Saturday, May 17, 2008

"A great motive to fight for those subjected to injustice and the oppressed"

I will be making a video about the latest bin Laden tape. I notice a few news outlets spin it as if he recently made it the main issue as they avoid reporting that in this tape he says:

“The Palestinian cause is the major issue for my nation. It was an important element in fueling me from the beginning and the 19 others with a great motive to fight for those subjected to injustice and the oppressed,” he said, referring to the 19 9/11 terrorists.

I noticed ABC's Diane Sawyer said "so he is now saying Israel is the central issue which is a bit of a shift from years gone by" and Brian Ross says "in the past year or two he has begun to make that the central issue, initially it was US forces." So Ross denies what bin Laden says in the tape and doesn't even mention it in his report and makes a claim it was US troops as central issue while ignoring bin Laden's statements (and the testimony of Philip Zelikow which was purposefully left out of the 9/11 Commission Report in which Zelikow says Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said bin Laden wanted to punish the US for supporting Israel) Fact is, bin Laden sometimes mentioned Palestine first, sometimes second and sometimes third in a usual list of three grievances. OVERALL, for all those involved in the attack, Israel is the main motive. But bin Laden never said, as far as I know, "troops in Saudi Arabia is the main thing" For example:
this is from the 1997 interview:

REPORTER: Mr. Bin Ladin, you've declared a jihad against the United States. Can you tell us why? And is the jihad directed against the US government or the United States' troops in Arabia? What about US civilians in Arabia or the people of the United States?

BIN LADIN: We declared jihad against the US government, because the US government is unjust, criminal and tyrannical. It has committed acts that are extremely unjust, hideous and criminal whether directly or through its support of the Israeli occupation of the Prophet's Night Travel Land (Palestine). And we believe the US is directly responsible for those who were killed in Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq. The mention of the US reminds us before everything else of those innocent children who were dismembered, their heads and arms cut off in the recent explosion that took place in Qana (killings in Lebanon perpetrated by Israel)

And remember it was on the wire services on the day of 9/11/01 that "Osama bin Laden warned three weeks ago that he and his followers would carry out an unprecedented attack on U.S. interests for its support of Israel."

Also, Peter Bergen points out that lies have been pushed: "conventional wisdom has it that bin Laden adopted the Palestinians issue only recently. Reading this declaration [the first declaration of war, issued in 1996] SHOULD PUT THAT CANARD TO REST." p164 The Bin Laden I Know, Peter Bergen

In the 1996 declaration, bin Laden wrote, "I still feel the pain of Al Quds [Jerusalem] in my internal organs" "My Muslim Brothers of The World: Your brothers in Palestine and in the land of the two Holy Places are calling upon your help and asking you to take part in fighting against the enemy --your enemy and their enemy-- the Americans and the Israelis" "It should not be hidden from you that the people of Islam had suffered from aggression, iniquity and injustice imposed on them by the Zionist-Crusaders alliance and their collaborators; to the extent that the Muslims blood became the cheapest and their wealth as loot in the hands of the enemies. Their blood was spilled in Palestine and Iraq. The horrifying pictures of the massacre of Qana [when Israeli forces struck a UN compound on April 18, 1996, killing one hundred] in Lebanon are still fresh in our memory. " p 165 Bergen (see the 1996 declaration of war)
osama-bin-laden-has-been-angry-about.html

Another example, in this case, the first thing listed is "Al-Aksa Mosque" (this is about Israel/Palestine) then "Holy Ka'aba Islamic shrines":

"The International Islamic Front for Jihad against the U.S. and Israel has issued a crystal-clear fatwa calling on the Islamic nation to carry on jihad aimed at liberating holy sites. The nation of Muhammad has responded to this appeal. If the instigation for jihad against the Jews and the Americans in order to liberate Al-Aksa Mosque and the Holy Ka'aba Islamic shrines in the Middle East is considered a crime, then let history be a witness that I am a criminal." - Osama bin Laden May 1999

Monday, May 12, 2008

Re: Got a Question for Ralph Nader?

Re: Got a Question for Ralph Nader? - see video

Mr. Nader,

Will you honor your oath to the US Constitution to uphold the rule of law with regard to the use of US Armed Forces, unlike McCain, Obama and Hilary? Will you pledge that you will not be singing about bombing other countries like McCain or that you will not keep illegal options on the table like Obama & Hillary? Will you will absolutely rule out the use force unless it is legal according to our Constitution and the Constitutional responsibility to abide by the international treaties the US has signed which prohibit wars of aggression? McCain, Obama and Hillary are unwilling to abide by the UN Charter which the Unites States has signed. Will you declare that all threats of force are off the table and that you will instead abide by UN Charter and the law of the land as spelled out in our Constitution?

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Curly quotes, Iran, Israel, Ahmadinejad & the Media

VIDEO: Curly quotes, Iran, Israel, Ahmadinejad & the Media
President Ahmadinejad and several Iranian officials have repeatedly made clear that they are not threatening to attack Israel. Iranian President Ahmadinejad did NOT threaten to use force against Israel. He DIDN'T threaten to attack Israel. It is outrageous and dangerous how 60 Minutes and nearly all of mainstream media continue to misrepresent what he has said.

http://flashjournalism.com/tips/curlyquotes.htm

Iran: 'We Won't Use Force'
Monday, June 12, 2006; Page A20

Regarding "A Legal Case Against Iran" [op-ed, June 6]:

It is not amazing at all, the pick-and-choose approach of highlighting the misinterpreted remarks of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in October and ignoring this month's remarks by Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that "We have no problem with the world. We are not a threat whatsoever to the world, and the world knows it. We will never start a war. We have no intention of going to war with any state."

Also, the Islamic Republic of Iran has officially declared its commitment to the fundamental principle of the United Nations Charter, which is to refrain from the threat or use of force against any member of the United Nations. Yet a daily barrage of illegal threats by officials of the Israeli government to resort to force against Iran has continued to date.

Iran's position is very clear: We have not threatened to use force nor have we used force against any country or government in the past 250 years. We've never done that in the past, and we'll never do it in the future.

We wonder whether Israel or the United States can make the same statement.

What is urgent about the situation is getting the U.N. Security Council to act on the daily threats against Iran by the United States and Israel.

M.A. MOHAMMADI
Press Officer
Iranian Mission to the United Nations
New York

Iranian President Ahmadinejad DID NOT threaten to "wipe Israel off the map."
"There is no new policy," Ahmadinejad said. "They created a lot of hue and cry over that." Ahmadinejad added, "It is clear what we say: Let the Palestinians participate in free elections and they will say what they want."
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12790.htm
http://www.mohammadmossadegh.com/news/rumor-of-the-century/

Experts confirm that Iran's president did not call for Israel to be 'wiped off the map'. Reports that he did serve to strengthen western hawks.