A STATEMENT BY THE ROYAL COURT
JEDDAH, JULY 25, SPA — FOLLOWING IS THE STATEMENT ISSUED TODAY BY THE ROYAL COURT:
” THE KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA HAS UNDERSTAKEN THE ROLE REQUIRED OF IT BY ITS RELIGIOUS AND NATIONAL DUTY WITH REGARD TO THE SITUATION IN THE REGION AND REPERCUSSIONS OF EVENTS IN LEBANON AND THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES.
IN THIS REGARD, IT HAS CAUTIONED, WARNED AND EXTENDED ADVICE. FURTHERMORE, IT HAS STRIVEN FROM THE FIRST MOMENT TO STOP THE AGRRESSION, MOVING ON MORE THAN ONE FRONT AND BY MORE THAN ONE MEANS, TO PERSUADE THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY TO FORCE ISRAEL TO AGREE TO A CEASEFIRE.
MEANWHILE, THE KINGDOM HAS DISPATCHED HRH THE FOREIGN MINISTER AND HRH THE SECRETARY GENERAL OF THE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL TO MEET H.E. THE U.S. PRESIDENT IN WASHINGTON AND INFORM HIM OF ITS VIEWS ON THE GRAVE AND UNPREDICTABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE UNREMITTING ISRAELI AGGRESSION IF MATTERS WENT BEYOND CONTROL.
THE KINGDOM HAS ALSO ASKED PERSONAL ENVOYS TO VISIT THE CAPITALS OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL’S PERMANENT MEMBER STATES TO CONVEY THE SAME MESSAGE.
THE ARABS HAVE PROCLAIMED PEACE AS A STRATEGIC OPTION FOR THE ARAB NATION. THEY PRESENTED A JUST AND DISTINCT PLAN FOR REGAINING THE OCCUPIED ARAB TERRITORIES IN EXCHANGE FOR PEACE. THEY REFUSED TO RESPOND TO PROVOCATIONS AND IGNORED ANTI-PEACE EXTREMIST CALLS. IT SHOULD BE STATED THAT PATIENCE COULD NOT LAST FOREVER. IF THE ISRAELI MILITARY BRUTALITY PERSISTED WITH KILLINGS AND DESTRUCTION NO ONE COULD PREDICT THE CONSEQUENCES AND THAN REGRETS WILL BE IN VAIN.
THEREFORE, THE KINGDOM ADDRESSES AN APPEAL AND A WARNING TO THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY IN ITS ENTIRETY, AS REPRESENTED BY THE U.N. AND IN PARTICULAR THE U.S.
THE KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA CALLS ON ALL TO ACT IN ACCORDANCE WITH HONEST, CONSCIOUS AND INTERNATIONAL MORAL AND HUMANITARIAN LAWS. IT ALSO WARNS ALL THAT IF THE PEACE OPTION IS REJECTED DUE TO THE ISRAELI ARROGANCE THEN ONLY THE WAR OPTION REMAINS AND NO ONE KNOWS THE REPERCUSSIONS BEFALLING THE REGION, INCLUDING WARS AND CONFLICT THAT WILL SPARE NO ONE INCLUDING THOSE WHOSE MILITARY POWER IS NOW TEMPTING THEM TO PLAY WITH FIRE.
–MORE 1625 Local Time 1325 GMT Wild Thing’s comment…….
I apologize for all the caps, that is how the announcement is stated at the site the Saudi Press Agency…HERE.
OK so maybe the Saudi’s are just doing the…. we need to say something thang’, you know for the people to hear. Or maybe they are serious, but I just can’t see them wanting to be at the receiving end of the power of the IDF.
I am not sure if they want to risk themselves over the Palestinians, who they’ve never given a damn about except as props. The Saudis pay others to do their work.
Peace activist Cindy Sheehan cancels Vermont visit
Published: Friday, July 28, 2006
Peace activist Cindy Sheehan has canceled her visit to Vermont because she plans a trip to Jordan for peace talks there, organizers announced today.
Sheehan was to have attended a rally Sunday at Montpelier’s Unitarian Church.
The rally will still be held, with Vermont organizers planning to address renewed efforts to end the war in Iraq and pursue impeachment of the Bush administration.
The event is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. and is free and public. Wild Thing’s comment…….
Isn’t this against the law to do this during war time I mean????
Can we just not let her back in after she leave?
This is the entrie transcript of Kerry and Bolton………………..
Senator Kerry? KERRY: Thank you. I know all the comments have been made about the flood here, so I won’t make any more.
I apologize for being delayed. We had a mark-up in the Small Business Committee, and as ranking member, I had to be there.
I heard a few of the questions from my office, and obviously I don’t want to go over territory that’s been well-covered, Mr. Ambassador, so I want to just have a chance to be able to pursue a few things with you.
I did hear in answer to one question from somebody, I think it was from the chair, that your views about the U.N. itself have not changed.
And so I’d just be curious to sort of — what are those views at this point? I mean there was a lot of debate here, if you’ll recall, about what those views were, and I’d just be curious to know what conclusions you’ve drawn about the U.N. at this point in time. BOLTON: I think his question was what did I find at the U.N. that I had not expected. And I think my response was “very little,” because I have studied and worked in U.N. matters for 25 years.
And I’m sure there are things I don’t know, but I’ve worked in the area for a long time.
My views are, as I said in my opening statement in April of last year, that we are committed to a strong and effective United Nations. To do that, it requires substantial reform. That it can be an effective adjunct of American foreign policy; I think it’s been demonstrated in a variety of areas that we’ve discussed here today in the context of Lebanon, North Korea and Iran. And that that’s why we’re exerting the efforts that we are within the Security Council on a variety of substantive policy matters and on the question of U.N. reform. KERRY: You say that to be effective it requires reform. What is the principal reform that is required for the U.N. itself to be effective with respect to Iran or with respect to North Korea or Resolution 1559 in Lebanon? What reform would make a difference to that effectiveness? BOLTON: I’m not sure that reform as such would have a difference there. That is more a question in the Security Council of reaching policy agreement among the 15 members of the council and particularly the PERM 5. KERRY: And isn’t it fair to say that we’re sort of the odd person out on most of those policies? BOLTON: I wouldn’t say that, no. KERRY: Well, with respect to North Korea, let’s look at that for a minute. Russia and the South Koreans were unwilling to join us, isn’t that correct, with respect to the sanction effort? BOLTON: That’s clearly not correct, because they did. And in fact, we worked very closely with the Russians in the negotiation, 11 days of very intense negotiation to get Resolution 1695, and worked very closely with the Republic of Korea’s mission to the U.N. to get their agreement to the resolution, as well. KERRY: I beg to differ with you, Mr. Ambassador.
They didn’t get on board a tough Chapter 7 resolution, did they? That was our position. BOLTON: They got on board a resolution which is binding, as our judgment is binding under Chapter 7, that’s correct. KERRY: They didn’t get on a tough resolution 7, did they — Chapter 7? BOLTON: Yes, they did. KERRY: They did? BOLTON: We believe this resolution is binding under Chapter 7. It does not contain the words “Chapter 7,” but our conclusion is based on the entire wording of the resolution that it imposes binding constraints on North Korea. Other member governments — that’s the interpretation of Britain, France and Japan and the other four cosponsors as well. KERRY: Prior to the adoption, speaking to reporters on July 6th, you said, quote, “I think it’s important that the Security Council speak under Chapter 7 to make a binding resolution.” Is that correct? BOLTON: That’s correct. KERRY: Then on July 14th, just a day before they acted, you said you continued to insist on a resolution under Chapter 7 which would make any sanctions mandatory. KERRY: You stressed the importance of a, quote, “clear, binding Chapter 7 resolution. That remains our view and the view of Japan.” You went so far as to warn that if there’s to be a veto, there comes a time when countries have to go into that chamber and raise their hand.
That’s not what happened, is it? BOLTON: As I said before, it’s our judgment this is a mandatory resolution. KERRY: But the judgment — but it’s not the way it’s viewed by the other parties. BOLTON: It’s viewed that way by Japan, England and France. KERRY: Well, the Russians certainly aren’t prepared to join in it, nor are the… BOLTON: They voted for it. KERRY: But not in its clarity.
I mean, Assistant Secretary Hill’s testimony before this committee last week said that the administration’s strategy on North Korea is shifting from failed negotiations to sanctions.
And since you don’t have Russia, you don’t have China and you don’t have South Korea on the binding resolution, how are you going to do that? BOLTON: I think we do.
You know, what the resolution says, Senator, is the Security Council demands — that includes Russia and China — the Security Council demands that the DPRK suspend all activity related to its ballistic missile programs — demands.
And you know what North Korea did? You know what they thought of that resolution? They sat there in the council chamber and, after we voted to adopt it, they rejected it and got up and walked out of the council chamber.
