2120 GMT: Mystery of Day. Iranian Labor News Agency reports that Ayatollahs Safi Golpaygani and Javadi-Amoli have met recently.
Given that these meetings between senior clerics are rare, what were the issues that brought the two ayatollahs together? And was there any connection to the clerical disquiet over the Mohammad Amin Valian death sentence?
2045 GMT: Mohareb Trial for Dr Maleki? Iranian Labor News Agency reports that Dr Mohammad Maleki, the first post-1979 Chancellor of Tehran University is being charged with “mohareb” (war against God). Maleki’s lawyer, Mohammad Sharifi said that his client, who is 76 and suffers from prostate cancer, is also charged with links to an outlawed organisation.
2230 GMT: Sneaking Out the News. It appears that the official statement of the Assembly of Experts meeting has been quietly placed on its website. We are reviewing and will have an analysis in the morning.
First impression is that while the statement is effusive about the “leadership and guidance” of the Supreme Leader to get Iran through the post-election crisis, it is not as severe in condemning the “sedition” of the opposition as the alleged statement released by Fars News in mid-week.
2115 GMT: Larijani Watch. Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani, continuing his Japan tour with a visit to the Peace Memorial Museum in Nagasaki, declared both Tehran’s commitment to nuclear non-proliferation and the perfidy of the West:
Iran will host an international conference on nuclear disarmament within the next two months….After the bombardment of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the US made no change in its policies. Two nuclear bombs of the United States have now increased to tens of thousands.
THE PRESIDENT: Good evening. To the United States Corps of Cadets, to the men and women of our Armed Services, and to my fellow Americans: I want to speak to you tonight about our effort in Afghanistan — the nature of our commitment there, the scope of our interests, and the strategy that my administration will pursue to bring this war to a successful conclusion. It’s an extraordinary honor for me to do so here at West Point — where so many men and women have prepared to stand up for our security, and to represent what is finest about our country. Read the rest of this entry »
Praise be to God, Who created people to worship Him, ordered them to be just, and permitted the wronged to mete out fair punishment to the wrongdoer.
American people: This address to you is a reminder of the causes of 11 (September) and the wars and consequences that followed and the way to settle it once and for all. I mention in particular the families of those who were hurt in these events and who have recently called for opening an investigation to know its causes. This is a first and important step in the right direction among many other steps that have deliberately gone in the wrong direction over eight barren years that you have experienced.
The campaign provoked criticism for “reducing” a terrorist activity to a comparison with a natural disaster. So WWF Brazil and DDB, the Brazilian ad agency that designed the campaign, have acknowledged that “the comparison should have never been made”. The joint statement says:
In no way was it done in bad faith or with disrespect to American suffering. WWF Brazil and DDB Brasil acknowledge that such an ad should never have been made, approved or published.
So is it unacceptable, at any time, to make a comparison with 9/11? Does it stand as a unique moment, because of the loss suffered on that day and/or the connection of that loss with “terrorism”?
A footnote from an interested observer: in the years after 9/11, I would offer the point that the 1984 Union Carbide chemical disaster at Bhopal in India had killed more people but had received far less attention as an example of the criminal taking of life. — WSL
We commented earlier on the Obama Administration’s double act selling the war in Afghanistan, Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen and US Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, on CNN. As disturbing as this appearance was, this one might be worse.
Like the CNN interview, this exchange started not with consideration of Afghanistan’s political situation but with the question of how many troops the US should put into the country. And to set that up, host David Gregory asked a fatuous, leading question about weak-willed US public opinion to which Mullen invoked both Al Qa’eda and 9-11.
To give Gregory some credit, he did get to the serious issues of Afghanistan’s political and economic development and whether the US was “nation-building”. When he did, Mullen and Eikenberry floundered helplessly. Granted I am not a fan of the Obama policy, but even a supporter of the US effort should have concerns after this performance.
DAVID GREGORY: first, in addition to waging political battles at home, the President is faced with two ongoing wars abroad. Read the rest of this entry »
Keith Olbermann: “Thank you, Sir, for admitting, obviously inadvertently, that you did not take a serious first look in the seven months and 23 days between your inauguration and 9/11. For that attack, Sir, you are culpable, morally, ethically. At best you were guilty of malfeasance and eternally-lasting stupidity. At worst, Sir, in the deaths of 9/11, you are negligent.”
I am refraining from an analysis of former Vice President Dick Cheney’s comments on national security yesterday, primarily because I hope that his speech — which should be treated at most as self-justification — will just go away. This is hope rather than expectation, however. Despite Dan Drezner’s comment that President Obama has “adversaries more boneheaded than himself”, Cheney’s words will be treated as Tablets from the Mount by his supporters in the broadcast and print media.
So, as a pre-emptive strike against the upholding of Cheney’s views as the thoughtful alternative in US homeland security and foreign policy, here are video commentaries from Lawrence O’Donnell and Keith Olbermann, followed by a thorough exposure of the former Vice President’s distortions and deceptions by McClatchy News Service’s Warren Strobel and Jonathan Landay:
2130 GMT: Jailing the Workers. Radio Farda reports the arrests of a number of labour activists in northwestern Iran in recent days.
Praise be to God, Who created people to worship Him, ordered them to be just, and permitted the wronged to mete out fair punishment to the wrongdoer.
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