The Russians call it Kompromat – the use by the state of sexual accusations to destroy a public figure. When I was attacked in this way by the government I worked for, Uzbek dissidents smiled at me, shook their heads and said “Kompromat“. They were used to it from the Soviet and Uzbek governments. They found it rather amusing to find that Western governments did it too.
Well, Julian Assange has been getting the bog standard Kompromat. I had imagined he would get something rather more spectacular, like being framed for murder and found hanging with an orange in his mouth. He deserves a better class of kompromat. If I am a whistleblower, then Julian is a veritable mighty pipe organ. Yet we just have the normal sex stuff, and very weak.
Bizarrely the offence for which Julian is wanted for questioning in Sweden was dropped from rape to sexual harassment, and then from sexual harassment to just harassment. The precise law in Swedish, as translated for me and other Sam Adams alumni by our colleague Major Frank Grevil, reads:
“He who lays hands on or by means of shooting from a firearm, throwing of stones, noise or in any other way harasses another person will be sentenced for harassment to fines or imprisonment for up to one year.”
So from rape to non-sexual something. Actually I rather like that law – if we had it here, I could have had Jack Straw locked up for a year.
Julian tells us that the first woman accuser and prime mover had worked in the Swedish Embassy in Washington DC and had been expelled from Cuba for anti-Cuban government activity, as well as the rather different persona of being a feminist lesbian who owns lesbian night clubs.
Scott Ritter and I are well known whistleblowers subsequently accused of sexual offences. A less well known whistleblower is James Cameron, another FCO employee. Almost simultaneous with my case, a number of the sexual allegations the FCO made against Cameron were identical even in wording to those the FCO initially threw at me.
Another fascinating point about kompromat is that being cleared of the allegations – as happens in virtually every case – doesn’t help, as the blackening of reputation has taken effect. In my own case I was formerly cleared of all allegations of both misconduct and gross misconduct, except for the Kafkaesque charge of having told defence witnesses of the existence of the allegations. The allegations were officially a state secret, even though it was the government who leaked them to the tabloids.
Yet, even to this day, the FCO has refused to acknowledge in public that I was in fact cleared of all charges. This is even true of the new government. A letter I wrote for my MP to pass to William Hague, complaining that the FCO was obscuring the fact that I was cleared on all charges, received a reply from a junior Conservative minister stating that the allegations were serious and had needed to be properly investigated – but still failing to acknowledge the result of the process. Nor has there been any official revelation of who originated these “serious allegations”.
Governments operate in the blackest of ways, especially when it comes to big war money and big oil money. I can see what they are doing to Julian Assange, I know what they did to me and others (another recent example – Brigadier Janis Karpinski was framed for shoplifting). In a very real sense, it makes little difference if they murdered David Kelly or terrified him into doing it himself. Telling the truth is hazardous in today’s Western political system.
Suhayl Saadi,
thanks for the interesting links about Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff. The Independent article is followed by many highly derogatory comments, and Dilma Rousseff’s Wikipedia entry is currently closed to editing due to “vandalism”. The supporters of capitalism clearly don’t like this woman, and I reckon the US establishment will be most unhappy if she gets elected.
For alan campbell – a new release from PressTV:
“As Iran’s president calls for a special tribunal to probe into the 9/11 attacks, a senior Iranian lawmaker says an investigation into the case would benefit the US.
“The performance of the US and the Zionist lobby will be put under question if Washington seeks to prevent the establishment of a fact-finding committee to investigate the (September 11) event through exerting pressure on the United Nations,” said Alaeddin Boroujerdi, chairman of the Majlis (Parliament) Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy Commission on Sunday.
He added that in case the US blocks the formation of the tribunal, the possibility that the role of the US and Israel in the terrorist attacks gets exposed will gain momentum.
Boroujerdi said a call by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to set up an independent committee will be a major step towards exposing the hidden aspects of the attacks.
He went on to say the US has very sophisticated intelligence and security apparatus and added that it was highly unlikely that a terrorist group would infiltrate such security layers to wage such major attacks.”
Quite rational to want an investigation into the case. Quite rational that it would benefit the US. Or not?
