Defense Minister Han Min-koo: South Korea Has Plan to Assassinate Kim Jong Un
Posted: September 24, 2016 Filed under: Global, Politics, Self Defense, War Room | Tags: Associated Press, Barack Obama, Bomber, Guam, Korea, Lee Jin, New York, North Korea, Nuclear weapons testing, Osan Air Base, Republic of Korea Army, Rockwell B-1 Lancer, SEOUL, South Korea, United Nations General Assembly Leave a comment
A top South Korean defense official admitted this week that Seoul has a plan in place to assassinate North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un.
The Asia Times reported that Defense Minister Han Min-koo made the remarks Wednesday during a parliamentary meeting in the country’s capital. He was asked about rumors circulating about such a plan.
“If it becomes clear the enemy is moving to attack the South with nuclear missiles, in order to suppress its aims, the concept is to destroy key figures and areas that include the North Korean leadership.”
— Defense Minister Han Min-koo
“If it becomes clear the enemy is moving to attack the South with nuclear missiles, in order to suppress its aims, the concept is to destroy key figures and areas that include the North Korean leadership,” Han said. He said Seoul is “considering launching a Special Forces unit to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.”
Meantime, North Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Ri Yong Ho railed against the United States in his United Nations General Assembly address, warning the U.S. of “tremendous consequences” for its aggression and justifying Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program and nuclear tests to defend North Korea from American hostility. Read the rest of this entry »
OH YES HE DID: Putin Raises Possibility of Using Nuclear Weapons Against Terrorists
Posted: December 9, 2015 Filed under: Global, Guns and Gadgets, Russia, Self Defense, Terrorism, War Room | Tags: Agence France-Presse, Barack Obama, Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin, Nukes, RUSSIA, Russian language, United Nations General Assembly, United States, Vladimir Putin 1 Comment
But hopes they ‘will never need’ them
Serina Sandhu reports: Vladimir Putin has said he hopes nuclear warheads will not be needed to deal with terrorists, after Russia launched cruise missiles from its submarine at Syria.
“With regard to strikes from a submarine. We certainly need to analyse everything that is happening on the battlefield, how the weapons work. Both the [Kalibr] missiles and the Kh-101 rockets are generally showing very good results. We now see that these are new, modern and highly effective high-precision weapons that can be equipped either with conventional or special nuclear warheads.”
— Vladimir Putin
During a meeting in the Kremlin, Russia’s Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu told the President that Kalibr cruise missiles had been fired by the submerged Rostov-on-Don submarine from the Mediterranean Sea for the first time.
He said TU-22 bombers also took part in the latest raids and that “significant damage” had been done to a munitions depot, a factory manufacturing mortar rounds and oil facilities. Two major targets in Raqqa, the defacto capital of Isis, had been hit, said Mr Shoigu.
President Putin said the new cruise missiles could also be equipped with nuclear warheads – but that he hoped they would never need them.
He said: “With regard to strikes from a submarine. We certainly need to analyse everything that is happening on the battlefield, how the weapons work. Both the [Kalibr] missiles and the Kh-101 rockets are generally showing very good results. We now see that these are new, modern and highly effective high-precision weapons that can be equipped either with conventional or special nuclear warheads.”
President Putin said the new cruise missiles could also be equipped with nuclear warheads – but that he hoped they would never need them. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] BAD OPTICS: Obama on ‘Good Morning America’, Earlier Today: ISIS Is Not Getting ‘Stronger,’ We Have ‘Contained’ Them
Posted: November 13, 2015 Filed under: Mediasphere | Tags: Barack Obama, Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories, Donald Trump, George Stephanopoulos, Islamic state, Syria, United Nations General Assembly, United States, Vladimir Putin, White House 1 Comment
Friday on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” President Barack Obama seemingly downplayed the threat of ISIS in an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that aired on Friday’s broadcast of “Good Morning America.”
