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Iran's crocodile rocked
Pepe Escobar, Asia Times

December 18, 2006

With votes still being hand-counted, there's every indication Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's moderate faction has scored a stunning victory over the extreme right in the crucial election for the 86-member Council of Experts, according to Iranian state TV.

"Hashemi" - as he is known in Tehran - as well as Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi - the gray eminence and spiritual leader of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad - will be among the 16 clerics representing Tehran in the Council of Experts.

The Council of Experts (86 clerics only; no women allowed) is key because it's the only institution in the Islamic Republic capable of holding the supreme leader accountable and even removing him from office. It is the system's Holy Grail. The supreme leader - not the president - is where the buck stops in Iran.

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http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m29127

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Yazdi and his followers have always stressed they want to implement "real Islam". They view the Rafsanjani camp as a bunch of filthy rich, morally and legally corrupt decadents, totally oblivious to the concerns of "ordinary people", whose self-styled key symbol happens to be Ahmadinejad.

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Neo-conservatives and the Washington establishment should not jump to hasty conclusions. There won't be regime change in Tehran any time soon. This year there has been a serious crackdown on the reformist press, the Internet, personal weblogs, satellite dishes and academia - where more than 50 reformist professors have been targeted.

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[ 18 December 2006: Message edited by: Centerfield ]

The Council of Experts (86 clerics only; no women allowed)

It's time woman were allowed and then maybe we could stop this Lunacy from Ahmadinejad

[ 18 December 2006: Message edited by: Centerfield ]

In other words, far from being an unbiased source, this is an extremely biased source, one which emanates from pro-Saddam people whom among other things would like to blame Iran for Halabja.

For those who are concerned about others falling into bed with unsavory types simply from their opposition to other disasteful types had better do their reasearch better.

[ 18 December 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Originally posted by Cueball:
Ironic it is that some of those who are so eager to paint the President of Iran as an antisemitic, holocaust denier, are sourcing their information from a web site that has a whole section of linked articles refuting the account of the gassing of Kurds in Halbja, by Saddam Hussein. Not that this really matters, but one really has to wonder where the outraged cries concerning historical revisionism have gone to now.

In other words, far from being an unbiased source, this is an extremely biased source, one which emanates from pro-Saddam people whom among other things would like to blame Iran for Halabja.

For those who are concerned about others falling into bed with unsavory types simply from their opposition to other disasteful types had better do their reasearch better.

[ 18 December 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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"Don't worry there won't be regime change in Tehran any time soon. This year there has been a serious crackdown on the reformist press, the Internet, personal weblogs, satellite dishes and academia - where more than 50 reformist professors have been targeted.

Anyways we know where you stand on the issue and you have the right to your opinion.
Why you would deflect from my original post and go back to an Anti Holocaust debate is beyond me.

Let's just say we agree to disagree and leave it that.

I still feel if woman were elected in the middle east the world would be much better off.

[ 18 December 2006: Message edited by: Centerfield ]

[ 21 December 2006: Message edited by: Centerfield ]

Look, if I were to do google surveys to formulate what is true and not true, there would be a safe bet that 3 years ago it would have be statistically true that their were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. 100 years ago if google was around I would have been crazy to think there were no canals on Mars.

Ok, then so you don't want to talk about that, what it is that Amedinejad is and is not. And are going to ignore anything which compromises your view that Amedinejad is the next Hitler.

Speaking of the last Hitler, why are you quoting a source which is trying to prove that "Jew Hater" Saddam Hussein, did not have anything to do with Halabja?

But just to prove it to you, you can click through to this google search "Jew+Hater+Saddam+Hussein."

[ 18 December 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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It's time woman were allowed and then maybe we could stop this Lunacy from Ahmadinejad -Centrefield

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He's clearly anti-semitic, it's not a matter of a poor translation.

Despite the fact that he has no power, the Bush Administration throws him up as the poster child of evil.

Hopefully, this election will lead to formal diplolmatic relations. Fat chance, but I can hope.

