The old saying “There are two sides to every story” may have been true throughout the ages, however in this day and age there are more than two sides. You have the government take, what you see, and the truth. They are rarely one and the same. The most blatant and deceitful lie nowadays is being told about Iran. Last month, I heard General Pervez Musharraf tell Wolf Blitzer that Iran is “cooperating” with Pakistan in their operations against al Qaeda and the Taliban. During the same week I heard Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri Malaki that Iraq and Iran have “good” relations and that Iran is helping in the fight against al Qaeda.
On that same note Hamid Karzai and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President met on August 15th , with Karzai describing Iran and Afghanistan as "two brother nations with common interests, cultures and histories", he told reporters: "The present condition of the region demands more exchange and negotiations between Tehran and Kabul. In this trip economic cooperation, especially over Iran's participation in Afghan development plans, will be discussed."
President Bush, with an excellent record of telling the truth to the American People, told us however, that Iran is supporting the Taliban and al Qaeda. Look folks, my elevator may not go all the way to the top on some things, but somebody is definitely “mis-stating” the facts. Either Iran is helping to fight al Qaeda or its helping and arming them according to the White House.
In this case you have three different leaders of three different nations, telling the world that Iran is a “solution” in fighting al Qaeda, a Sunni organization that calls for the eventual destruction of all Shiite Muslims. On this note, it seems just a little odd that al Qaeda and Shia Iran would lock lips with each other while the leaders of all three nations that are currently fighting insurgencies led by al Qaeda are telling the world that Iran is helping in the war on terrorism.
Why would Afghanistan’s Karzai lie to the world about Iran helping them when the Taliban and al Qaeda and the Taliban are shooting at his troops and NATO and US Forces? That would be a stupid thing for him to claim if it weren’t the truth.
The Guardian, in a story about the Karzai-Ahmadinejad meeting said this of Iran:
“Iran gave Washington informal help in overthrowing the Taliban government following the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001. Months later, Mr. Bush killed any prospect of a thaw in relations by labeling Iran as part of the "axis of evil", along with Iraq and North Korea.”
Now we have Bush shouting fighting words about Iran in Australia and Iraq that the they are behind al Qaeda’s so-called resurgence in the world. If you can take that at face value, than I have a nifty little bridge back in Brooklyn that I can sell you.
Despite US suspicions, Iran, which has one of the world's highest drug-addiction rates, argues it has legitimate interests in combating the influx of heroin and opiates from the Afghan poppy fields. There are also at least 2 million Afghan refugees in Iran. The issue has caused recent tensions after Tehran forcibly sent around 100,000 back to Afghanistan, arguing that they were illegal migrants and a huge drain on the Iranian economy according to the Guardian.
Are we really going to let Congress get away without countering this Administrations wild and convoluted lies about Iran in this seemingly run-off for another war? Little has been said about Iran’s participation in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a body created by Russia and China to address regional security, foster economic integration, and counter US influence in central Asia. Nations that have partnerships with the nuclear nations of Russia and China wouldn’t seem to be an “easy” target. Nations in coalitions tend to support each other, militarily as well as economically.
Congress needs to pass a joint resolution to stop Bush and Cheney from starting a war with Iran. This isn’t just something that would be a good thing, I see it as a critical step that Congress must take in order to make sure the entire Middle East and maybe the world doesn’t suffer the consequences of a much wider and deadlier war.
Presidents must realize that the power to wage war is the responsibility of Congress, not the executive branch. If a nuclear strike were launched against us, that is one of the few times that a President can retaliate; an invasion or starting of hostilities would be other exceptions. This President will take any and all measures to convince the American people that Iran is funding and supporting the terrorists that are fighting us in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush has lied so many times that his credibility level is about at the same level as whale-s**t, and that’s at the very bottom.
That’s the way I see it.
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Former Chairman of the Liberal Party of America, Tim is a retired Army Sergeant. He currently lives in South Carolina. A regular contributor to OpEdNews, he is the author of Kimchee Kronicles and is currently at work on a new novel.
Iran: Guilty of Being Islamic, Proud, and 'Influential'
Great points.
Neocons will rag all day about Iran, but as is usually the case, if you want to know the truth, take a neocon's depiction of reality and invert it. Dilip Hiro reports the facts contrary to neocon fantasy [stress added]:
Following 9/11, as the Bush administration prepared to attack the Taliban, the Iranians shared intelligence with it surreptitiously. At their urging, Ismail Khan, the anti-Taliban Afghan leader based in the Iranian city of Mashhad, along with his fighters, coordinated his attack on the Taliban in western Afghanistan with the Pentagon's campaign in the north and the east. Ismail Khan's militia captured Herat, an important city near the Iranian border.
At the international conference held in Bonn, Germany, in late December 2001, Iran's foreign minister, Kamal Kharrazi, actively co-operated with the Americans to install Hamid Karzai as the leader of the post-Taliban Afghanistan. At the subsequent international donors' gathering, in Tokyo, Iran pledged $500m aid to Afghanistan over five years. Unlike many other nations at the Tokyo conference, it has fulfilled its initial promise. It has been involved in several infrastructure and health care projects, particularly in western Afghanistan.
In 2003, when Ismail Khan, an ethnic Tajik, refused to send an envoy to Kabul when Karzai, an ethnic Pashtun, was formally installed as president, it was the Iranian government which persuaded him to fly his son for the inaugural ceremony. In return, Karzai appointed Khan's son as a cabinet minister.
Furthermore, ever since the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, the Iranian regime has been battling the Afghan drug dealers who use Iran as a transit route for shipping their products to Europe. In the course of hundreds of fire fights between the smugglers and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (charged with monitoring the national borders), a few thousand guards have lost their lives.
The anti-narcotic campaign by Iran, which has continued since the overthrow of the Taliban in December 2001, has been praised not only by the Karzai government but also by the UN.
Of course that list doesn't mention how the Persians have been treated in return. For example, when Iranian electrical embassy representatives were arrested and detained by US forces, or the botched raid, wherein five Iranian diplomats were arrested by U.S. forces in Irbil, Iraq, on January 11, and are being detained to this day on the empty and long-debunked charge that they're Quds Force members scheming to carry out attacks in Iraq: stuff like that.
by
Dan Alba (2 articles, 0 quicklinks, 9 diaries, 52 comments)
on Saturday, September 8, 2007 at 12:37:34 AM
