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Rowan Berkeley

Published Letters: 176

Tuesday, May 20, 2008 10:54 AM

@ dash

Dash said, a few comments back, that regarding "Wiping Israel off the Map, context is everything : If I recall correctly, this statement -- or any better translation of it -- came in the context of Dick Cheney openly advocating that Israel launch a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities (clearly as a proxy for the US doing so). Iran's governmental response was, not surprisingly, if Israel did such a thing, Iran would "wipe them off the map."

Well, Dash, you not only do not recall correctly, you do not recall at all, you are imagining this exchange, which never took place at all.

In an October 2005 speech to a conference on a "World without Zionism," Ahmadinejad was quoted by a state-run Iranian news agency as agreeing with a statement by Iran's late spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, that "Israel must be wiped off the map." Iran's foreign minister later said the comment had been incorrectly translated from Farsi, and that Ahmadinejad was "talking about the regime," which Iran does not recognize and wants to see collapse. According to Farsi-speaking commentators, including Juan Cole, a professor of Middle Eastern history at the University of Michigan, Ahmadinejad's exact quote was, "The Imam said that this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time."

but then, Juan Cole is a cheese-eating surrender monkey, of course, so he is doubtless lying about the literal meaning of the Farsi words, and the leftist elitists are all covering up for him.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008 06:22 PM

It's good to get another perspective

I was cheered by M K Bhadrakumar in Asia Times, even though I don't believe the rumor about the aborted Israeli air attack on Beirut (which started with the mysterious 'Franklin Lamb' in CounterPunch):

http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JE21Ak02.html

Tuesday, May 20, 2008 06:54 PM

@ bamage regarding hypothetical Iran air attack

As I expect you know I watch this question like the well known hawk, though not for the same reason, and I can tell you that there isn't going to be an Iran air attack, the whole thing is just another wave of bluster. What we do get is what the US (if it was on the receiving end) would call "terror groups" inside Iran, financed by US and UK, blowing up mosques.

M K Bhadrakumar sums up the real state of affairs pretty well here (except I don't share his belief in the CounterPunch story about the aborted Israeli air attack on Beirut May 11):

http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JE21Ak02.html

celery, you are no longer funny or interesting or relevant - it is high time you started trying to be at least relevant, and cut out the fake zen.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008 07:08 PM

three good things

(1) now I realise that despite william timberman's attempt to insinuate otherwise, the complaints of off topic posts were almost certainly not aimed at me, but at the idiotic, time and space wasting celery troll.

(2) L.W.M. managed to get a good discussion of North and Rushdoony onto the WaPo standards thread before it closed.

(3) the c1.zedo.com pop-unders seem to have disappeared.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008 07:21 PM

cite one , by url.

I see now, he thinks he's a mental cartoonist, a la scott bateman, but I have news for him : no one sees his funny mental cartoons, except himself.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008 07:32 PM

McCain is "likeable"?

excuse my unkind language, but he's a freak.

by the way, have you seen this TV ad for him? it is, as Srah Posner accurately said, "creepy." I find the "E.T." imagery especially unpleasant:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EhYsF5uPpY

Tuesday, May 20, 2008 07:40 PM

well, if this is a cult , count me out of it

you don't need to hear about the real world, stick to your fantasy one, bye guys

Tuesday, May 20, 2008 07:50 PM

I can't resist one final parting shot

Greenwald has set an agenda with this article, of ignoring the fact that the common factor of the blue dogs is their ZIONISM.

So much for Salon being "Arab owned."

Tuesday, May 20, 2008 08:07 PM

those deep, deep greenwald eyes

and all the personality of a tapeworm.

by all means, come to my blog, ron pauliac, the more hits I get, the happier I am.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008 09:11 AM
Original article: San Francisco values

See how they slip the oil price in there?

Anybody care to think about the idea that a good representative should be concentrating on forcing the oil producing nations to supply cheap oil, instead of distracting the voters with puritan lifestyle backlash nonsense?

I mean, who said that (a) cheap oil was good, or (b) that those wicked countries out there - as opposed to the oil companies - were over-charging?

Because, if you're honest with yourselves, you will admit that that is the default assumption.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008 09:22 PM

It is all about re fighting World War Two with Iran (or whoever) as Germany

It seems to me that none of you are strong enough psychologically to tackle this meme head on. Leftish Jews run away from the threat by saying "we aren't all like that" (no one said you were) ; non-Jewish leftists mutter and mumble about how regrettable it is that anyone who opposes likud zionism is inadvertently giving aid and comfort to anti-Semites ; right wing Jews like electro robot tell everyone that they are all exterminationist anti-Semities anyway and they just aren't being honest about it, the implication being that a US coup d'etat putting the Air Force in charge of the planet would be a good thing, since the Mikey Weinsteins of this world are just liberal whimps anyway ; and so on, you can invent your own twisted replicas for all the types involved.

None of you are psychologically strong enough to tackle this, because it has been deliberately set up that way, via a whole slew of movies and tv series which have imposed a psychological regime of horror you cannot face head on, the methodology having been derived from experiments conducted in 'psychic driving' (i.e. brainwashing) of unwilling subjects over a period of several decades by the CIA.

I tried to explain this in easy stages to the Glenn Greeenwald crowd, but they just shuffled their feet and blathered, so now I am saying it straight out in one fell swoop so you can take it or leave it, I don't care. I am not going to make any friends here anyway, that's obvious. I'm not even 'American' (thank God).

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