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posted 18 December 2006 05:58
Ironic it is that some of those who are so eager to paint the President of Iran as an antisemitic, holocaust denier, are sourcing their information from a web site that has a whole section of linked articles refuting the account of the gassing of Kurds in Halbja, by Saddam Hussein. Not that this really matters, but one really has to wonder where the outraged cries concerning historical revisionism have gone to now.

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You are right. It doesn't matter. What matters is the reality that the President of Iran is a holocaust denier and an antisemite.

Also, the fact that "some" people link to a website you dislike does not alter the fact that "most" people do not.

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Originally posted by jeff house:

You are right. It doesn't matter. What matters is the reality that the President of Iran is a holocaust denier and an antisemite.

Also, the fact that "some" people link to a website you dislike does not alter the fact that "most" people do not.

WHATEVER the truth of Halabja, (I believe Saddam is responsible, myself) the facts about Ahmadinejad are damning. He's an Iranian Ernst Zundel.

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Well the bigest problem with this Ernst Zundel thing, is that I don't think there is any evidence to suggest that Amedinejad wants to resurect National Socialism, or anything close. Islam is the primary motif of Amedinejad's philosphy, I just don't see Swatstikas and raving about the conspiracy of Jews, communists and bankers.

Did I miss something?

I know its hard to believe that the world didn't suddenly come into being when Europeans discovered it, but Islam actually predates Antisemetism. Not that the two should be equated, but talking about antsemetism (a European Christian phenomena) in the context of Islam is rather like talking about "socialist legality" in the context of the United States.

Certainly there are disturbing racist trends among Muslim people, and some of these are institutionalized, but the Muslims just don't have the history of committing pogrom after pogrom against Jewish people.

I perfectly willing to believe this could change, but the kind of virulent racism invented in Europe called antisemetism, is purely European.

Anyway, someday when you aren't too busy trying to fit square pegs into round holes, perhaps you should pick up a book on Islam and its social organization, that way you might be able to have a converesation without sounding like an orientalist, reflecting western values in Eastern motifs.

[ 19 December 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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“Jews, Christians and Muslims” in Palestine (by which he means Israel, Gaza and the West Bank together) “so that the population….can select their government and destiny for themselves in a democratic manner.”

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Tehran’s Holocaust Conference

It the new Nuremberg Laws! Fucking Nazi scumbag!

[ 19 December 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

[ 21 December 2006: Message edited by: Slumberjack ]

I don't see how that has anything to do with anything Amedinejad has said, or done.

The very fact that the term runs into a clear etymological challenge when used in Middle Eastern context, clearly underscores the Orientalist limitations of trying to mold the east into western political concepts will-nilly.

[ 21 December 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Originally posted by Cueball:
I know its hard to believe that the world didn't suddenly come into being when Europeans discovered it, but Islam actually predates Antisemetism. Not that the two should be equated, but talking about antsemetism (a European Christian phenomena) in the context of Islam is rather like talking about "socialist legality" in the context of the United States

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The problem with this is that you're trying to draw a nice neat line between Islam and Europeans such that the cultural memes of the West have not been adopted in nominally "Islamic" places. Nothing could be further from the truth. The "Empire" of capital is global in reach and scope. There is no authentic, discrete and closed system called "Islam" anymore, if there ever was. There has been cultural cross-pollination as long as there have been cultures. Perhaps now more than ever due to the expanse and speed of communications technologies.

Also, Cue, you have been a strong warrior against monolithic descriptions of Islam as wholly separate and Other to The West, and yet here aren't you edging toward that kind of incommensurability? I.e. the notion that the concepts of European society are not applicable in an Islamic context, and vice-versa? Isn't this simply the flip-side of the "Us v. Them" narrative driving the current capitalist imperial ventures in the Middle East?

Please be clear, I'm not trying to come down on you, and I think your argument comes from an honest intention to separate the ideological twins "Iranian Mullah-ism/Nazism" that is the current vogue. I laud that effort, on theoretical and moral grounds, as I'm sure you know. I think we agree that just as Nazism/Holocaust needs to be thought as a singularity, we must also think about new forms of "antisemitism" as their own singular political sequences. This is more a point of theory than anything.

