Theodore's World

Ever met a Hero? I have met thousands of them and I am still meeting them. They are the men and women that have served our country and keep my butt safe every day of every week of every year. They take risks you cannot imagine, more real then in some movie on the big screen. The leave loved ones back at home and pray they will wait for them.

Ladies and gentlemen I have written about a man named Jack Idema, a Special Forces Operator and his Task Force Saber 7. And I will continue to till he and his men are free.

One aspect of the case of illegally-imprisoned Special Forces soldier Jack Idema that I’ve stressed time and again is that the first ‘trial’, at which Jack, Brent and Ed were sentenced to between eight and ten years in prison, was a complete travesty. Of course, given the effeminate shrieking from human rights hustlers
that accompanies even the slightest deviation from due process, some people might conclude that Idema and his men received a fair enough hearing, and that a kind of rough justicfe was done. This was certainly the impression MSM were keen to convey in their coverage of the trial.
Here’s the BBC, who seemed to find it all
rather amusing:

There is no doubt that some hearings descended into almost comical chaos, with
witnesses having stand-up rows with Idema and the other Americans. And the
prosecution seemed to base most of its case on accusation rather than
evidence.
Translation was another problem – some of those chosen were not up to what was a difficult job.

… So what’s it to be? The travesty the Free Jack campaign claim, or the somewhat rowdy, but basically sound, trial MSM were witness to?
Well, a good place to begin putting our side of the story is with the trial judge, ‘former’ Taliban member Abdul
Baset Bakhtyari:

The original motion, like all motions filed, was ignored by Bakhtyari, who
claimed the Interim Criminal Code, was merely a guideline, not really law, and
that the laws of his former Taliban government would be applicable.

That’s not really a good start, is it? Because, as a generally-accepted rule, judges don’t get to choose which legal system they’re going to try a case under. More to the point, since Idema and his men had spent the preceding three years hunting, capturing and killing members of the Taliban, it seems almost laughable to suggest that Bakhtyari could have been viewed as even remotely qualified to preside over the case. The phrase ‘conflict of interest’ doesn’t even begin to describe this situation.
So much for the judge. What about the prosecutor, Abdul Fatah? After all, it was his job to assemble and present the case against Idema and his men — Surely if this had been done in a fair and even-handed manner, Judge Bakhtyari’s scope for mischief would have been severely curtailed?
Well, some hope. Prosecutor Fatah, you see, was an ex-KGB man, who’d worked for the Soviets during their occupation of Afghanistan. Here’s an example of how he conducted the case against Jack and his men:

Then Fatah would pass the note up to prosecutor Dawari, who would then walk
right up to the Judge’s bench and hand it to him while Jack, or later, one of
the attorneys, would be talking. Bakhtyari would then read the note, and make
some wild ruling. Regardless of how many times the defense objected or yelled
about the secret communications, Bakhtyari would just ignore the complaint.

… And so much for the prosecutor. What about a defence team? Well, although Idema and his men finally managed to acquire a U.S. lawyer, John Tiffany, to represent them, the state of play in the early stages of the trial was rather
different:

Bennett finally got a female Afghan lawyer in September 2004, ten days before
the final verdict. She met Bennett ONE TIME for 20 MINUTES. She promptly
informed Bennett that if she represented him Bakhtyari would not allow her to
speak because she was a woman, and he did not normally allow women to appear
in his court without a Burka. Then she dropped the real bomb– if she appeared
in court for Bennett, she would be murdered.

Now, if the Islamofascist judge, the resentful, ex-KGB prosecutor and defence lawyers placed under threat of death should they appear in court weren’t enough, there’s also the complete lack of evidence against Idema and his men.
Let’s be clear about this. I’m not saying the evidence presented by the prosecution was weak, or flawed, or fell apart under cross-examination. The prosecution simply produced no evidence against Jack Idema whatsoever. No
photographs showing marks of the torture Idema supposedly committed, no sworn-in witnesses. Nothing.
Even more galling, when Idema and his men attempted to present evidence that, in a normal courtroom, would have cleared them, the following occurred:

Jack read the law about being able to call a witness and Bakhtyari said,
"ok, call your witness." Fatah handed a secret note up once again.
This time to Prosecutor Dawari, who read it, smiled, then handed it to
Bakhtyari. The Taliban Judge read the note, chuckled, then said, "We will
save calling witnesses until the next hearing and you can do it then, this
hearing is finished." After four more hearings, and a verdict of guilty,
the defense had still not been allowed to call a single witness or ask a
single question of any of the terrorists who said the were hung upside down at
the first "press conference" which Bakhtyari later called a hearing.

