Wikileaks

[Park Life 71]

Wikileaks is ace.

[Park Life 71]

Is this one slanderous and inaccurate?

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405...ttoWhatsNewsTop

 

"A group of human-rights organizations is pressing WikiLeaks to do a better job of redacting names from thousands of war documents it is publishing, joining the list of critics that claim the Web site's actions could jeopardize the safety of Afghans who aided the U.S. military.

The letter from five human-rights groups sparked a tense exchange in which WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange issued a tart challenge for the organizations to help with the massive task of removing names from thousands of documents, according to several of the organizations that signed the letter. The exchange shows how WikiLeaks and Mr. Assange risk being isolated from some of their most natural allies in the wake of the documents' publication.

The human-rights groups involved are Amnesty International; Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, or CIVIC; Open Society Institute, or OSI, the charitable organization funded by George Soros; Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission; and the Kabul office of International Crisis Group, or ICG.

The groups emailed WikiLeaks to say they were concerned for the safety of Afghans identified as helping the U.S. military in documents obtained by WikiLeaks, according to several of the groups. WikiLeaks has already published 76,000 of the documents and plans to publish up to 15,000 more."

 

From August 9th.

 

Read the CNN quote above from this week, where the administration have admitted there's no evidence to back up such claims

 

The online leak of thousands of secret military documents from the war in Afghanistan by the website WikiLeaks

did not disclose any sensitive intelligence sources or methods, the Department of Defense concluded

. . . .

 

The assessment, revealed in a letter from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Michigan), comes after a thorough Pentagon review of the more than 70,000 documents posted to the controversial whistle-blower site in July. . . .

 

The defense secretary said that the published documents do contain names of some cooperating Afghans, who could face reprisal by Taliban.

 

But

a senior NATO official in Kabul told CNN that there has not been a single case of Afghans needing protection or to be moved because of the leak.

 

Yup.

[Kevin S. Assilleekunt 1]

I know you have a hard-on for him, I can smell its pungent odor through the overwhelming stench of your hypocrisy. We know where you're coming from now: you will smash your monitor before hearing any criticism of this criminal mastermind; you will disregard criticism of him from sources you yourself have been reliant upon (Amnesty International), all in aid of your surreptitious quest for the moral high-ground over an honest man from the real world like Leazes. If it were up to me, you'd all be in the dock, then you could have a nice gang-bang in the cells as you perish; a fitting end no doubt you'll agree. I'm just fucking with you.

 

It would be perfectly reasonable to assume that Assange is losing the plot as a result of his life as a fugitive. He walks out of interviews when they bring up his gang-banging shenanigans. Who knows, maybe the truth will come out some day, it doesn't look like things will end well for him though. If he did top himself for instance, there would be a outcry from the fanboys saying Obama sneaked in in the night - so he couldn't be seen - and murdered precious Julian with his bare hands. Some of the leaks have been completely pointless, save for generating publicity, and a clear invasion of privacy and breach of the law (going through Palin's knickers, BNP list, etc)

[Happy Face 29]

ok

 

I'd recommend Dispatches tomorrow night anyway.

[Kevin S. Assilleekunt 1]

Did you watch 'Secret Iraq' on the beeb? That was great.

[Ketsbaia 0]

It would be perfectly reasonable to assume that Assange is losing the plot as a result of his life as a fugitive. He walks out of interviews when they bring up his gang-banging shenanigans. Who knows, maybe the truth will come out some day, it doesn't look like things will end well for him though. If he did top himself for instance, there would be a outcry from the fanboys saying Obama sneaked in in the night - so he couldn't be seen - and murdered precious Julian with his bare hands. Some of the leaks have been completely pointless, save for generating publicity, and a clear invasion of privacy and breach of the law (going through Palin's knickers, BNP list, etc)

 

Aye but the vast, vast majority of leaks are of interest to a select number of people, namely those involved from countries which you probably couldn't even point out on a map. That alone ruins this idea that Wikileaks is entirely a vanity project.

 

Anyway with regards to the Palin and BNP stuff all Wikileaks did was host the files after they'd already hit the internet. They weren't actively involved in gathering the information.

[Park Life 71]

Did you watch 'Secret Iraq' on the beeb? That was great.

 

Disbanding the army was one of the greatest military mistakes in modern warfare.

[Kevin S. Assilleekunt 1]

Which select number of peopleare interested in the identities of Afghan informants? There has been information cited in this thread that points to the release of this information not having compromised those involved, but the potential is there, as cited by the 5 human rights groups who have experience on the ground in these places, and they have criticized Wikileaks as a result. Are you going to dismiss their concerns altogether? I think it's great something like Wikileaks can exist now, but perhaps it's unsustainable in its current form, apparently so reliant on Assange himself. He does appear to display an insouciant attitude to the release of material, it is a cause for concern and could be his downfall.

