Iran Archives
What London Reads
December 19, 2006 03:04 AM
I'm often told that in order to get the "real news" about America - and particularly the Bush administration - you have to go to sources like the Guardian of London, which can bravely report the truths that American news bureaus dare not utter, presumably from fear that some third-tier policy dork at the Labor Department will no longer speak to them. So here goes.
Bush accused of gagging critic of Iran policy
Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Monday December 18, 2006
The Guardian
The White House yesterday faced fresh accusations of tailoring intelligence to suit its political viewpoint from a former CIA analyst barred from publishing a critical newspaper commentary on American policy towards Iran.
Flynt Leverett, a former Middle East analyst at the CIA and the National Security Council who has criticised the Bush administration for going to war with Iraq and for its handling of Iran, accuses the White House of pressing the CIA to demand sweeping cuts to an opinion piece he wrote for the New York Times on Washington's policy towards Tehran....
Mr Leverett said he was ordered to drop references to Iran's cooperation with the US on Afghanistan in the aftermath of the September 11 2001 attacks. He claims the White House has had no objections to similar assertions by less critical analysts.
Uh huh. The administration - no, I'm sorry, "Bush" - has not objected to other people saying the same thing Flynt Leverett wants to say, maybe because these other people are "less critical" of its/his policies.
So basically, Flynt Leverett believes that there's a gag order on Flynt Leverett (if that is his real name). News to me!
More news to me: The administration - or "Bush" - spends time trying to prevent negative portrayals of its/his policies from appearing on the New York Times op-ed page. I'll say it: Mr. President, this war is lost and forces must be redeployed immediately - to PBS!
GWEN IFILL: Is that at the root of the lot of this, just basic, old-fashioned lack of trust?
FLYNT LEVERETT: I think that's an inaccurate reading of the record. I think that Iranian cooperation with the United States on Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks was critical to the success of our efforts to get rid of the Taliban and stand up the Karzai government in its stead.
From an Iranian perspective, their reward for that was to be labeled part of the "axis of evil" in President Bush's January 2002 State of the Union address.
There is considerable distrust and historical baggage on both sides; that's part of what makes this a difficult issue to move forward. But to say that that baggage and that mistrust is a reason for not trying, when it is manifestly in U.S. interest to try, I think is a real strategic misjudgment.
Clear and hold, Mr. President. Clear and hold.
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Iran Archives
Learning to Love the Bomb
May 11, 2006 06:18 AM
While the regime in Iran openly flouts the Anti-Nuclear Proliferation Treaty, to which it is a signatory, and flirts with the destruction of Israel, the Beeb wonders: "Would An Attack on Iran Be Legal?"
Probably not, I'd say. Expect us to be arrested and thrown in jail, where we'll spend our days pacing the cell murmuring about "loose nukes" and posting urgent manifestos to European media. Occasionally the lone guard posted outside will grow tired of listening, and will enter and beat us until, bloody and whimpering, we will once more forswear any further mention of weapons or ayatollahs or world destruction. Shamed, disfigured and ignored, we will gradually lose our faith in humanity or justice, until one day we meet this nun from Singapore who will devote her remaining days to winning our freedom. As trust grows between us, we will reveal to her our willingness to be redeemed, and she will teach us to "heal." Working in tandem, our international legal team will make a plausible human rights case from the fact that our prison is within "blast distance" of Tel Aviv and will likely be incinerated in a nuclear exchange. The matter will be taken up by a crusading Spanish judge who believes that "even the world's worst terrorist" (us) should be treated humanely. Eventually a European court will agree to move the prison 20 kilometers West, just outside the blast zone, where radiation from the subsequent detonation will hit the cheek like the warm breath from a toaster oven and the view of the mushroom cloud will be marvelous.
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A middle-aged Ukrainian woman told me last night about her experiences as a member of the Komsomol, the Communist Youth organization during the Soviet era. On Christmas and Easter, she and other members of the group were ordered to the local churches, where they were instructed to form two concentric rings around the buildings by locking arms. These rings were intended as a defense perimeter that would keep people from going to church on religious occasions. This peculiar Soviet abhorrence of religion is one reason that in Ukraine gifts are not exchanged on Christmas, but rather (last night) on New Year's Eve. In 2007, let's all of us, and especially us Americans, make a little more effort to keep in perspective our astonishing good fortune, and be grateful for what some sacrifice to preserve it. America may not be perfect, but it's the closest thing we've got.
January 1, 2007 06:51 AM · 
Kofi Annan has stepped down at the U.N. - at least a decade too late. I predict future historians will find it difficult to judge whether this ineffectual dupe was the puppet of genocidal regimes and autocrats or just their indispensable enabler. It is tough to fully enumerate the sins and consequences of this repugnant figure, but this WSJ editorial begins the grim task.
December 17, 2006 05:59 AM ·
I am often asked what it's like living in Ukraine. Well, yesterday afternoon I heard some hammering, and it sounded pretty close, so I went to se what was up. Looking out from a living room window I found two men in a cherry-picker, and they were hacking away at the rim of my balcony with sledge mallets, breaking away the concrete and tearing up the tiles. I figured the owner of my apartment must have forgotten to tell me she was having work done. Today I found out this wasn't the case. Alarmed, she phoned the Zhek - the state agency responsible for, but rarely inclined to undertake, the upkeep of public property. Their response was basically, News to us. We are now facing the prospect that we may never learn who these men were and why they were attacking my balcony, which now needs extensive repairs. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that I have been victimized in an act of serial vandalism by two men with sledges and a cherry-picker. That, my friends, is what it's like to live in Ukraine.
November 15, 2006 04:23 PM ·
Help, I'm on crack!
Oops - I mean, Help, I've been hacked! Not sure how long it was there, but someone managed to place an unauthorized link in Ethanistan. If anyone clicked on it, I apologize for not catching it sooner. Unless it linked to something cool. In which case, I'm glad I could open your mind to new exotic experiences, man.
August 23, 2006 12:05 PM ·
REVEALER, REVEAL THYSELF
Hmmmm. You can read through the entirety of Tony Judt's defense of the Mearsheimer/Walt paper without ever learning that Judt has called for the dissolution of Israel. Yet it's a not-unreasonable assumption that this argument, which was (of course) very controversial when it was aired, was what led the Times to Judt's doorstep in the first place. Bad copy editing?
April 19, 2006 08:29 AM ·
Blair: Contra the "Doctrine of Benign Inactivity"
Britain being home to some of earth's most cynical and repugnant twits -- George Galloway and Harold Pinter, to name just two -- it is easy sometimes to forget the heroic moral fortitude its leaders have demonstrated at critical moments across history. Tony Blair reminds us why he deserves mention alongside Churchill and Thatcher.
March 22, 2006 10:08 AM ·
Greg Gutfeld answers one of the blogosphere's great quandaries: How do you even begin to satirize a Web site that presents Alec Baldwin, Deepak Chopra and other B-list dinner guests as deep thinkers? It's the funniest thing in cyberspace at the moment. Don't miss Greg's "bio" -- and definitely do not miss the comments left below his entries by HuffPosters, confused and angry, who came for the wisdom of Cindy Sheehan and got rabbit-punched by this smartass.
March 1, 2006 10:58 AM ·
A true gentleman of the Blogosphere has learned he must battle more than just Moonbats in the months and years to come. Stop by GM's Corner and give George a shout -- and maybe leave some change in the bowl on the way out.
February 16, 2006 05:29 AM ·
Fight Fascism - Eat a Butter Cookie. Wikipedia provides a handy list of Danish companies here. Hey, if all of us here band together and buy Danish that would be like ... four or five bucks. But it's the principle that counts!
February 9, 2006 08:13 PM ·