Interesting, Clark, I hadn’t noticed that. Maybe it was the pic! Those specs truly were early 1970s urban guerrilla chic, weren’t they – but of course, here was a young woman staring into the face of her torturer; she was for real.
I’m sure you’re right, though, there’ll be powerful opponents inside and outside Brazil, and it just takes a few people – or even one person – to vandalise a Wiki-page.
Mind you, they said (and say) the same, or even worse, things about Lula, and Chavez, and Morales and… the imperialists lost!
So, the more of such leaders and their teams are elected and function in the systems of these countries and work together across the continent and beyond, the less easy is becomes for them to be uprooted by the forces of imperialism.
I’m really pleased the people of South America are gaining real freedom, finally, after so many centuries. It just demonstrates what can be done, if there is a will and a systematic approach. And that it doesn’t require oceans of blood to achieve it. It’s not perfect, it’s not easy, there are 200 million people in Brazil alone, but one senses that now, in these once blighted lands, there is hope and a better reality.
Thanks Clark – reading
Suhayl,
No Hague is the archetypal precursor to the ‘awakening’ and his downfall is hopefully in the hands of enlightened people. A British manifestation of ‘compassionate conservatism’ Hague is a quintessential element of the ‘great deception’ and Britain’s connection to the mortally wounded legacy of George W Bush picked up by the multi-colored[sic] multi-dimensional team Obama.
How the ‘great plan’ faltered is obvious although I will give my insight later.
Now I believe we are in a race condition – will the ‘awakening’ win or will the ‘Olasky syndrome’ prevail – the answer of course is out of my hands.
“Quite rational to want an investigation into the case”.
Nah. Deranged. It might lead to enhanced insights into how the attacks happened and assist our fight against global terror. What sane person would want that?
Mark, intriguing, as always. Can’t wait – for ‘the awakening’ and also for the insight! Go for it, man! When you’re ready, I mean, of course.
Btw, on a previous note, I forgot to say that anyone found – or even rumoured – to have been listening to Phil Collins’s solo ‘music’ or any of Tina Turner’s 1980s hits in the region north of The Mounth will be picked-up under Operation Krackpot and rendered into a state of permanent sensory deprivation, aka ‘spaceboarded’.
Operation ‘Krackdown’ coming to an area near you soon?
http://www.antiwarcommittee.org/?q=node/533
“Quite rational to want an investigation into the case”.
Agree with MJ.
The great thing about not discovering who did 9/11 is that you remain free to blame it on anyone you like.
First Bin Liner, then Sadam, next Ahm-Mad-for-Jihad?
So the Iranians seem to have a good reason for holding a public investigation of 9/11, although the liklihood that it would have greater credibility than Ahm-Mad’s Holocaust inquiry must be slight.
“”If I am a whistleblower, then Julian is a veritable mighty pipe organ.”
A pipe organ, eh? What kind of “mighty” pipe-organ? As in the “mighty Wurlitzer””
We’ll know for sure if Assange leaks the document proving Iran did 9/11.
Sorry Chums, the Awakening has begun, and from a most unexpected quarter – half the commenters on the Daily Mail story about Ahmadinejad agree with his views about 9/11.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1314667/Ahmadinejad-tells-UN-Some-believe-9-11-work-Americans-save-Israel.html
The Powers That Be have sure got a problem when even the Daily Mail readers aren’t buying the official narrative.
For Dreoilin,
Re: The irrelevance of Posse comitatus
“Intelligence Committee Vice-Chair Christopher Bond said the economic crisis is now “the primary focus of the intelligence community.” As the Army War College has warned, the response to this coming phase of the economic crisis “might include use of military force against hostile groups inside the United States.””
The rest of the article contains much more on martial law in the US:
http://pubrecord.org/special-to-the-public-record/8315/world-global-banking-cartel/
“The Powers That Be have sure got a problem when even the Daily Mail readers aren’t buying the official [9/11] narrative.”