“I don’t think they’re gaining strength. What is true is that from the start, our goal has been first to contain and we have contained them. They have not gained ground in Iraq, and in Syria they’ll come in, they’ll leave, but you don’t see this systemic march by ISIL across the terrain.”
Stephanopoulos asked Obama if ISIS was gaining in strength, to which Obama denied they were.
“I don’t think they’re gaining strength,” Obama responded. “What is true is that from the start, our goal has been first to contain and we have contained them. They have not gained ground in Iraq, and in Syria they’ll come in, they’ll leave, but you don’t see this systemic march by ISIL across the terrain.”…(read more)
Source: Breitbart
‘Clock Boy’ Family Circus Pulling Up the Tent: Ahmed Mohamed Will Move to Qatar
Posted: October 20, 2015 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Mediasphere, Politics, White House | Tags: Ban Ki-moon, Barack Obama, Cairo, Council on American–Islamic Relations, Government of South Africa, International Criminal Court, Islamism, Khartoum, Muslim, Omar al-Bashir, Sudan, Taliban, United Nations General Assembly, United States Leave a comment
Avi Selk reports: After finally meeting President Obama last night, Ahmed Mohamed and his family plan to leave the United States for the foreseeable future.
“We are going to move to a place where my kids can study and learn and all of them being accepted by that country.”
— Ahmed’s father, Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed
Schools from across the country have made offers to Ahmed since he was arrested at Irving’s MacArthur High last month—his homemade clock confused with a hoax bomb, transforming him into a symbol of perceived anti-Muslim bias.
The family’s full statement follows:
But apparently it was an offer from the Middle East that most intrigued the family. The Mohameds announced today that they’ve accepted a foundation’s offer to pay for the 14-year-old’s high school and college in Doha, Qatar, which Ahmed visited a few weeks ago as he began a world tour.
“Looking at all the great offers we’ve had, it’s the best decision. They even have Texas A&M at Qatar … It’s basically like America.”
His sister, Eyman Mohamed, said Ahmed will study at Doha Academy, while she and his other siblings find schools in the rich capital city, which hosts a huge university complex called Education City.
“Looking at all the great offers we’ve had, it’s the best decision,” said Eyman, 18. “They even have Texas A&M at Qatar … It’s basically like America.”
She spoke as the family boarded an airplane from Washington, where Ahmed concluded his world tour at the White House this week, back to their smallish house in Irving.
[Read the full text here, at Dallas Morning News]
But they’ll only be here for a few days, Eyman said, before they jet off to a new life on the other side of the world.
Not that their story in the United States is done. Before leaving Washington, Ahmed appeared with a U.S. Congressman who, along with nearly 30 other members of congress, have asked the federal government to investigate whether anti-Muslim discrmination prompted Ahmed’s arrest. Read the rest of this entry »
‘New Cult of Stalin’: Soviet Nostalgia, Stalin Portraits in Ukraine’s Rebel Regions
Posted: October 19, 2015 Filed under: Global, Russia, War Room | Tags: Barack Obama, Charles De Gaulle, Joseph Stalin, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nikita Khrushchev, RUSSIA, Soviet Union, United Nations, United Nations General Assembly, Vladimir Putin 1 Comment
The horrors of Stalin’s repressions and the deaths of up to five million Ukrainians in the 1930s due to famine caused by forced collectivisation go unmentioned.
Donetsk (Ukraine) (AFP) – Nicolas Miletitch reports: Three portraits of former Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin are on display in the centre of Donetsk, the rebel capital of eastern Ukraine, as the separatist authorities fuel a mood of Soviet nostalgia.
“The Soviet Union was a great country and it was a huge mistake that it was destroyed by the CIA and other secret services.”
The portraits, adorning a main square, seem to go down well with one young woman walking past.
“I think the portraits of Stalin are a good thing. It’s our history and a lot of people have forgotten he even existed,” said Yekaterina, a 22-year-old student.
The previously taboo display comes as the rebels revive Soviet customs to cement their Moscow-backed rule — while glossing over Stalin’s atrocities.