I think that resolution had a clear effect on North Korea. KERRY: What was the effect? BOLTON: That they understand how isolated they are. And you’ll note that, as reported in the papers the other day, the government of China has begun to take steps with respect to North Korean banking, which is consistent with operative paragraphs 3 and 4 of the resolution that require — “require” is the word we use — the Security Council requires that all U.N. member-governments cease their procurement from or supply to any of North Korea’s programs relating to ballistic missiles or weapons of mass destruction. KERRY: Well, let’s come back to be precise, because this is a precise world we live in. It is accurate — I have the resolution right in front of me. It says, “demands that the DPRK suspend all activities related to its ballistic missile program,” but it doesn’t impose Chapter 7 sanctions. BOLTON: We didn’t seek to impose Chapter 7 sanctions. KERRY: Well, how are you going to achieve this if you’re not going to have sanctions if you don’t have the other countries prepared to have the sanctions? The reason you don’t have sanctions… BOLTON: Because the first… KERRY: … is they weren’t prepared to do it; isn’t that correct? BOLTON: No, because that was not part of our original resolution. The first step here was to pass this resolution which says… KERRY: You’re telling me they would be prepared to impose sanctions? BOLTON: You know, Senator, we had consultations with Japan and the United Kingdom and France about how to approach this resolution. And as I mentioned earlier today, there were a variety of different steps that we could have taken. It was our judgment that the best way to proceed was along the lines that are now embodied in Resolution 1695.
That is certainly not to say that the council might not take other steps in the future. But the steps we sought to take we have now taken, unanimously. KERRY: Well, you’re losing me a little bit because, I mean, North Korea defied the world’s request not to test an intercontinental missile. If ever there was a moment — you are the ones who said you wanted sanctions but were unable to get Russia and others to sign onto that concept. BOLTON: Senator, we said we wanted what we got. KERRY: Well, the most that you seem to want is to go back to a six-party talk that isn’t in existence. BOLTON: No, no, quite the contrary. We said expressly… KERRY: Are you prepared to go to bilateral talks? BOLTON: Quite the contrary. We said expressly that what we wanted from North Korea was not simply a return to the six-party talks, but an implementation of the September 2005 joint statement from the six-party talks which would mean their dismantlement of their nuclear weapons program. KERRY: But this has been going on for five years, Mr. Ambassador. BOLTON: It’s the nature of multilateral negotiations, Senator. KERRY: Why not engage in a bilateral one and get the job done? That’s what the Clinton administration did. BOLTON: Very poorly, since the North Koreans violated the agreed framework almost from the time it was signed. And I would also say, Senator, that we do have the opportunity for bilateral negotiations with North Korea in the context of the six-party talks, if North Korea would come back to them. KERRY: Mr. Ambassador, at the time — Secretary Perry has testified before this committee, as well as others — they knew that there would be the probability they would try to do something outside of the specificity of the agreement.
But the specificity of the agreement was with respect to the rods and the inspections and the television cameras and the reactor itself. BOLTON: Senator, the agreed framework requires North Korea and South Korea to comply with the joint North-South denuclearization agreement, which in turn provides no nuclear weapons programs on the Korean Peninsula.
So it was not limited only to the plutonium reprocessing program. KERRY: Mr. Ambassador, the bottom line is that no plutonium was reprocessed under that agreement. No plutonium was reprocessed until the cameras were kicked out, the inspectors were kicked out, the rods were taken out, and now they have four times the nuclear weapons they had when you came on watch. BOLTON: Because the North Koreans… KERRY: The question here is — I mean, a whole host of people have testified before this committee and others.
I mean, my objection is that if you look at the policies across the board, and we’re not going to resolve it here now, obviously, I understand that.
(CROSSTALK) KERRY: But here’s another good reason to think about this.
It’s hard to pick up the newspaper today, it’s hard to talk to any leader anywhere in the world, it’s hard to travel abroad as a senator and not run headlong into the isolation of the United States and the divisions that exist between us and our allies on any number of different issues.
Now, it is very hard to sit here and say that the six-party talks have been a success. BOLTON: I don’t believe I’ve said that. KERRY: I know. I didn’t suggest you have. But what I’m trying to get at is the policy foundation itself — why insist on a six-party talk process which, it seems to me, never joins the fundamental issues between the United States and North Korea, which go back a long, long time, over Republican and Democratic administrations? BOLTON: I think the reason for that is that the disagreement is not fundamentally a bilateral disagreement between North Korea and the United States. It’s a disagreement between North Korea and everybody else about their pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability.
And the aspect of the six-party talks that we think was most important was not negotiating over the head of South Korea, which was the consequence of the agreed framework, but bringing in all of the regional partners, South Korea, Japan, Russia and China, to address this question collectively, since it was in all of our interests to do so. KERRY: Most of the people that I’ve talked to spent a lot of time in various thoughtful institutions thinking about these issues — a career — believe that what North Korea wants more than anything is an assurance that the United States of America wasn’t going to have a strategy similar to Iraq directed at them.
And I think the assurance most people have suggested that if there were to be some kind of bilateral discussion to get at the issues between the two of us, you’d have far more opportunity to get at the nuclear issue than you do through these stand-off, nonexistent six-party talks that have produced nothing over five and a half years. BOLTON: I… KERRY: Why is the administration so unwilling to talk to Syria, talk to even pursue these issues? It doesn’t seem as though this nontalk approach is getting you very far. BOLTON: First, the six-party talks have not been going on for five and a half years.
