[Marxism] Incongrous support for Iranian nuclear weapons

[Walter Lippmann <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Louis Proyect's enthusiastic declaration this Tuesday FOR the idea
that Iran should now quickly develop nuclear weapons struck me as
rather peculiar when it first came out a few days ago. And when we
consider Louis's active and persistent campaign against the Islamic
Republic and the hostility toward "Radical Islam" which has strongly
accompanied it, Louis's call seems rather incongruuos, as I read it.

The Iranians deny that they are building nuclear weapons. Recall the
Iranian denials are very vigorous, and they are currently working
co-operatively with the International Atomic Energy Agency right now.

Meanwhile, the U.S. government and US media, along with the Israeli
government and prominent Israeli political figures like Netanyahu
have been on the warpath, stoking up public sentiment against Iran
precisely on the basis of the Iranian nuclear weapons which they
claim, without evidence, Iran is now building.

Why would a Yankee radical ADVOCATE what the imperialists ACCUSE the
Iranians of doing, and the Iranians empatically DENY? The world does
NOT need more nuclear weapons today Nuclear weapons are NOT a good
thing, and they never were.

If we do defend Iran's right to develop nuclear power as a form of
technology, given the unsustainability of petroleum as a source of
energy in today's world, that's not remotely the same thing as us
ADVOCATING the development of nuclear weapons, by Iran, or by ANY
state, anywhere. Personally, I still hold the old-fashioned opinion
that there's no place to put nuclear waste, and nuclear power is NOT
a good thing.

Personally, I'm glad the Cubans NEVER did fire up their nuke plant.
Given Washington's slanders about Cuba and biotech, that's all Cuba
would need, politically or in any other dimension.

Let me also add that I do NOT think there is anything "Marxist" about
Osama bin Laden, who's been bragging about the September 11th attacks.
They were, in fact, attacks on the American people. It's one thing
to try to understand why Palestinians resort to tactics of resistance
to foreign occupation which they do, as the current Israeli movie,
THE BUBBLE tries to do, but to ADVOCATE the rapid development of 
NUCLEAR WEAPONS strikes me as being completely bizarre and wrong.


Walter Lippmann
Los Angeles, California
==================================================
LOUIS PROYECT wrote:
"On the question of Iran, I absolutely defend its right to develop
nuclear power. It is up to the people of Iran to decide whether this
makes sense or not, not the imperialist bourgeoisie. More to the
point, I'd like to see Iran get nuclear weapons as quick as possible
in order to defend itself against attack."
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/marxism/2007-September/017415.html

---------------------------------------------------
POLITICS-US:  Ahmadinejad as Goldfinger
Analysis by Khody Akhavi
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39207
---------------------------------------------------
POLITICS:  Iran Nuke Moves Hint at Interest in Deal
Analysis by Gareth Porter*
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39171
---------------------------------------------------
RIGHTS-IRAN:  Dissidents Encouraged to Go Into Exile
By Kimia Sanati
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39165
---------------------------------------------------
ABOUT OSAMA BIN LADEN
Don't know much about bin Laden, but this does come out all to
conveniently times for all the September 11th propaganda about
how the U.S. has to "stay the course" of occupation in Iraq.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0913/p09s01-coop.html

AlterNet
America's Media Darling: Osama bin Laden
By Jalal Ghazi, New America Media
Posted on September 13, 2007, Printed on September 13, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/62416/

If I asked you which station devoted more attention to Osama bin
Laden's latest videotape, your answer would most likely be Al
Jazeera. Well, I have news for you. It was FOX News.

FOX dedicated one hour and seven minutes to continuous coverage of
Bin Laden's video, only interrupted by commercials. News anchor
Shepard Smith read a script of Bin Laden's speech and then
interviewed analysts on air for 30 minutes. This was followed by the
business news show Your World with host Neil Cavuto, who discussed
the effects of Bin Laden's speech on the stock market. Cavuto
interviewed analysts for another 30 minutes. Talk show host John
Gibson extended the coverage of the Bin Laden story for an additional
seven minutes before moving onto other news.

Brigitte Gabriel, author of "Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic
Terror Warns America" and one of the guests interviewed by Neil
Cavuto, told FOX, "He (Bin Laden) knows that it is going to get great
publicity right now in the Arabic world. As I'm speaking to you,
Arabic television -- Egyptian, Syrian, and Lebanese -- are playing
this live."

As I was listening to her, I glanced at the more than two dozen Arab
television sets playing in my office. These included four Lebanese
television stations (New TV, LBC, NBN and Future), one Egyptian (Al
Masriya), the Syrian Arab Republic Television, as well as other Arab
satellite channels from Jordan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Libya, and
the United Arab Emirates. I was only able to find one 10-minute news
segment about Bin Laden on Al Jazeera and another one, less than two
minutes long, on Sudan Television.

