Whether Iran’s president-elect, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was among the captors during the U.S. embassy hostage crisis 25 years ago makes for a juicy plot line in the rough history of U.S.-Iranian relations. But if he was, so what? Is it possible to think less of someone who heads a charter member state of the axis of evil? And should his involvement be confirmable, can anyone expect him to be held accountable for his actions?
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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17 Comments
Considering that the other guy that ran for President of Iran wasn’t exactly on our buddy list, I’m not sure what difference all of this makes. If he was involved, which would be very hard to prove at this point (considering that a lot of the hostage takers have said he didn’t participate). I’m worried that this will end up being just more propaganda aimed at a country that we don’t like to try to rally the country to war again…
Depends on how much oil is in Iran. Things kind of backfired on Hallibutron in Iraq !
We can forgive him for that.
I started wondering about this accusation myself.
Could this be a Bush administration ploy to begin serious talks about military action against Iran?
I hope not considering the dismal situation in Iraq.
Scott Ritter is a former UN weapons inspector in Iraq
Scott has this to say: ” The reality is that the US war with Iran has already begun. As we
speak, American over flights of Iranian soil are taking place, using pilotless drones and other, more sophisticated, capabilities.
The violation of a sovereign nation’s airspace is an act of war in and of itself. But the war with Iran has gone far beyond the intelligence-gathering phase.
President Bush has taken advantage of the sweeping powers granted to him in the aftermath of 11 September 2001, to wage a global war against terror and to initiate several covert offensive operations inside Iran.
The most visible of these is the CIA-backed actions recently undertaken by the Mujahadeen el-Khalq, or MEK, an Iranian opposition group, once run by Saddam Hussein’s dreaded intelligence services, but now working exclusively for the CIA’s Directorate of Operations.
It is bitter irony that the CIA is using a group still labelled as a terrorist organisation, a group trained in the art of explosive assassination by the same intelligence units of the former regime of Saddam Hussein, who are slaughtering American soldiers in Iraq today, to carry out remote bombings in Iran of the sort that the Bush administration condemns on a daily basis inside Iraq.
Perhaps the adage of “one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist” has finally been embraced by the White House, exposing as utter hypocrisy the entire underlying notions governing the ongoing global war on terror.
But the CIA-backed campaign of MEK terror bombings in Iran are not the only action ongoing against Iran.
To the north, in neighbouring Azerbaijan, the US military is preparing a base of operations for a massive military presence that will foretell a major land-based campaign designed to capture Tehran.
Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld’s interest in Azerbaijan may have escaped the blinkered Western media, but Russia and the Caucasus nations understand only too well that the die has been cast regarding Azerbaijan’s role in the upcoming war with Iran.
The ethnic links between the Azeri of northern Iran and Azerbaijan were long exploited by the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and this vehicle for internal manipulation has been seized upon by CIA paramilitary operatives and US Special Operations units who are training with Azerbaijan forces to form special units capable of operating inside Iran for the purpose of intelligence gathering, direct action, and mobilising indigenous opposition to the Mullahs in Tehran.
But this is only one use the US has planned for Azerbaijan. American military aircraft, operating from forward bases in Azerbaijan, will have a much shorter distance to fly when striking targets in and around Tehran.
In fact, US air power should be able to maintain a nearly 24-hour a day presence over Tehran airspace once military hostilities commence.
No longer will the United States need to consider employment of Cold War-dated plans which called for moving on Tehran from the Arab Gulf cities of Chah Bahar and Bandar Abbas. US Marine Corps units will be able to secure these towns in order to protect the vital Straits of Hormuz, but the need to advance inland has been eliminated.
A much shorter route to Tehran now exists – the coastal highway running along the Caspian Sea from Azerbaijan to Tehran.
US military planners have already begun war games calling for the deployment of multi-divisional forces into Azerbaijan.
Logistical planning is well advanced concerning the basing of US air and ground power in Azerbaijan.
Given the fact that the bulk of the logistical support and command and control capability required to wage a war with Iran is already forward deployed in the region thanks to the massive US presence in Iraq, the build-up time for a war with Iran will be significantly reduced compared to even the accelerated time tables witnessed with Iraq in 2002-2003.
America and the Western nations continue to be fixated on the ongoing tragedy and debacle that is Iraq. Much needed debate on the reasoning behind the war with Iraq and the failed post-war occupation of Iraq is finally starting to spring up in the United States and elsewhere.
Normally, this would represent a good turn of events. But with everyone’s heads rooted in the events of the past, many are missing out on the crime that is about to be repeated by the Bush administration in Iran – an illegal war of aggression, based on false premise, carried out with little regard to either the people of Iran or the United States.
Most Americans, together with the mainstream American media, are blind to the tell-tale signs of war, waiting, instead, for some formal declaration of hostility, a made-for-TV moment such as was witnessed on 19 March 2003.
We now know that the war had started much earlier. Likewise, history will show that the US-led war with Iran will not have begun once a similar formal statement is offered by the Bush administration, but, rather, had already been under way since June 2005, when the CIA began its programme of MEK-executed terror bombings in Iran.
Can we afford to fight everybody? Do we want to?
Dan, The answer to your question is no. But, perhaps a better question is how am I able to get readily available important information about our sneaky President Bush while the MSM doesn’t bother? The next Question for Mr. Sneaky is why is he allowing Israel to sell our latest weapon systems to China? Surely that is worth reporting. If the American public was made aware of things President Bush was really up to, perhaps events like Iraq would not be happening.
Dan, The answer to your question is no. But, perhaps a better question is how am I able to get readily available important information about our sneaky President Bush while the MSM doesn’t bother? The next Question for Mr. Sneaky is why is he allowing Israel to sell our latest weapon systems to China? Surely that is worth reporting. If the American public was made aware of things President Bush was really up to, perhaps events like Iraq would not be happening.
Dan, The answer to your question is no. But, perhaps a better question is how am I able to get readily available important information about our sneaky President Bush while the MSM doesn’t bother? The next Question for Mr. Sneaky is why is he allowing Israel to sell our latest weapon systems to China? Surely that is worth reporting. If the American public was made aware of things President Bush was really up to, perhaps events like Iraq would not be happening.
Dan, The answer to your question is no. But, perhaps a better question is how am I able to get readily available important information about our sneaky President Bush while the MSM doesn’t bother? The next Question for Mr. Sneaky is why is he allowing Israel to sell our latest weapon systems to China? Surely that is worth reporting. If the American public was made aware of things President Bush was really up to, perhaps events like Iraq would not be happening.
Dan, The answer to your question is no. But, perhaps a better question is how am I able to get readily available important information about our sneaky President Bush while the MSM doesn’t bother? The next Question for Mr. Sneaky is why is he allowing Israel to sell our latest weapon systems to China? Surely that is worth reporting. If the American public was made aware of things President Bush was really up to, perhaps events like Iraq would not be happening.
Wow, a quintuple post. That’s got to be a record.
Go TypePad!!!!
I hit post, nothing happened, waited, then hit post again, still nothing, I guess five times, then bingo, more than anybody would want…..sorry.
Don’t sweat it Ed. This site runs on Typepad and it can be messy sometimes. Aint computers wonderful?
Just be patient and wait, if you hit it just once, it will eventually go through.
Will do. Thanks Damoon and W.R. Locke. Best, Ed
Is it just me, or does Mahmoud Ahmadinejad look alot like he just found his way off of Gilligan’s island?