As for pointing out places on a map, someone should point out the way to the nearest toilet for you, and after a prolonged visit perhaps you won't be so full of shit. You could wipe your arse with the BNP membership list.

Edited October 24, 2010 by Kevin S. Assilleekunt

[Kevin S. Assilleekunt 1]

Did you watch 'Secret Iraq' on the beeb? That was great.

 

Disbanding the army was one of the greatest military mistakes in modern warfare.

 

This is the common view of the semi-informed delinquent, but further investigation suggests the army was imploding anyway. Must try harder, cut out the bong hits.

[Park Life 71]

In all honesty this macro sifting of the details is now irrelevant. The West will be engaged in a Holy war for a 100 years. The invasion of Iraq and Afg in times to come will be seen as the greatest tragedy to befall the West.

Edited October 24, 2010 by Park Life

[Happy Face 29]

Which select number of peopleare interested in the identities of Afghan informants? There has been information cited in this thread that points to the release of this information not having compromised those involved, but the potential is there, as cited by the 5 human rights groups who have experience on the ground in these places, and they have criticized Wikileaks as a result. Are you going to dismiss their concerns altogether? I think it's great something like Wikileaks can exist now, but perhaps it's unsustainable in its current form, apparently so reliant on Assange himself. He does appear to display an insouciant attitude to the release of material, it is a cause for concern and could be his downfall.

 

 

It is definitely a concern. It's a shame US intelligence refuse to give any assistance to Wikileaks in protecting the identities of those that need it as they've been asked.

[Tooj 17]

In all honesty this macro sifting of the details is now irrelevant. The West will be engaged in a Holy war for a 100 years. The invasion of Iraq and Afg in times to come will be seen as the greatest tragedy to befall the West.

Worse than the death of 2Pac?

[Kevin S. Assilleekunt 1]

They protect their identities when they deal with them in the field. All Assange has to do is cross out their names and the relevant details in the leaks and then there is no cause for concern.

[Park Life 71]

In all honesty this macro sifting of the details is now irrelevant. The West will be engaged in a Holy war for a 100 years. The invasion of Iraq and Afg in times to come will be seen as the greatest tragedy to befall the West.

Worse than the death of 2Pac?

 

[Happy Face 29]

They protect their identities when they deal with them in the field. All Assange has to do is cross out their names and the relevant details in the leaks and then there is no cause for concern.

 

 

Assange:we contacted the White House as a group before we released this material and asked them to help assist in going through it to make sure that no innocent names came out, and the White House did not accept that request.

 

Qualitatively, the content of the recent leak was not exceptional. The leak was distinguished from most previous leaks by its magnitude, by the sheer number of documents involved. When it has come to incidents involving qualitatively similar information, past administrations have routinely cooperated with the press. In fact, cooperation between the government and press organizations has long been the norm in the United States whenever the news media has found itself poised to publish potentially sensitive names. In such circumstances, past governments have agreed to work with the press not because it was politically expedient to do so, but for the good of the country. Why was cooperation not forthcoming from the White House in this instance?

 

When it refused to comply with the press group's request, did the White House put politics before its constitutional responsibilities? Given the expectation -- indeed, the long established tradition -- that administrations cooperate with the press when national security may be at stake, a strong argument can be made that by having sought the assistance of the White House to expunge names, the leaking organizations absolved themselves of the responsibility for the release of whatever names were in the documents. In this instance, WikiLeaks might -- understandably -- have concluded that if the White House was not concerned about release of this or that person's name (evident from the fact it did not take the group up on its request), then it need not unduly concern itself with the matter. Thereby, any worries Assange may have had about the implications of inadvertantly releasing names may have been put to rest. In other words, WikiLeaks might have trusted that the Obama White House put country first.

 

If the White House knew that sensitive Afghan informants' names were contained in the documents but refused the group's request to help expunge names from the documents, then the administration knowingly failed to do its utmost to mitigate a known and entirely avoidable national security risk (arguably also neglecting its constitutional responsibility to defend the First Amendment). Knowing what WikiLeaks was about to do, and aware that WikiLeaks might lack of resources and expertise to catch all the names, the White House ought to have agreed to the group's request.

 

http://jotman.blogspot.com/2010/07/white-h...-blame-for.html

[Park Life 71]

Did you watch 'Secret Iraq' on the beeb? That was great.

 

Disbanding the army was one of the greatest military mistakes in modern warfare.

 

This is the common view of the semi-informed delinquent, but further investigation suggests the army was imploding anyway. Must try harder, cut out the bong hits.

 

The whole idea in the beginning was to not get involved in battles in the city and to keep the people onside. To work with what remants of oraganisation and local intelligence that was left. Disbanding the army, just pissed off hundereds of thousands of men, who suddenly had no means of income and nothing left to contribute and they were also trained fighters. Iraq was and still is dotted with arms caches and many had stored weapons in hiding places. Paul Bremer in one fail swoop started a full on insurgency against his own forces. As I said one of the biggest milirary errors in modern warfare.

