Friday News Roundup - Hour 2
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-10-14/friday-news-roundup-hour-2
The plot thickened during the week as more bizarre details emerged about an alleged assassination plot against a Saudi diplomat in the U.S. capital; China warned of a trade war after the Senate passed a bill threatening to penalize countries that undervalue their currency; Israel and Hamas agreed to a prisoner swap that will see the release of Gilad Shilat after more than five years in captivity; and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi lived to fight another day after just barely scrapping through a critical confidence vote. A panel of journalists joins guest host Susan Page for analysis of the week's top national news stories.
Guests
Moises Naim
chief international columnist, El Pais.
Elise Labott
senior State Department producer for CNN.
Tom Gjelten
NPR national security correspondent and author of "Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba: The Biography of a Cause."
Comments
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Kathleen will be posting here that Bush should be tried for crimes against humanity and that Israel is at fault for all the killing of innocent Palestinans.
Early this week the MSM quickly repeated Secretary of State Clintons comments about retaliation against Iran based on alleged claims that upper level Iranian officials were involved with the alleged plot. National and local papers had headlines that read "Iran plans US attack" etc.
Is it really too much to expect our leaders and our MSM to be more careful with inflammatory, unsubstantiated and dangerous rhetoric about Iran or any other nation without hard core credible evidence?
One would think that after the WMD's in Iraq "pack of lies" and the very deadly consequences that our leaders and the MSM would be far more careful.
Thanks Meanconser. I totally agree with your statement
Me too, it's kind of an unremarkable position to hold, we share it in common with billions of people. To believe anything else would be to not live in the real world.
Yesterday on Talk of the Nation during a conversation with a caller who was questioning the integrity of Attorney General Holder and Secretary of State Clintons allegations about upper level Iranian officials being directly involved in the alleged plot to assasinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the US NPR's host Neil Conan said that
" CONAN: the attorney general of the United States has announced charges. They've released a document that specifies what they have in evidence, at least thus far, preliminary evidence against – there are allegations. We're just supposed to ignore them?
ANNE: An Iranian official?
CONAN: Yes, one of the two people indicted in the charges, an Iranian official of the Quds Force. "
ANNE: The Quds - he's literally a - he's an Iranian top-level official?
CONAN: You got it. "
Is it true that an Iranian top official has been indicted?
ANNE: Is that correct? And that's - which fellow is that?
CONAN: That's the one who's not in custody.
The Diane Rehm show needs to have Hillary Mann Leverett and Flynt Leverett on about this alleged situation with Iran and the history of US non negotiations etc with Iran. They are experts!
AT RACE FOR IRAN
Leveretts on CNN.com: “Iranian ‘Plots’ and American Hubris”
Hillary appeared yesterday on CNN International to discuss the allegations of Iranian government involvement in a bizarre plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s Ambassador in Washington (please click on the video above). Since her appearance, Obama Administration officials have been scrambling around, back-grounding reporters in an effort to boost the perceived plausibility of the U.S. government’s extremely serious accusations; for example, Reuters and the Los Angeles Times both report this morning that Administration officials say that it is very likely the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, approved the alleged plot, though the journalists writing these stories at least pointed out that U.S. officials have no evidence of this but are relying on “analysis.”
–Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett
Please discuss why one US administration after the next basically does not meet directly with Iran. I have read at the Race for Iran website hosted by former Bush administration officials Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett as well atProfessor Juan Cole's website Informed Comment and elsewhere that Israel and the Israeli lobby have pressured one administration after the next NOT TO negotiate directly with Iran. Can you discuss this.
One of your guest just said that we have to make Iran behave. Can your guest please discuss some of the charges that Seymour Hersh has made in several articles in the New Yorker about US /Israel/ Iranian relationships... that Israeli and US have had special forces on the ground in Iran for years at this point. Can you please discuss the killing of Iranian scientist which the US and Israel more than likely had a bit to do with it.
And can you also discuss the Israeli cyber attacks on Iran's nuclear program.
The US and Israel have all ready committed acts of war against Iran based on unsubstantiated claims
Can that same guest please address how Iran can get the US and Israel "to behave"
Susan Page,
Can you ask your guests to discuss why, if kathleen loves Iran so much, she doesn't just move there? Please also discuss how half-truth and inuendo like "the US and Israel more than likely had a bit to do with" are not evidence and should never shape policy? Can that same guest please address how it is ever going to be possible to get kathleen "to behave" on the message board? These are very important topics.
Your commentator wonders whether or not released Palestinian prisoners will launch attacks on Israel but not whether the released Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit or the Israeli military will now launch attacks on Palestine-- like those of late 2008 and early 2009, not to mention its blockade. Your commentator's analysis questions whether the released Palestinians will pose a security threat to Israel but doesn't consider the possibility that the massive release may indicate that Israel knows many of its captives pose no serious security threat. At least Barghouti was mentioned, though hardly in a way that opened his incarceration to critical scrutiny. Really, the bias of your commentator is irritating.
If the American people are not made to see that this Iranian regime is as big a threat to the US and its friends as the Soviet Union was at the height of the Cold War, then America is doomed. I say this because neither Nazi Germany nor Japan nor the Soviet Union controlled the oil supplies of the Middle East. Iran is one step away from control of the very life blood of the West, the oil supplies and the price of that commodity.
The American people may not yet understand that, but the Iranian regime certainly does. It is not Israel that is the main target under threat, as Israel will soon be energy independent as a result of the huge gas fields discovered offshore. It is Europe and much of the world that is dependent on Middle Eastern oil that is under threat of strangulation if Saudi ARabia and Iraqi oil fields ever come under Iranian control, even if through its proxies. It is working hard in Iraq and in Bahrain and in Saudia to eventually get that outome. And once they have the nukes and the missiles to stand us down, they will have their knife to our collective throats.
At least 120 Israelis have been casualties or killed by terrorists who were released in past such mass exchanges and releases, so Israel knows the threat. Unfortunately, the internal domestic political pressure by a vocal part of the public gave Netanyahu no choice but to finally came into Hamas's demands. It is fully recognized by much of the Israeli public that was a cave-in to terrorism, and that many Israelis will die in the future at the hands of some of these released terrorists. But constant demonstrations and sit ins outside the prime minister's office, and even outside his home just finally took its toll. Bibi had no choice but to cave-in. Hamas won this one.
Well, if Iran wants Israel and the US to "behave," it might start by recognizing Israel's right to exist, and stop calling the US the "Great Satan" that has to be brought down.
You can see what the regime says by listening to PRESSTV which is the Iranian news agency, and it can be seen on PRESSTV.IR to see what the Iranian regime says and wants.
It clearly wants to remove the US 5th fleet from Bahrain, and get the US navy out of the Persian Gulf, and weaken Saudi Arabia and eventually get some degree of control over oil prices. Their strategy is not only apparent but unfortunately working. From Iran's POV, they are winning the struggle. They see America economically weak, militarily on the decline, the public increasingly isolationist, and the Sunni Arab regimes in turmoil. So they see themselves ahead at this point in the game. They invented Chess, I believe, and can see many moves ahead.
Kathleen says that Israel has stopped the US from negotiating with Iran, though I don't really know what the US has to negotiate with Iran about. I remember how the US negotiated with Khruschev in the '60s, and all the detentes and many negotiations, but I'm not sure what they accomplished. The Soviet Union ultimately collapsed and that is what ended the threat to the United States. Before that, we helped the dissidents in the USSR and worked hard to weaken that regime wherever we could.
Again, I don't know what the negotiations would be about. Would they be about the surrender of the US? An agreement perhaps to isolate or destroy Israel? If Kathleen could explain what these negotiations would be intended to achieve, I'd like to know about it.
