Iran U.N. Protest 2005

[RedWine]

According to media reports indicate that the United States is considering an entry visa to Iran's new president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to attend a UN meeting in New York City in mid-September. This would send a very wrong signal at a very crucial juncture to the increasingly belligerent Iran. Administration must firmly deny Ahmadinejad entry to the United States. And by all indications, the American public opinion would certainly welcome such a move.

Ahmadinejad, a former senior commander of the feared terror-sponsoring Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (the "Pasdaran"), has a despicable past as a fire-brand radical who has been recognized by at least six Americans former hostage to have been involved in capturing and holding of Americans for 444 days in 1979.

Now, as city of New York prepares for the anniversary of the September 11 tragedy, it could very well find itself hosting a hostage-taker who has become a head of an outlaw state. According to press reports in Iran, Ahmadinejad is supposed to be arriving in New York in mid-September to address the opening ceremonies of the General Assembly of the United Nations.

Although there are no diplomatic relations between Iran and the United States, as a president of a UN member state, Ahmadinejad, despite his wicked record, is covered by diplomatic immunity. UN headquarters in New York are also considered international territory, and not property of the United States. Still, this should not deter the United States to take a stand against his entry into this country.

We should keep in mind that , similar to a mafia-like world, in Iran under mullahs' rule only those who kill, torture, plunder and deceive more can move up the ladder from being an obscure Guards' commander to a head of state. To mullahs, the only accepted form of loyalty is the loyalty demonstrated by years of directly participating in ensuring the survival of ruling tyranny.

The Ahamdinejad's terrorist past, however, goes beyond the US Embassy takeover. He was a top commander in the Revolutionary Guards special unit named the Qods (Jerusalem) Force and participated in planning and execution of many extra-territorial terrorist operations.

[RedWine]

The Qods Force has been documented to have extensive and deep relationship with Iran's proxy terrorist organization such as Lebanese Hizbollah and the Islamic Jihad. According to mounting evidence collected by the Austrian officials and Iranian Kurdish groups, Ahmadinejad was directly involved in assassination of Abdolrahman Qassemlou, a dissident Kurdish leader, in Vienna in 1989. It is also reported that he was involved in planning of an assassination attempt against British author Salman Rushdi when in the Qods Force.

While six American hostages have unequivocally confirmed that Ahmadinejad was one of their captors and "nasty" interrogators, Washington seems unsure how forceful it should press this issue. Administration has already gone as far as saying he was a leader in the student movement that organized the embassy siege but has stopped short of implicating him.

The administration apparent wavering on this issue is alarming. Sidestepping this matter will send the worst possible signal to the mullahs and to the always-ready-to-appease Europeans.

It is just over a week since Ahmadinejad has entered his office but mullahs' rogue resurgence is on full display. The barbaric crackdown of popular unrest in many western Iranian cities is on the rise, and the campaign to fuel the insurgency in Iraq is escalating. Last week, news agencies reported that US intelligence believes that a cache of sophisticated manufactured bombs recently seized in Iraq was smuggled into the country from Iran by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps.

To firm up alliance with another rogue regime of the region, Syrian president Bashar Assad was invited to visit Tehran just a day after Ahmadinejad was inaugurated. The hastily arranged visit complements an array of praise heaped on Ahmadinejad by several leaders of Hizbollah, particularly after his remarks about the "art of martyrdom". Also last week, Tehran broke its Paris agreement with Britain, Germany, and France and started the resumption of nuclear work at one of its facilities.

Still, Ahmadinejad's involvement in the 1979 US Embassy take-over presents the administration by far with the most compelling reason to deny him visa. When the choice is between granting him UN-sanctioned visa and taking a firm and principled stand, the choice is clear.

[RedWine]

MKO rally in New York
Iranian women Zahra Rahimi, left, and Batul Gavidel, right, who said both of her sons were executed in Iran in the 1980's for political involvement, protest Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's arrival at the United Nations and advocate for democratic change in their country, Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2005, outside the UN headquarters in New York.

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Protestors watch a video recounting 40 years of organized resistance to fundamentalism in Iran at a rally against the presence of new Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the 2005 World Summit of the United Nations in New York, September 14, 2005. The participants hold posters of opposition candidate Massoud Rajavi (R) and Maryam Rajavi. The rally took place a few blocks from the UN.

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Supporters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran hold posters of Iranian opposition leaders Massoud Rajavi, and his wife Maryam Rajavi outside the United Nations as they voice their opposition to the Iranian government during the World Summit at the U.N. Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2005 in New York. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is in New York for this week's U.N. General Assembly. The Iraq-based military wing of the Rajavis movement was disarmed by the U.S.-led occupation forces

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Aleme Amiri who said her son and daughter were both executed in 1988 while being held political prisoners, protests Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's arrival at the United Nations Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2005, outside the UN headquarters in New York. Amiri stands next to a large poster of Massoud Rajavi, leader of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a popular opposition movement in Iran.

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Iran president blasts U.S.Thursday September 15
UNITED NATIONS - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday blasted U.S. unilateralism, militarism and privilege and called for the United Nations to promote spirituality.

In his first major international speech since taking office last month, the conservative Muslim leader advanced unusual broad concepts, including recommendations that the United Nations "institutionalise justice
at the international level" and ensure all members have "equal rights."

"The greatest challenge of our age is the gradual spiritual depravation of human beings brought about by the distancing of the prevailing order from morality and unity of monotheism," he told a U.N. summit.

"The United Nations should lead in the promotion of spirituality and compassion for humanity," he added.

Ahmadinejad did not hesitate to take on the United States, which hosts the world body's New York headquarters and has accused Iran of pursuing nuclear weapons in contravention of international commitments.

"Greater power or wealth should not accord expanded rights to any (U.N.) member ... The host country should not enjoy any right or privilege over the rest of the memberships," he said.

He also criticised "unilateralism, production and use of WMD (weapons of mass destruction), intimidation, resort to the threat or use of force and imposition of destructive wars on peoples for the sake of security and prosperity of a few powers."

The United States is the world's leading nuclear power and the only state to have dropped an atomic bomb. It invaded Iraq in 2003 and remains embroiled in the fighting there.

U.S. ABSENCE, BUT NOT WALKOUT

No senior American diplomats were in the room when Ahmadinejad spoke but a U.S. official denied a walkout.

"We know how to stage a walkout and if we had intended to do so we would have done so in a more high-profile coordinated way," he said, noting two U.S. "note-takers" were present.

Still this was a contrast from the first U.N. visit of Ahmadinejad's reformist predecessor Mohammad Khatami in 1998.

Then, U.S. President Bill Clinton took the usual step of sitting in on Khatami's speech amid optimism that diplomatic ties broken by Washington in 1980 could be repaired.

Ahmadinejad will attempt to avert referral of Tehran's nuclear case to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions during this week's tough baptism on the world stage.

The new president, elected in June on a hard-line platform which rejected the need for renewed dialogue with arch-foe Washington, has promised to deliver a new proposal to break the stalemate in Iran's atomic standoff with the West.

There were no such proposals in Wednesday's speech, but Ahmadinejad plans to meet journalists for breakfast on Thursday and is to address the United Nations again on Saturday.

He is to meet on Thursday with officials of the three major European Union powers trying to negotiate a solution to the nuclear dispute -- Britain, France and Germany.

Ahmadinejad's appearance drew thousands of protesters, who oppose Iran's hard-line conservative regime, to a plaza outside the heavily secured U.N. headquarters.

The Bush administration has often been accused of unilateralism, an approach Ahmadinejad called a "vicious malady" that negates the U.N. purpose.

He also faulted unspecified "pre-emptive measures which are essentially based on gauging intentions rather than objective facts and are in fact a modern manifestation of interventionist and warmongering tendencies of the past."

The United States and the EU trio accuse Iran of pursuing nuclear weapons under the guise of nuclear power development but Iran insists its only goal is civilian energy.

Iran is a rising Mideast power whose oil is helping it build bridges to China and other key countries. Ahmadinejad expressed "deep dismay" that Islamic and African countries do not even have one permanent seat on the Security Council.

[Cop]

chi shod sokhan ranie mamooot joon emrooz toye UN ? :D

[RedWine]

chi shod sokhan ranie mamooot joon emrooz toye UN ? :D

Hamash gheir mostaghim beh Amrika matalak goft va ina !

Sokhranieh aslish about atomic power fardas!

Ye moshteh irunieh ahmagh raftan dasesho boosidan unjaha !!!

[Nushabeh]

mageh shoma moafeg nistin keh beyzaranesh biyat us vasey un?