[Park Life 71]

Turkey is already showing signs of not being so welcoming to Nato and is restricting flights of US warplanes, it also has growing anti-western sentiment. Egypt is in the grip of fundamentalist uprisings and dissent. Saudi Arabia will not be able to contain the growing forces of discontent against the cruel Wahabi dictaorship and at some point the Pakistani army and secret police will lose control faced wiht incerading and hietining internal fuandamentalism.

 

The pieces on the board that seemed safe will suddenly start to look unstable and the backlash will come fuelled by the memories and sadness of a people who's identity we have turned from reletavism to fundamentalism. Quite stupidly we ourselves have given and keep giving massive clarion calls to the men of unreason.

 

There isn't one mosque in the west that isn't sending money to fighters somewhere.

[Kevin S. Assilleekunt 1]

The whole idea in the beginning was to not get involved in battles in the city and to keep the people onside. To work with what remants of oraganisation and local intelligence that was left. Disbanding the army, just pissed off hundereds of thousands of men, who suddenly had no means of income and nothing left to contribute and they were also trained fighters. Iraq was and still is dotted with arms caches and many had stored weapons in hiding places. Paul Bremer in one fail swoop started a full on insurgency against his own forces. As I said one of the biggest milirary errors in modern warfare.

 

further investigation suggests the army was imploding anyway

 

Can you see the text through the bong smoke. Historians will process the information and articulate their narrative in a clear manner. There are already differing interpretations of this event.

[Happy Face 29]

There isn't one mosque in the west that isn't sending money to fighters somewhere.

 

 

A Europol report on terrorist attacks in Europe in 2009 [pdf] says that out of hundreds of terrorist attacks in Europe in 2009, most were the work of ethnic separatists. About 40 were carried out by members of the extreme left. A handful by the European far right. See also this analysis.

 

One terrorist attack was carried out in 2009 in all Europe by persons of Muslim heritage (I do not say ‘by a Muslim’ because terrorism is forbidden in Islamic law).

 

That is right. Out of hundreds. Exactly one.

 

After all that nonsense spewed on the internet and Fox Cable News about the danger of Muslims to Europe, and all the ethnic profiling and other discrimination against Muslims, it turns out that not only is their religion not dangerous, even the persons who depart from it into extremism and terrorism are tiny in number. Now it would not be right to profile or generalize about Basques, the Real IRA, etc., either. But even by the lights of the bigoted, it would be a waste of time to obsess about Muslims on this evidence.

 

http://www.juancole.com/2010/10/on-juan-wi...eparatists.html

[Park Life 71]

The whole idea in the beginning was to not get involved in battles in the city and to keep the people onside. To work with what remants of oraganisation and local intelligence that was left. Disbanding the army, just pissed off hundereds of thousands of men, who suddenly had no means of income and nothing left to contribute and they were also trained fighters. Iraq was and still is dotted with arms caches and many had stored weapons in hiding places. Paul Bremer in one fail swoop started a full on insurgency against his own forces. As I said one of the biggest milirary errors in modern warfare.

 

further investigation suggests the army was imploding anyway

 

Can you see the text through the bong smoke. Historians will process the information and articulate their narrative in a clear manner. There are already differing interpretations of this event.

 

It is well documented that the army leaders were meeting regualarly witht the US high command asking what their role would be and how they could help.

[Park Life 71]

There isn't one mosque in the west that isn't sending money to fighters somewhere.

 

 

A Europol report on terrorist attacks in Europe in 2009 [pdf] says that out of hundreds of terrorist attacks in Europe in 2009, most were the work of ethnic separatists. About 40 were carried out by members of the extreme left. A handful by the European far right. See also this analysis.

 

One terrorist attack was carried out in 2009 in all Europe by persons of Muslim heritage (I do not say ‘by a Muslim’ because terrorism is forbidden in Islamic law).

 

That is right. Out of hundreds. Exactly one.

 

After all that nonsense spewed on the internet and Fox Cable News about the danger of Muslims to Europe, and all the ethnic profiling and other discrimination against Muslims, it turns out that not only is their religion not dangerous, even the persons who depart from it into extremism and terrorism are tiny in number. Now it would not be right to profile or generalize about Basques, the Real IRA, etc., either. But even by the lights of the bigoted, it would be a waste of time to obsess about Muslims on this evidence.

 

http://www.juancole.com/2010/10/on-juan-wi...eparatists.html

 

They don't support attacks in Eurpe that is correct. The money is going to the front lines in the middle east.

