Going green

We've gone green -- obviously not out of any kindred feeling with Little Green Footballs, but rather out of solidarity with the people of Iran.

Simple question, simple answer

LGFW is always happy to answer any little question Charles Johnson throws out on to the interweb. Here's his latest post attacking Juan Cole (not the first time by the way).

Anti-American professor Juan Cole has rather famously claimed that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was “misquoted” in his infamous “Israel must be wiped off the map” statement. Search Google for that phrase and you’ll find tons of lefty and Islamist web sites eagerly promoting Cole’s obfuscation.

So how will the malevolent Juan Cole and his useful idiot followers explain this?

Well Charles, where shall we begin?

1. You assert that Juan Cole claimed that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was 'misquoted'. You're correct he did, and as Juan can actually speak and read Farsi (he's translates works in Arabic too) I'd take his word above yours.

2. By implication you're claiming that Ahmadinejad wasn't misquoted even though anyone able to read English would be able to see that the poster you use as 'proof' attributes the quote to Imam Khomeini, not Ahmadinejad.

3. Here's Juan Cole's take on the translation of Ahmadinejad's speech.

The phrase he then used as I read it is "The Imam said that this regime occupying Jerusalem (een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods) must [vanish from] from the page of time (bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad)."

Ahmadinejad was not making a threat, he was quoting a saying of Khomeini and urging that pro-Palestinian activists in Iran not give up hope-- that the occupation of Jerusalem was no more a continued inevitability than had been the hegemony of the Shah's government.

4. So in answer to your question Charles, easily.

5. Charles Johnson calls Juan Cole malevolent. Bonus points for projection.

Fearmonger alert!

Expect no less than high-quality fearmongering from the herder of pant-wetting soldiers:

Iran Could Have a Nuke By the End of the Year

But ... but ... the NIE said there was nothing to worry about! Alarming Test Results: Iran Could Have Enough Uranium for a Bomb by Year’s End.

This of course prompted the lizard army to whine about other countries starting wars (#1), call for nuking Iran (#5, #8), accuse Europe of war-mongering (#13), scream from the rooftop for 5 straight years (#26), spew out the wildest conspiracy theories about Europe and Russia (#45) and develop over-simplified views of the world (#77). In other words, just another day out at LGF.

Alrighty then, let's play along and see what dire, dire threat this article really promises. First off, read the article through. Notice this:

For one scenario, the JRC scientists assumed the centrifuges in Natanz were operating at 100 percent efficiency. Were that the case, Iran could already have the 25 kilograms of highly enriched uranium necessary for an atomic device by the end of this year.

I will personally swallow all of my left socks one by one, if of all the devices found on this earth, there were any one that was even CLOSE to capable of working at 100% efficiency. Notice also that this part says they could have enough Uranium for a bomb, and not the bomb itself, as Chuckles has implied with his post title.

Another scenario assumed a much lower efficiency -- just 25 percent. But even then, Iran would have produced enough uranium by the end of 2010.

According to the same article, the NIE has stated that Iran can be technically capable of enriching enough Uranium between 2010 and 2015. So wait, what's new here?

This one's priceless though:

Despite the uncertainties, however, the scientists at the Joint Research Centre are confident that their simulations are realistic. But, the group is quick to point out, they are theoretical. They don't make any claim to know whether Tehran is currently working toward the production of an atomic bomb.

Let's see. So this whole report is based on some uncertain assumptions and theories, has next to nothing to do with any hard and solid evidence from Iran's nuclear program, and is made by people who don't even know what the hell their work has to do with reality, rendering it.. That's right: Rubbish.

Charles, just a tip from LGF Watch: 10$ isn't a very big investment.

The good and the bad

Most people realize that you can't place every person into one of two categories: good or bad. Sure, there are everyday tropes which refer exclusively to one or the other (e.g. Mother Teresa, Hitler), but anyone with any understanding of history knows that it's simply not useful for understanding events to apply simplistic labels because they cover up genuinely useful knowledge which might help you make the right decision on a given issue.

And yet, there are some people who persist in coloring the world in black and white. Bush is Hitler. Ahmadinejad is Hitler. It's idiotic, but it appeals to certain pre-cretaceous throwbacks who think hooting from the safety of their perch is the height of political sophistication and who shit on those who do the dirty work of actually engaging with issues on the ground.

Witness Charles Johnson and his lizard gang. While other people managed to subject Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to a scrutiny he is likely never to have endured before, Johnson and Co. display the cowardly attitude normally the preserve of the Iranian and American president: pontificating about other people from afar, never daring to actually confront them for fear of being shown up as an ignorant fool.

Ahmadinejad Derangement Syndrome

Wow. Charles may be on the other side of the continent, but the whiff of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's collar-less shirts in New York is enough to drive a lizard crazy!

CJ has so far put up 9 (NINE!) posts on Ahmadinejad's visit today, and counting. He's virtually frothing at the mouth that nobody has shot at Mr A yet. You have to wonder what Charles feels so threatened by. Doesn't he believe New Yorkers can make up their own mind about this guy?

As an aside, it's ironic how he describes a 55%-45% poll difference as "not much". Does he realize by how many votes Bush allegedly won the 2000 presidential election?

It's always about 9/11 in Wingnut World

I visited LGF to check out the latest faux-outrage about the Ahmadinejad visit and found this tidbit about one of the rallies:

Speakers include Debra Burlingame, sister of Charles F. “Chic” Burlingame,III, (Capt., USNR, Ret.), pilot of American Airlines Flight 77 that crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11.

It doesn't matter that Iran condemned the 9-11 attacks or that it helped get rid of the Taliban, if the pseudo-conservatives can bring up 9-11, they can raise the fear level.

Little Green Women Haters

The comments following this post by Charles which contains links to the Faye Turney interview are a joy to behold. Anyone who doubted the assertion that the LGF comments section was a hotbed for misogyny and sexism should read this thread and learn. What a small minded bunch of woman haters. Fortunately there are some amongst the rank and file 'lizards' who did find the whole affair a little creepy.

#49 Dawn 4/09/2007 5:16:16 pm PDT

Can you boys lay off the comments about her appearance please?
She said she felt like a traitor to the country she loved. She never said she felt ugly or fat while she was in Iran.

#81 Sharmuta 4/09/2007 5:36:08 pm PDT

I agree Dawn. Criticizing her for her conduct is one thing. Comments degrading her for her physical appearance is juvenile and intellectually lazy.

Juvenile and intellectually lazy? You're commenting on LGF, what the hell do you expect? Well done for standing up for a little decency though.

Source: http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=25077_Video-_Interview_with_Former_Hostage_Turney#comments

When is Iranian propaganda acceptable?

Answer:

When Charles Johnson uses it to paint the 15 captured British sailors as cowards, dhimmi's and weaklings of course!

According to Johnson's headline the sailors were 'partying' on Iranian TV. Anybody who bothered to watch and listen to the accompanying video can see clearly that the 15 are witnessing a live broadcast of the news of their release. After being subjected to mental torture, solitary confinement and mock executions would'nt you be pleased that you were about to be released? Anyway, if that's what Charles thinks a 'party' is, he must be really unpopular in good 'ol LA.

Source: http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=25044

Two-faced news analysis

As we point out time and again, one of the biggest problems with LGF is its glaring hypocrisy. This trait, of condeming something on the one hand but gladly using that same thing when it suits him, is most obvious in Charles Johnson's relationship with the media.

Witness this comment about Reuters' reporting in Gaza:

The mainstream wire services are perpetrating an Orwellian fraud of massive proportions.

It's standard stuff, from Charles. But then we also have the other side, where Charles picks bits out of the same mainstream media that suits his agenda. Just to give an example, look at how he seized upon the Reuters report about alleged indoctrination of Iranian schoolchildren (http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=24274). If this story hadn't suited CJ's line, he would have been all over it, poking, prodding and stripping it apart as another instance of bad MSM reporting. And he would have had a point. Because sources tell LGFWatch that the story has pretty shaky foundations.

For one, the report is based on research produced by the 'Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace'. Nowhere does Reuters explain who this group is, or even where they are based. You might want to google them.

Second, the story didn't come directly from CMIP. Invitations to the Brussels news conference (and parallel events in various other European capitals) were relentlessly pushed to journalists for weeks by an organization claiming to be based in London, but calling from Washington.

All of this should make any journalist suspicious, but apparently they were having a slow news day at Reuters in Brussels. Can you imagine what would happen if Reuters picked up a 'report' by an Iranian group on the indoctrination of Israeli or American schoolchildren?

You'd read about it on LGF, but the tone would be pretty different...

MORE LGF HYSTERIA

Charles Johnson (LGF) is beating the war drum again:

What will it take for the United States to acknowledge that Iran is openly at war with us, and has been for decades?

What will it take for Charles to acknowledge that U.S. relations with Iran are much more complicated than he realizes? Perhaps he has forgotten the long-standing hostility between Iran and the Taliban ¹ and the help given to the U.S. by Iran during the Afghanistan war².

NOTE:SOURCES ALL COME FROM LEXIS-NEXIS SEARCHES

¹
Deutsche Presse-Agentur, September 30, 2001, Sunday, BC Cycle
10:14 Central European Time
The Iranian stance and that of the daily is very clear and Teheran has right from the beginning (1996) not acknowledged the Taliban group due to its orthodox interpretation of Islam and due to the massacre of Iranian diplomats, the daily said.

Iran was on the verge of a war with the Taliban after the groups agents massacred in 1998 eleven Iranian diplomats and one reporter of the state-run news agency IRNA in the northern Afghan town of Mazare Sharif.

Iran supports ousted President Burhaneddin Rabbani who is close to the main Taliban-opposition known as the Northern Alliance which controls over ten per cent of Afghanistan.

The Independent (London)
October 5, 1996, Saturday

An Iranian cleric has accused Afghanistan's radical Islamic Taliban movement of giving Islam a bad name. "They stop girls from attending school, stop women from working . . . in the name of Islam," Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati told worshippers in Tehran. Shia Iran supported the ousted government of Burhanuddin Rabbani and is hostile to Sunni Taliban.


The Record (Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario)
September 12, 1998 Saturday Final Edition

Taliban troops were reported to be 16 kilometres from the town of Bamiyan, where some 300,000 Hazaras from neighbouring villages have taken shelter to escape being massacred. The Taliban massacred thousands of Hazaras when they captured Mazar-e-Sharif.

The Hazaras, a Mongol people, are Shia Muslims and intensely disliked by the Taliban -- who are Sunni Muslims and drawn from another ethnic group, the Pashtuns. Iranian planes have been flying supplies to the besieged Hazaras, who have been backed by Iran for four years in their resistance to the Taliban.



²

The Boston Globe
December 31, 2001, Monday ,THIRD EDITION

Then came Sept. 11. And, within days, President Bush made one of the most important decisions of the war on terrorism, throwing his lot with the ragtag Northern Alliance and pressuring Pakistan to desert its Taliban clients.

To help arm the alliance, the Bush administration made a previously unthinkable deal, intelligence sources said: It agreed to finance a Russian transfer of arms to the alliance fighters. At about the same time, the United States started getting valuable intelligence from a longtime adversary, Iran.

The United States was desperately short of on-the-ground intelligence in Afghanistan. So, in addition to Pakistan, the United States turned to an unlikely partner, Iran. For many years, Iran had been an archenemy of the United States, having taken American embassy workers hostage two decades ago and encouraged anti-American sentiment. But the relationship had improved slightly in recent years, and Iran had long supported the Northern Alliance.

"This was clearly a case where Iranians had an interest in Afghanistan," said Vincent Cannistraro, the CIA's former counterterrorism chief. "They hated the Taliban. We got information from the Iranians. They did it very quietly."

Global News Wire - Asia Africa Intelligence Wire
Copyright 2002 BBC Monitoring/BBC
BBC Monitoring International Reports January 28, 2002
Text of article by Mehdi Razavi published by Iranian newspaper Azad on 13 January

Over the past two decades, the Islamic Republic of Iran not only paid the heavy expenses imposed by the presence of defenceless Afghan immigrants, but also dedicated more than 3,000 martyrs in the course of fighting narcotic drugs. Moreover, Iran was in apparent and deep conflict with the Taleban from the very outset. Indeed, more than any other country, it was exposed to the reactionary enmity of the Taleban group. Perhaps, in a way, the Islamic Republic of Iran was the real enemy of the Taleban.

Following the 11 September attack, America actually carried out a parallel operation with the Islamic Republic of Iran against the Taleban.