Saturday, December 6, 2008

Whenever I'm in Tajikistan, my mobile phone says I'm in Dubai

Just look how we’ve forgotten the CIA’s secret prisons in Afghanistan

By Robert Fisk

".....An oddly similar parallel has emerged since the election of Obama. During the campaign, President Ahmadinejad of Iran announced that the "Israeli regime" would be destroyed. That's actually what he said in Farsi – not "Israel", though the distinction might appear to be splitting hairs. Immediately, Mrs Hillary Clinton announced that if Tehran attacked Israel, she would "flatten Iran". And now she is to be secretary of state, the Iranians are understandably a little bit angry. Was the new pussycat in the State Department going to take over from the previous pussycat by threatening violence against Iran when Obama supposedly wants "dialogue"?

And a kind of inverted hypocrisy immediately followed. Mrs Clinton, American "officials" let on, should not be taken too seriously because this was an election campaign. Indeed, Obama – putting distance between the mutual recriminations of both Democrat candidates a few months ago – this week blithely dismissed their own election speeches. What he meant was that they both told lies to get votes. Yet the crackpot president of Iran's threat was still to be taken with the greatest seriousness. Not difficult to get the message, is it? The future secretary of state should not be believed when she threatens Iran – but Iran must be taken seriously when it threatens Israel......"

No comments: