Re: Here we go again...

Adam Miller wrote:
> http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/07/19/bush.iran/index.html
> 
> Anybody want to start a pool as to the next country behind 9/11? I bet 
> the majority of you suckers would take N. Korea, too. Whatever, I got 
> dibs on Syria, since Palestine doesn't count as a real country and The 
> Sudan's in Africa, where we get the resources without having to go to war.

The CNN article leaves out how utterly ridiculous a collaboration 
between Iran and Al Qaeda would be.

Here's what Ervand Abrahamian had to say about it on DN!:

    I think it's partly some truth in it, partly fantasy. You know, I
    think the political impact of it is the fantasy part. I think where
    there is some truth is that Al-Qaeda people and other people across
    the border, because there is really no border. [...] But the fantasy
    part is that there is actually collusion between the Iranian regime
    and Al-Qaeda. This just doesn't make sense. The Iran and the Taliban
    and Al-Qaeda were in a state of war. Iran accused Al-Qaeda of
    actually carrying out terrorist acts coming across the same border,
    blowing up mosques in Iran. Al-Qaeda and Taliban actually massacred a
    large number of pro Iranian people in Afghanistan, including Iranian
    diplomats. We forget that the afghan war was really a war by proxy.
    Iran was supporting the northern alliance against the Taliban and
    Al-Qaeda, and Iran was actually quite happy with the united states
    eventually invaded and got rid of the Taliban. So, to argue there is
    collusion between Iran and Al-Qaeda seems fantasy. I mean, its
    possible - anything is possible. It's possible that people from outer
    space have come down to help Bin Laden, but it's -- unless one has
    really hard evidence, one can't take that as a political fact. Here
    what I think they're doing is taking some truth about people crossing
    the border and bringing it to a conclusion that there is really
    collusion between very unlikely forces.

    [I]t's a rerun of basically what we saw with Iraq. The neocons have
    targeted Iran. It's 20 years they have been talking about the need to
    remove the regime. So, for them, Iran is as dangerous or even more
    dangerous than Iraq. At the moment, obviously, with the elections
    coming up in the United States, it doesn't make sense to talk about
    another war and another invasion. But they want to keep Iran
    basically on the back burner so, the American public remembers Iran
    as a threat and once the election comes, if bush wins, Iran will be
    brought to the front burner, and it would be easy to actually
    demonize Iran as a major threat. Stories like this basically keeps
    Iran there in the focus -- in the radar screen as a threat. I suspect
    after November, if the bush administration is still there, the
    neocons also implement their long -- basically long desired policy of
    regime removal in Iran. So it would be a rerun of the Iraqi
    situation. Again, the same stories, insinuations, use of some rumors
    people saying, well, they heard this, they saw that, and then these
    become facts and then Iran then is considered as an imminent threat
    to the united states.

And Goodman made the point that the 9/11 report's accusation against 
Iran is true of the US as well: Al-Qaeda operatives illegally crossed 
the border here too, no?

David

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