Let’s put all of this together. Here we have a ‘trial’ in which:

• The judge is a member of the terrorist organisation the defendants were
  hunting

• The judge threw out the law of the land and tried the case under a
  completely different legal system

• The prosecutor conferred with the judge, passing secret notes and
  whispered advice to him

• Lawyers for the defence were threatened with death if they appeared in
  court

• No evidence of any kind was offered by the prosecution in support
  of the charges they brought against Idema and his men

• The defence were never allowed to present any evidence or call any
  witnesses

Question: What best describes the September 2004 trial? A shameful miscarriage of justice? Or, as the BBC would have it, ‘almost comical chaos’? The answer to this one should really be a no-brainer.
So what can we do about this? Well, for bloggers, there’s the weekly Free Jack Idema Blogburst. We are still really, really, really desperate for more people to get involved with this –The only way we can help Jack, Brent and Ed is by getting the truth about the case out to as many people as possible. Obviously, the more of us there are posting on this topic, the greater chance there is that our voices will be heard.
Anyone wishing to sign up for the Free Jack Idema Blogburst should email :
Cao or
Rottweiler Puppy for details.
If you want to know more about the story, Cao’s Blog has a large section devoted to Jack Idema. There’s also a timeline here, and, of course, a huge amount of information is available over at SuperPatriots, without whose work none of us would have learned about Jack’s story.
Finally, PLEASE NOTE: The SuperPatriots
and Jack images on this site are used with WRITTEN COPYRIGHT PERMISSION and any
use by any third party is subject to legal action by SuperPatriots.US
jack idema
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Technorati Search for Jack Idema

The Free Jack Idema Blogroll:
The Pink Flamingo Bar & Grill
The Lone Voice
Red Hot Cuppa Politics
Kender’s Musings
Irate Nate
The Devil’s Kitchen
Cao’s Blog
Big Dog’s Weblog
Theodore’s World
NIF
Rottweiler Puppy
Making Headlines
My Newz n’ Ideas
Right For Scotland
Freedom Folks
The City Troll

Time runs the table, and yet…..
in one small moment,
the sky rests,
and the clouds open into blue.
Silence falls in circles
and the Sunlight carries a soft
dream
..down..down beside me
….drifting from a scream
of freedom, high above.
A bright moment…
…. Time falling.
….. upon the wind
A gift from the sky.
..gift of a Hawk!
…….the feather in my hand,
as I smile.
I touch the gift…
and walk away.
It has been a good day.
~ by Wild Thing

.

Wild Thing’s comment………………
Thank you Sparks for sending me this email from TomR.
TomR I love the Blue Angels and have been able to see them about 11 times. Before moving to Florida three years ago, we lived in Las Vegas for 6 years after living in Calif. for many years. So while living in Vegas we were invited several times to Nellis Air Force Base, Nev. and got to see them. It was such an honor to meet some of the men that flew and be able to welcome others home from serving in Iraq.
Thank you again for these awesome photos, I just had to share them on here because they are so special.

A-hem, now who only has sex in the bedroom?

Reuters- Quick! Move that TV into the den!

ROME (Reuters) – Thinking of buying a TV for the bedroom? Think again — it could ruin your sex life.
A study by an Italian sexologist has found that couples who have a TV set in their bedroom have sex half as often as those who don’t.
“If there’s no television in the bedroom, the frequency (of sexual intercourse) doubles,” said Serenella Salomoni whose team of psychologists questioned 523 Italian couples to see what effect television had on their sex lives.
On average, Italians who live without TV in the bedroom have sex twice a week, or eight times a month. This drops to an average of four times a month for those with a TV, the study found.
For the over-50s the effect is even more marked, with the average of seven couplings a month falling to just 1.5 times.
The study found certain programs are far more likely to impede passion than others. Violent films will put a stop to sexual relations for half of all couples, while reality shows stem passion for a third of couples.