Meanwhile, the story monopolized American television. Wolf Blitzer,
anchor of CNN's The Situation Room, covered the Bin Laden story in
four separate news segments of 32 minutes, spread over four hours of
air time. In the first 13-minute segment, Blitzer asked Peter Bergen,
author of "The Osama Bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of Al Qaeda's
Leader" about Bin Laden's beard. Toward the end of the segment,
Blitzer turned to commentator Jack Cafferty, saying, "But you notice
they groomed him (Bin Laden) a little bit. He doesn't have that gray
beard anymore. He's got a little bit of a darker beard."

Blitzer announced that he would air additional segments of Bin
Laden's tape. He fulfilled his promise, but only after three hours
and dozens of commercials.

After the second video segment, which was six minutes long, with
subtitles reading, "Terror Warning" and "Bin Laden's codes of
terror," Blitzer asked Peter Bergen about Bin Laden's beard again.
The third segment, subtitled "Bin Laden Attack Warning" aired
three-and-a-half hours later. Blitzer asked Michael Scheuer, former
chief of the Bin Laden unit at the Counterterrorist Center, about Bin
Laden's whereabouts. After another half an hour, Blitzer reported on
Bush's reactions to Bin Laden's tape.

In contrast, Al Jazeera covered Bin Laden's video in a 10-minute
report, at least one or two hours after FOX and CNN had broken the
news. This is significant, because it means that Al Jazeera did not
think that Bin Laden's tape was important enough to interrupt its
regular programming. Instead, Al Jazeera waited until 1:00 p.m., the
regular time of its daily news hour.

Although FOX and CNN spent significantly more air time on Bin Laden's
latest tape than Al Jazeera did, they still missed the most important
point in the entire tape: the reason behind Bin Laden's invitation
for Americans to embrace Islam.

While Western analysts interviewed on CNN and FOX were quick to
conclude that the reason was religious, Arab analysts interviewed on
Al Jazeera reached a different conclusion.

Terrorism analyst and frequent FOX News guest Neil Livingstone said,
"This is pretty much common dogma with them, and that is, Jews can
never convert to Islam and therefore have salvation. They are
condemned to stay in the wilderness if you will. Christians can have
redemption by converting to Islam and therefore can become part of
the caliphate that they want to create."

Livingstone's analysis is entirely inaccurate. According to Islamic
principles, Christians and Jews do not have to convert to Islam. In
fact, Muslims are required to believe in the Christian and Jewish
holy books, which explains why the Qur'an refers to Jews and
Christians as "the people of the book."

In fact, Bin Laden acknowledges this connection between Judaism,
Christianity and Islam in his video message. "And did you know that
the name of the prophet of Allah, Jesus and his mother are mentioned
in the noble Qur'an dozens of times," he asks, "and that in the
Qur'an there is a chapter whose name is Maryam?"

Scheuer told CNN that "inherent in his request for us to convert (to
Islam) is a very explicit threat that he is going to attack us in a
very hard way. The prophet told Muslims before you attack anyone you
warn them, offer them a chance to convert and offer them truces."

In contrast, Arab analysts ridiculed Bin Laden's suggestion that
Americans could solve their problems by becoming Muslim. Sliman Abu
Rahman, an expert on Islamic issues based in Amman, Jordan, told Al
Jazeera that he was surprised by Bin Laden's call. "In his earlier
speeches he offered them a truce and now he is asking them to
convert. I think this is very far from reality and no political
organizing with realistic political objectives can have such an
unacceptable political discourse."

Dr. Azzam Tamimi, head of the London-based Institute of Islamic
Political Thought, laughed, telling Al Jazeera, "I do not know how
this will help solve the problem. Instead he could have said that the
only solution is to withdraw from Iraq."

Throughout the videotape appear the Arabic and English words "The
Solution," which, in Bin Laden's eyes, is converting to Islam. He
tells the camera, "It has become clear to you and the entire world
the importance of the democratic system and how it plays with the
interests of the peoples and their blood by sacrificing soldiers and
populations to achieve the interests of the major corporations."

Bin Laden is not threatening Americans with war if they do not become
Muslim, as Scheuer said; rather, he is trying to persuade them to
convert. "Don't be turned away from Islam by the terrible situation
of the Muslims today," he says, "for our rulers in general abandoned
Islam many decades ago, but our forefathers were the leaders and
pioneers of the world for many centuries, when they held firmly to
Islam."

Judging by the analysis on American television news, Americans got
the wrong message. Arab commentators ridiculed Bin Laden, rather than
taking his message as a declaration of war. Bin Laden is trying to
transform his image from a warrior who has caused tremendous death
into a Muslim preacher. He assumes that Americans can forget the
terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 -- simply by trimming and
changing the color of his beard.

Jalal Ghazi is the associate producer of the Peabody Award-winning
show Mosaic: World News from the Middle East, and the author of the
weekly column Eye on Arab Media for New America Media.

 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.

View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/62416/




================================
WALTER LIPPMANN
Editor-in-Chief, CubaNews
writer - photographer - activist
http://www.walterlippmann.com
================================

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