[Kevin S. Assilleekunt 1]

The whole idea in the beginning was to not get involved in battles in the city and to keep the people onside. To work with what remants of oraganisation and local intelligence that was left. Disbanding the army, just pissed off hundereds of thousands of men, who suddenly had no means of income and nothing left to contribute and they were also trained fighters. Iraq was and still is dotted with arms caches and many had stored weapons in hiding places. Paul Bremer in one fail swoop started a full on insurgency against his own forces. As I said one of the biggest milirary errors in modern warfare.

 

further investigation suggests the army was imploding anyway

 

Can you see the text through the bong smoke. Historians will process the information and articulate their narrative in a clear manner. There are already differing interpretations of this event.

 

It is well documented that the army leaders were meeting regualarly witht the US high command asking what their role would be and how they could help.

 

Large numbers of their forces were disbanding anyway. To what extent this lead to the situation we will be able to establish better when some historians dredge up reliable sources. I think the bigger mistake was staging the invasion in the first place with no coherent strategy for the aftermath.

[Kevin S. Assilleekunt 1]

There isn't one mosque in the west that isn't sending money to fighters somewhere.

One terrorist attack was carried out in 2009 in all Europe by persons of Muslim heritage (I do not say ‘by a Muslim’ because terrorism is forbidden in Islamic law).

 

That is right. Out of hundreds. Exactly one.

 

http://www.juancole.com/2010/10/on-juan-wi...eparatists.html

 

It's good to know that the conflicts have been successful in reducing international terrorist attacks from Muslims. The 'I do not say 'by a Muslim'' sentence is absolutely laughable on so many levels. If we don't refer to religious maniacs by their true denomination (ie their superstition of choice) we are simply letting religion of the hook.

[Kevin S. Assilleekunt 1]

On the subject of the Muslim apologist Juan Cer:

 

However, words and details and nuances do matter in all this, so I was not surprised to see professor Juan Cole of the University of Michigan denying that Ahmadinejad, or indeed Khomeini, had ever made this call for the removal of Israel from the map. Cole is a minor nuisance on the fringes of the academic Muslim apologist community. At one point, there was a danger that he would become a go-to person for quotes in New York Times articles (a sort of Shiite fellow-traveling version of Norman Ornstein, if such an alarming phenomenon can be imagined), but this crisis appears to have passed.

 

Cole continues to present himself as an expert on Shiism and on the Persian, Arabic, and Urdu tongues. Let us see how his claim vindicates itself in practice. Here is what he wrote on the "Gulf 2000" e-mail chat-list on April 22:

 

It bears repeating as long as the accusation is made. Ahmadinejad did not "threaten" to "wipe Israel off the map." I'm not sure there is even such an idiom in Persian. He quoted Khomeini to the effect that "the Occupation regime must end" (ehtelal bayad az bayn berad). And, no, it is not the same thing. It is about what sort of regime people live under, not whether they exist at all. Ariel Sharon, after all, made the Occupation regime in Gaza end.

 

There are two separate but related matters here. For a start, let us look at the now-famous speech that Ahmadinejad actually gave at the Interior Ministry on Oct. 26, 2005. (I am using the translation made by Nazila Fathi of the New York Times Tehran bureau, whose Persian is probably the equal of Professor Cole's.) The relevant portions read:

 

Our dear Imam [Khomeini] said that the occupying regime must be wiped off the map and this was a very wise statement. We cannot compromise over the issue of Palestine. … Our dear Imam targeted the heart of the world oppressor in his struggle, meaning the occupying regime. … For over fifty years the world oppressor tried to give legitimacy to the occupying regime, and it has taken measures in this direction to stabilize it.

 

Ahmadinejad then denounced the recent Israeli-Palestinian negotiations over Gaza as a sellout and added, "If we get through this brief period successfully, the path of eliminating the occupying regime will be easy and down-hill."

 

Not even Professor Cole will dispute that, in the above passages, the term "occupying regime" means Israel and the term "world oppressor" stands for the United States. (The title of the conference, incidentally, was The World Without Zionism.) In fact, Khomeini's injunctions are referred to twice. Quite possibly, "wiped off the map" is slightly too free a translation of what he originally said, and what it is mandatory for his followers to repeat. So, I give it below, in Persian and in English, and let you be the judge:

 

Esrail ghiyam-e mossalahaane bar zed-e mamaalek-e eslami nemoodeh ast va bar doval va mamaalek-eeslami ghal-o-gham aan lazem ast.

 

My source here is none other than a volume published by the Institute for Imam Khomeini. Here is the translation:

 

Israel has declared armed struggle against Islamic countries and its destruction is a must for all governments and nations of Islam.

 

This is especially important, and is also the reason for the wide currency given to the statement: It is making something into a matter of religious duty. The term "ghal-o-gham" is an extremely strong and unambivalent one, of which a close equivalent rendering would be "annihilate."

 

Professor Cole has completely missed or omitted the first reference in last October's speech, skipped to the second one, and flatly misunderstood the third. (The fourth one, about "eliminating the occupying regime," I would say speaks for itself.) He evidently thinks that by "occupation," Khomeini and Ahmadinejad were referring to the Israeli seizure of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967. But if this were true, it would not have been going on for "more than fifty years" now, would it? The 50th anniversary of 1967 falls in 2017, which is a while off. What could be clearer than that "occupation regime" is a direct reference to Israel itself?

 

One might have thought that, if the map-wiping charge were to have been inaccurate or unfair, Ahmadinejad would have denied it. But he presumably knew what he had said and had meant to say. In any case, he has an apologist to do what he does not choose to do for himself. But this apologist, who affects such expertise in Persian, cannot decipher the plain meaning of a celebrated statement and is, furthermore, in need of a remedial course in English.

 

http://www.slate.com/id/2140947/

 

 

Perhaps it isn't fair to expect someone who writes as prolifically as Cole, in an informal medium like blogging, to carefully vet everything he produces. But he comes across as careless of his own reputation when he writes things on his blog which he later claims he didn't. Or posts flip accusations for which he has no evidence on disreputable websites, which brought threats of legal action. In response he has made further unsubstantiated statements and innuendo.

 

Cole is equally careless with the reputations of others.

 

He uncritically repeated rumors about murdered journalist Steven Vincent's relationship with his translator. He didn't know the people involved, but couldn't resist showing himself off as an expert on Arab culture, and Martin Kramer points out that it was also an opportunity to deliver a posthumous smackdown to Vincent, who had rebuked Cole on his blog.

 

Vincent's widow was justifiably outraged. Her long excoriation of Cole is eloquent and worth a read. Vincent's book and blog make it clear that he understood the culture he was in, and Cole's response is typically defensive, patronizing and emotionally tonedeaf. And amazingly arrogant, given that Vincent had spent months in Iraq and Cole has never been there.

 

http://www.keshertalk.com/archives/2006/07/juancoleyale.php

 

 

Would you trust this man? Me neither.

Edited October 24, 2010 by Kevin S. Assilleekunt

[Happy Face 29]

On the subject of the Muslim apologist Juan Cer:

 

However, words and details and nuances do matter in all this, so I was not surprised to see professor Juan Cole of the University of Michigan denying that Ahmadinejad, or indeed Khomeini, had ever made this call for the removal of Israel from the map. Cole is a minor nuisance on the fringes of the academic Muslim apologist community. At one point, there was a danger that he would become a go-to person for quotes in New York Times articles (a sort of Shiite fellow-traveling version of Norman Ornstein, if such an alarming phenomenon can be imagined), but this crisis appears to have passed.

 

Cole continues to present himself as an expert on Shiism and on the Persian, Arabic, and Urdu tongues. Let us see how his claim vindicates itself in practice. Here is what he wrote on the "Gulf 2000" e-mail chat-list on April 22:

 

It bears repeating as long as the accusation is made. Ahmadinejad did not "threaten" to "wipe Israel off the map." I'm not sure there is even such an idiom in Persian. He quoted Khomeini to the effect that "the Occupation regime must end" (ehtelal bayad az bayn berad). And, no, it is not the same thing. It is about what sort of regime people live under, not whether they exist at all. Ariel Sharon, after all, made the Occupation regime in Gaza end.

 

There are two separate but related matters here. For a start, let us look at the now-famous speech that Ahmadinejad actually gave at the Interior Ministry on Oct. 26, 2005. (I am using the translation made by Nazila Fathi of the New York Times Tehran bureau, whose Persian is probably the equal of Professor Cole's.) The relevant portions read:

 

Our dear Imam [Khomeini] said that the occupying regime must be wiped off the map and this was a very wise statement. We cannot compromise over the issue of Palestine. … Our dear Imam targeted the heart of the world oppressor in his struggle, meaning the occupying regime. … For over fifty years the world oppressor tried to give legitimacy to the occupying regime, and it has taken measures in this direction to stabilize it.

 

Ahmadinejad then denounced the recent Israeli-Palestinian negotiations over Gaza as a sellout and added, "If we get through this brief period successfully, the path of eliminating the occupying regime will be easy and down-hill."

 

Not even Professor Cole will dispute that, in the above passages, the term "occupying regime" means Israel and the term "world oppressor" stands for the United States. (The title of the conference, incidentally, was The World Without Zionism.) In fact, Khomeini's injunctions are referred to twice. Quite possibly, "wiped off the map" is slightly too free a translation of what he originally said, and what it is mandatory for his followers to repeat. So, I give it below, in Persian and in English, and let you be the judge:

 

Esrail ghiyam-e mossalahaane bar zed-e mamaalek-e eslami nemoodeh ast va bar doval va mamaalek-eeslami ghal-o-gham aan lazem ast.

 

My source here is none other than a volume published by the Institute for Imam Khomeini. Here is the translation:

 

Israel has declared armed struggle against Islamic countries and its destruction is a must for all governments and nations of Islam.

 

This is especially important, and is also the reason for the wide currency given to the statement: It is making something into a matter of religious duty. The term "ghal-o-gham" is an extremely strong and unambivalent one, of which a close equivalent rendering would be "annihilate."

 

Professor Cole has completely missed or omitted the first reference in last October's speech, skipped to the second one, and flatly misunderstood the third. (The fourth one, about "eliminating the occupying regime," I would say speaks for itself.) He evidently thinks that by "occupation," Khomeini and Ahmadinejad were referring to the Israeli seizure of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967. But if this were true, it would not have been going on for "more than fifty years" now, would it? The 50th anniversary of 1967 falls in 2017, which is a while off. What could be clearer than that "occupation regime" is a direct reference to Israel itself?

 

One might have thought that, if the map-wiping charge were to have been inaccurate or unfair, Ahmadinejad would have denied it. But he presumably knew what he had said and had meant to say. In any case, he has an apologist to do what he does not choose to do for himself. But this apologist, who affects such expertise in Persian, cannot decipher the plain meaning of a celebrated statement and is, furthermore, in need of a remedial course in English.

 

http://www.slate.com/id/2140947/

 

 

Perhaps it isn't fair to expect someone who writes as prolifically as Cole, in an informal medium like blogging, to carefully vet everything he produces. But he comes across as careless of his own reputation when he writes things on his blog which he later claims he didn't. Or posts flip accusations for which he has no evidence on disreputable websites, which brought threats of legal action. In response he has made further unsubstantiated statements and innuendo.

 

Cole is equally careless with the reputations of others.

 

He uncritically repeated rumors about murdered journalist Steven Vincent's relationship with his translator. He didn't know the people involved, but couldn't resist showing himself off as an expert on Arab culture, and Martin Kramer points out that it was also an opportunity to deliver a posthumous smackdown to Vincent, who had rebuked Cole on his blog.

 

Vincent's widow was justifiably outraged. Her long excoriation of Cole is eloquent and worth a read. Vincent's book and blog make it clear that he understood the culture he was in, and Cole's response is typically defensive, patronizing and emotionally tonedeaf. And amazingly arrogant, given that Vincent had spent months in Iraq and Cole has never been there.

 

http://www.keshertalk.com/archives/2006/07/juancoleyale.php

 

 

Would you trust this man? Me neither.

 

 

Christopher Hitchens owes me a big apology.

 

I belong to a private email discussion group called Gulf2000. It has academics, journalists and policy makers on it. It has a strict rule that messages appearing there will not be forwarded off the list. It is run, edited and moderated by former National Security Council staffer for Carter and Reagan, Gary Sick, now a political scientist at Columbia University. The “no-forwarding” rule is his, and is intended to allow the participants to converse about controversial matters without worrying about being in trouble. Also, in an informal email discussion, ideas evolve, you make mistakes and they get corrected, etc. It is a rough, rough draft.

 

Hitchens somehow hacked into the site, or joined and lurked, or had a crony pass him things. And he has now made my private email messages the subject of an attack on me in Slate. (I am not linking to the article because it is highly unethical and Slate does not deserve any direct traffic from my site for it.) Moreover, he did not even have the decency to quote the final outcome of the discussions.

 

I’d like to take this opportunity to complain about the profoundly dishonest character of “attack journalism.” Journalists are supposed to interview the subjects about which they write. Mr. Hitchens never contacted me about this piece. He never sought clarification of anything. He never asked permission to quote my private mail. Major journalists have a privileged position. Not just anyone can be published in Slate. Most academics could not get a gig there (I’ve never been asked to write for it). Hitchens is paid to publish there because he is a prominent journalist. But then he should behave like a journalist, not like a hired gun for the far Right, smearing hapless targets of his ire. That isn’t journalism. For some reason it drives the Right absolutely crazy that I keep this little web log, and so they keep trotting out these clowns in amateurish sniping attacks. It is rather sad, that one person standing up to them puts them into such piranha-like frenzy.

 

The precise reason for Hitchens’ theft and publication of my private mail is that I object to the characterization of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as having “threatened to wipe Israel off the map.” I object to this translation of what he said on two grounds. First, it gives the impression that he wants to play Hitler to Israel’s Poland, mobilizing an armored corps to move in and kill people.

 

But the actual quote, which comes from an old speech of Khomeini, does not imply military action, or killing anyone at all. The second reason is that it is just an inexact translation. The phrase is almost metaphysical. He quoted Khomeini that “the occupation regime over Jerusalem should vanish from the page of time.” It is in fact probably a reference to some phrase in a medieval Persian poem. It is not about tanks.

