This new cartoon on US Vice President Dick Cheney and threats of war in Iran is by Chappatte.
See also here.
And here.
And here.
Iranian president speaks at Columbia University amidst media frenzy: here.
Iranian dissident Akbar Ganji: here.
Iran war threat: here; and British PM Gordon Brown: here.
And Hillary Clinton: here.
US rulers’ using women’s rights as an excuse for war: here.
Australian election: an ominous silence on US war plans against Iran: here.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 
http://www.stopwaroniran.org
Join us at the Encampment to Stop the War – Sept 22-29
and the March on Washington – Sept 29
Donate | Volunteer | Let us know you’re coming to the Encampment
Join us in DC to say:
Get out of Iraq! Stay out of Iran!
http://www.troopsoutnow.org
Join the Stop War on Iran campaign at the Encampment to Stop the War – March with the Stop War on Iran Contingent on September 29
The past few days have seen an ominous campaign of demonization against Iran. The threat of a new war grows, with nearly half of the U.S. Navy withing striking range of Iran, capable of unleashing a horrific barrage of missiles, bombs, and artillery within minutes.
Congress, despite having a clear anti-war mandate, is working closely with the Bush Administration to prepare the way for an attack against Iran. Today, Senators Joseph Lieberman and Jon Kyl proposed an amendment (No. 3017) that calls for the “use of all instruments of United States national power in Iraq, including diplomatic, economic, intelligence, and military instruments” against the people of Iran. While non-binding, this amendment is a clear signal to the Bush Administration that members of Congress – both Republican and Democrat – have no intention of challenging the drive to war.
We must be in the streets to demand, “Get out of Iraq! Stay out of Iran.” Only a flood of resistance will stop the bipartisan determination to begin a new war against the people of Iran.
Today, activists at the Encampment to Stop the War in Washington DC held an emergency protest directly in front of then White House (see the Encampment blog for details). In a statement released prior to the demonstration, the Troops Out Now Coalition said:
As Iran’s president prepares to speak to the UN General Assembly, a tsunami of pro-war propaganda is being aimed against yet another oil-rich country in the Middle East.
The Troops Out Now Coalition, which is currently staging an Encampment at the Capitol to tell Congress to stop funding the war against Iraq and instead fund people’s needs at home, will be marching to the White House to tell Bush:
Get out of Iraq and stay out of Iran!
TONC calls on progressive organizations and the anti-war movement to join it and stand against the racist demonization of Iran. The Bush administration is trying to divert attention from its crimes in Iraq, where an immense humanitarian crisis rages because of the war and continued occupation.
The world’s No. 1 terrorist lives in the White House!
The next few days will see more actions and protests, culminating in the massive march on Saturday, September 29. More than 120 buses, as well as vans and car caravans, are coming from more than 80 organizing centers.
It is vital that you join us in DC this week. If you cannot join us for the Encampment, please find a local organizing center and get your bus ticket for the September 29 march today — see http://troopsoutnow.org/sept2907orgcents.shtml for an updated list.
During the next few days, we will need hundreds of volunteers – please see the sidebar to find out how you can help.
LikeLike
Published on Tuesday, September 25, 2007
http://www.commondreams.org/
Petty and Cruel Dictator
by Cindy Sheehan
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the president of Iran spoke at Columbia University today. I heard that he was invited there because the President of Columbia wanted to foster a “free exchange of ideas.” Even though I am not an Ahmadinejad supporter, I know he was elected in Iran in a knee-jerk and understandable response to the USA’s bloodily unnecessary invasion of Iraq, as many reactionery governments have been elected in that region and all over the world in response to the spreading US corporate and military empire.
Citing such human rights’ violations in the form of imprisonment and executions, the President of Columbia University, very boorishly said that Ahmadinejad appeared to be a “petty and cruel dictator.” First of all, how does one invite someone to your place for a “free exchange of ideas,” and be such a rude American? Did he only invite Ahmadinejad so he could publicly scold him or to become the darling of Fox News?
Secondly, what about our President who appears to be a “petty and cruel dictator?” George Bush presided over a stunning amount of executions when he was Governor of Texas and the US is operating torture prison camps, openly and secretly, all over the world. BushCo has fought the Supreme Court and Congress for the right to hold thousands of humans without their human rights of due process and they have also been strenuously committed to the strategy of torture—or “enhanced interrogation methods” as the Ministry of Truth likes to call it. A Reverend gets beaten down in the halls of Congress; nooses are being hung in the south; students are being tased on campuses and Congress is censuring Freedom of Speech – how much evidence do we need before we decide that something is profoundly wrong in present-day America?
