Posts by Simon Grigg
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Neil:
Much as I loath the extreme right wing site antiwar.com, it's the only place where there is any indication of a first-hand account and their claim is that the briefing specifically denied that there was concrete evidence of high level involvement:
The story you quote says there was no evidence of high level IRAQI government involvement.
What it did say was:
In the end, the administration presentation suggested that there could be no other explanation for the presence of Iranian-made weapons than official government sponsorship of smuggling them into Iraq.
and from The Independent:
"We assess that these activities are coming from senior levels of the Iranian government," said an official in Baghdad, charging that the explosive devices come from the al-Quds Brigade and noting that it answers to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader
It's hard to avoid the conclusion that what Pace said twice was not a calculated moment of dissent from the official line. A minor line in the sand if you will
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sorry: "acquiescence"
and, whilst on the treadmill at the gym I realised I'd typed Seymour Hersh's name yesterday as, Hershey. I must've been having guilt pangs about the Dairy Milk and Cashews bar I'd had for breakfast (hence the treadmill)
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James, Its a shame to see the misquote re: wiping Israel off the map raising its head again, surely that has been analysed, re-analysed and so on enough so we non Farsi speakers know with reasonable certainty that he did not say that. Neither the quote about the holocaust...
here
here
and here although there are many moreI'm not disputing much of the rest of your litany of Iran's wrongs, but the USA is not one to lecture anyone when it comes to human rights abuses in recent decades, so the question remains, why is Iraq the bad guy?
That forces in the Iraqi government are talking to and interacting with their next door neighbour is not a surprise, and indeed, that non-Governmental organisations are doing so, often with the acquiesce of the Iraqi government (to deny that is do deny the screamingly obvious) is neither. Iran is the natural ally of the Shi'a government elected in the much touted democracy. You can't have it both ways.
The real and obvious fly in the ointment in Iraq is the presence of some 160,000 foreign troops that neither the Sunni or The Shi'a seem to want there. And that those troops are being killed because of that is not such a surprise either. They are occupying troops in an alien land. The United States can attempt to foist the blame for such attacks on Iran (as a part of a much wider scheme to demonise Iran) but the simple fact remains that it is Iraqis that are willingly planting the bombs and pulling the triggers that are taking American lives (and with widespread domestic support it would seem too)
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Neil,
unless Canberra and Jakarta are the same place, it seems he said it twice.Also from the Canberra story:
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denied Monday that Iran is supplying weapons to Shiite militias in Iraq or stirring up violence by majority Shiites against minority Sunni Muslims, contending that the U.S. military presence is to blame for the bloodshed.
"We are asking for peace, we are asking for security," he said on ABC's "Good Morning America." "We are opposed to any kind of conflict and also the presence of foreign forces in Iraq."
"The U.S. administration and Bush are used to accusing others. The fact that you are showing us some pieces of papers and you call them documents - they do not solve any problem," said Ahmadinejad. "There should be a court to prove the case and verify the case."
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And its the democratically elected parties in Iraq that virtually everybody agrees are the ones that Iran is allied with...it's the old argument, raised upon the invasion, that America will not like the regional stance any democracy in Iraq would take, and so it is.
That coupled with the fact that Iran is one of the few nations in the Middle East that can make any claim to being a functioning democracy.
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Well didn't deny the allegation
uhhh. Iran has denied the allegation several times. Here is one from Ahmadinejad himself, since thats what you wanted.
I'm bemused by the concept that the US Chief of Staff is being kept that far out of the loop. Perhaps Hershey was right, and there is a rebellion behind the doors at the Pentagon, if that's your argument.
Having made the statement now...twice...any restating when he returns to DC need to be taken with a large grain of cynicism
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Pace has repeated his refusal to follow the line, can you imagine the emails and calls flying from Pennsylvania Avenue to the man.
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There is some speculation that the intent of the powerpoint show in Baghdad was as much to rack up pressure on the various Shi'ite groups that the "surge" is aimed at (or at least the 'rogue elements' in those various Maliki supporting groups!), as to confront Iran.
This link is interesting in that regard.
In a nutshell: The Iran-weapons show was part of American pressure to make sure the Iraqi government agrees to include Shiite targets as well as Sunni targets in the new security plan.
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Austria must be due an ACLM or two soon too:
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although, according to some terribly important scholarly book i once read, german identity did predate the formation of the german state.
The German state as such is probably better defined as dating from the Holy Roman Empire, around (and this is from memory) about 900 AD when Charlemagne bought together all those Germanic tribes that messed so badly with the Romans over the previous thousand years
ii) Not all of those who reside within the British Isles recognise the Saesneg crown
. I was talking the other day with an Indonesian friend about how the Dutch could control this country for three centuries, inter-marry in this country, breed in this country, have a population of hundreds of thousand who were here for generations (most of whom had no family or ties in Holland), and yet be tossed out as if they had arrived on the last boat, almost in toto, in 1949. My friend said "half a millennium is not such a long time here". And so it seems, right now, in the not so United Kingdom.