“I think the portraits of Stalin are a good thing. It’s our history and a lot of people have forgotten he even existed.”
The Stalin portraits feature a quote from the wartime leader: “Our cause is just. The enemy will be routed. We will claim victory.”
The horrors of Stalin’s repressions and the deaths of up to five million Ukrainians in the 1930s due to famine caused by forced collectivisation go unmentioned.
The Donetsk rebel leader Alexander Zakharchenko told AFP how he regretted the break-up of the Soviet Union.
“Stalin portraits have become de rigueur in the offices of rebel officials in eastern Ukraine, where the separatist conflict has killed more than 8,000 people.”
“The Soviet Union was a great country and it was a huge mistake that it was destroyed by the CIA and other secret services,” said the 39-year-old former field commander who prefers to dress in camouflage gear.
“Europe and other countries were scared stiff of us.”
New cult of Stalin
Stalin portraits have become de rigueur in the offices of rebel officials in eastern Ukraine, where the separatist conflict has killed more than 8,000 people.
The Donetsk rebels’ deputy defence minister Eduard Basurin wears a badge with Stalin’s profile on his uniform.
This new cult of Stalin revives the memories in Donetsk, a coal-mining city that was formerly known as Stalino.
It was renamed in the early 1960s after Nikita Khrushchev, who emerged as Soviet leader in the power struggle that followed Stalin’s death, condemned his predecessor’s cult of personality. Read the rest of this entry »
OH YES THEY DID: Iran ‘Convicts’ Hostage American Reporter In Secret Trial
Posted: October 12, 2015 Filed under: Censorship, Crime & Corruption, Global, Mediasphere, War Room | Tags: Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution, Bahá'í Faith, Barack Obama, Committee to Protect Journalists, Evin Prison, Human rights, Iran, Jersey City, Maziar Bahari, New Jersey, Politics of Iran, Saeed Abedini, Tehran, United Nations General Assembly Leave a comment
John Hayward reports: “News of a verdict in Tehran’s Revolutionary Court initially came early Sunday, but court spokesman Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei did not specify the judgment,” reports Rezaian’s paper, the Washington Post. “In a state TV report late Sunday, Ejei said definitively that Rezaian was found guilty.”
“The judge who heard the case is known for handing down harsh sentences, and Rezaian potentially faces a sentence of 10 to 20 years. It is not even known if Rezaian himself has been informed of the conviction.”
The Iranians have not specified what Rezaian is guilty of or what his sentence will be. The “trial” wrapped up two months ago. Rezaian has already been imprisoned in Iran for 14 months. He has now been held hostage longer than the Americans seized in Tehran under President Jimmy Carter, a milestone Rezaian passed over the weekend.
“The judge who heard the case is known for handing down harsh sentences, and Rezaian potentially faces a sentence of 10 to 20 years,” the Post ominously notes. “It is not even known if Rezaian himself has been informed of the conviction.” His Iranian lawyer also appeared to be unaware of the conviction.
[Read the full text here, at Breitbart.com]
“Iran has behaved unconscionably throughout this case, but never more so than with this indefensible decision by a Revolutionary Court to convict an innocent journalist of serious crimes after a proceeding that unfolded in secret, with no evidence whatsoever of any wrongdoing,” said Washington Post executive editor Martin Baron in a statement. Read the rest of this entry »
Power Games: Vladimir the Ball-Breaker vs Barack the Passive Metrosexual
Posted: October 4, 2015 Filed under: Diplomacy, Global, Politics, Russia, War Room, White House | Tags: Barack Obama, Bashar al-Assad, Dmitry Peskov, Iran, Moscow, President of Russia, RUSSIA, Ukraine, United Nations, United Nations General Assembly, Vladimir Putin, White House Leave a comment
Matt K Lewis writes: As was the case when Russians invaded Ukraine, the Russians cloaked their activity in lies.
In the former example, Russian soldiers didn’t wear uniforms, a thinly-veiled move meant to create the impression the fighters were merely Ukrainian “separatists.”
