mr mahs

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/boms200312301250.asp Last week, Iran's President Mohammad Khatami voiced his opposition to the death penalty, stating that "he did not even wish for the execution of captive Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein." The very same day, in the northern town of Gonbad-e-Kavoos, an Iranian man convicted of murder was hanged in public, becoming the tenth execution in Iran reported by local press over the past week. Earlier in Decemeber, Khatami also denied that his country ever sought to develop nuclear weapons. Speaking at the World Council of Churches in Geneva, the Iranian leader stated that the Islamic religion forbids the use of weapons which kill indiscriminately, saying that "We cannot go and seek a nuclear program because of our religious faith." Once again, it was a good timing for such a statement, just one day following the arrest of nuclear scientists, Dr. Farooq Mehmood and Yasin Chohan by Pakistani authorities, for possible links to the transfer of nuclear-related information to Iran. Dr. Farooq is the director of Pakistan's prestigious nuclear facility, Kahuta Research Laboratories (KRL), which developed the country's nuclear and ballistic-missile programs. The irony and falsities of Khatami’s statements are remarkable, as we learned from recent court testimony given by former FBI director Louis Freeh. Freeh said the FBI had "overwhelming evidence" that senior Iranian government officials financed and directed the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 Americans. Placing the responsibility "squarely on Tehran," he said that "two Iranian government security agencies and senior members of the Iranian government itself provided funding, training, and logistical help to terrorists who carried out the attack." Iranian president Khatami has accumulated a long list of public lies and deceptions since he became the president in 1997. "The biggest lie," says Reza Bulorchi, the executive director of the U.S. Alliance for a Democratic Iran, "was Khatami himself, the so-called 'moderate reformer.'" During the week-long anti-government student demonstrations in Tehran last June, the most popular slogan was "Khatami resign, resign." In this context, Khatami’s recent comments about "amnesty" and "pardons" for members of the Iranian opposition are as unlikely as his "opposition" to the death penalty. The Iranian human-rights abuses and executions of political opponents are well documented. Last November, the United Nations condemned Iran's continuing and systematic violations of human rights and the use of torturous, inhuman, and degrading punishments. According to the U.S. State Department's human-rights report for 2002, "supporters of outlawed political organizations, such as the Mujahedin-e-Khalq organization, were believed to make up a large number of those executed each year" in Iran. This brings us to a pending issue that has less to do with Khatami and more to do with Iraq and the U.S. In another report from Tehran last week, the AFP news agency quoted Khatami as saying that "Iran was ready to pardon most members of the People's Mujahedeen," a prominent Iranian opposition group which “seeks a secular government to replace Iran’s clerical regime.” The Mujahedeen have been fighting against the Iranian mullahs for over 24 years — doing much more than writing articles and waving banners. The Mujahedeen mounted attacks inside Iran from neighboring Iraq when Saddam Hussein was in power. On more than one occasion, it joined Saddam Hussein in his war against their common Iranian enemy, and some of them even assisted him when he fought against the Kurds in northern Iraq. The Mujahedeen’s name can still be found on the list of terrorist organizations in Washington, despite the fact that it has some backers on Capitol Hill. But some things have changed for the Mujahedeen in the past few months. In May it initiated a disarmament agreement with the U.S-led Coalition and since then more than 3,800 of them have been under U.S. guard. Last week, Iraq’s Governing Council (IGC) issued a statement calling for the expulsion of these Iranian dissidents by the end of December. And a day later, in tandem with the Iranian regime, a member of the IGC told the AFP that it "is considering handing the People's Mujahedeen back to the Iranian authorities." On December 23, Mohammad Hasan Fadaie, a spokesperson for the Iranian foreign ministry, reiterated Khatami’s call for “amnesty” by rejecting Ambassador Bremer’s recent intent to release the 3,800 Iranian dissidents to a third country. Echoing that spirit, Iran’s Prosecutor General Abdolnabi Namazi last Sunday warned that the transfer of the Mujahedeen members to any country but Iran "will cost Europe and the U.S. dearly." He went on to say that protection of the Mujahedeen members "by any system would entail political, economic and security consequences." But, does Iran want to lay hands on these men so badly just to bestow amnesty? Not really. Some rational political considerations may help explain Khatami’s overnight interest in offering "amnesty" to the Mujahedeen. Iran's clerical rulers are nearing the 25th anniversary of their Islamic revolution (February of 2004) under growing internal pressures. As domestic opposition to the regime expands, Tehran desperately needs a way to defuse the situation. The elimination of its "most effective opposition" would be a "significant political and security gain for Iran," says Bulorchi. As the U.S. finds itself holding a hot Mujahedeen potato, it will be wise to carefully consider the question of the Iranian extradition. President Bush must send a clear message to Tehran, saying that he will not allow the clerical regime to silence Iranians who are brave enough to speak out or act against brutality at home and terrorism abroad. The Mujahedeen role and presence in Iraq should be examined in the context of many open questions that still remain while Iraq is being reconstructed. However, appeasing Khatami by allowing thousands of Iranian dissidents to be sent to the gallows in Iran will not likely follow the president’s vision of "the regime in Tehran [who] must heed the democratic demands of the Iranian people, or lose its last claim to legitimacy."

huh?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------ President Bush should win reelection handily if history is any guide. In the post-World War II era, nine other presidents have asked voters to return them to office. Of these, six won voter approval (Truman, Eisenhower, Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, and Clinton), and three were kicked out (Ford, Carter, and Papa Bush). The six victors had at least this much in common: They were all re-elected during times of economic growth and when inflation and unemployment were relatively low. With only one exception, no president in the modern era has been turned out of office during economic expansion. The exception was Gerald Ford. At the time he sought election (as opposed to re-election, having assumed the presidency following Richard Nixon’s resignation), gross domestic product was growing, and the rates of inflation and unemployment were on the decline. Yet voters turned thumbs down on Ford, largely on concern about his competence and in response to his unpopular pardoning of Nixon. Still, the election was close: Ford and Carter split the popular vote 48 to 50 percent. Only one incumbent’s defeat, Jimmy Carter’s, can rightly be attributed to a poor economy. When the 1980 election was held, the country was just exiting a brief recession. Worse, though, consumer price inflation had reached 14.6 percent, and the jobless rate had hit 7.8 percent. That’s not to mention the public’s frustration with gasoline lines and the seemingly endless hostage crisis in Iran. Voters, not surprisingly, jumped at the chance of implementing the supply-side policies advocated by Ronald Reagan. He won 51 percent of the popular vote to Carter’s 41 percent. In 1992, George H. W. Bush — Reagan’s political heir — also lost his reelection bid. While the nine-month recession of 1990-91 had raised voter concerns, it’s certain that other factors were in play — notably, the third-party candidacy of Ross Perot and Bush’s own abandonment of his “read my lips” no-new-taxes pledge. Bill Clinton secured 43 percent of the popular vote to Bush’s 37 percent, with third-party challenger Ross Perot capturing 19 percent. All in all, the sizeable Perot vote handed Clinton the victory. Democrats are hoping now that 2004 will be a repeat of the election of 1992. But a review of the historical record suggests that the closest parallels to next year’s ballot are Richard Nixon’s re-election in 1972, when he trounced ultraliberal George McGovern, and Reagan’s impressive win over another unabashed liberal, Walter Mondale, in 1984. On both occasions, the country was newly emerged from a recession, and confidence in the economy was growing. Though Nixon used harmful short-term fixes, unemployment was on the decline and inflation was under control in 1972. Nixon’s reelection was made easier by the fact that the Democrats had nominated a left-winger as their standard-bearer. Nixon won by a landslide 61 to 38 percent. The election of 1984 was, in effect, a referendum on supply-side economics, and voters gave it an unmistakable stamp of approval. Once the Federal Reserve had wrung inflation out of the system and Reagan’s 5-10-10 tax cuts came into full effect, the economy surged, with GDP rising 8.5 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 1984. By election time, unemployment was down to 7.2 percent from a high of 10.8 percent in 1982, and inflation had fallen to a bearable 4.2 percent from the 11.8 percent rate Reagan inherited from Carter. The Gipper won a resounding victory with 59 percent of the popular vote to Mondale’s 41 percent. As for the remaining presidents in the good-economy six, timing was almost everything. Truman beat Thomas Dewey in 1948 by 50 to 45 percent. Ironically, economic activity peaked around election time. By December, the economy started into a nearly year-long slump. Two-termer Dwight Eisenhower weathered two economic contractions, but his reelection bid of 1956 fell in the middle of a three-year economic expansion. He easily beat Adlai Stevenson, winning the popular vote by 58 to 42 percent. Lyndon Johnson, who assumed the presidency after John F. Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963, beat Barry Goldwater a year later. To make matters worse, Goldwater was stupidly against the President Kennedy’s tax cuts. Finally, the strong, technology-driven economy of the 1990s gave Clinton’s 1996 reelection effort a major boost. He garnered 49 percent of the vote to Robert Dole’s 41 percent and Perot’s 8 percent. As the current economic and stock market revival continues to vote for Bush, it seems near certain that he will win in a landslide. Huge progress in the war against terrorism will add to his totals, with the GOP picking up 3 to 4 seats in the Senate and 10 to 12 in the House. And Bush will make it seven out of ten presidents since the end of WWII who rode a good economy back to the Oval Office.

Do you condemn them?

What a perfect place for a M.O.A.B......] j/k:D

Look at idiot boy making Jokes.... So me referencing a letter written by the always american hateful Amnetsy International and I am dumb? Mr... "Sadam did lots of wonderful things for Iraq like build hospitals" You are the shining example of person who has his head up his ass when it comes to world events my friend... So tell me when you walking on a bus with C4 to comitt yourself to your Palestinian brothers cause?

Listen Sadam... You have earned the ignorant dunce award time and time again fool... Now go play with you cock you hate filled jerkoff...

I was just pointing to a source even you dellusional leftie windbags love...

So Iran can drop a Nuke on Isreal? Oh and for the record the whole region is to volatile for any country to have nuclear weapons....even Isreal..

I was referring to you previous post on the allegations against Iran on no merit.. I think the paragraph I posted illustrates that ...

Are you kidding? Amnesty International http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE130402003?open&of=ENG-IRN has denounced Irans as well as Iraq's inhumane treatment of it's citizens...

On Dec. 14 [2001], , told a Tehran University audience that the vast Muslim world could easily survive nuclear war, while tiny Israel would be destroyed. "The founding of the state of Israel is the worst event in all of history," he said. "If the day comes when the world of Islam is equipped with weapons similar to those that Israel possesses ... nothing will remain after one atom bomb is dropped on Israel." And why are they branded evil you ask?

\ WHAT? -The war of 67 was started by Isreal? -Who is stepping on civilian buses with bomb belts? -You're kidding right? evidence? the nuclear reactor is for personal energy use right? Who believed the Ayatollah when stated he would annihalate Isreal the moment they have a bomb?

Another monumental DIPLOMATIC step in the War on Terror. This can work if Qadafi really wants to change and feels his cause, is a lost cause, especially after 911.. One has to think from the massive resources that have gone into this effort of ridding the world of despotic regimes that fuel hatred that this development is a ripple effect of the military muscle flexing in the Iraq.... The Middle East only respects power and Qadafi's admittance of weapon inspections is an example of that belief.... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/breaking_1.html LONDON – Libya is preparing for defense cooperation talks with the United States, leading to a visit by President Bush early next year. Libyan officials said the United States has agreed to review Tripoli's defense requirements in wake of an agreement by Col. Moammar Khaddafy to eliminate his nation's medium-range missile and weapons of mass destruction arsenal. The officials said the two countries plan to begin formal talks on Libya's defense and security requirements over the next few months. The officials said Britain and the United States will lift sanctions from Libya by April 2004. They said this would pave the way for a visit by U.S. President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair to Tripoli during the first half of next year. "The United States has promised to protect us from any attack," Khaddafy's son, Seif Al Islam, said in an interview with the London-based A-Sharq Al Awsat daily on Dec. 24. Al Islam, who is being groomed to succeed his father as Libya's ruler, said Tripoli and Washington have held defense cooperation talks, including the prospect of joint exercises, Middle East Newsline reported. But he denied immediate plans to renew such efforts. In the interview, Al Islam said Libya will end the development program of a medium-range missile that can fly 800 kilometers. He said that in 1986 Tripoli canceled a plan to attack a U.S. military base in an island off Greece. The plan was to retaliate for a U.S. air strike earlier that year that he said killed more than 200 Libyans. U.S. industry sources said Libya has discussed a range of projects with at least one American defense contractor. The sources said Tripoli has expressed interest in upgrading and replacing many of the aging U.S. military platforms procured in the 1970s. They include aircraft, helicopters and artillery. Libyan officials, in an assertion echoed by Al Islam, said the Bush administration planned to send a U.S. military team to Tripoli to review Libya's defense needs. Al Islam said such a visit would take place soon. "There will be a joint military and security cooperation agreement with the United States," Al Islam said.