[ 21 December 2006: Message edited by: B.L. Zeebub LLD ]

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I think Saddam ordered the Halabja attack, but there are reliable sources that say the victims died of phosgene, not mustard, gas. Phosgene was a staple of Iranian forces, and since artillery shells delivered the payload, Iraq would have needed Iranian ordnance, as well.

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Originally posted by B.L. Zeebub LLD:

The problem with this is that you're trying to draw a nice neat line between Islam and Europeans such that the cultural memes of the West have not been adopted in nominally "Islamic" places. Nothing could be further from the truth. The "Empire" of capital is global in reach and scope. There is no authentic, discrete and closed system called "Islam" anymore, if there ever was. There has been cultural cross-pollination as long as there have been cultures. Perhaps now more than ever due to the expanse and speed of communications technologies.

Also, Cue, you have been a strong warrior against monolithic descriptions of Islam as wholly separate and Other to The West, and yet here aren't you edging toward that kind of incommensurability? I.e. the notion that the concepts of European society are not applicable in an Islamic context, and vice-versa? Isn't this simply the flip-side of the "Us v. Them" narrative driving the current capitalist imperial ventures in the Middle East?

Please be clear, I'm not trying to come down on you, and I think your argument comes from an honest intention to separate the ideological twins "Iranian Mullah-ism/Nazism" that is the current vogue. I laud that effort, on theoretical and moral grounds, as I'm sure you know. I think we agree that just as Nazism/Holocaust needs to be thought as a singularity, we must also think about new forms of "antisemitism" as their own singular political sequences. This is more a point of theory than anything.

[ 21 December 2006: Message edited by: B.L. Zeebub LLD ]

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Thanks for taking the time to write this, but a more nuanced approach which includes a lot a caveats does not seem to be working against the backdrop of total ignorance and one sometimes is reduced to simplistic evil v. good by European standards only is not going to be clearly understood. Even what I have written is way to complex for the politco-savants who are not some much interested in analysis, as the certitude of thier denouncement.

But, as you have chosen to take this approach I would say that the second part of my analysis would stem from my oririginal thesis, and then take that a step forward, by noting that while Muslim racism is not necesarily antisemitic, it is very likely a more traditional racism is at work. Perhaps less viruent than the jack-boots and swastikas that some would like to see operating, but something more traditional to do with religious Dhimitude.

Be that as it may, my belief is that there is no way western conception of the Holocaust (as an example) are going to get a fair hearing on our terms, if we do not confront Islam, and by exstension Islamic racists on its terms, or at least strive to understand the nuances that make the Muslim world unique and seperate from our own history, even if those histories are increasingly intertwined.

Simply dismissing Amedinejad (whom in my view is likely at least mildly prejudiced) as an Holocaust denier and therefore an antisemite, is merely to show are unberage in a politcal and philosophical language that he can not even understand, really.

We just end up looking like a bunch of intransigent overheated and potentially very dangerous angry people, essentially.

So no, I don't think it is merely "theory."

[ 21 December 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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talking about antsemetism (a European Christian phenomena) in the context of Islam is rather like talking about "socialist legality" in the context of the United States

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Oh! So it is IMPOSSIBLE BY DEFINITION for Islamic people to be anti-semitic!

How very handy for them. Why then they can just say that Hitler was right, etc, etc, and it won't be antisemitic!

Why don't you just admit youve overstepped your own self for once and just drop it? Can happen to anyone. Post-modernist 'discourse' is even Less convincing when it's used to support deeper essentialist dualisms than liberal humanists do. Did I get the big words right?

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Originally posted by jeff house:

Oh! So it is IMPOSSIBLE BY DEFINITION for Islamic people to be anti-semitic!

How very handy for them. Why then they can just say that Hitler was right, etc, etc, and it won't be antisemitic!

Really, that's pretty pathetic.

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No. It is impossible for you to think outside of carefully dilliniated "self-evident truths." I guess its a kind of "Constitution Syndrome," which a lot of boys and girls brought up under the Star Spangled Banner seem to get, based on the supremely arrogant, and somewhat bigoted assumption that the USA-way is the only way -- even if there may be some argument and too and fro as to what those "self evident truths" are and whether or not they are being perverted or misapplied.