This regime, like the Soviet regime, has its goal of control of the Middle East, and the victory of Shia Islam over the infidels. I know that may sound crazy, but after what others like Hitler and Stalin wanted, I think there is no end to crazy leaders. The Supreme Fuehrer (Leader) of Iran, Khameini, has a "vision thing." He sees the downfall of the West and America as doable in time. Only time will tell.
jgarbuz wrote:
"This regime, like the Soviet regime, has its goal of control of the Middle East, and the victory of Shia Islam over the infidels. I know that may sound crazy, but after what others like Hitler and Stalin wanted, I think there is no end to crazy leaders. The Supreme Fuehrer (Leader) of Iran, Khameini, has a "vision thing." He sees the downfall of the West and America as doable in time."
Not crazy. In fact, one of the best summaries of the intentions and methods of Iran I have read anywhere. Nice job.
People like Kathleen and (with all due respect to Monte) Ron Paul are the Neville Chamberlains of their day.
Maybe I am missing something, I do not follow Ron Paul to the extent that I can recite his foreign policy word for word. Generally when he speaks on the topic I agree with what he says or find it to be a reasonable well thought out position. Is Ron Paul advocating the equivalent of handing over the Czechs to Hitler to avoid war?
monte asked:
" Is Ron Paul advocating the equivalent of handing over the Czechs to Hitler to avoid war?"
When you consider what his policies would do to our allies, it's roughly equivalent, yes.
I do not believe the withdrawal of our presence from the middle east will invite in a despot bent on world domination or even one bent on middle east domination. We have helped Iran with the removal of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban. As far as I see it we are fighting our allies wars for them, our soldiers and our treasure is being thrown away on people who probably do not like us very much. It would be a gamble to pull out, I see it as a necessary one. I wonder how they would all respond if the option of war or peace were put on their table. I think there would be some skirmishes but in the end a tenuous peace would strengthen into a more permanent peace, all of them badly need the revenue created by oil sales.
Israel has only caused problems for us, it was something of a bad joke that the state of Israel was put there in the first place. I do believe we are married to them and will be forced to help them and put up with them for some time to come. Inevitably through fertility rates and population shifts Israel will find itself in a sea of muslims, the right to exist will melt like an ice cube in the hot sun similar to what happened in South Africa.
Considering we are broke and in the long run cannot maintain this level of policing the world, it would be wise to at least attempt a serious withdrawal.
monte wrote:
" I wonder how they would all respond if the option of war or peace were put on their table."
If we pulled out of the ME, the surrounding Arab nations would descend on Israel like a hoard of locusts within a decade. It sounds like that is ok with you. Nuclear war would probably be the end result. I know we have different views of that country and what its future should be. But the hatred that extends to this little country by a ME muslim world that won't even acknowledge their right to exist goes back millenia. That is the core of ME conflict and is the root of problems in other ME countries. We are holding that peace together, nothing else. Oddly, though, I suspect the U.S. will abandon this ally at some point. I might give you my prediction as to how this all may play out at some point.
Haaaaa...Bluff BLUFF n Bluff
another prefabricated story by the US n the neocons lobby
American government can really crack a joke. LOL all this plot is joke
Wake up America yesterday was WMD now Saudi ambassador
this sounds so much like those NCIS AND SWAT movies from hollywood. i dont know why US has to repeat this gibbirish ,useless, unwanted ,ancient egyptian KAHIN tell TALES again and again.i am so done with their scrap lies . u know US should stop contacting their" FISHING UFO FRIENDS"and follow the LAWS of the LORD of this universe and earth .the one who created them and gave them the power to think and understand as good humans.
After reading article and comments. It is not difficult to judge the credibility of America and American official.
Dalmar wrote:
"all this plot is joke Wake up America yesterday was WMD now Saudi ambassador"
Sorry, the wire transfer trail ... the actual evidence, as opposed to the conspiracy theory that grew in your imagination, says that the wire transfers were sent from the upper eschelon of the Iranian leadership.