Given a chance, the Bush Administration would completely re-write
history to their own version of the world. They tried already with
"Mission Accomplished" before the guns are silenced.
On May 16, 7:26=A0am, ourfreedomandlibe...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
> THE ROVING EYE: The US-Iran sound bite showdown
>
> By Pepe Escobar
> Asia times,
> May 16, 2008
>
> They just can't keep from going at each other's throats.
>
> Just in time for President George W Bush's special guest appearance at
> the 60th anniversary of the founding of Israel, his ultimate nemesis,
> Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, unleashed another rhetorical
> shot across the bow as his own way of "celebrating" the anniversary.
>
> And once again the substance of what Ahmadinejad actually said risks
> being lost in (mis)translation.
>
> According to Agence France Presse (AFP), quoting the Fars news agency,
> Ahmadinejad, speaking in the Iranian northern province of Golestan in
> one of his popular provincial tours, said, "They [Israel] must know
> that the nations of the region hate this counterfeit regime. And if
> there is the slightest chance, they will uproot this counterfeit
> regime."
>
> Reuters had a much more bellicose take. According to its translation,
> "They [Israel] should know that regional nations hate this fake and
> criminal regime and if the smallest and briefest chance is given to
> regional nations they will destroy it."
>
> It is hardly a secret that for a substantial majority of Arab
> populations in the Middle East - but not for their unrepresentative
> regimes - an Israel driven by Zionism should not have a place in the
> region. Thus Israel would qualify as a "counterfeit" regime that
> should be "uprooted". But this does not mean that Arabs - or Persians
> - are in favor of the actual physical destruction of Israel.
>
> The Associated Press's (AP) version of the quote is even more
> apocalyptic. It reads: "The criminals assume that by holding
> celebrations ... they can save the sinister Zionist regime from death
> and destruction." The AP copy notes, "Ahmadinejad used an Arabic word,
> ismihlal, than can also be translated as destruction, death and
> collapse." An Arabic expert contacted by Asia Times Online said
> ismihlal means basically "to break down in smaller parts". That's not
> exactly nuclear annihilation.
>
> We are back to the situation of Ahmadinejad's 2005 alleged threat to
> "wipe Israel off the map". What he actually said then, quoting his
> personal icon, the leader of the Islamic revolution in 1979, ayatollah
> Ruhollah Khomeini, was that the "regime occupying Jerusalem should
> vanish from the pages of time". Yes, this means regime change - as
> much as the Bush administration always wanted regime change in Tehran.
> It does not mean a call for a nuclear holocaust.
>
> Now, the fact remains that the Reuters translation - distributed to
> countless newspapers all over the world - will inevitably be seized by
> the Bush administration and assorted armchair neo-conservative
> warriors as yet more evidence that Iran wants to "destroy" Israel -
> muscling up the case in Wa****ngton for a preemptive US attack on
> Iran.
>
> This week, Philip Giraldi published a groundbreaking story on the
> American Conservative, according to which the US National Security
> Council (NSC) has agreed - in principle - on a cruise missile strike
> against an Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force training camp
> near Tehran. This would be a sort of "warning" to the Iranian
> leader****p. The only NSC member to urge for a delay was allegedly
> Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Giraldi carefully noted that Bush
> "will still have to give the order to launch after all preparations
> are made". But the decision to attack seems to have been made.
>
> Annihilation a-go-go
>
> Juicy extras are inevitable when it comes to Ahmadinejad's runaway
> tongue at ease in cozy provincial settings. What AFP translates as
> "the Zionist regime is on the verge of dying ... throwing a birthday
> party for this regime is like having a birthday party for a dead
> person", Reuters prefers to package as "the Zionist regime is dying.
> The criminals imagine that by holding celebrations ... they can save
> the Zionist regime from death".
>
> But in this case it was up to APTN, the video arm of AP, to provide
> the meatier translation: "The criminals wrongly suppose that by
> holding celebrations, coming to the occupied lands of Palestine and
> sup****ting these criminals, they can save the resented Zionist regime
> from death, annihilation and from the claws of Palestinian fighters."
>
> This is as contextual as what Ahmadinejad had said a day before, in a
> press conference in Tehran. According to the Deutsche Presse Agentur,
> the German news agency, he said, "This terrorist and criminal state is
> backed by foreign powers, but this regime would soon be swept away by
> the Palestinians." And he added, "As far as the regional countries are
> concerned, this regime does not exist." This is better in terms of
> framing the anger expressed by Ahmadinejad - as well as the theocratic
> leader****p in Tehran, and most of the Arab world for that matter -
> towards Israel as a direct consequence of Israel's mistreatment of
> Palestinians.
>
> It is interesting to note that for the Iranian press, the references
> to Israel were not even on the map. Press TV, for instance, went with
> the headline "Ahmadinejad: Tyranny falling from grace", stressing
> other parts of the president's speech, for instance when he said that
> "tyrannical powers have fallen from grace and the sound of their
> cracking bones can be heard".
>
> Whatever Ahmadinejad said, Bush, for his part, totally stuck to
> script. Even before his arrival in Jerusalem on Wednesday, Bush
> commented that "the message to Iran is that your desire to have a
> nuclear weapon, coupled with your statements about the destruction of
> our close ally, have made it abundantly clear to everybody that we
> have got to work together to stop you from having a nuclear weapon. To
> me the single-biggest threat to peace in the Middle East is the
> Iranian regime." Once again, a call for regime change.
>
> To add fuel to the fire, Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Prince Saud
> al-Faisal - in synch with Wa****ngton - started accusing Iran of
> backing a Hezbollah coup in Lebanon. That is predictable, considering
> that the Hariri clan in Beirut is a Saudi client. But nothing could be
> further from the truth. Last week, Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah
> was blunt: "Had we wanted a coup, they [government leaders] would have
> woken up to find themselves in jail, or [thrown) in the sea."
>
> Nasrallah was cunning enough to see it would be politically impossible
> for Hezbollah to control Beirut - even though they proved they could
> do it, on the ground with weapons, in less than 24 hours. Nasrallah
> also said last week, "If they told us to come and take over, we would
> say 'no thank you'."
>
> There is no evidence the celebrity sound bite showdown will abate any
> time soon. Bush appears to want war - to bolster his "legacy".
> Ahmadinejad, too, might want war to bolster his faltering
> administration. American and world public opinion can only hope the
> clock does not run out before a possibly upcoming changing of the
> guard in the White House.
>
> Just as the rhetoric between Tehran and Wa****ngton was once again at
> red alert levels, former Democratic presidential candidate Senator
> John Edwards stepped into the ring to announce his endorsement of
> Democratic Senator Barack Obama in the US presidential race - sucking
> out the hate waves. "Walls" inside and outside the US may soon come
> tumbling down, as Edwards hinted in his speech. But the fact remains
> that the hardline faction in the Bush administration centered around
> Vice President Dick Cheney still has over five months to fulfill its
> agenda of regime change in Iran. And the danger is Ahmadinejad will do
> absolutely nothing to dissuade them.
>
> (Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World
> is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues:
> a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. He may be reached at
> pepea...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
)
>
> =A0SOURCE:http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JE16Ak01.html
|
