Posts Tagged ‘ Iran ’

Why the US and Israel are the greatest threats to peace

September 29, 2012
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One of the most remarkable things about Noam Chomsky is his ability to distance himself from conventional assumptions and biases. Throughout his career, not only in his political writings but also his work in linguistics and the philosophy of language, he engages in thought-experiments which ask what conclusions an objective observer, a Martian, for instance, would draw were he to examine the problem at hand without the usual biases and presuppositions. This strategy is on display once again in a characteristically insightful piece by Chomsky recently posted on Alternet entitled “Why the US and Israel are the greatest threats to…

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New PR for the coming attack on Iran

March 23, 2012
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Peter King, the Republic Chairman  of the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security convened a meeting this week to explain that the United States is currently facing a grave threat from a new scary monster: Iranian-backed Hezbollah agents that are inside the country and ready to attack. The shocking new evidence upon which these claims are based appears to be reports of Iranians videotaping subway tracks. Scary stuff indeed. In light of these reports, King claimed that “We have a duty to prepare for the worst.” One can listen to his opening speech at the committee meeting. It’s truly breathtaking.…

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Media failures in the Iran war debate

March 16, 2012
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Has the American media informed or mislead the public on the debate about whether or not the US should initiate or support an attack on Iran? In this article, originally published in Foreign Policy, Stephen Walt, Professor of International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, provides a helpful list of the top ten media failures on this issue. He also participated in this related discussion on an NPR radio program.   .  

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What Are Iran’s Intentions? (by Noam Chomsky)

March 9, 2012
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Published on Saturday, March 3, 2012 by The New York Times Syndicate. Written by Noam Chomsky. The January/February issue of Foreign Affairs featured the article “Time to Attack Iran: Why a Strike Is the Least Bad Option,” by Matthew Kroenig, along with commentary about other ways to contain the Iranian threat. The media resound with warnings about a likely Israeli attack on Iran while the U.S. hesitates, keeping open the option of aggression—thus again routinely violating the U.N. Charter, the foundation of international law. As tensions escalate, eerie echoes of the run-up to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are in the…

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The Israel Lobby Swims The Atlantic (by Grant Smith)

March 6, 2012
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Jeffrey Goldberg’s current cover story in The Atlantic, “The Point of No Return,”achieved massive distribution across a broad spectrum of old and new media in the United States. Some observers – including Glenn Greenwald in “How Propagandists Function” – noted how well the methodology and message of Goldberg’s piece serves the Israeli government’s efforts to push U.S. military action against Iran. Gareth Porter views it as part of an overarching strategy to keep the U.S. from restoring productive relations with Iran. A huge trove of newly declassified documentssubpoenaed during a Senate investigation reveals how Israel’s lobby pitched, promoted, and paid to have content placed…

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American diplomacy: bags of cash

February 9, 2012
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The role of hard cash in America’s diplomacy and international relations is difficult to overstate. In his excellent book Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq, Stephen Kinzer provides a detailed account of how US politicians, spies, business men, and CIA operatives conspired on numerous occasions to depose of foreign monarchs, presidents, and prime ministers that weren’t working in the interests of American corporations.  One of the most striking stories is that of Kermit Roosevelt, a CIA agent and grandson of Teddy Roosevelt, who in 1953 was sent to Iran with a bag of cash to fund…

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Israel’s assassins

January 19, 2012
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This article in The Australian claims to provide some of the facts and context surrounding Israel’s latest act of terrorism inside Iran. It reads in part like a crime novel, a murder mystery–except that there is almost no mystery. The act was carried out in broad daylight and everyone seems to know who committed the crime, or at least who is behind it. The authors of this article even seem to know to know precisely who gave the go-ahead orders. The most amazing thing about the story though is how insignificant it has been outside of Iran. The event was noted,…

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Video: Seymour Hersh on propaganda for war with Iran

November 21, 2011
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This Democracy Now interview on the propaganda for a war with Iran is an absolute must-see: Interesting quote:  But there’s an element of rationality in the Israeli intelligence community that’s not being expressed by the political leadership. It’s the same madness we have here. There’s an element of rationality in our intelligence community which says, in ’07, and it has said it again last year, they don’t have the bomb. They’re not making it. It’s at NIE, 16 agencies agreed, 16 to nothing, in an internal vote, before that—they did an update in 2011 on the ’07 study and came…

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