“In the vast majority of the world, power (or the perception of power) is what matters. In America, President Obama’s brand of metrosexual coolness works well.”
Likewise, Wednesday’s bombings ostensibly targeted Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil); in fact, the strikes were aimed at moderate rebels and civilians – part of a plan to take out any opposition to their client, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.
Syrian President Bashir al-Assad Photo: REUTERS
This all comes on the heels of President Barack Obama’s drawing of a “red line” regarding the use of chemical weapons, only to back down when the Assad regime – by most accounts – used them.
This past week, White House press secretary Josh Earnest strained credulity when he said Mr Obama doesn’t regret drawing that red line.
“For those paying attention, Mr Obama’s foreign policy world-view has failed.”
Weakness invites provocation, and – never one to miss an opportunity to outmanoeuvre Mr Obama – Mr Putin provided a self-serving opportunity that would also allow the president to save face: Moscow would push Syria to put their chemical weapons under international control.
It’s also important to note that in the wake of the red line being trampled, Russia invaded Crimea. President Obama’s legacy may be mixed, but one thing is for sure: Vladimir Putin is much more powerful and provocative than he was before Mr Obama took office, and Russia has only expanded its sphere of influence.
[Read the full text here, at Telegraph]
The Syria bombings also come almost immediately after Mr Putin met with Mr Obama at the UN where they agreed to “deconflict” military operations – a very Obama-esque line that Mr Putin immediately crossed.
Russian bombs exploding outside Idlib Photo: Hadi Al-Abdallah via AP
And prior to bombing our friends in Syria, the Russians also had the audacity to issue a “démarche” for the US to clear air space over northern Syria. As if that weren’t enough, this came just as reports that the Russians attempted to hack Hillary Clinton’s email server.
For those paying attention, Mr Obama’s foreign policy world-view has failed.
The suggestion that America could leave a vacuum that wouldn’t be filled by our adversaries – the idea that the “international community” (whatever that means) would respect us more if we were to retreat from the world – was always a farce.
Read the rest of this entry »
NYT Cartoon of the Day: United Nations
Posted: October 1, 2015 Filed under: Comics, Diplomacy, Global, Mediasphere, Russia, White House | Tags: Barack Obama, Bashar al-Assad, RUSSIA, Russian Armed Forces, Syria, The New York Times, United Nations General Assembly, United States, Vladimir Putin Leave a comment
President Obama and President Vladimir V. Putin attended the General Assembly…
Source: The New York Times
Seriously, Must Presidential Visits Be Such Regal Affairs?’
Posted: July 28, 2015 Filed under: Politics, White House | Tags: Barack Obama, China, Josh Earnest, New York, New York City, President of the United States, United Nations General Assembly, United States Department of State, Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, White House 2 Comments
Security is one thing; a sense of moderation is another. They are not incompatible values.
President Obama just shattered another long-standing tradition: he didn’t stay at the Waldorf-Astoria during his visit to New York City this past weekend, and is apparently not planning to use the venerable Park Avenue tower during September’s meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. Every president since Herbert Hoover has either lived or stayed at the Waldorf—though Jimmy Carter says he never actually spent the night—and it was for many years the official residence of the United States’ permanent representative to the U.N. The list of overnight guests includes Mr. Obama who stayed at the hotel during previous General Assembly sessions.
“He might do well to take a page from the British. Both Prime Minister David Cameron and the heir to the British thrown, Prince William, were recently photographed traveling (heaven forbid) economy class.”
But no more. The State Department announced that it was moving its headquarters during the U.N. session. Apparently, the sale of the Waldorf to China’s Anbang Insurance Group triggered either pique over the recent hacking of 4.2 million U.S. government personnel records—where China is the main suspect—or real fears about security.
[Read the full editorial here, at the Observer]
As part of the $1.95 billion sale, there will be a major renovation of the hotel, and some are concerned that the new owners will implant new bugging equipment.
