Saturday, September 22, 2007
No Understanding Any Time
I performed this imitation of a Fat Old Hugh Grant as an exercise in comedy. The masterful actor that Mr Grant is has this schtick which he employs, where he says a lot but reveals nothing. Much like the press in their hyper criticism of all things conservative.
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It is an indication of the triumph of style over substance among the world’s left leaning press that the statement “I don’t understand” can be so powerful.
When the US President said “Well, Mandela's dead because Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas." His meaning is clear. But the press found it ambiguous.
Nelson Mandela is a much lauded figure who transcended South African politics to stride the world’s stage. Unlike another South African figure, Steve Biko, Mandela was imprisoned for many years before being released at the end of Apartheid. Biko had been murdered by the Apartheid regime of South Africa. Much as many Iraqi’s with drive and ability have been murdered by Saddam Hussein and the recent insurgency.
In the US, the terrorist sympathisers have joined hands with the political group that best feel they can exploit the misery of many. A rather uncritical press have stood by, uncomprehending of the tragedy in the face of political success.
The truth is that political irresponsibility has gained much popular support by opposing minority groups, but when power is achieved, as it inevitably will be, such politics offers no guidance for the new leadership.
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Bush's Mandela death gaffe 'out there'
from News.com.au
NELSON Mandela is still very much alive despite a gaffe by US President George W. Bush, who alluded to the former South African leader's death in a speech yesterday.
"It's out there," said Achmat Dangor of the Nelson Mandela Foundation of Mr Bush's comment, which received worldwide media coverage.
"All we can do is reassure people, especially South Africans, that President Mandela is alive," he said.
In a speech defending his administration's Iraq policy, Mr Bush said former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's brutality had made it impossible to find a leader who could unite the country.
"I heard somebody say, 'Where's Mandela?'," he said.
"Well, Mandela's dead because Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas."
The bizarre gaffe was made in a press conference in Washington yesterday.
Mandela became South Africa's first black president in 1994. He won a Nobel Peace Prize for preaching racial harmony and guiding the nation into the post-apartheid era.
References to his death – Mandela is now 89 and increasingly frail – are seen as insensitive in South Africa.
With Reuters
Plan to annihilate Iran's military
By Sarah Baxter
THE Pentagon has drawn up plans for large-scale airstrikes against 1200 targets in Iran to annihilate the Iranians' military capability in three days, a security expert says.
Alexis Debat, director of terrorism and national security at the Nixon Centre, said US military planners were not preparing for "pinprick strikes" against Iran's nuclear facilities.
"They're about taking out the entire Iranian military," he said.
At a meeting organised by the foreign policy journal The National Interest, he said it was a"very legitimate strategic calculus".
George W.Bush upped the rhetoric last week, accusing Tehran of putting the Middle East "under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust".
The US President warned that the US would confront Iran "before it is too late". One Washington source said the "temperature was rising" in the administration.
Mr Bush was "sending a message to a number of audiences" - to the Iranians and to members of the UN Security Council who are trying to weaken a tough third resolution on sanctions against Iran for flouting a UN ban on uranium enrichment.
The International Atomic Energy Agency last week reported significant co-operation with Iran over its nuclear program and said uranium enrichment had slowed. Tehran vowed to answer most questions from the agency by November, but Washington fears it is stalling to prevent further sanctions. Iran continues to maintain that it is merely developing civilian nuclear power.
Mr Bush is committed for now to the diplomatic route but claims the Iranians are moving towards acquiring a nuclear weapon.
A well-placed source said the administration supported using rapid, overwhelming force, should military action become necessary.
Alireza Jafarzadeh, a spokesman for the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which uncovered Iran's uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, said the IAEA was being strung along.
"The report reads as though it was written by the Iranians," he said.
"A number of nuclear sites have not even been visited by the IAEA. They're giving a clean bill of health to a regime that isknown to have practised deception."
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threw oil on the fire last night, declaring Iran had put into operation more than 3000 uranium-enriching centrifuges at a nuclear plant, reaching a key goal of its atomic drive.
"They thought that by issuing any resolution Iran would back down," he said.
"But after each resolution the Iranian nation took another step along the path of nuclear development. Now it has put into operation more than 3000 centrifuges and every week we install a new series."
Mr Ahmadinejad had irritated the White House last week by vowing to fill a "power vacuum" in Iraq. But Washington says Iran is already fighting a proxy war with the Americans in Iraq.
The Institute for the Study of War last week released a report by Kimberley Kagan that uses the term "proxy war" and claims that with the Sunni insurgency and al-Qa'ida in Iraq "increasingly under control", Iranian intervention is the "next major problem" to be tackled.
Mr Bush noted last week the number of attacks on US bases and troops by Iranian-supplied munitions had increased in recent months - "despite pledges by Iran to help stabilise the security situation in Iraq".
It explains, in part, Mr Bush's lack of faith in the power of diplomacy with the Iranians.
But Mr Debat says the Pentagon's plans for military action involve the use of so much force that they are unlikely to be used and would seriously stretch resources in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Ray Takeyh, an Iran expert at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, speaking at the same meeting, said the Iranians were determined to pursue a nuclear program "irrespective of the financial and political costs".
Professor Takeyh warned US soldiers in pursuit of Iranian targets in Iraq could cross the border and spark military conflict.
He added optimistically that if Iran acquired nuclear weapons, it could be beneficial to the US, leading the Gulf states to "seek out the American umbrella even more".
Perhaps the proper approach to the Iranian problem is "benign neglect", Professor Takeyh suggested. "Nothing has worked, so maybe ignoring them will."
The Sunday Times, in The Australian
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