agence france presse (afp) at its worst

Iran students unveil book mocking Holocaust
AFP via Breitbart, Sep 26

Iranians chanted “Death to Israel” as a group of Islamist students unveiled a book mocking the Holocaust in an annual parade on Friday to show solidarity with the Palestinians. Featuring dozens of cartoons and sarcastic commentary, the book “Holocaust” was published by members of the Islamist Basij militia. Education Minister Alireza Ali-Ahmadi was present in the capital’s Palestine Square for the book’s presentation during the annual Quds (Jerusalem) Day parade. The cover shows a Jew with a crooked nose and dressed in traditional garb drawing outlines of dead bodies on the ground. Inside, bearded Jews are shown leaving and re-entering a gas chamber with a counter that reads the number 5,999,999. Another depicts Jewish prisoners entering a furnace in a Nazi extermination camp and leaving as gun-wielding terrorists from the other side. Yet another shows a patient covered in an Israeli flag and on life support breathing Zyklon-B, the poisonous gas used in the extermination chambers.

Iran does not recognise the Jewish state and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has attracted international condemnation by repeatedly predicting Israel is doomed to disappear and branding the Holocaust a “myth.” The commentary inside the book includes anti-Semitic stereotypes and revisionist arguments, casting doubt on the massacre of Jews and mocking Holocaust survivors who claimed reparations after World War II. One comment in a question-and-answer format reads: “How did the Germans emit gas into chambers while there were no holes on the ceiling?” Answer: “Shut up, you criminal anti-Semite. How dare you ask this question?”

In 2006, Iran hosted a conference of Holocaust deniers and revisionists and a mass-circulating Iranian newspaper held a cartoon competition on the subject. On Friday, tens of thousands of Iranians marched in Tehran, chanting “Death to Israel,” declaring solidarity with the Palestinians and calling for Jerusalem and Israel to be handed to the Palestinians. Demonstrators carried placards which read, “Israel will be destroyed, Palestine is Victorious” and “Holy war until victory,” and they torched American and Israeli flags. The protest follows a fresh verbal attack on Israel by Ahmadinejad. In an address to the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, he said “the Zionist regime is on a definite slope to collapse and there is no way for it to get out of the cesspool created by itself and its supporters.”

Quds Day was started by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic republic, who called on the world’s Muslims to show solidarity with Palestinians on the last Friday of the fasting month of Ramadan. A mother of six, Zahra Hedayat, 47, said: “It is important to support Palestinians to show the world that Israel is oppressive, and, God willing, one day Muslims will get Palestine back.” The demonstration was held under an official slogan: “The Islamic world will not recognise the fake Zionist regime under any circumstances and believes that this cancerous tumour will one day be wiped off the face of the earth.”

the celebs do ‘politics’

Zardari tells Palin she’s gorgeous
Khalid Hasan, Daily Times, Pakistan

President Asif Ali Zardari made Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin take a step back when he greeted her as ‘gorgeous’. That was not all. He went on to express a desire to ‘hug’ her. Palin is in New York to brush up her image of being internationally savvy. She has called on a number of world leaders who are here for the UN General Assembly. As Palin entered the room at the swank Intercontinental Berkeley hotel, where Zardari and his entourage are staying, she was greeted by Information Minister Sherry Rehman, who said, “And how does one keep looking that good when one is that busy?” a compliment that visibly pleased the Republican vice presidential candidate. “Oh, thank you,” she replied, looking genuinely pleased. The embarrassment got underway with the entrance of President Zardari. As Palin rose from her sofa to greet him and to say that she was ‘honoured’ to meet him, he left her reeling when he called her ‘gorgeous’, and as if that was not enough, he added, “Now I know why the whole of America is crazy about you.” Palin recovered her poise to say, “You are so nice, thank you.” An official aide to Zardari did not help matters much when he requested the two leaders to keep shaking hands for the benefit of the cameras. “If he is insisting,” he said pointing to the aide, “I might hug.”