Wild Thing’s comment………..
There probably is a even a newer study that says sex in the bedroom cuts TV watching in half. Hmmmm I wonder which came first………….. the lack of sex, or the TV? heh – heh
What the heck is wrong with those taking the survey anyway. Who in their right mind would choose TV over sex. Well wait a minute there are some shows I love but hey that is what the tape machine is for isn’t it? Sports is the only thing I can think of that would need to be seen as it happens. And why is the bedroom to that survey the all and be all. They obviously have no imagination or spontaneity.

CNSNews.com) –

As announced last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee was scheduled to meet today — Tuesday — to vote on the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court. But it’s not going to happen as planned.
Despite protests from Republicans, Democrats on the committee have pushed back the Judiciary Committee vote by one week, to Tuesday, Jan. 24, invoking their right to do so under Senate rules.

And this from National Review Online:

Democrats, anticipating that Alito ultimately will be confirmed, are trying to deny the White House that victory as long as possible, particularly in the days before the State of the Union address President Bush is to deliver Jan. 31. Although Senate rules do not enable them to defer the confirmation vote until after the speech, Democratic senators would like to reduce the victory period immediately before the speech, one of the broadest public stages the president commands each year.

Clinton’s Presidency = Dereliction Of Duty
But wait…..let’s hear from Hillary first.
Hillary Clinton slams Bush White House in Harlem….entire article at link.

NEW YORK (AP) — Sen. Hillary Clinton on Monday blasted the Bush administration as “one of the worst” in U.S. history and compared the Republican-controlled House of Representatives to a plantation where dissenting voices are squelched.

The House “has been run like a plantation, and you know what I’m talking about,” said Clinton, D-N.Y. “It has been run in a way so that nobody with a contrary view has had a chance to present legislation, to make an argument, to be heard.”

“We have a culture of corruption, we have cronyism, we have incompetence,” she said. “I predict to you that this administration will go down in history as one of the worst that has ever governed our country.”

Now check this out at Cato Institute:
Dereliction Of Duty: The Constitutional Record of President Clinton
It is very long so here is part of it………………………
The Clinton administration has repeatedly attempted to play down the significance of the warrant clause. In fact, President Clinton has asserted the power to conduct warrantless searches, warrantless drug testing of public school students, and warrantless wiretapping.
Warrantless “National Security” Searches
The Clinton administration claims that it can bypass the warrant clause for “national security” purposes. In July 1994 Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick told the House Select Committee on Intelligence that the president “has inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches for foreign intelligence purposes.” [51] According to Gorelick, the president (or his attorney general) need only satisfy himself that an American is working in conjunction with a foreign power before a search can take place.
The warrant clause was designed to give the American people greater security than that afforded by the mere words of politicians. It requires the attorney general, or others, to make a showing of “probable cause” to a magistrate. The proponents of national security searches are hard-pressed to find any support for their position in the text or history of the Constitution. That is why they argue from the “inherent authority” of the Oval Office–a patently circular argument. The scope of such “authority” is of course unbounded in principle. Yet the Clinton Justice Department has said that the warrant clause is fully applicable to murder suspects but not to persons suspected of violating the export control regulations of the federal government. [52] If the Framers had wanted to insert a national security exception to the warrant clause, they would have done so. They did not.
The Clinton administration’s national security exception to the warrant clause is nothing more, of course, than an unsupported assertion of power by executive branch officials. The Nixon administration relied on similar constitutional assertions in the 1970s to rationalize “black bag” break-ins to the quarters of its political opponents. [53] The Clinton White House–even after the Filegate scandal–assures Congress, the media, and the general public that it has no intention of abusing this power.
Attorney General Reno has already signed off on the warrantless search of an American home on the basis of the dubious “inherent authority” theory. [54] The actual number of clandestine “national security” searches conducted since 1993 is known only to the White House and senior Justice Department officials.
Warrantless Searches of Public Housing
In the spring of 1994 the Chicago Public Housing Authority responded to gang violence by conducting warrantless “sweeps” of entire apartment buildings. Closets, desks, dressers, kitchen cabinets, and personal effects were examined regardless of whether the police had probable cause to suspect particular residents of any wrongdoing. Some apartments were searched when the residents were not home. Although such searches were supported by the Clinton administration, Federal District Judge Wayne Anderson declared the Chicago sweeps unconstitutional. [55] Judge Anderson found the government’s claim of “exigent circumstances” to be exaggerated since all of the sweeps occurred days after the gang-related shootings. He also noted that even in emergency situations, housing officials needed probable cause in order to search specific apartments. Unlike many governmental officials who fear demagogic criticism for being “soft on crime,” Judge Anderson stood up for the Fourth Amendment rights of the tenants, noting that he had “sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution” and that he would not “use the power of [his] office to override it, amend it or subvert it.” [56]
The White House response was swift. President Clinton publicly ordered Attorney General Reno and HUD secretary Henry Cisneros to find a way to circumvent Judge Anderson’s ruling. One month later the president announced a “constitutionally effective way” of searching public housing units. The Clinton administration would now ask tenants to sign lease provisions that would give government agents the power to search their homes without warrants. [57]
The Clinton plan was roundly criticized by lawyers and columnists for giving short shrift to the constitutional rights of the tenants. [58] A New York Times editorial observed that the president had “missed the point” of Judge Anderson’s ruling. [59] Harvard law professors Charles Ogletree and Abbe Smith rightly condemned the Clinton proposal as an open invitation to the police to “tear up” the homes of poor people. [60]
Warrantless Drug Testing in Public Schools
The Clinton administration has defended warrantless drug testing programs in the public schools. In March 1995 the Supreme Court heard arguments on whether public school officials could drug test student athletes without a warrant or any articulable suspicion of illegal drug use. The Department of Justice sided with the school authorities, arguing that the privacy rights of individual students were outweighed by the interest of the school in deterring drug use by the student body generally. [61]
Solicitor General Days, arguing for the government, claimed that the school district “could not effectively educate its students unless it undertook suspicionless drug testing as part of a broader drug-prevention program.” [62] Days maintained that the Fourth Amendment’s requirement of individualized suspicion would “jeopardize” the school’s drug program. Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, John Paul Stevens, and David Souter expressed skepticism about that claim and pointed out that if the Supreme Court followed the Justice Department’s reasoning, America’s public school students might well end up receiving less constitutional protection under the Fourth Amendment than do convicted criminals under correctional supervision. [63]
The Clinton administration supports warrantless drug tests in other contexts as well. Thus, when Republican presidential candidate Robert Dole said, during the 1996 campaign, that he would subject welfare recipients to warrantless, suspicionless drug tests, President Clinton quickly followed suit with his own approval of such an initiative. [64]
Warrantless Wiretapping
The Supreme Court has recognized that electronic surveillance, such as wiretapping and eavesdropping, impinges on the privacy rights of individuals and organizations and is therefore subject to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant clause. [65] President Clinton, however, has asked Congress to pass legislation that would give the Federal Bureau of Investigation the power to use “roving wiretaps” without a court order. [66] The president also fought for sweeping legislation that is forcing the telephone industry to make its network more easily accessible to law enforcement wiretaps. Those initiatives have led ACLU officials to describe the Clinton White House as “the most wiretap-friendly administration in history.” [67]
It is unclear why the president made warrantless roving wiretaps a priority matter since judges routinely approve wiretap applications by federal prosecutors. According to a 1995 report by the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts, it had been years since a federal district court turned down a prosecutor’s request for a wiretap order. [68] President Clinton is apparently seeking to free his administration from any potential judicial interference with its wiretapping plans. There is a problem, of course, with the power that the president desires: it is precisely the sort of unchecked power that the Fourth Amendment’s warrant clause was designed to curb. As the Supreme Court noted in Katz v. United States (1967), the judicial procedure of antecedent justification before a neutral magistrate is a “constitutional precondition,” not only to the search of a home, but also to eavesdropping on private conversations within the home. [69]
President Clinton also lobbied for and signed the Orwellian Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, which is forcing every telephone company in America to retrofit its phone lines and networks so that they will be more accessible to police wiretaps. [70] The cost of that makeover is expected to be several billion dollars. Any communications carrier that fails to meet the technology standards of the attorney general can be fined up to $10,000 per day. The passage of that law prompted Attorney General Reno to marvel at her newly acquired power: “I don’t think J. Edgar Hoover would contemplate what we can do today.” [71] That is unfortunately true. In the past, law enforcement had to rely on the goodwill and voluntary cooperation of the American people for investigative assistance. That tradition is giving way to a regime of coercive mandates. [72] (snip)
President Clinton and the Legislature
President Clinton claims the Constitution gives him the unilateral power to attack other countries whenever he deems that course of action appropriate. Over the last four years, he has authorized missile attacks against Iraq, ordered air strikes in Bosnia, and threatened to invade Haiti. In each instance the president claimed that it was unnecessary to seek any constitutional authorization from Congress.
The Framers of the Constitution gave the war power careful consideration. Although in the European countries of the 18th century the war power was commonly vested in monarchs, the Framers made a deliberate decision to leave the war-making power with the national legislature, not the president. [114] Article I of the Constitution states that “Congress shall have the power . . . to declare war.” The president was to exercise his article II responsibilities as commander in chief within the framework established by the Constitution. The American executive would direct the military operations that the people’s representatives in Congress had authorized.
When President Clinton threatened to invade Haiti, 10 prominent legal scholars sent him a letter to remind him of the constitutional boundaries of his office:
The President may not order the United States Armed Forces to make war without first meaningfully consulting with Congress and receiving its affirmative authorization. . . . In our view, those principles, as well as your oath of office, require you to follow President Bush’s example in the Persian Gulf War: to seek and obtain Congress’s express prior approval before launching a military invasion of Haiti. [115]
President Clinton ignored that letter and came perilously close to commanding U.S. forces to attack the Haitian military. [116]
Haiti was not an isolated incident. The Clinton administration has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to use military force without congressional authorization. In September 1996, for example, President Clinton ordered a cruise missile attack on Iraq. [117] The president characterized that attack as a “retaliatory strike” because Iraqi forces were engaged in murderous activity in an “exclusion zone” that President Bush had created, on his own authority, in 1991. (Recall that Congress only authorized U.S. military forces to expel the Iraqi military from Kuwait; President Bush created exclusion zones on Iraqi territory for the Kurdish people after the successful conclusion of Operation Desert Storm.)
President Clinton’s rationale for his Iraqi missile attack is extremely distressing because it perfectly illustrates the dangerous propensities that the Founders apprehended at the Constitutional Convention. The Framers wanted the legislative branch to have the war power because of the ambitious tendencies of the executive branch. As James Madison noted, “The executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it.” [118] James Wilson, though an advocate of a strong presidency, approvingly observed that the new constitutional system “will not hurry us into war” since the war-making power “will not be vested in the power of a single man.” [119]
Michelle Milken ……”HILLARY’S MLK DAY DEMAGOGUERY”