The fact is that the "self-evident truth," that questioning of denying the Holocaust is a de facto example of "antisemitism" is a political determination based on frist principle projected into a Euorpean and Western political landscape, which takes into account numerous common understandings of the western experience of Holocaust, and Nazism.

In essence, Holocaust Denial is defined as de facto antisemetism because, within a European or Western context, it is used to resucitate the legacy and ideals of National Socialim. However, the Arab and Persian experiance of Holocaust is entirely differnt, and exists in an entirely different political landscape and set of common understandings, most of those directly relating to post-facto experiences of Muslims dealing with Holocaust fall-out.

There is no evidence that Amedinejad seeks to resucitate the legacy of Adolph Hitler or the Ideals of National Socialism, and in fact quite the opposite. He seeks apparently, when and if he is denying the Holocaust, to confront the latter day fallout of the Holocaust in the form of the disenfranchisment of Arabs by the creation of the state of Israel.

Even in the first case where numerous Arab and Persian parties sought to be allied with Nazi Germany during the war, this was clearly not so much an expression of ideological compatability, but more a marriage of convenience joined by mutual antipathy for the British, as well as generally racist attitude to Jewish people, inflamed by the open-door policy of the British Empire in terms of populating Palestine with European Zionists.

If there is a larger agenda at at work it is Islamic in form, not National Socialist. And these are not the same, and they historically have a completely different relationship to Jewish people, based in Isalmic traditions of Dhimitude, which is a kind of tollerant, yet racist distain.

On the other hand National socialism itself is direct manifestation of Christian anti-Jewish racism which has its own legacy and tradition manifested repeatedly in such acts as the expulsion of the Spephardim from Spain, and numerous other pogroms committed all over Europe, and based on a the same ideological premise and objective, which can be sumarised as antisemitism.

There is no way that Amedinejad's call for there to be elections including Jews, Christains and Muslims in a future Palestinian state, fits into that, at all. It is compltely inexplicaple in the context ot European antisemetism, since antisemtites have always eschewed even basic rights for Jews, let alone voting as equal citizens.

I propose that in order to confront traditional Islamic racism it should be confronted on its own terms, not on terms which are essentially imported in a racists manner and presumes the supremacy of Western political discourse, as the "self-evident truth."

So if our intent is communication, as opposed to war, one should actually be arguing that Dhimitude is racist, and confronting the underlying assertions upon which most forms of Islamic anti-Jewish (actually anti-anythingbutbelievers} racism is founded, since then at least we will be arguing in the relevant context.

[ 22 December 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Originally posted by Cueball:

On the other hand National socialism itself is direct manifestation of Christian anti-Jewish racism which has its own legacy and tradition manifested repeatedly in such acts as the expulsion of the Spephardim from Spain, and numerous other pogroms committed all over Europe, and based on a the same ideological premise and objective, which can be sumarised as antisemitism.

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Just so as not to confuse anyone by all these adjoining references to Hitler and national socialism, Hitler wasn't a socialist. And neither were the banking and industrial elite, the private interests who did business with Nazi Germany, socialists. Prescott Bush wasn't a socialist and neither were Henry Ford or IG Farben socialists.

Utter bullshit. The SA or Brownshirts, led be Rohm, were Hitler's street-fighters in battles with the Social Democrats and Communists.

They murdered socialists, and in large numbers.

Their leaders were killed off by Hitler after he took power because their rough image, and Rohm's desire to have the SA become the German Army, undermined Hitler's efforts to seduce the establishment. Officers and men of the SA were then integrated into the German army.

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Originally posted by Cardy:

Their leaders were killed off by Hitler after he took power because their rough image, and Rohm's desire to have the SA become the German Army, undermined Hitler's efforts to seduce the establishment. Officers and men of the SA were then integrated into the German army.

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Broadly correct.

The SA continued as an organization throughout the war in various capcities and like the SS formed its own military units. If anything the SA was marginalized in favour of the SS under Heydrich and Himler and partially integrated into the SS.