Which is why it is so important that trustworthy people like Julian Assange tell us how he is “constantly annoyed that people are distracted by false conspiracies such as 9/11.” And of course CM who explains that the towers fell down becuase they weren’t bolted together properly.
yeay! let’s all rise up on a hypothesis!
still, it reflects the ‘we don’t trust you an inch, you murdering swine’ public feeling, right enough. Remember, 70 odd percent everywhere were against these attacks?
not sure who it benefits, when faith in the representational system destructs, though. And when people start tearing things down instead of trying to reboot them. Gangsters?
Am thinking of the Portuguese revolution of the flowers; a different time, where communities and families still flourished and still, it got quite hairy. I worry about the pensioners and the vulnerable in our fragmented society should the push come to shove.
technicolour, was that you at 10:37pm? You write in a very distinctive voice.
KingofWelshNoir, yes, I’ve noticed this over the death (oh, let’s just dispense with the niceties and call it what it is), the murder, of Gareth Williams as well.
I think the lies have become so blatent, so unashamed and so patronising, and yes, as (I think) technicolour suggests, so much of the UK public was aghast and angry at what the Government of Blair et al did over Iraq, yes, there has been a decisive shift in the trust the public (even Daily Mail readers) puts in institutional power, (and viewing matters from a traditionalist, right-wing, conservative point-of-view) in those who claim they act on behalf of ‘Queen and Country’. A loss of faith, one might say. And once you’ve lost faith, it doesn’t come back.
suhayl: yep
still, these things were not done in our name. i guess people who discover they lived next door to a (very rare) murderer feel the same; that they could have done more to stop/change things. But we didn’t know how much it would take, back then. We thought marching was enough.
“Sorry Chums, the Awakening has begun, and from a most unexpected quarter – half the commenters on the Daily Mail story about Ahmadinejad agree with his views about 9/11.”
No “Awakening” has begun, you silly gooses. Members of the 911 truth religion are always waiting for a chance to comment on any story on the great 911 conspiracy theory, so that’s why you’re seeing a great deal of idiocy there. Normal people just don’t care about this.
Suhayl: if you think that the “Awakening” has begun, you’re a bigger idiot that I thought.
911 conspiracy retards will remain marginalized where they should be.
I’ve got Barack Obama, the President of Finland and Noam Chomsky on my side. On your side you’ve got a guy who denies that there are homosexuals in Iran, in part because that helps his regime imprison homosexuals.
Have you noticed how you people are getting increasingly delusional?
Your 911 truth movement fails more every day, yet increasingly you think that the Truth is just about to be revealed.
Sorry Tech – but a reboot doesn’t clean out the garbage.
what does then? and who are the ‘garbage’? anyone who has had anything to do with this? the 270 MP’s who voted against attacking Iraq? the MPs who were deluded into voting for it?
Blair has cleared out; gone: laughed at here, he knows he can’t come back. What do we do now? We have a government seemingly intent on punishing the poor, the homeless, the disabled, the female, the old and the travellers. And councils which seem often keen on carrying this out.
Has anyone looked at what their council is doing recently?
Mark, by the way, I was shocked and to find that your charity seems to be the only one trying directly to help the people of Iraq. Am I right? How can this be?
“Mark, by the way, I was shocked and to find that your charity seems to be the only one trying directly to help the people of Iraq. Am I right? How can this be?”
Are you that stupid?
Hundreds, if not thousands, of charities are working to directly benefit the Iraqi people.
Thankfully, your jihadist friends have not been completely able to stop their efforts.
Is there any evidence that Mark Golding has done anything? He seems merely like a conspiracy nut who’s into war porn.
Anyone can set up a website and litter it with horrible pictures.
@ Larry from St. Louis …try to post the truth…
The following text by Arash Norouzi first published by the Mossadegh Project and Global Research in January 2007 confirms that the alleged “Wiped Off the Map” statement by Iran’s president was never made.
The rumor was fabricated by the American media with a view to discrediting Iran’s head of state and providing a justification for waging an all out war on Iran. the article provides of media manipulation and “propaganda in action”.
Iran is blamed for refusing to abide by the “reasonable demands” of “the international community”.
Realities are twisted and turned upside down. Iran is being accused of wanting to start a war. Inherent in US military doctrine, the victims of war are heralded as the aggressor.
The threat to global security comes from the US-NATO-Israel military alliance, which is now threatening Iran with a pre-emptive attack with nuclear warheads.
If Iran is attacked, we are potentially in a World War III scenario.
It is essential to dispel the fabrications of the Western media.
Iran does not constitute a threat to to Global Security.
Iran does not possess a nuclear weapons program. Iran does not constitute a threat to Israel.
Michel Chossudovsky, 25 September 2010
——————————————————————————–
Wiped off The Map: The Rumor of the Century
by Arash Norouzi
Global Research, January 20, 2007
The Mossadegh Project
Across the world, a dangerous rumor has spread that could have catastrophic implications. According to legend, Iran’s President has threatened to destroy Israel, or, to quote the misquote, “Israel must be wiped off the map”. Contrary to popular belief, this statement was never made, as the following article will prove.
BACKGROUND:
On Tuesday, October 25th, 2005 at the Ministry of Interior conference hall in Tehran, newly elected Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivered a speech at a program, reportedly attended by thousands, titled “The World Without Zionism”. Large posters surrounding him displayed this title prominently in English, obviously for the benefit of the international press. Below the poster’s title was a slick graphic depicting an hour glass containing planet Earth at its top. Two small round orbs representing the United States and Israel are shown falling through the hour glass’ narrow neck and crashing to the bottom.
Before we get to the infamous remark, it’s important to note that the “quote” in question was itself a quote?” they are the words of the late Ayatollah Khomeini, the father of the Islamic Revolution. Although he quoted Khomeini to affirm his own position on Zionism, the actual words belong to Khomeini and not Ahmadinejad. Thus, Ahmadinejad has essentially been credited (or blamed) for a quote that is not only unoriginal, but represents a viewpoint already in place well before he ever took office.
THE ACTUAL QUOTE:
So what did Ahmadinejad actually say? To quote his exact words in farsi:
“Imam ghoft een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad.”
That passage will mean nothing to most people, but one word might ring a bell: rezhim-e. It is the word “Regime”, pronounced just like the English word with an extra “eh” sound at the end. Ahmadinejad did not refer to Israel the country or Israel the land mass, but the Israeli regime. This is a vastly significant distinction, as one cannot wipe a regime off the map. Ahmadinejad does not even refer to Israel by name, he instead uses the specific phrase “rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods” (regime occupying Jerusalem).
So this raises the question.. what exactly did he want “wiped from the map”? The answer is: nothing. That’s because the word “map” was never used. The Persian word for map, “nagsheh”, is not contained anywhere in his original farsi quote, or, for that matter, anywhere in his entire speech. Nor was the western phrase “wipe out” ever said. Yet we are led to believe that Iran’s President threatened to “wipe Israel off the map”, despite never having uttered the words “map”, “wipe out” or even “Israel”.
THE PROOF:
The full quote translated directly to English:
“The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time”.
Word by word translation:
Imam (Khomeini) ghoft (said) een (this) rezhim-e (regime) ishghalgar-e (occupying) qods (Jerusalem) bayad (must) az safheh-ye ruzgar (from page of time) mahv shavad (vanish from).
Here is the full transcript of the speech in farsi, archived on Ahmadinejad’s web site
http://www.president.ir/farsi/ahmadinejad/speeches/1384/aban-84/840804sahyonizm.htm
THE SPEECH AND CONTEXT:
While the false “wiped off the map” extract has been repeated infinitely without verification, Ahmadinejad’s actual speech itself has been almost entirely ignored. Given the importance placed on the “map” comment, it would be sensible to present his words in their full context to get a fuller understanding of his position. In fact, by looking at the entire speech, there is a clear, logical trajectory leading up to his call for a “world without Zionism”. One may disagree with his reasoning, but critical appraisals are infeasible without first knowing what that reasoning is.
In his speech, Ahmadinejad declares that Zionism is the West’s apparatus of political oppression against Muslims. He says the “Zionist regime” was imposed on the Islamic world as a strategic bridgehead to ensure domination of the region and its assets. Palestine, he insists, is the frontline of the Islamic world’s struggle with American hegemony, and its fate will have repercussions for the entire Middle East.
Ahmadinejad acknowledges that the removal of America’s powerful grip on the region via the Zionists may seem unimaginable to some, but reminds the audience that, as Khomeini predicted, other seemingly invincible empires have disappeared and now only exist in history books. He then proceeds to list three such regimes that have collapsed, crumbled or vanished, all within the last 30 years:
(1) The Shah of Iran- the U.S. installed monarch
(2) The Soviet Union
(3) Iran’s former arch-enemy, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein
In the first and third examples, Ahmadinejad prefaces their mention with Khomeini’s own words foretelling that individual regime’s demise. He concludes by referring to Khomeini’s unfulfilled wish: “The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time. This statement is very wise”. This is the passage that has been isolated, twisted and distorted so famously. By measure of comparison, Ahmadinejad would seem to be calling for regime change, not war.
THE ORIGIN:
One may wonder: where did this false interpretation originate? Who is responsible for the translation that has sparked such worldwide controversy? The answer is surprising.
The inflammatory “wiped off the map” quote was first disseminated not by Iran’s enemies, but by Iran itself. The Islamic Republic News Agency, Iran’s official propaganda arm, used this phrasing in the English version of some of their news releases covering the World Without Zionism conference. International media including the BBC, Al Jazeera, Time magazine and countless others picked up the IRNA quote and made headlines out of it without verifying its accuracy, and rarely referring to the source. Iran’s Foreign Minister soon attempted to clarify the statement, but the quote had a life of its own. Though the IRNA wording was inaccurate and misleading, the media assumed it was true, and besides, it made great copy.
Amid heated wrangling over Iran’s nuclear program, and months of continuous, unfounded accusations against Iran in an attempt to rally support for preemptive strikes against the country, the imperialists had just been handed the perfect raison d’etre to invade. To the war hawks, it was a gift from the skies.
It should be noted that in other references to the conference, the IRNA’s translation changed. For instance, “map” was replaced with “earth”. In some articles it was “The Qods occupier regime should be eliminated from the surface of earth”, or the similar “The Qods occupying regime must be eliminated from the surface of earth”. The inconsistency of the IRNA’s translation should be evidence enough of the unreliability of the source, particularly when transcribing their news from Farsi into the English language.
THE REACTION:
The mistranslated “wiped off the map” quote attributed to Iran’s President has been spread worldwide, repeated thousands of times in international media, and prompted the denouncements of numerous world leaders. Virtually every major and minor media outlet has published or broadcast this false statement to the masses. Big news agencies such as The Associated Press and Reuters refer to the misquote, literally, on an almost daily basis.
Following news of Iran’s remark, condemnation was swift. British Prime Minister Tony Blair expressed “revulsion” and implied that it might be necessary to attack Iran. U.N. chief Kofi Annan cancelled his scheduled trip to Iran due to the controversy. Ariel Sharon demanded that Iran be expelled from the United Nations for calling for Israel’s destruction. Shimon Peres, more than once, threatened to wipe Iran off the map. More recently, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, who has warned that Iran is “preparing another holocaust for the Jewish state” is calling for Ahmadinejad to be tried for war crimes for inciting genocide.
The artificial quote has also been subject to additional alterations. U.S. officials and media often take the liberty of dropping the “map” reference altogether, replacing it with the more acutely threatening phrase “wipe Israel off the face of the earth”. Newspaper and magazine articles dutifully report Ahmadinejad has “called for the destruction of Israel”, as do senior officials in the United States government.
President George W. Bush said the comments represented a “specific threat” to destroy Israel. In a March 2006 speech in Cleveland, Bush vowed he would resort to war to protect Israel from Iran, because, “..the threat from Iran is, of course, their stated objective to destroy our strong ally Israel.” Former Presidential advisor Richard Clarke told Australian TV that Iran “talks openly about destroying Israel”, and insists, “The President of Iran has said repeatedly that he wants to wipe Israel off the face of the earth”. In an October 2006 interview with Amy Goodman, former UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter referred to Ahmadinejad as “the idiot that comes out and says really stupid, vile things, such as, ‘It is the goal of Iran to wipe Israel off the face of the earth’ “. The consensus is clear.