 

Since Mr. Hitchens wants to splash my private mail all over the internet against my will, as though he were himself an agent of the Bush Administration’s electronic spying on the private conversations of Americans, I’m glad to share the message that encapsulates the results of our deliberations at Gulf2000.

 

Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 15:34:18 -0400 From: “Cole, Juan”

 

The speech in Persian is here:

 

Sorry that I misremembered the exact phrase Ahmadinejad had used. He made an analogy to Khomeini’s determination and success in getting rid of the Shah’s government, which Khomeini had said “must go” (az bain bayad berad). Then Ahmadinejad defined Zionism not as an Arabi-Israeli national struggle but as a Western plot to divide the world of Islam with Israel as the pivot of this plan.

 

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.

 

Whatever this quotation from a decades-old speech of Khomeini may have meant, Ahmadinejad did not say that “Israel must be wiped off the map” with the implication that phrase has of Nazi-style extermination of a people. He said that the occupation regime over Jerusalem must be erased from the page of time.

 

Again, Ariel Sharon erased the occupation regime over Gaza from the page of time.

 

I should again underline that I personally despise everything Ahmadinejad stands for, not to mention the odious Khomeini, who had personal friends of mine killed so thoroughly that we have never recovered their bodies. Nor do I agree that the Israelis have no legitimate claim on any part of Jerusalem. And, I am not exactly a pacifist but have a strong preference for peaceful social activism over violence, so needless to say I condemn the sort of terror attacks against innocent civilians (including Arab Israelis) that we saw last week. I have not seen any credible evidence, however, that such attacks are the doing of Ahmadinejad, and in my view they are mainly the result of the expropriation and displacement of the long-suffering Palestinian people.

 

It is not realistic for Americans to call for Iran to talk directly to the Israeli government (though in the 1980s the Khomeinists did a lot of business with Israel) when the US government won’t talk directly to the Iranians about most bilateral issues. In fact, an American willingness to engage in direct talks might well pave the way to an eventual settlement of these outstanding issues.

 

cheers

 

Juan Cole

 

I don’t have any intention of making a point by point reply to Hitchens’s completely inaccurate screed. He blames me for not referring to some other speech of Khomeini, when in fact I never instanced any speeches of Khomeini at all in this discussion except the snippet cited by Ahmadinejad– I was arguing that there is no Persian idiom to wipe something off the map, and that Ahmadinejad has been misquoted.

 

Hitchens imagines a whole discourse of mine (which mostly never took place) that he now sets out to refute– from English translations! But I was saying that the wire service translations were the problem in the first place. Hitchens seems to think that he can over-rule my reading of a Persian text by reference to some hurried journalist’s untechnical rendering into English.

 

Hitchens alleges that I said that Khomeini never called for wiping Israel from the face of the map. Actually, I never said anything at all about Khomeini’s own speeches or intentions. I was solely discussing Ahmadinejad. Hitchens should please quote me on Khomeini and Israel. He cannot. He is making it up out of whole cloth. He should retract.

 

I write so much with which the Far Right disagrees so vehemently. I publish it here. Why is it that they keep having to invent quotations and put them in my mouth. Now, Cole is alleged to deny that Khomeini’s rhetoric was hostile to Israel. Is that even a plausible allegation?

 

But, by the way, Khomeini sold oil to Israel, and Israel sold him weapons and spare parts, and put the Reagan administration up to doing the same thing. You will note that when Khomeini originally made the statement about the occupation regime over Jerusalem vanishing from the page of time, that was not front page news. In fact, secret Israeli arms shipments were arriving in Tehran as Khomeini was speaking. So whatever is going on now is not about the rhetoric, is it?

 

Here is what the National Security Archive says about Khomeini and Israel:

‘ Even during the hostage crisis in Tehran, Israel—later the United States’ partner through much of the Iran initiative—began to strike weapons deals of its own with Iran. Tel Aviv, like Washington, had a long history of selling arms to the Shah, which Tehran’s revolutionary government was willing to exploit secretly, despite its public animosity toward the state of Israel. Reportedly, the United States knew about Israeli transactions during the early 1980s but turned a blind eye. News accounts alleged later that President Reagan’s first secretary of state, Alexander Haig, gave Tel Aviv an “amber light,” acquiescing in the weapons transfers without officially approving them. One report stated that Haig gave permission to Israel to sell U.S.-made military spare parts for fighter planes to Iran in early 1981 after discussions between his counselor at the State Department, Robert McFarlane, and Israeli Foreign Ministry official David Kimche. An Israeli account of the U.S.-backed weapons sales of 1985-1986 reports that Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon proposed as early as 1982 that Washington consider an opening to factions in Iran using limited military sales as a vehicle. The White House apparently declined the suggestion but four years later would be more receptive to a similar proposal brought to McFarlane, then national security advisor, by his long-time counterpart, Kimche. ‘

Note that not only were the Israelis dealing with Khomeini, they are alleged to have been doing so while he was holding American hostages.