sarah posner’s fundamentalist #50

– American Prospect

1. Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Comparing Obama to Hitler.
The meaning of the Declaration of Independence was supposed to take center stage at a forum for religious outreach representatives from both presidential campaigns yesterday, but the lunchtime crowd of conservative activists and congressional staff at the Capitol Hill Club was instead treated to a lineup of speakers tossing out apocalyptic rhetoric about Barack Obama. The event was sponsored by the Capitol Hill-based Faith and Action’s Reese Roundtable, an annual luncheon about the moral meaning of the Declaration of Independence. Faith and Action’s motto is “bringing the word of God to bear on the hearts and minds of those who make public policy in America.” One of its goals is to “restore the moral foundations of our American culture” through placing Ten Commandments displays in public buildings. Faith and Action’s Rob Schenck, a perennial religious-right adviser and gadfly, moderated and wasted no time in lambasting the Rev. E. Terri LaVelle, the Obama campaign’s senior religious adviser, who had committed to attend but cancelled at the last minute. “A snub!” protested Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America. With McCain’s conservative-coalitions director Robert Heckman looking on, and at one point chiming in that Obama’s recent faith and values outreach was a “colossal flop,” Obama was portrayed by speakers as a figure of evil and doom. No one came right out and called him the Antichrist, but the apocalyptic message was clear. Bernie Reese, the octogenarian founder of the Reese Roundtable, said, “I grew up during [the] days of Hitler; we’ve almost got a blueprint to what brought Hitler to power. He rode in on an economic crisis and promised the moon to the middle class. He was a man who had glittering rhetoric; he could sit in the room and have his audience in his hand.” Alveda King, niece of the civil-rights icon and an adviser to Priests for Life, the militant anti-abortion group, said abortion in the African American community had been done “deliberately, by genocide.” We’re “beyond chastisement,” she went on. “We’re in judgment.” “Lord,” prayed Johnny Hunter, an African American pastor who gave the benediction, don’t let us elect someone who might “bring this nation down.”
2. There’s Nothing Scary About Speaking in Tongues.
After syndicated political cartoonist Pat Oliphant penned a cartoon about Sarah Palin that mocked the Pentecostal practice of speaking in tongues, condemnation came quickly from within and without evangelical circles. The cartoon shows Palin speaking gibberish, McCain talking about how that gives his campaign a direct line to God, and God complaining to Peter that he can’t understand a word. Sarah Palin may or may not speak in tongues. That’s neither here nor there. Speaking or praying in tongues is a common — some would say required — practice in Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity, the fastest-growing form of Christianity in the world. According to Pentecostals, the practice dates back to the first followers of Jesus who, as documented in the Book of Acts, were filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke in other tongues as evidence of it. Palin’s religious practices shouldn’t be ridiculed — but it is essential to explore how she would inject her religious beliefs into governing and policy-making.
3. But Palin’s Beliefs About Government and Religion Are Scary.
The Republican Party and Palin’s supporters have touted her strong Christian faith as one of the reasons John McCain tapped her to be his running mate. The chief political goal of the religious right is installing likeminded Christian soldiers into government, and so it stands to reason that its love for Palin is due to her commitment to the cause. That has nothing to do with her Pentecostalism as religious practice and everything to do with how Pentecostals and charismatics, because of their growing numbers, are increasingly influential in the religious right. But, while Palin’s religion may be enough to make some in the religious right overlook her lack of experience, it doesn’t excuse that deficit. Does her faith, and particularly her religious tradition’s belief in the rapture and end-times, fill in the blanks on her empty foreign-policy resumé? Does it give her some pointers on how molecules don’t flag, or inform her rejection of the idea that humans caused global warming? Do religious principles inform her hiring and firing decisions, including Troopergate? Her speech, planned for the anti-Iran rally at the U.N. before she was disinvited, was laced with references to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s “final solution,” and reflects a real affinity with the thinking of John Hagee of Christians United for Israel and other end-times prognosticators.
4. Daddy’s Roommate and Other Stories.
Palin found it unnecessary to even read a book she thought was inappropriate for the Wasilla Public Library — she just knew, without further investigation, that the book, Daddy’s Roommate, about families with same-sex parents, was wrong for Wasilla. Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality — which routinely prints [warning] graphic depictions of sex on its Web site under the guise of “educating” the public — has come to Palin’s defense, arguing that the real book banners are “leftists” who believe in the shocking idea that LGBTQ people are human beings with the right to be free from ridicule and condemnation masquerading as “Christ’s love.” Give me a break. All LaBarbera wants — along with Focus on the Family’s latest ploy, called “True Tolerance” — is to push his own propaganda about how Jesus can save you from sexual sin into public and public school libraries. “True Tolerance” claims to help students engage in an “equal access” initiative by equipping them to “winsomely express their worldview,” (translation: Be nice while you’re telling LGBTQ students they’re going to hell), “respond in a compassionate way to one-sided messages about homosexuality,” and “offer an alternative message of hope and redemption” (translation: Tell LGBTQ students advocating for equal rights that they can only be saved if they turn straight). Like “True Tolerance,” LaBarbera’s “Library Fairness Project” encourages people to force their public libraries — including school libraries — to place books by and about “ex-gays” side-by-side with books, even fiction, about LGBTQ people. These books are not only based on reactionary religion that plucks a handful of Bible verses out of context to advance a political agenda, they also promote “therapeutic” (i.e., religious indoctrination) programs that the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, the National Association of Social Workers, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Psychiatric Association oppose because of their harm to patients. “The potential risks of reparative therapy are great,” reads the American Psychiatric Association position paper, “including depression, anxiety and self-destructive behavior, since therapist alignment with societal prejudices against homosexuality may reinforce self-hatred already experienced by the patient.” But don’t worry, Jesus loves you!