In 2006, China, the leading practitioner of state sanctioned murder in the form of execution, killed 8000 people in this manner. However, the Premier of China is welcomed to the US by George Bush who is probably envious of President Hu Jintao’s record. We borrow vast sums from China to wage our wars and China is our major trading partner. Wal-Mart’s cheap and dangerous crap is manufactured by near slaves there, but somehow that is okay? Somehow it is okay to welcome Communist China with open arms, but demonize and disparage a Socialist like Hugo Chavez of Venezuela? America has a very lucrative prison business and is the only country in the Americas that practices execution. A barbarian is a barbarian no matter what color, religion or nationality they are.
George Bush has added signing statements to almost 1000 bills that he has signed into law saying that he doesn’t have to obey those very same laws. We have the Nazi-ist sounding Department of Homeland Security which seems to be obsessed with keeping my un-zip-locked baggied lip-gloss off of flights. The un-Patriot Act and breaking of FISA laws and our 4 th Amendment right to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure have turned the “Land of the Free” into the “Home of the Slaves.”
To put the cherry on the sundae of the crimes that BushCo have committed, they have sent hundreds of thousands of our own sons and daughters to occupy a country that was no threat to America or its neighbors. Thousands of Americans are dead, wounded or mentally screwed up and millions of Iraqis are dead, wounded, mentally screwed up or displaced from their homes.
Another boorish American, Scott Pelley (of 60 Minutes) hammered Ahmadinejad about sending weapons into Iraq without even once acknowledging the immoral tons of weapons that we rained on the citizens of Iraq during “shocking and awful;” the cluster bombs that look like toys that litter the killing fields of that country and have killed and maimed so many children; the mercenary killers that outnumber our troops and use the people of Iraq for target practice; the thousands of tons of weapons that the US let out of such weapons dumps as al-Qaqaa that were left unguarded while the oil ministry was heavily fortified. Not to mention that America supported Iraq in its eight year long war with Iran that killed an unbelievable amount of people on both sides of the border. The hypocrisy of our system is spectacular and deadly in both ignorance and arrogance.
We here in America are living in a fascist state that regularly puts corporate profits and an insatiable and evil thirst for power above people and their needs. Our supercilious leaders and media are so busy calling the kettle black, they don’t notice or care how dark our pot is. We are supporting Israel in their human rights violations against Palestine, illegally occupying two countries on our own and we have the nerve to claim any kind of moral superiority over anybody?
The fascist, near dictatorship of the Bush regime (a la Nazi Germany) has even intimidated universities to align with their hypocritical murderous rhetoric. Universities should feel free to invite anyone to speak to open much needed dialogue in our country and in the world. And if a person is invited, they should be treated by the person who invited them with a slight modicum of courtesy and then let the rocking and rolling begin with the “Q & A” – which would truly be a free exchange of ideas. I am surprised President Bollinger didn’t have President Ahmadinejad tased.
Peace is going to take all the nations working in cooperation to limit naked aggression and human rights’ violations, not just the ones which the US declare as evil. How many nukes do we have? How many does Pakistan have? How many does India, Israel, North Korea, and the former Soviet Union have? Should the rhetoric be about destroying all weapons of mass destruction and not just prohibiting Iran from obtaining one?
Many countries are committing human rights’ violations and sending arms and troops into many parts of the world. America’s biggest export is violence and we would do well to call for an end to all occupations and violence by beginning to end our own.
Let’s clean our own filthy house before we criticize someone else for theirs.
Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Spc. Casey Austin Sheehan who was KIA in Iraq on 04/04/04. She is a co-founder and President of Gold Star Families for Peace
http://www.gsfp.org/ and the author of two books:
Not One More Mother’s Child
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0977333809/commondreams-20/ref=nosim
and Dear President Bush
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0872864545?tag=commondreams-20/ref=nosim
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/25/4088/
——
WWIII
Posted by: “Becky Louden” bebecca2298@yahoo.com bebecca2298
Thu Oct 18, 2007 11:43 am (PST)
World War III Is Going To Be Hilarious
Bob Cesca
October 17, 2007
Your president giggled and grinned while discussing World War III today.
“But this — we got a leader in Iran who has announced that he wants to destroy Israel. So I’ve told people that if you’re interested in avoiding [grinning] World War III [end grinning], it seems like you [begin giggling] ought to be interested in preventing them from have the knowledge [end giggling] necessary to make a nuclear weapon.”