“Similarly, Prince William and his wife Kate Middleton managed to stay chic flying to the French Alps for a ski vacation also on Easyjet.”
So the State Department has decamped to the New York Palace Hotel, which was recently purchased by South Korea’s Lotte Group. According to documents leaked by Edward Snowden, South Korea regularly spies on the United States, but we don’t much care.
“When Mr. Obama and his daughters took a not-so-impromptu walk through Central Park, a caravan of 31 vehicles delivered them, at least 10 secret service agents, almost all wearing not-quite-matching blue and gray short-sleeve shirts, surrounded them, and a giant Cadillac Escalade followed closely behind—on the sidewalk.”
With all of this Spy vs. Spy activity, finding a decent hotel room is apparently getting tougher and tougher. Alas, payback is a bitch. Read the rest of this entry »
North Korea Holds Massive Rally Against UN Human Rights Resolution
Posted: November 25, 2014 Filed under: Asia, Global | Tags: Associated Press, International Criminal Court, Kim Il-sung Square, Kim Jong-un, North Korea, Pyongyang, United Nations General Assembly, United Nations resolution, United Nations Security Council, United States 1 Comment
PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — North Korea held a mass rally Tuesday in its capital to protest a United Nations resolution condemning its human rights record.
Thousands of protesters in Kim Il Sung Square carried banners praising their leaders and condemning the United States. Such mass rallies are organized by the government and are used to express its official line.
North Korea has denounced the U.N. resolution, which is the first to urge the Security Council to refer the issue to the International Criminal Court. That would open the possibility of its autocratic leader, Kim Jong Un, being targeted by prosecutors. The non-binding resolution is to come before the U.N. General Assembly in the coming weeks. Read the rest of this entry »
Heather Mac Donald on Obama’s Shameful New Low: Comparing American Cops with Islamic Terrorists
Posted: September 27, 2014 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Diplomacy, Law & Justice, War Room | Tags: America, Barack Obama, City Journal, CNN International, Eric Holder, Ferguson, Ferguson Missouri, HEATHER MAC DONALD, Obama, United Nations General Assembly 1 Comment
The idea that the Ferguson riots were the result of a predatory police force tantamount to sectarian murderers in the Middle East is a poisonous calumny. The threat to America’s blacks comes almost exclusively from other blacks, not from the police.
President Obama has announced to the world that America’s police officers are as disruptive to civil society as Middle Eastern beheaders and Russian-backed rebels.
“Obama is right about one thing: the world did take notice of the Ferguson riots, which were covered obsessively by CNN International, desperate to play up every wisp of alleged racism it could find.”
…Even a local newspaper in Salzburg, Austria, carried a fawning profile of America’s first black attorney general, Eric Holder, and his fight against police racism.
“This last Saturday, a 14-year-old girl was killed on the streets of Paterson, New Jersey, in a drive-by gang shooting. She is the sixth homicide death in the area since a 12-year-old girl was shot in the head while riding a scooter in July…Obama and Eric Holder will have nothing to say about these homicides…”
All the more important, then, for Obama to set the record straight. The idea that the Ferguson riots were the result of a predatory police force tantamount to sectarian murderers in the Middle East is a poisonous calumny. The threat to America’s blacks comes almost exclusively from other blacks, not from the police.
“…In fact, the only government representatives who work day in and day out to stop the black bloodbath are police officers.”
Every year, thousands of African Americans are gunned down by other African Americans, with no attention from the media and local government officials. The homicide death rate for blacks in Los Angeles, for example, like in most other American cities, is ten times that for whites.
“Few are the departments that don’t try to forge bonds with their communities but their officers are still met with resistance, abuse, and hatred from criminals and their associates, and from ordinary people who have been fed a steady diet of anti-police propaganda.”