proof the mossad still owns hollywood

A-listers turn out for Israel’s Hollywood bash
Tom Tugend, JTA, Sep 24 2008

There were Hollywood stars and powerful studio heads, politicians and multinational rappers, Israeli Cabinet ministers and dancers, two dozen Israeli Scouts, a 3D film segment, a tennis legend, comedians, resounding shofars, electronic fireworks and tables groaning with biblical fruits. They all came out for the Sept. 18 festivities marking Israel’s 60th anniversary and honoring Israeli-born Arnon Milchan, the producer of some 120 movies, including Pretty Woman, L.A. Confidential and Mr. and Mrs. Smith. The venue was the Paramount Studio — complete with red carpet, an array of TV news cameras, entertainment reporters thrusting microphones into the faces of the famous and not-so-famous, and lovely ladies wearing designer dresses and an occasional tattoo. Among the A-listers in attendance: Warren Beatty and Annette Bening, Kiefer Sutherland, US Open champion Serena Williams, Seal, Shaun Toub, studio chiefs Sumner Redstone and Terry Semel, music producer David Foster and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Each of the 740 guests had paid $1k to attend a gala saluting Israel and Milchan, an ex-Israeli soldier, soccer star, shadowy arms consultant, international business entrepreneur and big-time Hollywood producer.

Milchan does not lack confidence. His next ambition, he told JTA in an exclusive interview, is to make peace between Arabs and Jews and take care of the Iranian situation. But first came this bit of gossip about the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. “Arafat told me that he had seem my movie Pretty Woman at least 20 times,” Milchan said. “A bodyguard took me to Arafat’s bedroom, and there was a cassette of the movie.” Milchan said he normally disdains glitzy Hollywood parties — “I don’t even go to my own premieres” — but deemed the event to be for a good cause, the Citizens’ Empowerment Center in Israel, or CECI. The center and the Consulate General of Israel served as hosts for the gala. Izak Parvis Nazarian, who established CECI to promote democracy and voting rights among Israeli citizens and youth, took a back seat at the glittering evening, as did his daughter, Dora Kadisha, the chief organizer of the program.

Kadisha’s lovely daugher, Dina, kept things rolling as mistress of ceremonies. Israel was well represented by rapper Subliminal and such dignitaries as Education Minister Yuli Tamir, Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik, former foreign minister Silvan Shalom and, via video, by Tzipi Livni, the Kadima Party leader and prime minister-designate. Milchan provided his own surprise when after accepting the Legacy of Citizens Lifetime Achievement Award, he called Williams to the stage and shared the award with her. Milchan used the moment to voice some serious thoughts on the Middle East situation. “I am older than the State of Israel itself,” he began. “First we had our neighbors throwing stones, then the stones became rockets and then they became missiles … Then we all got more toys and more people died. We are all hostages,” he said. Later, he added, “Just imagine if we all helped each other. Maybe we can learn from Warren Beatty, who told me, ‘Keep asking them, maybe one of the girls will say yes.’ ”

In the early 1960s, Milchan was a star center forward for Maccabi Tel Aviv and the national soccer team. At age 20 he inherited a debt-laden fertilizer company from his father and turned it into one of Israel’s largest agro-chemical concerns. Today, with worldwide business investments and profitable movies, he confirms Fortune magazine’s estimate of his worth at $3.1b. After serving in the Israeli army during the 1967 Six-Day War and 1973 Yom Kippur War, and getting his feet wet in the Israeli and British movie industries, Milchan was ready to take on Hollywood. In 1991 he founded New Regency Productions and has bankrolled films by such big-name directors as Martin Scorcese and Sergio Leone. Though Milchan remains closely involved in the affairs of his homeland, he takes no role in the Israeli film industry. Nor does he make Hollywood movies on Jewish or Israeli themes. “I have a high regard for Israeli movies, but you’ve got to specialize,” he said. “You can’t make a Mr. and Mrs. Smith, which opened in 3,000 American theaters, and then a Hebrew-language film with English subtitles that plays in a few art houses.”