Hahahaha! Yeah! Zinger! That’s funny shit. For the record, here’s his expression while saying the words “World War Three”:
To the rest of the known world, however, World War III a scary thing. It’s just below abortion and above rape on the list of the all time unfunniest topics.
Let’s break it down.
1. Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapon, and if they ever developed one, they’d be smart enough to know (despite how we caricaturize Ahmadinejad) that using it would invite their own destruction a thousand times over. Thus, there is no Iranian nuclear threat.
2. Yet the administration is drawing up plans to illegally and preemptively attack anyway, based on the lie that Iran is a nuclear threat.
3. Congress, despite the president’s 24-percent approval rating, won’t stop the White House because of, 1) The Fear, and 2) because Congress has allowed the president and vice president to seize unprecedented power which almost entirely circumvents Article I of the Constitution (among other things).
4. Meanwhile, if we do attack, it appears as if Pooty-Poot might bring Russia in on the Iranian side.
5. And there you go. Knee slapping boners all around. Milk just came out of my nose.
They’re marketing Iran with more psychotic voracity than Michelle Malkin attacking an injured baby — and no one can stop them.
As near as I can tell, there doesn’t appear to be a governing body or citizen group who can stop them from carrying this out. Congress won’t and, honestly, they can’t. Last night’s Frontline episode, “Cheney’s Law,” underscored what we’ve all been worried about: Congress has been rendered ineffectual against the current power madness of the executive.
For example, has Congress clamped down on the president’s rampant use of torture? Sure. (Torture is number five on the unfunny syllabus.) The Republican controlled Congress did this, but the president rendered the law pointless with a signing statement.
Ah yes. Torture. Not to digress too far into this thing, but you know how the president can look us in the eye and say, “we don’t torture,” as he did in today’s press conference? He can say this with impunity because the administration has authored its own definition of torture which is so narrow that anything else — anything you and I would consider to be torture — isn’t.
If it don’t cause organ failure, it ain’t torture, Stretchy McStretch-o-rama-funny-pants. In a sense, the president isn’t lying when he says “we don’t torture.” It depends on what your definition of torture is.
This excuse, of course, is the same excuse future enemies will use when they torture… us.
Republican cowards who demand security at the expense of liberty/honor/law have facilitated the Bush executive branch with extraordinary power. Now we’re trapped in the shadow of the White House’s unprecedented strength, and there doesn’t appear to be any conceivable way to stop these people. If Cheney wrangles the military hardware to attack Iran, the air strikes will commence with lightning zealotry. Bet on it. Congress can try to stop him, but they don’t have the power any more. According to the Bush administration, Article II is Article II and the Commander in Chief rules.
It’s as simple as that. Just try telling him he’s wrong on this. You could be the most conservative wingnut ever and you’d lose that debate — not for a lack of rational arguments either.
Is it any wonder why we occasionally succumb to outrage fatigue: that deflated, windless sense of numbing futility we feel when confronted with the illogical and the absurd? We’ve only begun to dig into the upper strata of lawlessness this regime has perpetrated over the last seven years. And now, in this desperate dying twilight of their existence — now that they’re gravely unpopular and on their way out the door — reckless and without anything to lose — why shouldn’t they do all the crazy shit they’ve talked about? Bomb Tehran? Yeah, that’ll be awesome and hilarious. More war means more war powers. If you thought the administration’s war powers were crazy huge, just imagine their World War powers. Score!
The president always says that history will vindicate him. 15 months from now, he’ll be done. Pretending to be a cowboy down there — raising melanomas in the harsh Crawford sunshine, laughing at the third hilarious war he started all by himself.
Once he’s done, by his twisted reasoning, it’s someone else’s problem. By “someone else” he naturally means “everyone else.”
Just like so many powerful men, he appears to be able to switch off his conscience (if one exists in the first place). It’s the same switch that allows him to say “we don’t torture,” or to smirk and laugh while discussing Iraq casualties and World War III. “Everyone else” won’t include him because he’ll always be safe. He’ll always have Crawford and the twins; his fake accent and his delusional view of history; his nicknames and his eh-eh-eh laugh.
The rest of us — unless we can find a way to stop this Iran drumbeat — won’t be laughing so much.
LikeLike
Pingback: Joan Jett interview about rock ‘n roll, women, and the Iraq war | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: US Bush administration lied 935 times about Iraq | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: The anti-woman, anti-Semitic Islamophobes of the USA | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: Ex White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan writes that Bush made him lie on Plame-Iraq war scandal | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: Blackwater boss Prince and Trump’s Iran war plans | Dear Kitty. Some blog