Musings of a former chicken

A nobel winner and a stunch Israeli crimes supporter!

By John V. Walsh | February 15, 2010

Is there nothing that is safe from debasement by the propaganda
machine of the U.S. and Israel? A full-page ad in the Sunday New York
Times of Feb. 7 provides the answer. Sponsored by Elie Wiesel’s modestly
named Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity and signed by 44 Nobel
laureates, 35 of them in the physical sciences, it urges brutal and
lethal actions against Iran.

Before getting to the cruel prescriptions that Wiesel and his
recruits offer for Iran, let us consider their reasoning, such as it is.
In a single brief topic sentence they assert their central claim that
the Iranian government “whose irresponsible and senseless nuclear
ambitions threaten the entire world continues to wage a shameless war
against its own people.” Two charges are fired off in this brief
sentence, and it is all too easy to conflate them. So let us take them
one at a time, as is the habit in science when one wishes for
clarification.

The first charge deals with Iran’s nuclear “ambitions,” but the ad
does not say what these ambitions are. And then it asserts without
evidence that such “ambitions” threaten “the entire world.” This is
certainly a very grave charge, and some scintilla of evidence should be
offered for it. But none is provided, not one word, not even a footnote
or reference in this spacious advert. Yes, such allegations are made
repeatedly and vehemently by government figures in Tel Aviv and
Washington and by many segments of the U.S. and Israeli press. But what
is the evidence for these allegations? Many of them turn out to be false
as exemplified by a recent AP story, which was pulled after being
exposed on Antiwar.com by Jason Ditz. Many of the same voices that now
warn that Iran is a nuclear threat “to the entire world” assured us not
long ago that Saddam Hussein was connected to al-Qaeda and that he had
weapons of mass destruction, both of which turned out to be shameless
lies. And is it not strange that Russia and China, so proximate to Iran,
are not obsessed, as is the U.S., about this threat to “the entire
world”? The signatories of the ad ought not to make such intemperate and
incendiary assertions without at least a reference to unimpeachable
evidence. No such reference is provided. Is this the proper standard of
thought and reason that a Nobel in the physical sciences implies?

The second claim wrapped up in the topic sentence is that the
Iranian government is engaging in a “shameless war on its own people.”
This too is quite a striking charge, going far beyond the usual charge
that the recent Iranian elections were rigged, which in fact may not be
the case. In what does this “shameless war” consist? Certainly there are
human rights abuses, and striking ones, in Iran, just as there are in
many countries who are U.S. allies, but that does not amount to a
government making “war on its own people.” The U.S. and Israel make
charges against Iran almost daily, and so Iran is certain to be
demonized in our elite press, which so often functions as stenographer
for the government. The same media treatment was given to Iraq so very
recently, and it is amazing that this fact did not deter the signatories
from the intemperate statements in this ad. Earlier, during the
presidency of Bush I, we were treated to stories of infants being pulled
from incubators and discarded on hospital floors in Kuwait by Iraqi
troops during the run-up to the U.S. attack on Iraq in the first Gulf
War. These charges uttered by Bush I himself were lies, concocted by a
P.R. firm, as we later learned.

Given that there are human rights abuses in Iran, although we do not
know their extent, two questions arise. Who are we to criticize Iran
when our own government has been abducting, secretly detaining, and
torturing people all over the planet? Historically, the CIA overthrew
the duly elected Iranian government of Mossadegh in the 1950s and
installed the shah, whose brutality was legendary and who was eventually
ousted in 1979. Today the CIA is still engaging in “extraordinary
renditions” under Obama as it did under Bush and probably before. And
Israel is equally guilty of crimes against humanity with the apartheid
order it is imposing in the occupied territories, as Jimmy Carter
demonstrated in his recent book, this being the most egregious of human
rights violations, since it is based on ethnicity.

Now let us turn to the vicious prescriptions called for by Wiesel
and his recruits. They first call for “harsher sanctions” without any
mention of restrictions on such sanctions. We already know that
sanctions as practiced by the U.S. are a recipe for massive death and
destruction. We know what the years of sanctions did to Iraq under the
presidencies of Clinton and Bush II. When Madeleine Albright was
informed in a notorious TV interview that 500,000 Iraqi children had
died due to those sanctions, she did not deny it but replied, “This is a
very hard choice, but … we think the price is worth it.” Do the signers
of this ad agree with Albright’s assessment in the case of Iraq and now
Iran? Sanctions are far from harmless, and they fall hardest on the
helpless and rarely on the powerful. In 2000 Christian Aid stated:

And yet Wiesel’s recruits call for sanctions almost casually. They
would do well to read Brian Cloughey’s essay on “The Evil of Sanctions,”
and the sources to which he refers.

But Wiesel’s recruits do not stop there. They go on to call for
“concrete measures” to protect the “new nation of dissidents in Iran.”
But these concrete measures are not spelled out. What could they be?
There are only two that appear on the lips of those who are demonizing
Iran these days in Tel Aviv and Washington: “sanctions” and “war.” This
ad will certainly be used by those who wish to attack Iran, as Israel
has threatened to do. Do the signers understand this? Since they are
intelligent men and women, they must. Are they then calling for war?

In signing onto Wiesel’s statement, the laureates have put
themselves in very questionable company. Although he claims to speak out
for “human rights,” Wiesel is very selective in the cases he chooses.
He has not and will not criticize Israel and its apartheid policies; in
fact, he attacks those who do. In an interview with Ha’aretz wherein
Wiesel announced his ad campaign, he blasted Judge Richard Goldstone,
saying his report on the Israeli offensive in Gaza was “a crime against
the Jewish people.” Goldstone’s report is in fact quite mild, but it
makes clear that the crimes of Israel against the Palestinians of Gaza
are atrocities much like those in Sabra and Shatila years ago. Do
Wiesel’s recruits know that his view of human rights is quite selective?

One cannot know the motives that drove Wiesel’s recruits to sign
such a thoughtless and cruel document. Certainly the document reflects
the wave of propaganda on Iran to which we are all subjected. But that
is no excuse. These are, after all, intelligent men and women who should
see through such propaganda, given our recent and historical
experience. Certainly this writer holds many of these signers in great
regard, and one can only hope that their signatures were obtained
without time to examine the matter properly. If so, a retraction is in
order. Finally, one cannot help but wonder whether Wiesel’s recruits
felt that signing on to such a statement would be fine now that Obama is
in charge and he is a man they can trust. If so, this is another sign
of the gift to the Empire that is Obama.

In the end Wiesel’s signers, Nobel laureates though they may be, are
of small stature next to those giants of science, humanitarians as well
as thinkers, who were unafraid to take on authority in their work and
in their role as citizens. Einstein, Galileo, and many others must be
tossing in their tombs over Weisel’s handiwork.

Source //alethonews.wordpress.com/2010/02/15/elie-wiesel%E2%80%99s-ignoble-recruits/

mahmoudg

The best target for the West is the financial assets of the IRR leaders. They have been stealing Iranian wealth and putting it in foreign nations. Those assets should be frozen and until we have a post IRR democratic government. Then they should be returned Iran in order to compensate the victims of IRR. 

This include assests belonging to families : Khomeini; Khamenei; Rafsanjani; Khatami; Larijani; Ahmadinejad and ....

Javadagha

Freedom of speech in the USA means; you can criticize Iran, but NO one would dare to criticize Israel. 

Nonsense. I have seen plenty of criticism of Israel including right here on IC!! Where do you think IC is published? Hint: USA. You and others are non-stop trashing Israel. Do you get censored? Did anyone come to put you in jail? No!

If IC is not enough then read the Huffington Post and you will find tons of regular Americans criticizing Israel. Heck Jimmy Carter (the idiot) wrote a books practically saying that Israel was apartheid. 

In the US if you criticize Israel you will get strong responses sure. But you won't get hung off a crane. In Iran if you criticize the VF or Khomeini or Islam you may end up in Evin. Where the vampire suck out you blood and hang you off a crane. That is the difference.

برای اهل درد

 کاشکی اهل گلستان این را هم آویزۀ گوش کنند:

چه دانند مردم که در خانه کیست       نویسنده داند که در نامه چیست

   صورت حال عارفان دلق است            این قدر بس چو روی در خلق است

 در قژا کند مرد باید بود                       بر مخنث سلاح جنگ چه سود

Our Great Sheikh Sa'adi Said This Over 800 Years Ago :)

ترسم نرسی به کعبه، ای اعرابی!         

کاین ره که تو می‌روی به ترکستان است 

Does Fred have anything more to say

It seems this little fella rights more articles than he gets comments.  what's up with that?  is life really that boring?

Freedom of speech in the USA means??

Freedom of speech in the USA means; you can criticize Iran, but NO one would dare to criticize Israel. 

Why this Eli Weasel does not have a red nose? He should, he would be more convincing. :-)

Money knows no shame.

Well done Fred

I also think that Israel and the US combination forces should target the regime's assets, including the residences of the president and the Leader, the Parliament, and the Friday Prayer gathering spot,  The airfoce bases and the Navals stations.  All of these together with the imminent collapse of the financial institutions and the Iranian economy will undoubtedly finish the regime off.  But never forget the end result is the termination of Islam in Persia.