I am new at being a blogger. I had my little website for one year and then just could not stand not being able to post my rants and rages and cheers as I felt them. So my wonderful blog Mom, Linda at Something….and Half of Something helped me do my blog. She has been the best teacher in the world.
The year that I had my website and no blog I would cruise the net looking at blogs, reading, learning and seeing such awesome people with hearts of passion for what is right or what should be right and not wrong with this ole world and especially America. Whew that was one hell of a long sentence. haha
There were (and still are) many places I would go to every day, there is was one known as Curmudgeonly & Skeptical. I would have that laugh I needed after being ticked off at a Dem. It is owned by Rodger and he makes his points with the visual and cuts right to the chase. Rodger is making a difference in this world and I am honored to know him.
Long story so I will make it short. Rodger had problems with his blog getting it to let him post etc. I am so new at this I do not know all the ins and outs of the different blogs and how they are set up. But it had to be hell, pulling hair out time for him to go through. Wanting to post and not be allowed to.
His new address for his Blog

I just want to thank you Rodger for sticking in there and not giving up. I am sorry you had to go through any kind of stressful thing, you did not deserve it.
Thank you

The Salt Lake Tribune
01/14/2006

Americans are asking serious questions about what is happening in government, and they are right to be disappointed by what they see. Never before in our history have we seen such corruption. It’s not only the scandals at the House, Senate and White House that are contributing to the corruption, but the corrupt priorities of lawmakers, too.
Washington has become a place where special interests rule. It’s now a city where the powerful and the well-connected get taken care of and everyone else gets left behind.
The problem is Washington is run by leaders who put their own political interests ahead of America’s interests. Wined and dined by their well-connected friends, these individuals have forgotten who they really work for. There’s a price to pay for this corruption, and it’s the American people who are forced to pay it. Year after year, they see special interests get the perks, while their priorities go unaddressed.
Consider 2005. Last year, the United States Congress did not pass a single item of legislation to make health care more affordable, to create high-paying, quality jobs, to help seniors live more secure retirements or to help middle-class families make ends meet.
Now, look what the Republican Congress did manage to do. It supported billions of dollars in tax breaks for special interests and multimillionaires and paid for them by cutting student loans and health care for seniors.
Is it any wonder Americans are fed up with how Washington works?
This New Year, Democrats resolve to clean up Washington, so America’s government can once again focus on priorities of America’s people.

Hey Harry!
(Rest of article is below)
Wild Thing’s comment…….
Harry what are we going to do with you and all your BS
Harry you are part of the problem!

(more…)

I guesss I missed it, but I have always wondered how the heck did Code Pink get their $600,000 check to the insurgents to our enemy. I mean I just could not see how Medea Benjamin, and Gayle Murphy or one of the others in their sicko group just flew over there, walked up to an insurgent and handed them the check and gave them a pinko hug.
So I looked around for it late last night. Maybe I am the only one in the world that did not know but just in case here it is. I will NEVER understand why Waxman and those with Code Pink are not executed for TREASON.

REP. HENRY WAXMAN INVOLVED IN CODE PINK’S AID TO THE ‘OTHER SIDE’ IN FALLUJAH
Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman (California) is reported to have given a letter to antiwar activists to facilitate their delivery of aid to the ‘other side’ in Fallujah, Iraq.
The leftist online publication Peace and Resistance, in an article published January 1 2005, said that Rep. Waxman had written a letter addressed to the American ambassador in Amman, Jordan to help ease transit through Customs of $600,000 worth of medical supplies and cash collected by the anti-American groups Code Pink and Global Exchange. According to the groups’ leader, Medea Benjamin, the aid is destined for the “other side” in Fallujah.
The letter was being carried by Fernando Suarez Del Solar, an antiwar activist whose Marine son, 20-year-old Jesus A Suarez del Solar Novaro, was killed in Iraq on March 27, 2003 when he reportedly stepped on an American cluster bomb fragment.
Mr. Suarez is being accompanied on the trip by fellow parents of soldiers killed in Iraq, as well as several family members of those killed in the September 11 terrorist attacks.
One Iraqi, when informed that parents of American soldiers killed while liberating his country were giving aid to the “other side” in Fallujah, asked, “what kind of people would help those killing their own sons and daughters?”
That’s a question the House Ethics Committee should be asking Rep. Waxman.
Peace and Resistance Story or see full article below…………………

(more…)

‘Divine mission’ driving Iran’s new leader
By Anton La Guardia
(Filed: 14/01/2006)