However, it is also true that the SA operated marginaly independent of the the NSDAP, and in fact organized strikes in co-operation with their competitors in the Communist Party, and was primarily a working class organization wich appealed through its percieved attachement to socialist ideas and German nationalism. So, other than Rohm's personal ambitions for it, it was also a radical working class organization which was at odds, as you say, with the plan to "seduce the establishment."

[ 23 December 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Originally posted by Cardy:

Many early Nazis claimed to be socialists, including Goebbels, but for a Canadian leftist to claim a brutal Nazi thug as one of our own is disgusting.

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I didn't say Ernst Roehm was a socialist without imperfections. And I didn't say I identify with Roehm or the SA's goals. I think you see anything I write as an opportunity for personal attack, and that's too bad, Cardy.

German social democrats and even communists for a time participated in "gay-baiting" the Nazis in an attempt to discredit them. Roehm thought that a second socialist revolution should occur in Germany. The right-wing Nazis desired to maintain capitalist class structure of the economy. Hitler himself wanted a return to a Kaiser-led Germany. The socialist wing of the party as well as thousands of the German political opposition were murdered during Night of Long Knives.

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By 1934 Hitler appeared to have complete control over Germany, but like most dictators, he constantly feared that he might be ousted by others who wanted his power. To protect himself from a possible coup, Hitler used the tactic of divide and rule and encouraged other leaders such as Hermann Goering, Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler and Ernst Roehm to compete with each other for senior positions.

Industrialists such as Albert Voegler, Gustav Krupp, Alfried Krupp, Fritz Thyssen and Emile Kirdorf, who had provided the funds for the Nazi victory, were unhappy with Roehm's socialistic views on the economy and his claims that the real revolution had still to take place. Many people in the party also disapproved of the fact that Roehm and many other leaders of the SA were homosexuals.

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I think it's possible that in addition to the plot against him by high-ranking Nazis, Roehm's socialist views on how the economy should operate by socialist planning was diametrically opposed by Hitler and his fascist big money supporters. There was a pamphlet printed by the Nazis in small numbers and circulated to Germany's industrial and financial elite. It was entitled, The Road to Resurgence. I know this is all discoverable by the internet, but a friend of my family was a little girl in Germany during this time. Her father was a body guard for Hermann Goering. I'll admit that my opinions here can appear haphazard at times, I'm not a good writer. But I have spoken with some people who are strongly opinionated on this part of history. Mine are second-hand opinions, and I always like to entertain other's points of view.

[ 24 December 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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I didn't say Ernst Roehm was a socialist without imperfections.

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Tommy Douglas was "a socialist with imperfections."

Ernst Rohm was a Nazi.

Until you can see the difference between a socialist and a Nazi, don't expect anyone to take you seriously.

The rest of your post, including the suggestion that Nazis were victims of 'gay-baiting' at the hands of those nasty Social Democrats, beggars belief.

What's your purpose here? To show some Nazis as misunderstood left heroes?

I will be complaining to the moderators about your unwarranted, unprovoked personal attack. Get a grip, Cardy.

[ 24 December 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

Along with a lot of people here I consider myself a socialist; we can argue whether that definition should include Castro or Blair, but it doesn't include Nazis.

And I probably don't care to know your opinion of Fidel Castro, or even Hugo Chavez, who like Ernst Roehm, also has ties to the military. Does that make it impossible for him to be a socialist?.

Blair a socialist?: no.

[ 24 December 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

Do you retract that statement?

You can't wriggle away from that with blather about historical relativism. Knowing what you know, today, you called Ernst Rohm a socialist.

If you want to retract that we can chat about other things relating to the SA or what have you.

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Originally posted by Cardy:
I don't think you should be banned for saying something as stupid as you did, but you should be called on it.

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That's ok, I don't think you're stupid on purpose. But I think you post knee-jerk comments in haste sometimes. Watch the personal attacks though. I don't think anyone should have to put up with that. Instead of insulting people as a lame manoeuver in appealing to your own authority, why don't you try thinking out your knee-jerk comments first?. And throw in a few sources here and there for effect while you're at it.

[ 24 December 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Originally posted by Cardy:
If you want to retract that we can chat about other things relating to the SA or what have you.

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Have a better holiday, I insist. And Happy New Year to you, Cardy.

[ 24 December 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]