Second, one of the principal… KERRY: No, because no talks were going on for the first couple of years, and then the six-party talks were a cover for not dealing with bilateral talks. I understand. BOLTON: The principal reason that we haven’t had six-party talks in 10 months is because North Korea won’t accept China’s invitation to come to the talks. But we have made it clear to them repeatedly that they could have and they have had bilateral conversations with the United States in the context of the six-party talks. BOLTON: So the question as to why the six-party talks have not proceeded here, I think lies squarely in Pyongyang. KERRY: Well, the world and North Korea are getting more dangerous, as you resist the notion of engaging in any kind of bilateral effort as an administration — not you, personally, I guess, but… BOLTON: Senator, really, it’s hard to understand how you can’t look at the notion of conducting the bilateral conversations in the six-party talks and not say that North Korea has an opportunity to make its case to us. KERRY: Sir, with all due respect, I mean, you know — what I’ve seen work and not work over the course of the years I’ve been here depends on what kind of deal you’re willing to make or not make and what your fundamental policies are.
If you’re a leader in North Korea, looking at the United States, and you’ve seen the United States attack Iraq on presumptions of weapons of mass destruction that didn’t exist, if you announce a preemptive strategy of regime change, if you are pursuing your own new nuclear weapons, bunker busting nuclear weapons, and you’re sitting in another country, you would have a perception of threat that makes you make a certain set of decisions.
And historically throughout the Cold War, that drove the United States and the then-Soviet Union to escalate and escalate. And first one did and then the other.
In fact — in fact — in every single case, we were the first, with the exception of two particular weapons systems to develop a nuclear breakthrough first. They followed — until ultimately, President Reagan, a conservative president, and President Gorbachev said we’re going to come down in Reykjavik to no weapons.
So we reversed 50 years of spending money and chasing this thing.
I would respectfully suggest to you that North Korea is sitting there making a set of presumptions. And unless you begin to alter some of the underlying foundation of those presumptions, you’re stuck.
The problem is, we’re stuck too, as a consequence. And a lot of us feel very, very deeply that the six-party talks have never been real and never been a way of achieving this goal. And as long as we’re on this course, we’re stuck.
COLEMAN: The chair would note that it’s been extremely generous.
Senator…
KERRY: Maybe you can respond to that, Mr. Ambassador? BOLTON: Well, I think that the effort that has been made is to give North Korea the opportunity to make the choice, to come out of its isolation, to give up its nuclear weapons programs and to enjoy the kind of life that the people in South Korea enjoy. BOLTON: There’s a great map, Senator — I’m sure you’ve seen a copy of it — of the Korean Peninsula at night. And South Korea is filled with light; North Korea is black. It looks like South Korea is an island. That’s what that regime has done to its people.
We could… KERRY: Sir, I know what a terrible regime it is. I understand that. BOLTON: We have tried to give them the chance, through the six- party talks, to end that isolation. And as I say, for 10 months, they haven’t even been willing to go back to Beijing. KERRY: I have to tell you something. About three years ago or four years ago, I can’t remember precisely when, the North Koreans were casting about here in Washington, asking people who do we talk to? They were looking for a deal. And the administration just blanked them. There was no willingness to do this.
This is pre going to the six-party talks. Then we get to the six-party talks, and we’ve gone through a series of evolutions since then.
So with all due respect, a lot of folks think there’s a different course. You don’t. The administration doesn’t. But I think it’s important to talk about it, and I think it’s important to lay it out there.
And we have, similarly, on 1559, which called for the disarmament of Hezbollah. That was not a priority for the last year, and we are where we are. BOLTON: I would disagree it was not a priority, but I’m not sure… KERRY: Can you tell me what you did at the U.N. that has put it on the front-burner agenda? BOLTON: I think really at this point I’d just refer you to my earlier testimony where I talked about a number of resolutions and presidential statements that we had adopted to put more pressure on Syria, both with respect to 1559 and 1595, which I think is another quite important resolution pursuing the Hariri assassination.
And I think that in fact, the issue of Lebanon generally is probably the best example of U.S. cooperation with France in a matter in the Security Council that we’ve had in recent years. KERRY: Well, again, we can debate, and we’re not going to here, so I’ll let that go.
Thanks.
COLEMAN: Thank you, Senator Kerry. The Senate does have a tradition of unlimited debate. We will bring this hearing to a close.
Ambassador, diplomats have to operate in all sorts of environments, all sorts of conditions. You’ve done that through your career and obviously demonstrated the capacity to do it today.
We will keep the record open until the close of business Friday the 28th.
With that, this hearing is now adjourned.