Confusing matters further, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad pontificates rather than give a direct answer when questioned about the statement, such as in Lally Weymouth’s Washington Post interview in September 2006:
Are you really serious when you say that Israel should be wiped off the face of the Earth?
We need to look at the scene in the Middle East ?” 60 years of war, 60 years of displacement, 60 years of conflict, not even a day of peace. Look at the war in Lebanon, the war in Gaza ?” what are the reasons for these conditions? We need to address and resolve the root problem.
Your suggestion is to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth?
Our suggestion is very clear:… Let the Palestinian people decide their fate in a free and fair referendum, and the result, whatever it is, should be accepted…. The people with no roots there are now ruling the land.
You’ve been quoted as saying that Israel should be wiped off the face of the Earth. Is that your belief?
What I have said has made my position clear. If we look at a map of the Middle East from 70 years ago…
So, the answer is yes, you do believe that it should be wiped off the face of the Earth?
Are you asking me yes or no? Is this a test? Do you respect the right to self-determination for the Palestinian nation? Yes or no? Is Palestine, as a nation, considered a nation with the right to live under humane conditions or not? Let’s allow those rights to be enforced for these 5 million displaced people.
The exchange is typical of Ahmadinejad’s interviews with the American media. Predictably, both Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes and CNN’s Anderson Cooper asked if he wants to “wipe Israel off the map”. As usual, the question is thrown back in the reporter’s face with his standard “Don’t the Palestinians have rights?, etc.” retort (which is never directly answered either). Yet he never confirms the “map” comment to be true. This did not prevent Anderson Cooper from referring to earlier portions of his interview after a commercial break and lying, “as he said earlier, he wants Israel wiped off the map”.
Even if every media outlet in the world were to retract the mistranslated quote tomorrow, the major damage has already been done, providing the groundwork for the next phase of disinformation: complete character demonization. Ahmadinejad, we are told, is the next Hitler, a grave threat to world peace who wants to bring about a new Holocaust. According to some detractors, he not only wants to destroy Israel, but after that, he will nuke America, and then Europe! An October 2006 memo titled Words of Hate: Iran’s Escalating Threats released by the powerful Israeli lobby group AIPAC opens with the warning, “Ahmadinejad and other top Iranian leaders are issuing increasingly belligerent statements threatening to destroy the United States, Europe and Israel.” These claims not only fabricate an unsubstantiated threat, but assume far more power than he actually possesses. Alarmists would be better off monitoring the statements of the ultra-conservative Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, who holds the most power in Iran.
As Iran’s U.N. Press Officer, M.A. Mohammadi, complained to The Washington Post in a June 2006 letter:
It is not amazing at all, the pick-and-choose approach of highlighting the misinterpreted remarks of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in October and ignoring this month’s remarks by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that “We have no problem with the world. We are not a threat whatsoever to the world, and the world knows it. We will never start a war. We have no intention of going to war with any state.”
The Israeli government has milked every drop of the spurious quote to its supposed advantage. In her September 2006 address to the United Nations General Assembly, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni accused Iran of working to nuke Israel and bully the world. “They speak proudly and openly of their desire to ‘wipe Israel off the map.’ And now, by their actions, they pursue the weapons to achieve this objective to imperil the region and threaten the world.” Addressing the threat in December, a fervent Prime Minister Ehud Olmert inadvertently disclosed that his country already possesses nuclear weapons: “We have never threatened any nation with annihilation. Iran, openly, explicitly and publicly threatens to wipe Israel off the map. Can you say that this is the same level, when they are aspiring to have nuclear weapons, as America, France, Israel, Russia?”
MEDIA IRRESPONSIBILITY:
On December 13, 2006, more than a year after The World Without Zionism conference, two leading Israeli newspapers, The Jerusalem Post and Haaretz, published reports of a renewed threat from Ahmadinejad. The Jerusalem Post’s headline was Ahmadinejad: Israel will be ‘wiped out’, while Haaretz posted the title Ahmadinejad at Holocaust conference: Israel will ‘soon be wiped out’.