 

Back to Hitchens. How to explain this peculiar behavior on the part of someone who was at one time one of our great men of letters?

 

Well, I don’t think it is any secret that Hitchens has for some time had a very serious and debilitating drinking problem. He once showed up drunk to a talk I gave and heckled me. I can only imagine that he was deep in his cups when he wrote, or had some far Rightwing think tank write, his current piece of yellow journalism. I am sorry to witness the ruin of a once-fine journalistic mind.

 

But the other reason for Hitchens’s piece may be that he has become a warmonger, and it is possible that he wants a US war against Iran. More on that below.

 

As for the matter at issue, Ahmadinejad is a non-entity. The Iranian “president” is mostly powerless. The commander of the armed forces is the Supreme Jurisprudent, Ali Khamenei. Worrying about Ahmadinejad’s antics is like worrying that the US military will act on the orders of the secretary of the interior. Ahmadinejad cannot declare war on anyone, or mobilize a military. So it doesn’t matter what speeches he gives.

 

Moreover, Iran cannot fight Israel. It would be defeated in 72 hours, even if the US didn’t come in, which it would (and rightly so if Israel were attacked). Iran is separated by several other countries from Israel. It has not attacked aggressively any other country militarily for over a century (can Americans say that of their own record?) It has only a weak, ineffective air force. So why worry about it?

 

What is really going on here is an old trick of the warmongers. Which is that you equate hurtful statements of your enemy with an actual military threat, and make a weak and vulnerable enemy look like a strong, menacing foe. Then no one can complain when you pounce on the enemy and reduce his country to flames and rubble.

 

It is obvious that powerful political forces in Washington are fishing for a pretext to launch a war on Iran, and that they are just delighted to have Ahmadinejad as cartoon villain and pretext. But they had a moderate, reforming president in Mohammad Khatami for 8 years, and just blew off all his overtures to the West. Iranians organized big candle-light vigils for America after September 11, in sympathy!

 

 

 

Washington never gave the reform movement the slightest encouragement, perhaps in hopes that the Iranians would be forced to turn right again and form a proper object of US hatred. If so, they got their wish last summer, when Ahmadinejad used the same dirty techniques to get elected as had George W. Bush.

 

All the warmongers in Washington, including Hitchens, if he falls into that camp, should get this through their heads. Americans are not fighting any more wars in the Middle East against toothless third rate powers. So sit down and shut up.

 

One, two, three, four! We don’t want your stinking war!

 

We are not going to see any more US troops come home in body bags at Dover for the sake of some Cheney affiliate grabbing the petroleum in Iran’s Ahvaz fields.

 

 

 

 

 

We are not going to have another 15,000 wounded vets flood onto our streets with spine damage and brain damage.

 

 

 

We are not going to put Yazd behind barbed wire to liberate it, as a millenarian Christian general did to Habbaniyah in Iraq.

 

 

 

We are not going to imprison and torture thousands of Iranians at Evin Penitentiary in Tehran, as worthy successors to the bloodthirsty Shah and Khomeini.

 

 

 

 

 

We are not going to kill 200,000 Iranians with aerial bombardments of Tabriz, Isfahan, Qom, Kerman, Shiraz and Mashahd.

 

 

 

 

We are not going to let dozens of US corporations loot the American people and the Iranian people alike with no-bid “contracts”, embezzlement, corruption, and graft.

 

We are not going to let you have a war against Iran.

 

So sit down and shut up, American Enterprise Institute, and Hudson Institute, and Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and American Heritage Foundation, and this institute and that institute, and cable “news”, and government “spokesmen”, and all the pundit-ferrets you pay millions to make business for the American military-industrial complex and Big Oil.

 

We don’t give a rat’s ass what Ahmadinejad thinks about European history or what pissant speech the little shit gives.

 

I call on university students across America to begin holding antiwar rallies. The only way you can have a war on Iran is to draft the young people. It is you who are on the line. Demonstrate! Demonstrate against the very hint of war! Demonstrate in front of the warmongering “institutes” in Washington, DC! Demonstrate to end the one we’ve already got! (See Speaker’s Forum on Iraq

 

Here is what the real Iran experts think about the prospect of an Iran war.

 

Because Hitchens’s dirty tricks and lies against me are only the beginning. Whoever stands against the Perpetual War machine will be attacked, slimed, marginalized, and destroyed if the warmongers get their way. I don’t care. Thus far and no farther.

 

One, two, three, four. We don’t want your stinking war!

 

http://www.juancole.com/2006/05/hitchens-h...d-hitchens.html