Milchan does give money to Israeli causes, including $1m to the Yitzhak Rabin Center in Tel Aviv, for which he also served as chairman. He spends much of the year in Israel, where he has houses in Herzliyah and Bet Yanai, near Caesarea, or in London. He follows Israeli politics closely and is fond of dropping the names of his high-level friends, particularly Shimon Peres (“his first letter he wrote as president went to me”), but also Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu. Milchan said he likes to operate behind the scenes and asserted that he helped then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon persuade Peres to join the new Kadima Party several yeas ago. These days, Milchan said, “I’m trying to make peace among the left, right and center.” Milchan put up $100m for a pet project to establish a university in the Galilee, with a top faculty to attract Jewish, Muslim and Christian students. The project has been stalled for two years, which Milchan blames on “government changes, academic opposition and bureaucracy.” If the university doesn’t take off, he said he plans to initiate a major hydraulic energy project.

“I really, really believe that I have the skills, the courage, the conviction and the know-how to make a difference in the peace process in the Middle East,” he said. “I think I can get in a room, no different than I got into a room with Arafat. I can get in the room and work out a deal … I can get with the Iranian guy. I think if I really want something, it is to work with the next administration in Israel and the United States, whoever is the president here, whoever is the prime minister in Israel, and get myself hired to be the go-between between Arabs and Jews.” In the mid-1980s, Milchan’s name frequently popped up as an “arms merchant” in a criminal case involving the illegal shipment to Israel of 800 krytrons, small electronic devices that can be used for triggering nuclear weapons. Milchan himself was never charged in the case, but he acknowledges that one of his companies served as a front in the transaction. Despite that mark on his reputation, Milchan expresses little doubt that he can bring a long-awaited peace to the Middle East. “I will deliver this one,” he said. “The point I’m making here, I’m the most qualified person I’ve ever met to make peace. It will be my best movie, and I can do it. That’s my big dream.”

great condi-speak at end of this

Pakistani, US troops exchange fire
Jim Mannion, AFP, Sep 25 2008

Pakistani and US troops exchanged fire along the Pakistani-Afghan border Thursday after two US military helicopters came under fire, a US military spokesman said. Rear Admiral Gregory Smith said Pakistani soldiers at a border checkpoint were observed firing on two US OH-58 Kiowa helicopters covering a patrol of Afghan and US troops about a mile and a half inside Afghanistan. Smith, a spokesman for the US Central Command, said no one on either side was hit in the exchange, which occurred in late afternoon, and the helicopters never fired any rounds. Smith told AFP by telephone:

The ground forces then fired into the hillside nearby that checkpoint, gained their attention, which worked. Unfortunately, though, the Pak unit decided to shoot down a hillside at our ground forces. Our ground forces returned fire. The whole thing lasted about five minutes. It all ended quickly.

The Pakistani military said its troops had fired warning shots at two helicopters which were “well within Pakistani territory.” But Smith and Pentagon officials said the helicopters were in Afghan air space. The ground unit, which spotted the Pakistanis firing at the helicopters, consisted of a small US training team embedded with an Afghan border police unit, he said. The two sides did not attempt to communicate during the incident, but the US and Pakistani militaries have since been in communication, Smith said. “We have to work our way through this so that we don’t have any escalation of force issues in the future,” he said. The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Kabul said Thursday’s incident occurred near Tanai district, Khost, which borders North Waziristan, a tribal area where the Taliban and Al-Qaeda are said to have bases. The Pentagon quickly called Thursday’s events “an unfortunate misunderstanding” and confirmed US helicopters were involved. “They are confident that they were in Afghan air space the whole time,” said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman. A State Department spokesman said Washington wanted an explanation from Pakistan:

We have been in touch with the Pakistanis about this and we certainly want to have an explanation. These ISAF helicopters were operating inside Afghan territory, and as far as I know, the Taliban are not flying helicopters. So we want to find out what happened and the Pakistanis are trying to give us an explanation.

as ship sinks, rats scurry around bridge

Asia Needs Deal to Prevent Panic Selling of US Debt, Yu Says
Kevin Hamlin, Bloomberg