END
Please see the UPDATE
further down in this post –
thank you
You will see in this Video a UN Ambulance assisting and picking up terrorists to get them out of harms way in the Gaza Strip. Also they are not taking the UN Ambulance hostage, they are being aided by the UN Ambulance driver. The video was shot by Reuters on May 11, 2004.
And note the two flags togerther. The UN Flag and the Hezbollah Flag. Annan Charges Israel Deliberately Killed 4 at U.N. Post
05:16 Jul 26, ’06 / 1 Av 5766
(IsraelNN.com) United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan charged early Wednesday morning that Israel deliberately targeted a United Nations post in Lebanon late Tuesday night, killing four UNIFIL members.
They were part of the international body’s peace keeping force in Lebanon that was created in 1978 after the beginning of the Peace for Galilee Campaign, Dan Gillerman, Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations said he was “shocked” by Annan’s accusations and demanded an apology.
* Thank you Linda for the video……Something…….and Half of Something.
* Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler….has a great graphic for just this about the UN and Kofi Annan
In response to the many inquiries I’ve had concerning this video, following is a clarification of the event caught on film. This was stored on my old hard drive (what a pain to hook it up but worth it). I don’t know who wrote most of this, the links were not there in my notes, I just touched it up a bit and posted it. There is no plagiarism intended, I just don’t know who to credit:
As I indicated above, the video shot by a Reuters cameraman on May 11, 2004. The film documents two ambulances with flashing lights entering a street in Southern Gaza. Shots ring out accompanied by shouts in arabic, including the ever popular allah akbar. The terrorists make their escape in the ambulances, which are clearly marked with the UN logo and which are flying the UN flag.
What the video does not show is the result of the terrorist raid. The terrorists you see in the film murdered six Israeli soldiers that night, aided and abetted by paid employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). That’s your tax dollars at work!
Rueters declined to show the footage to American viewers and it was AccessMiddleEast.org, a nonprofit global news monitoring service, who originally posted the video on its Web approximately one month after it was filmed. Not a single U.S. television news station has ever expressed interest in showing the footage to American viewers.
UNRWA denies the incident and denies other similar documented incidents as well. UNRWA claims that their drivers were forced to cooperate in terrorist attacks despite the fact that one of its senior employees, Nahed Rashid Ahmed Attalah, has confessed to using his official U.N. vehicle to bypass security and smuggle arms, explosives, and terrorists to and from attacks, while he was supposed to be distributing food supplies to Palestinian refugees. Hamas terrorist Nidal ‘Abd al-Fataah ‘Abdallah Nizal worked as an UNRWA ambulance driver and freely admits he has used an emergency vehicle to transport munitions to terrorists.
But the UN isn’t the only humanitarian organization to assist terrorists in Israel. An intensive care ambulance carrying the acronym of the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) was used to deliver an explosive belt found underneath a stretcher on which a sick child was lying in spring 2002. Female suicide bomber Wafa Idris, who blew herself up in a 2002 attack in Jerusalem, was a medical secretary for the PRCS.
UNRWA has long been suspected of providing aid and comfort to terrorists. Rep. Eric Cantor (R.-Va.), chairman of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, documented how “buildings and warehouses under UNRWA supervision are allegedly being used as storage areas for Palestinian ammunition and counterfeit currency factories.”
Cantor’s 2002 report also noted that UNRWA hosts summer camps in martyrdom for young terrorists-in-training. Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ.) has also lobbied for increased scrutiny of UNRWA funding, which has been used to publish anti-Semitic textbooks and posters in schools that “glorify homicide bombers and the slaughter of innocents.”
Moreover, according to Smith, a UNRWA school hosted a Hamas rally by a key Hamas leader in 2001 and another UNRWA employee praised homicide bombers, proclaiming: “The road to Palestine passes through the blood of the fallen, and these fallen have written history with parts of their flesh and their bodies.”
While jihadists gain shelter in its emergency vehicles, the U.N. continues to lambaste the U.S. for assorted wartime “atrocities.” Not one more American dime should go to fund the bloody self-righteousness of the world’s most generous terrorist relief organization.
TEHRAN
Thursday, 27 July, 2006, 01:08 PM Doha Time
A group of Iranian students left for Lebanon yesterday pledging to help Hezbollah fight Israeli forces there, witnesses said.
Iranian hardliners have made great public show of recruiting volunteers for “martyrdom-seeking operations” in recent years, but there is no record of any of these Iranian volunteers taking part in attacks in Iraq, or against Israel.
“The Prophet Muhammad’s army is on its way to fight against the Zionists,” chanted some 50 volunteers at Tehran’s Behesht-e Zahra cemetery, where a large tree-lined area is dedicated to Iran’s ‘martyrs’ killed in the 1980-88 war with Iraq.