Where did they get their information? It turns out that both papers, like most American and western media, rely heavily on write ups by news wire services such as the Associated Press and Reuters as a source for their articles. Sure enough, their sources are in fact December 12th articles by Reuter’s Paul Hughes [Iran president says Israel’s days are numbered], and the AP’s Ali Akbar Dareini [Iran President: Israel Will be wiped out].
The first five paragraphs of the Haaretz article, credited to “Haaretz Service and Agencies”, are plagiarized almost 100% from the first five paragraphs of the Reuters piece. The only difference is that Haaretz changed “the Jewish state” to “Israel” in the second paragraph, otherwise they are identical.
The Jerusalem Post article by Herb Keinon pilfers from both the Reuters and AP stories. Like Haaretz, it uses the following Ahmadinejad quote without attribution: [“Just as the Soviet Union was wiped out and today does not exist, so will the Zionist regime soon be wiped out,” he added]. Another passage apparently relies on an IRNA report:
“The Zionist regime will be wiped out soon the same way the Soviet Union was, and humanity will achieve freedom,” Ahmadinejad said at Tuesday’s meeting with the conference participants in his offices, according to Iran’s official news agency, IRNA.
He said elections should be held among “Jews, Christians and Muslims so the population of Palestine can select their government and destiny for themselves in a democratic manner.”
Once again, the first sentence above was wholly plagiarized from the AP article. The second sentence was also the same, except “He called for elections” became “He said elections should be held..”.
It gets more interesting.
The quote used in the original AP article and copied in The Jerusalem Post article supposedly derives from the IRNA. If true, this can easily be checked. Care to find out? Go to:
http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/menu-234/0612134902101231.htm
There you will discover the actual IRNA quote was:
“As the Soviet Union disappeared, the Zionist regime will also vanish and humanity will be liberated”.
Compare this to the alleged IRNA quote reported by the Associated Press:
“The Zionist regime will be wiped out soon the same way the Soviet Union was, and humanity will achieve freedom”.
In the IRNA’s actual report, the Zionist regime will vanish just as the Soviet Union disappeared. Vanish. Disappear. In the dishonest AP version, the Zionist regime will be “wiped out”. And how will it be wiped out? “The same way the Soviet Union was”. Rather than imply a military threat or escalation in rhetoric, this reference to Russia actually validates the intended meaning of Ahmadinejad’s previous misinterpreted anti-Zionist statements.
What has just been demonstrated is irrefutable proof of media manipulation and propaganda in action. The AP deliberately alters an IRNA quote to sound more threatening. The Israeli media not only repeats the fake quote but also steals the original authors’ words. The unsuspecting public reads this, forms an opinion and supports unnecessary wars of aggression, presented as self defense, based on the misinformation.
This scenario mirrors the kind of false claims that led to the illegal U.S. invasion of Iraq, a war now widely viewed as a catastrophic mistake. And yet the Bush administration and the compliant corporate media continue to marinate in propaganda and speculation about attacking Iraq’s much larger and more formidable neighbor, Iran. Most of this rests on the unproven assumption that Iran is building nuclear weapons, and the lie that Iran has vowed to physically destroy Israel. Given its scope and potentially disastrous outcome, all this amounts to what is arguably the rumor of the century.
Iran’s President has written two rather philosophical letters to America. In his first letter, he pointed out that “History shows us that oppressive and cruel governments do not survive”. With this statement, Ahmadinejad has also projected the outcome of his own backwards regime, which will likewise “vanish from the page of time”.
Arash Norouzi is an artist and co-founder of The Mossadegh Project
Larry’s ill-natured and uninformative interventions provide a useful daily reminder of the Zionist mindset.
“Anyone can set up a website and litter it with horrible pictures.” says Larry, in reference to Mark Goldings’s website.
Once can imagine a blimpish Nazi saying the same thing of a display of images of Jews being driven into gas chambers at bayonette point, or being stacked naked prior to incineration.
Incog and Qark
Alfred’s spare pair of socks?
When you are a bigot, you don’t ask questions. I ask myself:
Why would the UK and the US create both Israel and al-qaida if they had a secular, global, economic masterplan?
Why not use raw power and raw media as they have traditionally done?