Good article.. I have been arguing this very point anytime you get these wacko "War for Oil" meatheads trying to disguise the true motives of the coalition in Iraq and Afghanistan... Good article! One wonders if those who make such accusations know how to do a profit-loss statement. Can't they see that U.S. costs in Iraq alone have gone over $200 billion, whereas the entire annual GDP of Iraq is only $22 billion? At that rate, it would take 20 years for such an investment (which will probably have to increase by a lot over the next few years) even to be recouped. It will never show a profit.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3837168/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Book claims media showed anti-U.S. bias over IraqThe Associated Press Updated: 8:15 a.m. ET Dec. 30, 2003PARIS, France - Reporter Alain Hertoghe’s book accused the French press of not being objective in its coverage of the U.S.-led war in Iraq. His newspaper fired him. The book, “La Guerre a Outrances” (The War of Outrages), criticizes the French reporting for continually predicting the war would end badly for the U.S.-led coalition. “Readers can’t understand why the Americans won the war,” Hertoghe said in a telephone interview. “The French press wasn’t neutral.” The book, published Oct. 15, charges French reporters were more patriotic than journalistic and what was written amounted to disinformation. Book examines five major French papers It examines daily coverage by five major French dailies, including Hertoghe’s own La Croix, in the three weeks from the first strikes on Baghdad on March 20 to April 9 when Saddam Hussein’s regime fell. ‘As soon as there were a couple of wounded, of dead, they [French newspapers] were talking about Vietnam, Stalingrad.’ — Alain Hertoghe Former reporter for La Croix “As soon as there were a couple of wounded, of dead, they were talking about Vietnam, Stalingrad,” Hertoghe said. In contrast, work by journalists traveling with U.S. troops indicated that “the war was advancing well,” he said. Hertoghe, a 44-year-old Belgian, said reporters reflected the emotional high in France more than realities on the battlefield, becoming caught up in France’s central role in leading the opposition to the war at the United Nations. “The French public was so carried away,” he said. The journalists, he wrote in the book, “dreamed of an American defeat.” Hertoghe, who covered the 1991 Gulf War and the presidential campaign that put President Bush in the White House, was assistant editor-in-chief of La Croix’s online version during the Iraq war. Besides war coverage in La Croix, the book examines that of the independent Le Monde, the conservative Le Figaro, the leftist Liberation and the regional daily Ouest-France, which has the largest circulation in France. Over three weeks, the five papers carried 29 headlines condemning Saddam’s dictatorship and 135 blaming Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Hertoghe was fired on Dec.15 for a “loss of confidence” following publication of the book. La Croix, in a letter, cited four points, including damaging the newspaper’s reputation, Hertoghe said. Silence from French papers La Croix refused to comment. Efforts for comment from Le Monde — the paper Hertoghe targeted most severely — also were unsuccessful, with the international editor away on vacation. A Paris-based reporter cited in the book did not answer his phone. Only a free newspaper handed out in the Metro, “20 Minutes,” has so far reviewed Hertoghe’s book. “The silence is deafening” in France, although there have been rave reviews in Belgium, said Ronald Blunden, editorial director at Hertoghe’s publishing house, Calmann-Levy.

Then why would Isreal offer to send aid if their hatred is equivalent to Iran's?

Yeah and a homicide bomber stepping on a school bus full of C4 with nails in it is humane? This argument is getting old and the palestinians lose all sympathy from me when they send their children off to die... True peace will only occur when they denounce their leadership and homicide bombings, until then it's a hopeless cause....

You're a parasite...

You've must of forgot what that pencil neck geek said about 911 and how it was deserving for our foreign policies, trying to draw the distinction that our support for Isreal caused 911. The prince forgets that Al-qaeda attacked us for American Soldiers being in Saudi Arabia protecting that little punk! That's why Guilianni told him to go shove that check up his ass...

Read your own articles you TOOL... The growth in the number of veterans enrolling in the VA system "is eating up all of our marginal capacity," Principi said in an interview. "Our clinics, our medical facilities are full." The restrictions will apply only to new enrollees and will not affect the 1.4 million Category 8 veterans who currently receive health care from the VA, he said. Historically, the VA's health care mission has been to treat veterans with service-related health problems and low incomes, and those needing special services. But that changed when Congress enacted legislation in 1996 opening the system to all veterans. That year, the VA health care system treated 2.9 million veterans. Last year, the number of patients had swelled to 4.2 million. You don't even read your own articles WOW the LSD is rotting your brain HIPPIE boy.... Why don't you go play your GEE-TAR at the mall to make some extra money and get out of your parents house.... :laugh:

Follow in your countrymens footsteps and comitt GENOCIDE... on yourself....

Holacaust? They've been blacklisted since before christ...

The proof is in the putting lol... You constantly hear the relentless bashing and carping from people who would like to rewrite history.. -They said is was for oil==WRONG! -They said it was just about WMD not liberation= WRONG! -They said millions would die=WRONG! They seriously can't fathom the importance of this operation on MANY levels from removing weapons from a regime to changing the sentiment of an oppressed would be bomber from turning his/her back on terrorism and embracing freedom..

This alone describes the priorities of Arafat and his so called cause..