“A group of 200 volunteer students will be dispatched to Lebanon via Turkey. We are leaving Tehran today by bus,” said Amir Jalili, a spokesman for the group.
“We hope Turkey will let us pass the border and go to Syria. If not we will come back to Tehran.”
Iran is a sworn enemy of Israel and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for the Jewish state to be “wiped off the map”. But while Israel accuses Iran of arming Hezbollah, Tehran says it only gives the Lebanese group moral support.
The volunteers stressed theirs was a private initiative, not backed by state authorities. The group, calling itself the Justice-Seeking Movement of Students, said they had no military training. Some 50 students boarded buses from Tehran, but more were to join them from other cities at the border, they said.
Iranian officials have repeatedly said such groups have no official sanction and say they can operate only “as long as their ideas are limited to theory.”
“We are an independent group. We want to help our Shia brothers,” said Hadi, a 23-year-old French literature student, carrying pictures of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, who has vowed to take the war deeper into Israel.
“We want to fulfil our religious duty. If officials ban us from going to Lebanon, we will obey,” said another spokesman Morteza Assadi before getting on the bus to go to the border.
Members of the hardline Basij militia at the cemetery said they had no intention of taking action against Israel without the green light from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who has the last word on all matters in Iran.
By: Amil Imani
Amil Imani is an Iranian born American citizen and pro-democracy activist who resides in the United States of America.
The world is presently at its most wicked. It is beyond human help. It requires only a nudge to implode and prepare for the divine ruler, the Saheb-ul-Zaman (the Mahdi, the Lord of the Age) to come and set it aright. It is the sacred duty and privilege of every Muslim to do all he can to hasten the death of the old world and the birth of the global Islamic Ummeh. Thus goes the thinking of Iran’s ruling mullahs and their hand-picked president Mahmood Ahmadinejad.
It seems like the old millennialism thinking, a belief held, in one version or another by major religions. Indeed it is, with one terribly alarming difference. This time around, a group of believers with tremendous resources are intent upon forcing the issue, making the conditions so dire that it leaves the reluctant Saheb-ul-Zaman no choice but to appear and assume his universal reign.
The belief in supernatural intervention to set the world aright is scriptural to major religions, including Islam. The Jews have been earnestly supplicating the Lord for the Messiah to come; the Christians are impatiently awaiting the second coming of Christ; and, the Zoroastrians are convinced that Saoshayant is the one who shall come, defeat the trouble-making Ahriman—Satan—and make the creatures again pure.
Up to this point millennialism was a belief and a hope. No one ever aspired to or had the means of making the anticipated events come about. The matter was in the hands of God. The Muslims’ perennial prayer recited every day, posted in mosques and even on bumpers of vehicles has been, “O, Saheb-ul-Zaman, hasten your coming.” The prayer for the advent, thus far, has been limited to passive supplications of the faithful.
It is a well-established fact that beliefs are potent impetus to action. If you believe your home is about to be burglarized, you secure the house and take other precautions. If you, under the influence of cocaine, believe that a bug is burrowing into your skin, you may take a knife to your own body and try to dig the imaginary bug out.
Hence, it is shortsighted to dismiss the mullahs as a bunch of lunatics who are out of touch with reality and that they have no intention of doing catastrophic mischief to compel the Mahdi’s coming. Maybe some arming of the Iraqi Shiites, a little support for Hizbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine—but no, no major idiocy. After all, they are rational people and in touch with reality. Any large scale troublemaking spells their doom as well. Thus goes the rationalization—the greatest risky tranquilizer of the mind.
Rationalization, compounded by complacency and denial, can be deadly, particularly when the adversaries have different realities. To the fanatic mullahs ruling Iran Sahaeb-ul-Zaman is an absolute reality and his promised advent is irrevocably ordained. This is their reality and their belief and they have every intention of leading their life according to them.
It is foolish for the non-Muslims to dismiss the mullahs and the Bin Ladens as a bunch of fringe lunatics who are going to go away simply by wishing it. The Islamist reality is that the non-Muslims are the ones who deserve to be done away with; they are the ones who have refused to submit to the summons of Allah for much too long; and, it is time for the faithful to get rid of them. This makes for a lopsided contest. The non-Muslims are passively wishing that the nightmarish surge of Islamism is only a temporary fringe phenomenon doomed to die on its own, while the other side is marshalling its huge destructive power to accomplish its aim by eradicating the non-Muslims.
The cabal of fanatical mullahs ruling Iran has lost its patience, not only with the unbelievers, but also with the Mahdi as well. They aim to force his arrival. The mullahs believe they have the means to make it impossible for the Mahdi to tarry any longer by causing unprecedented death and destruction—conditions deemed essential for his coming. The world must hit the very bottom, before the Savior of the world comes to the rescue, so they firmly believe.