As Iran rushes towards confrontation with the world over its nuclear programme, the question uppermost in the mind of western leaders is “What is moving its President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to such recklessness?”
Political analysts point to the fact that Iran feels strong because of high oil prices, while America has been weakened by the insurgency in Iraq.
But listen carefully to the utterances of Mr Ahmadinejad – recently described by President George W Bush as an “odd man” – and there is another dimension, a religious messianism that, some suspect, is giving the Iranian leader a dangerous sense of divine mission.
In November, the country was startled by a video showing Mr Ahmadinejad telling a cleric that he had felt the hand of God entrancing world leaders as he delivered a speech to the UN General Assembly last September.
When an aircraft crashed in Teheran last month, killing 108 people, Mr Ahmadinejad promised an investigation. But he also thanked the dead, saying: “What is important is that they have shown the way to martyrdom which we must follow.”
The most remarkable aspect of Mr Ahmadinejad’s piety is his devotion to the Hidden Imam, the Messiah-like figure of Shia Islam, and the president’s belief that his government must prepare the country for his return.
One of the first acts of Mr Ahmadinejad’s government was to donate about £10 million to the Jamkaran mosque, a popular pilgrimage site where the pious come to drop messages to the Hidden Imam into a holy well.
All streams of Islam believe in a divine saviour, known as the Mahdi, who will appear at the End of Days. A common rumour – denied by the government but widely believed – is that Mr Ahmadinejad and his cabinet have signed a “contract” pledging themselves to work for the return of the Mahdi and sent it to Jamkaran.
Iran’s dominant “Twelver” sect believes this will be Mohammed ibn Hasan, regarded as the 12th Imam, or righteous descendant of the Prophet Mohammad.
He is said to have gone into “occlusion” in the ninth century, at the age of five. His return will be preceded by cosmic chaos, war and bloodshed. After a cataclysmic confrontation with evil and darkness, the Mahdi will lead the world to an era of universal peace.
This is similar to the Christian vision of the Apocalypse. Indeed, the Hidden Imam is expected to return in the company of Jesus.
Mr Ahmadinejad appears to believe that these events are close at hand and that ordinary mortals can influence the divine timetable.
The prospect of such a man obtaining nuclear weapons is worrying. The unspoken question is this: is Mr Ahmadinejad now tempting a clash with the West because he feels safe in the belief of the imminent return of the Hidden Imam? Worse, might he be trying to provoke chaos in the hope of hastening his reappearance?
The 49-year-old Mr Ahmadinejad, a former top engineering student, member of the Revolutionary Guards and mayor of Teheran, overturned Iranian politics after unexpectedly winning last June’s presidential elections.
The main rift is no longer between “reformists” and “hardliners”, but between the clerical establishment and Mr Ahmadinejad’s brand of revolutionary populism and superstition.
Its most remarkable manifestation came with Mr Ahmadinejad’s international debut, his speech to the United Nations.
World leaders had expected a conciliatory proposal to defuse the nuclear crisis after Teheran had restarted another part of its nuclear programme in August.
Instead, they heard the president speak in apocalyptic terms of Iran struggling against an evil West that sought to promote “state terrorism”, impose “the logic of the dark ages” and divide the world into “light and dark countries”.
The speech ended with the messianic appeal to God to “hasten the emergence of your last repository, the Promised One, that perfect and pure human being, the one that will fill this world with justice and peace”.
In a video distributed by an Iranian web site in November, Mr Ahmadinejad described how one of his Iranian colleagues had claimed to have seen a glow of light around the president as he began his speech to the UN. “I felt it myself too,” Mr Ahmadinejad recounts. “I felt that all of a sudden the atmosphere changed there. And for 27-28 minutes all the leaders did not blink…It’s not an exaggeration, because I was looking.
“They were astonished, as if a hand held them there and made them sit. It had opened their eyes and ears for the message of the Islamic Republic.”
Western officials said the real reason for any open-eyed stares from delegates was that “they couldn’t believe what they were hearing from Ahmadinejad”.
Their sneaking suspicion is that Iran’s president actually relishes a clash with the West in the conviction that it would rekindle the spirit of the Islamic revolution and – who knows – speed up the arrival of the Hidden Imam.

Wild Thing’s comment…………
I think this idiot, this deranged person does relish confrontation with the West. He is really asking for it. They claim to have seen a “glowing light” around their president? Give me a break! There might yet be a bright glow around him, but not quite what he was thinking.
This is a dangerous man. Even more troubling, this is a dangerous man in a position of some power. I have to wonder this. After they watched what happened to Saddam the only thing that would seem to make them so bold is hidden nuclear weapons that we aren’t aware of.
Mr Ahmadinejad telling a cleric that he had felt the hand of God entrancing world leaders as he delivered a speech to the UN General Assembly last September. The UN General Assembly is a podium for the worlds nitwits.This jerkoff Ahmadinejad, Chavez , Mugabe , Morales , and a host of others , should be totally banned and not allowed to come anywhere close to US airspace. If the try to anyway, shoot them down.