It’s not whites or police officers who are gunning down black Angelenos, it’s other blacks, killing in cold blood, also at ten times the rate of white and Hispanic homicide commission combined. Read the rest of this entry »
Lucy and the Nuclear Football
Posted: October 3, 2013 Filed under: Global, War Room | Tags: Ali Khamenei, Barack Obama, Charlie Brown, Iran, New York, Tehran, United Nations General Assembly, White House Leave a comment
If you grew up any time in the last half-century, chances are you have fond memories of Charles Schulz’s iconic “Peanuts” comic strip and its hard-luck protagonist, Charlie Brown. Each week brought a new misfortune for the unhappy Charlie, but never more so than when his crafty friend Lucy offered to play football — a game that, no matter how many times it was attempted, invariably ended with Charlie flat on his back.
These days, that little vignette is a particularly apt analogy for the Obama administration’s Iran policy. Time and again, the Iranian regime has succeeded in frustrating the White House’s earnest attempts at diplomatic “engagement.” So it was last week, when — on the heels of a very public diplomatic charm offensive aimed at the West — Iran’s new, ostensibly moderate president, Hassan Rouhani, struck a familiar tone during his visit to the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York.
Ahead of Rouhani’s visit, hopes in Washington had run high for some sort of meeting between him and President Obama. But Rouhani’s entourage snubbed an offer from the White House for just such a symbolic “encounter,” deeming the logistics to be “too complicated.” And when Rouhani took to the podium at Turtle Bay last Tuesday, his address contained the same tired litanies about Western imperialism and injustice that have become de rigueur excuses for the Iranian regime’s anti-Americanism and nuclear drive. Read the rest of this entry »
Will the NSA Revelations Kickstart the Cybersecurity Industry in China?
Posted: September 30, 2013 Filed under: China, War Room | Tags: China, IBM, Industry of the People's Republic of China, Internet Society of China, National Security Agency, NSA, United Nations General Assembly, United States 2 Comments
Image credit: REUTERS/Pawel Kopczynski
Adam Segal writes: One of the common arguments in the wake of the Snowden revelations about NSA surveillance is that other countries are going to double down on developing their own technology industries to reduce their dependence on U.S. companies. The Chinese press has made this argument numerous times–highlighting how IBM, Cisco, Intel and others have penetrated Chinese society–and this was one of the themes in Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s address to the United Nations General Assembly: “Brazil will redouble its efforts to adopt legislation, technologies and mechanisms to protect us from the illegal interception of communications and data.” Read the rest of this entry »
ALERT: The Democratic National Committee is nearly broke, owe creditors $18.1 million
Posted: September 30, 2013 Filed under: Politics | Tags: Barack Obama, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democratic, Democratic National Committee, DNC, Republican National Committee, United Nations General Assembly, White House 1 Comment
The bloodsuckers need a fresh infusion: watch your neck.
Tory Newmyer reports: There’s another budget crisis in Washington, and it’s unfolding inside the Democratic party. The Democratic National Committee remains so deeply in the hole from spending in the last election that it is struggling to pay its own vendors.
It is a highly unusual state of affairs for a national party — especially one that can deploy the President as its fundraiser-in-chief — and it speaks to the quiet but serious organizational problems the party has yet to address since the last election, obscured in part by the much messier spectacle of GOP infighting.
The Democrats’ numbers speak for themselves: Through August, 10 months after helping President Obama secure a second term, the DNC owed its various creditors a total of $18.1 million, compared to the $12.5 million cash cushion the Republican National Committee is holding. Read the rest of this entry »
A Small President on the World Stage
Posted: September 27, 2013 Filed under: Global, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: Barack Obama, Chad, Liberal democracy, New York, U.N. General Assembly, United Nations, United Nations General Assembly, United States 2 Comments
Chad Crowe
Peggy Noonan writes: The world misses the old America, the one before the crash—the crashes—of the past dozen years.
That is the takeaway from conversations the past week in New York, where world leaders gathered for the annual U.N. General Assembly session. Our friends, and we have many, speak almost poignantly of the dynamism, excellence, exuberance and leadership of the nation they had, for so many years, judged themselves against, been inspired by, attempted to emulate, resented.