Why have we been taxed by our governments with the moral choice of focussing our minds on the hereafter, wearing simple clothes, fasting and worshipping God and obeying his laws, against stealing property, eating usury, sexual freedom, and get-rich-quick scams?
Why would government wish to create the liberalism, in which spiritual strength and material strength are pitted against eachother?
The answer that I come up with is that secularism fears a population that obtains both spiritual and material strength. This is the ultimate divide and rule policy, but instead of dividing ethnic groups, they divide us morally.
Liberalism creates a false division between people who would otherwise be united against a common enemy of our rulers’ selfish greed.
I ask myself whether this strategy could be the product of a secular imagination and I conclude that it is the product of a religious imagination. Satan was a fallen creature who had previously been an obedient scholar-servant of his God.
I ask myself the question Martin Luther asked about the pope, whether he was in fact a satanic force. Is our current situation the work of satan, exerting his influence of individuals to pursue their selfish greed through ruthless power? I conclude that in the context of liberalism, our leaders would have to work a great deal harder than they do at present. to justify their ruthless, selfish greed.
I therefore conclude that our present powerlessness is the creation of a raw, religious power. Not being a bigot, I can conceive of the possibility, often expressed by myself here, that this could be a malignant, corrupt, manipulative, Islamic power.
But being a Muslim, I ask myself the question whether such a flawed imagination could ever really think that virtue could be achieved through evil manipulation and political Macchiavellianism.
My conclusion is, that the concept of power=bad and piety=good is junk that is being thrown in the path of its pursuers by a corrupt, evil, religious power, Zionism. It is being pursued by a force, Islam which utilises power to do good. In the century after the prophet Muhammad, may God’s peace be upon him, they could not find anybody who needed their charity because justice had prevailed in society and even stress related ailments had disappeared.
The biggest obstacle to justice is liberalism, because it asks that niggling question, that thorn in the flesh which Mark Golding mentions, which is whether the face of Islam is just another same as, same as corrupt hypocrisy we have seen a thousand times before.
I myself find it hard not to be thrown by doubt, cast in my minds by the liberal what-if?-machine. And if I find it hard as a Muslim, it appears that the Zionist bastards have created for the moment, a quite impressive psychological stumbling block in the path of their pursuers.
Well done Zionism, but your demise is coming soon.
The word I was searching for above was: false dichotomy. Closely related to the slogan: democracy. And by comparison with your learned selves on this blog, please forgive my political infancy spotty-bottomy.
The first centuries of Islam were dominated by a futile debate on foreign philosophy , and the next centuries by the foreign implant of monastic-style mysticism, called sufism. We are now in a phase where the enemies of Islam have used, and continue to use overwhelming destructive force to deviate Islam into political trickery and tactickery.
Tic-tac? Chonee-bashee? You ok? No, I’m not ok with the global spread of the liberal false dichotomy. The prayer of the prophets of the Children of Israel, mentioned in the Qur’an was:
‘Do not make us just a trial’ for the enemies of God, which is what we are as Muslims today, and have been for a very long time, ‘but strengthen our position and give us victory over falsehood’.
The process of removing falsehood also involves war, because the powers that be will never relinquish the status quo easily. The idea that anything can change peacefully is one of the offsprings of the moral, divide and rule false-choice dichotomy.
At present we are sitting at our laptops sticking needles into the steel-toe-caps of global Zionism. ‘This land doesn’t belong to anybody, but it was being used before by nomads’, they said on the telly last night in Philistine.
God is collecting the Children of Israel together, near the end of time, but what will they do about the words of the Qur’an that states that not one of them will not believe in Jesus pbuh before he dies? What will they do when they have to swallow 2000 thousand years of denial?
‘We didn’t know that by returning to this land of Philistine, we would be forced to expose our lies.’ !!!!!!??????
Heh all you foot soldiers for Ahmadinejad – what do you think of the plight of homosexuals in Iran?
Do you think homosexuals exist in Iran?
If they do exist, how do you think they’re treated?
Are you a Jew, troll? Are you a Zionist?
What do you do for the good of humankind? Troll other people’s websites?
Why do you continue to post here when you’re not welcome and have been banned?
Have you not the slightest self respect?