The question is: What does prudence demand? Clearly wishing the problem to go away is not a very effective solution in the same way that wishing for the Saheb-ul-Zaman to come has not been. Reasoning and negotiating with the mullahs and their ilk hold very little, if any, lasting promise. There are always the easy ways of denial and appeasement. We are very good at both practices. No, the Muslims have been around for ages. They make some troubles from time to time. But they really are not all that bad and dangerous. We’ll get along. If we have too, we’ll even let them live by the Sharia—their stone-age laws— in our midst. We’ll be reasonable and they will come around. We’ll just have to get along. So goes the line.
One problem: The other side doesn’t think this way. The Islamofascists don’t believe in the notion of “Live and let live.” They believe that the earth is Allah’s and it has been sullied by the heathens, the unbelievers and the kafir for far too long. Now that they have the means, they aim to make the world to their design and bring about the final solution—a nasty reminder of not too long ago Nazism.
Is this alarmist, or even hatemongering? You don’t believe Muslims can be that intolerant and hostile toward non-Muslims and that they’ll never go to the extremes? You know Muslims personally in your neighborhood or your work place and they are nice people? The nice Muslims you personally know are presently small minorities in alien lands. They have to be nice, and they may indeed be nice. Yet, when the main force of Islam surges forward, these nice folks will either have to join it or be swept aside like the rest of the resisters.
The concern is not with individual Muslims who live as solid citizens in democratic societies. They may have developed a taste for the freedom democracy bestows or have simply learned to tolerate it.
Our concern is with the gathering Islamic storm from the heart of Islamdom. To truly appreciate Islam, you must experience firsthand Islam in power. Take a quick trip to the lands of the Muslims and find out for yourself how horribly they treat the non-Muslims, even the, “People of the book,” Jews and Christians. Try to have a Bible study group or build a church in Saudi Arabia and discover the benevolence of Islamic rule.
The world is a laboratory where the experiment with Islam shows irrefutable results. To the extent that Islam rules any society, that society is stagnant, backward thinking, repressive and violent. The Islamic Republic of Iran represents the cutting edge for the newly petrodollar invigorated Islam. It is determined to complete its task of ending the world of “Dar-ul-Harb”—the non-Muslim world to be warred upon—and establishing the “Dar-ul-Solh,” or “Dar-ul-Salam”—the Muslim world of the Ummeh under the rule of the Mahdi. If achieving this aim hinges on the conflagration of the Third World War, the mullahs are happy to make it happen.
Distribution and installation of Hezbollah flag in the Parliament of the Islamic Republic of Iran
Iran Press News Wild Thing’s comment……
I find this interesting, the fact that it is new for this to happen. I had thought that their representation would have already been prominent.
The Mahdi Army, a Shiite militia led by Iraqi radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, has re-emerged as a key force in Iraqi politics. Sunnis believe his militia is responsible for the kidnapping and killing of thousands of Sunnis over the past few months. Now a plan to shift more U.S. troops to Baghdad to deal with the worsening violence there is seen as putting the American military on a crash course with al-Sadr, shown here in an Aug. 9, 2004, file photo. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban, File)
Al-Sadr’s black-clad followers insist they simply protect Shiite communities that have suffered horrific losses at the hands of Sunni insurgents and religious extremists such as al-Qaida in Iraq since the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-dominated regime in 2003.
To put an end to the sectarian killings, President Bush on Tuesday approved a new plan to increase U.S. and Iraqi forces in Baghdad.
“Obviously the violence in Baghdad is still terrible and therefore there needs to be more troops,” Bush said at a White House press conference with al-Maliki.
That will inevitably mean a showdown with al-Sadr and his followers – believed to be the largest and most active Shiite militia in Iraq.
“If you don’t do this, you end up with a situation like you have in Lebanon, where the militia becomes a state within a state,” the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, Gen. John Abizaid, said in an interview this week with National Public Radio.
“It makes the state impotent to be able to deal with security challenges,” he said.
Coalition forces already have begun moving against the Mahdi Army. In the last month, British troops have arrested the Mahdi commander in the southern city of Basra. And American soldiers killed 15 militiamen in a gunfight 40 miles south of the capital last weekend.
U.S. and Iraqi forces have staged at least two major raids this month in Sadr City, the Mahdi Army’s Baghdad stronghold.
Like Hezbollah in Lebanon, the al-Sadr movement runs social services ranging from caring for widows and orphans to burying unclaimed bodies in Baghdad and other cities.
The parallels with Hezbollah reflect the network of clerical-led Shiite groups throughout the Middle East, which have been gaining strength due to the rise of both Iran and the Shiite community in Iraq.
Al-Maliki’s opposition to Israel’s attacks against Hezbollah in Lebanon is a sign of the network’s influence in a changing Middle East.