As for those who are not America’s friends, some seem still confused, even concussed, by the new power shift. What is their exact place in it? Will it last? Will America come roaring back? Can she? Does she have the political will, the human capital, the old capability?
It is a world in a new kind of flux, one that doesn’t know what to make of America anymore. In part because of our president.
“We want American leadership,” said a member of a diplomatic delegation of a major U.S. ally. He said it softly, as if confiding he missed an old friend. Read the rest of this entry »
Ahmadinejads cameraman defects, seeks asylum in US
Posted: October 1, 2012 Filed under: Breaking News | Tags: Iran, Israel, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, New York, New York City, President of Iran, United Nations General Assembly, United States Leave a commentA lawyer for a cameraman who was accompanying Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the US for the United Nations General Assembly in New York says his client has defected.
Paul O’Dwyer, a New York City-based lawyer who is representing Hassan Gol Khanban, confirmed Sunday that his client is seeking asylum in the US He provided no other details.
It wasn’t immediately clear when the Iranian defected or his current whereabouts.
A message left with Alireza Miryousefi, a spokesman for the Iranian mission to the UN, was not immediately returned.
Ahmadinejad addressed the assembly on Wednesday, his last as president of Iran…
Israel Must Be ‘Eliminated’
Posted: September 26, 2012 Filed under: War Room | Tags: Ali Khamenei, Iran, Israel, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran, Ruhollah Khomeini, United Nations, United Nations General Assembly Leave a commentNetanyahu has to take Iran’s words seriously. Why doesn’t Obama?
“To see what is in front of ones nose needs a constant struggle.”—George Orwell
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks at the United Nations today, which also happens to be Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. The timing is apt because when it comes to Iran and Israel, the hardest thing for some people to see or hear is what Iranian leaders say in front of the worlds nose.
“Iran has been around for the last seven, 10 thousand years. They [the Israelis] have been occupying those territories for the last 60 to 70 years, with the support and force of the Westerners. They have no roots there in history,” Mr. Ahmadinejad told reporters and editors in New York on Monday.
“We do believe that they have found themselves at a dead end and they are seeking new adventures in order to escape this dead end. Iran will not be damaged with foreign bombs. We dont even count them as any part of any equation for Iran. During a historical phase, they [the Israelis] represent minimal disturbances that come into the picture and are then eliminated.”
Note that word—”eliminated.” When Iranians talk about Israel, this intention of a final solution keeps coming up. In October 2005, Mr. Ahmadinejad, quoting the Ayatollah Khomeini, said Israel “must be wiped off the map.” Lest anyone miss the point, the Iranian President said in June 2008 that Israel “has reached the end of its function and will soon disappear off the geographical domain.”
He has company among Iranian leaders. In a televised speech in February, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei called Israel a “cancerous tumor that should be cut and will be cut,” adding that “from now on, in any place, if any nation or any group that confronts the Zionist regime, we will endorse and we will help. We have no fear of expressing this.
“Major General Hassan Firouzabadi, chief of staff of the armed forces, added in May that “the Iranian nation is standing for its cause that is the full annihilation of Israel.”
This pledge of erasing an entire state goes back to the earliest days of the Iranian revolution. “One of our major points is that Israel must be destroyed,” Ayatollah Khomeini said in the 1980s.
Former Iranian President Akbar Rafsanjani—often described as a moderate in Western media accounts—had this to say in 2001: “If one day, the Islamic world is also equipped with weapons like those that Israel possesses now, then the imperialists strategy will reach a standstill because the use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything. However, it will only harm the Islamic world. It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality.”
So for Iran it is “not irrational” to contemplate the deaths of millions of Muslims in exchange for the end of Israel because millions of other Muslims will survive, but the Jewish state will not.The worlds civilized nations typically denounce such statements, as the U.S. State Department denounced Mr. Ahamadinejads on Monday. But denouncing them is not the same as taking them seriously…
via Review & Outlook– WSJ.com…
pundit from another planet 