The 42-count federal indictment said that the Foundation had been set up in the late 1980s "to provide financial and material support to Hamas" and that several of its top officials are related to senior leaders of Hamas, which sponsors suicide bombings against Israel. The charity's lawyer, John Boyd, said that the FBI had relied on "materially misleading" information, such as falsified or mistranslated documents, and asked the inspector general's office at the Justice Department to investigate the FBI. In his words, "Holy Land not only had nothing to do with Hamas, it assiduously avoided Hamas. The result of the FBI's conduct is that an apparently innocent organization is destroyed." [pp.142-4]

warde's book, along w/ r.t. naylor's satanic purses: money, myth, and misinformation in the war on terror, are great resources on debunking the 'financial war on terror' for the paranoic, racist fraud that it is.

Posted by: b real | Oct 23 2007 3:18 utc | 113

look for things in ethiopia's ogaden region to really heat up over the next few weeks. on the 20th the ONLF claims to have killed upwards of 140 ethiopian troops

At 6am local Ogaden time on October 20th a major ONLF military operation involving nearly one thousand ONLF troops near the town of Caado located 25km northwest of Wardheer resulted in over 140 TPLF regime troops killed with many more wounded. The TPLF regime troops were escorting Abay Tsehaye, a senior TPLF official and close confidant of Melez Zenawi.

Abay Tsehaye and a few senior officers escaped by helicopter after all land routes out of the area were blocked by ONLF forces.

Thousands of rounds of ammunition and military
hardware including communications equipment were captured by ONLF forces during the operation.

This operation was a direct response to the burning of Caado village recently and the continuing abuses against the people of Ogaden by TPLF regime forces in the Wardheer area.

ethiopia immediately denied it, but today a bbc rpt appears to confirm it

..an international aid worker in the region told BBC correspondent Elizabeth Blunt that there was confirmation an attack had taken place near Wardheer and that more than 100 people had been killed.

The aid worker added however that the government was increasingly relying on locally raised militias rather than the army in the region, and that it was possible that these militias rather than regular troops had been involved.

and today (monday) there's this
Rebels claim 250 troops killed

Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) spokesman Abdirahman Mahdi said the movements's fighters "counted at least 250 Ethiopian troops killed" near the Wardheer and Jijiga townships.

"Our commander said they counted at least 250 Ethiopian troops killed in the fighting that lasted the whole day," Mahdi said by phone from London.
...
Yesterday, the ONLF said that almost 1000 of its fighters attacked Ethiopian troops near Wardheer on Sunday, killing more than 140 of them.

Ethiopian information ministry spokesman Zemedkun Tekle denied yesterday that the any attack had taken place.

Mahdi said today's clashes flared when Ethiopia's army deployed about 1500 troops to counter-attack after its weekend losses.

"We were ready because we knew they would attack. And now we are further preparing because we know they will be stage another counter-attack," Mahdi said.

Posted by: b real | Oct 23 2007 4:49 utc | 114