Wild Thing’s comment…….
I think the US forces would welcome a showdown with al-Sadr since every time they take on a group of his terrorists, they crush them.
Sadr runs an insurgency out of a Mosque. It’s time to obliterate this citadel with a MOAB. Why waste American deaths on this animal by assaulting with foot soldiers in the false belief that we don’t want to offend Shia Muslims. We should offend them with unbelievable force.
Vice President Dick Cheney swears Cpl. Jerrod Fields as he re-enlists in the Army Friday, July 21, 2006, at Fort Stewart, Ga., as his wife, Kirra Fields, watches. Fields was wounded by an improvised explosive device in 2005 while he was serving in Iraq with the 3rd Infantry Division. (AP Photo/Stephen Morton) FORT STEWART, Ga. – During a rally for more than 8,000 Georgia troops, Vice President Dick Cheney administered the re-enlistment oath Friday to a 24-year-old Army gunner determined to remain in the ranks after losing his left leg last year to a bomb blast in Iraq.
Flanked by risers crowded with his fellow 3rd Infantry Division troops, Cpl. Jerrod Fields of Chicago raised his right hand before Cheney and pledged to serve another four years. The Army approved Fields to remain in his cavalry unit after he passed his physical fitness test with flying colors, including running 2 miles in 14 minutes, 9 seconds with a prosthetic leg.
“I wasn’t going to let the bad guys, the enemy, affect a decision I’d already made,” said Fields, who was wounded by a roadside bomb while driving a Bradley armored vehicle near Rustamayah, Iraq, in February 2005.
Fields opted to have his leg amputated below the knee to improve his chances of returning to active duty. He said Cheney offered words of personal praise offstage.
“He just told me job well done,” Fields said. “He was happy that I decided to stay in and said just to keep pushing.”
Cheney traveled to Fort Stewart, about 40 miles southwest of Savannah, to thank Army troops of the 3rd Infantry and the 48th Infantry Brigade of the Georgia National Guard for their service in Iraq.
The 19,000 soldiers of the 3rd Infantry finished their second combat tour in December. The 48th Brigade returned in May after deploying more than 4,500 citizen-soldiers to Iraq for a year. It was the largest deployment of Georgia guardsmen since World War II.
Cheney promised the troops the U.S. will keep fighting in Iraq until it can declare victory, and urged Americans not to become complacent nearly five years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
`We have only two options in Iraq: victory or defeat. And I want you to know, as members of the United States military, the American people do not support a policy of retreat of defeatism,” Cheney said. “We want to complete the mission, get it done right and return with honor.”
The soldiers cheered raucously for Cheney after waiting two hours on the Fort Stewart parade grounds, where the July sun pushed temperatures past 90 degrees. Troops dabbed sweat from brows topped with black berets. And Cheney quickly shed his dark suit coat after taking the outdoor stage.
Fields, who has returned to the field training with his unit, said he was “amazed” to be re-enlisted by the vice president.
But the 3rd Infantry’s commander, Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, said the young soldier had earned it.
“He’s gone through eight legs because he’s so difficult and demanding on that artificial leg,” Lynch said. “I’ve got to tell you, I’m inspired by him as an individual and I’m inspired by him as a soldier.” Wild Thing’s comment……..
Thank you, Cpl. Fields! Prayers for all our troops and keep them all safe.
All the men in my family have served our country. They have represented every branch of the service. One of my Uncles was injured in the Battle of the Bulge and had to have one of his legs amputated. Some of our soldiers have reactions to this in that there is an irritation over the years from the prosthesis they use, my Uncle Ed was one of them. Medicine has changed a lot since back then and when I see a wonderful story like this one about Cpl. Fields I am not only proud of him, and proud to be an American but also grateful to God that he is doing so great.
The courage that all of our soldiers have is something that fills my heart with such pride and gratitude. Letting them know what their service means to us, to America and even to the world. The troops today as in past wars are making history, they are living it every second of the day.
What a wonderful country we have, there is nothing like it on this earth and we owe it to our Veterans and our troops today.
Sgt. Antonio Montes and fellow Soldiers from the 506th Regimental Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, patrol the neighborhood of Adhamiya in east Baghdad. This photo appeared on www.army.mil.
U.S. Marines prepare their small unit riverine watercrafts for a patrol on the Euphrates River near Hadithah, Iraq.
While most U.S. and Iraqi military forces operate in Iraq’s cities and towns, the dozens of U.S. Marines who make up the security unit at Hadithah Dam in Iraq’s Al Anbar Province spend their days patrolling the waterways to search for insurgent activity and keep Iraq’s waterways secure near Hadithah Dam. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Roe F. Seigle
Wild Thing’s comment……
Wild Thing’s comment……..
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