Japan, China and other holders of US government debt must quickly reach an agreement to prevent panic sales leading to a global financial collapse, said Yu Yongding, a former adviser to the Chinese central bank. “We are in the same boat, we must cooperate,” Yu said in an interview in Beijing on Sept. 23. “If there’s no selling in a panicked way, then China willingly can continue to provide our financial support by continuing to hold US assets.” An agreement is needed so that no nation rushes to sell, causing a collapse, Yu said. Japan is the biggest owner of US Treasury bills, holding $593b, and China is second with $519b. Asian countries together hold half of the $2670b total held by foreign nations. China, Japan, South Korea and others should meet soon to seal a deal, said Yu, a former academic member of the central bank’s monetary policy committee. The talks should involve finance ministers, central bank governors and even national leaders, he said. China’s huge holdings of US debt means it must bear a large proportion of the burden of sorting things out in the US, Yu said. China is not in a hurry to dump its US holdings and communication between the two nations every couple of days is keeping Chinese leaders informed and helping to avoid a potential panic, he added. “China is very worried about the safety of its assets,” he said. “If you want China to keep calm, you must ensure China that its assets are safe.”

Yu said China is helping the US “in a very big way” and added that it should get something in return. The US should avoid labeling it an unfair trader and a currency manipulator and not politicize other issues, he said. “It is not fair that we are doing this in good faith and are prepared to bear serious consequences and you are still labeling China this and that, accusing China of this and that,” he said. “China knows what to do. We don’t need your intervention.” The US financial crisis had taught China a lesson and that was: “Why are we piling up these IOUs if they may default?” China’s economic expansion strategy, which emphasizes export growth that has led to trade surpluses and the accumulation of $1810b in foreign-exchange reserves, is the main problem, said Yu. “Our export-growth strategy has run its natural course,” he said. “We should change course.” China should stop intervening in the foreign currency markets and thus allow rapid appreciation of the yuan, he said. While this would cause pain for exporters, China could ease the transition by using its strong fiscal position to aid those who lose their jobs. It also should stimulate domestic demand to offset lower income from overseas sales. Without yuan appreciation, China will continue to accumulate foreign reserves, which means further accumulating IOUs from the US, said Yu. “This is paper and it may default and it will not increase China’s national welfare.” If China doesn’t allow the yuan to appreciate and continues to promote export-led growth it will lead to confrontation with the US and Europe, Yu said.

jason bermas 9.11.08 street debate

iran blockade bill shelved

House Dems Shelve Iran ‘Naval Blockade’ Bill for Now
Jason Ditz, AntiWar.com News

According to the Washington Times the Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives has shelved H.R. 362, fearing that the resolution would provoke a war with Iran. The bill, authored by Rep. Gary Ackerman (D – NY), urged the President, among other things, to prevent Iran from importing any refined petroleum products and demanded that he initiate an international effort to inspect “all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains, and cargo entering or departing Iran.” Though non-binding, the resolution is essentially urging a naval blockade against Iran – an act of war according to international law. The bill was introduced on May 22, one day after the story broke that then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had urged House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D – CA) to impose a naval blockade on Iran as a way of stopping its uranium enrichment program. AIPAC has endorsed the bill as a way to “stop Iran’s nuclear program.” Rep. Ackerman claims the bill “is a way to avoid war by using diplomatic, political and economic tools.” He also intends to resubmit the bill for the next Congress, and vowed to have even more signatures then. The current incarnation of the bill had 270 co-sponsors, but the Washington Times reports that several of the original co-sponsors have since withdrawn their signatures.

the limits of zionist diplomacy

Israel ambassador to UN:
General Assembly chief is an Israel hater
Shlomo Shamir, Haaretz

Israeli ambassador to the UN, Gabriela Shalev, on Thursday called the President of the UN General Assembly. Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, an “Israel hater” for having hugged Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Brockmann has incurred the wrath of the Israeli delegation before, when in his first speech as the president of the international body he said that “the greatest case failure of the UN is the lack of a Palestinian state.” Shalev voiced her outrage in an interview on Thursday, condemning Brockmann’s gesture at the end of Ahmadinejad’s address at the opening of the 63rd General Assembly on Tuesday. Brockmann, a 75-year-old Catholic priest, was scheduled to dine alongside Ahmadinejad in a meal marking the end the Ramadan fast, organized by five American religious groups. Abraham Foxman called the event “a perversion of the search for peace and an appalling betrayal of religious values.” Foxman has also asked UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to publicly condemn the anti-Semitic content of the Iranian leader’s address.